Tokyo and Fuji

Anyway, back to it....

So day 2 in Tokyo: we woke up and got the tube to Shinjuku where we needed to exchange our Japanese rail passes that we had bought back in the UK. That was easy enough and so then we went to find something to eat. We found a small Ramen place that seemed to be full of locals, so looked like a good bet. We ordered a bowl and couldn't believe how many noodles were in our bowl of Ramen. We struggled to eat as much as we could (it was good, so we did well) but even after chomping away for ages, we still couldn't make an indentation on the noodle level. When we looked around, the locals were managing to polish off their whole bowl in no time at all – I don't know how they do it and they're all so thin as well!!

We went for a wander and found ourselves in the local red light district. Even that is clean and tasteful and not dodgy at all! Literally everything here is clean!! We then went through Yo Yogi park, which was weird because it was covered with trees and was all misty so it felt really eerie walking through it. The other side of the part opens out into Harijuku which is an area of Tokyo where apparently all the goths hang out!! On the weekends all the kids who get bullied at school dress up in weird clothes and come here to express themselves. They wear anything from bright coloured Edwardian outfits to full of goth leathers! Anything goes here apparently so I was really looking forward to getting to this place. Unfortunately though, when we got there we couldn't find the right area and all we could see were really posh designer shops which were obviously not to our taste!

We carried on walking through Harijuku to Shibuya, another major shopping district of Tokyo. This is where that famous road crossing is – you know, the one where they cross at all sides and diagonally through the middle and it's mad busy!! Well, we got there and it really is mad busy, there are people everywhere. It's a funny place, there's video screens on the walls of the buildings, mostly playing music videos (a lot of Muse and a few Japanese male bands doing the Locomotion). It reminds me of that big in Dodgeball in Dwights gym where his video is on the wall and he's going 'There's a good energy in the gym!'. Now whenever I see one of these video screens all I can think about is Ben Stiller pumping his guns! Anyway, there's flashing lights everywhere and music playing and people walking and it's just crazy!! But crazy in a good way. I don't usually like crowds and stuff, but here it's OK, it's a nice crowd.

We went to a local pub for a drink and we got in there just before the offices finished work. We got a table and ordered a beer and then shortly after, all the offices kicked out and with it being a Friday night, so the workers began to pile in ready to party! They seem to have such a good quality of life here and they all seem really happy – it's such a contrast to everywhere else we've been!!

We left and popped into a restaurant because I was craving sushi. We ordered a selection of sushi and it was perfect, except for one little piece of rice with some big red balls on them in a kind of jelly. It was clearly some sort of fish eggs and usually I'm all up for that, but these ones were really big!! Always up for trying food though, I put some in my mouth and was instantly disgusted by the sensation of a boil popping in my mouth releasing a fishy taste – you can imagine it wasn't good. I told Kev it was disgusting and that he had to try it, but he insisted that the best way to get him to try new food is not to eat it, screw up my face, down a load of water and express how vile it is before handing him his portion!! Kev then sneezed for some reason and sneezed so hard that his glasses fell off his face, it was one of the funniest things to have happened this trip and I nearly wet myself laughing!

We tried to pay for our meal by card but it got declined, which was slightly worrying. So we paid cash and then headed to a cash point to see what was going on. Sure enough, the cash point declined my card, and so did the next, and the next. There was no option but to ring my bank, which was annoying because we knew the phone call would cost a fortune. The bank told me there was no problem and so we went and tried yet another cash machine. Nope, that one didn't work either. Now I was starting to stress and we stopped to see if there was anything about this in the guide book. If only we'd read this earlier!! Apparently, in Japan the cash machines don't accept foreign cards, even if they are VISA. The only places to accept cards are in the post offices and they are usually only open till 5pm!! We took a chance and hopped on a train back to Shinjuku to the post office. Luckily, the ATMs were still working and we got enough cash out to last us a long while (we hope). By that time it was about 10pm and I wasn't in the mood for partying any more. We were going to go to Roppongi, the night life place in Tokyo, but we decided to just head back to the hostel.

The next morning we slept really late, which was soooo good! I wasn't sure if I had yet another cold, but it doesn't seem to have amounted to much so it obviously wasn't anything really. We had some breakfast in this weird little breakfast place. You go in, put your money in a machine and then press a picture. Then you sit down and they bring over your breakfast. It was like a Japanese fry up, really odd, it was a load of random things on a steaming skillet. Between us we had potato, beef burger (you know like those ones in a tin that you get in gravy when you were little, man they are good!!), sausage, fish, rice, miso soup, chicken, pork, you name it, we had it for breakfast!! Random! Honestly they eat so much here!!

We finished breakfast and and booked our seats for the train to Fuji the next day. We then decided to go back to Harijuku. It was the weekend now so we were hoping the little goths would be out! We got off the train and immediately saw the street that we were hoping to find the day before. It was like heaven for me – the shops were awesome and there was nothing I could do but indulge! I held Kev prisoner in Harijuku for a good few hours and if things here weren't so expensive I could have completely restocked my wardrobe. I found the perfect ring, but it was super expensive, so it's going to remain in the shop as my backup in case I don't find another Japan ring along my way. I bought a beautiful dress and yes... I bought some thick black tights! I have been so excited at the prospect of wearing some tights.. I never thought wearing tights would please me so much. I'm missing my biker boots from back home and I'm missing hair dye and now I'm missing make-up. Here in Japan everyone looks so flipping good that I was just longing to look nice for a while!! If I ever win the lottery, I'm coming shopping in Japan, I just love it. I love the fact that you can be as eccentric as you want, literally anything goes and whatever they wear, they look great.

We went to the park to look for some of the freaky goths, but they were still not out, so we gave up and walked to Shibuya so that Kev could get some good photos of the crossing. It was super busy in Shibuya – that's where all the super rich people go shopping. We went into the Starbucks by the crossing just to get a great photo and then went for a walk to Love Hotel Hill. The Japanese are so open about everything here and love hotel hill is exactly what you imagine it to be! They just don't care here about stuff like that and the whole hill is full of couples who have dressed up in weird outfits to go and spend a few hours in a love hotel! It's a funny place and we didn't stop long. It's not seedy or dodgy, just weird!!

We got the train back to Asakusa (where we were staying), picked up a bento box for dinner and got ready to go out. The plan was to try karaoke tonight. I put on my new dress, and my tights (they felt so good against my skin!!). It felt great to look a little bit nice and it made me happy! We went to the local karaoke bar but were disappointed to find out that it's just a load of booths -very busy booths, but not what we wanted. So we went for a drink in this little bar, which was full of Japanese business men. The menu was completely in Japanese so we both pointed to a random cocktail and asked for that. Amazingly, I managed to pick my favourite, a lovely Mojito, and Kev got some big champagne cocktail thing that he struggled to make last because he said it tasted like juice (it tasted like pure alcohol to me!!). We didn't stop there long though, because amazingly for a place that is so clean and lovely, they haven't introduced a smoking ban here ans so we were being gassed out by cigar and cigarette smoke. We wandered around to find another bar and went passed loads of little tiny restaurant/bar things which are just like a room with a tiny bar and a load of people in there all passing around a microphone and singing – that is the real karaoke, but it's not somewhere we could really go and join in!!

We wandered on and I saw a big man in a dressing gown, you know, the traditional dress, a komono. Kev didn't see it because he'd forgotten to put his glasses on!! We ended up going into the Hub Pub, which claims to be a British pub, but inside everything is American and there are signs everywhere saying how much they love New Orleans! So I think their identity was a little confused, but it was a nice bar all the same – shame we just missed the live jazz though – man, they love their jazz here. We finished our drinks and headed back to the hostel to get an early night, ready to get up early.

So we woke to the news that Debs (Kev's sister) had had her baby, Ava, which was a great start to the day. We checked out and went to the tube station to make our way to Fuji. The rail system here is so punctual. Two trains later and we'd arrived at Fuji and we were picked up by the shuttle bus for our hostel. We knew the hostel would be nice because it was the same company as the one in Tokyo (and in fact the same company as all the hostels we'll be staying in in Japan). There was a huge spider at the door, which I hadn't been prepared for, but that didn't put me off and we dumped our bag off in the luggage room while they finished cleaning the rooms. The hostels here are cleaned for 4 hours every day, they're so immaculate. And did I already tell you about the toilets here – they have a function for cleaning everything while you're on the toilet! And the seats are heated here, but it's weird because you sit down and it feels like someone has been sat on their too long before you, not keen on that feeling!

While we were waiting for 3pm, when we could get into our room, we went for a traditional Japanese lunch. We walked in and ordered what we thought looked good, but when it came out we realized we had ordered badly!! I had a tiny bit of sushi and a miso soup and some kind of fruit jelly, which was really good! But then I also had a bowl of snot (well, it was like a cold rice porridge but you'll see from the picture that the texture was like I'd just sneezed in my bowl). But Kev had ordered even worse – he had these tiny little fish that had been deep fried whole. To go with his fish heads in batter, he also had a bowl of rice, some deep fried veg, some picked veg and some green things that neither of us could work out what it was, but it didn't taste good. Kev could hardly eat any of his food so to save embarrassment I decided to bite the bullet and eat the fish for him. I closed my eyes and munched away at the little tidlers and was doing pretty well until I made the foolish mistake of looking down at my half eaten friend – inside this fish was full of tiny eggs and that was the last straw for me, I gagged and threw in the towel! That pleasurable feast set us back £20!! I came to Japan thinking, great, they'll be sushi everywhere and I'm going to be spoilt for choice with what to eat, but I was wrong. Sushi is surprisingly hard to come by and most of the other types of food are just wrong!!

We called by 7-11 and picked up some snack supplies and headed back to the hostel for a snooze. We went into our new room and it was great, it's a traditional Japanese room, so it's got these like paper walls and when we walked in there was just a tiny table and cushions on the bamboo covered floor. You have to set up your own futon mattress on the floor and it's surprisingly comfy!! We slept well and then went out for a walk to find the big lake, which happens to be just by the hostel. We spent the evening in the DVD room of the hostel, where I typed yesterday's blog and chatted away to a few people here. It was a good relaxing night.

Today, the weather has been no better, in fact, it;s been worse and has rained all day. We were going to hire bikes and head to the other side of the lake to try and get a glimpse of this mountain everyone goes on about, but there was no point because of the weather and we were going to get a cable car but again, there's no point! So we still have yet to see the mountain. There's not much here in Fuji to be honest, except this mountain that they claim is here. There's pictures of it everywhere, but I'm starting to wonder whether it really exists. Other than that, there's not much here. The place reminds me of Barry Island – it's just a bit touristy, but with very few tourists! One of the guys we'd been talking to had got up at 3am to go on a sun rise trip to see the mountain today and he said it had been pretty good, but he hadn't quite seen the summit because of the clouds. We thought we'd do that tomorrow but when we went to ask about it the guy told us it's due to rain even more tomorrow so it wouldn't be worth it! So there really isn't much at all to do here. Kev's finding it a bit frustrating and feels like we're wasting time, but I'm actually quite glad to be here and be forced to do nothing. It's given us time to just chill out and catch our breath!

This evening I decided to try one of the Japanese Onsen. We were both going to go until we read about what it involves and that put Kev off. Basically, it's like a natural hot spring (but the one here I don't think is natural). You go in and go into the locker room and get naki with a load of other women. Then you go into a wash room and you sit on a little stool and wash yourself with loads of different products and a shower hose. Thankfully a woman had walked into the wash room just before me so I used her as my gage on how long to wash for!! They wash for like 20mins, properly scrubbing themselves, not like the swimming pools in the UK where you see people reluctantly splashing a little water on themselves before jumping into the pool. So I scrubbed and just when I was thinking, really... I've nothing left to scrub, the other woman stepped into the pool. That was my signal to go go go... So, as I was meant to do, I wrapped a wet towel over my head (to stop rapid blood flow to the head!) and I walked (naki!!!! So strange!!) to one of the pools. The other woman had gone into a jacuzzi looking pool and I didn't want to look gay and go and join her, so I stepped into one of the other pools. It was absolutely boiling and I immediately realised how my little crab friend in Singapore had felt moments before he appeared on my dinner plate. I love scolding hot baths though and so I eased myself in gently and loved it. I wasn't sure how hot the water was, but I could see the other ladies pool was at 38 degrees. When she got out of that pool I went over to get in and it was freezing in comparison to the one I'd just been into!! Then I moved to the outdoor pool. It was pouring with rain outside and the rain was cold, but the pool was lovely and warm. It was really relaxing laying in the hot water, in the rain, even if it is with another naked woman!!

After about an hour I headed back to the hostel to meet back up with Kev. We ate some prepacked sushi that we'd got from the supermarket and settled down to watch a couple of films and chat to some of the people here. It's a really friendly hostel and we've chatted to loads of nice people and it's been great hearing about other people's trips. Everyone seems to rave on about China and that sounds awesome, I think I really fancy going there. Maybe we'll plan that into the Trans Siberian Highway/ Mongolian trip that I've always wanted to do. Maybe we should get this trip over with before we start planning the next!!

So that's about it so far. It's been nice to take a day of doing nothing, so I've enjoyed today. Think we'll try and do a bit more stuff tomorrow, although the weather's not meant to be great. We'll see. Hope you're all well, would be nice to hear from you. Hope you're enjoying the blog and the pics. See you soon xxxx