Konichiwa Bitches

Published on Sun 23 Aug 2009

I'm in Tokyo in one of those places where you rent out a small booth containing a dvd player, a massive tv (which you can rotate with a remote control!) and a box of wet wipes. And in this case a computer with internet access at 1 in the morning because I need to upload my photos if I'm to take any more. There's some pretty weird stuff advertised on the wall... I've been having an incredible time and I thought I may as well write something while I'm waiting for the upload to happen. It may be the most technologically advanced country in the world, but the internet is not as good as in Sweden. And the keyboards are really annoying - keep switching to Japanese with the slightest of excuses.

It seems an awfully long time ago now, but I got to the airport in plenty of time because my flight was at 7 and I was ready and excited by about 2. The flight over wasn't too bad, except that the in-flight entertainment system broke for 8 hours of it so I only got to watch 17 Again and half of Star Trek (not that impressed), but I was sat next to a guy from about 15 miles from Cambridge who kept me entertained with tall tales of travelling the world and owning half of Hertfordshire.

I got the train to the centre of Tokyo without too much trouble, and then eventually managed to meet up with Dan (who'd been here 2 weeks already), with more phonecalls than necessary due to me not seeing a massive green sign directing me to where he was. I got my first taste of the subway here, we had a beer and some little kebab things (some of them turned out to be chicken cartilage, but I actually thought they were all quite nice), we got a couple of energy drinks (I'd been up for a long time and was feeling a bit spaced out - I still am to be honest) and we checked into a capsule hotel - essentially a morgue like arrangement of little sleeping pods. Here's mine:

Here's the view from the roof, where there was a really nice looking bath/sauna that I was too scared to use properly due to the nudity being not only public as far as the hotel was concerned, but the room having a massive window and being clearly visible from the road below.

Then we heading out to Shinjuku (a bit like Soho in London) to be amazed at the buildings and atmosphere, and try to get used to the way that the Japanese speak in really high pitched voices 

And be hassled by people trying to sell us girls at every single zebra crossing. The best conversation went, roughly,

"hey you ok?"
"yes thanks"
"you want anything?"
"no thanks"
"service?"
"sorry?"
"sex service?"
"no thanks"
"French girls, 2000 yen"
"no thanks"
"we let you take pictures"

right...

We went back to the hotel after that, because the subway was going to finish, stopping off only to get some pretty nice late night grub.

Wow, my photos have pretty much uploaded, it's effing late, and we have a seriously big list of things we still need to do in the next 2 days, so I'm going to head back to the hotel. Check them out here if you're interested. Here's a sneak preview

Actually I might wait here until The Ashes are over. "Hey where were you when England won the Ashes in 2009?" "Yeah, sat in a wipe clean booth, trying not to look at an ad for a Japanese travel vagina"