Us in Tokyo

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Hi guys, how's stuff? Good I hope.

The culture shock from India to Japan was brilliant - we both really enjoyed it! Sealed roads, no one uses their horn, no beggers, no heat and dust, everything is clean and neat, everyone is wonderfully respectful and doesen't want to know your life history, tell you theirs or think we are strange for trying to establish 3cm of personal space around ourselves. Trains arrive on time - to the minute, and when the girl opened reception at 7:01am yesterday and we both looked at our watches thinking that was great service, she then apologised for over sleeping! To make the shock as acute as possible we spent the first day in Shinjuku, a hugely built up area, enormous department stores, wide traffic lanes, the biggerst TV screens I have ever seen on the outside of quite a few buildings, and come night more neon and illumination than should be possible - fab!

So far really enjoying Japan, it is very easy to get around, very well thought out for the tourist even if very little english is spoken or written, almost no one speaks any outside the hostel or the tourist information places. Only problem we are having is with food a bit, but there are 7-11 everywhere, so its no problem of starving, just of missing out on jepanese food. None of them are veggie, despite the country being largely buddist. We have done The Tokyo Museum - loads of wonderful old things, many about 1000years old! Seen lots of parks, including the royal one - you cant see the royal palace, or the royal family as far as I can work out - ever! Lots of wandering round famous streets, the sony display building - lots of gadgets! Went to the fish market this morning, amazingly hectic, brilliant to see, lots of live and dead fish, and reminded me why i'm veggie as I watched numerous fishes being killed and then filleted within 30 seconds! Tuna are diced up with band saws here!

We are off to Kyoto today on the Shinkansen train - the fastest way possible!

Don't try to contact Bernard via his mobile phone as it was pinched somewhere between Delhi airport and Tokyo airport - nasty baggage handlers!

Hope you are all well,

Louise and Bernard x

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Photos

Tokyo
Shinjuku

Tokyo
Only in Japan...

Museum of Tokyo
Gallery of Horyuji Treasures - everything inside is 1000 years old - unlike the building ;-)

Fortunes...
Louise's is on the left - Bernards "Regular Fortune" on the right...

Tokyo Hovel
We can't afford the luxuries that we could in india... this is our hovel in Tokyo. It is a double bed apparently .. in a single kind of size..

Imperial Palace Gardens
You can't get to see the imperial palace no matter how much you try... they've got some pretty serious walls to keep people out..

Imperial Palace Gardens
All this travelling can get a bit overwhelming..

Cherry Blossom
It's Cherry Blossom season..

Azelias
In the imperial gardens

Yasukuni-jinja
This is a somewhat disputed war memorial - it's a shrine for establishing peace in the Empire; though among the 2.4 Million people listed there are some class A war criminals...