First impressions
March 30th, 2004Posted by Justin
DAY 0 (PLANE) and DAY 1(IBARIKI)
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.