It took us close to 6 hours to get back to Tokyo because we had a stop over at Osaka for about 45 mins. By now we were quite good at using the train systems, maps, and finding our way to our hostels. So we checked into our hostel as soon as we could, and headed out to a local sushi train for dinner. It was quite late by the time we got settled in so a lot of shops were shut, but we still wandered the streets for a while exploring the area as best we could.
Our hostel, The Tokyo Smile, had a bar....you can imagine how happy this made us! And better still, upon showing our receipt, we each had a free drink for every night we were checked in. This included cocktails. The only way to order drinks was to pay $10 and get a ticket with vouchers for 3 drinks. So we did that, and became aquianted with some Sake cocktails. Some were bad..but there was one in particular which was very very good! The Samurai Rock = sake plus lemon and lime juice, ice. Mmmmm.
The next morning we dragged ourselves out to do some shopping at Electric City. Ize felt like a kid in a toy shop...Kez felt like she was walking an excited puppy on a leash that just wanted to stop every 2 seconds and explore. But despite different shopping interests, we got some great things and pressies for friends too. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped off at Akiabara for some last minute market shopping. Mmm cheap markets.
After arriving back home totally buggered from walking around for 10 hours, we took a pit stop at the hostel bar where we proceeded to buy round after round of sake and other assorted cocktails. Could you blame us? We just wanted a cold drink and to rest our feet...but...needless to say, we ended up quite hammered. And needless to say...feeling very sorry for ourselves the next day. Don't you love that dry mouth and "oh god the room is pulsing in and out" feeling?
Being out last day in Japan, we had to check out at 10am. Our flight wasn't until about 10:30pm however..so we pulled ourselves together, forgot our thongs that were parked outside the door, and floated somehow to the train station. We went to Tokyo Central station, and walked around the whole bloody thing for ages before we found some lockers that would fit our corpse-sized bags. With our stuff safely stored, we jumped on another train and headed out to Shinjuku.
Shinjuko is meant to be one of the great 'meccas' of Japan. It was very modern, tons of restaurants, department stores, and also home to the biggest english-section-in-a-book-store book shop in Japan. We explored high rise laden streets, an arcade or three, a good place for lunch, and a pet store which was so inhuman we wanted to cry but were comforted by the fact there was a cute monkey that did somersaults continuously in a cage in a window.
We got caught in a sudden down pour on the way back to the station and got totally soaked..so we arrived at the airport all wet and sticky. We got changed, checked our stuff in, and enjoyed some duty free shopping.
We felt a big loss when we boarded our last flight...our trip is over and we were no way near done yet. So look out planet, we will be back, again and again, until we have terrorized all of you!
Maw haw haw haw haw!!
Our hostel, The Tokyo Smile, had a bar....you can imagine how happy this made us! And better still, upon showing our receipt, we each had a free drink for every night we were checked in. This included cocktails. The only way to order drinks was to pay $10 and get a ticket with vouchers for 3 drinks. So we did that, and became aquianted with some Sake cocktails. Some were bad..but there was one in particular which was very very good! The Samurai Rock = sake plus lemon and lime juice, ice. Mmmmm.
The next morning we dragged ourselves out to do some shopping at Electric City. Ize felt like a kid in a toy shop...Kez felt like she was walking an excited puppy on a leash that just wanted to stop every 2 seconds and explore. But despite different shopping interests, we got some great things and pressies for friends too. On the way back to the hostel, we stopped off at Akiabara for some last minute market shopping. Mmm cheap markets.
After arriving back home totally buggered from walking around for 10 hours, we took a pit stop at the hostel bar where we proceeded to buy round after round of sake and other assorted cocktails. Could you blame us? We just wanted a cold drink and to rest our feet...but...needless to say, we ended up quite hammered. And needless to say...feeling very sorry for ourselves the next day. Don't you love that dry mouth and "oh god the room is pulsing in and out" feeling?
Being out last day in Japan, we had to check out at 10am. Our flight wasn't until about 10:30pm however..so we pulled ourselves together, forgot our thongs that were parked outside the door, and floated somehow to the train station. We went to Tokyo Central station, and walked around the whole bloody thing for ages before we found some lockers that would fit our corpse-sized bags. With our stuff safely stored, we jumped on another train and headed out to Shinjuku.
Shinjuko is meant to be one of the great 'meccas' of Japan. It was very modern, tons of restaurants, department stores, and also home to the biggest english-section-in-a-book-store book shop in Japan. We explored high rise laden streets, an arcade or three, a good place for lunch, and a pet store which was so inhuman we wanted to cry but were comforted by the fact there was a cute monkey that did somersaults continuously in a cage in a window.
We got caught in a sudden down pour on the way back to the station and got totally soaked..so we arrived at the airport all wet and sticky. We got changed, checked our stuff in, and enjoyed some duty free shopping.
We felt a big loss when we boarded our last flight...our trip is over and we were no way near done yet. So look out planet, we will be back, again and again, until we have terrorized all of you!
Maw haw haw haw haw!!
1. This is our tiny double room!
