Konnichiwa!

That means hello or good afternoon in Japanese!

I arrived in Tokyo Friday evening and made my way through health, immigration, and customs with no issues. Met an Aussie on the plane who lives here and he gave me a few tips, one of which I took straight away and hopped on a bus instead of the train into the city since he said it would be easier with my bag and what-not, particularly because I was heading to Shinjuku - the busiest train station in the world (apparently). The train would be crowded and the station a zoo and finding my way to the correct exit to get to the hotel would be either luck of the draw or a real mission, so I got on the bus for the same price and got dropped right at my door.

The hotel was fabulous!!! I haven't stayed in a place so nice since my last business trip. I forgot how nice it is to shower without wearing flip-flops and to sleep on a proper mattress with a room to myself!! What a treat! I wished I could have stayed there all weekend! I stayed at this particular place because Stef's in-laws (Rebecca and Mitch) were staying there this weekend and I planned to meet up with them. After I arrived and had a very quick shower we headed out to have some dinner and walk around the street of Shinjuku at night - it's quite the sight! Dinner was great (noodles, edamame, miso, pickled cucumber, sake, etc) and after walking around for a while we headed back to the hotel - it had been a long day for me (10 hr flight from Sydney).

Next morning I slept in really, really late. Before checking out of the hotel I made my way over to the Shinjuku station to grab a bite to eat and scout out the subway lines there to figure out where I was going to make my way to the backpackers I was moving to, that way I wouldn't be wandering around with a big pack trying to sort that out. Then I went back, got my pack and headed out. I made my way to the hostel without any dramas - changed subway lines and all! :) I'm finding getting around here is much easier (so far - fingers crossed) than I expected. Tokyo, though, has a lot of English translations written for stations and most signage and what-not. Even though I have found many restaurants and what-not that have no English, I'd say more than 50% of things have some sort of English so you can figure things out for the most part. Once I leave Tokyo I have a feeling things will be quite different!

Tokyo is the cleanest city I've ever been to in my entire life!!! I cannot express to you how amazingly clean it is! It's mind-boggling! And it's quiet!!!!! I've read that the central part of the city has over 12 million people residing within it's boundaries and the whole metropolitan area has somewhere in the vicinity of 35 million people. It's completely amazing that all of these people live here and they do not litter and they don't yell and they don't honk their horns! It's fantastic!!! Your senses aren't assaulted every hour of the day like they do in smaller places that I've been to (NYC is a great example of horn honking and smells doing my head in!). Many, many people ride their bikes here for transport and I've only seen ONE locked up - and that was a really cool looking silver fixie with a neat red chain - I took a photo of it! Most bikes are cute little single speed commuter bikes and all of them have baskets on the front and people of pretty much every single age and demographic (business men in suits to women with their kids to 80-year-old grannies) ride around the city. Very cool. And as I said, none of them are locked up - there are heaps of bikes just sitting around at all kinds of street corners and at shops and apartment buildings. It's quite a concept - very few bikes get stolen.

The hostel I'm staying in is fantastic! I'm staying in a really great neighbourhood (or as they call it a ward) called Asakusa. When I arrived yesterday I met 4 guys here in the lounge and ended up heading out for the afternoon with them to 'electric city'. It is just completely nuts - particularly since we went there on a Saturday. My head was sore from the over stimulation and constant head-turning. There are many interesting stores - mostly selling electronics of all kinds (I bought a hairdryer) and figurines relating to video games and anime. There were also adult stores which were a bit shocking and entertaining in themselves - a side of Japanese culture I wasn't aware of... things I am really not at liberty to post on a blog I would say. You'll have to use your imaginations. Later in the evening I met up with Bec and Mitch for dinner again in Ginza - the posh area of Tokyo - wow!! Things are quite expensive there!

Today I spent hours and hours wandering around Asakusa and the temple district. I absolutely loved that. I spent quite a lot of time at the temples and at one of the shrines there I saw a wedding!! To give you a little bit of Japanese religious background - according to what I've read, most Japanese practice Shinto for the living (the shrines here are all Shinto, hence where I saw a couple getting married). For the afterlife (funerals etc) they practice Buddhism - so that's where the temples come in. I don't know how accurate the links I've put up here are, but I'm sure it will give you a bit of any idea. If you want to know more you can search for it - it's not hard to find. I've been reading some books on it now. It's very interesting. As well as visiting the temples, I wandered the streets of vendors (fans, kimonos, robes (yukata), chopsticks, etc, etc) and restaurants and shops. It was fantastic. Again, a lot of Japanese people stared at me, but as I've been finding I just smile at them and a lot of them are quite happy when I do and smile back. Most of them are older people. One really old man was really staring at me today and I smiled and he was giggly about it. Very cute. I found the supermarket and bought myself some green tea and fruit (I've found it very hard to get a hot tea in the morning - today I resorted to Starbucks - eek!!). They seem to only serve tea (ocha) in certain restaurants (like with sushi) or at a very specific tea shop (which I have yet to find, but when I do I'll likely spend my day there - haha!). I still haven't had a proper Japanese breakfast, but I'm sure that will come, particularly when I leave Tokyo this week. Later I found my way to a really inexpensive tempura restaurant for a late lunch (it cost me 500 yen - approximately $6 CDN - very, very cheap for Tokyo) where I was able to ask for a vegetable dish in Japanese (yay!) and got a really nice meal with miso, rice, and tempura veggies.

Now I'm chilling out. After a jam packed day I feel I need a nap!! And it started pouring down buckets when I was on my way back. It's been raining off and on. June is the rainy month here. It's warm enough though - no jacket required! And the hostel has heaps of umbrellas to take out for the day. Tomorrow I'm on to some new adventures. Will post again when I can.