GlobalTraining

It should be noted that when writing every single documented daily event that jim is with me during that,i cant seem to get rid of him,strange.Funniest recent event is coming back from matsumoto in the bus.Went to go for a cheeky piss in the toilet at the back of the bus,unfortunately the height of said compartment was less than generous,(5ft4 at a guess)Hilarity ensued,although no one was there to see thankfully.It was too small for me to turn round and sit down and i couldnt get back out again.The result of this,i was doubled over,repeatedly headbutting the back wall as the bus jolted its way along.Fun times indeed.

12th Off to shinjuku for a walk around,the place never gets dark,light pollution is coool

13th Off to harajuku with Axel,we both bought loads of stuff so looks like once we get to oz we will be sending a few items home

14th Sorting out room ready for departure on friday,finally find my keys,off out tonight to shibuya with axel.

For those that dont have it my flickr photos can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/25900227@N07/

Due to time constraints and general slow typing im going to have to condense the daily accounts.aaaaaaaaanywho,better get down to this documenting thingy

21st Odaiba beach,went to muscle park sports theme park and alien exhibit at the science museum

22nd Shinjuku Gyoen Park

23rd Roppongi area and Roppongi hills shopping area

24th Hamamatsucho and the pokemon centre to get some cool memoribilia,a must.

25th Ikebukaro-Aquarium,Namja town (made no sense,had a cheesecake expo) sunshine city

26th Shibuya shopping area,spent a while in japanese HMV,v.cool.

27th Ginza,sony centre and the ultra modern shiodome area

28th Senso-ji temple in asakusa and met a lost american dude from venice beach

29th Bought baseball tickets with dong,miles and knack at tokyo dome,went on the rollercoaster at la qua next door and go to park near house

30th Odaiba beach,v.warm so football on the beach

May

1st Come to shinjuku to update blog and go up Met Gov Building

2nd Park and Monica's concert+Buffet,hyper good value.

3rd Went to akihabara with monica,lots of tech shops and eat octopus balls,TASTY,I WANT MORE,don quixote store for everything in the world

4th Karaoke with miles,alan,monica and knack

5th Ueno,tried octopus on a stick,tastes like cat arse,went to see shops under the railway

6th Took train to kamakura,an hour south of tokyo,hiking trail in mountains,giant buddha,beach

7th Baseball at tokyo dome,YMCA at half time,walk to 5 towers island during the day. Earthquake when we get back in the evening.

8th Ikebukaro crepes,sorted out matsumoto bus,lose hope in ever finding clothing that fits here

9th Miraiken science museum with axel(new housemate from france,sound,here for music scene as he's a scratch dj) to see asimo,the honda robot,incredible.Went to fuji telivision studio's and saw where they film the human tetris gameshow:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll2kajMH2u0

10th Bus to matsumoto,like a japanese chamonix,meet kelton(an english teacher originally from america but been living in japan for 20years) and see matsumoto castle.Changed my opinion on horses today,they are awesome!.....when they are eaten raw,with vinager-esque saurce,literally the tastiest thing ever.Party at keltons that night with 3 japanese students,crazy.

11th Slightly hungover walk up into the mountains to try and find some monkeys as kelton had spotted 50 chilling near the dam earlier in the week,unfortunately no show.Bus back to tokyo in the evening.

19th
Woke up suprising early and decided upon a little jaunt to see the imperial palace grounds.Navigation of the subways,as always was easy and the trains are ludicrously on time,as soon as the clock ticks to the correct arrival time you see the lights appear out of the dark.imperial palace grounds are vast,we thought we might have walked around all the grounds but turned out we only ventured into the eastern gardens.was such a long walk we decided to replenish energy sounces with a banana.good idea up to the point we realised we didnt have anywhere to put the banana skins,the only resort being to wander around untill we found a bin.after half an hour of comical torch like banana skin bearing we decided to look up in our hilariously titled giant 'pocket' english dictionary how to ask where the bin is,'gomebako doko desu ka?' we finaly came across,just before we bumped into a bin.damn it.cantinually getting hungry we left the imperial palace grounds and entered the mainly upmarket bussiness end of maranouchi,bit like tokyo's version of canary wharf.stumbled into a upmarket department store and found the food prices to be weirdly on par with tesco's,strange.and thats it methinks for that day

20th
Went to harajuku upon hearing that cos-play normally happens at the train station in harajuku on sunday.Arived in the station at aoyama in the centre of all the upmarket stores ralph lauren bulgari chanel etc and feeling a bit outpriced we went to harajuku further up the road.along the way we spotted the first of many 'condomania' stores where you can buy all sorts of themed johnys,not in the slightest bit descrete with a flashing neon smiling latexy one waving you into the store.not long before we came across a pikachu condom,bizzare.feeling slightly confused (im getting used to being confused here,im gonna be tripped out when things start to make sense in oz) continued up to harajuku station where loadsa girls were dressed up like various japanese metal bands,somewhat scary,only in the sense that there were girls there being around 14 looking slightly like prostitutes,bar that it was quite interesting,they put quite alot of effort into it and it is downright strange,i like strange,its what i came here for.after that me and jimmers crammed ourselves into takeshita street (hehe)lots of cool clothes there for very reasonable prices.got an awesome crepe from one of the shops there and spotted a roof top netted driving range,something im sure my dad will be envious of.

18th
Having woke up we went to the local 7/11,being called that although they are open 24/7,and bought some noodles for breakfast.Cant remember entirely how we past the time untill 10 pm but hasten to say we were still pretty dead so we could have been chilling on the roof or watching some japanese tv.By the time it was 10pm our body clocks decided we were up for a walk and of we trudged in the pouring rain to akihabara.Didnt look so far on the map but 2 and a half hours after leaving,stopping to check out every singel drinks vending machine we see (with 4 on each street corner you can see the problem) we arrived in akihabara,home to electronics goods and 24h arcades,YIPPPEEE.It seems appropriate to now say that there can be no one with epilepsy in tokyo,there are far to many flashing lights for them to suvive,akihabara is tame on the epilepsy scale for tokyo but in terms of uk comparison imagine a flourescent suited man waving tinsle and fairy lights infront of you non stop in the pitch black for 2 days,i know what your thinking,that sounds COOL,your right,its AWESOME!!after getting suitably soaked we went back to our place and cooked up a feast at approximately 3am,body clocks are cooool. And then,to sleep.oh yeah,i forgot, we found a drum arcade game that to this day has jim addicted,100% super mario theme completion is the goal.

Havent wrote here since i've arrived but finnally had a chance to sit down here and document a bit of what me and Jim have been up to so far.Guess i should start at the appropriate start,the beginning

16th April: Arrived in terminal 5 pretty sharpish,the buildings pretty awesome as it turns out.Check in was remarkably straight forward,no worries apart from the possible non arrival of bags on the other side(ooohh errr)Got to our departure gate via a subway system under the runway,one of many which were to follow in tokyo.Plane was on time and was suprised to find a TV in the back of each and every seat.BA IS AWESOME!!got to see any film/tv programme we wanted out of a vast selection,food was really good,especially when compared to other airlines stodge.Drinks etc were all free and last but most importantly my knees werent in my face,the leg room was better than usual and there was no-one in the seat to the left of us.While this would normally allow passengers the comfort of sleeping,sleeping was a no go area,we stayed awake the whole flight which may have been rather foolish.Suppose that takes us to...

17th
Arrived in Narita airport at around 9,spotted a disproportionatly large amount ofgolf courses when coming in to land,this did not bode well at all.However,coming through the arrivals gate was hassle free,and shock of all shocks BA hadnt decided to throw our bags (including jims guitar) in the mongolian desert and they all arrived safe and sound.Got a bus to shinjuku from the FRIENDLY LIMOUSINE BUS COMPANY at 10 (that was quick wasnt it)and went to sakura house.Bus journey was around 2 hours and first impressions of japan were 'green,building,green,building,tree,building,strange sign,building (and upon getting closer to tokyo) building building,BUILDING,BUILDING!!
all in all pretty cool.Went to sakura house to sort out our accomadation.,easier said than done when shinjuku's train station has a daily turn over of passengers of over 3.5million,and all these people unload straight onto the street where we departed our bus.Managed to drag our bags through the crowds (feeling TALL right now) and managed to sort out our accomadation,unfortunately the previous occupant hadnt left just yet so we had to wait till 5pm to pick up the keys,leaving us a bit of time for a walk around shinjuku.Shinjuku is a plethora of glass and metal,MANLY,and our new friends,neon lit vending machines.got our first meal at a vending machine restuarant,lot more of them to come,noodles,rice and some unknown spices and vegeatables are tasty and are now our staple diet.aaaaaaanyway,finaly picked up our keys and shunted our way through rush hour subway traffic to Nihombashi Hakozakicho and found our room for the first time.Room is basic with a fridge,tatami floor,TV and enough room to sleep without violating each others personal space but in esscence being everything that we need to get by.Upon primary inspection and throwing down our bags we went to meet our house mates,this may or may not have greeted them with a great first impression seeing as we had been up 36 hours at this point.Miles is from birmingham and teaching english in harajuku.turns out to be great for helping to translate the kanji,hirigana and katakana on leaflets etc.Monica has been staying in her room for 3 years and is a pop singer from taiwan,should be going to see her in concert 2nd May,theyve got a buffet there 2 it seems so that helps.Knack is studying something and has come from thailand with her room mate.Dong (yes that is his name) is from china and happens to be killer at languages,speaks chinese and japanese fluently,his english is also very good though jim confused him a few nights ago by saying to me,'hey man,want to do a broccoli attack?'the intended meaning being,'dude,wanna cut up the broccoli?' And now back to the tale in hand,after 37 and a half hours of no sleep we decide to COLLAPSE (as it is the most appropriate phrasing) for the night,waking at 1pm the next day.