Posted by Justin

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….

Posted by Justin

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!!!

Posted by Justin

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.

Posted by Justin

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

Posted by Justin

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.