First couple of days

Right, this is it - the blog. Getting used to it all and just set it up on a japanese computer, so not quite sure on what my password was... bit confused, never mind.

Wow, it's all been a bit crazy... first of all thank you so much for coming to the airport to see us off - loved it - got sad, got happy, got sad, got happy, got sad - hey do you see a pattern emerging here? Totally appreciate also the huge effort it must have taken little Bean to haul herself across London to the airport, it's not easy travelling on such little feet...

The flight itself was cool - nothing major and I thought it went by really quickly. Kept having to pinch myself to make sure it was really happening now! Wow!

Once we arrived in Tokyo though, we were pretty knackered, but managed to grab our bags pretty quick and made it through customs only to falter at the first hurdle out the door - do we go left or right? It was a bit confusing but after asking a couple of people we realised that we actually had to go downstairs - AAAHHHH!

So we did.

And found a Starbucks.

So we had a coffee.

By that time we were pretty tired and ready for bed but no such luck! We had to haul our butts and rucksacks to our hotel in a journey that involved a train, two tube changes and a walk. Phil's tube ticket got swallowed by the machine as we tried to get through the gate and I had to call a man via the intercom at the station to get it back out. I don' think he was very impressed... he was polite about it though...

So we made it to Hotel Sakura. It's a neat little place in Jimbocho, the old book district, and our room is on the 5th floor. It's a lovely little backpacker style place with a cafe and we share the showers and loos with others on our floor. Everyone is very friendly -

We went on a little wander on the Monday after a nap - we really didn:t want to get up - but then didn't regret it - as we found the Tokyo Dome on our doorstep. That's where major sporting events and concerts are held and they have a permanent theme park around it with lots of restaurants. Phil went on the Thunder Dolphin - a rollercoaster that kind of curves through the buildings and has a near vertical drop at the beginning.

Must confess that I didn't feel up to it ... so I watched him. We then saw a random light and water show which was pretty - it's basically water jets in time to music - bit like fireworks only wetter I guess. Then on to some dinner and back to the hostel to sleep.

Tuesday:

Went to a park in Ueno today - really pretty and hired a boat and went for a row. I'm obviously brilliant at rowing - heheheh - not. We ended up paddling in circles for a while until I realised that my right arm is stronger than the left and therefore would row in circle until eternity... or until my left arm caught up. We also went to the 'Electric Town' where there are lots of shops selling Games and DVDs and cameras etc. but we reckon we'll get a better bargain in Hong Kong, where we'll grab a little camera so we can start to add pics to this blog.

What else did we do? We walked around loads and saw a number of temples along the way and watched students do paintings of these. It's very near to Tokyo University which also has the Tokyo School of Art and Tokyo School of Music departments, so there is a very studenty feel to the area with people performing and drawing at almost every corner. It was really nice to have a look around.

At one of the main temples, Phil also drew his fortune - it works like a lottery thing - but his predictions weren't too good (one of them was he was going to meet the man of his dreams or something which I wasn't too keen on) so we tied them to the temple and prayed for good luck instead. :-)

Wednesday:

Today we went to Nikko, a town north of Tokyo, famous for it's shrines. It's set in the Nikko National Park and is a very beautiful area. A long time ago, there was a famous samurai warrior who set out to conquer and rule the whole of Japan and in the process killed his own wife and son (charming) because it made sense politically. I somehow can't see Tony Blair do that to Cherie... anyway, he didn't quite make it but his clan was still really powerful.

After he died, his grandson thought that his grave wasn't grand enough so he got all these people to build these massive shrines in his memory and had them gold leaf-ed and elaborately carved. It's really impressive with massive stone lanterns and a sacred horse, which was a gift from New Zealand.

Yes, a sacred horse. He's at the temple a couple of hours a day and then goes to another stable. His stable is the only unlacquered structure in the compound and is protected by carved monkeys. There are also warehouses with carved elephants - ie. elephants of the imagination - because they were carved from descriptions as there are no elephants in Japan usually...

And of course the carved sleeping cat - it's the most famous carving because it's meant to be so lifelike - it's tiny and very cute but not really life like... the other famous thing there is the roaring dragon temple - where a massive dragon is painted on the ceiling and one of the monks there bangs two sticks of wood together. The acoustics there mean that it sounds like the dragon is roaring. I think it sounded like a bell ringing. Phil thought it sounded like two stick of wood clapped together.

We then started our way back, as it was late. We weren't lucky with the weather - it was pouring the whole day ... and by the end of it we were so tired... we took the train back and got to Tokyo quite late in the evening. We had a beer in a tiny Japanese style pub and some food and then made our way back home for some rest.