Tokyo, Japan

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After a week in the Kansai area of Japan I took the shinkansen train up to Tokyo. I had met an english women, Joanna, on the tour in China and she was kind enough to let me stay with her whilst in Tokyo. She worked at the British Embassy and on my first weekend in Tokyo we went out of town to Chuzenji Lake which was about 3-4 hours drive north of Tokyo and stayed at the Ambassadors private villa right on the edge of the lake. The scenery was absolutely stunning and the villa had an amazing view out over the lake. The weather was a bit cooler as we were at about 1500m but it was great to see the changing colour of the leaves. We had a really relaxing weekend, drinking wine and doing some walking and visiting some of the local waterfalls.

Back in Tokyo Joanna showed me lots of Tokyo's sights. We went to a street called Jingu-bashi where a costume play gang congregate every sunday dressed up in bizzare outfits. It was an amazing place to take photographs and I have put loads of them below. Joanna also took me to the shopping areas and the famous crossing at Shibuya where I got some of the city pictures from. I saw lots of other bizzare sights when walking around Tokyo. We saw a man walking his dog and he had dressed his dog in jeans and a shirt and they were both heading into Gucci, it was very funny, but unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to get a picture. The dressing up of dogs seems to be a craze in Japan. We saw quite a few other people pushing prams with several dogs in the pram instead of babies, who were dressed in baby clothes!

Another highlight of Tokyo was going to the New York Grill. This is the bar where Lost in Translation was filmed and as well as being a fantastic bar with live jazz every evening, the views over the city were very impressive.

I also got to have a tour around the British Embassy and as Joanna is the secretary of press and public affairs I had the opportunity to attend a press launch of Little Britain in Tokyo which was held at the British Council whcih was a great night.

I was due to catch the boat back to China last friday but when I arrived at the port the chinese immigration refused to let me board because my chinese visa had expired and I hadn't noticed so I couldn't go back to China. I was actually quite glad as it meant I could have a bit longer in Tokyo. I have decided to head to Thailand from here so I am flying out today, the 15th, to Bangkok and am going to head to the beaches for a couple of weeks and then make some plans to go to Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos.

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Comments

[Danielle]

Still going?
I can't belive how long your trip is!! It's amazing how much you've seen. The pictues are great!! I hope you come back to the USA when your done!