Konnichiwa Tokyo! (briefly)

 So after 11 ½ hours, too much food, not enough sleep and 3 terrible, TERRIBLE films later*, I finally touch down in Tokyo.... to then sweat more than I thought humanly possible waiting for yet another 2 hours at the aiport, then another 2 hours transfer from the Airport to the hotel!

From what would have been a plane full of 80 or so JETs from the London orientation, I found myself sharing the plane with countless Japanese (who would have thought hey?!) and four very lovely UK JETs – 2 from England, 2 from Scotland. These were to be my travelling buddies for the next loooong hours – no pressure to get on hey?

Made it to the hotel (much napping to be had by me on the bus) and had that all important cool-down shower that was very much needed. Who would have thought 30° would have been so hot?! Not good hot either.. not, ‘I’m off to sunbathe’ hot.. the kind of hot that makes your hair poof out to at least 10 times it’s natural frizz and makes just the simple act of standing a sticky and unpleasant one. After the shower it was straight out to get some food at a rather weird Italian Japanese restaurant. Pleanty of spaghetti and miso soup for all! Then off to the local store (when in Tokyo....) for the numerous nods and guilty smiles at not being able to understand a single word that the nice Japanese girl was saying to you as you bought your very simple ¥105 cake slice! Then finally back to the hotel, with many a stop to act the tourist taking countless photos of skyscrapers, traffic and giant letters spelling out love on a street corner. Now bed for a few hours until the alarm goes off for yet another full day...

Full day my...um...you know what...by the end of the morning session I wasn’t feeling too great and had to go to bed for a few hours to recover from a rather inopportune migraine (cheers mother)! The afternoon session was ok and I got to meet the prefectural advisor for Tokushima. Tomorrow we will be leaving together at 7:30am for yet another coach ride and then plane journey to Tokushima! Very excited. To end the evening myself and a few JETs went up the Tokyo Municipal Building (or something to that effect anyway) which was free, which gave us a brilliant night-scape of Tokyo as a whole! There was also a kawaii shop at the top of the building where I couldn't resist being a tourist buying 2 'My Neighbour Tototro' magnets which are now stylishly placed on my fridge! (Pictures to follow) After coming down, Kirsty, my room mate, and I went for a little explore as we both felt that being cooped up in a hotel in Tokyo all day did not mean that we could claim we had been to Tokyo! It was only a brief walk around Shinjuku, but enough for me to feel as if I had seen the real Tokyo (or at least part of it) and also more than enough to make me feel very hot and sticky... nice.

*I would not recommend watching Source Code, Water for Elephants or Rio – though Rio was definitely the best of the three!