Whoa! What an arvo and night it was! It started in Ueno Park at about 4ish, we, the same posse from Friday night, met up in Ueno Park along with some locals. We grabbed some beer, did a big 'Kampai', which is the Japanese version of cheers, and wandered up to the food stands to get a bite to eat. We sat on some mats around tables, there were qui...

My 1st Offshore hitch was in Japan land of the rising sun, so they say...

Upon arrival at Narita International Airport we disembarked, retrieved luggage and cleared customs without too much fuss. We bought tickets for the Keisei Skyliner express train to Ueno, went into a convenience store and bought some snacks then boarded the train. Just under an hour later we changed trains at Ueno for an underground train to Asak...

Ueno has a western style park which was a nice esacpe from the concrete jungle and a chance to chill in the shade.

So the time had came for me to head off on my own. First stop..Tokyo! I navigated my way to Sannomiya station, and easily exchanged my Japan Rail Pass Exchange Order for a real rail pass! This gives me unlimited travel on ALL Japan Rail trains for 2 weeks - that includes the Shinkansen (bullet train). My first glimpse of the bullet train (they d...

Well, today I found out why everyone was happy to stay out later last night- there was no work today. Apparently the Spring Equinox is a national holiday in Japan, something which no one informed me of! After turning around when I found my office closed we did the usual working out, class, noodles dinner, and bed routine.

I'm not entirely sure why, but today was a day that Dad let me sleep in. Normally, we have so many things planned in our days that I'm up at 8 am, to be down in the hotel restaurant by 9. Today, it was closer to 10 that I groggily sat up in bed, wondering what had happened. Knowing the chore that lay ahead of us, I guess he just decided to cut m...

Well here we are laying in bed in the Narita hotel watching Japanese television - something everyones gotta see! The flight here was pretty long, 9 hours from Sydney. Was a bit of a shock when we first got off the plane. It was cloudy and raining pretty hard. However there was so much humidity in which it had me sweating within seconds. After fi...