Hotel Fukuoka Kaikan Chiyoda

... we would fail repeatedly. Sean finally got to place Street Fighter. Unfortunately, however, it was connected to the internet and so he didn`t have a chance to fight anyone seated directly nearby. And the controls were a bit difficult to get use to considering the instructions were in Japanese. But he wants me to mention that he did win a match once - so ha, he says. We wanted to play this game where you get into this crazy shuttle thing ...

... yet, with the exception of our splurge at the "Taj President" in Mumbai during the first two days of our travels. In other parts of Asia, we have been paying, on average, the equivalent of £15 a night for a decent sized room with en-suite, air-con, cable TV, fridge and which sometimes even included breakfast. Our lovely room in Lijiang in China only cost £10 a night for both of us and they even threw in supper one evening! Luckily, when we checked in to ...

... of poo with a stick. You gotta love Japan :) We only went to the museum of statistics (it was pretty much just in Japanese, so we didn't absorb much information), we didn't go to the Space Wax museum, wax museum, or the Ripley's museum (I've been to the one in SanFran, they're probably all the same anyway). It took a really long time to look at all the shops (there were that many, yes), and we were getting tired and hungry, so we stopped by the food court. It was huge, and there were ...

... tiny underware? This is a must for culture experience. Where else can we see grown men fighting in their tiny undy with pagentry and rituals??? Ishimoto has nothing on these guys. These are the guys not afraid to get in touch of their femine side. They are walking around in there yakata, with floral print and all (even in pink), and thong wooden ...

... illusions as you can see from the photographs below. We then left Tokyo tower and headed to the infamous Roppongi district (nightclubbing). We got lost and had to take a taxi, but cest la vie. We then went into a bar called "GasPanic" and it was happy hour, but it was dead in there. We stayed for 2 drinks and headed to a Japanese Bar for dinner. Once again we put our shoes into lockers and sat down. Rocky and Emi wanted to try the Wine and I said yeah and ditto for Kara ...

... pockets of wonton wrappers filled with meat/onion/ginger/garlic and steamed then served with a little soy and chili oil. Now, the difficulty comes when you try to order. Many of these shops have a machine in the entryway with buttons which you push to order and then insert your money to pay for it. Hitoshi even had a hard time figuring out what to order on this little, picture-less machine! After dinner we drove by his house as his mom had been asking for me. When we got there she was ...

... hands and rinse their mouths out before climbing onto the elevated mat. Once there, they go through up to four minutes of ceremony, throwing massive handfuls of Salt to purify the ring and raising their legs high in the air before stomping on the mat to scare away any demons. During this time, much machismo is put into crouching in front of one another as the rishiki attempt to psych each other out. Only when both wrestlers place both fists on the mat does the battle begin. The typical ...

... locals here, and the waiters are really nice to us. After that, Joanne headed to get a massage, Blythe went back to the hotel and the rest of us decided to try and go to our Dart Bar. Alas it was too crowded and they couldn't fit us. So went for a pint at the HUB and played 2 rounds of Darts there! Jason slaughtered us on our first game, and I came back from behind on the 2nd!! I hope more dart games are in store in our future! It's a good thing.

... Fujiko is a woman who knew Mary in South Carolina and knew Anna as a little girl. Yoshio is a friend of Cal's sister; he was visiting the US and just returned to Tokyo. Tomoe was Anna's roommate 4 years ago in Palo Alto. And Julie is an Australian living in Tokyo, who we just met a month ago in Thailand. Juggling schedules, we were able to meet up with all these folks, all giving us their perspectives on Tokyo & Japan.

... safely. I never did find that elusive cafe but I did stumble upon the downtown area of Shinjuku. It's just like you have seen in pictures too. Tons of neon lights, people everywhere, the pachinko parlors rattling like a summer thunderstorm. I went into one of them to check it out and the noise was so deafening that I spent less than 5 minutes before I left. Everyone pretty much left me ...