Tokyo, days 3 and 4

Summary:
Bag lock-outs: 1
Near death experiences: 1
Bullet trains: 1
Supermarket challenge – moderately successful.
 After finally managing to untangle our legs from the sleep sheet, we woke up at 4am unable to sleep, and decided to take advantage of a bit of planning time before venturing out in search of breakfast. The morning’s supermarket challenge was very successful, having found yoghurts, juice and fruitbread to keep us going for the day.


First stop was the station to pick up our tickets – I will say at this point I’m very impressed with myself having asked to collect the ticket in Japanese, and then understood the reply! At this point of course our language skills ran out, but the lady did ask if we spoke Japanese – so clearly we had given some sort of indication that we might be able to... it’s a start. After that was the palace gardens, where we wandered for a bit and stopped to watch the fountains, before heading over to Asakusa to book our hostel for next week.



We’d separated our cash – just in case, though we’d actually bought it all with us, even though most of it was hidden... it was so well hidden in fact we forgot we had it and had to go to a cash machine to pay for the room. As if that wasn’t stupid enough, I had managed to accidentally reset the combination lock on my bag and lock myself out. Boo. We sat for quite a while, as I painstakingly went through 000, 001, 002, 003 etc etc. Finally at 287...(I’ve reset it – so anyone after my spare pants, you’re out of luck) it clicked and we were in. You can imagine how amused we were when we realised that we actually didn’t need cash at all. Oh well!


After that debacle, we went to a temple – I’m not entirely sure what type of temple – it wasn’t really a building as such, more of a street market with some chanting at the end... interesting all the same. We were followed by a strange man with a camera who snapped us just as we came through the gate, then seemed to appear round every corner after that – very weird. We managed to lose him, and paid a visit to the 100 Yen shop. 100 yen is about 70p – so it’s EVEN better than the £1 shop – it is of course full of crap, so look forward to your souvenirs guys!

Supermarket challenge 2 of the day, didn’t go quite so well. We found some musli and some more yoghurts for breakfast, as well as some doritos, and decided to take a gamble on tea. There was a hot food section, which had various types of deep fried crispy stuff. The problem with deep fried crispy stuff, is it all looks the same – and who knows what is inside. In her best Japanese Loz asked if our selection was chicken, and the guy said yes. We concluded later that he lied (cos Loz’s Japanese is faultless). We did however have some veggie spring rolls which were very nice – if a little soggy by the time we got them all back to the other side of Tokyo.


Having been up since 4am, we thought it might be a good idea to have a nap, when we’d had tea. It was around 5.45pm, so we thought we’d have 40 winks, and then pop off to Shibuya to see all the lights, (and the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing). That didn’t go according to plan, as we woke up at 9.15, having slept through 2 alarms (which I would swear did not go off – but when we tested it, it worked fine). Despite being ready to get straight back into bed, I’m pleased we went out, because Shibuya turned out to be what I imagine ‘real’ Tokyo to be like... lots of lights, lots of neon signs, lots of people... we succumed to a Starbucks and then headed back now wide awake.

 It’s now 10.20am, and we’re on our way to Nikko – having had four hours sleep... that’s gonna bite us on the bum later I’m sure... but we rode rush hour tube this morning. Now, I’ve done rush hour tube in London several times, and I’d say it’s unpleasant when you have a lot of baggage, but I’ve never thought I was going to die! Tokyo rush hour is mental. They have a guard for each door to shove you in – whether your legs want to go or not! Loz and I got separated, as we couldn’t fit both of us in (although the 10 people that got on after I decided I couldn’t disagreed) so we met up at the other end a little battered, but we’d survived.

 (Cat just chose this moment to announce she thought she’d lost her money belt on the bullet train – passport, drivers license, 15000 yen, you get the picture – happily it was in her backpack all along!)


Excuse me – panic over. I think I may have just given us both a mild heart attack. Don’t worry mum – we’re on it really!


Anyway, where was I? – yeah, we’re on our way to Nikko. We got the bullet train this morning – which was wicked. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more efficient. They have a cleaner for each carriage, who process on perfectly in unison, and then clean like nothing you’ve ever seen. They spin all of the seats round so everyone faces forward (very clever), and they wipe everything down in record time. Then they line up and walk off again. Incredible. Now we’re on a local train, which is nice enough. It has heated seats and our bums are burning quite a lot – not too sure about the safety of the emergency chocolate in this heat either. We think we might have seen mount Fuji, although we don’t know, as there’s quite a lot of snow covered mountains around at the minute.


Very excited to see Nikko – the bright lights of the city versus the greenery & peace of the countryside.


Cat’s decided to be brave & test the theory that Japan’s tap water is drinkable – not sure whether you’ll want to be kept posted on that one but if you ever decide to visit Japan let us know & we’ll tell you how it turned out.


The best word to describe Japan at the moment is probably efficient. Everything runs on time and you’d better be ready for those trains when they come. There are lots of little ditties playing in the stations to accompany your journey – somewhere in between muzak and something japanese – I’m looking forward to hearing how Cat’s compositions turn out with this wonderful influence.


Time to leave the train so we’ll get back to you later with an update on Nikko.

Love,

Cat & Loz x