Japan

Overnight bus comedown part #1231435235 a feeling we have felt quite a few times from getting a good few overnight buses on our travels, when you’ve had a really crappy uncomfortable sleep, you’ve not gone for a pee all night due to laziness and the thoughts of you getting up from your seat really making u wide awake.
Anywho, we fought through the tiredness and braved the Tokyo underground to go find the hostel and get on with our Tokyo exploration. After chinwagging with an Argentinean-English teacher on the tube, we eventually got to our stop and I managed to find our very well hidden hostel. Oh but not after we killed some time in a breakfast restaurant… mm eggs and bacon.. how Japanese.

The Hostel was well nice, brand new with some very friendly staff. We threw our stuff in and decided sleep was for the weak and it was off to see the museums in Ueno park, they were realllllly cool. Lots of famous Samurai swords (Katana and Taoshi stylees) from the feckin 9th century up to 18th. Some even had slices in them from combat. We also saw some really cool Armour and paintings etc. Still half asleep we then went to visit a big market in Ueno with lots of crazy fish stalls with huge octopus arms in some red juice – tasty! Paul and I feasted on some green tea ice creams and Lisa bought more hair die.
We took the rest of the day handy in the hostel talking with some yanks from Detroit in our room.

The next day we moved to a private triple room and went out to do some shopping and see the freak show that is in Chibuku (see pics of goth looking girls). We got our picture taken with some of these girls, who apparently are kids that get bullied in school but on the weekends get dressed up and go to this place and hang out. They let tourists take pictures of them and with them.

Anyway we went shopping as this is the shopping area of Tokyo. We discovered this fecking amazing second hand store called … two floors of shopping bliss with all shirts organised by colour. I bought a few new t-shirts and two old school puma trackie tops. Paul bought some Hawaiian shirts and some new t-shirts, after which he mentioned; “That’s the first time in my life I think I enjoyed shopping” lol he got some good bargains.

We then took a walk doon to designer label toon and eventually found the BAPE store.. see pics, coolest. Shop. ever. The prada store was amazing looking, see picture of crazy glass building.

The next day, hungover and tired after lots of beers and watching funny stuff on the laptop, Paul brought us to this crazy museum place dedicated to a famous Japanese animation artist, producer etc called Yoshi Momomatsu (or something).. It took yonks to get there, but was worth it. The building itself was like something out of one of the guys movies. Inside we got to watch a small movie in Japanese but was realllllly cool. Then we got to see a replica of the room where he created all his characters and a room dedicated to the work of the guys that did Wallace and Grommit. Finally Paul brought us to his favourite room full of visual animation machines that when the right light and movement was applied to various model characters it looked like they were all moving like in a movie.. I’m not explaining that very well but it was very impressive nonetheless.

We were starving after this adventure so we decided on some western food for lunch and headed to a TGI’s in Ginza I think. After a big burger covered in honey mustard sauce bacon, ketchup and fries…. We were all nicely stuffed. We got to see lots of cool places in Tokyo thanks to Paulio. And we had our fair share of nice food and drink in a few different Irish bars. Then it was time to say good bye which was quite sad as we had all had a great week together. Lisa got glassy eyes when Paul left…. oh the love! We had a couple more days in Tokyo we spent sourcing Kimonos for our dear mothers and doing bits n bobs of shopping. Tokyo is deffo on my list of amazing cities to visit again. Would have liked to of went clubbing whilst there, but there’s always next time.

Seamus

Akita and beyond.
Well we basically fast trained it from Kyoto to Akita – it took about 8 hours but it was a really comfy journey and not hassley at all.
We arrived to a happy smiley healthy looking Paul at Akita station at maybe 6pm. He bungled us onto a bus and on the way to his apartment he regaled us with how happy he was to see us. He suggested that maybe months of teaching English and limited English-speaking social occasions had made him somewhat ‘peculiar’.

Paul’s apartment was sparkling clean and very cute. I was surprised and suitably impressed. He has all the mod cons, including an apple mac.. (whooooooo).
We all had a few beers and chatted about what not before deciding to head out for some grub. Paul brought us to his favourite bimba (??) house and we got to half cook our dinner in our bowl and chow down. It was great to see Paul and to see him doing so well.
He had taken the next day off to show us around Akita (pffffffffft .. har har )

So the next day the three of us spent lounging around, drinking beer, waffling and watching episodes of Red Dwarf. Paul then organised a bit of a get together with his other teachy type mates . We all went off for delicious Indian grub and some beers where we got to meet his mates and try and figure out which were the ones he had warned us about. He he

The grub and chat were great and then we went back to Red Dwarf & beverages. Paul had already asked myself & Jim to come into his school with him to chat to the students about our travels. No problem, we assured him. However we were slightly scared when he revealed that he had the ‘lessonplan’ all done and we would be chatting to six classes (i.e. the whole class day). Eek we thought! But there was nothing to fear.

Paul wangled it so we were only going into a handful of classes. Whenwe arrived to Akita Commercial High School on the morrow, we were welcomed like celebrities. All the kids were ooohing and aahhhing at us (and how we were A) Paul’s Sister & B) Paul’s Sister’s Boyfriend. Everyone in the school was so nice & friendly and smiley and they all spoke tres highly of Paul. First we were given a tour of the school by some of the kids, which was gas. I was sweating out of nervosity so much, my slippers kept falling off. After our tour we were brought in to (ahem) watch the Soccer Team being taught Irish Dancing by a slip of a girl named Lorraine. It was very funny. The lads were typical 17 ( - 37) year olds all trying to outdo each other, turning the haon, doh, trees, into the Haka. We all got a few pictures at the end of the ‘seishun’ (see below).

Then it was on to our very own Welcome Party organised by the English Club. (tee hee hee). It was brill. On the blackboard some one had written “WELCOME” beside a picture of Hello Kitty. Worringly though, underneath was written:
1. Welcome note
2. Introduction
3. James & Lisas’ Speech.
4. Game Time
5. Communication time

LOL. WHAT ???! well we did our best. All the kids introduced themselves and told us their hobbies. They all had the same hobbies funnily enough - shopping and listening to music. Tee hee. So then came our lil speech – which was V E R Y W E L L D O N E IN T H A T S L O W W A Y T H A T E V E R Y W E S T E R N E R T A L K S T O N O N E N G L I S H S P E A K I N G F O R E I G N E R S! There was lots of hand gestures and pictures drawn on the board.

Then we were presented with a variety of Japanese snacks – i.e. the most grossest snacks the teens could find in order to intimidate the westerners. We had fermented fish flavour corn snacks (which I quite liked) and then some type of turdy tasting squid on a stick – which I didn’t like at all. However we were quite chuffed at getting our very own welcome party complete with snacks and when we left we had sore cheeks from smiling so much (face cheeks) all day. We were bid adieu with the promise we would return tomorrow to tantalise the higher English students. (One crazy girl wanted me to do a feckin Dunnes ad for her on the morrow – sheesh – what is the deal with the non stop entertainment people get from me recounting some grocery prices to cheesy music.)

Anywho after all that, the three of us needed a drink. (you need some amount of energy to do that everyday – I dunno how Paulio does it). So we headed off home for a while before meeting up with some of Paul’s gang later in an Izakaya. It’s like a pub where you keep ordering drink & food all night. Tis fandabbydozey. Many a crazy dish was ordered and fancy drink drunk.

On Day 2 of Akita Commercial High School, things were much easier going. We basically plonked ourselves in front of a group of interested (we think) 15 year olds and with a mixture of arm gestures, slow talking, pictures on the blackboard and pictures on our laptop, we told them tales of monkeys and whales and puppy dog tales. They lapped it up (we think), well they were laughing and talking amongst themselves so we presumed they enjoyed our stories a lot.

After lunch we were brought to the Brainy English class were we played some games with the kids. We were also taught a bit about some Japanese poems and stuff, which was great. The crazy girl had her eye on me to do the fasttalkingdunnesad, but luckily I managed to escape. I could see the glint in her eye as she went up to the English teacher and was basically asking if I could come back and do the ad. I saw the glint as I was fasthopping it out the school gate. He he he terrible really – but I would have fluffed my lines and I was already sweaty and a bit nervous.

With all our scholarly duties done we were free to make ourselves useless before we headed to Tokyo on the overnight bus. Paul and I decided to have a row and Jim decided to keep out of it. But all was forgotten the next morning when we arrived in Tokyo… (start dream like sequence of events.. didilideh didilideh didilideh..

Hiroshima was very pretty and it was a little sad too. It’s hard to imagine any of the Japanese people as encouraging war or indeed starting it.
However despite history, or even because of it, it’s difficult to believe anyone would be interested in keeping nuclear weapons.

First we saw the A Bomb dome. This was the Industrial promotion hall and the bomb was dropped on 6th August 1945 at 8.15am, 600metres over the hall. Everyone inside the hall died instantly. but because the bomb exploded directly over the hall, a lot of the infrastructure of the building emerged unscathed.
The dome of the hall is still evident as are most of the walls of the building. Apparently for a moment after the bomb dropped the temperature on the ground below reached 5000 degrees celcius.
Hiroshima was chosen due to the towns many military functions, plus it was the only target in Japan thought not to have a POW camp in it. To hear the stories of the survivors and to be able to listen to some diary extracts of those who perished was overwhelming.

It’s crazy that Kim dung Balls is even thinking of releasing a nuclear weapon, particularly when you consider 1 tenth of the people who were killed in Hiroshima were Korean.

Anywho, we visited the peace park, saw the Children’s monument in honour of Sadako (a child exposed to the bomb who was later diagnosed with leukaemia at age ten. She believed that if she could fold 1000 peace doves (origami) she would overcome the cancer. She died before she finished and all her classmates rallied young people from around the world to finish making the doves in her honour. A lot of money was also raised and a monument in honour of all the children who died from the Abomb in Hiroshima was erected in the Peace Park. We saw the monument dedicated to the Koreans’ killed by the bomb too.

Before it all got a bit too depressing, we decided to go have some lunch as we hadn’t eaten all day. We had some really fat noodles that tasted like nothing and some vegetables deep fried. (well at least I was getting some veggies) (they eat very little veggies in Japan).

Afterwards we tried to go into the Baseball stadium in Hiroshima (they’re mad about baseball in Japan) but I think there was a game on. The team is called the Hiroshima Toyo Carps – but we didn’t get to see them.

We wandered down the Hori-Dori arcade in search of a chocolate/banana croissant and a coffee to share on the train home.

We were going to just stay in the Kyoto Inn forever but we had already booked another hostel in Osaka so we had to don our ten ton truckloads of turdular stuff and hit the road to Osaka.
When we arrived it was raining. Ho hum. Where is the sun??
Upon checking in we tried to explain to the desk clerk that we had no cash, then he sent Jim on a few wild goose chases down the road in the search for international ATMs. No such thing. Especially on a Sunday afternoon. But he let us in anyway and we headed out into Osaka to explore.

We hit the town with a hungry vengence (we were starving) and tried to find somewhere decent to eat. We were too late for lunch and too early for dinner. But eventually we popped into a groovy Italian type place for lunch. I know people may berate us for eating Italian and foreign food whilst in Japan, but let me tell you this. Japanese people eat rice, pickles, noodles, rice, pickles and noodles. Now sometimes the things that come with these are different – e.g. pork, chicken, shrimp but the basic idea is the same. Now couple this with the miso soup and the slight awkwardy westerner with chopsticks and you can understand why perhaps every few days we indulge in some Italian/Nepalese/Indian/even McDonalds. (Eek)

Afterwards we trumped around taking pictures. The Japanese like to play some crazy ball game that looks like a slot game. They are everywhere. And they are :LOUD. I dunno how anyone can hear anything!! So we rumbledaround town taking pictures and doing some half assed window shopping.

And then the piece de resistance – the Osaka Aquarium – the one with a live whale shark. Well were we excited – were we wha… he he
We paid the hefty fees in and parambled around the place. First we saw gifuckingnormous fish, salamder, otters, Monterey bay sealions and antartic penguins. All these fish & birds had plenty of room as each place was huge. So we felt slightly better than any zoos we had visited. Then we moved onto see the Pacific Ocean Tank. It was 9m deep and some hundred thousand square metres wide but imo it still wasn’t big enough for the whale shark in it. I’m not totally against zoos as I think they have their uses and I also think that they can help in the survival of a species – maybe not a species that can survive in the wild however and that is not good. Seeing the whale shark up close and personal however was absolutely amazing. She was surrounded by many types of sharks, giant manta rays, tuna fish and lots of other fish and she was huge and beautiful. However as amazing as seeing the whale shark was, it was difficult not to notice the damage to her tail fin from constantly rubbing off the edge of the tank as she circled round and round and round and round for years.
After we finished we watched a video about how the aquarium was constructed and they showed us how they captured the whale shark. She was only a baby when captured and it was very sad I thought. Animals that large should never be kept in a space so small no matter how many thousand millions square metres it is. Later on I had a dream that I snorkelled into the pool with a pickaxe and managed to bust a hole through the wall for the whale shark to escape, but then a friend of mine appeared demanding to know why I hadn’t phoned her and the dream went off on other tangents! Wow and these dreams are without the aid of LARIUM (malaria tablets that make Jim & me dream crazy dreams).

For our second day in Osaka – I put James in charge of the day’s activities. I was tired of trying to read all the bumpf and in turn organise a days events. It may be ok when we are in an area for a long while, but here we are only in each place for a couple of days and a certain amount of research and planning has to be done for each venue. Needless to say I am normally left to do it as otherwise we wouldn’t get to see anything.
But on this day after being so frustrated yesterday trying to organise things and get to see things, I said that jimbear was in charge of what we were going to do this day. It was up to him to wake me up (for a change) and make sure we got out to see stuff.
WELL
I got to sleep til 2pm. FANFUCKINGTASTIC!
Jim was way too busy doing laundry to wake me up and I admit I could have slept until teatime. I was delirious the rest of the day. Although I love travelling aboot and seeing and doing so much stuff, it tires the pants off ya. Especially when you have already some flights booked elsewhere afterwards. We have to make sure we see the best bits no matter where we are otherwise we will regret it. However it is so rare and so great to be able to sit on your arse or sleep until 3 or 4 like you would do at home on a Sunday. I’d say since we have been away we have had only 4 days where we have done absolutely nothing. Every other day there is something to do or see. It can be very tiring.
However I wouldn’t swop it for the world. he he

Anywho after the mega snooze we headed back into town for a rumble around. I got my fantastic geta sandals –they are white and straw and I love them – they are worn by some monks and some geisha (but the geisha usually have way bigger heels on theirs). Then I got some funky Japanese lil bowls (for when I have my ultra cool ultra modern ultra swish house – any time in the next forty years)
We decided to go into a thai house that we spotted but boy what a waste of money. Although the food was ok, the portions were tinchy and the beer was so small for bloody 5 dollars 25 cent. Ripppppp
After this we were too pooped so we invested in some reeeediculously gorgeous hot banana and chocolate croissants – oh my god. They were so yum. We stocked up on some for the trip up to Paul tomorrow . J later we indulged in mucho low calorie grape flavoured stuff (for me as I’ve got pleasantly plump of late) and some Sapporo beer for Jimbob.

We were staying in the classily titled “Kyoto Cheapest Inn”. Oh how we envied those staying at “Hotel Rich” down the road.
I jest, the inn was great. Twas an 18 bed mixed dorm and all the little bunkbeds had their own little pully over curtain around them This was all after a monumental struggle down the road with our bags – we both swore to ditch everything once we hit Paul in Akita. . (Paul, how would you like a few sleeping bags, some peanut butter and a few Tupperware? He he)

Later we headed into town to an Italian restaurant (I had had my fill of noodles for a while) and we plodded aboot town taking some pics and geisha hunting. We headed to a narrow alley called Poncho-cho which has tons of cute Japanese restaurants and bars. Then we headed to an Irish bar for a pint. Lol.

The following morning we decided to go and check out the main man Tokogawa’s castle which was only around the corner from where we were staying. Togo built it as his gaff during the time of his ruling. He was in charge of all the provincial warlords (daimlyo) and the rest of the gang in Japan and himself and his chaps ruled for over 200 years. The castle was mighty impressive. It had a huge moat around the whole thing and some fantastic gardens inside, as well as the tatami matted floors inside the building which played host to all kinds of visiting samurai and feudal lords. It had what was called a ‘nightingale floor’ inside the building. Whenever anyone walked on the floor, it would creak and squeak which made the sound of a nightingale bird. It sounded hella cool.

Unfortunately it was absolutely pissing rain. We thought it rained in Ireland, well it doesn’t Everyone in Ireland thinks we have lots of rain. We have teardrops compared to everywhere in the southern hemisphere an that’s fo sho. So my trousers were absolutely soaked. My rain jacket protected my head somewhat but my arse and front half of my trousers were drenched. I was not really enjoying the walking around and I phoo phooed the idea of more temples in the rain. So instead we went to the Nishiki Market place, which is a long covered street selling every type of fish you can imagine, as well as sweets, herbs, vegetables, trinkets, sandals and tons more. We glowed blissfully in it’s dryness and decided to go for Nepalese for lunch. We went to the Yak & Yeti, which was yum. Lunch specials in the Yak & Yeti. Fanbloodytastic.

We continued looking around for some fancy umbrellas and sandals for me to alas, to no avail. So we decided to head home. But alas we spotted a “Happy Hour” sign in “The Hill of Tara” and so we had to stop by and test their Guinness out. So we popped back a couple then headed to look for some grub. We came across this cute little lane that seemed to lead to a restaurant, so off we went. It was a pork cooking place. There is a name for it. I think it’s Okinayarimari or it begins with O anyway. I ordered some non-pork stuff and we both chowed down on another small feast and some sake (sans orange crush). Japan is fantastic. It’s very full on though. You wouldn’t want to be old like – say if you were 27 you’d probably feel a bit old and tired, what with all the individual tv’s advertising everything.

When we got back we started to this slightly crazy slighty racist Slovakian dude who was a lil funny and a lil scary. We joined the three girls from England (spotty spice, posh spice & blonde spice) and Joseph (the Slovak) started dishing out the vodka… straight… except for I went up and got the orange crush out… lol.
We had a right ould laugh with the Slovak discussing the merits of vodka and how he hates the Italian football team, whilst drinking nice vodka.

The following morning, we stayed in bed later than planned due to vodka overdose. Eventually on the advice of the Slovakian, we decided to visit Konkuja-ji (I think) or what’s known as the golden temple. We trained it to a stop that was 25 mins from it then tried to walk the rest of the way. The heat was crazy and we stopped off at a vending machine for a tasty beverage.
The temple itself was amazing. It was all covered in gold lacquer and gold leaf and it was shiney mcshine. Brillopads. Twas marvellous. :D
After a green tea icecream we headed to the Kyoto imperial park and wandered around admiring the beautiful stuff. Then our feet were on fire from all the walking and we were sweaty betties so we had to retreat home to have a cold beer on the roof of our building as the sun set (behind tons of clouds). He he.

The next day we were due to bag up our stuff and head to Hiroshima for two days, but after much reading of the lonely planet, coupled with the fact that we couldn’t get accommodation in Hiroshima for love nor money, it was decided that we were going to stay a couple of more nights in the Cheapest Inn in Kyoto and just go to Hiroshima on a daytrip. It was a good decision as the train is much more enjoyable when you’re not carrying 20 kilos, ten of which you have yet to use.

James' Birthday.

I was awoken by someone shaking our bunkbeds… or what I thought was someone shaking our bunk beds. But it was an earthquake!  cool!!! It was a small one and nice enough yet scary enough. (I always wondered why Paul had called his first earthquake ‘cool’.
After getting up out of bed an hour earlier than planned (due to us forgetting to put back our phones), we clocked out and dumped our luggage there for a while.

The bum thing about hostels in Japan, is that a lot of them have a curfew – usually midnight or one, while all of them insist on checking in ONLY between the hours of 3pm and perhaps 8 or 9pm. This is a pain in the jiggawhats to be fair and horrible if you’ve just arrived from ze airport. But not of course if you travel with me, because I am the organizing fairy and always have these things sorted.

Anywho, I had booked a genuine old style Japanese Ryokan for Jim & me for Jim’s birthday. But check-in wasn’t until 4pm, so we had plenty of time to kill.
I first of all had to find out where the bloody place was as I can’t read Japanese and the taxi-drivers can’t read English. Luckily the girl in reception called us a taxi and the taxi driver had GPS in his car! WOOHOO. Score..

But before that anywho, we went off to take a look around Asakusa – an old Shitamachi area with lots of old style winding roads and cool temples. It used to be a halfway point between Tokyo and an infamous pleasure district called Yoshiwara . Eventually Asakusa developed into a pleasure area itself. Apparently, after the Meiji period, Asakusa was the first place that reopened cinemas, theatres and music halls. The first western Opera was performed in Asakusa and the striptease was introduced here too.

Nowadays it’s a lot quieter and all the crazy shit happens in Shinjuku.

So we wandered into an information centre where this fantastic old gentleman gave us some top notch advice with a smile. We strolled through these ginormous templey gates and found ourselves in the Ameya-yokocho Arcade – a markety type area full of stalls filled with fans, chopsticks, hello kitty stuff, Japanese sweets, bags, fortune cookies, Japanese dolls, and lots of other trinkets that I wanted! I mind-marked lots of stuff and decided to pack my empty case (after dumping all the stuff at Paul’s – he he ) with lots of stuff to take with me. Tee hee hee.

We treated ourselves to a stick of smoked rice in leaves and wandered down the markets, eyeing up kimonos and geta sandals. (me not Jim)

We walked up to see the Senso Ji Temple. It’s the main attraction of Asakusa and it’s pretty impressive. We took some pics of the five storied Pagoda beside the temple and then followed the crowd like sheep. We followed them into the temple, threw money with them, drank (you’re not supposed to swallow apparently but just rinse with it whoops) the sacred water with them and tried to waft some of the smoke from the burning incense towards us ( I can’t remember why!).

On we went then down to the river where we jumped on a waterbus and went on a guided trip down the Sumidagawa river where we saw lots of buildings that were very nice. And some bridges.. and some more boats. One looked like a rocket, it was cool.
Then we chatted to a very nice crazy Japanese woman. I reckon she seeked us out to try out her English on us. She was gas and absolutely lovely. Her husband ran away from us and her to take some pictures the minute we started talking. Well I wouldn’t call it talking. She was fond of saying “What is your favourite Japanese…. Something? I tried to tell her that we only just arrived but she was on a mission. Then she proceeded to tell us where in Europe she’d been. “Have you been to French?” etc.. it was brilliant.  When she disembarked the boat at Hanodin Pier, she waved at us for about ten minutes as she ran off down the road after her husband.  We stayed on the boat (without paying – oooohhhhhh) having a rice beer as we headed back to the riverboat station.

After collecting our bags from the hostel, we were dropped off at the Japanese Ryokan by our taxi driver with GPS. Woohoo. The ryokan looked fantastic, very old stylee. I asked James did he recognise it as to my misfortune, it had featured on the Tokyo documentary that we had seen on the airplane!! I was like.. DOH! He said that it looked familiar and remembered it from the programme. He he

We trekked in with all our stuff and were greeted by some lovely ladies in Yukata’s. (A cotton Japanese robe that is worn in the summer). They also had some cool geta sandals on and I wanted a pair (surprise surprise). They led us up to our room which had a little porchy type area with black wood, then a small bathroom and a small toilet room with a flashy toilet that could probably sing the blues if you asked it to.

I slid back our paper screen door (thankfully I had seen that episode of the Simpsons where they all went to Japan, and had seen Homer make the faux pas of walking through the screen door so I knew it was a slidy door) There was Tatami mats as the flooring and this gorgeous little very short black table in the middle of the room. There was a little teapot on the table and our lady sat us down (Jimbob nearly fell backwards) and poured us some delicious green tea. She went through some of the fire escape guidelines and then she hit the road.

I was chuffed and James seemed quite impressed so all was well. Seeing as how I had spent my birthday in the jungle and it was so amazing, I wanted to make sure Jim’s birthday was different and special too. So I phoo phood the clubbing in Tokyo option for the genuine Japanese Ryokan experience. We read all about Ryokans and decided to pop on our robes and go for a dip in the public baths upstairs. Not before we took plenty of pics of us with our geta sandals and robes on. Then off we went to the nudey baths. They are segregated by sex though so there was no boys allowed in the girly bath and vice versa. The baths were fab. The ladies one was all slate stone and the water was spilling over the edge. You had to sit down on a small wooden stool and do a scrub a dub dub first before getting in. The water was roasting though and I only lasted about 20 mins before I could barely breathe and had to jump out.
So after much mooching about our fantastic new room, off we went for our kaisekei feast which we were to have upstairs. I thought we would be in a big dining area, but we were given another whole room just to eat our dinner in. Our hostess took the cover off the 12 little bowls of stuff on our table and motioned to us how to eat and prepare the things. It looked gorgeous. All the food is meant to represent mountains, the sea and other parts of nature. There was prawns with their heads on, lots of different pieces of sushi, a giant shell with some scallop in ginger inside, rice of course, noodles that we mixed all around with some other stuff, pickles, some weird egg shaped yoke that tasted sweet (that we both avoided) and I’m sure lots of other stuff, all washed down with a beer. Yumitee yum yum.

After the feast we checked some stuff on the net for a while, then retired to our room where our futons had been laid out for us. Woohoo. Then it was birthday present time for Jim and we had some sake and beer. I’m confess to mixing my sake with orange crush because it tasted way too strong. But I have since drank it on its’ own and liked it so I reckon all is forgiven.

The next morning we had requested breakfast for 8.30 and as my alarm went off, I did not want to get up – particularly not to eat rice, pickled fish and raw eggs (as is the customary ryokan breakkie).. However in for a penny in for a pound so we dragged ourselves up and headed to the big dining area where another feast lay waiting for us.
I was tres impressed, it was delicious. The rice was warm, the egg was nicely cooked and the fish tasted like smoked salmon. It was great. )

So we bid them adieu (I wanted to rob the sandals in the gaff but no!) and mosied off on our merry way to get the SUPER DUPER FAST EXPRESS SHINKANSEN TRAIN TO KYOTO. Which was cool! The chairs were comfy, roomy and it smelt nice. woohoo...
They are nicknamed bullet trains. James was obsessed and took some photos below..

Well we arrived in Tokyo Narita airport at about 8pm. We changed our watches again and trumped off to collect our bigger than ever sacks from the baggage hallway. I had to stop and take a picture of the ‘Welcome to Japan’ sign. Then just after we both got through immigration, the dude behind the desk popped back up and asked James would he mind answering a few questions he he I started to make the ‘rubber glove’ motion and noise whilst I tittered away, but then I decided to hang with him to make sure he didn’t enjoy it too much.

Turns out the immigration dude wanted our opinion (guffaw) on the immigration policy in Ireland. Apparently the Irish Minister had been on the news spouting about immigrants, and immigration dude (no superpowers that we know of but does a great job of stapling stuff) wanted to know what we thought of it. Now as you can imagine, we were delighted to get into a chat about immigrants in Ireland and the Irish opinion of them with Immigration Dude as we try to get into his country… .lol.

We diplomatically explained in pigeon engrish, that the wave of immigrants into Ireland has happened quite fast and that it has taken Irish people, (most of whom had never seen a black person in real life in their lives) quite a while to get used to it. We also told him about our Polish population – we didn’t tell him that every second Irish bloke under thirty in Dublin now has a Polish girlfriend.
He seemed quite satisfied; we wiped the sweat from our brows and continued on down the hall, only to see some dude carting away our luggage. Arrrgh we half shouted and pointed, and he handed it over. (He worked there it wasn’t just some vagabond)

On we went. We wrestled with the Japanese ticket machine for tickets to our train from the airport. Immigration Dude appeared in his norm clothes and asked us where we wanted to go, but of course we pronounced it wrong and he was puzzled. Then we finally saw it on the map and we got some tickets. But alas, as soon as the first super-dee-duper train came along, we hopped on it. It was the wrong one. As the conductor came around, I wondered if we would get clapped up for this, but we just had to pay again and we all bowed at each other and everything was swell.

It took us about 3 and a half hours to get to our hostel in an oldish quietish part of Tokyo, called Asakusa. A very nice Iranian girl stumbled upon us on the road and took us all the way to our hostel (as we could not make head nor tail of where we were)! Only for her, we would have been hiking off in the opposite direction and I was not in the greatest of moods. My pack has become so heavy with unuseful stuff! I am looking forward to donating some stuff to Paul.

So we dumped our stuff in the tinchiest of ‘twin rooms’ – just space for a set of bunk beds and that was it. The room also had gaps between all the rooms, so you could hear what everyone was saying in the rooms next to us. Tee hee hee

We wandered back out into the Tokyo night and wandered into this shokudo. – a small Japanese restaurant easily identified by the plastic menus with pictures outside. We pointed at some noodley looking dishes and within a couple of minutes, we were having some noodles & beer at about 2am. I said it was James’ birthday breakfast.