konnichiwa

well hello there and greetings from tokyo - please forgive any spelling mistakes, i am typing this on a japanese keyboard and its rather strange. we cant get wifi here at the hotel so i am using the pc in the hotel lobby.

its been a mad few days, i am still not on actual japanese time yet, its supposed to be 5.10 here but i think its a lot later as i have been awake for hours. we arrived here safely after a really good flight-terminal 5 is ace by the way, far too much temptation to spend the holiday pennies even before you leave the country. we managed to get to the hotel really easy after getting the direct train from Narita Airport to Nippori station which is just a five minute walk away. we then used directions i had got from trip advisor to decipher our way through crowded wee market streets with very heavy bags and arrived at the hotel maybe about 2 hours after landing which i thought was pretty good, considering it was 1hr to get in from the airport. The hotel itself is lovely, so spotless and in a beautiful quiet location. the owner speaks english which has made it a lot easier.

we have done our best so far to look like the local village idiots by not understanding anything but its been great fun and the japanese are so friendly and trying to help us in any way possible-we are still not sure whether they are laughing with us or at us-but hey we are having fun. we ate at the most hilarious bar last night-there were only 4 seats and the other 2 were occupied by locals-we just pointed at things and they sent them our way - we have no idea what we were eating however it tasted delicious. i think they used us as guinea pigs as the owner kept sending more stuff out for us to try but we were so stuffedand couldnt eat any more. they also tried to get us drunk -and succeeded- by plying us with sake. it was such a good night made all the better for being able to interact with some locals who laughed at ricky's attempts to seperate his chopsticks and pulling open the door even though you had to slide it-a minor faux pax i am sure.

tokyo is a land of opposites, there are the most amazing ancient sites sitting next to skyscrapers and super modern technology. yesterday was absolutely pouring so we did what sensible people often do in torrential rain and went for a walk. we got absolutely soaked but we had been sitting down for so long on the flight we needed to stretch our legs. we went to Ueno park which was lovely although i didnt get to the zoo to see the pandas. today we went into central tokyo and to the gardens at the imperial palace which were absolutely stunning and then we went to the electronics district. i have never seen anything so mad in all my life, just block upon block of shops selling various electronics, cabling, phones and games.

the toilets here also deserve special mention-rather confusing at first but they have obviously been set up with the sensitive consumer in mind, they play music, heat up, have different flush sounds, have different water scooshes for your various needs and also light up if its dark-what more could a person want. this is a serious piece of technology which could keep men entertained for hours-books no longer required.

tonight we will take it easy and tomorrow hopefully go and see some ancient temples as well as some karaoke bars-ricky better have his singing voice ready. we fly to sydney on sat night so hopefully will update you again before then-if i can get wifi then i will upload some photies.

loving this place though will be very sad to leave although my feet i am sure will enjoy the rest, blisters ahoy already

sayonara for now chaps xxxx