Konnichiwa Tokyo!

Konnichiwa!!!
This is soooooooo surreal it is unbelievable!I cant believe after all these years of dreaming of visiting Japan that I am finally here! After a very long and tiring flight from America I arrived at Toyko Narita Airport!It hasnt sunk in that I am here!Arrived to find Daniel already here waiting for me...in fact his flight had got in 12 hours before mine so hes had quite a wait and was quite accustomed to the airport!!!!Experienced my first squat toilet!!!From here we had to trek right across Tokyo to get to where we were staying in Tarawamachi. We took the train to Ueno station where we got chatting to a woman called Sue who was from Tazmania and it turned out that out of everywhere in the whole of Tokyo she was staying at the same tiny guesthouse as us!!!So we all put our map reading skills together and after some time arrived at Toukaisou Ryokan!It was just as I had imagined...the tradiational guesthouse including the Tatami mats, the yukata robes, the tea set and the pinnacle (this has been my vision ever since reading 'Memoirs of a Geisha' many years ago....).....the toilet slippers!!!

Here is our little squat toilet and the much anticipated toilet slippers! Obviously you cant resist but to comply with tradition and etiquette and wear the slippers!!!

I am in my element!Dumped the backpacks and headed out to get something to eat and have a couple of drinks! After that super long journey a gin and tonic was definatley on the cards...imagine my delight when I spotted the bottle of the old Bombay on the shelf!!!Its amazing just to walk around and take it all in....Im so overwhelmed by the whole thing, this is just a dream opportunity and I appreciate that Im so incredibly lucky to be here and to get to see these wonderful things!I just cant beleive that Im in Japan! Where we are staying is a very quiet area and is not really overun with hotels so its great to be staying a bit away from the tourist trail! Instantly I have fallen in love with the crazy vending machines which are every few feet away!!! They sell everything, from cute little pink cigarettes, to chocolate and the most random selection of drinks I have ever seen!!! The Pocari Sweat was just begging to be sampled after hearing Danielle's stories!!!! We strolled around the nearby streets, a couple of the arcades, spotted the weird signs on the pavement which say it's illegal to smoke and walk at the same time!!! Nightmare, its going to be stationary cigarettes galore!!! We eventually headed back to our Ryokan and watched a bit of random Japanese gameshows, involving people doing crazy things involving pain and snakes, with a cup of black tea before rolling out our cosy mats!

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