Our last nights in Tokyo, and Japan

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!!

1. This is our tiny double room!

Fukuoka

After visiting Nara on our last day in Kyoto, we packed up our toys and left for Fukuoka. Fukuoka was about 3 or so hours on the train, heading down to the bottom part of Japan. We found our hostel easily from the train station and set up camp.

We headed down to the local 7-11 and bought cocktails in a can (we got a Fuzzy Navel, a 'Tequila Cocktail", beer, and wine) and proceed to relax on the roof of our hostel. There we met an Aussie guy, Michael, who we caught up with again the following night..but more on that later.

During our first and only day in Fukuoka, we took a walk down to a temple which had the oldest Zen Garden in Japan. Unfortunately it was closed to the public, but we wondered around the surrounding garden anyway. We ran into Michael here as he had come to see the garden too.

We then marched further down towards the city center, and stopped of in a place called Canal City. Basically this is a very large grouping of indoor shopping complexes, built around some man-made canals (similar to Amsterdam). We snooped around the shops for a while, stopped off at a sushi train, a games parlor (like Timezone), and snagged some cheap clothes. On our way out we were treated to some Asian rappers performing in the main center area. That was interesting! There was a guy mixing the tunes on a table, who also seemed to have controls to a massive fountain behind him, and could make the water spurt up and dance with the music. Two female rappers did their thing, which we found a bit amusing/different, but the crowd seemed to love it.

We pushed on towards the city center and found that Fukuoka is a very modern and new city. Lots of sky scrappers and department stores. Quite a nice place really. We spent ages looking for 'Robot Square' which was marked on our map and supposed to be full of little robots to look at and new technologies to marvel at..however we got very hot and bothered looking for this bloody place, and in our frustration we stormed over to the nearest Irish pub to chill out and gather ourselves....only to find they served nothing but beer until 4pm. A serious problem!

Anyway, we survived the appalling lack of drink options, and ventured out into the building were Robot Square was supposed to be. After asking a very nice help desk lady, we were told that Robot Square had shut down and moved to a whole different suburb..one that was way to far away to walk to. Ahhh!

Even more hot and bothered we decided to walk back to our hostel, picking up more canned booze on the way, to relax. Again we met up with Michael, but this time we made acquaintances with 2 Scottish blokes, and an Irish who could speak and read Japanese. As it was the 1st September, there was a massive fireworks display over the water nearby..so we all decided to venture out and have a look. We were treated to a massive crowd, many females in Kimono's, and a full hour of amazing fireworks. As the Japanese love everything to be cute, there were even fireworks that formed love hearts and smiley faces! Very cute.

Afterwards we decided we were starving and in much need of Booze, so we walked around for a while until we found somewhere that was still open and willing to take in 5 starving and slightly rowdy foreigners. We found a great place where we had to sit on mats on the floor with low tables, very cheap food and great wine. We would have looked ridiculous because none of us were comfortable sitting on our legs elegantly, so all of us had our legs sprawled out where ever there was room.

The two Scottish guys somehow managed to chat up two lovely Japanese ladies on the opposite table to us...they turned out to be in their mid 30's, but they didn't look it! After a couple hours it was decided we needed to move on before things got beyond the point of return with the ladies, so we stumbled out and got back to the train station. One of the Scotts decided he hadn't quite had enough booze or action, so he headed out to the city center to tear it up some more.

Kez and Michael piked out, but Ize, the last Scot, and the Irishman headed out to a tiny local bar which they found accidentally while wandering the street. It was basically a long room, just a little more that a corridor, with a bar down one length. There was a short but very loud bar lady and one regular. The Irishman and the bar lady had a great yarn, with Ize and the Scot failing miserably at trying to keep up. The old regular occasionally put his 2 cents in, but was even harder to understand due to an accent from one of the southern islands. After about an hour of this we decided to say our goodbyes, but this took almost another hour. Ize was quite scared with the lady stoping and staring at him and demanding that he learn more japanese.

After the night came to a close at around 2am-ish, we found each other wandering bleary eyed around the hostel the next morning. The Scottish dude that headed out onto the town for the night was found huddled up in his jammies, with a bottle of water, with that "im in terrible pain but had a fantastic night" look. Ha ha.

So in conclusion, Fukuoka was great fun. We donned our packs and swore all the way to the train station while they tore at our shoulders due to gross over-packing.

Tokyo, here we come!! Again...

1. Here is Ize strapped into the game "Half Life 2" in one of the many game arcades (like Timezone on speed)

Nara

Good evening everyone,

Please excuse the lateness of this post...even though we are back in Australia now...better late than never right?

Ok, so we took a train to Nara. As soon as we get outside the station, we are met with darkness, claps of thunder and lighting striking in the hills nearby. We look at eachother...hell, we didn't come all that way for nothing! So we ran like frightened chickens across the road and to the almost sheltered shops running up the main road that we wanted to walk up.


After making our way slowly up the street, stopping in at shops on the way to stay semi-dry, the rain eased and continued to hike up the hill, passed through a big park, and arrived at the Pogoda's we had come to see. And guess what we were met with....DEER! They seem cute, they really do. Until they see you have food, and then they become nasty mean pushy smelly scary deer.


But anyway, we saw the Pogoda (apparently the biggest in Japan or something), photographed the deer walking amongst the crowd for a while, and then continued our hike to see a big gold buddha housed in a temple that is the largest wooden structure in the world. This temple is a remake of the original that burnt down, and it's only 2/3 the size of the original. Now there were a hell of a lot of deer there too. Little shops sold 'deer biscuits', and we saw a woman feeding some deer, and a buck came up behind her and jabbed her with his antlers in the back to get some food out of her.


At the entry gates to the temple stood 2 very large wooden carved statues. These have recently been restored, and according to many sources, are the best examples of the type in the world. The temple itself had a big garden surrounding it, as well as two Pogodas on either side. The Japanese like thier places of worship big and grand.


Inside the temple were 3 Buddha's. In the entrance there was a massive gold one, and on either side of him were two smaller wooden ones. You could walk around the Buddhas, and behind them were several other statues and displays, and ofcourse, tourist shops.


Here are some piccies -

1. The big Pagoda...and Kez doing what felt right at the time.


2. Ize made a friend..awww


3. Deer Oh Deer


4. The largest wooden structure in the world


5. The awesome carved statues at the entrance to the temple.

We are in Kyoto, stuffed with Sushi...mmmm

Hi again!

We have been in Kyoto for the last 3 nights. We love it here. The people are much more friendly and relaxed, there are less buildings covered in lights and flashing things, and the place just has just a really authentic Japanese feel to it. Oh and there is a Pig and Whistle which makes us feel right at home. It takes us about half an hour to walk there, so its not really close, but when its the only place that speaks english its worth it!

The first day here we visited Nijo Castle...which..oh, it's so exciting to say....had....a huge Nightingale Floor that we walked around on for ages!!!!! For those poor souls who do not know what a Nightingale Floor is...read the Tales of the Otori trilogy. For the rest of you...how cool is that!!?? We were very excited..every few steps we would stop and bounce up and down for a bit. We learnt that the floor sings because its built with a layer of nails sticking out from the bottom of the floor boards which are sitting in metal clamps. So as you walk, the nail is pushed in and out of the clamp. You would think it would sound like rusty metal...and it does a little...but it is actually quite musical as you step from one board to another, creating a pleasant 'chirping' sound. These floors were put in several major Castles to counter assasins trying to sneak in at night to 'off' the Shogun or Daimyo (lord). Needless to say, we have decided it is imperative that we install one in our house, when we get one, to ward off those pesky Ninja's (or door to door salesmen).

The next day we spend trawling the many many many...many many many cool shops here. Then we went to the pub to rest our aching feet for the rest of the night.

Today we jumped on a train and headed across to Himeji to see a castle of grand proportions. This one was more grand than the Nijo Castle...but it lacked a Nightingale Floor..which well...made it a lot less cool. But this one was massive. We were able to walk around the surrounding gardens (which were amazing..we have also decided we are employing a Mr Miyagi to tend our gardens in our future house), and we also explored all the rooms of the castle and climbed to the top tower, giving a great 360degree view of the town. We also walked around the insides of the outer walls (used for guard towers and quarters for servants), and got an icecream from a vending machine.

We are back in our hostel in Kyoto now, and we have just been treated to dinner by the nice lady who owns our hostel, Yumiko! A big suprise for us. Last night she was talking to us, and not really understanding what she said apart from 'Sushi', round and round arm motions, and then 'take you'...we agreed on 7pm the next day. So tonight we are ushered out the door at 7pm on the dot, and driven to the BIGGEST and BEST sushi train we have ever seen! It was massive! Picture a room about 10x12m with a train that ziz zags (double sided) up and down three times within the room...like the way a piece of rope would do if you snaked it up and down a room. Not only was there a huge variety of fish, beef, vegies, large cake selection... but...get this...each plate was only 105 yen!! Which is about $1. All the sushi trains here tend to just have one price for all plates, not the stupid system we have in Oz with different prices. And of course all the seafood is so fresh, coming straight from the morning fish markets they hold daily. Yumiko would not budge an inch when it came to paying the bill for us, making us feel terrible. She is such a nice lady, if anyone comes to Kyoto, stay at the Chita Inn. Its great! Sugoy!

We also met a really nice Japanese guy, called Tomo, who came to dinner with us. The poor guy was struggling to be our translator the whole night, but the basic messages usually got across! It was quite amusing. We think the owner lady told us we were a beautiful couple and she wanted to take our picture. She also said that she loves Australians, and after we said we love it here, we think she said we should come back and have some babies...hmm. Our new friend Tomo is from Fukuoka (we are visiting there in 2 days..he told us to try the noodles!), he is 22 turning 23 this year, he is studing agriculture at uni, and is here in Kyoto for 2 weeks working for uni. Its amazing what you can get across with hand gestures! We swapped emails with Tomo and hopefully we will keep in touch and be able to have a smoother conversation in year or so when our Japanese is better and also his English is better.

Both Tomo and Yumiko are terrific people and have made our stay here so enjoyable. We just wanted to mention them both here and to thank them on the internet! Thank you so much Yumiko for dinner!

Tomorrow we are jumping on a train to Nara. We will fill you in on that story later :)

Here are some pics -

1. Nijo Castle, the Nightingale floor is right in there!

2. Us in the garden around the castle.

3. More of the beautiful garden

4. Those things bobbing out of the water...turtles! Kez can command turtles...look out world.

Tokyo Japan !!

Hello happy people!

Here we are in sunny Tokyo! Its quite exciting as it's very different to anywhere we have been before. It is similar to London in the way there is lots of seperatly run trains that operate underground and pack people into them at peak hour day after day. It is similar to Hong Kong in the way there is lots of advertising and bright flashing lights. But unlike Hong Kong, the people here do not push products in your face, they are very polite, the streets are very wide and the buildings massive...to support so much more advertising! Giant TV screens line the streets above you, and there are hugh arcades filled with pokies - of all things. They love thier pokies. And with pokies, are lots and lots of really eye hurting bright lights and flashing things. This is not the place for the epileptic!

Our flight over here was good, and seemed to pass pretty quickly. However it was some stupid persons idea the night before to have as little sleep as possible, so that we would just pass out on the plane and be in Japan before we knew it. So, all going well, we stay up drinking and listening to music. We wake after about 3 hours sleep, go to the airport at 6am, fly to Zurich, wait...fly to Japan for 13 hours...and....typically...we couldn't sleep. So then here we are, feeling like death warmed up, find ourselves in this place with barely any english, with no good maps...and only a print out of the address for our hostel. As you can imagine we were feeling really comforted!

Anyway, we manage to get to our hostel after two trains and help from a nice train staff member who must have seen us staring stupidly at the map on the wall for 10mins with our mouths open, not moving. We arrive at our hostel at 11am...to be told our rooms won't be ready until 3pm. Yay!! We are at the point of involuntarily passing out from sleep deprivation, and we sit outside the hostel for 4 hours. Happy times. Actually that was very similar to what happened in Rome. Moral of the story - don't depend on sleeping on a long haul flight! Unless you are in 1st class...we walked jealously past thier beds on our way off the plane. Rich bastards!

But it's all part of the fun. We have managed to laugh off most of the cruddy times, mainly because they are so horrible it turns comical!

The room we've stayed in at tokyo is great. Its in a traditional style, complete with futons on the floor and rice stuffed pillows. There is also rice paper windows, and the floor is made by some sort of weaving technique.

Also worthy of honerable mention is the toilets here! Not only are they big, and usually pink, but they all seem to be complete with bum washers that squirt water, things that blow warm air at you, seat warmers, and a button you can press that plays music combined with fake flushing noises and birds chirping so you can take a noisy dump in private! Also a lot of them have no flusher, and they just flush themselves as you step away from them. How cool is that???

Yesterday we spent a decent portion of the day in Electric City. Basically it's a suburb devoted to a million electronic, computer, and anime shops. So many gadgets! And we found pepper spray. They are very much into thier naked figurines here too..kinda wierd. Also naked/bikini trading cards, some of them very young.

We have not come across too much engrish yet, but remain hopeful, we have another week to go!

So we are off to Kyoto very soon for five nights. We will add some piccies when we can, so watch this space.

Farewell until next time!