I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien, I'm an Englishman in Tokyo.........

So we are back in Kuala Lumpur airport having just flown in from Japan. We have 10 hours here until we fly to Phuket in Thailand so what better time to write about Japan.

We flew on Thursday knowing that are arrival time of 10.30pm would be a challenge to get to my brother Bens house on the other side of Tokyo. When we left half an hour late we could only think "oh f***". So we landed in Tokyo at 11pm and from then it took them 20 minutes to get us off the plane and into the airport. So we got into the airport about 11.20 when we were hoping for 10.30. From here everything went very fast and within about 10/15 minutes we had gone through passport control and collected our bags. As a joke I turned to Pete and said "knowing my luck this will be the first time my bag has been searched by customs". Not so funny as they ask me if they could search my bag. Their loss. First thing to do when I arrived was my laundry so she was welcome to my dirty boxers. The other customs officer asked to search Pete's hand luggage. Pete thought it was only right to warn him that there was a fake arm in his bag to which the customs officer apologised and stopped searching his bag. Well that's one way to get things through customs!!

So we went through and got the monorail to Hamamatsucho where we met Ben. He then took us via the JR Yamanote line to a place called Sugamo. From here we were due to get another train but by this point missed the last one of the day. Taxi it was and being after midnight it was expensive. About £45 between 3 of us. Thank god we had got that far before trains stopped.

We got back and crashed out. Ben had uni in the morning so we had a bit of a lie in before venturing out to Tokyo on our own to find him. It was a great sleep too other than the fact I was woken up at about 4/5am by Pete shouting "my chocolate sauce is better than yours". He was still asleep and dreaming of the two of us having a chocolate sauce cooking competition. His had Twix and Mars bars and mine was just made of boring plain chocolate. If that's true then he had a good point and his was better than mine. Congrats Pete. Anyway, luckily Ben gave us really clear directions on how to meet him and so off we headed. If only I had bothered reading them before getting lost. Eventually, we found him and headed for our first Japanese experience. One of the fast food restaurants was doing a ten patty burger and Pete and I decided to give it a go. One of Ben's Japanese friends decided to join and even though he started 5 minutes after us he finished well before Pete and I and didn't struggle. Pete and I really struggled but we eventually managed it. Task 1 complete. After this we headed to Akihabara which has Japanese girls dressed in french maid outfits walking around and trying to get you into their cafe. By this point we were with 4 or 5 of Ben's mates and we went in to one of the cafes. Pete and I already stuck out as tourists but when everyone ordered just a drink or ice cream and we went for the drink, ice cream, photo with a girl of our choice combo I think it was even more obvious (we also don't look very Japanese). So after this interesting experience it was quite late in the afternoon and some of Ben's mates were going to play badminton and we decided to join them. Pete and I were too hot in the sauna they called a hall and so sat out and watched the regulars play.

After a pretty chilled evening of playing Football Manager and doing our washing (which we finally finished drying at about 2am) we went to bed as we were getting up early to go to the fish market. It was really cool there. By the time we arrived it had started to quieten down a bit. We walked around saw loads of big pieces of tuna, massive prawns, squid, eels, and loads of other fish. At some point we stopped to watch them pick up some alive fish, kill them, gut them, and descale them. After this we headed to a place called Shibuya. This is quite well known for it's massive crossing where cars are driving, the lights go red, cars stop, and people cross in all directions (including diagonally). Whilst there we grabbed some lunch at an authentic Japanese restaurant called TGI Fridays. Pete ordered the nachos which was made up of 4 little Doritos with melted cheese on and a salad in the middle. Not what we expected at all. After lunch we met up with a couple of Ben's friends and watched some baseball. It was the Tokyo Yakult Swallows vs the Yokohama Bay Sides. The Swallows won 4-1 and the best part of it was the Japanese songs and celebrating a home run with umbrellas. Strange I know but how else would you celebrate right? Also, the Swallows had a cheer leading team. I think they were called the Swallowers. Only joking but would be a great name for them. After the game we went to another American diner where Ben's friend Hanami worked and we had a great meal which included ice cream for Pete's fake birthday with the whole restaurant singing happy birthday. Hanami also managed to get us a ridiculous amount of money off (no idea how) and the whole meal cost about £8 for all of us. Thanks Hanami. This restaurant was back in Shibuya so we went back and got some more pictures in the evening. After this an early night was the plan for the evening after our lack of sleep from the night before.

Yesterday we got up about midday and Pete and I headed off round the city on our own to do a couple of touristy things that Ben didn't want to do. We headed back to Akihabara so Pete could buy a laptop and instead he came out with an electric razor. Long story. We then headed to Asakusa but stopped off at Suidobashi on the way to change lines and this happened to be the Tokyo Dome (biggest baseball stadium) station so we had a walk around that. Next we went to Asakusa which was a bit like Camden. Had a walk round looking at the markets before getting a real Japanese meal of Katsu Don (breaded pork on rice with egg) and it was amazing. After Asakusa we headed back to Bens, packed up our stuff and went to the airport. That pretty much leaves us where we are now, in Kuala Lumpur for 10 hours, heading to Phuket to meet Pete's Aussie mate Matt and his girlfriend Tess.

Hope everyones great at home.

Josh x