Hotel New Inaban Chiba

... world, he is seeing the people from all over world.

When a wwoofer leaves, Hirota would ask the wwoofer to write something for him to remember, one wwoofer from France wrote: "My name is John Pierre, 52 years old, I am a citizen of the world, I have no wife, no girlfriend, no house, no job, no car and no money, my passion is to help children...." and John has traveled the world wwoofering. Hirota hosted wwoofers from France, Australia, Taiwan ...

... a cup of tea instead. Back on the coach and we went down the mountain through a lovely valley with mountains either side covered with trees, and wild cherries flowering amongst them. We then headed for the station and caught the Shinkansen - the bullet train, average speed 150mph. One hurtled through the station while we were waiting on the platform which made us jump! 35 minutes back to Tokyo and then, after careful instruction, we took the metro and got back safe to our hotel.

... so just HAD to buy it! Nat and David went to go and get a few supplies for Christmas day and of course, the usual '****, what is SPLASH. Must get that can of jelly fanta grape'. And then back to our apartment. In our tracky dacks and a bit of relaxing and listening to tunes and having duty free booze on Christmas Eve. It's a tradition or a chater or something. So Merry Christmas to everyone. I'm looking forward to a cold day, weird food and good times. It's going to be awesome.

... nice. We were headed down to the boat dock where we would take a "water bus" down the Sumida-gawa river right near our hostel. I just love being on the water, something about water is such a joy for me! The boat was about half-full with almost all Japanese people, again very few foreign tourists! That has made this trip feel like a very authentic Japanese experience, we love it! I am starting to feel a bit nostalgic about lovely Tokyo. What a ...

... I get to my Hostel I will not blog until the end of the day o.-. Well the girl next to me lives in Tokyo and her name is Neneko and we clicked and started talking on the plane we talked about, anime's we liked, manga's we have read, food we liked American and she talked to me about Japanese culture and things I really needed to know which was awesome. We exchanged cell numbers and planned on meeting up over the week which is awesome, you can call it a date but I would ...

... a crazy idea of temporary escapism. And here begins the Tales of Two Tarts in Tokyo. TALE I: Shibuya - The Quest. After a giggly Shinkansen ride, fighting our way through the visible humidity to our hotel in Ueno (a very old area of Tokyo), and some much needed showers, Melinda decided that an afternoon nap was on the cards. As I was only staying for two days though, I decided to brave the heat (42 degrees!) and the crowds and headed to Shibuya for a spell of shopping. I ...

... much. Im learning random cultural facts aswell. From there we went to my ghetto, Asakusa and properly went into the Sensoji temple and everything. I got a mokuji which said that I am going to have "Good Fortune." Not excellent, not disastrous, just good. I can deal with that. Yurikas father, who works in conjunction with my Auntie and cousin insisted on paying for everything today, as my Auntie and cousin paid for the uber expensive meal ...

... was some good bands nearer the end and, in my humble opinion, a rather sexy Japanese punk in a kilt! The irony being he learned the bagpipes in Paris! Hmmm! However apart from him, the beer and the company the whole "games" were rather disappointing. Not having our own embassy to support our cultural events we have to rely on the English to take things over and fly Union flags everywhere and tell people about whisky and haggis, the Japanese ...

... what I ingested that night but it was definitely NOT chicken. The waitress told me I ate chicken SKIN but was unable to explain to me what the other type of meat was...I could barely chew it...maybe it's better that I never find out. After dinner we went to a tiny hole-in-the wall bar where we befriended some locals. We all headed to a karaoke place (which are ubiquitous) and had so much fun. You get a private room and choose from a huge list of songs. The ...

... item on the menu!) and really reasonably priced too. Our only problems comes when we have to pay - that is the restaurant doesn't accept credit card and neither do most of the ATMs!! Many of the ATMs here accept up to 100 credit cards, but rarely our mastercards! We think that this is only because they don't accept international cards of any type. We got some cash at the airport but alas, this has almost ran out. We agree to pay some of the bill (all the cash ...