A whirlwind of colour & noise

Wow what a day! Gene & I have been in Tokyo for 13 hours and have managed to pack in quite a bit.

After a day of flying we arrived rather tired but excited in Japan. Gene braved the complicated looking foreign exchange forms and I tried to get our rail vouchers exchanged. Gene was more successful as the JR Rail Offices had closed just after our plane landed. While we were hunting the correct (albeit closed) ticket window we missed our hotel shuttle bus by 6 minutes. After an hour waiting in the deliciously cool 17.6 degree celcius Japan night we finally made it on the shuttle. We spent our first night in Japan in the Narita Hilton which was wonderfully comfy and boasted beer vending machines about 10m from our room door. The view from our hotel room was pretty special.

Our first morning saw us enjoying a breakfast which melded Western bacon and eggs style food with rice porridge & miso soup. After this we headed to the hotel shuttle bus area where we saw a bus waiting. We tried to work out which bus we needed to jump on to get to Narita train station. As the bus was leaving, we worked out that it was indeed the bus we should have been on. Happily the next bus arrived and although it didn't go to the Narita train station, it did take us to to the airport where we could get a train from Terminal 2. It turned out that was ideal as the Narita-Tokyo express train we got on didn't stop at Narita station.

The trip to Tokyo took just over an hour and I took several (slightly blurred) photos of what could be rice paddies or could be wasabi farms... my agriculture knowledge is lacking I know.

We finally arrived in Tokyo's Shinjuku station at 12:30 and took in our first glimpse of Tokyo from the station. Our phrase book has come in most handy as I headed to the ticket office to ask for directions to the Tokyo Hilton. After securing a map with a friendly and simple looking red line to our hotel and the reassurance that it was only 20 minutes away, Gene & I set off to brave the streets with our luggage in tow. How lost could we possibly get when we had a map? Apparently a little... On closer inspection our map turned out not to have street names, only building names. Now you'd think that this would be really handy in a city of skyscrapers, but the thing that we noticed about Tokyo so far is the lack of logos and garishly bright signs at the top of buildings. They seem to be reserved for the lower levels. So we were stuck walking until we found a map in front of random building. Unfortunately the "you are here" arrow had been stolen so it took us a while to get our bearings again. We'd taken a turn too early or late, it was hard to tell, but we knew we were within blocks of the hotel.

At about 13:00 we made it to the hotel where we bumped into Gene's Mum, Cathy, who was in the lobby trying to find out if we'd checked in. We headed up to the hotel room and settled before heading to Gene's parents' room to snack on some rather beautifully decorated chocolates.

We headed out to the Keio department store to grab some food. It's great being in a department store trying to read the directory when it's not in English. It's even better trying to order off a menu when it's not in English. Our phrase book came to our rescue again and we managed to get a menu in English while providing our waitress with some amusement. Gene & I stuck to our usual favourites of katsu-don and oyako-don for our first meal.

After that we decided to find Kabukicho which was noted as the entertainment area where we could find all the latest Japanese arcades and more. We got there by means of a small alleyway that had stall selling everything from cheap sunnies to Japanese copies of Charlie Chaplin's short films. I'm amazed at what you can find in Japan! We entered the area which was hard to miss with all the flashing signs. I managed to find what I thought was a bead shop within two minutes of us arriving there and headed in to check it out. It turned out to be a craft department store with everything from "inner wear" (lingerie) to snake skin for craft use. I found the brand of knitting needles/crochet hooks that I was after (at 20% off!) but I'm holding out till we find the shop first.

Across the road from this shop was an adult toy shop (we think) which seemed to have vending machines selling capsules that contained everything from designer wallets to dildos. We were a little confused and somewhat disturbed but we didn't let it deter us from exploring the area further.

Walking around, it's hard to miss the multitude of pachinko & slot machine halls. Being the avid gamblers that we are, Gene and I decided that Pachinko, a game that apparently involved little skill and have little monetary incentive, was the way to go. In a whirlwind of colour, movement and much noise, we spent 3,000 yen shooting ball-bearings around the machine with gobsmacked looks on our faces. Unsurprisingly the clerk at the pachinko parlour was more than happy to give us a copy of instructions for the game in English. In all fairness though, everyone in Japan seems happy to help you out if they can. It's a wonderfully helpful and polite place to visit! Having not spent enough money playing games with little return, we both gave the slots a turn. We both got a pay out but not before making idiots of ourselves when we tried to store our tokens in the drink holder. It didn't go so well, mainly because there was a big hole in the bottom of the drink holder so all the coins fell out.

We decided we'd played enough confusingly noisy but oddly amusing games for the day and headed to another arcade for more familiar games. We played a Japanese drumming game before we decided to join in the photo booth culture. We spent what felt like an eternity posing for the camera, Gene was a little tall for some of the close-ups, but it was great fun. The language barrier proved amusing as we couldn't understand the instructions and were pressing buttons at random. We stepped outside to wait for our pictures, but they just didn't seem to be printing! We flagged down a clerk and after a game of charades pointed us to another booth where he demonstrated that we could add pictures to our photos. It was awesome! We spent another 5-10 minutes adding random characters and cartoons to our photos and then they printed. A game of Time Crisis 3, some poor drumming on my part and it was time to meet up with Gene's folks. On the way back we checked out a capsule hotel and saw many more interestingly named establishments.

The 100 yen shop grabbed our attention on the way to dinner but not nearly as much as the excitement of buying dinner from a vending machine. Well, that's not 100% accurate, we bought a token from the vending machine which we handed to the chef who cooked everything fresh. The main excitement came from not knowing what you'd ordered, just the cost. Gene & I ended up with some white meat and rice while Gene's parents ended up with some red meat and rice.

After dinner we explored the area further to find ourselves surrounded my men's clubs and ladies' clubs. We finally made it back to the Shinjuku station after Gene & his dad had been propositioned by various men offering to introduce them to lovely Japanese or Russian women for a while.

So here we are back at the hotel.

Now, it has to be done, it's an important topic of discussion when travelling, the toilet. When you sit down on the toilet, it flushes gently, apparently to help you pee if you're having troubles. It's actually a little disconcerting when you're not expecting it... Gene says "for all the good a bidet is, it might as well shoot water up my ass (or if you don't happen to be sitting on the toilet at the time, all over the bathroom)" Thank you Gene :)

Anyhow, accompanying pics to this rather long account are to be found at: my Zoto site. We're heading to Matsumoto tomorrow to check out the castle there.