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Published: August 7th 2007
HK sevens
oh no the screens not working!!Hong Kong Sevens
Our last day in Hong Kong was spent at the Hong Kong Sevens Rugby .We couldnt get tickets to the stadium as it sold out ages ago but we went into the village where they showed the games on a massive screen-it was ace!even though Im not a rugby fan. There were a few technical hitches with the screen but after 20minutes they managed to get the screen fixed- phew! just in time for England. It was nice to see England winning at something for a change!!They have won the past 4 out of last 5 tournaments apparently. Shame they crashed out to New Zealand in the end!
Tokyo, Japan
More hustle and bustle as we arrived on Saturday in Tokyo Japan!It even more chaotic to us than Hong Kong for several reasons there are even more people- many more women than men!Its not all skyscrapers though so I dont know where they all live its not so English friendly, as in Hong Kong everything is also in English on public transport,roads etc.NOT in Japan!
The underground map looks like the lines were drawn randomly by a 3 year old child, not
HK sevens organised
HK sevens
That's better! at all.Japanese is a nightmare language with the symbols and everything and they read back to front!Not many people speak English. There are not many street names .They organise in blocks with numbers at the ends of blocks, with the odd street in between.
Very confusing to a beginner!
The end result is that we do a lot of pointing, gesturing with a lots of burbling from the Japanese who then just laugh at us! They are really friendly and go out of there way to help but still just babble In japanese at us. We are starting to learn some of the language as a result and have even taken to nodding all the time, like they do.
The people here are all very neat and tidy- even the homeless guy at the end of the street has his trolley of stuff all organised. The streets are spotless compared to England. We have seen many people wearing surgical masks- the kids even have them with cartoon characters on them. I think its a ploy for the women if they cant be bothered to put makeup on he,he!Some of them even wear white gloves all the time- very
HK sevens
After a few drinks! germ phobic-OCD if you ask me!
We have been staying local for the past couple of days. We have been to see the senso-ji temple- very beautiful. All the cherry blossom is out at this time of year too. This is just how I had imagined the old Japan! Although I think most of the temples were rebuilt in the 1950s after they were destroyed in the war. There is a shopping area nearby called Nakamise with traditional Japanese items lanterns kimono etc etc.
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Later we went to The Imperial Palace Gardens which were also beautiful- lovely looking greenery. We walked past the double and Nijubashi bridges which is what you see in all the guide books.
I had my first taste of Sake in bar- I had a sweet one only it didnt taste sweet to me- its taste like pure alcohol with a hint of the pure, white and deadly sugar in it. Thinking of teeth- any dentist could make a fortune over here, they have terrible teeth!Jon had some yakitori- skewered meats he seemed to enjoy it but we still dont know exactly what meat he was eating-tasted like liver to me but Jon thought
they were delicious!
We have also been doing some shopping electric city in Akihabara first where they have the cheapest electric goods I have ever seen and a fabulous selection too. Jon was in his element. We later went to the trendy fashion area of Takeshi Dori where they have loads of small independent shops with their own labels, I was in my element there- we bought allsorts of stuff that you wouldnt get back home. It was quite cheap too!I thought Japan was mega expensive but we seem to be doing ok on that front!
Hiya it's jon! It's about time I had a go at this so I'm going to finish off the blog for the last couple of days.
On Tuesday we got up very early (5.30am) to go to the huge wholesale fish market where they auction the fish that have just been brought in from the boats. It was raining when we got off the metro and we trudged round a bit looking for the tuna auction which is supposed to be the best bit. After walking past loads of stalls selling just about anything that's ever been in the sea and
Tokyo
Gate to the asakusa kannon temple ,oldest in tokyo. nearly getting knocked down by murderous japanese men on little motorised buggys, we saw what we thought were frozen seals(!) lying on the floor. Turned out to be tuna! Never knew they were that big! Anyway we had just missed the auction so decided to go and get some breakfast as it was still chucking it down, bit of a dissappointment after getting up so early but still glad we saw it.
Got some breakfast jumped on the metro again and headed up the tokyo tower. It was quite cloudy but you could still see quite a way, on a good day you can see mt. fuji. The tower is a bit ugly as it's painted red and white but is just bigger than the eiffel tower - 333m. We wandered round looking at the views and mich walked over the glass floor! No unecassary risks that's my policy!!
After this we went over to Ginza which is one of the main shopping districts, with all the expensive type shops - dior, cartier etc. It was STILL raining so we decided to go in the sony building where you can try out all the cameras, tvs etc. It
Tokyo
Cherry blossom was ok but I was expecting to have a go on a PS3 but no such luck! The whole store is set out like an art gallery so you can test out the cameras by filming huge colourful exhibit type things, entertaining enough for half an hour. There were huge plasma HD screens as well, I told mich to put one under her jumper but she bottled it.
The rest of the day was spent sleeping after the early start and in the evening we caught a boat down the river and saw some bridges (boring) and the asahi brewery (slightly more interesting) and more bridges (boring). Went back after this and had some food and sat chatting to some aussies and a welsh girl whilst having a few JDs and coke.
Wednesday was another early start we we were off to see mt fuji and a place called hakone. We jumped on the metro for the umpteenth time and found the hotel where we were being picked up from. After sitting about for a bit we met a flustered and jumpy woman who turned out to be our guide for the day, after a few attempts at
Tokyo
asakusa kannon temple - pagoda pronouncing my name in a japanese accent ("chew? droo? ahh mr drew you on second bus") we waited again and the bus turned up at half nine.
First stop was mt fuji, it took a couple of hours to get there and when we did it was covered in cloud!! We jumped off the bus took photos of photos (if you see what I mean) of mt fuji and then got back on the bus as it was freezing and had just snowed the night before.After lunch we went over to hakone which is an old extinct volcano which now has a town inside where the crater used to be. We went on a cable car to see some hot spings and the whole place smelt of sulphur, really weird looking place with steam everywhere but because it is so high up there is snow everywhere as well. After a cruise on a lake in a tacky type pirate boat the sky finally started to clear and mt fuji finally appeared, we got some good pics of it - although it just looks like a cloud on most of them!! Next was the trip back to tokyo on a
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Your supposed to 'cover' yourself in the smoke to bring a years good luck! bullet train. This took only about 40 mins to get back to tokyo compared to 2 hours on the bus. Soooo much better than 'virgin' there is loads of leg room they arrive spot on time and there aren't any half chewed prawn mayo sandwhichs lying around. Top stuff. Didn't get back to the hostel until 8 or 9 at night after more wandering around underground trying to use the metro. The highlight of the whole trip was our guide she had the funniest way of speaking english - although she was very good at it. She had all of us on the back seat in stitches teaching us how to count to 5 in japanese and everytime we got off she would run to the front carrying a small flag in case we lost her - even though we were the only ones at some of the places. Classic - proper star!!
It's thursday morning now and we have a few more things to do in tokyo - we want to visit an 'onsen' (hot spring where you can have a bath - mich smells) and it's nice and sunny today so we're off to the park to
Tokyo
Gardens next to asakusa shrine. have a wander around there. Tonight we're going to roppongi hills where all the night life/restaurants are. Tommorow we have to start taking our malaria pills ready for vietnam as we fly on saturday. Anyway that's all for now - stay in touch!! J + M
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dan
non-member comment
oh
think i resigned today, went alright. gonna be driving fat yanks around now, telling them that giraffe nest in trees and other nonsence... looks cool where you are, buy me a plasma nothing smaller than 100"