Lovin' Japan....

God I love this country!!! I'll probably repeat myself here a bit, but I'd like to bang on about the stuff I love. It's most definitely the little things, it's the way old, traditional Japan sits comfortably along side modern Japan, it's the people, it's well, just everything. We were walking down the street today on the way back from the city centre, back to chez Alex, when for the first time I spotted a piece of litter on the floor ahead of me. However, on closer inspection, the litter was in fact a leaf :) Weirder still is that it's quite hard to find a bin?? It's the differences that you see constantly that I enjoy, they're not even that great, but for example, every hundred yards or so you will come across a vending machine.
That's no exaggeration, they're everywhere and also they're always only selling drinks or cigarettes. I've not seen any snacks machines yet, actually I lie, I saw an Italian ice-cream vending machine today. In Hiroshima and Tokyo and I guess every other city, there are advertising banners everywhere you look, but because it's in Japanese it looks cool :) It's probably just advertising office space and the usual crap, if it was wall to wall at home, I'd probably hate it. Here it looks awesome, especially when it's all lit up at night. Every corner you turn here, has something new and unexpected. You walk past the most amazing skyscrapers and then nestling inbetween them you'll find a shrine that looks like its been there for hundreds of years, obviously in Hiroshima it hasn't, but in alot of the citys it will have, I think Kyoto's going to be very like that.
The shops here are simply amazing! There are thousands of them it seems and they sell everything. Literally. In the city center, every building seems to be 4 floors minimum and there are shops and restaurants crammed in on all of them. Most of the buildings are alot bigger than that to. Churchill square seems like a corner shop now. We went in a cuddly toy shop the other day, 5 floors of just cuddly toys... There's a massive obsession with cats in Japan for some reason, these waving cats are all over the place. I went hunting Gundam toys yesterday (bit like Transformers, but alot more cool and yes I know I'm a massive nerd) and I found them, tons of them, but I also found a load of other models in the same shop. Some very naughty models indeed! This picture is easily the most tame one I could put up on the blog, but for those of you who want to see more, head on over to the chem7 site :) Just for your information Bison, these "dollys" cost 20,000 Yen each, that's right currency fans £100!!
Talking of cash and costs, Japan mainly seems to be a bit cheaper than home. Some things are the same price, beer, clothes, dvds and games. Food is definitely a bit cheaper, we are eating out 2-3 times a day and staying on budget. £6 for 2 bowls of noodles and very nice noodles they are too, you CCU night shift workers :) The Shinkansen bullet train from Tokyo to Hiroshima was about £80, but that's 300 kph, on time, a comfy seat and cleaning ladies. Here's a good one though, we walked round the supermarket with Eremi, gazing in wonder at all the amazing food, when we came to the bread section. 730 Yen for a loaf of bread, yes that's £3.60 or so. Only we're not talking your full British loaf here.... 4 slices :) Admittedly they were double the thickness of even our thick sliced bread, but 4 slices??? Bizarre!
Mainly though, cheaper. Just to round off, I love the Karaoke! A few beers and I can't stop myself, I know Sam mentioned it on the last post, but it's really top banana fun! It's alot darker in the booth than this photo suggests, flash photography I'm afraid. It's the massive song list that makes it so good though, Josh, Jamie, etc, you would have been proud of me:) I was belting out Debaser, Digging for Fire (twice sorry), Monkey gone to Heaven, Orpheus by Ash, Karma Police, loads of genuinely good music, no Smiths though unfortunately. When the musics not all Steps and the beer is flowing, it's an evil combination :)

It's just great here and we've still got 2 weeks to go.......Whoohoo!!!!!!

Marvellous Miyajima

Greetings from the island of Miyajima. This is one of the three most photographed sights in Japan and features the "floating" torii (Shinto shrine gate). The island is also home to many extremely tame deer, who greet you from the boat in search of a nibble. Visiting the many shrines and temples of Daisho-in and the bright orange pagoda in the centre made for a tranquil day out. The scary cable-car ride up Mt. Misen was slightly less relaxing, but the views from the summit were worth the fear.

Wandering around the Buddhist statues (more than I have ever seen in one vacinity) was quite mystical...especially as most of them seemed to be wearing woolly hats and scarves. I have been assured this only happens in the winter months and is indeed, to keep them warm.

Anyway, enough of all this culture. I feel we need to revisit memories of the restaurant we visited the other night. I believe Andy posted a blog stating we had eaten pig's oesophagus. What he omitted to tell you was that the menu also offered "womb of young female sheep" and "cows rectum," amongst other random bits of organ and connective tissue. Apart from the oesophagus (very crunchy and just how you would imagine), we also had the tongue. Quite unlike the tongue served up by Nanna on a Sunday tea-time, this was actually quite tasty. The great part is, you get all of this raw and you sit round and bar-b-que to your liking at your table. Superb evening.

Last night we did our usual karaoke session. Rather than sing in a bar with other people, we hired our own private booth. For the tone-deaf amongst us this is a wonderful innovation! A vast improvement to karaoke down the Moorcock with Mrs. Wheeler. Andy was leaping about with excitement and tried to sing the same song twice. What had started out as "just an hour," turned into two and a half hours. Brilliant.

Myiajima slide show.

Squeaky Clean

There seems to be a recurring request from several people to clarify the inner workings of the toilet systems. That's what happens when all your friends are nurses (or Bruce). O.K. here it is, step-by-step:

1. You sit down. The toilet seat will already be lovely and toasty, but you can adjust the temperature to suit individual requirements. I forgot to mention that the seat lid will rise automatically when you approach - how cool is that?

2. If you are a noisy toilet-goer, you can press a button which mimics the flushing noise (to spare any blushes).

3. When you are ready, you then choose temperature, force and type of water jet. There is a more general bidet-effect or you can elect for the one-jet wonder (a surprisingly accurate device). This can continue for as long as you like (just press the stop button when ready). I should point out here that it is a separate water source from the cistern. Eremi tells me that the forceful jet can be adopted as a form of enema for desperate times.

4. Once done, you can then choose the drying setting (again, for as long as you like, depending on surface area). I can confirm there is no finite point for this particular function.

5. As you stand, the toilet will flush automatically. There is a button for "powerful deodoriser," (never tried this function).

6. There is often hands-free soap and water dispensing to complete the experience (Heidi & Dad, this toilet was made for you). You emerge as if you have just spent an afternoon down the Treatment Rooms; relaxed, calm, refreshed, confident and ready for anything.

I think you will all agree, there is room in everyone's life for one of these toilets. I might have to import the concept. Hopefully, the photos will further clarify the situation...

Robots doko desu ka?

As you can see, we've now had our Japanese lesson and it's enabled me to ask the really important question! Where are the robots? We went to school and had a 2 hour lesson and we are now confidently asking for 2 beers please in Japanese :) It's also nice to be able to say to the waiter that we've enjoyed our meal of fried pig's oesophagus!
Been doing a bit more culture in between bouts of drinking with A + E. Had a look round Hiroshima castle, which had been there for several hundred years until it was nuked. They've rebuilt it as it was and stuck a museum inside. Lots of interesting items inside for those of us obsessed with Lone Wolf, less things of interest for Sam, although she did enjoy the dressing up :)
















The castle grounds were really nice, a very modern, but pretty shrine. All these castles that we're seeing have massive moats around them, which I'm always really impressed with, I do like a good moat! This one even interested Sam, as there were a shed load of massive Coy Carp swimming about.
Yesterday we visited the Hiroshima gardens, we'd seen a nice garden in Tokyo, but this one was miles better, very relaxing, even the day decided to become warm for a change. This garden has only been around for the last 60 years obviously, I guess when we go to Kyoto we'll be seeing some gardens that have been around for hundreds of years. The layout of the gardens are so impressive, around every corner is a new thing to see and it's all layed out so perfectly! Beautiful!
Gonna go to the cinema today and see Memoirs of a Geisha and maybe have another beer or 2 :) I'll leave you with a little slide show of some of the things we've seen in Hiroshima.

After a week here I'm already wanting to stay here for the whole year, this place is stunning! Tokyo is an unbelievable city, everywhere you look is dripping in neon or banners with Japanese lettering on. The buildings are so impressive, on one hand there are ancient temples amidst tranquil gardens, but then on the skyline are the most futuristic skyscrapers you've ever seen. As with all places, it's the little things that really attract you to a country. Everywhere seems so clean here, especially after England. Tokyo can be really hectic in parts, especially on or around the Tube, but people just seem really calm, friendly and polite. There's alot of bowing going on here and for the most part I really like it, it just seems nice when you say hello or thankyou, to do a small nod of your head. In some of the shops or restaurants you go in, they virtually bend to the waist, which is a bit much, but generally its good stuff. Here's a wierd thing I didn't ever expect to hear in Tokyo....Crows! It's really odd, walking through Tokyo and then hearing the cawing of a crow? Haven't really noticed any of them here in Hiroshima yet. Hiroshima seems really nice, alot quieter than Tokyo, but again, a nice friendly atmosphere. The main reason we came here was to see Alex and Eremi obviously and great it is to see them to. Alex is his usual stupid self, more Alan Partridge than man and is looking after us very well, thanks Dad! This is the only photo of Alex I had where his eyes weren't shut and he was still resembling something approximating human form :) It's really nice just to chill out here and relax. Gonna start doing some touristy things soon. There's a castle to go and have a look at and a museum about Manga comics ( Sorry Sam ) he he. We're having a 2 hour Japanese lesson today, so I will finally be able to say "Take me to the Robots".

Obviously, it's pretty wierd walking around here knowing that a nuclear bomb exploded 60 years ago. We went to the A-bomb museum yesterday and a pretty sobering experience it was to. There's basically only one building ( the A-bomb Dome ) still standing and that's been left as a memorial and that tells you just how completely flattened this city was. You can stand virtually underneath where the bomb would have gone off and it's just generally a really odd experience being in this famous city.
Will post more fascinating insites into Japanese life soon ;) Well, maybe Sam will :) and i'll leave you with a little slide show from Tokyo.

Well here we are in Hiroshima! We are visiting our friends Alex & Eremi who live here. It's great to see them and they are looking after us very well (the translation facility is also very useful). We arrived yesterday by bullet train (Shankansen), which was quite a cool way to travel...I especially liked that the cleaning ladies wore a nice pink uniform more appropriate to serving ice-cream. I'm sure I'm supposed to talk about the fantastic aerodynamic shape and the fact we travelled at 300kph, but I'm not going to. We haven't seen much of Hiroshima yet on account of the fact that we were out until 07.00 this morning at a karaoke bar. We had the best time... there was no stopping Andy - he was on fire. It was one '80's track after the other (particular favourites to mention were "Last Christmas" and "Take on Me" - for a moment there I thought I'd brought Morten Harkett (or maybe Pals Waakatar) with me by accident. Em & Andrew will know what I mean when I say his enthusiasm was slightly reminiscent of Christmas Day and our epic charades evening. There was almost an incident when Andy and this Canadian bloke coudn't agree on whose turn it was - in the end I mediated and made them do a duet to ease the tension. I thought his hangover was terminal - he couldn't even eat his ramen, but it appears he has turned into a brave soldier and gone to the pub again (to watch the footie). So I'm home alone with free reign of the blog. I hope you enjoy the photographic footage of the evening.

I need to update you on our last few days in Tokyo before we proceed. We had a really great time in the most amazing city ever invented. There are basically two districts which everyone should visit to get the idea - Shibuya (where Lost in Translation was filmed) & Shinjuku. The neon is fantastic, frenetic, energetic and yet it remains organised and polite. Given that there are 12.2 million people in Tokyo, it was bizarre to see a group of people who were in the cheque-in queue at Heathrow in Shibuya's Starbucks! I would like to point out this is the first Western place we have visited. Andy has even managed to stay away from fry-ups (apart from the other morning when he had bacon & eggs with his rice & miso soup). I think this may have something to do with the fact he ate 7 fry ups in 10 days before we came away (yes Andy, I was counting).

We spent a lovely day in Ueno visiting the National Museum which held some fantastic exhibits (pottery from 10,000 B.C.), swords, kimono, old kabuki costumes, some wonderful Japanese art and a mummy. I love a good mummy. Andy finds them really boring but I think they're great. Then we went to the zoo (sorry if you don't agree with zoos - I suggest you read "The life of Pi" - it will make you feel better about them). Of course the polar bear and the seals were happy with the weather, but the monkeys and the elephant looked a bit miserable. Andy visibly cheered after visiting his cousins and we had a wonder around Ueno park which houses lovely gardens. We even managed to meet a scary hybrid of ourselves. Gave us a reminder to not reproduce.

The Tsukiji fish market is the largest fish market in the world. I have always loved visiting local markets, to give you a snapshot of the everyday. This was something else though! It was brilliant - a particular favourite was the fugu (blowfish). If you have seen that episode of the Simpsons, this will need little explanation. For those of you who haven't, fugu are a seasonal delicacy eaten more for the thrill than the taste. Within their livers and other organs, they contain a deadly neurotoxin called tetrodotoxin and if not prepared correctly, it will kill you slowly and painfully. Fugu chefs need to train for three years before they are licensed but perhaps the fatalities arise from D.I.Y. jobs. The Lonely Planet reassure us that the risk of poisoning is negligable, but Alex informs us that this season 9 people have died in Hiroshima alone. A famous Kabuki actor karked it after a fugu party in 1975, which sparked the rise of this devil-fish. Apparantly it "tastes like chicken" and costs about £50 a go, so I think we'll give it a miss and stick to the salmon.

In order to fulfil some requests for "robots," we headed for the Museum of Emerging Science & Technology. After a little trip across the bay by boat, we headed for a pleasingly futuristic-looking building which was the Fuji TV Japan Broadcast Centre. After walking past an exact replica of the Statue of Liberty and many floors up, we entered this ball-like suspension and looked out onto the rest of Toyko. Andy was clinging onto the walls for dear life - I think he enjoyed himself. The science museum indeed had some "humanoids" whose eyes scarily followed you around the room. Thank God we missed the once-daily demonstration of them running around the place. It was all a bit "I-Robot."

On the last night we ventured to Roppongi. I was determined to crack Andy's vertigo by taking him up the highest building available to us. We hunted out the Mori Atago building which houses a 360 degree observatory on it's 52nd floor. The view of Tokyo at night was amazing - it felt extremely weird being that high up. Poor Andy was beside himself and tried to make out it was the price of the beer in the (very swanky) bar.

So tomorrow we shall try to venture out before 5pm and do a spot of Hiroshima exploring . We walked through the Peace Memorial Park today and it felt very surreal. On 6th August 1945, Hiroshima became the first atomic-bomb target. The bomb exploded directly above the Industrial Promotion hall which now stands as the A-Bomb Dome as a constant reminder of the tradgedy. In the centre of the park, the Flame of Peace can be found. This burns constantly and will only be extinguished once the last nuclear weapon on earth has been destroyed.

The Children's Peace Memorial nearby was inspired by a little girl named Sadako who developed leukaemia as a result of the nuclear fall-out. She set out to make 1,000 oragami cranes - a task which she believed if completed would result in her survival. Sadly, Sadako died before she finished her project and so her classmates folded the rest in her honour. The crane is a symbol of longevity and happiness and long strings of them can be found on the memorial.

Tokyo......

Well, we made it, we're in Tokyo!!! I'm still having a really hard time realising where I am, even though it's clearly Japan. The flight over was fine, pretty long and boring as flying is, we saw Simon Pegg and Mark Owen at Heathrow and then I bumped into Mark Owen again on the flight! Anyway, we landed at Narita airport yesterday at 10am and fairly easily made it on to the train to Tokyo. It took 1 1/2 hours to get to Ikebukuro, which is the part of town where we are staying. After about 1/2 hour on the train you basically enter Tokyo and it's outlying districts, it's pretty amazing travelling for an hour just through city scape, it seems to go on forever! It was easy again getting to the Kimi Ryokan, our hotel, from the train station in Ikebukuro, there seems to be a fair amount of English signs about and the people here are amazingly helpful, they will just come up to you and ask if you need any help, when they see you
looking lost :)
The Kimi seems a nice hotel, we are looking forward to trying out the traditional Japanese hot bath tonight, I'll look a bit like one of those monkeys in the snow I reakon, er, but without the snow, although it is bally cold here! Yesterday was spent wandering about our local bit of Tokyo, open mouthed at all the neon and mentalness of it all. Managed to get ourselves fed in a nice restaurant we found down a side street. Had some humungous beers and raw minced tuna mmmm, Sam had to cook her own virtually, but it was all nice! There are trillions of bars and restaurants here, loads of places have plastic food in the window to entice you in. The plastic food looks bad, but it's useful to be able to point at to get the meal you want.

We were absolutely knackered yesterday and still are today, jetlag apparently. In the evening we went to a restaurant where we pointed at a couple of pictures on the menu, Sam got very fatty ?beef in a bowl :) I got nice chicken :)
Woke up stupidly early and went for breakfast at Jonathons ( your chain Joe?), which was average and then headed over to the Imperial Palace. You can't go in cause the Emperor lives there, bit like Buck Palace, but we walked around the outside of it, it all looks very nice, much better than the Queens house! Then at lunchtime we got the tube to ShinJuku, which is where all the massive amounts of neon are and loads of gadgets!! Went wandering round 8 floors of tiny camera's, mp3 players and insanely large plasma's :)

Got lunch at a tiny bar, down a narrow little alley, full of bars. Everything was in Japanese, used a great tip from the Lonely Planet book and asked them to choose for us. We got chicken drumsticks in a sweetish sauce with rice and some pickled raddish's, well nice! Beer too, of course :) Time for some wiser words from Sam I think.......

Don't worry, we aren't going to tell you what we had to eat every day for the next 365 days...but at the moment it's all so exciting! I think Andy's filled you in, pretty much...but I'll waffle on anyway. Our journey to Tokyo proved to be very amusing, largely because someone was trying to bring an enormous fluffy horse onto the plane (see below, standing behind a rather startled-looking Andy). We didn't think it was going to be possible, but all of his (and our) dreams were realised when the horse re-emerged at Narita airport. This is one of the things I love about Japan...everyone is so accommodating. Whilst on the underground station today, three people asked us if we needed any help - something which would never happen in London, that's for sure.

The first thing that made me realise the wonders of this country was not even the politeness, the helpfulness, the efficiency or the cleanliness...but the amazing toileting experience. Heidi will be pleased to know that they DO wash your bottom properly, the water temperature is just right and the heated seat is an accessory I can now not live without. There is even a button to press which will help to disguise any embarrassing sound effects emitted by the toiletee! What a wonder!

So all this, and we feel like we are in "Spirited Away," (a wonderous and magical Japanese animated film, should any of you not have seen it). Time to go now, as we have had a busy day. Seeing Andy's little face in that techno department store was like watching a child at Christmas. We are heading back to Kimi Ryokan for bath, kimono and a spot of green tea. Gillian McKeith would be over her moon of righteousness with the food we are eating (apart from last night's soup). Seaweed for brekkie and lots of Omega 3... Andy may even return home with a memory.

The Leaving Party....we've got to go now!

Finally felt a bit better at 5pm after a very heavy night's drinking. Haven't felt that rough for ages :) It was absolutely wicked to see everyone and we were chuffed all the people who we'd invited were able to come along. We will see all you guys in one year!!!

Hi Everyone! One week to go... We've been having a great time touring the country visiting everyone. I think it's safe to say everyone will miss us terribly as there have been lots of tears (Rachel& Heids) and "Mind how you go's" (Dad). There's also been a bit of "Are you two still going on about it?" (Em). Grandparents have thrust money upon us as we have toured the land in our dirty white van and we have promised to "Take good care of each other." Just when the rest of the country is detoxing and going to the gym, we have been carrying on as if it's still Christmas. The booze has been flowing and there still seems to be a few mince pies knocking about. But I think about how healthy we will be after a month of eating nothing but sushi...(+ gyoza + beer + sake...) Anyway, too much to do - I need to re-pack my rucksack one more time, Math & Lou have returned from Egypt today and I have promised to make a lasagne in return for my Mum doing all our washing for us. Thanks Mum! And thanks again to Dad and everyone else who helped us move house...

Out of Sight, Out of Mind.....

Just a little note to everyone to say, if you're reading our blog, please take the time to post a comment, it will make our day to hear from all you guys out there! Say what ever you want, but mind the language cause our parents and grandparents will be reading this to. Obviously I'm not talking to Jamie or Alex here, cause they comment all the time, but we would love to hear from the rest of you too! Had to put another pic of Ruby up as well just cause she's so cute!!!
Today we have spent alot of the day packing too much stuff into our rucksacks. Mine seems to be full of gadgets and plugs, whilst Sam's is full of contact lenses and Doxycycline. I'm sure we'll end up chucking loads of it away as they're going to be quite heavy bags to haul around, but when you've not been 'travelling' before, it's hard to tell what to take and we're trying to take everything. Our medical bag seems to be particularly massive, i'm sure we could set up some kind of field hospital! We may need to in the morning, cause we're out drinking with the Geordie's tonight :)

Today we have put all our worldly goods up into Matthew's attic (Sam's bro) with the help of Tom Croom (Sam's Dad). We really are grateful for the storage space and promise to pay for any damage caused when the whole lot falls through the ceiling. We've just spent 2 lovely days with Rachel, Joe and Ruby and are gutted we're not gonna see them again for a year. Little Rubes will be running around, talking and all sorts by the time we get back I'm sure, so make sure you update the blog sis more than once next year! The next few days will be spent seeing the insides of Barnard castles many pubs and luxuriating in the generosity of the Crooms. We're then off to see Suzie and James and then heading down to see my folks on Wednesday, before returning to Brighton on Friday for a piss up with the rest of our mates. Only 10 days to go now until we fly to Tokyo and the start of a right mental year :) !!!!

The last post............from Rugby Court

it's late....our mates rallied round and carried box's down the stair-well, i'm gonna spend the night praying the smack heads don't nick everything. All the valuables are still in our flat......suckers! :)
Been here 4 fantastic years with Lady Spamella, we've laughed, we've cried, well she's cried, several times, mainly after the cinema, namely Nemo, erm and every other film we saw, except she didn't cry at The Descent......wicked film, terrifying, see it !!! Jamie's coming round at the crack of dawn to help shift box's into the van and then we're out of here! Barry (fantastic landlord) is round at 12 to assess the damage accumulated over 4 years, er, sorry about the sofa's Barry.....
Right, it's time to shut down the computer...... yes it is the last electronic device to be shut down. Bye bye and i'll be seeing you all from various internet cafe's dotted round the world and Sheffield and Barnard Castle and Beaminster and Andy and Emma's and probably Heathrow, you get the picture....... :)