Japan so far.

We've made it.
We're in Japan.
Life is good.

After much saving, planning and a little stressing, we're here.

The story so far...

After about 90 minutes of sleep, and somehow managing to wake up before our alarm went off (at 4:50am...) we showered, dressed, had a cuppa and drove off to the airport.

EastLink is pretty damn awesome... We got to the airport in about 45 minutes from Croydon, which was pretty awesome. Ben's parents on the other hand, weren't so lucky. They came on the Greensborough ring road, where a car accident happened, so while Ben and my family ate Mcdonald's, Ben's parents were stuck in a bottleneck, which sucked majorly.

It all worked out in the end though, and we all got to say goodbye to one another-- the mum's cried a bit, though not as much as I thought they would (especially my mum).

We progressed through customs and so on pretty quickly, boarded the plane... and waited for an hour extra before we had to take off. Someone cut a power cable in the airport, so we had to wait for instructions to come through to say it was okay for us to take off.

The flight was long and... well, long. Over ten hours of flight time, we flew into Narita airport just as the sun set.

Taka, our Japanese friend, was already waiting for us, so we collected our bags and left.

Japanese customs was practically non-existent. They asked where we were staying in Japan, we gave them Taka's address and they were satisfied. Our luggage didn't get checked or anything. So different from Australian customs!

Taka's family consists of his father, his mother, himself and his two older brothers (Tadao and Toshi). Taka is the only one who speaks English, though we managed to spend over an hour with his dad communicating through alcohol.

Dad'll be proud of me-- I drank beer. And I kind of liked it. It's much better than the beers I've tried in Australia.

After a beer, a glass of mediocre red-wine and some watermelon we unpacked all our stuff, had showers and clambered into the attic (read: our bedroom) and fell asleep on our futon. I'll post photos in the next post-- I haven't taken any photos of the house yet.

This all happened yesterday.

Today... we woke at 9am, after seven hours-ish sleep, got dressed, had some food and were driven to the local train station, which, unfortunately, isn't within walking distance from Taka's house, so Taka's mum drove us.

Japan's train system... wow. Puts Melbourne's train system to shame. The local station is called Moriya station, and is on the same line as our intended destination for the day: Akihabara. Akihabara is... unlike anything we have in Melbourne. It's Tokyo's electronics district, and every imaginable electronic gadget, trinket and gizmo can probably be found somewhere in the maze of streets. The train we boarded wasn't very packed-- probably because we got on the one that stops at all stationed on the way to Akihabara instead of the express one.

We got off at Akihabara station, and followed the crowd to what we hoped was the right exit (it was) and began to immerse ourselves in Japanese electro-culture. After meandering around aimlessly for half an hour or so, we made our way into a building filled to the brim of funky cartoon-related merchandise. Found (but refrained from buying) so many awesome figurines-- many of which involve characters from games Ben and I both love (read: Final Fantasy).


We ate lunch at McDonald's, because it was close and efficient, and we wanted to see if the menu was any different to the Aussie Maccas (it is). Ended up not being adventurous and getting a large Big Mac meal each. The fries weren't as salty, the burger was bigger, and the Coke came in a weird container.

It's like a milk carton... but instead of healthy dairy goodness, it contains sweet sugary bliss.

We ended up finding a table in McDonald's up three flights of stairs. Sat down, started eating and realised that everyone in the room was smoking! Eating Maccas, smoking cigarettes and everyone besides Ben and I had some electronic device in his/her hands!

Mobile phone, Nintendo DS, iPod, MP3 player, camera-- everyone had at least one of these in their hands while they sat at the table with their food. It was really weird.

After lunch we went into Yodobashi-Akiba-- another 8-storey complex filled to the brim with delicious technological goodness. We finally found the right adaptor, so now we can recharge the laptop/DS/camera etc. Voltage in Japan is only 100 volts, which is a big drop from our big 240volt supply in Australia.

In one section of the store, there are aisles upon aisles of vending machines-- pop in your 200yen, twist the handle, out comes your collectible toy. There are aisles filled with dangly things to hang off your mobile, stickers to liven your phone/camera/laptop up, and electronics galore. It's friggin' awesome.

There is a store down the road where you can sell back your little collectible if you've already got it... and in turn, avoid the chance of getting the same figurine again and buy the one you actually do need.

In our adventures today we snapped a few examples of Engrish. For those who don't know what Engrish is, go here and you'll get the idea soon enough.

The first one is a toilet seat cover, the second is a memo-pad and the third is a dangly-thing you hang from your mobile phone (that you're being told not to use).


Tomorrow Taka has the day off-- from 6am til... well, he's still at work while I type this at 11pm (And I used to bitch about a three hour shift at Coles >.>; )-- so hopefully we can go out and do something with a bit of guidance. Don't get me wrong-- aimless wandering/exploring is heaps of fun, but it'll be nice if we can be shown around a little. Maybe go into the heart of Tokyo.

Now Taka's mum is serving up some sake, so this is where I'll finish up.

Bye!

PS: Sake (not "saki" you ignoramus!) is quite good.