First Week in Tokyo.

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The arrival.
The flight, oh the flight! 11 and a half hours! It was an experience ill say that much. I was feeling rough the whole journey, and things weren’t made any better by the giant camp guy sitting next to me who kept falling asleep, meaning I couldn’t get out because his legs were so long I had to climb over him, just hoping he didn’t wake up when my crotch or arse was waving in his face. Oh and the food was shocking, cant fault them on the amount they give you, but the hot part of the meal is awful, chicken and rice, where the rice had cemented itself to the pot and the what I hope were sesame seeds scattered around to keep the asian theme, looking more like rat droppings. Breakfast was no better, an apparent full English, with sausage that didn’t taste like sausage and inedible veg, although the scrambled egg was surprisingly nice.

Eventually we landed in Tokyo, I had a window seat closest to the wings so I could see it all happening which was really cool, because im fascinated by all that stuff! It was raining hard, but that couldn’t dampen my spirits (whahey) I was such a fool packing as much as I did, my suitcase weighed a tonne, plus my hand luggage and laptop I was probably carrying half my body weight lol. We were picked up from the airport by Sachi, our real gap rep, who took us to the hostal via the subway system, which btw is very impressive, its clearly much older than the London underground, but is much more simple, efficient, spacious and cleaner! Which was nice. The hostal isn’t too bad, the people all seem pretty cool, and im getting on well with the 2 guys daniel and james on the same gapyear program as me. So far so good.

We met a guy called Mike who had been in japan for a year, teaching English mainly, so he knew his way around. We went out and about, saw the local area which has a beautiful temple! And grabbed our first bite too eat which was Chinese in the end lol. Luckily for us Mike made us familier with the subway system so its pretty easy to get around now.

The first full day.
We had to get up early for a tour, which was pretty damn hard seeing as we had travelled for over 15 hours in total, and had to adapt to a completely different time zone, 8 hours ahead. We were supposed to leave the hostal at 7:45 to arrive in time at the tour meet point, but we didn’t leave until 8:10. We came out the station, and got totally lost, until we were saved by an american guy (thank you america!)

The tour was awesome. First stop was Tokyo tower, a metal tower in the centre of Tokyo, standing about 10 or so metres taller than the eiffel tower! On the observation deck you could see all of Tokyo. It was stunning, theres so much beautiful architecture here. Next stop was the Meji Shinto shrine, which is a large temple shrine area devoted to the first Shinto emperor on japan after the times of the samurai. Again another stunningly beautiful place, with large courtyards, temples, prayer trees and sake barrel walls (sake is used in many of the celebrations, festivals and events in the Shinto religion) We also visited the west(or east?) imperial gardens, which was amazing. Flower beds, circled by streams, leading to larger streams with ornamental koi carp swimming around, with trees, pathways, private areas, and waterfalls in the surrounding areas. I dont describe it well, but it was really cool. It had a very calm and peaceful atmosphere. We then went onto Ginza, and looked around the large shopping district The biggest things ive noticed about most areas here in Tokyo are how clean everything is, the amount of vending machines there are lol, and how individual each building, all look if they were designed by a different person, with there own image. Most often no two are alike, making for a very beautiful city. I crashed out so early that nite, must have been asleep from 6pm and didn’t wake up till 12 the next day!

Day 2.
Today we were being picked up from our hostel and taken by train, which is a brilliant way to get around btw, so easy, and everywhere in Tokyo appears to be linked. We had a brief etticate orientation, which was just practicing a few Japanese words and reading through a relatively helpful pack. We then went onto the working holiday office, in this giant plaza building. Here we registered with the office and looked at a few jobs available. I found a small teaching job which sounded good, but with the distance I had to travel and after tax its not really cost effective, so I wont apply for it ill look for something closer. Saying that ive lost my voice so I couldn’t call and book an interview if I wanted to lol.

We met this guy called hose, who had been in tokyo for a few months, n went around the local area, which had quite a large manga following it seems, lots of shop full of manga comics, and figures, and star wars stuff which i was loving, they had boba fetts helmet, and signed light saber, i so wanted one! We also went into a japanese arcade which was so cool! They had this drum machine, like giant tribal drums, where u had to play the beats, so much fun. I found a tekken 6 arcade machine, but got my arse handed to me by a japanese kid (no shame there, its there game lol)

That night a big group of us who had met and got pretty social meant out for the nite. The group was a big awesome multiracial gathering, felt like the Japanese lost lol. There was me dan and james representing England, Sam from Scotland, Sean from america, Donald from Hawaii, Tina from Canada, Andrew from Australia, and Jose from new Zealand. Im hoping I didn’t forget anyone, but it was the first time id met them all so I think I can be let off. We started in Akasuka, and went to Shibuya I think, to a club called The Room, which was ok, drinks were average price, but it was quite small n not very busy so we moved on. We ended up wandering the streets looking for some cool places to go buying drinks from different 7/11 marts. This was pretty cool, cos it gave everyone a chance to talk to each other and get to know each other. After a few hours, me and Andrew got separated from the group, we looked but couldn’t find anyone so we decided to carry on the night on our own. Wandering around trying to ask people where the good places were, we ended up in Roppongi, and found our way to a bar called Dreams, which was empty but we got the bouncers to give us cheap drinks so it was all good. Andrew was asleep on the bar from 2 on wards, so I spent the rest of the nite talking to the barmaid, Mika. She gave me her number, but she also said she had a boyfriend lol. So I don’t think ill call, because that’s a bit harsh. We left at 5:15 and got the first train home, a met up with all the other guys as we got off the train which was cool, cos they all had a great nite aswell. Sam’s night was even seeing as he was staying the night at a ‘Love’ hotel (basically a hotel catering for people who meet and don’t want to take the party back to a stuffy hostel room with 5 other guys asleep in) We got home at about 6am, and I woke up at 7pm lol.

Day 3.
So waking up at 7pm meant most of it was gone, so we just lazed around the hostel, cruising the web, talking to everyone, and ended up playing tekken 5 and marvel vs. capcom 2 on the ps2 until 4:30 am, with Dan, Sean (who is the biggest comic book fan ever, and knows everything there is to know!) and Sam who had arrived back home with the biggest grin on his face, as u can imagine, the cheeky sod lol.

Day 4.
I woke up at 10ish after dreaming about being a in the marvel superhero comic, and im now downstairs, looking out on a sunny but windy day typing this. Its not a bad life.
Tonight we are all going out again, and its looking like its gona be an wiked all nighter again, with the Legendary Group of Multiracial Awesomeness! (LGMA)

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