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!!!!!!