We’ve just checked in to board our flight which, as luck would have it, is going to the Maldieves - for about 20 minutes that is before going to Colombo Airport. Which was bombed the other day. Fear not though! We’re getting put up in a hotel so there’s a slightly smaller chance that our bus will get hijacked than our airport get bombed. Either way, it’ll be exciting.

A MASSIVE thank you and Araigatu Gozaimasu to all our Japanese hosts and friends. We’ve left with a brilliant impression of Japan and all intend to come back at some point in the near future.

Again, if you have never been to Japan before - go now! There’s not enough time to list all the reasons why but if you flick through this blog, you should find more than enough.

It’s our last night and, as usual, we’ve packed a lot in today and so the best thing to do is probably bullet point the day:

• got up and tried to get bikes but we couldn’t for some reason
• went to ueno for more hanami action
• found a zoo and went to it for most of the day
• saw a panda
• and a zebra
• and a kangaroo etc
• had a meal with mari-chan, kenneth-kun, andy-kun, ayako-chan and enjoyed lots of drinks (korean ones included!)
• went for a final few rounds on top of the asahi tower
• james mike and tom found a jazz bar
• we got free drinks
• james ended up playing a live drum solo to the bar

Lots of packing to do now - stuff is everywhere! We’ll explain the jazz bar thing later. Wish us luck in Sri Lanka!

Just a quick point - when you go to Tokyo, you get given so much free stuff that you almost don’t know what to do with it!

Here’s a shot of what just one of us managed to collect in 2 weeks:

The collection includes:

Multiple tissues
Some sort of basket thing
3 Mobile phone danglers
A coffee cup
3 Beers
Some sort of pornographic manual
Magazines

There’s more but that’s all we could gather off the floor of our room this morning!

Again, this blog is referencing yesterday as we’re really not finding the time to write about absolutely everything we’ve been doing!

So, yesterday, we got up early and headed for the nearby Aksakusa district in search of a bike hire place as it was a scorching hot day. We may have mentioned it already but we’ve managed to time our trip perfectly to conincide with Japan’s ‘Hanami’ festival (lit. ‘Flower See’). Hanami is the celebration of the yearly flowering of the Sakura (cherry blossom) trees that stay in bloom for only a week or so every year. All the parks get crowded with happy, excited familes and friends who place large blue blankets under the trees and have picnics. We cycled from Askakusa to Ueno and parked up the bikes (just anywhere - no-one really steals anything in Tokyo, it’s incredibly safe) in Ueno park to investigate.

In an avenue lined with Sakura trees, masses of people were gathered round with beer and food enjoying the sunshine and craic. So, in true studioduplo spirit we decided to have a go at joining in and grabbed ourselves some cool beers and stick-chicken from a nearby vendor. We sat for a while under one of the Sakura trees just soaking up the atmosphere and people watching. After a bit, we noticed that some people were giving us funny looks and giggling now and then (that actually happens to us quite a lot anyway… in Japan). Eventually, we realised that this was probably due to the fact that we a.) only had a beer and some stick-chicken b.) didn’t have a blue blanket and were sitting buddha-stylee on the hard ground and c.) we had somehow managed to sit under the only Sakura tree that hadn’t blossomed yet. Which was probably why it was the only free sitty-down-space.

When we dusted ourselves off, we hopped back on the bikes and did a few laps of the park. At one point, we saw a giant blue whale made of fibreglass. It could’ve been heatstroke or the excellent beer but we were fairly sure it happened. We also did a few laps of this particular group of girls who Konnichiwaaahed at us everytime we passed. Brilliant. If you’ve ever played ‘Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas’, we cycled about a little bit like that. For starters, the bikes were basically low-riders because the seats were so low. Secondly, crazy computer game-esque music was playing from various buildings and, lastly, Tom yelled ‘YO CRAAZY GRANPA!’ at some old man who very nearly almost drove his car into us.

In the afternoon, we met up with Andrew Nakamura who took us to Harajuku to show us some cool shops and get a few drinks. Later, we met up with Clare (Mrs. Nakamura) as well for a meal at what is reknowned to be Tokyo’s finest Ramen bar (the noodles, “Kyushu” are all imported from the southern-most island of Japan). It lived up to it’s reputation! Sugoy Oishii! Incidentally, it was also Mari Nakamura’s most favourite noodles. She was pretty gutted she couldn’t make it - poor little Mari. Kawaii! A massive thank you (again) to the Nakamuras.

Feeling full but satisfied, we said our goodbyes and took the train from Harajuku station to ‘Shinbashi’ to meet Akari-Chan and Ayaka-Chan (one of the friend we’d made when we travelled to Nikko the preceeding day). From there, we took the Monorail to a large man-made island just off the coast of Tokyo bay to experience Tokyo’s only Onsen (hot spring - the one we last went to was quite far out the city, to the north). The Monorail ride itself was amazing as the track snakes gently in between the urban jungle of downtown Tokyo and crosses Tokyo bay along side the famous suspension bridge… the name of which escapes at this hour. Unlike the preceeding day’s Onsen, this one was definitely a ‘tiny-towel experience’. Proper, full-on nudity. Public nudity aswell. However, the fun didn’t stop there! The whole Onsen was in a traditional Japanese theme, right from the start where you had to choose a Kimono (girls) or ‘Yukata’ (boys) to wear around the complex. Akari-Chan was really helpful and asked us if we needed to know how to do anything (as we were no longer accompanied by male locals who could show us what to do) but, in true blazeé English fashion, we felt like true experts and told her we’d be fine. However…

When we got ourselves kitted out in NOTHING but our Yukatas, we happily tottered out the changing rooms to what we thought would be the changing rooms. Right? Chigau! (wrong). What we actually did was happily walk into a faux-Japanese village complete with street vendors, shops, Geishas, Ninjas, ye olde stuff etc etc. Basically, not the Onsen. It was the Japanese equivelant to being in a cockney backstreet in Tudor times. Fantastic! At this stage of our trip, we’re pretty used to the un-expected so our reaction was something more along the lines of ‘ooh look! ancient Japan!’. However, the unfamilar feeling of wearing nothing but a Yukata (which also makes you think you’re ‘hanging out’ if you know what we mean) made the finding of the Onsen a little bit more urgent. Not even James’ limited knowledge of Kanji (one of the Japanese character systems that borrows from full-form Chinese characters) could help as the charcter for ‘hot spring’ is slightly more complicated than ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or ‘you can drink this because it’s tea’. Luckily for us though, we ran into Kimono-clad Akari & Ayaka who pointed us in the right direction.

The rest of the Onsen was fairly self-explanatory. The only difference was it was much bigger than the one we’d been to last time and a bit busier (which also meant more arse than you probably really wanted to see… if any). However, it was really, really relaxing and we all came out feeling the sleepiest we’d ever been. We managed to up the sleepy feeling though by grabbing a few beers and some green tea afterwards in the ‘market-place’ where we met up with the girls and Mari & Maki who had joined us a bit later. By the time the girls had dropped us off at Minowa (thanks again!) we were so sleepy it was a miracle we actually made the short walk back to our Hotel. Obviously, we all fell asleep basically instantly and blogging was the last thing on anyone’s mind.

Even this morning our skin felt soft and our eyes droopy. So, to restore the man balance, Mike & Tom went for a run and James practiced Kung-Fu forms on the rooftop to the distant tunes of sirens and traffic. Later on, we met up with Mari-Chan and some of her friends at Hachiko (that dog in Shibuya - we’ve blogged it before at some point) to get the train to the nearby city of ‘Yokohoma’. We were also lucky enough to be able to meet up with James’ friend Andy who’s studying Japanese at Durham and just so happened to be in Japan for a job interview (which he got - congrats!). Yokohoma is famous for it’s amazing Chinatown which Mari-Chan and her friends took us to see - it’s just like being in a Beijing hutong! Fantastic street-cooking smells and a really great buzz in the air. Following that, we went to Yokohoma Tower, the tallest building in Japan! Naturally, we had to go up it and check out what turned out to be an absolutely amazing view across Yokohoma bay and Mt. Fuji (which you couldn’t actually see because of the clouds but you could imagine). In the evening, Andy (who has a girlfriend living in Yokohoma so therefore has a bit of local area knowledge) took us to one of those bars where you sit on beds instead of tables. Whilst we always associate that with being a Japanese thing, they’re actually not that common. However, it lived up to reputation and proved to be a really fun way of having a drink with some friends. Again, we’d just like to point out how lucky we are and how greatful we feel that we have some local friends who can take us to wonderful places like Yokohoma and Nikko! We really don’t think we’d be having such an amazing time here if we didn’t know anyone. By the way, if reading this blog is making you want to come to Japan, do it! There’s no excuse! Tokyo ISN’T an expensive place to stay in or experience, that’s complete bull, especially if you’ve ever been to London! Transport is cheap and efficient, food is cheap and delicious and the people are beautiful and the most friendly that we have ever met and Japan is the safest and one of the most culturally interesting countries in the world. It’s impossible to come here and not feel like you want to stay forever! If the expense of the flight seems to much then you can do what Andy did and fly as a ‘courier’ for roughly half the price we paid of around 3-350GBP. That way, you also fly London-Tokyo with British Airways and not London-Warzone-Honeymoon Island-Tokyo like we did.

Speaking of Sri Lanka, has anyone heard the news yet? Not to worry our mothers too much but the airport (or at least the attached millitary wing of it) was hit by a Tamil-Tiger airstrike yesterday (they have planes aswell now! yay!) and the whole airport was shut down! Don’t worry though, we should still be alright to get our flight on Thursday (like any of us would mind THAT much if we had to stay another week!). Anyway, according to our insurance policies, Mike gets $50 000 if he loses a leg and James gets $1 000 000 if he gets taken hostage so it might actually be worth it.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Japan! We don’t want to do anything too crazy (can’t promise anything) so we’re thinking we might try and get some bikes again and cycle about for Hanami, weather permitting. If we don’t update for a while though it could be because we’re trying to run the Sri Lanka gauntlet again.

The title’s a reference to Guns ‘n Roses. That’ll get explained later.

Yesterday, we went to a place called ‘Nikko’ - about 2 and a half hours drive to the north of Tokyo with the Nakamura sisters and some of their friends. Our destination was some kind of traditioinal Japanese theme park, tucked away in the mountains. Legend has it that it was the ancient dwelling of ninjas, which were referenced everywhere in the mockup of an ancient Japanese village. Naturally, the first thing we looked out for were the ninjas - not before we got our picture taken with a giant cat-man-thing though. When we finally did catch up with the ninjas (stealthy little buggers) we entered the ‘ninja theatre’ to watch what we thought was going to be a demonstration and flips and jumping and shouting etc. You did get that, but it was mainly a really epic and dramatic story about some kind of ‘ninja jesus’ that could summon more ninjas if he wanted to. Weird. Not speaking Japanese was probably the bit that let us down the most.

Following that, we went to an ‘Onsen’ (natural hot spring) in one of the most spectacular surroundings yet. Tucked away into the side of the hill, the Onsen overlooked a small lake and mountain range including an inactive volcano (source of the hot spring) and cherry blossom trees - which we all agreed (as flower petals fell in to the spring and the sun slowly set behind the mountains casting a pinky-blue colour wash over the landscape) was probably the most romantic thing we’d all done together and hopefully the last time we’d have to share it with men! In some ways, we really wish we could’ve taken cameras into the onsen with us but, in other ways, we’re very glad we didn’t. Forgot to mention that you only wear little, tiny, towels in an onsen. In fact, most people don’t even wear that (the occasional towel-shifting undercurrent can render them useless anyway). Just to bring it back to crazy - we also met some guy in the changing rooms who really liked Guns ‘n Roses and said we looked really cool. Which is a bit of a weird time to say something like that… in a changing room.

Yesterday began with a trip to Ikebukuro (North-West Tokyo) mainly because we hadn’t been to this part of Tokyo yet and it was in BOLD on the map. We only spent a short time there so only managed to glimpse a small part of the excitement. The reason for such a short stay (only a few hours, not enough time to see such a large part of the city) was we needed to get a train out to the outskirts of Tokyo as we were invited to the Nakamura’s house for a traditional japanese dinner.

We timed getting the train perfectly, so perfectly that we managed to hit rush hour in Shibuya station. We somehow managed to find the right ticket, the right train and then the right platform although it really wasn’t as straightforward as that; there were many more steps in between.

We finally made it to the Nakamura’s where we met family and friends (below). The food and company was excellent, it was so nice to get some peace and quiet away from the city. We would just like to say as well thank you again to the Nakamura’s for a great evening!

Maki was kind enough to give us a lift back to Minowa where we said our goodbyes. We ended the night by drinking our free beers (we’ll explain in a later blog) ontop of the hostel roof and a view of much of Minowa.

Every day we’re still leaving very early in the morning and not getting back until last thing at night so these blog posts might be getting shorter and shorter!

We went to Pingmag yesterday for a T-shirt design pitch and for some sushi lunch. A massive thankyou is in order for Ryo and Uleshka for being such fantastic hosts and giving us a bunch of tips of designer must-sees in Tokyo. It was also great to get a bit of an insight into a Tokyo-based creative business. You should check out there magazine here: http://pingmag.jp

Last night we went to a Chinese-style ‘hotpot’ restaurant in Shinjuku where you share a communal, boiling soup, that you dip raw meat into until it’s cooked. It was brilliant for two reasons - 1.) it was all you can eat and 2.) it was all you can drink. Whilst this seems to work quite well in Japan - for three Englishmen, it feels like a challenge. So, we filled ourselves up with bottomless rice, beef and wine (followed by a couple of cocktails that we didn’t understand so we got anyway) and somehow got back home to the other side of Tokyo.

This morning, we headed out for the Imperial Palace and gardens to have a bit of a look at traditional Japan (and also experience being in an open space for the first time in a week!). There were familes having picnics under trees and on benches so we thought we’d use the oppurtunity to lie in the sun a bit under some funky looking trees. We then ventured up towards the Emporer’s gates and tried to get a look in. However, the highlight has got to be spotting an absolutely massive fish just swimming about in the moat. Seriously, it was like a slightly submerged log. best. fish. ever.

In the afternoon we went to Shibuya again and checked out ‘Tokyu Hands’ which is basically a massive hardware store that sells… stuff. If you need anything, Tokyu Hands has it! From funky coloured tape with cats on to minature trees.

Tomorrow we’re getting bikes for the morning so we can cycle about in Tokyo and get a bit lost to see what happens. In the afternoon we’re meeting back up with our new friend from the Ministry of Education, Nohmi-San, to experience Zen meditation at one of the temples. In the evening, we’re having a meal with our friends the Nakamuras at their house which we’re really looking forward to.

We forgot to mention a bit of a classic exchange in a blog a few days ago. It was when we were in that ‘Sweets Paradise: 90 mins!’ place and Tom was trying to find out what exactly it was that we did for 90 mins. It went a little something like this:

Tom: “Sumimasen!” (meaning ‘excuse me’)
Waiter: “Hai” (meaning ‘yes’)
Tom: “errmm… Hi!”.

The conversation ended there and everyone was none-the-wiser. Brilliant.

Also, check out this guy in his van:

He parks up in Shinjuku every night and plays a toy keyboard through a megaphone. If that’s not weird enough, here’s a picture of Tom in an art gallery with a bag on his head. And we’re not even going to explain why!

Following a successful gallery trip yesterday at the Mori Tower, we headed for the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography in the Meguro-Ebisu district. We’d heard a bit about the area in the Wallpaper guide as it’s famous for it’s little retro boutiques and designer furniture stores and managed to spend a good half of the day going from shop to shop checking out the goods (including one shop full of random little bits and bobs from africa - not your normal trinkets carved from trees though, think car bumpers and wallpaper!).

The museum was showing an exhibition, hosted by Magnum, based on Tokyo through the eyes of it’s photographers in the 20th Century. Naturally fascinating and full of excellent shots of Tokyo past and present. A lot hasn’t changed much and it seems it’s always held it’s own unique identity. Someone we met here was saying he has a friend who works for the M.O.D. (Ministry of Defence - UK) and when they look at global scenarios, all the continents are shaded in different colours except for Japan which has it’s own; the point being that, no matter what the rest of the world does, Japan will always have it’s own unique identity and culture.

After the exhibit, we headed to Yurakucho to meet up with our friend Akari who had bought her friend Sakura (meaning ‘Cherry Blossom’  - super kawaii!) along with her. After much giggly mis-communication, we managed to find out that Sakura worked for the Japanese Ministry of Education in Tokyo (not, as we thought the ‘Minister of Education’ or someone that worked ‘up a TREE’ in the department that sets the curriculum for Primary and Secondary school kids. We walked out of the New York City-esque skyscraper back alleys of Yurakucho to the Imperial Palace park to get as close to the Emporer’s crib as possible (we tried to explain that Tom knew him so we could just send him a text and make him let us in but they didn’t believe us). We then turned back to the sprawl of skyscrapers behind us and walked into an extremely modern and swanky looking Izakaya (that’s a Japanese pub if you haven’t learned that already!) for some scran - scran being the geordie word for food. Speaking of which, we introduced Akari and Sakura to some essential geordie vocab. such as ‘howay’, ‘doon toon’ and ‘why aye’, the latter of which we found gelled pretty well with Japanese (’why HAI!’). Turns out they actually say ‘aye’ in a remote part of the countryside near to where Sakura is from. That, along with getting drunk very quickly and every night, is just one of the many things geordies and the Japanese have in common! Akari, who used to live in Durham, also confessed her love for pasties while she was at school in the UK!

A couple of hours in, we were joined by Shunichiro (aka ‘Nohmi-san), a colleague of Sakura-chan’s, who also worked for the Ministry of Education. We got on really well and we were introduced to some pretty top-notch Sake which went down a treat - espcially with the fantastic array of Japanese food on the table like Sashimi (raw fish), Udon (Japanese noodles), chickeny things, Japanese omellettes - the list goes on! It was delicious to say the least (and very reasonably priced given the uber-swankyness of the Izakaya!). Feeling a bit bleary-eyed and.. stumbly… we said our farewells but not before arranging to go and ‘experience Zen’ with Nohim-san at a Japanese temple on Saturday. Apparently, you have to sit really still and try and empty your mind of all thoughts otherwise monks hit you with bamboo. There’ll be some good blogging about that one no doubt!

Should also mention that, on Sunday, we’re driving with the Nakamuras to somewhere that roughly translates as ‘NINJA LAND’ (James might get a chance to practice some of his Kung Fu - THINK FAST! He’ll probably save/kill us all) followed by a trip to an ‘Onsen’ which is a natural hot spring where you wear NOTHING. That’s right.

First off, many apologies for the current slowness in updating. We’ve been having such a super-crazy happy time that there’s been very little time to sit down and write about it! Every day, we’ve been getting up very early and staying out until well into the night to fit in everything. There’ll be no photos in this update either as there’s not enough time to get them uploaded just yet!

Yesterday started off fairly normally - we all woke up earlier than we really ought to and picked a good-looking Tokyo district to go and explore. This time it was Ginza, one of Tokyo’s more affluent districts, full of the likes of Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dior, Chanel etc etc. One of the recommended stops was the Sony building so we sought it out more or less as soon as we surfaced from the tube. However, as soon as we poked our heads above ground level, we got immediately distracted by the excitement and buzz around us. The first thing we did was look at some sort of crazy prototype sports car that was slowly revolving in a Nissan showroom. Then, that warm feeling filled our hearts when we saw the glorious Apple logo looming at us across the street. Apple stores are more or less the same throughout the world but that’s still not a good enough excuse to go inside and check them out. We then found the Sony building and spent ages fiddling about with various unreleased bits and bobs.

Over a post-Sony coffee, we spotted an intriguing looking place across the street on the 3rd floor called ‘Sweets Paradise! 90 mins!’. Naturally, this was too tempting to ignore if the place promised to live up to it’s namesake! When we crossed the street there was a massive queue but, based on our past experience with joining queues, we thought we’d give it a shot. After about 30mins we found ourselves in what was indeed… paradise! Not only were the rumours about eating sweets for an hour and a half true, the place was FULL of absolutely stunning girls (apologies in advance to Maartje, Mengya & Sarah - our girlfriends! It was our fault and - whatever you say - you’re right.) To be fair, it turned out it was a bit of a girly place to go and be seen in because, not only were we the only men in there (and only Westerners) there was no men’s toilets - just ‘Ladies’ and ‘Ladies & Mens’! We probably looked like the male version of them lasses off Sex & The City.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed, and full of sugar (it was a bit hard to distinguish the taste of cake from the look of girl) we headed off in search of the Park Hyatt - the hotel from the cult film about Japan: ‘Lost in Translation’ in the Shinjuku district. It took us a while to find it which is slightly odd as it’s basically one of the largest buildings in Tokyo. We played the card of cooly walking in like we knew what we were doing and headed for the lifts to the ‘New York Bar & Grill’ on the fifty-second floor. We were greeted with the normal 7-star service you’d expect from such a place and made our money back on the expensive beer by consuming absolutely loads of free wasabi nuts and rice crackers. As the sun set over Mount Fuji, the view was simply breathtaking. Remember our blog about the Asahi building at night? This was even better! The bar is exactly how it looks like in the film and offers a perfect view of the Tokyo night Skyline. James & Tom were running bets as to how long it would take for someone to mistake Mike for Scarlett Johanssen and buy him a drink. Remeber the blog & informative video about the Japanese toilets? Well the ones in the Park Hyatt made those ones look like a flushing calculator. As you entered the cubicle, the toilet seat lifted up automatically and there was a wall panel with various buttons including one for an ‘oscillating massage’. Didn’t dare touch it just in case.

Today, we got up at a more locally accustomed time and headed back out to Roppongi to see if we could get up the Mori Art Tower. Luckily, it was open this time and were able to get to the top for the skyline view. Again, the view was amazing… possibly even better than the Park Hyatt as it was a purpose-built 360 degree viewing platform so you could see right out to Mount Fuji again and right out to sea across the Tokyo bay. There was a coffee shop on top as well so we sat down and wrote a couple of postcards (about the only chance we’re ever going to get the time to do that at this pace!) with Mount Fuji just poking out beneath the clouds. After that, we checked out the exhibitions in the Mori Art Centre on the same floor which included a video of some guy riding a moped around some hispanic island with a trumpet attached to his exhaust. Brilliant. We finished off with a bite to eat at one of the other bars on the top floor where some even more attractive waitresses were working… if that’s possible… maybe it’s because there’s more oxygen at that height? Or less oxygen? Closer to heaven? - to cheesy… they were basically FIT. >.< (again sorry to ‘wor lasses’).

We met two friends, Yukiho & Mai, from Durham’s Teikyo University of Japan who had moved back to Tokyo in Shibuya. We’d made friends with them whilst still in Durham, just in time to get in touch and arrange to meet up during our stay. First port of call was a really cool Izakaya (traditional Japanese pub) with funky food like Wasabi Octopus and ginger noodles. Oishii! Following that, we went for our first KARAOKE experience which was, to say the least, trippy. We booked out a small booth for the five of us for two hours but by the time we’d gone out again, sweaty and knackered, it had felt like half an hour. In typical English fashion, we had had a couple of beers to get our singing voices oiled up and started off with a good old Cockney number - ‘Parklife’ by Blur. We followed that with ‘Jungle Boogie’ by Kool and the Gang which slightly backfired as we’d forgotten that the only lyrics are “jungle boogie” and “get down”. We made it our own though and impressed/horrified Yuki-chan and Mai-chan with our dulcet tones. Other hits included ‘God Save the Queen’ by the Sex Pistols and ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana. That, juxtaposed with the girls’ up-beat J-Pop (cutesy Japanese pop music) was pretty surreal! We joined in with the J-Pop though as, every now and then, there’s a few English lines so we perked up with “PEACE”, “YEAH” and “I LOVE YOOOUUUU” every now and then. Sometimes between songs too. Forgot to mention that the room was trippy as hell as it had some sort of space-picture drawn on the walls with multi-coloured UV pen so when the lights went off… we thought we were flying. We finished off with what was possibly one of the best renditions of James Brown’s (god rest his SOUL) ‘Sex Machine’ that Tokyo’s ever going to hear. It was so funky, you had to wear sunglasses.

Just when the energy levels were slightly wearing off from Karaoke, we went and took our pictures again in one of those photo machines with Yukiho & Mai. We’ll put the pics up when we get the chance but it was side-splitting after trippy singing and lots of beer. It’s basically a bit like a game - there’s lots of shouting by the machine in Japanese as the girls press lots of buttons then it counts down from 3 and you have to get yourself into a KAWAII pose before the clock runs out (including one of James & Mike in an accidentally sexual position - it all happened so quickly).

Tomorrow we’re probably going to do our usual thing during the day of checking out a different district - maybe Harajuko to check it out before we meet PingMag there ( http://www.pingmag.jp ). In the evening, we’re meeting up again with Akari-chan and some of her friends to have dinner.

Hopefully next time there’ll be a few more pics. However, if there isn’t, you’ll know it’s because we’re out there, somewhere in Tokyo, doing something crazy.

Apologies for the slowness in updating this one but we’ve had a fairly odd but fun-filled few days! We’d better start by explaining the title. After our fairly epic sleep the night before, we finally started to feel tired at about 4am last night (having said that, it doesn’t actually feel like we’ve had a seperate day today, but more like one incredibly long confusing one.) Basically, we all tried valiantly to get to sleep for about an hour, all feeling angry at everyone else because we all thought that we were the only one still awake until Mike finally plucked up the courage to ask “Is it just me, or is anyone else wide awake?” Anyway, it turned out we all were so we decided to go and watch the sunrise at the Tsukiji fish market.

Allow us to return to our explanation of the title. Whilst we were awake enough to not be able to sleep, we weren’t necessarily as on the ball as we could have been as we stumbled outside trying to work out if we really had just decided to go to the busiest fish auction in the world whilst jet lagged and sleep deprived. Mike went into the middle of the road for a sunrise photo, and in his slightly disorientated state suddenly jumped out of the way of Tom, who was zipping up his jacket, shouting “i thought you were a bike!” In his defence, it did sound very slightly like spokes spinning in a threatening way (we have learned to respect cyclists here, or rather fear them. Seriously they could KILL you.)

The Tsukiji Fish Market:

We then stumbled across the fish auction which was a spectacle in itself. We’ll let this video do the talking.

After what was for all of us our most traumatic pre 7am experience ever, there was only one place to go to settle our nerves: SHIBUYA (the busiest, craziest brightest bit of Tokyo) via the rush hour tube. We sat in the famous Starbucks which has the golden view of the Shibuya crossing and watched the crowds crossing (which even at 7am on a saturday morning were amazing!).

Following that, we were walking around Shibuya when we spotted a que. That’s right, a que. Being English, we toyed with the idea of joining it just to see what was on the other side. Anyway, we did. As we were there early, the que was fairly small but as the minutes rolled on, the que started to go around the block! We thought it must be for something amazing so we stuck it out. When we finally got in, we were handed a little ticket and went up a tiny escalator. We entered a room full of crazy noise, fun and super happy entertainment. Rows upon rows of people, young and old, were sitting down playing some game called ‘Pachinko’. We can’t quite tell you what Pachinko is or how you play (we had a go anyway since we’d qued for well over 30mins to get in to something we didn’t understand) but it’s definitely addictive. Gambiling is essentially illegal so, instead, you buy little metal balls to put in the Pachinko machine to try and win more metal balls. You can then exchange these metal balls for prizes and, if you choose the right prize, you can exchange it at a discreet booth in the next street for hard cash. Loophole! Here’s some videos: Part #1 | Part #2
We then spent the rest of the day staggering about, weary with tiredness looking for a sushi bar to get some food in (which was weirdly enough quite a hard thing to find!). We finally found one at Asakusa - a district near where we’re staying - and started to feel a bit more perky with some fish in our systems. James was also very proud with the fact that he managed to chat up three girls (two Japanese and one Korean) in Chinese when he heard them using Mandarin as their common language.
By the time we had stumbled back to our hostel at 2pm we crashed out. We started trying to write the blog but literally couldn’t make it all the way through! We also figured that, after our epic 16-hour sleepy, we might be able to get another 16 hours in and start the day at a reasonable time!

When we woke up at 3.30am the next day, this prospect suddenly felt a little less realistic. Feeling wide awake and refreshed (considering we’d had 13.5hours of sleep!) we thought we may as well get an early start in. We had deliberately long showers (not together) and Mike spent aaaages doing his hair just so we could kill a bit of time. When we were up, we headed out to a local Ramen (noodle bar) we’d spotted near Minowa subway station just down the road. It was already open at 4.30am and had a few punters in slurping away on big bowls of Udon. We each ordered what was possibly THE TASTIEST bowl of noodles we’d ever had (selected at random of course as everything was in Japanese; a good sign!). Following that, we thought we’d try and head out to a district called Roppongi, home to the Tokyo and Mori Towers and well-known for it’s internationalism. However, when we got there, most places were closed (including the Mori Art Museum) and the streets were littered with clubbers from the night before (some Tokyo clubs don’t OPEN until 6am!). Feeling a bit chilly and in need for a coffee, we headed for Shinjuku where we’d met Mari, Maki & Akari the other night. We wandered round for a while and grabbed a coffee in a ‘Mister Donut’ store before deciding to try and seek out one of these famous ‘Oxygen Bars’. The one we went to was in the basement of a large department store, tucked away amongst beautiful girls selling cosmetics. In an oxygen bar, you basically hook yourself up to a colourful, bubbling tank of liquid via an in-nose tube. Each one has a different scent; James was inhaling Lime, Mike Peppermint and Tom… Apples. It’s basically supposed to relax you but we found you can heighten the sensation a little bit if you try and hyper-ventilate! Here’s a little clip.

Feeling a bit floaty-light and refreshed, we then went and spent ages playing some game called DINOMAX which is a cross between Pachinko and Penny-pushers. Not really sure what was going on or how you played but we spent a good hour or so doing it. We followed that up with some amazing sushi just round the corner.

We then headed out to Akihabra, the ‘nerdy district’ to seek out a ‘Maid Cafe’ (we’ll explain later). Akihabra is a techy’s dream! It’s full of people flaunting all the latest gadgets and handhelds. However, the best thing was all the girls handing out freebies. Today’s winnings included LOADS of tissues (not sure why but everyone gives you tissues), a little thing to
dangle on your mobile phone and some sort of bag/mini tennis court/cage to put a gerbil in - we’re not sure which.

However, the most entertaining thing was not being able to speak Japanese and trying to respond to the girls who were doing their best to be extremely attentive and caring to us. James, feeling awkward at our lack of lingo, thought he may aswell flip open his phrasebook and try the first phrase he came to which was “Do you like Sumo?”. It turned out she absolutely LOVED Sumo so of course his next question was “Who are you supporting?”. She then said something else in an exciting torrent of Japanese. Following that, she began asking us some questions and tried a bit of English. However, the only thing we could pick up was “GO HOME”. She didn’t mean it though as she creased into fits of giggles when we all started to put our coats on.

As we left, Tom exclaimed in the lift “THAT WAS THE MOST CONFUSING CUP OF COFFEE EVER!” and as we all fell about laughing, we realised we hadn’t pressed the button to make the lift go, much to what we can only imagine must’ve sounded very odd to the busy maid cafe on the other side of the doors.

We’re now back at the hostel and we’ve almost had a full day on Japanese time! We’re thinking tonight we might go back to the Asahi tower for drinks or go back to Shibuya to see it at night. Or… we might just crash and have a quite one in a local restaurant to conserve our energy for tomorrow!

We’re planning to meet two friends, Yukiho and Mai who were at Teikyo University in Durham to do some Karaoke in a few nights! It promises to be fantastic - stay tuned!