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Published: November 14th 2008
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I'm not sure how the time difference works out, but I left Seattle on the scariest bus ride of all time in the early hours of Monday morning and arrived in Tokyo very late on Tuesday night in a state that would put a George Romero zombie to shame.
After a really good nights sleep and trying to work out how to use the toilet, I set off for a look around the neighbourhood. I'm staying in an area of Tokyo called Asakusa. There is a huge temple just up the road and it's surrounded by a market, a really cute little garden (complete with fish pond) and a maze of little store fronts selling all sorts of weird food and trinkets.
I was sharing a room with 3 Swedes: Gus, Linda and Robert who turned out to be great fun. Gus was very eccentrict but funny, he always wears a top hat when he's out. Linda and Robert where a little more reserved, but still great fun. They invited me to join them out for the night to the Shibuya area of the city. It's one of the more young and trendy areas of town which is probably
Automated cakes
Cool little cake machine at the market. it cooks and wraps! most famous for a crossroads that was used in Lost in Translation. We went to a noodle bar for dinner and ate for about £3 each. The food I've tried so far in Japan hasn't been too great, but I'm defiantly open to trying anything new and maybe I've just been going to the wrong places. I've made myself a promise that I'm going to eat at least half of everything I buy, no matter how bad it tastes.
We also went to a Manga internet cafe, which are littered all over Tokyo. It costs around £2 for an hour's use of a private cubical in which you get a PC and comfy chair and you also have access to a very comprehensive library of Manga books and DVD's. There is also bring food and drink to your cubical on request. Apparently a lot of people use them to stay in over night if they miss the last train home, although it did seem a bit seedy and Linda said that the guy in the cubical next to her was "making himself very comfortable" whatever that means to a Swedish.
I've also spent a day visiting the Ginza
God of Thunder
or possibly wind. area which is full of designer shops and department stores but not really my scene and the Akhiabara (aka electric town) area which was much more to my liking. There is streets and streets of gadget shops (including a massive 7 storey gadget have called Yodobashi Camera) and an unusual amount of "adult" stores and quite often the 2 merge and you suddenly find yourself surrounded by vibrators.
I've started getting the hang of some of the customs , bowing at people and taking your shoes off at the door are the 2 biggest ones. I'm also really worried about unwittingly offending someone. I know it's really bad manors to blow your nose in public (which doesn't help when I've got the beginnings of a cold and there must be a stack of others that I don't know about. If anyone's got any ideas, let me know.
The japanese people are really friendly, and always putting themselves out to help you out. I really wanted to go to the Studio Gibli museum and the girl on reception at the hostel wrote me a note in japanese saying "please can you help me buy a ticket" with all the
Incense
It looks like your supposed to waft the incense towards you before entering the temple. information on I needed to take to take to the supermarket which has ticket machines within it. Unfortunatly it turns out the the museum is fully booked the whole time I'm in Japan, but I was really impressed by the good nature of everyone.
I caught the Shinkansen "Bullet" train to Kyoto today it was really smooth and apparently goes at 285 km/h but on the inside it was pretty much like any other train.
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anonymous
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I'm v jealous - I want to go to Japan - has the toilet squirted you with water yet?