So here we are, finally in our homestay. The couple that we're staying with are Polish and are very lovely, We're in a room just a bit smaller than our hotel room, but at least it's ours to stay in for the next two weeks. We no longer have to entirely live out of a suitcase. The apartment is "very English" looking with shrubs covering a small gate that leads to the front door.
So they've also got quite fast wireless internet access, so today we went out to buy a wireless card. In hindsight I should have got one with a larger arial because I'm getting low signal strength and it occasionally cuts out. No matter, at least we're connected again!!!!
Yes, I know what you're thinking, as soon as we got on the plane, I realised that debbie had not posted anything........ and as I'm writing this, she's asleep on the bed behind me. So it's up to me to tell the story. I'm fairly tired myself but we'll see how we go. (I, Debbie am now proof reading the post so I am adding to it after having a great night sleep last night! And I tried to write something on the blog before we left Australia but I couldn't figure out how to do it. But now I will be writting too...Yay!!!) (Andrew here again, I've put most of debbie's comments in Italics so you can tell, otherwise it tends to get a bit confusing) Unfortunately I havn't been able to get the video camera to connect to the laptop. I'm sure it will work itself out in due course but for now you'll have to live with stills. :
Australia to Japan:
The flight ended up being about 9hrs. We sat next to an english guy who was going to be touring japan for about a month or so. When we arrived in Japan, Customs consisted of a guy looking at our passport photos, and that's it.... compared to Australia's customs it was a big shock to not have to have our bags inspected.
At the information desk at the airport, the lady spoke english quite well and told us where to catch the free shuttle bus to our hotel. After about a 10 min wait, the bus came along and we piled in. The driver put our luggage in the hold and we sat down for the ride. The bus was a shuttle paid for by the Nikko and Nikko Winds hotels. We were staying at the Nikko Winds Hotel which seemed less popular although equaly as nice. We checked in and were shown to our room. It was quite spacious with two double beds. First things first, we booked a massage for Debbie. debbie says: "
The Japanese lady really dug her fingers into me and when i groaned at a tender spot she just pushed harder!!! But she was really good." Then when she went to have a shower, I called my mum and dad :-) they seemed really happy to hear from us, it was certainly good to hear their voices also.
So after debbie's intense massage we went to have dinner downstairs at the hotel resturant. We picked the most expensive item on the menu - it was a "combination of japanese, chinese and western dishes", it was about 4000 yen which is a bit less than $40AUD. Let's see if I can remember what everything was:
Steak: a small but extremely tender piece of steak that had been cut up into chopstickable pieces. This is the most tender steak We've ever had.
Sashimi: Tuna, eel and something else. It was the best sashimi I've ever had. The tuna was extremely fresh.
Chawanmushi: hot egg custard. it sounds gross, but it's really tasty, imagine a creme brule/brooklin pudding type texture, egg flavoured with some mushrooms scattered throughout. it's quite nice, although Debbie doesn't like it all that much, the texture is too light apparently.
Smoked salmon: nothing flash there
miso soup: very tasty - pretty much the same as the Australian ones though.
Rice: as usual, but tasted very good. Could just be that it was cooked perfectly or something.
For desert there was some honey dew, watermellon and what can best be described as a green tea flavoured booga. We think it was kind of a jelly type thing but it was more gelatenous and goopy than jelly.
Unfortunately we took most of this on the video camera so I've got nothing to show yet.
The next day we got up a bit late, and went and had brekky at the same resturant. Thankfully there was western food, we weren't prepared to stomach rice and miso soup for breakfast so we had bacon, eggs, sausages and hot chips...... it was weird but good.
Next we took the shuttle bus back to the airport and caught a normal train to Tokyo Station. Narita Airport is about 1hr 20mins by this train away from the centre of Tokyo, but we got some good videos, got to chat a bit and watch the japanese people pile on and off the train. It wasn't quite rush hour so the train wasn't that crowded. (
I, Debbie thought the chime of the doors closing on the train was very asian. It was a 3 note clashing harmonic sound or something.)We got off at tokyo station and wandered over to the Imperial Palace where we took our first stills:
Next we wanted to go visit the big pedestrian crossing with the large advertising screens that you see everytime Tokyo is featured on TV. I got it in my head that this was "Roppongo" and went about asking taxies how to get there. The first guy said that I needed a hokano taxi. I asked him what color were they and he said orange. So we went up to an orange taxi and asked if they'd go to Roppongo and he said that we needed a hokano taxi...... so then we asked a guy in a black taxi if he'd go to Roppongo and he said we needed a hokano taxi and pointed behind him. So there were two taxis behind him, one black and one orange, so we went to the orange one and asked if they could take us to Roppongo and he said we needed to take a hokano taxi and pointed in front of him to the other black taxi that looked identical to the first one that wouldn't take us.... so we asked anyway and he said "Roppongo? Roppongo wa do desuka? Roppongi desuka?" so I had it wrong, it was Roppongi, not Roppongo. Anyway we got there and it reminded us of Fortitude Valley crossed with Ipswich and a pinch of Inala thrown in for good measure. Found ourselves a dinky little internet cafe on the third floor of a close by building and did a bit of searching. Turns out we should have been looking for Shibuya not Roppongi.... oh well :D at least the lady at the internet cafe spoke good english even though it was tainted by an american accent. She was helpful and told us that it was a bit far to walk but we could take a bus.
So we hopped in another taxi, because at least I can communicate with them and we didn't have to bother buying a ticket. It was just a mental health decision rather than a wallet one.
So we arrive at Shibuya and take some more videos. I really wish I could show you the video we took, there's the worlds busiest pedestrian crossing. here's a photo from wikipedia:
click. We've got video of the traffic stopping and the flood of people crossing every which way. You think that it can't possibly be that many people every single time the lights say walk, but sure enough by the time the traffic stops there's a mass of people on every side waiting to cross.
Behind the big billboard, there's a network of little streets and alleyways, some are blocked to traffic, some are narrow enough that they should be one-way. We had lunch at a cool little place. We had to buy a ticket from a vending machine outside and then present the ticket to the waitress who got our food. Quite an efficent system, and the people who handle the food don't have to handle your money.
We had pork noodle soup and wenever a person entered the place all the staff would sing out what sounded like "Ehhhh!!!!!!" we have no idea why but it was amusing.Next thing was to take a taxi back to Tokyo station. On the way we saw that we missed a large portion of the Imperial Palace, unfortunately. oh well - next time we come we'll plan a bit better.
At the station we bought narita express tickets. They ran express pretty much from Tokyo station to Narita, cutting down the travel time to about 45 mins. once again, more video but no stills :(.
At the station I was gob smacked as I thought there were only squatting toilets there. I came straigt back out of the toilets, frozen with shock. I could think how to use them or where do you put your pants while squatting. Andrew said I had a look of absolute horror! After closing my mouth up, Andrew said there should be some 'normal' toilets in there as well. So I went back in and joyfully discovered a 'normal' toilet. Yay!!! Also at the train station was a smoking room. With glass doors and a strong air conditioner, people go in the smoke and then come out. What a great idea for the rest of us that don't smoke.Back at the hotel we had dinner again, watched some japanese TV and went to bed. A long but adventureous day.
Wake up in the morning, take the shuttle to Narita and go through "customs" where they looked at our bags and asked debbie what the chiropractor thing was and let us through. London here we come!!!
Prior to bording, Debbie had a panic attack that she was going to die of boredom and absolutely had to have a book to read right now immediately! So we go to find a bookstore. I ended up buying an evo magazine in addition to Debbie's book. The mag cost 2500 yen... a rediculous $25 equivalent, yes, I know, evo magazine is imported from the UK to japan and now I'm buying one and taking it back to the UK..... debbie's book were also very expensive.
12hr flight to london. We had TV's in the back of the seats though and we had 18 channels to pick from so we weren't bored. Ironically, we sat next to a japanese person this time...
When we arrived at Heathrow, the plane was delayed a bit and we actually got out of the plane at about 4:00 instead of the planned 3:00. No matter, we had only a short queue in the "people with british visas" line so we rushed through, hoping that our airport transfer person hadn't gotten sick of waiting and left. Then we found that there was severe delays in the luggage due to "adverse weather conditions". I ended up staying at the baggage collection while Debbie went through customs to try and find our taxi transfer guy. When the bags finally came I went through the "nothing to declare" section of customs.. it consisted of walking through a tunnel..... no people, nothing inspected, not even bags put through the xray...... airport transfer guy was there waiting still Thankfully. After waiting for about another 20 mins for the other 4 people that were supposed to be taking our taxi as well, we headed off anyway without them. About a 30 min ride and we arrived at the Thistle Victoria.
Due to the fact that we had been awake from the equivalent of 9:00pm the previous night with only half sleeps on the plane, we were starting to become incoherant as we ate our french dinner at the resturant underneath the hotel. It was about 9pm by the time we had our shower and went to bed. We slept soundly until 6am. Yes we are getting up on average at about 6am in the mornings. Even today which is Sunday!!!!!!!
here's the foyer of the hotel we stayed at:
this post is getting a bit long so I'll put the rest of it in the next one.
