Japan - Tokyo

Arrived in Tokyo after a lovely flight on Cathay Pacific. Had written some brief notes on how to get to the hotel but we weren't expecting the sheer complexity of the railway station at the airport. Some signs were in English, most were Japanese which means you can't even have a guess at what it says. It also doesn't help that there were three rail companies all travelling different routes. The underground and overground rail system for Tokyo is immense and completely dwarfs the London Underground for number of lines and stations. We finally picked a company and managed to get a ticket to Shimagawa Station very close to the hotel where we are staying. The journey was quick and very punctual after we had worked out which numbers on the ticket were the carriage number and which were the seat numbers.

Anyway we arrived at the station and were pretty suprised at the number of people everywhere. It really seems to be constantly busy. We managed to find the hotel after a few false starts (including ending up on the fourth floor of the wrong hotel, unable to find a way out). We got offered an upgrade to one of the sister hotels across the road which was great, the room is fantastic and the hotel is really nice.

Next stop we met up with Chris (Lee's friend since junior school) and went out for a great JApanese meal. Chris having been here for two years was ordering in Japanese and translating the menu for us like a pro. The restaurant was great with very low tables with a hollow space underneath to put your legs, also you had to take your shoes off. The selection of food was great and Vicky found one dish really to her taste. She thought it was a really tasty beef but it turned out to be the horse steak!! It was gorgeous. Next day we visited the shopping districts, a temple to see some of the old fashioned Japan, and some more great Japanese restaurants. Yoko and Chris also kindly took us out on the night to a Karoke place in Roppongi, where we hired a room and had a really fun couple of hours singing (more like screaming or shouting in some cases). We finished off with a visit to an English style pub and watched England beat Australia (Oh why couldn't we still be in Australia or New Zealand for those rugby results!!)

Today, nursing some pretty significant hangovers, Chris took us to Kamakura where we visited more temples and went to the beach and watched the hundreds of surfers and windsurfers. The streets and trains were absolutely jammed with people, although everyone has been very friendly, everything is really clean and tidy, everyone seems to be very polite and it feels an extremely safe city, even late at night. Pictured are Chris and Yoko.