Konnichiwa, as we now say.

Our trip has been smooth so far, starting with a jolly taxi driver dropping us at Leeds Bradford and a hop down to Heathrow T5 for our flight to Narita airport Tokyo. The flight is called on time and we do not endure any delays taking off at 12.50.

The route the plane takes is much further north than when going to Thailand (which is towards Turkey) and we head off towards the frozen north of Finland. I must say the view from the plane makes you realise how mild England is as all you can see is mile after mile of frozen lakes and permafrost with the odd orange light twinkling where hardy souls live. Now I know why Thailand is full of Fins and Swedes throughout winter - it looks horrific.

To help the journey whiz by we have a few drinks and aim to get nice and "relaxed" to help us sleep as we try to get adjusted to Japan time. This works pretty well, and we soon fall asleep and get a good 4hrs before being woken to breakfast. The staff, food, seats are all excellent and I would recommend BA to anyone on this showing.

Arriving at Narita we grab our cases and make our way through customs and down to the station. I buy us an express ticket and a travel card for about £20 each which is not too bad as the airport is 50 miles from downtown. We get on an almost empty carriage and settle down for the journey, about 1 minute later the guard politely explains we are in the wrong carriage - who cares, the train is almost empty but we move. This is a good window in to the Japanese psyche and we find everyone we meet is like this, polite, studious and helpful.

Check in at the hotel is pretty smooth other than the room will not be ready until 3pm so we leave our cases and hit Shibuya for a wander and some acclimatisation for a few hours. It is full of sky-scrapers covered in neon signs, massive shops and department stores and the famous Shibuya crossing - a huge collection of pedestrian crossings swarming with Tokyoites going about their business.

Heading off to a ramen noodle bar that David has carefully looked up; we finally find it half an hours walk away. What we found odd is that you pay via a ticket machine in the lobby, hand your ticket to the waiter who then passes it on to the chef who cooks the ramen. The menu is not in English but the friendly waiter does his best to explain what the ingredients are. We were told in broken English that the dishes contain pig head meat so we opted to share just one bowl!

So far so good with getting around Tokyo but what we have learned is that you really have to do your homework to know how to get around as the distances are vast and the buildings are all huge without any discerning landmarks to help you navigate.

Back to the hotel to catch up on some well earned zzzzzs.