Snow is Cold

And so it begins!!! Was up until 3.45am the night before I left trying to find somewhere to stay… Methinks I should possibly have arranged something sooner given that it’s high season right now!! Still, I booked into the Listel Shinjuku for my first night, which turned out to be really nice, and cheaper than the shittier hotels I’m going to have from now on, doh! I actually have to change hotels twice in 3 days, but whatever, they’re all within around 400m of one another.

Sunday was such a long day. Got up at 9 after 5 hours sleep, boarded a subway, got on a plane, sat next to 2 Aussie girls (one of whom was quite cute) and offended them by saying why was I the one who had to start conversation when I was sat next to 2 Aussie girls, watched ‘V for Vendetta’ (which was RUBBISH), slept 30mins in total (only because I took advantage of the free bar and necked 2 beers, a red wine and a Johnny Walker), saw some cool landscapes over Norway, worried about the landing as the cloud extended down to about 30m above ground and had an altimeter displayed on my screen in the back of the seat in front, attempted to decipher a Japanese landing card, got out the other side, saw a Starbucks first thing after exiting the arrivals hall, nearly left 2 bags in the rail pass exchange office, got on another train (at almost exactly the same time as I got on the first subway train, weird), drove through fields that looked exactly like ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ (link to follow), drove through lots of 70s looking skyscrapers, arrived in Shinjuku (Westerly district of central Tokyo, where lots of craziness goes on and also where Bill Murray’s AWESOME hotel in ‘Lost in Translation’ - the Park Hyatt Tokyo - is located), walked around aimlessly in the rain for quite a while cuz I forgot my hotel address, dumped my stuff and headed out again.

A couple of things struck me on arrival. One was that the weather was better in ENGLAND than here. I was totally shocked that the weather in England could possibly be better than anywhere else in the world. Two was that it is oppressively humid here, way more than at home. Basically my first impression of Japan was that it’s like a more tropical, humid, exotic version of England. And it’s full of Japanese people. And there’s neon everywhere. And the public transport works. And there’s no chavs. And, ok I’ll stop there.

First task was to find some lunch, which was taken in a quaint ramen shop (ramen is noodles in soup with veggies and meat). Apparently it was some special type of noodle that comes from a different prefecture, but it tasted pretty standard to me! It was also way better than the couple of places I’ve been to in London, darn. After lunch I had to pop back to the hotel to check in, then headed over to Odaiba to visit a big indoor entertainment complex cum shopping mall called ‘Decks’, which occupies a pretty large area and has a massive bridge connecting two areas, the other of which houses a Toyota centre resplendent with indoor track, suspended in mid-air, with full size electric cars driving round it(!) and another mall with very alfresco architecture and, in fact, a fake alfresco sky painted on the entirety of the inside of the roof.

Later on headed over for dinner in Tsukishima and ate a speciality of that particular street called monja, and okonomiyaki (a fat pancake like thing with egg, cabbage and seafood), self cooked on a teppanyaki style hotplate. It was pretty cool but by this stage I was literally in a state of waking sleep! I did have a coffee in the mall before leaving, but the effects were only temporary plus I was sufficiently dehydrated from travelling that the caffeine made me feel kind of nauseous (just before going on a race-car simulator!), but it was fine after eating.

I succeeded in turning in the wrong direction out of the station on the way back to my hotel, as everything looked completely different in the dark because of the ridiculous concentration of neon signs! Still I realised pretty quickly and, after about 4 about-faces, managed to find my way. I don’t think I’ve slept as well as I did then for a looooong time! Literally put my head on the pillow, opened my eyes again and 9 hours had passed… Sweet :) there was a pretty awesome view out the window at night time too with the ‘Skyscraper district’ in the background, but unfortunately it was too foggy for the picture to come out well. Still, I tried and will post the result up soon!

Looks like I might get a bit wet in the back end of the rainy season in Japan… Hopefully stuff like this will have stopped happening by then though… Rain and 30C. Sounds lovely :)

For those that can’t read the title, I’m going to Japan!!! I can’t wait, it’s the place I’ve wanted to visit more than anywhere for as long as I care to remember. I’m leaving on Sunday at 1.50pm from Heathrow, flying with BA to Tokyo Narita, spending around a week in Tokyo and a week travelling West through Osaka, Kyoto and the surrounding area, then heading home on the 7th August. I’ll try to keep the site updated with where I am and post up the odd picture or two. I bought a Lonely Planet guide to Japan in the week so have been reading up a bit on where to go, plus I should be meeting at least 3 of my friends in various places in Japan so I should be all set! Actually I haven’t booked any accommodation yet, but that’s a minor detail.. :)

See you on the other side..

I haven’t been this wrecked for a long time. At least not for such a prolonged period. I have had to order myself to bed tonight (advice which I am yet to heed, evidently), as I did last night, due to general inability to communicate intelligibly (not legibly, as I attempted to pass off last night, ha). This incompetence has been brought on by 3 weeks of drinking every day (I think) and partying through the weekend on little to no sleep. Add this to the fact that I had to share my bed for a week (with a guy, sadly) and we have an excellent cocktail for sleep deprivation and general run-downedness. I didn’t really help myself today, on my first self-prescribed day of detox, by eating Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream for breakfast. At 2.30pm. Ah, the halcyon days of studenthood. Tomorrow I promise to start in earnest. Perhaps with leftover curry for breakfast… Doh.

I am fully aware that I haven’t really written much for ages. Of course that was largely attributed to the internet malarkey, which (touch wood) seems to finally have been sorted out after the fourth round of engineering works. Aside from that though I suppose I haven’t really had impetus to share anything meaningful. I have news in that I have a job, I start on the 14th August, at which point the IML dream will be ended once more and I will possibly hit the earth with a duck and roll (a bump seemed too severe). I suppose it’ll be good to start working, I mean day after day of getting up late, eating good food, chilling in the park and drinking (all in excellent company) can get pretty tedious, right? Uhhhh. One has to tell oneself so. In seriousness, it gets kind of boring being sat at home while everyone else is at work, and the worst thing is the fact that while money is inexorably withdrawn, nothing is going in to fill the void :) and London is not cheap! Having said that, I’ve afforded myself a holiday before once again rejoining the rest of “normal” (read: disillusioned and probably dull) society, details to follow..

Actually I kind of do have other news too, maybe I’ll write about it one day. If not, will it slip like sand through the hands of time and forever be forgotten? I would hate to think so. Summer has been pretty cool so far. I’m not looking forward to the dark days of English winter… Let’s hope it doesn’t come too soon.

I fucking love the urban dictionary website. It’s chock full of gems. I was just reminded of its existence when trying to explain where the phrase, “how d’you like them apples?”, came from to my sister. As fellow movie buffs will know, it was popularised by “Good Will Hunting”, although personally only came to prominence after, “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”’s parody of “Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season”, during which sketch Matt Damon cries in answer, “I don’t like them apples, Ben!”. Awesome. Anyways, if you’re bored then urban dictionary is at least a few minutes worth of fun.

If ever there was an example of speaking to soon, my last post was it. Since then we have had service for about 2 days. Engineers came out, couldn’t find what was wrong, didn’t call me back. Blah blah blah, anyway long story short is that it *seems* to be working now - at least it’s been consistently quick over the last day, so hopefully the woes are behind us. The lady I spoke to on the phone yesterday said one of their customers has had a problem ongoing for a year. Yes, a year. The problem with every ADSL service is that it’s reliant on BT in some way or another (BT are the telephone monopoly in England, for those overseas peeps), and to be fair BT are inept. The engineer who came was actually a nice guy and we were almost on first name terms by the time of his third visit, but as a whole, they suck. Worst of all, you can’t contact them directly about broadband issues, so every request/problem has to be relayed through middlemen who don’t call you back either *sigh*. Oh well. We hope this is the last of the trouble. To be fair I’m not going to have time to wait for calls or engineers soon, so it better be!