Right, Monday the 12th was our big trip to Ueno, the supposedly largest shoe shopping district in Tokyo. As you can imagine, J was pretty excited about this as all he had been going on about all holiday was how great the shoes are and how he was going to buy so many.

We got there quite early (I believe I was awoken at 7:45 or something) and the day was really nice and sunny. Stepping out the station and all looked really nice. Flip, memory very bad... I think there was a big hill just behind the shops opposite the station, and some large (but clean) skyscraper buildings leading down the highstreet.

After finding a bank that would change sterling (most seem to only take US Dollar) we were ready to hit the market, or at least J was, i was happy to go back to sleep... hahah... This basically began J's most dissapointing day...

You won't believe how many shoe places there were, with every possible shoe you can imagine. Aparently there were all these great styles you dont get in the uk... I dont know about that as shoes don't really bother me, but J was very happy.... until it came to trying to buy any.

Yes dear friends, the old 'shoe size' problem soon cropped up. No matter where we went, no one seemed to sell shoes larger than a size 9 (perhaps a 9.5) - and with Justin being an 11, this was not good news. So desperate was J to get some, he was talking about just wearing them and dealing with the pain!?!?! Crazy!

Special mention should be made to the guy with the suitcase selling the (fake?) LV wallets, we're not sure of the price, but I reckon it wasn't as high as the £200 the real LV shop wanted around the corner, I know which one i would have bought

Not sure what time we got back to Yoyogi, but we were going to meet Seiko in Shibuya for her to take us to a traditional restaurant, the Lockup.

I suppose we should have guessed from the name it wasn't going to be normal, and the haunted house entrance kinda made a few things seem odd, even when the waitress handcuffed J to lead us to our table, I still didn't twig... LOL... we were led to a jail cell (complete with iron bars and everything) where we had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor nice one! You were then served by jailers or fellow inmates, lol. It was actually really nice, and the food was really good (though J didn't approve, not sure why, it was japanese and was fish). We stayed too late to have pudding (it shut at 12) but was still great all the same.

Afterwards, trying to find something to do let us to the Starbucks (the one that overlooks the 'famous' crossing) we were sat for a bit drinking my frozen vanilla shake and mucking about with the blinds. We were then pretty undecided on what we should do, so we caught a cab back to Yoyogi, to sleep early ready for the next day....

Tuesday the 13th -

Pretty sure that never happened, I'm looking at the photos for reference. Seems we just went later on to Shijuku, where we did go and explore a bit, found all the dodgy pr0n shops and found a real shanty town style supermarket Were gonna go to a strip show (£25 for 3 hours) but didn't bother... went on the arcades instead.. .lol.. i do know we had to be home early though as Seiko was going to take us out.

Wednesday the 14th -

We were up at a reasonable hour however on the run to meet Seiko at Harajuku station, we managed to become seperated, so were late as usual (Actually, i was still on time, i found a shortcut, but poor mr J went back looking for me... lol) where Seiko took us to 4Lab (link) one of the best Tattoo parlours in Tokyo. Why I hear you ask? Well, ever since I had been thinking of Japan, I had decided I wanted a Kanji (japanese characters) tat of the year of the monkey. (which was actually why i started back at the gym, to try and build my uppers arms up!! it also HAD to be done in Japan btw, otherwise i didn't want it) I know a lot of people dont think Kanji on your arm is so cool anymore, but i dont care, i wanted it cause i like it ... simple However, after spending some time in Japan and developing such a love for the place, i decided 'Monkey' didn't really symbolise anything 'special' to me and that i wanted something that would always make me remember Japan, for this reason, I changed my mind to 'Never Forget' (which translated directly into Kanji as 'Forever'). The artist loaded it up on his computer and printed out some samples which i held on my arm to see if it looked ok... they did so after getting the price (£60) we asked when we could book for... the artist said 'now' would be ok (i was expecting a wait) and did i want to do it.......... bit nervous now, but said 'yeah' ... eek!

The artist took the print out, then traced it onto some (best example i can give) carbon paper. He then cleaned my arm, put on some gunky stuff and applied the transfer. I now had a purple outline of the design i was about to get put on me, this was the last chance to change my mind... lets do it!

I was asked to lay back on a little bed/table like thing, get comfy, then he began... Now i had been expecting pain (as thats all you ever hear about) - but to my suprise, there was none! More a scratching sensation, cool! So i'm laying there .. and after 5 minutes "hmm... wow! this is gonna be there forever (ironic really)... hmm..." then after about 10 minutes "god, i really hope i like kanji symbols forever..." haha... after 20 minutes i was just bored, so started to drift off to sleep... then finally after about 45 minutes it was over..

Getting up and looking in the mirror, there was now an addition to my body.... and it looked great However i couldn't keep it out in the open (as the guy explained, its basically an open wound! yuk) so it had to be covered in antisceptic, then wrapped in clingfilm, before being covered in tape...!

No matter what anyone says, about how i might get fed up of it, or regret it, i know this wont be true. I've got it because it means a lot to me, and always will... how can i ever regret that???

After that was finished, we were ready to catch the train to the Tokyo Dome where we were going to watch the Giants vs the Dragons in a first for me... Baseball!! We had been pretty excited about this, and made sure we bought some baseball tops to wear to the game. Seiko also bought some mini bats to hit, which i adopted part way through...

However, realistically, baseball has to be the most boring sport in the world!!! No one seems to be able to hit it, whether that means the pitchers are really good or the batters are crap, i just dont know. But to watch a game for almost 4 hours which the score only being 4-3 was quite a, whats the word, not sure... but you get my drift!!! Was worth it to say we've been though and it did only cost £8.
Afterwards, we went across the road to what can only be described as an outdoor mall/theme park. There were all shops and restaurants around the enge of a pond thing, with a log flume that falls directly into it, and overhead a massive rollercoaster with a huge ferris wheel! Even better, there was a 'Moomin Cafe' which I got quite a few photos of, make mum happy

We didn't eat here though, and went to a 'Jonathans' Family Restaurant (pretty much the same as Denny's) and Seikos favourite. The desert menu was too good and really hard to pick something, i think it did a good job though

Thursday the 15th - Asakusa

Seiko had again planned to take us out today, this time to visit Asakusa, where there was a massive market. Supposed to meet Seiko at Yoyogi station at 3, but J swore blind it was 2. This meant i had woken up late (i was planning for 3) so had to go pick her up instead of doing my washing. Went to station, waited half an hour then finally rang her. She was indeed meeting at 3, so i had to run back home to start doing my clothes. They didn't finish in time, so J went and picked her up at 3 (hmm, or 3:30), we finally got out the house at 4:30!!!

Asakusa is a mix of old and new, it had a large temple and massive market which sold loads of great and wonderful things. Unfortunately I had *NO* money so couldn't buy anything. Looking back, this was a fatal error on my behalf, as try as i might, i couldn't find that stuff anywhere else

From the walk from the station to the market, we kept getting mobbed by guys with carts offering to run us 'downtown' for 'great discount' and 'amazing experience', this was actually really funny as that was all they would shout... much better would have been 'downtown, monster, dragons, very cheap' which kept us amused for ages.

Pushing through all this and walking to the end of the market brought us to a massive temple with many shrines. One of these things had a 'luck stick', where you shake a vase type thing to reveal a stick with a symbol on it. You match this up with the draws in this building and it tells you your fortune.

The first one I got was 'Worst Luck' stick, which basically meant everything in my life would go wrong. I was pretty upset about this and took another one... suprise suprise this one came up... which made me feel a lot better

After spending a good few hours in the market it was time for food, and time for justin to get his wish of a sushi bar. One was nearby and aparently very well priced... its crazy, just a massive conveyor belt that snakes around the restaurant with a load of different coloured dishes on it. Each colour is a different price, from 50p or so up to £5. YOu just sit at your table and pick off the plates that you want to eat!

Justin was in heaven (as you can see from the amount of plates he stacks up), I however wasn't quite so happy as it was all fish My problem was soon solved when a plate of strawberries and a pineapple came around... hahaha... Don't worry, i did try some fish too Prawns, Friend Squid and some batter prawns (though still with their shells on so they were quite crunchy!!)

After this, we headed to the 100yen store (yes I kid you not, 50p!!) where you wouldn't believe what you could get for your money! I should have taken more photos inside, but some of the stuff back here would have cost a couple of quid!

We had to be back at Yoyogi station by about 10pm to meet chiakiy, so back we went. We had made (well Justin had, well done son!) a decision to not go out tonite (Cause everyone was so tired) so we bought a load of drink and went for an on the roof drinking session. We even made ourselves a lot more comfortable by dragging a few matresses out which was good for about 2 hours or so, when everyone was really tired and it was freezing cold... lol... Seiko as usual got completely plastered, and rather unfortunately managed to kick my camera across the roof giving a good dose of scratches and causing the memory card to fail (but dont worry, i wasn't gonna let that stay like that!) - even funnier was trying to get to sleep with her rolling around drunkenly moaning... hahahahaha

Friday the 16th -

Justin and Seiko got up early to go (you guessed it) shopping leaving me and Chiakiy to lie in for a bit. We got up a bit later on, rang Sakura House to change the checkout time from 12 till 4, and went around the shops in Harajuku, before meeting up with Justin and Seiko (and her sister) at the station a bit later on. I still didn#t have any money, so we had to go to Shinjuku first to visit the only place that could change money after 4pm. We then went to the local Sofmap store to change my camera but were told it had to be done in the original store!! grrrr.

Me and Chiakiy then headed off to Akihabara planning to meet Justin and Seiko there later on.

Taking the camera back seemed to be a bit of a chore, as you can't do it in store, you need to go to a 'service centre' first where they check something actually is wrong with the items. Was a bit worried about this as the camerea error was intermitant and it was really the scratches i wanted sorted. However everything went without a hitch, even having the woman run down the road to the local Sofmap (And back) to get me my new camera,... HURRAH!

Can't remember if I mentioned the no smoking policy, well if not, here it is again - Akihabara is a no smoking in the street district. To allow for the addicts (lol), they have built a 'smoking room' which is basically like a shop with just bar style chairs where you go to smoke!!! hahahahah... pathetic

We had planned this night to go to Club Atom (in Shibuya) for a trance night, 3 floors of hard house and trance, so i was pretty excited. Firstly though, we had to eat and figured we should go to a traditional Japanese restuarant. We picked a IZAKAYA which is basically a bar/restaurant open until about 5am where business people go after work purely for the purpose of getting drunk! It was really nice inside and very traditional looking (no shoes allowed, slippers provided!) and after putting our shoes inside a locker, we were let to out little table/compartment type thing.

The menu had all manners of interesting sounding things on it (and some that looked really good, but when you got them translated suddenly you didn't want them anymore!!!) so everyone picked a load of different things (to my embaressment i must admit i ordered a pizza!!) - with the starter being raw squid (See photo), its unclear quite how much J didn't like it, but he tried his best to look manly. Me and Chiakiy thought better of this and let Seiko (Who again didn't look so happy about it) finish it off

I'll tell you what is great though, COW TONGUE. Yes my dear friends, roasted cow tongue on a stick is just soooo nice. Its like a really nice kebab, but without being all greasy and yuck! I highly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity of trying it. Also another weird dish... chicken bone. Yes, yup, uh-huh, thats right, the bit we throw away, the japanese boil until soft(ish) and then eat. The most pointless dish ever (though I guess it saves them quite a bit of money).

Ater leaving, it was a quick hop across the road and onto the JR for the 60p ride to Shibuya Seiko had a rough idea of where it was, so we followed her (Forever!!) up the hill to find Atom. Decided to stop on the way at the local Lawsons to get some drink (might as well get a bit merry first) where you can buy Smirnoff Ices for just 90p (NOT FAIR!!) so we found a little standing area where we were able to get the drinks down. (well tried, as they were very fizzy and Justin remember can't burp... oddball! )

The road to Atom was off the main road and down the hill a bit, which led us through the 'love hotel' district of Shibuya. What is a love hotel? Let me explain. In Japan the houses are usually very small, with thin walls (or even sharing bedrooms) so its quite difficult for couples to get any 'quality time' if they live with their families. For this reason, the love hotels were built. Charging anything from about £15 up to £70/80 (i kid you not!) you can hire a room for 3 hours or so (in Tokyo you are limited to 3, or book whole night, other cities you can pay per hour as you wish)... You generally go in and there are pictures of all the rooms with buttons next to them, pick a room you want, press the button and pay the person behind reception (the button turns off the light to show room is no longer available), you then have your time to 'get it on' ... due to the nature of the places, the rooms are usually very, very nice, and contain *everything* you need (this includes a sound system with multi channel music, lighting for every possible light controlled with dj mixer style faders and multiple heat control switches... cool!

What was quite amusing is they are all in the large club district... no prizes for guessing why.. when the clubs shut, suddenly the hotels fill.......

Anyway, we walked up and down this street until we finally found Atom (it was about 1am) we went to go in, but OH NO! We told it *closed* at 1... what is it with the japanese??? all the decent music clubs shut early.... not fair not fair... Justin was up for going to Club Asia next door, but i was determined to have some trance in Japan (my dream for godsake) and refused to budge on the issue.

Seiko claimed to know somewhere in (suprise, suprise) Roppongi that played trance, so we jumped in the £12 cab to get there... i sense the mood in the cab wasnt the greatest, as everyone was worried this was going to muck up again...

Got to the club, all ready to go in, read the sign on the wall.... Hip Hop Night?!?! NOOOOOOO... wtf was this... Seiko felt pretty bad, Justin seemed just pissed off, and i could see my dream just slipping away. To try and rectify though Seiko said she would go to an internet cafe around the corner somewhere to find out where we could go. Leaving me, J and Chiakiy to sit around (for quite a long time, J was getting quite annoyed ) - however she finally returned claiming she had found somewhere, it did play all types of music but was the biggest club in Roppongi (though everyone seemed to claim that), its name, Club Vanilla... so we set off on the short walk to find it...

5 minutes down the road, down a little backstreet and finally, there it was. From the outside, it looked quite upmarket, had its own car park next door, and a really nice entrance hall. We had a problem though, males had to be 23 to get in... goddamit! However, we played it cool, and made it inside ("yatta!") - £15 but you did get two free drink vouchers (shame we had forgotten to take our own) .... so we went in....

Ok, now we understood why this place had a good reputation... it was, not amazing (wrong word), but definately something special. It was like a really trendy place, but without the unconfortableness that usually comes with that style of joint. Lit with dim red lighting, all the furniture and walls where white and it just looked... WOW!

Downstairs as we entered we were greeted with the sound of R&B (woo bloody hoo ) and the lockers to put our coats in (not sure if i've talked about them before, but lockers are all the rage here... so much better than a cloakroom...) - the r&b room had white sofas all around the edge, with some tables and chairs dotted around, with the dancefloor in the middle and the bar and dj booths in the far end. Everyone seemed to be having a really good time, and the vibe was just wonderful...

A set of stairs led up to the next floor, so we decided to explore the next level. This brought us up to a smaller room, with a little bar and people doing massage and the like (i think, memory hazy) and also the toilets... it seemed like the 'chill out' room as people where standing around talking...

There were some more steps (5 or so) which led up to the next level and a corridoor which also had bar height tables and chairs on it, and the sound of house music coming from the far end. Down here we walked until we came into the main dancefloor. It was alot bigger than downstairs, the main floor being in front of us, with poddiums and higher levels dotterd around with various females dancing about, then behind that was a fake wall which had the bar behind that (i guess to block some of the sound so the bar guys could hear what you were ordering!). To the left of the dancefloor you had the seating area, huge it spaned almost the same size again and just had loads of high seats with loads of people sitting around chatting. At the back of this was the bar area. I'd like to point out again that this was all really nice looking, with the plants adding a really nice ambience to it all.

We all sat down on one of the chairs nearest the floor and went to get some drinks. The music was plodding along house, which no one seemed to like that much, but as we were all together, we decided to stay for a bit longer. Then something started to happen... as i listened, each song 'seemed' to get a bit harder... then next one would drop back, but next would go one step forwards.. i commented to justin 'it seems to be getting harder', which he grinned but said wasn't going to happen...

then finally, after a good 20 minutes of teasing... it happened... the dj started to play some decent music!!! my dream was being lived!! i ran out onto the dance floor and started to go for it! Justin and Seiko couldn't stand it, so left for downstairs, but i persuaded Chiakiy to stay up with me and tried to get her into the music... even the introduction of some more crazy clubbers didn't help, with her looking totally lost - yup, she left also to go downstairs

I used this time to get another drink, so headed up to the bar, gave my drink token and waiting for my drink. The barman was a bit distracted and giving me my drink, put the bar tokens he had in his hand down on the bar.... thank you very much! yatta!

Back on the dancefloor on my own was OK, but wasn't quite as good as it could have been, so noticing some mad girls on the stage, decided it would be more fun to go dance with them... Lol, they were so drunk, but loads of fun, shouting 'Agay (Aki?)' repeatedly in time with the song. I don't know what it meant, but it was fun, so i just joined in.. haha.. met up with a crazy (but cool looking) japanese guy (in the photos with the sunglasses) so we partied on down together - until i got up on the stage with the girls, then got dragged off by the bouncers... aparently only girls allowed up... grrr... had to leave, so went back down the corridoor where i bumped into Seiko and Justin who were heading back downstairs...

Chiakiy was happy to see me, but the music was, argh! nasty... however i did my best to try and dance, and must admit after getting used to the crapness of it all (hahaha) did have quite a good time, helped along by the very nice japanese guy who was giving us his (*very* strong) drink - too much though, and we had to sit down... lol...

Blimey, this is a long night report, but theres more!!! I couldn't deal with much more r&b and seeing as there was only an hour or so left, i left the crew to go back upstairs to the dance room, where i hooked up with my new jap pals making sure not to jump on the stage again (though ironically, the girl got so pissed, she was carried off by the bouncer in a fireman style carry outside, only to escape and run back in!!! )

A mention has to be made to my final drink, half an hour before the end, and realising i had a ticket left, i went up to order a vodka and orange. Now i dont really drink much here in the UK, so i dont know if its the same, but when he was pouring it, he does both liquids at the same time, then stops the vodka after glass about half full to fill rest with orange juice... except he didn't he stopped both, looked at me, said 'ah flip it' - then filled the remaining half glass with vodka!!?!? nice one!!!

That was what it needed to tip me past tipsy onto all out pissed, hurrah! I hit the dancefloor with gusto and had the best hour of the night - sadly it ended, and i had to say goodbye to my new friends (i can't remember the names, sorry!) and go find the rest of TeamTokyo who were waiting downstairs by the lockers, ready to begin our final saturday .... the fish market...

Saturday the 17th -

As knackered as we were, Justin was determined to see the fish market, and to be honest, i did think it would be kinda stupid to miss it as it was such a big attraction. Luckily, the train went straight there from Roppongi, so it was just a case of waiting at the subway station before the lovely clean train arrived!!!

Getting out at the other end, the fish market was easy to find, a massive 'warehouse' style place, surrounded by a huge car park, filled with lorries, and guys driving around on the most manipulative fish carrying truck things (the driver and the engine are mounted at the front in a full 360 turning circle part, allowing change of direction and monouverability second to none... also means you have to look out as they fly around *everywhere*!)

After just making it across the carpark with our lives (and dignity) we entered the main warehouse where all the selling took place. It was so busy and full, with just enough room for one of the trucks to drive down a path and little else. Everywhere were boxes and boxes off fish, many of them still alive and flicking water at anyone who walked past... Justin was off with his camera again, photoing anything and everything...

We stopped by one guy who was having particular trouble with a fish, he was holding it up with it flapping away, so he punched it! Then, not content with giving it a black eye () he proceeded to stick a metal hook down into its body via its mouth and pull out its insides!!!?! yikes!

Now for the main plan, Mr J wanted to eat here, so we headed off to find a fish bar (still in the market complex) where you could actually be served the fresh fish from the market. For this reason, it was quite expensive, and as I was really tired, i declined the offer, instead sleeping on the bar for a few precious minutes Everyone else tucked into their food, with justin thoroughly enjoying his 'fish brains'.... until he found out what they were lol....

By now, everyone was really tired, and seeing as we had to be up quite early, decided it was time to go home... finding the station was a mission and a half though, and i was now hungry, so Chiakiy and I hopped into the nearest Lawson to get some Spaghetti Bolognese (no, really!) - however on coming out, Justin and Seiko had disappeared - we spent the next 30 minutes looking for them, but unfortunately to no avail... then finally caught the train home (the station was a mission to find too, we were wrecked and really just wanted to be back in bed), making it back home at maybe 8:30 (darnit! really can't remember that...), but at least we were back! yatta! now we could sleep until about 2 or so, ready to clear our room by 4 ....

KNOCK KNOCK!

Bleugh... sleepy... sleep sleep...

KNOCK KNOCK!

Wtf?!? Who's knocking on our door, its only 12... flip off!

KNOCK KNOCK - scratching .... door opens, people come in, apologise and walk out!?!?

Neither Justin or myself were paying any attention (true!) so didn't know what was going on, but Chiakiy who did see them said it was the same Korean people who had looked at the room before...

Confused... I'll say... when suddenly - KNOCK KNOCK! "Phone for you, its Sakura House" - ah goddamit, so i got up and went upstairs to see what they wanted...

"Sorry to bother you, and I know you were moving out at 4, but can you do it sooner instead??!?" - was very annoyed, as the whole point of the later check out was so we could sleep in! Not for them to call us and wake us up anyway!!! Went back downstairs and explained it all, can't remember if we went back to sleep, (too long ago.. sorry!) - however when we did start to pack, we realised maybe we hadn't given ourselves long enough!! whoops!

The guy from Sakura house also turned up early (we were worried we would get in trouble for Chiakiy staying over, but he seemed cool / didn't know / let us off whatever!) and helped us out a bit... We even got out of washing the bed sheets and hoovering as there wasn't time result!! What we were left with the problem of though was trying to quickly get all of our stuff into our suitcases... not so much a problem for me as i had bought very little, however Mr J had, well lets just say... TONNEESSS!!! After putting everything in his case, it was at least 4 times as high as it should have been lol... serv him right for having too much money to buy things...

We had been given our deposit money back now, and although we felt bad, Chiakiy and me left for Harajuku for Kiddieland, leaving Mr J with a very puzzled expression on his face as to how he was going to pack everything ...

Me and Chiakiy spent a happy afternoon (though perhaps a bit stressful) trying to find gifts for everyone (which was a lot harder than it seemed) and then realising that everything i wanted to get was in Asakusa... dilema... was there time to go there... unfortunately no, but i hoped that Shibuya might have everything.. we were to go there when we met up with Justin (about 20 mins or so...)

Except time dragged on, and on... we were waiting at Harajuku station, but Mr J had gone AWOL in kiddieland again... Seiko was telling us "he's buying everything!!", which was mad seeing the state of his suitcase to start with... however, we got some food and we sat on a wall, so not too miffed... (too tired to worry too much!)

When he finally turned up with a billion or so more bags, we just kept quiet ...

So it was now off to Shibuya to look for some lucky cats for presents and anything else that might be needed. I'm not too sure of the details now, but I think at this point we split up, Justin to buy his records and myself to find lucky cats.

Chiakiy and I did however find the greatest food stand in the world (just outside the station also! unless you count the cream puff shop also at shibuya station, but thats more a shop ) - the Grilled Cow Tongue on a Stick Stand... £2 per skewer, but worth every penny (or Yen ), in a special sauce and tasting absolutely perfect... they were wonderful, mmm....

Anyway, I digress... So we were off to the Penguin Supermarket (* ASK CHIAKIY NAME *) to find the lucky cats... except you can't get them... heck.. nor did they have anything else worth buying for presents... this was pretty awful for me as I had put a lot of faith in the good old penguin... alas...

Met up with TT at the station, not quite happy everything was complete... "PORN!" - nuts, had forgotten Haroons present... it was either disappoint a friend, or make the effort... Never to dissapoint, we left the others at Yoyogi station and stayed on the train to Shinjuku (me + C) to find the perfect gift....

Now this was funny... if you imagine again the shops mentioned before, but this time really busy, me taking a very embarrassed girl into them, asking her to translate and point things out... hahaha... especially funny was when we went to the 'underground' shops, full of businessmen and *very* hardcore porn, for them all to look and stare at Chiakiy as she walked around (covering her eyes for most of the time!! lol)

After about 30 minutes, finally found something (just about) worthy as a gift (it seems all the Japanese Gals that do HC are quite minging, the nice ones stick to the SC stuff... ah well...) , so that was it... back to the apartment to get ready for clubbing at 'Womb'.

However after returning, it was apparent we weren't going clubbing that night as Mr J was still trying to pack his case!! Lol... repacked my case with everything we had bought into it, so all was perfect ready for the flight. It weighed in perfectly, which was good, but also rather upsetting, as there was so much i had wanted to buy, but just cou;dnt bring back due to the weight... ah well, Chiakiy said she would send what was needed, or i could get the rest next year... (a plan!)

Not wanting to spend the whole night in, me + C left to go back to Shibuya... long story, lots of walking, get some money out at Citibank (god bless you!) ......

We ended off with some food at the really nice curry house, Justin me and Seiko had gone to before, staying there until the trains started and we could make the journey back to Yoyogi. We had wanted to stay out longer, but Mr J was very defiant that we get to the airport early, so go back we did....

Sunday the 18th -

Got back to our apartment (although I guess you can't call it ours anymore!! ) at around 6 to find Mr J still trying to pack his case! Aparently it had been going on all night and required lots of throwing away of clothes. I wont go into too much, as i think J is writng about it, but you can see from the photos the fun that was had trying to fit everything in. I had quick shower (very quick, as there wasn't much time, so no soap or the like, just a quick wash) and i was (very proud of myself also) ready on time... yatta!

Needless to say, when we actually got around to leaving, we were late... lol, this was a bit worrying as we wanted to get the bulkhead seats on the plane (after seeing the legroom on the way out, there was no way we were going to sit in a normal seat!!!) so we now had to rush. This was fine until we went to leave the building, or more to the point, Justin tried to lift his suitcase With all the additional items, it certainly wasn't light, and slowed us down a heck of a lot more.

This was the only point when i was glad i hadn't bought loads of stuff, as it meant i had a relatively light case to carry, or wheel to use the words correctly.... the trip to Yoyogi was pretty uneventful, and we managed to buy our tickets and get on the train without a problem hahaha... Nippori station was a bit of a different story, as there were a whole lot of steps and 2 heavy suitcases, but after taking a few deep breathes we managed to get up them, where we had to buy the tickets for the remaining part of the journey to Narita.

Here Chiakiy and Seiko were going to leave us, but we couldn't have that, so a bit of gentle persuation and they joined us on our last train journey of Japan.... (well for this year at least)

As when we had arrived, we had come straight out into arrivals, we hadn't really seen much of the airport before, so this was a new 'adventure' in itself. Unfortunately we didn't have much time, so it was more a rush through, however one thing that should be mentioned are the escalators.

Now in england, if you want to take your baggage trolley up a floor, how do you do it... a lift (Elevator ) right.... well, a major flaw with that is time and you can only get a few people in it at once.. In japan (being the greatest country in the world and all), they've got a much better solution. Why not adapt the trolleys so they can go on the escalators?? Ingenious, they have a pivotted set of wheels (Which lock) so you just wheel it on, the front lifts up, then takes the back wheels on a few stairs down... AMAZING but such a simple idea..

Now was check in. Entering the main checkin hall we were greeted with hundreds of people waiting, Great! we thought, however luck was on our side as the desk for Alitalia had only just opened and there was pretty much no queue, I went through the baggage checks no problem, but suddenly... WAIT...

The canister of 'Gun Power' that Ming had requested Justin brought back (that he assured him would be ok) had flagged up on the X-Ray and J was told he would have to open his suitcase and take it out... now, baring in mind how long he had taken to get it shut, this was going to be funny..... 10 minutes later, and after fruitless arguements, we weren't allowed to take it on, but could check in

This went without a hitch, and *BONUS* we still got our bulkhead seats! Yatta!

Then began the painful task of saying goodbye, it was now that realisation kicked in that we were going home. I'm not sure about J, but I really wanted to stay, there was so much we had missed and not done, 3 weeks just wasn't long enough! Alas, we had a plane to catch, and we needed to get going.... a lot of hugs and goodbyes later, we were finally through security, wondering what all the 'time delay' fuss was as had a good 20 minutes to spare (note: the stamp on our ticket made it very clear the gate would *CLOSE* in 20 minutes) - we headed down the stairs, to walk into the largest queue we had seen all day. Apparently we had just been through security, now we had hit immigration?!?! flip flip flip, this was worrying as although it was moving, it wasn't moving very fast.... luckily, we made it through then made the dash for the plane, getting there with minutes to spare (ok, maybe not, but it sounds a lot more dramatic )

Our return seats weren't like before as in right next to the door, but were the last row before business class started. It meant we didn't have quite as much leg room (and didn't have our 'walk' area) but was still a lot better than all the other suckers on the plane, as we could stretch our legs out and rest them on the wall in front if we wanted. The plan here was to try and beat jetlag, we'd stayed up all night before. Go to sleep on the plane for about 5/6 hours, then stay awake until we got home to go sleep again... and guess what... we did it! 1 point to us

Worth a mention are the awful air stewardess's (well maybe they're not awful, but their response time was) - I didn't have any headphones, so asked for some... none came... i put on the 'assistance light' - 30 minutes later, still no headphones so i fell asleep. 5 hours later, i wake up and *still* no headphones. So call again, they say ok... then forget, finally about 45 minutes later i received my headphones... grrr...

Of course, being as stupid as we are, we had once again forgotten to change any euros for Malpensa airport (Doh!) but this wasn't too bad as we were only there for 45 minutes this time - greeted with torrential rain... justin commented this was probably what england would be like, i was a bit more optimistic, but it was a far cry from the hot sun of japan....

And indeed, arriving back in England was bleak... a real come down from a great holiday, J was happy to be back, I however would have loved to stay a bit longer, didn't really get done all the things i wanted to (Especially the mountain with the monkeys!), the massive rollercoasters and to actually go to the sea! (back in PC world, I had a photo on my desk showing a beautiful beach... i want to find it one day....)

This holiday has really been a life changing experience for me, not only has it let me get to know Justin a lot better (and i hope we are better friends because of it, despite all our argueing... lol) it has made me realise how happy it is possible for me to be. I love Japan and everything it symbolises, its such an interesting, fascinating place - the only downside being the lack of decent music clubs (although I'm told frantic do a night out there, just have to find it) and the food (noodle bar food, the rest is ok ) and all the arcades, just cool! (if you live there, i'm sure there's a part of you that never grows up...)

We made some good friends, some of whom will be returning to england in the summer, so we can meet up again and some who we will only see if we return, which i will do next year, i just can't stay away from the place

So thanks Justin for the great idea, cheers for being a good friend and hope to see you around soon!

YATTA!

Got a call from dad around 8am... said i've been spending over £1000 on my credit card from betting. Argh, someone's obviously gotten hold of my details and gone crazy. Managed to cancel the card but now I've got to rely on hard cash. ARGH

Dear theif,
When I find you (and I will), I'm going to set the LEEDs boys on ya - you're a dead man!

regards
-JUSTIN

The Shinkansen is a beast! Think of Apex Twin’s video ‘Window licker’ The limo just goes on and on… well replace that with a train and multiply the length by a million billion squillion…. Well that’s what it seemed.
We purchased ‘unreserved tickets’ so finding the right carriage was quite a mission.

Reached home around 8ish and after a nice shower and MSNing - met up with the team in Shinjuku. Ben found out that CODE closed at 1am – (I’m glad cause hard house sucks). We were very hungry but Blanco demanded western food! As I was too tired to disagree, we made our way to Roppongi's Hard Rock Cafe and went for a good old typical american steak (jap style). This may seem suprising, especially to my singaporean and malaysian friends but this was the first Hard Rock Cafe experience but I'm glad to say an enjoyable one.

We left the restaurant around 1am and faced the dilema of where to go. As Roponggi is Seiko's home town, she knew best and we did a bit of bar hopping but I knew where we would eventually end up - the Lex Club argh.

The Lexington Club is purely aimed at westerners, the previous experience was great as the club was packed with sexy european models letting down after a hard days work of shooting. I was warned about going on weekends and so it was not suprising that on occasion we weren't so lucky. Replace the models with meat head american marines - not nice!

It didn't matter - we were with good company, good friends...
Except that everyone was too tired and too drunk. The night was one to remember due to a variety of incidents.

1/To start off the night Tdo fell asleep.

2/I was hungry and went off to find some snacks.

3/There's always at least one old man at a club isn't there. On this day there happened to be some old japanese business geezer, he was dancing like mad! He was definately making an impression with the ladies including a bit of pole dancing. There were a few situations where we thought he was going to have a heart attack. (Check the gallery)
The second old man was British, he had a pony tail and Ben and Chiacky decided to point and laugh at him. Turned out he was the owner of the club! Check Ben's journal entry cause at this moment in time, I was eating away at a noodle bar and snacking at Lawsons. When I came back I saw Ben sitting outside looking miserable - 'I got thretened of being kicked out and i'm not allowed to go near Chiacky for the rest of the night', I couldn't help laughing as it was quite a funny story.

4/When I returned around 3am I couldn't find Seiko or Rie. Called, but either their phone was off or no reception - just heard the sound of an automated japanese woman. I was hoping to depart for the fish market at 5am but everyone's stuff was locked up and seiko had the key.
4.30am - Rie came back to the club and told me Seiko was over drunk. Thats what happens with an open bar. Made our way to another club just around the corner on the 3rd floor of some skyscraper. We made our way though the fire exit where we saw a very paralytic Seiko. Poor girl, I think she wanted to vomit but couldn't. Wasn't long until she did on her trousers, her shoe, my hand. Oh well...

The owner suggested we'd take her down the spiral death trap stairs but no the lift was a must. Eventually made it outside where the fresh air did her a lot of good.
6am - Dropped seiko back home and made our way to the station.
@ Yoyogi station had a Curry Katsu at the noodle bar and went to sleep around 9am after a bit of gossiping.

The clubs in Osaka didn't impress us and decided to hang out and at a restaurant for a few hours. The streets of Osaka were filled with ganguru boys in suits and a fair amount of modified cars. Did quite a bit of 'picture book' shopping (by request from the boys back home) and decided to head back to the capsule hotel at around 4am

Returned to the capsule hotel around 3am, fell asleep very comfortably but an hour later the boys from Leeds returned and probably woke up the whole floor. They weren’t drunk, just typical northerners. Loud, no consideration – damn pissing off.

Apparently their mate had pulled and there were only two of them.

Asshole1 - ‘WHAT A GREAT NIGHT’ blablabla
Asshole2 - ‘LET WATCH SOME PORN’
one of the guys went downstairs and got a video ticket

Asshole2 - ‘WE’VE GOT PORN’
Asshole1 - ‘YEA! WE GOT PORN’

The bastards then turned up their tv’s on full volume and proceeded with their entertainment.

Asshole1 ‘THIS IS GREAT’
Asshole2 ‘YEA! ARE YOU WANKING OFF? I AM’

Disgusting, how can you and your mate do that simultaneously and next to each other. Eugh. The funny thing was that they were opposite Ben. Their canvas door was open so Ben could see them. Poor ben

I was so tired, I just kept waking up and falling asleep again, Ben said he was up all night! His personal description of the event was quite horrifying. Aparently he could see the silhouette of one of the guys (being directly opposite his pod)

I got up at 9am after only a few hours of sleep, Ben noticed Asshole1 had left his keys outside his pod. Couldn’t resist opening the guy’s locker and behold, a digital camera, wallet and all his clothes.

Since we have a conscience and would never steel, the contemplation was whether to:
1/fill up the locker with shampoo
2/clean the toilet with the guys toothbrush and record the process on his camera
3/hide his clothes
4/tear up all his cash into hundreds of tiny pieces

looking back now --- we feel we could have done better!

Well for the rest of the day we walked though street malls that stretched for miles. I’m afraid to say, that Osaka is minge town - try as we might we did not find any talent. In particular, the japs in Osaka are deceiving. They’ll dress up very nicely and drawing attention away from the face. Long distance/short distance syndrome – hopefully Blanco will describe in more detail

Headed back to Tokyo at around 5:30am to be in time for CODE in Shijuku.

If there’s one thing bad we have done with this holiday, its use the nights to their full potential. But I am not too impressed with the nightlife here, it seems to be nightclub or nothing. Would love to just go to a local pub and sit with a drink, rather than be hustled into some expensive (for here) bar.

So yeah, we went back to the capsule hotel (and found it! Go us!) by about 3 I think, to get some much needed sleep for our 9:30am wakeup.

It was so nice and peaceful, nothing to bother us… however in the next capsule, Justin had decided he wanted to look through the photos of the day… So beep, beep, beep, beep (every photo change, argh!) – this didn’t go on for too long though, and it went silent again….. until he decided to read his new books, which were all in bags wrapped in cellophane….. lol… I didn’t want to say anything, so just tried to sleep… and eventually I did

Until about 4am that is, when the guys from Leeds came back.. (mum you may want to skip this next part…)

They had obviously had a good night as they wouldn’t shut up about it, and made no attempt whatsoever to be quiet. Not even the stupid drunken whispers, just full on shouting across the capsules. This went on for about 20 minutes until they decided they wanted to watch some porn… but couldn’t get it working, so one of the monkeys was sent downstairs to get the keycard, which he did and proclaimed this to the whole hotel that it only cost him 1000yen… woopie fliping do! Ok, so not thinking it can get much worse… when they start to discuss how much they want a wank…. Eek! No nononononononononono…. This is shouted loudly across the bay, until they work out how the stupid key card thing works and finally get the TV on. Silence again (kinda, tv quiet) then one of them turns it up… so now we got loud porn blaring across the room….. before finally…. the noises start…. I will say nothing more, however I am now traumatised and never ever want to speak of the matter again. Case Closed

Decided against showers the next day, figuring we could have them at night, so got up about 9:40 to be out the hotel and to go shopping in Osaka (in the massive mall, where Justin was sure to be wanting some clothes!) Cue many hours of shopping and walking around, including however a trip to the Sony Showroom Centre where we got to try out all the new gadgets, including the robot dog thing, which is imho a much better replacement for the real thing.

Had to get back to meet Chiakiy and Tdu, so made sure we caught the Bullet back from Shin-Osaka at around 5:30, getting us back to Tokyo for 8pm, just enough time to head home for a shower, clean up and back out to meet everyone (including Seiko) at Shinjuku station to go to Code (supposedly one of the greatest Tokyo clubs, playing hard house and trance) – however when we got there, we found it closed at 1am (wtf?!?) and no one except me was willing to pay 3000yen for 3 hours.

This meant a trek back to the train station to head to the good old favourite Roppongi, to find something to do.. First eat though, where we went to the Tokyo Hard Rock Café (which had a live band playing at the time, and very good they were too!) and I was finally able to order large quantities of meat They had rather unfortunately run out of ribs, but could still do me a nice big chicken… hurrah!

Left there about 1, and went to a nearby bar. However Justin and crew weren’t too happy with it (and it was 1000yen a drink!!!) so we left shortly after entering to return to (and to J’s dismay) the Lex Club around the corner for all you can drink for only 2500.

It was really packed, a lot more than normally, especially with all the American Marines about, so not as much fun. We spent a lot of it sitting down in the sofa area by the dance floor, meaning we could get up and dance if we wanted to. We kept laughing at this old white haired guy who was going around checking everyone out, like dirty old man, until he came up to us and proclaimed that he was the owner of the club and if we didn’t stay away from Chiakiy, he would have her thrown out and call the police!!!

The jist of it was he would not believe she was not a young prositute!! (lol.. I guess that’s really rude, but quite funny when you look back) Something about too many marines here and it would all kick off… wtf?!?! Kinda put a dampener on the evening, until we sneaked away to the opposite side of the club where he didn’t seem to go. Phew.

If you look through the photos, you will see a really old guy… Haha that guy was funny, he must have been about 50 or so, but was properly drunk and really getting into the music, even trying his luck with some of the ladies. He took a liking to Chiakiy (who was horrified) so we spent 30 minutes or so dancing with him. He was properly mad, getting up on the stage and waving his arms about … hahahaha….

By this time, we had lost Seiko ages ago, and as we had to leave to get to the fish market, we needed to find her. However she was no-where to be found, and her friend was gone too. To make matters worse, all of Chiakiys stuff was in her locker, so we could not leave either until Seiko was found. We waited around for ages until her friend came back and asked us to come with her. I’ll leave that for Justin to tell, as I don’t know the full story…..

Home, sleep then oversleep and sleep some more (J had gone out sightseeing with Seiko by now, me stupid, just stay in bed) until I had to meet up with everyone later on in Roppongi to go to another club called Yellow. We paid our 3000 to get in before remembering we were supposed to have brought in some alcohol with us as its very expensive… a large sign on the door said no re-entry… so we thought we pretty much mucked that one up.

Luckily however, I was in my cunning plan mode, and taking Chiakiys phone, I stood next to the doorman, pretending I was on it, talking to my ‘friend’ who I still had his key for, and that I had to meet him at the station. This worked, so I was able to run to the Lawsons up the road to purchase some 300yen bottles of whiskey. On the way back, I got lost and had to ask directions. Not only did they 2 guys walk me back, one of them then gave me his demo cd!! I like the people here

Back inside the club, gave the whiskey to Justin who knocked it back in about 5 minutes… hahahaha…. We then had Chiakiy falling over saying she had drunk too much of it. After asking Justin why she was so drunk, he wasn’t sure as she had only had a tiny bit… lol… funny, she kept falling everywhere

I left the club early to go home, just not feeling right and then basically slept through until about 7 or so Sunday. Went with Chaikiy and Seiko (Justin stayed at home to revise) to go to a 24 hour family restaurant called Dennys (http://www.dennys.co.jp) where I had a lovely steak with the nicest bread roll you can ever have J I think Justin is glad he didn’t go as he would have been so disappointed!

This left me with nothing to do for a while, so I went into the arcades, managed to nab a Taito ashtray (cool!) and play my favourite game Final Fight For the first time ever I finished it, yay! I have photos to prove it and yes, I am the B in first place. I didn’t have time to put in my full name, but that B is me!!

Had to wake up early to go shopping this morning (Monday) so went to bed at a relatively good time……

Tired now, there is still Monday to write, but I am hoping J will fill everything in there, I’ll try to add a bit more tomorrow

Sayonara!

Despite getting up late on Wednesday, we were determined to get to Kyoto, so went off to Tokyo Central to get the Shinkansen (sp?) which is the Bullet Train to your normal people. Shock horror, it cost us 70quid each, one way, but we wanted to try it so coughed up

The train was so clean and smooth, i don't know what a Eurostar is like, so can't compare, but to normal British trains it woops their asses! Whole journey took just over 2 hours with no problems, we even managed to get off at the right stop.

When we got there though, we wondered why we had bothered, it was exactly the same as Tokyo, just a lot more cheap looking... to say we were upset is a bit of an understatement, we were distraught that it had cost so much, but were determined to make the most of it. To save ourselves some extra money, we decided not to bother with a hotel but to rough it instead, meaning we could go straight out.

Walked around for quite a bit until we decided we would catch a train to a station which looked like it was near some shops. Now, something you should be aware of here... there is JR Rail which is the overground and Subway (which is obviously underground) however the ticket machines look (sorta) similair so of course we bought the wrong one. We only realised this after we had then gone onto the JR platform, so headed back to the ticket office where we were actually given a refund!! (lets see that in england!) and told which ticket to buy.

Dont ask why, but we again bought (the same!!) JR ticket but this time went down to the subway. It of course didn't work, and we were sent back up to get another refund (boy did we feel stupid!) before we could finally get our tickets! lol...

Sanjo was a lot different from the city part of Kyoto, with more bars and nice scenery (though still pretty city based) however it did make us feel a lot better. Went to an all you can drink for 1500yen and tried to make the most of it, but got turfed at 12 as everything shut!!?!?!

This of course left us with nothing to do but wander the streets and try to find somewhere to sleep. No mean feat when its freezing cold and pouring with rain! doh! After trying to sleep on a step to the metro, justin got fed up and insisted we had to move on....

Only place left open was a Karaoke bar, so we proceeded to sing the rest of the night away (and cheekily sit in the foyer for the final hour when we ran out of money ) - Left there at about 5:30 to walk down the canal for about 6 miles and watched the sunrise

Wasn't sure what else to do, so went back to the main Kyoto station to look around. Its a massive building, but we weren't actually sure why... We saw an escalator, so got on it... then at the top was another one... and another... and another... it just kept goind up and up until we were on the roof. We don't have a clue what the designer was on when he thought up this place, but boy did he have a good idea... The place is amazing, the most amazing piece of architechture you will ever see! I hope the photos will come out as it really is awesome to look at... if ever you go to japan, you MUST go to Kyoto just for the station if nothing else!!

We were absolutely knackered by now, but stil thought we must find the cultural but of Kyoto, as there must be more than just city... We jumped on a train to Higashiyama.. and there we found it... The most beautiful part of Japan we have seen yet. Amazing, and hopefully captured in all the photos. There were shrines and temples and everything just looked... WOW!

There was even a Zoo, which we went into to have a look at the animals. I think it was good, but can't really remember as when i sat down to have a rest... i just fell asleep. Justin can to find me, sat down, and fell asleep too!! lol... we realised now it was time to head to Osaka (if anyone tells you they are far apart, they're lying... they're only a 2.50 train ride from each other) - justin caught up with some sleep on the train whilst i had to stay on guard to make sure we didn't miss our stop.

You think the buildings in Tokyo are impressive, head to Osaka. They are even more so (well the few we have seen so far) massive clean structures, that really give the place a futuristic feel. Even a huge ferris wheel that goes around one of them! - mission one was to find somewhere to sleep (boy did we need it) so headed to tourist information where they directed us to a local capsule hotel (Capsule Inn).

Findind the stupid place though was more than easy, even with the help of 2 maps and countless locals (one who even very kindly walked us around the whole area to find it!) it still took a good 30 minutes to get to it!!

If you don't know what a capsule hotel is, imagine basically a load of pods, the length of a person, and high enough to sit up in stacked one on top of the other. You are allocated one of these, we you basically just go to sleep. Single sex only so no bring backs,. though the leeds people who rudely woke me up by shouting outside (they have no doors, just a blind) claimed he would be able to get someone back. I hope not as the sound proofing is pretty bad...

Slept there for a few hours, then headed out after a shower and teeth brush to find some nightlife. After walking about 5 minutes from our hotel, we hit THE shopping centre. This is pretty much underscribable to put the whole picture.. but basically it spans over 3 and a half miles!!!!!!!! There are arcades EVERYWHERE and anything you could ever want clothing related. Its called the Ebisubashi Shopping Street (which becomes Shinsaibashi Shopping Street further down) - but if you just head to that you will find the rest... believe me!

Eating wasn't a problem, but finding a club proved hard. So hard in fact that we had to log in here to look them up That done, and this entry filled in, means we can finally leave and go get wasted in Osaka

Can't do too much though as have to be out hotel by 10am tomorrow, and then sightseeing, before heading back to Tokyo to go a HardHouse/Trance night at Club Code in Shinjuku - HURRAH!

Haven't slept in over 40 hours!! POWER MODE!!!

I think i've seen enough sakura now, Kyoto was really beautiful, we just felt like crap by staying awake all night and the night before!

I can finally sleep in peace.... ENJOY!!!

So yeah, sign it if you haven';t already. Fired off another email to Bonnie requesting this stupid graphics library to be installed. This will allow you guys to view the photo galleries without having to wait 5 hours for everyphoto!! Should bring the time down to a few seconds... but alas, after 2 weeks of mailing back and forth, it still hasn't been done... grrrr... want to get some business cards done to hand out to people, but can't cause the bandwidth would shoot through the roof.

Got credit card statement today... EEK! Seems exchange rate has dropped again, my camera gave me 183 yen to the pound, taking the cost up to £280.. mew! Woudl;n'#t have paid that much for it... bit depressing... bah!

Ok then, today, well we decided to go Akihabara to try and get Justins clock. Went out for some food first, suprise suprise clash J went to the nasty smelling noodle place, i opted for the cool cafe round the corner that does chicken curry for £2

Got to Akihabara a bit late, so most shops shut, only things left open were the arcades and the adult shops... they are amazing! 6 or more floors just of dvd's, books, clothing (loads of different outfits, not all tacky ones like england) and ... wait for it.... packets of used girls/womens clothing, with a photo of authenticity!!! Used schoolgirl knickers are 1000yen (about a fiver) ... might be interesting to try and explain to customs

They have some dodgy stuff here though, underage girls seem to feature a lot (and we are talking proper underage... there was a video of a nine year old :eugh, scatt films (if you dont know what they are, you dont want to... lets just say you had a curry the night before and then mistake your girlfriend for a toilet ) - theres lots of stuff for normal people too though, so it's not all freaky!! Lol...

Back to the arcades as per usual to spend way to much money winning absolutely nothing... pah! they are just too damn addictive Then home at about 12am for another stop of food and back here... to be typing now.

Not going to make same mistake as yesterday... gonna split now. Gotta do a bit of washing so clothes ready for tomorrow, then bed early ready for Kyoto tomorrow yay!

Anyway, it seems justin has filled in the most block parts of the day (good boy!) so i will just fill in the blanks... btw, excuse my bad typing, the spacebar on the laptop broke, so we bought an external usb keyboard... but japanese... so the keys in different places!!! lol...

We seem to have been doing quite a lot in the evenings, but the days are always spent in bed sleeping (i guess cause of the tiredness factor from staying out all night...)

Making decisions seems to cause quite a few conflicts at times, as we both want to do different things, and i think this holiday is really testing our friendship, but it seems to be holding up, hurrah! Justin seems to be quite unhappy i dont; like japanese food... sorry japanese people, but your food sux!! All the types I do like, are apparently 'western' anyway, so don't count.... don't get me wrong, i would love to like it (its so cheap!) but its just nasty... cooked in, ummm, soya bean (i think misu) which reakes and is very offputting

Ok, hmmmm... where left off... well i think i had just bought the canon iXY 500, but the photos were so white it was unbelievable... just not good quality at all so i was determined to change it. Luckily the sales people seem pretty nice, and managed to swap it for a Casio Exlim exz40 (not out in uk yet) - good camera if you dont mind shed loads of noise wanted to take it back... but its so small and cute that i will keep it.. only £200 so no big loss... it will do until a better model is released (nothing else any good either) when i will get chiakiy to send it over

Thursday night we met Seiko for first time in Roppongi... she speaks so little english it was really, really awkward, but luckily after the drink had set in from Gas Panic (see j;s post) we started to get on a lot better... still not so good english, but can talk the language of smiles

Which incidently reminds me, since i have been here, i have had to dumb down my english (cut out a lot of words that are pointless) that i am worried i will not get it back when i get home!! lol... all the people we are meeting are female, so i am copying them... i sound like a frickin japanese chick! lol... when me and justin speak, so start with we talk slow, until we realise we are both english hahahahahahahahaha....

Erm anyway, yeah, so Thurday night was to celebrate justins start of birthday, so Gas Panic and then a club called the Lexington Queen... depending on the entry price, you either got 2/3/5 or 6 free drinks. There was only a 500 yen difference between 3 and 5 (currently 190 yen to the pound) so we went for the 5 drinks.... quite why i dunno as we were blatted after just the 2... lol... very good fun night, all range of music inc 2 or 3 trance tracks,. yay!

Oh, that reminds me... cost... Quite why everyone say Japan most expensive place ion the world i dont understand... its cheap as chips I guess somethings must cost a lot, but so far, most of my money going on Arcardes!!! Clubs cheaper than UK, drinks cheaper than London Central prices (Gas panic was only £2 per drink!), food cheaper, mcdonaldcheaper transport cheaper.... i love this place... You can have a bonza night out for so little... then the trains start a 5:30 (hell yeah!) so you can get home cheap after a night out, then get some food (read whole meal) in the local noodle bar for about £2!!!!

Hehe, I'm jumping about here... really can't remember what order... its now 2/3am or something and i am parched! lol.... erm.... oh yeah, dont buy porn mags from the convenience stores. Japanese law prohibits showing of genitalia, so porn mag = naked woman all fuzzed out.. lol... it would be more attractive if she were dressed - if you want 'proper' stuff, head to shibuya or shinjuku... i can't confirm this, but word on the street says there is no censorship in the more seedy shops.....

Shibuya is a wicked place... massive tv screens on highrise buildings and many many lights (admittedly daytime it doesn't look so good, but at night its awesome... very very pretty) - its the #teencapital# of tokyo (or one of them, the other one is apparently harajuku) and many can be seen wandering the streets with their millions of shopping bags. You get the dodgy looking 'Ganguru Girls' here too... they look like sh*t, with really really tanned brown faces and really bright makeup... i don't understand... the kogal's (just lots of brightmakeup, short skirts, loose socks etc...)
however are a lot more appealing to the eye....

Right, so now we are up to Friday... i have a feeling i was asleep all day until late... but knwoing justin we probably went shopping at some point... i have managed to aquire about 10 Kanji t-shirts, so am quite happy, but there is a shop in Harajuku with some Kanji Style jeans!!! Well gow you always wanted to get me in jeans, maybe now you will... if they can get my size in i will buy there

Ahhhh... which reminds me... kanji clothing... so hard to come across... The japanese love english charatcers, so everything in flipping english... grrr... its funny though, justin bought a tshirt which makes heck all sense... it does go on about having sex with little children though?!?!!? and mudmud! wtf!!

Harajuku is our local walking distance shopping place.. its quite nice, big screens again and right next to Yoyogi park, which is very beautiful and houses a japanese temple (well its not going to be american now is it?!?! haha) There is a place called 'KiddyWorld' there... just a huge 5 floor toyshop.. but its awesome! any money i have left over at the end of this holiday will be spent there.. they have a lifesize (human size) Doromon (sp?) which costs over £200!!!! I have bought a fwe things so far, but will definately return...

Friday night for Justins birthday, we went out to Chiakiys house in Arakawoki (in Ibaraki) where her mother took us to a traditional japanese restaurant. Was very nice (see i do like some of the food!) but i dont want to imagine the cost... Chiakiys mother has been so kind to us this holiday, i am trying to think of something really nice to do for her... maybe something in Kyoto, or take her out or something... Afterwards, we went to a 24hour karaoke bar (so different to how i imagines, you get your own room rather than sing to otherr people, good in a way, but it would be nice to have an audience) - so if you see the photos, its me and j, Chiakiy (the non japanese looking girl ), Michiko (Micha) Chaikiys best friend and Tdu (works at Burtons, (snow board shop) with Chiakiy)

That ended at about 5:30 or something, when we had to go get the train back to Tokyo, to sleep ready for the big saturday night out in Shibuya... Unfortuntely, we also had to get up a 3pm to go get Chiakiy from the station, so it wasn't all bed of roses... Didn't do too badly though and was up by 2 to pick her up... didn't show until 3:30... doh!

Chiakiy had not been Tokyo before, so we figured it would be a good time to go for a bit of a sightsee.. Decided on Tokyo Central as it sounded important... but not really anything there... Did walk to the Imperial Park though, there should be some photos... very beautiful and some cool trees which you dont get here.. Walked around it for a bit then followed the road to Ginza, the most expensive part of tokyo. Kinda same thing, big buildings lots of lights, but very nice all the same. Bought the new GunsnRoses cd from HMV for only £9 (see, japan cheeeeep!) though was pissed when the sales guy took the Kanji bit out to put in another one... grrrrrrrrrr....

For night out, decided on Club Pure (http://www.clubpure.com) in Shibuya as it was only 2500 yen (£13) with all you can drink... wicked idea, wicked club.. worked very well. We had been warned off the place, but inside it was so nice, loads of sofas, films on big screens for if you get tired (with english subtitles, oh yes!) and of course the free drink policy... ya ta!

That finished at about 5am, when we went to the arcades and then to a noodle bar to get some breakfast (noodles with fried beef... yummy!) then home to bed.

Sunday was really boring as it just rained all day, and did absolutely nothing... so no photos... nothing to write...

Today, hurrah! I can't believe it, i've only been writing 45 minutes and i am up to now... yip!

Woke up so late, but didn't want to get up... Justin left to go (suprise suprise) harajuku, went and met him later on at about 5pm... soooo sleeeppy!

Decided to meet up with Seiko again, which is cool... its good to have friends here to go and play pool. Went to some pool hall, which charged per hour not per game.. Cool, except Chiakiy and Seiko never played before, so we didn;t excatly get the most for our money. Especially when only after 2 hours and 1 drink each the bill came to over £35!!!! feck! Not worth it, stupid place! Should have gone bowling like i wanted to! ha! Which reminds me, Chiakiy and Sekio now becoming friends. This is good as C not know anyone in Tokyo, but S say she can come and stay at her house awww... teamtokyo bring people together! nice one !

Chiakiy had to go home for work tomorrow, so took her back to station and went out for some dinner .., lovely, chicken curry with burger, sausage, prawns and scrambled eggs for only £4!! i LOVE japanese food, hahaha, i'm sure justin will have something to say about that...

Now then, just back home writing this, when i should be sleeping as we need to be up early tomorrow to catch the BulletTrain to Kyoto... gonna be about £150 return, so only gonna make the trip once. But staying over 1 or maybe 2 nights to get the most out of the place. Credit cards can be useful after all (even if the fricking payments take one month to process!!!!)

re the Sakurs house rules... seems everyone just says 'f*ck it' so its not as strict and crap as we thought it would be.. MSN and ICQ work (though I have so far had anough will power not to log on) and the FTP to put the pictures up works great...

One shocking thing.. we think our 1 meg broadband is fast (or 2 meg if you really push it) here in Japan you get for 4500 yen (22ish pounds) 100meg broadband.. yes... thats right, you did read that correctly.. i will try and scan in the advert to prove it... would love it at home, though the upstream is not so good, but then i guess you can#t have everything....!!!

People are really nice and friendly, no trouble seen yet (unless you count the 60 person fight / double mafia murder outside gas panic... but that was Yakuza related, so doesn't really count) - Chiakiy even dropped her purse in an arcade, abd someone came running out to give it back... i wonder in england if the same thing would have happened.

A lot of the people in our block are here for a year teaching english. It seems like such a simple thing to do, maybe I would like to do it when I finish Uni.... i will see... but definately something i will think about... Everyone have so much fun and you only work 4 hours a day, not bad considering you get to take home about £1000 a month...

Phew... well now I am knackered, if i think of anything more, i will write,,, but probably not for a few days unless we net cafe in Kyoto or something. I need to pack my clothes now, though Justin is sparko, so will need to get it done in the morning.

Bai Bai!

It rained all day today. I was so looking forwards to the Sakura party at yoyogi park but it had to rain. could have done with a game of footie. argh!

Spent most of the day indoors, Sat in the kitchen watching MTV Japan while learning some jap and caught up on my stuff. Dave(who also lives upstairs) said he tried fish sperm. I've been told directions to try out, raw horse meet, fish eye balls, pregnant fish,

Was also told to try out the TSUKIJI FISH MARKET - need to be there at 5am to see 10 foot long tuna being killed and sliced up. Then eat it on the spot - you don't get fresher than that!

George taught me to say: 'I'll gave 3 beers please and do you know how to teleport?'
supposed to though the bar tender right off haha. sounds damn cool, but i've forgotten.

Had sushi and more sushi, across the road - too lazy to find other restaurants. Shima should be arriving in tokyo tomorrow, should be meeting up with her soon. Planning to go to kyoto on tuesday - see what the weather is like.
I hope it's sunny tomorrow....

Woke up at 14:30 after only 3 hours of sleep... I've got to take care of myself!
Decided to go to Central Tokyo. Nice place - if i had to equate it to a part of london it would be Canary Warf, just offices everywhere. Walked round the parks and saw Tokyo tower in the distance.

Strolled down to Ginza which really impressed me. The headquaters of many japanese companies. SONY HQ but no time to see the museum.
Sat in the Nissan 350Z - lovely car but i still prefer my skyline (seen so many of them around here in japan!),

we let ben choose where to eat.... no suprise that it was a burger joint again 'HAMBURGERS AT WENDY'S) argh!

Tried to find a VISA cash point for ages... no luck - started to get cold!
Got back to sendagaya at 10pm and was supposed to meet Seiko and her friends at Shibuya! always late.

Luckity Shibuya is 4 minutes (2 stops) from our station, went to 'CLUB PURE' Hip-hop and R&B night - cost 2500 yen for guys, 2000yen for the ladies. OPEN BAR! amazing!!! and the great thing was... no pikies!

We all got super cained, Kamikazes, sex on the beaches, karsesu's and the regualar beverages.

Aparently Steven Segal was suppost to be there but he was held up doing a video shoot. I didn't care - the guy can't act. The fat guy from marshall law would probably kick his ass.

Finished at 5am, went to some arcades and took some sticker photos...
6am got back to our station and went to another noodle bar.

seems to be quite a routine...

no sleep!!! help!!!

day 6 was my birthday! since we got home at 8am from ropongi, we woke up around 2am... damnit

I decided to walk down to Harajuko to buy some clothes and then headed out of Tokyo to Iberaki around 8:30pm. I forgot my phone which was such a pain!

Went to Chiraki's house and her mum bought me the latest Utada CD. Really good!!
Also recieved a hello kitty stuffed toy from Chiraki.

Proceeded to a traditional jap restaurant (don't know the name but the sign is in the gallery) Had some very nice and interesting food washed down with many exotic cocktails. The Raw Wasabi Octopus wish was soooo delicious. It's got to be my favourite.

After dinner we proceeded to a 24 hour karoke bar. Sang our hearts out till 5am. Tdu is a really good singer, a PRO. But towards the end he decided to sing the bon jovi hit but the chorus was just too high, major voice breaking - frickin funny, we have it recorded and should be available to download as soon in the movie section.

Chiakiy and Mitceco sang utada/ayumi/ in contrast, ben and I sang Outkast, Blue(argh), oasis, rhcp's, etc all good fun.

Left the karoke at 5am - watched the sunrise and cruised around a bit.
Headed back to Tokyo around 6am.

Got on the EXPRESS train to Nipori by accident - the fee should be almost double. The conductor could speek good english and tried to tell us we had to buy a premium ticket but we acted really really r-e-a-l-l-y dumb!

It was hilarious! 'passport??? do we need a passport??, we have ticket,'

The conductor spent 30 minutes trying to explain and got all of his other friends to try and expain... they did a good job! but we did an even better one. GOT AWAY WITH IT.

Got back to yoyohgi station just before 8am. I went to the local noodle bar and ordered udon. I'm a pro now! getting into the routine. Ben says he hates the bars... "it's the smell". It must be the MISU. Delicious!!!

Got home, phoned becks and co. oh and the folks. Did a bit of jounal and went to sleep at 11am - needed to wake up at 2pm to fetch Chiakiy at the station.

Decided to look at the Sakura since it was such a warm sunny day. Decided to go to Yoyogi Park which is about 10 minutes from our apartment. George(Guy from Norwich who lives upstairs) told us that there's a Sakura 'rave' in the park on Sunday. should be interesting. Unfortunately, we have double booked with terrence on that day - supposed to go to a car show in Odabai.

Walked past Harajuko, excellent place to shop! went to kiddy land which is the a the place my girlfriend becky dreams about. five floors full of hello kitty, doraemon, gundam, dragon ball, argh you name it... so cool these jap kids are so lucky. Soft toys everywhere!!! damn cute I must ship some back.

Yoyogi park is just at the end of harajuko, don't know why it's called yoyogi as it's in harajuko... The park is beautiful, cherry blossom, traditional japanese trees, shrines, temples, so peaceful.

>>> I can't believe i'm writting this now... just been singing karoke all night >>>and can only sleep for 3 hours as we're meeting chaiki at the station at 3pm

Well anyway.. after that, went to electric city - ben wanted to return his digital camera (ixy 500) fussy boy...haha the japanese sales people were so helpful, they all crowded round to help ben out - trying to figure out the white balence or something, in the end he exchanged ti to a casio exilim.

Had to rush back as I had to meet Seiko at 8pm at roppongi station... turned out we arrived around 10sih.

Roppongi is such a western part of tokyo. I hardly seen any policemen on the streets but in roppongi, there are plenty - I wasn't suprised. You get bouncers trying to force you into their clubs, hading you so called drink tokens haha. pissing off, they targetted ben the most due to his striking blond hair.

Well met Seiko infront of the mitsubishi bank and proceeded to the '911' bar. Drinks seems to be over 5 quid everywhere you go...but luckily she showed us 'Gas Panic' 400Yen a drink. Slowly all of us got very... very... pissed.

Eventually ended up at a club called 'LEX' 3000 yen with 5 drinks.

--I'll fill in the details later--

The club finised at 5am, shops were still open at this time and it was daylight. I guess it's why Japan's called the land of the rising sun???

Got the train at 5:29am back to yoyogi station. Ate at the local restaurant bar - rice with kimchee and some other stuff thrown in.

A nice start to my birthday

Yokohama! Shopping - thanks to terrence for the directions

had lunch at a Japanese Curry Joint, and a snack at Mcdonalds... ben couldn't resist argh.
The teriaki burger was disgusting... imagine adding sweat soya sauce to your bigmacs... i don't think so...

I am definately going to catch up on my sushi and tempura tomorrow

OBSERVATIONS
-----------------------
I am really shocked by the number of vending machines there are in the streets. Every couple of metres... there you go - another one.
All drinks from the vending machinese seem to be the same prices wherever you go (120Yen to 150yen) served hot or cold. fantastic
It would be so great if we could have these back home, 24/7 service but damn pikies would reckem.

cigerettes are 300 yen - equivalent to just over £1.50

Hardly any litter, it's like being in a techno singapore! Trains are virtually spotless!
The bins are sorted into burnables/cans/plastics - there's a good recycling awareness over here. Just got to read which section of the bin to put your rubbish in!

Toilet paper seems like it's been recycled from the stuff in the bins...

Toilets are damn nice. Heated seats!!! lovely warm ass. Today in yokohama I saw the ultimate toilet seat for just over 200quid! had built in radio, beeday(squirts water up your ass), fake flush, soft flush, hard flush and of course the heated seat.

Day started off cloudy and pretty miserable. To top it off, the exchange rate is hitting bottom... ARGH I pray it'll shoot back up again!!!

Decided to go to Shibuya, 3 stops from our station.

!!!Organised Chaos!!!

thousands of people at that famous junction crossing waiting for that green light. Such a sight, we stood there watching for ages.

Had lunch at a noodle bar just round the corner from the junction. I'm now a lot more confident to order 'collet cotdosai' can't spell it.

rain soon started to piss down like cats and dogs and i needed to find a jacket, but strangely, it was still fairly warm so i settled with an umbrella from HMV. All shops put out an umbrella cover dispenser outside - nice dry floors inside.

It was the launch of Utada's new Album, not very interesting as it features all her number ones which I already have (I'm trying so hard to find her LP's if they are out) but all through the streets you hear her tunes from ghetto blasters.
I was in HMV for ages, the atmosphere is so different. I can't explain.
On the third or forth floor of the building is the Shibuya radio station where you can watch the DJ's live from the sound proof window.

We soon lost each other - luckily I had my phone, ben took ages to ring it though

The rain got ridiciously powerful! haha so we kept running into arcade joints. Drains your cash... but so much fun!!!
I need to stop!

Got back to Sendagaya around 10ish but too wet to do anything at night.

Woke up at 8am to get breakfast, had japanese bread with eggs and ham. Had to carry our heavy suitcases to Ibariki station and figure out how to get the train to Shinjoku station, tokyo to pick up out apartment keys.

We really needed to find a weekly subway pass so travelled from our Yoyogi station back to Shinjuko (1 stop). Only day passes were avaliable from 700yen to 1500. I think weekly ones are strangely available abroad (cheers for that Joseph, shame i was too lazy to get one from the uk)

Did some shopping and decided to go to akihabara - electronic city (the mass equivalent to Tottenham court road) It was around 7pm when we touched down - lights everywhere with a night sky. Hyped me up so much, i went crazy.

Ben was looking for his ixy 500. In the end, got it for 50,000 yen with a 256mb memory card which is pretty good,
This country has definately started the 'WHITE' revolution. So many appliances are in 'concreate white' The PSX looks very tempting - but for 500quid... i don't think so. I saw my old toshiba m30 laptop. It's called a different name over here... different branding- much higher spec and also in 'concreate white'!

Found some of those so called book shops. I dunno who's going to read this so i'll just say... lots of variety, millions haha,
funny how there are so many bussinessmen reading comics, the storyline's can't be that good surely. Some of there material was quite shocking to us... haha i'll move on.

Got a call from Miko and Seiko, will try and meet up with them soon. Everyone seems to be so busy on the weekdays.

Wasted loads of money on the arcades again, but it's all good fun!

We had decided to go to Shibuya to get Justin a jacket, and possibly meet up with one of his friends from msn so headed out to the station. Our local station is called Yoyogi, and whilst easy to get to, not so easy to buy a ticket as all the writing is in kanji! lol luckily the guard spoke english, so we were able to get our ticket ok.

.... leave rest for tomorrow

Just woke up after such a nice sleep - hardly got any sleep since friday. The plane journey was neverending. Ben would fall asleep for a few minutes and out of bordem i'd give him a little nudge, he'd wake up and say, 'i'm glad i knocked off for a few hours'- this went on for the entire trip... funny (he got off the plane thinking he had 10 hours sleep)

I just couldn't sleep on the plane! As we were sitting near the bulk heads, it didn't apear we had LCD screens I wanted to play super mario -> wanted to move - it was ok cause a few hours into the flight i discovered there were 'foldable' screens to the right of our seats. There was also some italian guy to my right... he slept right though the flight with his mouth wide open... frickin bad breath. haha!

Narita airport is lovely, a mix of tradition and techno, the weather was sunny and warm - a great welcome.
Loads of vending machines, zebra crossings and horizonal traffic lights!

Chiakiy was kindly there with her friend and mum to pick us up. The car drive was a great experience. It's Sakura season and cheery blossom is everywhere, japanese cut trees on the roadside and the CARS.. I'd say at least 70% of them are white, oh and quite a lot of them are boxy.

We were taken to a buddist temple featuring a 120 metre bronze budda statue.(Check out the gallery), temple and praying proceedures just like back in malaysia. Watched a monkey show and fed some rabbits.

I think ben's covered most of the day so in brief
1/Chiakiy's mum kindly treated us to lunch
I had katsu, ben had prawn tempura. He tried sushi for the first time!
2/went shopping for phones haha
3/Played with Chiakiy's chinese dog
4/Went to eat again
5/Arcades - sega bingo, some really entertaining drum game,
6/Hotel to sleep (thanks to Chiakiy's mum again)!!!

DAY ONE was very full and exciting thanks to very lovely hosts. I'll let ben finish rest of the 28th (DAY ONE), cause there's not point writing the same thing twice.

we stayed up the night before we left, figuring we would try and beat the jetlag syndrome, so by the time the first flight came we were sooo tired!! it was uneventful enough, and we landed in malapansa airport in milan on time.

it was only after we had got off plane, we realised our first mistake. as we were now in milan,we needed euros to spend! eek!! we of course didn';t haveany, only yen and pounds so we had tofind a cash machine..... except milan airport doesn't have any!!!! how crazy is that??? so we were stuck in the airport for two hours and sooooo thirsty and not happy to say the least..we were saved about an hour later however when we found out one place in the whole airport that would accept visa... phew!

Onto the next plane, the 12 hour big one. well firstly we were incredibly lucky.. we got the door seats! ie, we had the door in front of us, so infinite leg room! hurrah! also, we had funky tv's in the arms of our seats that were rotatable so you could lie down and still watch them!! this kept us occupied for the rest of the flight!

After touching down and getting baggage,we then had to find Chiakiy. Although I had seen a few photos before, they weren't very clear,so i was a bit worried i would not recognise her!! so when we got out and saw her, wetried to casually see if she had recognised us... she did though so it was all ok

She took us to her car (with her friend) where we met her mother (a very nice, friendly person ) and we were whisked away into japan... woo hoo!

Chiakiy is really good fun and really nice. i am glad i met her, she is going to help us out and about and seems to have loads of friends which will be veryuseful!! She lives in Ibaraki which is just north of tokyo, and seems to be quite a quiet place. little roads and things, until you drive out a bit to the shops.

First we were taken to a japanese buddha shrine garden thing. We're not quite sure what you would call this place, but it was very beautiful all the same! It has a massive (read MASSIVE!) Buddha statue, which is in the Guiness Book of records as the largest statue in the world (about 1400 metres i think, though it may have been feet! lol)

There were many bells hanging, which it seems to be good luck to hit. As well as what looked like a huge bbq, which produced smoke you had to wave on your body where pain was, it would then make you feel better. I put it on all of me just to make sure

Behind the statue was a petting zoo, with a monkey show (see pix) which was quite entertaining. Also a cage with Prairie Dogs, which i had never seen before so a nice change Just in front of it was a pond filled with Coi Carp which all swam to the surface and were trying to grab food, we were touching them and then they would swim away when Chiakiy would scream lol

After this, her mother wanted to take us out to a traditional japanese lunch, so we were driven to a noodle bar. we had to sit on the floor on tatami(sp) mats and cusions, which was ok at first but did hurt a bit after a while! i'm not quite sure what i had, but in envolved prawns and noodles

We were originally going to spend the first night at chiakiys friend house, but unforutaly this was not possible, so instead we went to check into the Hotel Plaza Arakawa-Oki. But Chiakiys mother insisted on paying and would not hear otherwise. We will get her a big present to say thank you at some point!!!! it was about £70!!!

After putting our bags in the room, we went back to Chiakiys to get her friends car and then to go the shops fora bit! I wanted to see how much my digital camera would cost, but unfortunately they did not have it The supermarket type place was crazy though, it sold everything and allso bright colours!!! amazing and so cool.... i want to live here lol.. after this we went to a Vodafone store and Justin bought mobile... lol

OK, so we done a lot now... so we went back to Chiakiys house where her mnother made us some food. We were still eating this when her friend rang for us togoout. So we went to a cheap type restaurant down the road (but still very nice!!) there we met another 2 of her friends so we sat and (tried!) to talk for a bit before going to a games arcade...

WWWWOOOOOWWW!! japanese arcades are so much better than uk. for a start, they havea lot more bemani games, so i was able to playddr and a bongo simulator!!!! thatwas great fun, i wish they had it over in uk we also played bingo and on the slots for a bit, before going to a photome sticker booth thing to get a picture taken of all of us (will photo it and put in gallery )- we stayed until about 12 or so, when we got tired (plus chiakiy has work early) so left to go back.

We got a lift back to Chiakiys, then she walked us to the hotel (She went back on her moped....) it was business style one and very nice. it even had a traditional japanese bath (ie loads of people in it), but i didn't like the idea of a bath with a load of naked blokes so wasn't going to try it!!!

This morning we were up by 8:40 to go for breakfast, which unfortunately i did not like, but justin did so that was ok before finished packing and going to station to get train to tokyo...

Heck I'm so tired!! Will finish this tomorrow, lol yes i know, always one day out

sayonara!

Got the little laptop working though, so at least this means we will definately be updated tt as we go! hurrah!