Konnichiwa all the way from Tokyo, Japan.
This place is like no other either of us have been to before, its brilliant - popping out suprise after suprise and challenge after challenge.
So we arrived in Tokyo airport and had to catch the train to our hostel in the northern region of Asakusa. Tokyo itself is split up into a range of little cities making one and Asakusa is suppose to be one of the most cultural. You should've seen our faces when we saw the train map - take the london underground and double the size and amount of coloured lines, add some random Japanese words, swish it all around and you have it! It actually looks a lot like a bowl of multi coloured noodles, and don't start us on the subway map!!!!
Anyhow we made it to the cute little hostel (with a ninja doorway) and explored our area the next day - its so cool, mixing ancient Japanese buildings and shrines with contemporary modern office blocks and bridges. Asakusa has a cool market street where you can walk and buy virtually anything - we stopped for a few snacks which we had no idea what they were - we think the first was some kind of sweet potato mix and the next a chocolate sponge ball thing (technical terms). It also has a little shrine and pagoda that add to the awesome skyline.
Anyhow we have explored the city starting at Shibuya which is a uber commercialised area famous for its busy crossing, featured in many a film. Then upto Ginza which has the infamous Sony building (well worth a look around to see all the new gismos). We have walked around the Imperial Palace, home to the Emperor and later visited the Tokyo tower at night (when it's all lit up). We also have visited a beautiful shrine in Harajuku, where we saw a traditional Japanese wedding take place, and is just up the street from where all the fashion girls hang out (like the ones in Gwen Stafani's videos). Dave is still having major problems pronouncing Japanese words while Megan is actually quite good. Honestly though its adding to the fun as we have no idea where we are most of the time!
Day 2 we had a Sumo Day, where we went to a traditional Sumo Tournamant which was really cool, we learnt loads about the culture and techniques, while seeing them all battle each other. Then during the evening were cooked a Sumo dinner by the staff at the hostel which consisted of soup, noodles, cabbage, dumplings and a whole host of other ingrediants we didn't know. Eating has been a lot of the fun, in that we have been using the point and smile technique for food as we speak no Japanese - and we usually get something very edible (no raw fish yet but some great Sushi and loads of rice so far).
We head to Kyoto tomorrow via Bullet train which we are very much looking forward to - but we will leave you with one of our favourite discoveries since we have been in Tokyo - the electric toilet - this thing actually warms your arse with the heated seat option, cleans you, after you have done your business and even dries you afterwards - AMAZING!!!!