Last Day

Final full day in Japan and it seemed appropriate to spend it looking in shops.
After a visit to the Nihon-bashi bridge - a sort of two story bridge where they've built a road on top of an old bridge.
Then we split up with one of us going over to Ikebukuro to visit some traditional craft shops and the other going to see the shiny new things on display in the Sony Building in Ginza.
Met up in Ginza for a bit of last minute shopping.
Now all that's left is trying to work out how to fit everything into two cases.

Tower Power

Back in Tokyo (by the bullet) and checked into the hotel which was thankfully completely straightforward.
Took the train over to Meguro and visited the world's only Parasitological Museum also known as 'The Wonderful World Of Worms'.
Went over to the Roppongi area and up the Tokyo Tower - an almost exact copy of that french one but just slightly bigger (and more stripey).
Came back to the hotel on the train during rush hour which wasn't anywhere near as bad as expected - you could breathe if not move very much and we managed to get off at the right stop.

Johnnie, Johnnie

Took our only organised guide trip with the whole trip with Johnnie Hillwalker (aka Hajime Hirooka) a man able to wear a hat, jumper, shirt, t-shirt and coat on possibly the hottest day of the year.
He took us around some of the backstreets of Kyoto, through some shrines, temples and peoples houses, we passed the home of Nintendo and he explained a lot of things that may make trying to understand Japan a little easier. We liked Johnnie, he gave us stuff.
Realised we could have spent a lot longer in Kyoto but we've got to catch the train to Tokyo tomorrow (bullet style).

Gold

Spent the morning by taking a bus to the Kinkakuji area of Kyoto to see the Kinkakuji Temple, an unassuming giant floating gold building.
Then another bus ride to Nijo castle where the floorboards are tuned to sound like nightingales and some to sound like floorboards.

Bamboo

Came down the mountain and walked around the Arashiyama area, through the impressive bamboo forest and up to the Adashino Nenbutsuji Temple and associated shops.

Monkeyland

Fantastic - real monkeys. Took the train out to Arishiyama, walked straight past the Train and Piano Museum and up the Iwatayama mountain. Got a little concerned as we climbed to see various signs, starting out with 'Don't feed the monkeys', then 'Make sure your bags are closed', then 'Don't look the monkeys in the eye', by this stage we still hadn't seen any monkeys but we could hear sounds in trees above. 20 minutes of climbing later we were too tired to run if they attacked. Got to the rest stop and monkey feeding area and finally saw the monkeys.
Lots of monkeys.
Turns out that there are fences to keep the humans in, while the monkeys roam free in a kind of Planet of the Apes style switch. Except at the top where monkeys and humans can mix freely and share ideas and snacks.

Kyoto - good and bad

Bullet train sped us to Kyoto in no time.
Got to the hotel and found that the travel agent has messed up the booking and they didn't have a reservation for us. Also the hotel was fully booked. All in all, not a good experience.

The picture is of the Kyoto Tower Hotel where we're not.

Found another hotel a little further out thanks to the helpful people in the Tourist Information Centre. This one is better in that it does have internet access.

Got settled in the hotel and then went back to the station to look at the view from the 12th floor sky garden and get some food. Found the famous ramen restuarant Dai-Ichi Asahiramen, turns out it's about as big as our front room. Tucked into a bowl of noddles, pork and beansprouts - really tasty. Basically their fish and chips.

Kyoto

Another bullet train ride tomorrow, 514km to Kyoto - we'll probably get there before we started off if it goes at full speed (I believe it only has one speed).
Despite the massive aerial on the roof, it looks like the hotel we're going to be staying in may not have internet access.
So it may be Thursday before the next entry, unless we get lucky or there's an Internet cafe nearby.

More trains, boats, boxes and toys

After the bullet we got a local train to Hakone-Yumoto, mountain train to Gora, a funicular to Sounzan, a cablecar to Togendai and then a pirate ship to Hakonemachi (no, we're not making this up).
Then a mere two minutes on foot bought us to the home of Japanese puzzle boxes, many glorious boxes bought.
Walked a bit through some cedar trees and along an old cobbled road to Moto-Hakone. Then we got the bus back to Hakone-Yumoto, we chose the shorter queue for the bus which turned out to be the bus that went the really long way round
Off the bus and on to the Hakone Toy Museum and straight into more shopping opportunities.
Caught the next bullet train from Odawara back to Tokyo.

That sounds a lot to fit into a day but the Japanese have got this tourism thing down to a fine art, everything is signposted and there's a guard or guide at every single exit, sometimes two or three.

Woosh

Took an excellent day trip to Hakone. Started off with our first journey on a bullet train to Odawara. Really fast, clean, loads of space and almost silent.

Turtle Power

Nakana was the next stop for more plastic toy joy.

Finished off the shopping spree with a train back to Tokyo Central and a leisurely walk to Ginza, which is full of the more upmarket type stores but we couldn't find anything in our size in Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vetton, Tiffany's or any of the others.

But we did find some bread in the shape of a turtle and how many people can say that?

Went over to the Imperial Palace but they failed to recognise our inherent royal bearing and didn't let us go in.

I can't see my house from here

Yesterday we ended up going back to Akihabara for a traditional japanese meal of burger and chips from Mos Burger and paid another visit to the gashapon shop.

Today started with a trek to Shinjuku, navigated our way through the busiest train station in Japan and up to the 45th floor of Tokyo Government Building Number 1 to see a spectacular view of Tokyo, people looking like ants etc. Probably the one thing we've done that hasn't cost anything.

Competition Number 2

Is it real or is it plastic?
Who can tell?
The first post to guess correctly will win a snack selection of things that we've tried and tested from the plethora of convenience stores here in Tokyo.

Giant Headed Chef Attacks Tokyo

You can have too much culture, so we finished the afternoon in Kappabashi, where all manner of kitchen hardware is on sale for Tokyoites to purchase.

A day of culture

To balance the shopping madness of the last few days, we decided to try and find a bit of culture and visit some more shrines and mostly found more shops.
Visited the Tenno-ji temple in Yanaka to see the big buddha, then on to Ueno to the Shitamachi Museum where a nice lady showed us round a recreation of Japanese houses from the Edo period and then gave us presents for looking interested.

Next we travelled on the underground to Asakusa Kannon temple, a massively popular and just generally massive temple surrounded by loads of temple related tat.

Botan

Finished the day off with a trip to Kanda for a traditional meal of 'chicken sukiyaki, served in the old style'. 'Old style' meant that the food was bought raw to the table (well floor/table) and cooked by a traditionally dressed japanese woman. Got a bit confused by the dish of raw egg put in front of us but it turned out that was to dip the ridiculously large amounts of cooked meat, tofu and vegetables in before eating them - so that was alright.
Not eating again this trip.

Showers, shopping and a shrine

Started off the day with a trip to Yurakucho, to the tourist information centre hidden on the tenth floor of a department store, the staff were friendly if a little uninformative. On the plus side there was some filming going on which hopefully will put us on Japanese TV - we're hoping to get at least an offer of our own series for our 'looking puzzled at a map' performance. It rained.
Then on to Shibuya with it's famous dog statue and it rained some more but we did manage to find a branch of Mandarake, a comic and toy type shop.

The rain stopped and we headed to Harajuku and Kiddy Land, bought some toys and kids.
Did a full 360 and went to visit Meiji Shrine, which was big and shriny.

Competition Number 1

It's nine hours ahead here. Which means that everything that has already happened here, won't happen back home for another nine hours. It also explains why the Japanese are so far ahead in terms of technology, trains and plastic goods.
Don't know how we've managed to live our lives so far without a toilet with a warmed seat and temperature controlled water cleaning options - well unless you turn the control to full, then it becomes a different experience.

Take this gadget for example, the first person who can correctly post a comment saying what this is, will get to keep it.

Akihabara

Went to Electric Town and got an Eee PC (which I'm using to send this). Some problems mainly due to the shops not having much experience with credit cards and that everyone else here speaks a language I don't have the first clue about.... it took a while. Everything I read before I came said how polite and patient Japanese people are and it seems to be true, they are unbelievably polite. Although on the trains and in the street you do get a lot of polite stares, even if you aren't wearing a colour other than grey or black (which I wasn't) or dressed as a maid (as of course, I was).

smoking

Getting free wi-fi at heathrow terminal 3 - can it get any better than this? Well yes, hopefully. Waiting to get on the plane. Could smoke in the hotel last night, which is weird considering I'm not allows to at home. Hopefully by the time I post again, something interesting will have happened.