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.

Posted by Justin

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.

Posted by Justin

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!

Today was a very stressful one requiring much patience to get through! we got up very late and didn’t get out till about 3 as were having to get this site up to date!!

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

Posted 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.