I figured I had better start updating this page for people who want to know a bit more about what I'm doing here. So, I'll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start...).
So, after an arduous twelve-hour flight (seriously, how does anyone sleep in those seats!?) we arrived in Narita airport, Tokyo.
It still hadn't sunk in that I was in Japan. I could have done a full loop and got back off at Heathrow for all I knew (or cared at the point in time, so jet-lagged was my brain). We got to the Keio Plaza hotel which is easily the posh-est hotel I have ever stayed in!
That was when it hit me.
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This guy was part of a dance-off between two (later four) teams dancing to various j-rock/pop songs and at the very end they all got together and had one massive dance. On the other side of the park was some sort of concert featuring a buff bloke and a girl with a squeaky voice. There was also free beer :) At least, I think it was free, I don't remember paying...
After about half an hour of happily wandering through the city, it occurred to me to ask the girls in front if they knew where we were going. They did. They brought us to the gorgeous Meiji Jingu shrine. There were a lot of foreign tourists there and the red-and-white donned shrine maidens spoke really good English. We stayed there for quite a while. However, it didn't occur to us to ask the girls in front if they knew the way back and when we lost them a while later, we had to find our own way back on the subway, thankfully with the help of another Japanese lady who spoke excellent English.
When I got back to the hotel later that night, after more beer and nibbles, I was buzzing and really thought there was no way I would sleep that night as I lay down on the comfy bed. When I opened my eyes seven hours later, my first thought was "Huh. Whaddya know..."
