Tokyo

Arriving in Tokyo absolutely knackered and with a touch of the Monday blues, it was quite disconcerting to almost fall asleep on the train and miss my stop, then arrive in Shinjuku station totally baffled. This place has to be the most confusing station in the world. There are 60 exits apparently, ones in to department stores, then west, east, central west, central east etc. Just before I burst in to tears though I found an info desk and got directions to the nearest taxi rank.

The New City Hotel was a recommendation of Smaje and it was perfectly adequate. However, I presume he managed to find penthouse suite with soft pillows and complimentary 'massage' service. I was in a small single, though it had everything I needed and was a good base from which to explore.

I arrived late in the afternoon so after I sorted my stuff out I took a walk into Shinjuku to see what was going on. Once I got to the neon bit there were suddenly thousands of people, all seemingly walking the opposite direction to me. Restaurants galore although none had any English descriptions and only a handful had pictures to help out. The golden arches were drawing me in like the Death Star tractor beam but I managed to lock in the auxiliary power and resist temptation to be a pussy and ventured in to one of the local noodle places. I watched the person before me do the necessary then followed suit - this was because you picked a number on the machine, paid, got a ticket and handed that to the chef. There was no English on the machine, but fortunately the picture outside that looked quite nice had a number next to it so I went with that. Some sort of noodle soup and pork with rice was given to me and it was really good...only Y500 too (about £2.50). I was shattered after this so I wandered back and got my head down.

Tuesday was sight-seeing day. On the recommendation of Haggis, I took the train over to Harajuku where I took a wander down Takeshita Street (snigger) and saw an amazing array of freaks and freak boutiques. On the other side of the station there was the Meiji Jingu shrine - a complete contrast to Takeshita Street, with a tranquil walk through the gardens to the shrine itself, all very relaxing.

Erm, I think I'll go, erm, left

Wednesday morning before my flight was spent in the Shinjuku-Gyeon gardens which according to the Rough Guide are arguably the most beautiful in Tokyo. Being winter, it was pretty bare but still very beautiful indeed and worth the trek to get there.

Pretty Japanese this

Tokyo is a place I would definitely like to see more of and preferably not when feeling totally destroyed. One more thing, on checking my watch it turns out there is no time difference between Korea and Japan. James 1-2 Owen. Ha.

On to Melbourne now...