RIHGA Royal Hotel Tokyo Shinjuku

Wie der Titel schon impliziert, hat sich heute das erste Mal seit wir hier sind, Mutter Natur zu Wort gemeldet. Nichts ahnend standen wir heute Vormittag im Zimmer vorm Spiegel, um uns auf die Reise nach Shinjuku vorzubereiten, da fing das Ding auf einmal ohne Vorwarnung an, an der Wand hin und her zu schwingen. Aber nicht nur der Spiegel hat sich von allein bewegt, sondern auch die Wand, an der er haengt. Mein Gehirn brauchte ein paar Sekunden, um zu ...

... which is one of the great tourist attractions in a city which frankly doesn't have many.  It is the largest fish and seafood market in the world, and has been around in some form since the 1600s.The taxi dropped us off on a busy road, near a row of small fish and produce shops which were just opening.  We wandered around ...

Como me sobraba dinero al final me he pillado la DS nueva en el aeropuerto de Narita que me ha salido por unos 90 euros, ya sabeis por esto de que sea menos dura la depresión post-vacacional :-). Con la PSP y la DS el viaje de vuelta se me va a hacer cortito cortito :-)

... to get her outside so she could have a crafty one- Alas no! On the plane i was unglamorously munching on a Tuna sandwich from pret, actually no, I was trying to shove it in Jules mouth; insisting she try it, when our unfortunate seat buddy showed up looking both worried and disgusted. His name, we found out, was Peitr. He was a physics tutor from University College London and helped me and Jules with our bags and figuring out our tv ...

... n isl*nds, some of which were *pp*rently priv*tely owned. The isl*nds themselves were often teeming with wildlife, *nd we s*w more *nim*ls here th*t *t *ny other time on the trip. After bidding Eb's rel*tives f*rewell, we bo*rded * pl*ne *nd he*ded to w*rm, sunny S*n Fr*ncisco. S*n Fr*ncisco: We *rrived f*irly l*te *t S*n Fr*ncisco *irport, *nd beg*n the long tr*in ride to the hostel. We h*d booked * pl*ce ne*r the center of town, ne ...

... appears, as everything is colour coded, and you eventually work out what lines you need to use, but you have to work out what station you need to change trains at. I think most of the time, for most destinations you'd be able to get away with only having to make at most one transfer. From Minamigyotoku (my station) to Shibura I change lines at Nihombashi, which is pretty much at the halfway mark of the journey (it takes me about 20 mins ...

... then usually 10 more floors of things we don't understand. After a really good evening bar hopping and chatting to locals, we started the nightly walk home. If you know Tokyo or can be bothered, have a look how far Ebisu to Jimbocho is to walk... I can't translate it to London easily, but something like Docklands to Hampstead at a guess. A long way, anyway. Walking home it's so easy to fall in love with Tokyo. There is no litter. None. For a city of so many people and so ...

... like a village - the sort of village Jackie Chan smashes up in a fight scene from one of his earlier Hong Kong productions. It was here that I learned the Japanese version of "pub crawl". They call it climbing a ladder. You go from pub to pub, one rung to the next, until supposedly you topple off the top and end up like the bloke we saw on the train later that night. You may also resort to the old favourite (as I did) and attempt to either ...

It's Tuesday in Japan - suitcases are packed - and we're soon off to Narito to catch the ANA flight to Paris. Stay tuned.....and we've arrived at Narita - only about an hour drive - and our friendly Crown Parking staff was there to meet us & take our car to their parking lot where it will reside for the next ...

The water had worked a little, but now I wasn't looking forward to our first night in Kyoto as much as I was simply looking forward to my first shower in Kyoto. I returned to my seat as refreshed as I could be. Ellie was awake, and since neither of us was going to be falling asleep again, I was happy to see that we were finally over Japan and landing was eminent. Airports are airports. They can spend millions of dollars designing them, but in the end, every damn one of the ...