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.