2nd/3rd Feb

2^nd Feb

The day started with me helping Guy organise his accommodation from the 13^th until he leaves Japan. He decided to stay at Tokyo Annex where I will be staying on the 4^th and the 5^th. From there we left to go to Akihabara, and we walked from Ueno station where I left by luggage in a locker for 500 yen. We started by looking at the side street adjacent to the rail line. I found a pair of Timberlands at a lower price than mine in NZ, damn!  From there we walked all through Akiba, finding a Saizeriya to eat at. With a nomihoudai(all you can drink) we certainly filled ourselves up from drinking.  From 6pm I left him to go to Nihombashi to find my accommodation, and after walking for an hour and checking maps, I couldn’t find it, causing a dilemma. From then onwards, I went back to Ueno to pick up my luggage, then walked to the other side of Ueno park to find myself a motel, which I found for a higher price than I wished, but good considering the location. By this time it was around 8pm. I splurged that night on some cold sweets as that day was rather warm. It’s been really warm in Tokyo, considering its winter at the moment; I’ve been walking around in my cardigan and having to take it off on the subway and all of Akihabara even late into the night. Not what I was expecting from a Japanese winter, but Sapporo will certainly live up to my expectations of a cold winter. A friend Hikari posted a picture on Facebook of the snow in Aomori, which was piled higher than her, so over 1.5m! I’ll certainly need a down jacket and maybe some long johns.

3^rd Feb

So after waking up and having diarrhea, I checked out sometime after 10am. I then proceeded to head over to Khaosan Ninja and dropped of my luggage there, my feet are still so sore from walking around Akihabara yesterday and at 7pm, nothing has changed. It’s mainly the tendons and ligaments in my big toe that are so sore, I will be changing shoes from tomorrow. Speaking of shoes, I bought myself a pair of Timberlands from NZ for 300 dollars, and here I find the same pair in Japan for 19,000 yen, which is cheaper! I also found a pair of similar boots selling for 4000 yen in Ueno along the street running adjacent to the JR line, too bad I didn’t buy it. I spend from 1pm in Harajuku, looking at Takeshita Dori and the shops to the left once you get to the main lights at the end, after seeing that prices for haircuts were 6,300- yen plus, it got me thinking whether Elle in Komagome was still open or not, since that was my local barber during my high school exchange. I found the place was still running to my delight, and the staffs were still just as friendly, I also recognized a face of one of the employees there. I initially asked for a haircut, and when they were washing my hair, they asked if I would like a shampoo treatment, which I thought why not, since I’m in Japan. Because of that, I talked to the female stylist who cut my hair to my Mohawk style and found out that it snowed last week in Tokyo and that she also wants to travel but she’s limited by her lack of English.  The shampoo treatment was very nice; a different female staff member swapped over with the stylist. She started with shampooing my hair, and proceeded into a head and shoulder massage which was so good, I think I’m going to try that on Arisa when we stay together  ; )  
so on my way back to Ninja I stopped over at a LAWSON and bought myself dinner that I cooked up back at the youth hostel . I bought a pack of sausages, some soba and mushrooms which I fried up in some olive oil and added parsley and coriander to. I also microwaved some gyoza and had Kirin beer as my drink of choice. total of about 1300 calories includin the beer and pudding. Surprisingly they didn’t bother checking for ID since you have to be 20+ to buy alcohol in Japan. it's only 8pm at the moment, just chilling and finishing off my beer, I'll end with  pudding then a shower and sleep, something which i've been lackign in and since i'm drinking tomorrow, i'll need plenty tonight. 

31st Jan/1st Feb

31^st Jan
What a hell of a day!    I arrive on time for my Jetstar flight to Gold Coast, on board the same flight is a high school friend Leo with his girlfriend!   So from 7am to 10am AU time, we are meant to be waiting for our flight to transfer, however our flight got cancelled to the bad weather in the Gold Coast.  Because of that, Jetstar made sure we all boarded the next flight to Osaka, and payed for our hotel and transport to Tokyo,     which I will be taking in the morning.The flight to Gold Coast passed very quickly, and so did the time spent waiting at the lounge in the GC airport, but the flight seemed to drag on, lucky I had AVICII to keep me company for most of the flight, ran out of battery with about an hour to go, at which point we already started   It will certainly be a busy ride taking the shinkansen in the morning, but I should make it to the Youth Hostel  Tokyo Annex in time to store my luggage and Meet Guy in time at Ginza at 1pm!   It is now 12 30pm JP time, which would be 4 30am in NZ, so I’ve been awake for 24 hours,  just had dinner with Leo and his Girlfriend at a dine/bar on the 25^th floor of a building, amazing view! I’ll acquire the photo and post it up when I get it.

Well I’m off to sleep, waking up early so I can get to Tokyo nice and early as well!

 So the bullet train to Tokyo flew by me, got on, slept, woke up, there's Fuji with a snow-cap*take picture* then slept til Tokyo, from there it was a case of making it to my youth hostel Tokyo Annex where i found out to my dismay, that my booking had been given away as i was a NO SHOW, fortunately i have the first, 3rd,4th and the 5th with them and their branch NINJA, and have just booked a capsule hotel for the 2nd, so no harm done.  

So I spent some time with Guy for dinner and a catch up since I haven’t seen him in about 2 months. We had a quick plan to go drinking but my eyes are too heavy and so was my bag, for me to pull an all-nighter.  We had a good walk around Shibuya looking at some of the Guys recruiting the richer looking customers due to their clothing. Good thing I was wearing a plain black tee as my normal attire, very simple style so no over the top accessories for me apart from a necklace and a DIESEL watch from my Girlfriend.

We did some theoretical talking about our plans, and some things we have set in concrete. We will take the scenic route on the 6^th, taking our time from Tokyo to head towards Sapporo. We will stay the night of the 7^th in Sapporo and the 8^th heading down to Osaka to meet some mutual friends from JAM+ (Japanese Activity Meeting + other things) in Auckland New Zealand.   The rest, will come tomorrow once we finalise some more things. Time for me to go to sleep now, long day tomorrow.

preparing for a Japanese Winter! first entry 31st Jan

Hello! welcome all who will read this blog, the blog is mainly for me to use as a form of e-journal for my Japan Trip, so without further ado, into the cyber bank!

just casually listening to Avicii vs Nicky Romero - I Could Be The One whilst i type this.


PREP

the main reason for my trip is to visit friends, see relatives, and i will also travel with an English friend to attend the Sapporo Snow Festival!  I'll be stopping off in Tokyo first for a few days, to see some old high school friends, make new friends, and have an overall good experience traveling around and shopping.   I will probably go visit the new Skytree in North Tokyo, which stand at a whopping 634 meters, the 2nd tallest building in the world as of 2013!





since NZ is in the middle of summer, and having never been in the snow before, I've had to go and do some shopping such as buying some boots, and warm clothing almost spent all of the hard-earned money from the past 2 months for this trip, bought lots of Mrs Higgins Cookies for the girls i will be staying with, It's serious business, cookies.. I'll be buying a down jacket from UNIQLO at the Ginza multiplex the very next day, since i will be landing very late at night.

With the rising Japanese yen, and the NZ dollar getting weaker from a strong position, i managed to buy some Yen at an exchange rate of 67:1  for yen:dollar.  As a consequence, it has now risen again to 74 yen per dollar, i bought too early! 



As i sit here at the airport, i get a surreal feeling, that all of the talk, all of the planning and money i've spent, all the hypothetical situations are finally coming together. All that's left is for me to go out there, hop aboard the flight, and relax until i arrive.


  Over and Out, K