Belated pics from Japan

Here we are, the long awaited photos from Japan. I have finally found a good photo hosting website! Some are nice, some are...poignant...but all of them are a bit Japanese.

Enjoy:

Can't seem to shake the jetlag...

I thought jetlag? Pffft.

But it turns out jetlag is a more formidable foe than I'd prepared for. I'm trying to live in British time now, but my body is still running on Japanese time. Result = about five hours sleep in nearly three days now.

The Tokyo airport was nice. The most lovely, helpful and smiley customs and passport officials I've ever encountered. But I've come to expect nothing less from the Japanese. We even got 4000 Yen in food and drink coupons for no reason. Score. So we went to have a breakfast BANQUET. I ordered a burger explosion...

I feel I should explain. We have been encountering burger explosions in most Japanese restaurants all week. I vowed that I would order one at some point but I'd been building up the courage all week. They're not for the faint hearted. It's basically a mound of fried rice with vegetables and chunks of mystery-meat, then egg splattered all over the mound and slightly cooked (so it actually looks like a mound of egg til you cut into it.) Then a beefburger on top of the eggy rice mountain, then brown (curry?) sauce chucked all over it. It's undeniably an explosion of foods that should never be mixed.

Shahreena had pancakes and fried shrimp and we also had potato wedges with awful chicken. All that and it only came to 3000 Yen!!! So we spent the other coupon on a crepe and drinks. A free breakfast banquet! Thanks Japan!

So were were chilling, thinking we were really good at airports and it got to the time we were supposed to be at the gate and we realised we hadn't even gone through customs and passport control yet! So we dashed only to find our flight had been postponed for half an hour. But all in all, a good airport experience, which is great seeing as we'll be spending a lot of time in airports over the next few months.

It's nice to be back in my familiar bed and have the option to eat fruit whenever I want, but I'm having Japan withdrawal. I miss photobooths, obviously. And the noise of Japanese shop assistants shouting words to no one in particular. And the loveliness of everyone you meet.

But still, it was short, but ever so sweet. Next time: Kyoto!

How to fit in in Tokyo.

We observed many things in Japan over the last week. If you wanted to merge into Tokyo society like a cultural chameleon, here would be my top 3 tips:

1) If you don't know what the hell it is, you're probably supposed to eat it.

2) If you're aged between 14 and 21 and female, you're expected to dress like a slightly schizophrenic french maid at the weekends. If you're aged between 14 and 21 and male, you're expected to do your best to look gender-ly ambiguous at all times.

3) If you don't know what someone is saying to you, shout "Hai!" and do a little curtsy. It always works.

Cosplayer deficiency

There were flocks of people on the train to Harajuku today so we thought they must all be going to see the cosplay-zoku as we were. Following the crowds out of the station we ended up at a inter-school volleyball tournament....

When we got to the Jingu Bashi (the bridge where the Harajuku girls and cosplayers congregate) we were slightly disappointed. It was empty...
So we decided we were too early and we should go kill time and come back later. So we went down Takeshita Street, basically a Japanese (and bigger) version of Camden town.　One of the first shops we came across had some pictures of photobooths on some stairs leading to a basement level. Expecting an arcade we went downstairs to find heaven. A whole room full of different photobooths. A photobooth shop. After nearly falling to our knees in joy, we took some photos. Glittery ones!

Then we went shopping in the various stalls and small shops. Picked up some stuff (which was no mean feat considering Japanese teenagers shop like their lives depend on it) and decided to go back to the Jingu Bashi hoping the cosplayers were out. Sadly they were not. Well one was...

He was a lanky, possibly German boy standing on his own wearing really baggy clothes. His costume was a pair of furry ears. He looked quite lonely and he had an...endearing quality. But he was still a massive disappointment to us. He was hardly the crowds of Cosplay-zoku we were promised!

We decided we might still be too early so we decided to go shopping down the Omotesandō where all the designer shops are. Well window shopping. But we found Topman, Zara and the biggest H&M ever. But big-shop clothes are a bit rubbish here. Really plain. SO we went back to the Jingu Bashi and STILL NO COSPLAYERS! Well, lonely ear boy still hadn't moved. So we pitied him for a few minutes and then decided to satisfy our manga and book craving. We followed the guide to a shopping centre which supposedly sold books and guess what we found? Loads and loads of Harajuku girls!!! Sweet and Gothic lolita!! All dressed in huge victorian style, lolita dresses, carying parasols and wearing tiny top hats. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside the shopping mall but at least we found them! Yatah!

The bookshop had no english books so we hopped on the subway to Shibuya to a famous book manga chain called Madarake. Surprisingly, we found it rather easily using our guide book map! It was huge but stocked no english books manga! So we followed the guide's advice and got the metro to Shinjuku to an even bigger book shop. With a whole english foreign books floor! And (shockingly) we found it rather easily once again, just following the maps! We went a bit mental and spent about 6,000 Yen each on books. I bought a whole 6 book Manga series...

We were so knackered we decided we couldn't be bothered to go up Tokyo tower and decided just to go back to the hotel. It was a bit misty and we wouldn't be able to see much from it anyway. And we gotta save something for the next time we come ;)

A series of unfortunate events.

We got up bright and early to get into downtown Tokyo and be ready outside the Sony building for 11am when it opened.

Coming out of the tube stop we attempted to read a map. Well, it was either left or right. We chose to go left, of course the correct direction was right. So we trundled along through glittery Ginza for a while, watching the posh women wearing full Kimono's to go shopping at Gucci and YSL. We walked for quite a while and ended up in the fish district...

We realised that of course we had read the map wrong and set off in the right direction. After walking for what seemed like too long, we pondered over a street map for quite a while before realizing we were standing next to the Sony building LOL.

We waited outside for 10 minutes or so waiting for it to open so we could rush in and try all the exclusive playstation stuff. There was a wedding going on inside while we were waiting. Strange place for a wedding we thought. Well, nothing says 'I love you' like state of the art electrical goods.

We got inside and couldn't find the interactive playstation stuff so Shahreena asked at the information desk. Turns out the playstation display isn't open at the weekends!!! AND IS IN ANOTHER FLIPPING BUILDING! IN ANOTHER FLIPPING DISTRICT!!!

So we went to starbucks to lament. (Starbucks is our god while we're here, cos whilest I hate the corporate-ness of it in England, the fact that coffee can banish Jetlag and sleepless nights in one lovely cup is priceless.) We thought, all is not lost, we are pretty near the godzilla statue, that'll be cool and cheer us up from our Sony tragedy. How wrong we were.

We thought we had finally found the "Godzilla statue". Well, it wasn't exactly as we had expected. It was a 10ft metal cone. With some spikes coming out of it. And a clock on the top. Which said "tard" across it. We were most disappointed.
(In reality, it turns out that that wasn't the godzilla statue. We were a few blocks away from the real godzilla statue, which is a puny 3ft replica of Godzilla. I dunno which statue would have been more disappointing...)

We were now lamenting both Sony and Godzilla and knew only one thing could cheer us up. Photobooths! We found some in a nearby arcade thank god. Then played Tekken 6 for a while. It's so good.

From there, we decided we needed to have some thrills and so we set off to a themepark in north Tokyo. Our mapreading skills told us there were two equidistant metro-stops near it. We chose the one which in reality is about 2 miles away. And I really needed the loo. Luckily on the way we came across a shopping mall (which are simply everywhere) and we both ran to the toilet. We decided to get some lunch in a japanese Italian place. Shahreena got Cheezu pizza which tasted like infection apparently. Oh dear.

We we finally got to the themepark and on the way in came across some photobooths. We couldn't resist. An there was also a Shonen Jump SHOP! WOW!!

The themepark was amazing. We went on the flume first. This is where we fell in love. With a group of big American kids and their mum. Who was called momma. We had some serious laughing fits eavesdropping on their pearls of wisdom. You see we learnt that, "if you have it, you should give it. Cos then you'll get it and when you get it, you'll have it..."

We stayed there til it was dark. Mega fun times!

Now we're off to Harajuku to play papparazzi to the cosplay-zoku. Don't wait up!

Shahreena's Super Powers

Well it appears that the goddess Kannon is the real deal cos she's granted Shahreena those superpowers she wished for.

Turns out she has the power to repel Japanese people...

When she stands next to them, often they move away or put masks on LOL. One woman even put a mask on her child, then herself,　then grabbed her child and legged it!

And at the Benzaiten shrine, Shaggie had an empty can, and there were no bins. Then we saw people giving cans to an old lady who ran a shop there and she took them with a smile and put them in a bin she had in her shop. When it finally came round to Shahreena's turn the woman was like "NO TRASH!!!" and wouldn't take it. It was too funny.

So be careful what you wish for, kids.

Day by the sea

We decided to get out of the hustle and bustle and travelled on the train to the lovely coastal town of Kamakura.

Shahreena was in charge of the train journey. Bad times;

The station next to our hotel is Shinagawa. She had us travel to the huge Tokyo main station, and then we get lost around there for about half an hour. Then we got the train overland from Tokyo main station to Kamakura. About 40 minutes into the journey, the train stopped at Shinagawa...damn.

But Kamakura was loveeeely. We first went to the Hasedera shrine. The shrine of Kannon, goddess of Mercy. It was beautiful and very Zen. The main attraction is a 30ft statue of Kannon. Which was pretty impressive! So impressive it inspired me to buy and light a prayer candle. I bought one which will "bring a wonderful person to me". We also bought a tiny statue of statue of a minor goddess which you write your name on the back and leave in this creepy cave. She will bring us "dedication". Then outside we each bought a prayer board which you write your wishes on and hang on a huge wall. I wished for "success and happiness for me and my loved ones" whilst Shahreena wished for "super powers"...

So I think I got it covered, love life, dedication, success and happiness. If this Kannon is the real deal and she answers my prayers, life is about to get pretty sweet!

Then we went to the shrine of the Daibutsu which is basically a 43ft statue of the great Buddha. Which was extremely impressive. We even paid ￥20 to have a little peek inside it.

We wanted to end with the Zeniarai Benten Shrine. Following the map (which as we've established, doesn't bode well for us) we set off. We came up to some steps, then more steps, then some more. Soon we had been climbing a MOUNTAIN'S worth of steps and the build up of lactic acid in our legs was near fatal level. When we reached the top, a man told us we had gone the wrong way and we needed to turn back and go up some MORE STEPS. So we had a breather, then did as he directed. The route he pointed us along, turned out to be a flipping two hour jungle trek! It was like actually like hardcore mountaineering. When we finally got back to civilisation, it turned out we were just down the road from the Daibutsu. OH DEAR.

Anyway, the Zeniarai Benten Shrine was very picturesque. There's a story that Minamoto no Yoritomo recieved divine intervention to build a shrine there on the holy waters. So people still flock there to wash their money in the magic waters. I washed some coins with which we would buy some more photos at a photo booth later...

After Kamakura, we got back to the hotel pooped and decided to stay in and go to the hotel cinema. We watched 7 pounds and it was brilliant but pretty sad. We had to go back to the room and read some Manga to cheer up before bed...

An undersirable side effect of being in Tokyo is the development of "Japanese tourettes". I find myself unwillingly shouting things, such as the names of tube stations and the word for "thanks very much".

IDATAKIMASU!

GOZAI MASU!

MEGUROOOOO!

Serious Photo-booth Obsession

We have just used one of those amazing Japanese photobooths, for what must be the seventh or eighth time this trip...

They seem to airbrush your photo's in the 20 seconds they take to print!

We keep justifying it to ourselves. That we'll have use for reams and reams of stickers when we get back to England, we can put them in scrap books and give them out as gifts....

But I'm starting to fear our usage of these booths may be bordering on irrational now...

:S

Central Tokyo

Today we decided to finally venture to downtown Tokyo. We had plenty planned but our tremendous map-reading skills threw a spanner in the works. When we finally made our way to the East Imperial Gardens, we couldn't be bothered to sight see around central Tokyo anymore so we hopped on the tube to Ueno to do a spot of shopping. In the station we happened across a Japanese Hard Rock Cafe and of course we had to go in. So we ate a burger, sitting under Madonna's bra and Geri Halliwell's swimming costume.

In Ueno we were stopped by a guy who thought he could speak good English but we couldn't understand a word. He seemed to be trying to get our money for something because being tourists, we　must be rich and looking to throw away our money. We gave him an excuse and smiled and when he looked away we legged it.

Carrying Shahreena's massive digital SLR camera around all day, every day has given us bruises, so I bought a cheap shoulder bag (to put the camera in) and customised it with Hard Rock badges and now it looks designer. Win!

We're gonna lounge around the hotel complex tonight since we've got a longish train journey to Kamakura tomorrow. Maybe we'll do some bowling or go to the aquarium. (Yes, the hotel has a cinema, bowling alley and aquarium amongst other things.)

Oh and we finally found a place selling English manga today so we're pretty happy with life.

GHIBLI MUSEUM!

Day three in Tokyo.

We grabbed a quick bite for breakfast from a Maccy D's near our hotel on the way to the train station. MISTAKE! I got a shaka shaka chicken. Which is a chicken fillet (yum) with a packet of mysterious powder. I assumed the powder was to go on the chicken, which is was, unfortunately it was the most pungent spicy garlic powder you can imagine. It made me feel ill and my fingers smelt like a sewer most of the day! What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger (and stinkier) I suppose :(

We were especially excited on our way to Mitaka because we were going to the Studio Ghibli museum! (the best maker of anime films) We aimed to get there for 10am when it opened like excited kiddies, but being severely jetlagged teenagers, we slept through our alarm and got to the museum at 12:30...

Even though the policy is; you have to buy your tickets 3 months in advance to help the museum stay "crowd free" it was most definately not "crowd free"...but it was amazing. Very amazing. And we got actual bits of film from the original movies in our tickets! Yatah!

We then tried to get to Inokashira Park in Kichi-Joji, supposedly nearby and very picturesque. If this trip has taught us anything, it's that we have serious map-reading issues. My duke of Edinburgh Bronze awarding is proving to be WORTHLESS! So we stopped to ask some Japanese women, forgetting that most Japanese people speak excellent english. We gestured and mimed that we wanted to get to Inokashira park and she politely gave us directions, told us about nearby interesting sightseeing opportunities and offered to show us around. Embarassing.

The park and Kichi-Joji proved to be as lovely as expected. We walked around the shrines, then rode a bright pink, pimped out pedal boat around the small lake for a while. It was lush :)

In the evening we went over to Shinjuku, the home to Tokyo's thriving red-light district as well as many famous shopping centres. We were searching fervently for one of the best Ramen shops in Japan following the guidebook. As you already know, our mapreading skills leave a lot to be desired, needless to say, we never found the Ramen shop. We read the map logically, placing ourselves using landmarks and bearings and if there was any sense to it, we would have ended up exactly where we wanted to be. Except we seem to end up anywhere but where we want to be. This leads us to believe it's the maps we're using that are wrong. All of them...

We ended up eating at a little empty Chinese restaurant, down some stairs in a side street. The man who ran it looked a bit like a Yakuza. I ordered spicy pork noodles except instead of chunks of pork in my bowl, there were chunks of tofu with slime all over them and they tasted like fish. Shahreena got chicken noodles which was noodles in water with near-raw chicken strips on top. It was accompanied with fried rice that tasted like cake and brown water that tasted like rice whiskey...
The portions were a bit massive and the noodles might as well have been served in a bucket instead of a bowl. So we forced down as much as we could then paid and legged it...

We got back to the hotel about 8pm and decided to watch a movie in the hotel cinema. We watched the Dragonball movie. If you were thinking to, don't. They haven't invented a word to describe it's cheesiness.

Well, we're off to the central disctict to see a statue of Godzilla now. Bye!

Sensory Overload

So now that we're absolute pro's at riding the subway, Tokyo is our Oyster. Yesterday we started by travelling to North Tokyo to the Ueno district. We had a nice stroll in the big park, looked at some shrines, sadly the cherry blossoms aren't fully out yet.

Then, after we'd had enough culture, we went to the ZOO! It was amazing becuase you could see all the animals. Mostly because their enclosures were very small. So we marvelled at the animals whilst secretly wishing we could set them all free.

Then we travelled (on the subway, easily) to Akihabara, electric town! It's a distict famed for electrical goods, manga and computer games. There were a lot of flashing lights and neon signs, I nearly developed epilepsy walking down the street. We went to a few arcades and mixed amongst all the teenage boys who flock here after school finishes. We played some Tekken 6 and then a shooting game based on RAMBO (oh yes) and got some photo's done in a high tech sticker booth, (which thankfully airbrushes the jetlag out of your pictures and makes you look amazing.)

After our senses were so overloaded we could barely function, we headed over to Odaiba to spend the evening. It's a man made island built from refuse (but not in a gross way) so it's kinda like the seaside. We were intending to wind down with a beach side stroll or something but we happened upon the SEGA JOYPOLIS!!! Tokyo's number 1 indoor themepark! (Recommeneded by both Leonardo DiCaprio and Freddie Pr. Junior! wow)

So we spent a few hours at the Joypolis, developing arthritis from the jerky rollercoasters and playing Virtual Reality zombie shooting games. We also went in the fortune forest which tells your future. It told us that Shahreena is a "weird man who creates awkward situations with her loudness"...so it was a pretty accurate machine.

On the way home we couldn't resist riding the Guiness World Record's Tallest Ferris wheel in the world (in 1999...)

Japan is cool beans!

KONICHIWA

So this is Tokyo huh?

We've officially made it to Japanese soils, how exciting! I'm in a Japanese internet cafe in Shibuya as I write this, an experience in itself. It looks rather dodgy from the outside, lot's of neon signs and a tiny door and stairwell to get in, but it's really nice in here. We're in a cubicle on the 5th floor, you sit on the floor on beanbags under neon lights to type, it looks like the set of a low budget sci fi movie. We each paid for an hour but Shahreena has decided instead to sneak into my cubicle and fall asleep on the floor. We're pretty jetlagged you see, only 3 hours sleep in nearly 3 days.

I've learnt plenty of life lessons on the way here, I am now a worldly wise man;

#1 Everyone from Helsinki is an Indie Rocker. And they all know each other.

#2 A 13 hour flight is severe punishment for your bum. It still aches now.

#3 Although our hotel is huge and very posh, there are too many Japanese business men and suspicious women dressed as Geisha's walking around. It is quite possibly a brothel.

#4 Japanese women are adorable and just seem so happy to be alive. Even the ones working at McDonald's will smile and bow at you when you order some chips.

#5 In Japan, if you have a cold it is common courtesy to wear a face mask to avoid spreading the germs. I keep worrying that there has been huge outbreak of an airborne disease.

#6 Every sign, no matter the importance or seriousness, must be accompanied by a cute cartoon animal of sorts. This seems to be law.


I'm tired now. It's about 11pm here so we had better be getting back to the train station for more misunderstanding fun! (Long story short, on the way here, we bought random tickets for the train by attacking a machine which supposedly spoke ''English", rode around on trains for about 40 minutes trying to work out where we were, only to end up at the original station we started at. Where a lovely woman at the information desk shouted "HAI!" at us and reimbursed us all our money so we could start from square one.)

SAYONARA!

Not long now!

As of today I am completely rabies-proof!

And I have 51,000 Yen!

And a BLUE suitcase, packed largely with new clothes!

You see, unemployment was almost too nice to begin with, but now I'm sooooo ready to go. There's only so much daytime TV I can watch. And with so much time on my hands I find myself doing a lot of (photoshop assisted) daydreaming...

Five more sleeps til Japan!

:D