Well here we are in Tokyo! Helsinki made a good stop-over to help us get in to the swing of things; quite a small city and seemed quiet for a capital, but very pleasant and relatively easy to get around. We picked up a few Finnish phrases but until the tram ride to the airport to leave, everyone spoke very good English. We had a great time at the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, probably the best attraction Helsinki has to offer. We spent a good few hours on the six islands which together make up one giant fortress. Most of the time it felt like we were the only ones there and we were free to explore tunnels and gun emplacements etc galore!

We left Helsinki late afternoon yesterday (2nd Oct) and had an overnight flight, on which neither of us actually managed to sleep, though we did rest and loved the free travel accessories and good food. Unfortunately we also lost a few hours in changing time zone. We are desperately trying to stay awake until at least early evening in the hope that we wont suffer too much from jet lag! So sorry if this blog doesnt make a huge amount of sense! Also I am trying to use a Japanese keyboard and not all of the punctuation marks seem to work! I just managed to get it so that it was typing Japanese characters instead of English, very confusing, had to ask a nice Ozzie girl who is travelling with her sister and using skype on the computer next to me how to get it back so that you could read what I was typing!

Anyway, I think Im rambling now, so Ill go... more soon!

Although we have managed to get some of our photos online, I cant manage to open them on here today, so the one for this blog is from offexploring not me, hopefully will be able to put some up for you soon, maybe after a little more sleep! Our hotel in Japan has free innternet so Im sure we will manage it sometime!

Lots of love Debbie and Alex x