tokyo
ok.. finally ian's summary of the japan trip =)
its gonna be rather long, so ill do it in 3 parts.. tokyo, osaka and hokkaido. jsut to give me a break in writing =p .. anyhoos ill start with tokyo! .. actually ill start in sydney =)

it was was a rather warm day.. actually quite hot... and im catching a train into town and walking around carrying all my luggage and wearing thermals and a polar fleece vest and a heavy woolen overcoat in preparation for tokyo. all rather uncomfortable. =p .. anyways i started out by having lunch with shelly at the QVB.. i actually saw rikku and then helena walk by, on various levels of the qvb, but i was frankly too heavily laden to chase them down =p whilst at lunch j.lo walked by with a friend of hers.. and she introduced us, but accidently introduced shelly as jenelle.. eep! she wasnt really impressed (understandably so).. but im sure she'll get over it. i mean they do look alike =p i would never make that mistake though =)

we met up with chito cos he was driving me to the airport and taking shelly to work. jsut kinda got in the car and went there.. the airport is as the airport always is. we were heaps early which is always a good idea.. we had to wait a while for my bags to get scanned for bombs and other incendiary devices. but then we jsut hung around the airport for a bit till i could be late for my boarding =p i have a tendancy to always wait too long in the duty free areas .. although i didnt get my name called over the loud speaker this time though =) hehe

i slept thru the first coupla hours of my plane ride.. and woke up in the dark.. and went on to play some mario tennis... serve and volley! thats the formula for a straight sets win =) i was tempted to watch some of the movies on offer.. but i couldnt figure out how to work the video on demand.. so i wondered if i could finish pokemon on a 7 hour plane ride... i got past Brock.. and then realise i wouldnt even get close and continued with mario tennis =p

onto Singapore and the wireless connectivity of the whole airport! .. man if only i owned a laptop =p they have free internet terminals, unfortuneately it wasnt working whilst i was there.. so i jsut milled around for a coupla hours till my connecting flight left.. nothing exciting la. the singapore tokyo flight was not much more exciting really.. i played more serve volley.. then slept.. then watched dexters laboratory. as always i found the plane very uncomfortable to sleep in =p

got off the plane unsure if tomoko would be there.. luckily i was a stupid foreigner and took ages to clear customs.. and she was basically the only one left by the time i got out =p we had our greetings and then headed to the train system which i had no real idea how to work =p she put heaps of work into this 20 page document outlining what we'd do over the 4 days and how to get places n such.. ahh she is a gem. to beat peak hour traffic we headed to Narita instead of the city. Narita is the suburb the airport is in, its basically like the Gosford of Sydney.. or there abouts.. its still jam packed with japanesey stuff though =) so i found it heaps cool. we went around looking at a few local shrines and i jsut got a general feel for japan. we apaprently were one day late for the bean throwing festival.. where ppl throw beans around their house to ward off demons. Chito says that kids play this game where some loser (thru paper rock scissors) is made the demon, and every1 throws beans at him or her =p lol .. i bought a disposable camera cos i didnt have a camera to tide me over till i got a digital from akihibara.

we went to ikebukuro and lockered my baggage in a coin locker before exploring the place which is basically all department stores.. like imagine stores three or four times as big as GBs at pitt st mall, but worse cos theyres like a dozen of them on the same block =p there was mostly stuff for Valentines day going on, in Japan Valentines day is a day when girls buy chocolates for boys.. there is another day called White Day (March i think) when boys can reciprocate. also tomo wanted to stop by some anime pr0n store to buy some comics for her bf.. *shrugs* who am i to argue? =p although it seems that wasnt an anime pr0n store.. it was a regular anime store.. they all have pr0n in them! .. we also took a sticket photo

next we checked into the youth hostel where i was stayed a nite. and ditched my stuff and such. then headed to Odaiba which is an island of reclaimed land in Tokyo harbour. we had to get a monorail there ... it looked so beautiful and tranquil at nite.. but actually each of the buildings had hundreds of people inside playing games and shopping and eating.. it was pretty funny to see it so quiet on the outside and so busy on the inside.. like an ant hill. anyways there was this rather odd statue of liberty.. i have no idea what it was for =p but i took a photo on the disposable, which ill scan later after i develop it. we looked around at some junk inside then went to dinner at some place.. and i got carded! omg.. it was kind of a cool place watered down cocktails and various small dishes of psuedo jap/american food bizzare. tomo paid for it.. once again .. she is a gem! i had to get home alone .. i did ok.. but overshot my station.. and had to go back.. all jap names look the same to me =p

:: day 2
according to the schedule we were sposed to go to the fish markets at 5am.. but the youth hostel was on the 19th floor of a building where the lifts didnt start up till 6:30.. so we basically gave that a miss. i killed the morning by going to a local garden called Kokuera, a traditional jap garden.. it was all very tranquil and pretty =) i also saw the Tokyo Dome where they play baseball.. and the ajoining rollercoaster and giant ferris wheel attached to a building, in the middle of the city! it was quite weird. i was tempted to have a ride.. but it was a bit pricey..and its never as cool when ur alone =p

tomo said to meet at Tokyo stn.. which was supposedly close.. it turned out to be like 5km away.. ack.. i was carrying my pack all that way =p we wandered around the imperial gardens which were really nice =) but nothing really much to write about =p

next was Ueno.. where we were supposedly to find a cheap place for me to stay .. but after much wandering and tomo talking to locals.. we couldnt find jack. meh.. tomoko apologised heaps and said she'd carry my pack and look for a place while i shopped .. omg she is a gem! she ended up getting me a capsule hotel =) which was cooler than i ever thought it could be .. it had a tv, alarm clock and radio inside.. although every1 there pretty much smoked .. which sucked. we had to put our shoes in a locker in the foyer cos u cant wear shoes inside hehe. on tv was everything from snowbaording to talk shows to pr0n.

next we went to Asakusa which is a heaps touristy place cos it has a big temple n stuff.. once again it was cool but not much to write about =p i got my fortune from the shrine thing.. and i got the Best Fortune! =) hehe good luck for ian this year =) also saw this giant lantern thing =p

we went out to Shibuya to check out school girls in short short skirts! .. i mean good shopping =p the store called Shibuya 109 was a place where young girls bought skanky clothes =p the shop assistants were all pretty hot ..and had massive heels on. when u enter they say irrasshaimase .. which means welcome to the store or something .. but they stretch it out heaps.. and make it sound really irritating =p

we had dinner at a place called the Lock Up.. it was so cool. the entrance is like a haunted house .. a cave-like stair case down with ghosts and moving floors and cobwebs n such. the end had this flat plasma ball thing which opened a secret door to the restaurant =) hehe. next we waited in line for this hot jap chick wearing a all pink vinyl uniform with a short short skirt and high heels, who came and handcuffed me to take us to our seats =) unfortunately there were only 2 of us, else we couldve gotten a seat in a jail cell =) the food was weird.. apparently it was named stuff like zombie pasta (which was quite tasty actually =) but the best part was when the lights went out! and the girl says something in jap over the loudspeaker about monsters being in the restaurant .. eep! and these guys run around in glowing masks and harass the customers n stuff hehe.. then after a while the girls say something else.. and u hear the ghostbusters music.. and they come and shoot and round up the monsters and take them away =p.. i guess u had to be there .. but it was cool.

:: day 3
woke up to some talk show which apparently showed a Tomy truck thing which was a deathtrap for kids.. and some ad for an unchewable CD... only in japan...

i got up and met Hunt at the Hard Rock Cafe.. and we spent like an hour trying to check him into the Capsule hotel, cos we both couldnt speak jap =p it was pretty funny.. cos got got assigned a room which had a non-existant locker .. we had a hell of a time explaining that one =p eventually we sorted it all out..and headed out to meet tomo and her friend to go to the Ghibli Museum. We got to Shinjuku a bit early so we went to check out the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building.. which is jsut a ncie place to get a good view of tokyo, it was ok =p we basically had a hell of a time meeting at Shinjuku stn cos its like the busiest stn in tokyo..and we're idiots =p in the end it worked out ok.. but we made a big mistake, our tickets were for 2pm.. and we were getting there at 4pm.. oops! we managed to con our way in by pretending we couldnt speak jap (which i coudlnt .. but tomo could) hehe.

the museum was pretty small.. but still cool. the best thing ever was this 3D animation thing. its kinda hard to explain, it was like a flip book animation, but with models instead of drawings. the models spun around and a strobe light controlled which frames u saw... it was absolutely incredible. we ran around like lil kids for a while .. it was still fun. we got to watch this bizarre russian animation by a friend of Hayao.. it reminded my of that russian cartoon that replaced itchy and scratchy on the Simpsons and it was about a hedgehog who had to deliver lunch to a bear, but got scared along the way by owls and dogs n stuff...it freaked me out. later on i was looking at this strange sculpture outside and it sorta had a handle on it, so i turned it.. and to my suprise it was a water fountain which shot up straight in my face! a few nearby jap girls were laughing at me.. it was quite embarassing =p we grabbed a quick bite in the cafe.. and i had what was supposedly the fruit sandwich of my dreams =) it was ok ..

on the way home we lost tomo.. so we ventured off by ourselves to Roppongi.. which is like where foreingers hangout.. it was pretty lame.. lotsa black guys trying to get us to go to strip joints. for a while we were walking in front of these loud talking americans who were talking about how much they could drink.. but one guy couldnt handle vodka..this went one for about 3 blocks ..and had the word f*sk as every second word =p

:: intermission
omg! a lot happened in Tokyo.. i had no idea... its very late so ill continue tommolo. hopefulyl ill start to write less as i go along.