Japan - Tokyo

Jenni was a little nervous on the flight after the last time, but there were no scary times to talk of – apart from getting most of the way through the new star trek film before they switched it off before landing!

No health screening any more thorough than any other place in Asia, nor any great difficulties getting through immigration or customs. Which was nice as I felt a cold coming on!

Contrary to popular belief on some websites and at Shanghai airport, you cannot get a JR railpass once you are in Japan. They will only accept the voucher bought in your own country. Ah well, we just thought we'd use cheaper options starting with the Kesei line from Narita airport. A lady came and told us what the announcement said in case we didn't understand, and another old lady asked if we needed help at another station. So friendly!

It didn't help at all that the hotel gave us no directions! So I headed for Soka, assured it was close to Asakusa. As £30 in a taxi later from Asakusa says, it was not that close. Although taxis in Japan are EXPENSIVE!

Dormy in Yatsuka was an interesting little place. The hotel had semi double rooms which meant the beds were about a large single size. Snuggly! The bathrooms were like the inside of portakabin bathrooms, all plastic and the likes, but powerful, hot water and a toilet seat with built in bum-washers! Yes! Next up was it's location. Yatsuka was definitely in the suburbs, only about 25 minutes from the centre, but far enough out to be quiet and peaceful. We liked it. When we tried, and failed, to use the internet in our room they moved us straight away to another room where it worked, no problems! Still the same size though!

First night was just finding the place, my cold had degenerated and was slowly making it's way over to Jenni too! I couldn't breathe, didn't sleep very well and kept Jenni awake too. Oops. So we got up late and headed to Asakusa. Not researched much of Japan, so just winging it really, we headed down the back streets out of the station and checked out the old town. We happened across the famous Karimarron gate (or whatever it's called) and the sensoji temple. It was nice enough, plenty of girls in full kimono get up as well. We just wandered for a bit and retired back to the hotel, stopping for supplies on the way. Eating out is also expensive in japan. It's fun to go shopping in Japan. The store assistants can see that you cannot (probably) speak Japanese, yet they babble on at you. They are so polite though.

Next day Jenni was sicker than me! So again we spent the morning recuperating and headed out to Ueno on the train. There was a nice park there, so we wandered. Saw a beautiful cat, and a lady was clearing it's eyes and other people were gently fussing it and it was so contented. A pleasant change! There were street entertainers, the temperature was mild enough to be bearable (much cooler than Osaka in August in my experience) and we had a nice stroll. Went over to the lilypad lake, wandered around another one near the zoo and headed back to the streets.

We found a TGI Fridays – not very adventurous, but it wasn't KFC or McDonalds so we opted to go in with our ¥500 discount voucher! The food was delicious, really good, and the refillable drinks were refilled in 15 seconds and 3 minutes after putting the glass down! Pricey, but worth it. We sat and watched Tokyo go by, all the different fashions, the pretty girls, the geishas and so on.

Following that we wernt to Yodobashi Camera, my favourite store of gadgetry heaven! Couldn't buy a sim card though! Looks like you need a japanese phone and contract before they give you a sim card. Weird.

We got our things next morning and headed for Mount Fuji. I read on the website that you could take a bus, so we did that at less than half the price of the train and to be honest a similar if not quicker journey.

Things of note so far in Japan:

Queueing politely, and in a single file for trains.

People randomly helping us

Kindness to animals

Politeness

People stopping in the street to let you pass.

The kids are cute

People have so many varied styles

Cars letting pedestrians out and not trying to mow you down.

Yammering at you, even though you don't understand

The toilet seats!

The weight of oppression has lifted!