The rain has meant no outdoor shots so nothing too Japanese.
Photos at
Pictures Here at Community Webshots

The original plan for today was to see the cherry blossom at Shinjuku Goen, then to head over to the Imperial Palace. Yesterday it was nice and sunny, so this would have been great, however it has rained all day. Net result we went over to　Akihabara, the electronics area, to do some shopping.

There are lots of toys there, all at similar sorts of prices to the UK, so a card reader for the laptop and a 256 MB pen drive were both not bought. The place did feel a little too like home for my wallet’s own good and Dave had to drag me away from the latest Panasonic laptop – the Light Wave C2. The thing is about the size of a smaller laptop, weighs next to nothing, and yet still manages to fit in a DVD read/writer. I was so tempted.

Lunch today has been sushi, at about a quarter the price of the UK. Dinner will probably be snacks (such as yakitori and takoyaki) in a sake bar.

Yay ! – Japanese breakfasts are fun and large. We’re not sure if the flat noodles were actually fish intestine – not sure we’ll ask either. Fish with rice and meats, along with a bowl of miso-oshiro is a perfect way to start the day. Oh I asked Dave about the quake – he never noticed a thing.

Well just been woken up early by my first earth tremor here. Will ask Dave later if he also noticed it. It was strong enough that you could hear fittings creaking, but it was still only a mild shock.

Well we have now arrived in Japan. The flight was a full one, with a poor (for me) selection of movies, but aside from that it was fine. Cherry blossom season has hit Tokyo with the result that looking out of the plane’s window while landing we just saw a sea of light pink blossom.

We just missed one train in to Tokyo, so had to wait an hour. The fact that the only place to spend time was a Starbucks alas sums up the world we live in. The journey in was quick and efficient. We stayed on the train for 1 stop beyond Tokyo’s main station – taking us straight to Shinjuku – rather useful. The map for the hotel was not bad and the one time we had to head to a police koban (a cross between a small station and a police box) for directions, by the time we got there we could see the hotel. The rooms are small, but clean, though the bed is the only place large enough to open my case. There is no ‘Net connection (oh how I have to suffer), though with a wireless scan I did briefly pick up some one’s unprotected router, not long enough to abuse it though. Net result is that I’m typing this up to take to a cyber cafe – not bringing a pen drive with me is going to be a pain with transfering files – though this is to be rectified at Akihabara.

First meal over here would not have been possible in the UK. We found a small place doing set meals with grilled meats (mine was bacon, Dave’d was pork), along side a bowl of clear oxtail broth, some pickels, and some barley rice on to which you pour a raw beaten egg with some slivers of seaweed. It was very nice, though I know many who would have just left the egg. This was washed down with our first beer over here – a bad idea at the time considering how tired we were.

In the evening we were both still tired – as neither of us can sleep on planes, so the plan was to just have a walk towards Shinjuku station then to get some food. This turned in to a walk followed by a sit down at a cafe while watching the world go by as we were not yet hungry. Once we did move off we were hit by the problem that the Japanese tend to eat earlier than us in the evening, resulting in some interesting looking places being closed, but we still found a decent noodle bar to settle down in – oishii.

A final walk before heading back to the hotel found us in a couple of games arcades. The Taiko drum game was a tad boring after a while, not helped by the long instructions neither of us could understand. We had a try at a pitching/baseball alley on top of another arcade, god we sucked but it was fun. It was at this one that we found an air guitar game, silly fun, but a nice end to a tiring day.

Well here I am, this time travelling with a friend, Dave, about to embark on my next adventure, Japan, Land of the Rising Sun.

BA now fly out of Terminal 1 at Heathrow, and you can tell. This place used to be dire, now it’s quite pleasant, just a shame my membership rating is too low to get in to the BA Exec club lounge.

Time to departure ~70 minutes.

The trip to the airport was pretty uneventful. There was a notice in the bus saying a tip for the driver would be nice, but he was demanding for it.

Decided to upgrade to World Traveler Plus (cattle plus) as there’s a deal at JFK where it only costs $250. Well worth it in my mind.

Arrived over 3 hours early, as recommended. 10 minutes later my bag was checked in and I had purchased the upgrade, so I went to security, where the time problem is. 5 minutes later I’m beyond there looking to kill almsot 3 hours. Couldn;’ find a wireless spot (though it would probably have been T-Mobile and thus chargeable), so I watched an episode and a half of Twin Spica, split up by a game of Age of Empires 2.

The flight was pretty uneventful, and now I’m bak, tired, but not sure about hitting the sack unless it’s jsut for a few hours, else I’ll not sleep tonight.

Took me almsot an hour to walk up there (actually it was only about 45 minutes), but I went to Carnegy’s Deli for lunch. Got there just in time as well, about midday, I managed to get a table straight away.

When I left about half an hour or so later, having half consumed a Woody Allan inspired sandwich (think it was called a Broadway – half and half brisket and corned beef), the queue went outside and half way down the block.

Noty a cheap lunch, the sandwich was probably good value at $15 if I had managed it (there’s a $3 surchase if you share), but $8 for a small coffee was a rip off.

I went down to reception to book a shuttle to the airport (I could equally have skipped out for breakfast), came back up to find that despite having about 75+ minutes till I need to check out, my electronic door key no longer worked.

I hope I can find some online review sites so I may express my opinions.

For some reason I thought I had a 8 p.m. flight, meaning leaving the hotel at ~3.30. Checked when I got up and it is an 18:30 flight, need to be there by 15:30, which means leaving here by 2. Not sure if I have enough time now to head up to Carnegies to eat. Might head south tro Union Sqaure and eat round there intead.