Hello everyone!! Apologies for the delay in updating the blog-I've been fully engrossed in fighting bears and practising sign language the past few weeks and definately neglected writing about my adventures.

Japan is a place of weird noises, flashing signs, amazing food, super friendly locals, stunning countryside and of course, heated toilet seats. I dragged my weary body off that Aeroflot flight over two weeks ag, tired, hungry (turns out Aeroflot food is appalling-didn't even get a gherkin) and slightly freaking out about my intrepid plans, but it's safe to say Japan has been a marvellous destination to start off my adventure.

I've decided the best way to tell of my tales is in chunks of the places I've visited. Tokyo was the first stop, so here it is!!!

TOKYO.

''All of the lights'' would be an apt tune to describe this city. Mission one after landing was to locate Becki, which involved me visiting a few wrong train stations and numerous phone calls-sorry pops. Becki introduced me to our humble Air BnB abode in Tokyo, and I was delighted (cough cough) to find I had to climb a ladder to go to bed, 'ala Chorlton flat'. We got a bedrobe to sleep in, which is potentially my favourite Japanese tradition-essentially a glorified dressing gown instead of pajamas, but the Japanese love it and for good reason! We ate some sushi, walked around, caught up then ate a Korean BBQ before I entered a sleep coma-all in all a good start.

Both myself and Becki are not very good at planning so our Japanese adventure has adopted the wing it approach. Its worked surprisingly well. Day one in Tokyo and we decided to hit the fish market. The fish get brought in off the boats at stupid o clock, so naturally we dragged ourselves out of our bedrobes at 4am, got on a tube and rocked up to the market. Turns out the place is closed to tourists until 9am. We despondently walked away with the aim of trying to locate coffee to get us through the next few hours, but turns out we actually walked deeper into the fish market. We were 50% tired, 50% soaked through, (it rains all the bloody time in Japan) and 100% miserable. We were also facing an untimely death, as multiple Japanese versions of the Tuk Tuk (a glorified electric trolly with boxes of fish on the back) were hurtling towards us at 400mph from all directions. Thankfully, through the haze of rain and fish guts, a knight in shining armour came to save us from an untimely fishey death by TukTuk. Slash, a little old Japanese man with an electric trolly took pity on us and told us to get on the back of his ride. Delighted, we hopped on, and we must have looked terribly miserable as he then proceeded to take us on a behind the scenes tour of the fish market including the tuna auction. Very cool and our frowns were certainly turned upside down. We later found out that a single tuna gets sold for £20, 000 and it's the most expensive fish market in the world!!! Mental. Anyhows our lovely driver delivered us safely to the entrance of the fish market, shook our hands, refused our money and went on his fishy way. We were dropped off next to a massive line of tourists, who had also gotten to the fish market at stupid o clock, but they had done so to eat ''THE BEST SUSHI IN TOKYO''. Turns out that's why you're supposed to get to the fish market early, and they were all massively jealous of our VIP fish pass. We prefer the continental breakfast so left the que of people in search of coffee feeling pretty good about ourselves.

Having dried ourselves off and numerous coffees later, we explored the fish market. Its super cool. See pictures as you can't describe it in words. We got to watch the Japanese tuna ninjas carving the tuna they had just bought from the market. Its apparently a very respected job in Japan and they use massive knives that need two people to use to de-bone them!!

After our Fish adventure, we decided to continue the animal theme and we went to a hedgehog café. Like the cat café but with hedgehogs. Pay 5 quid, pick a hedgehog and stroke it for half an hour. We both went for ''active'' looking hedgehogs which was a massive mistake. The hedgehog is quite prickly so you can't stroke it, and whilst mine kept pooing on me, beckis kept falling out of her hand. The couple next to us had lazy hedgehogs that basically slept in their hand therefore allowing stroking to occur. Swopping hedgehogs is forbidden so I continued to be pooed on for half an hour and becki spent half an hour trying to get a picture with her hedgehog without looking like an advertisement for animal cruelty. After all that excitement we were in desperate need of a nap, so we had a siesta in our bedrobes. Lovely.

That evening we had our best meal in Japan so far. We aimed to go to the centre, but I took us to the wrong tube station by mistake and we ended up in the business district. Never fear, fate is here. We stumbled upon a street of restaurants that had copious drunk business men inside. We picked one by random, and were greeted by a Japanese menu with no pictures. Disaster. Sign language got us a glass of wine, then the chef came out to speak to us, to ask us what we wanted. Between the three of us and google translate we managed ''salmon''', ''beef ''and ''rice''. Could have been a royal disaster but the food was literally incredible. We had the best salmon of my life, beef sashimi and scallops with asparagus. Japanese chef loved us, we loved the food, everyone was happy. See picture with our new mate.

Tokyo day two passed by in a blur of visiting different districts and generally enjoying the weird Japanese way of life. Seems that entertainment for Japanese comes in two forms. Numero uno, they go out for food and drink; in essence they go out, get pissed on sake, eat some food and try make the last train home. Never seen so many drunk people in my life as on the train home from Tokyo….beats ladies day at the national any time. Number dos is they go to these weird gaming centres. Imagine a massive two storied room, with machine after machine of slot machines. Throw in a load of shooting noises, whizzes bangs and high pitched screeches, 200 Japanese men, and the sound of said Japanese men banging on the buttons to control the machines, and it starts to paint a picture in your head. Totally bizzare. We walked in, gawped, then swiftly walked out upon visiting.

As we were hitting the town on our last evening in Tokyo, we decided it was an awesome idea to not book any accommodation, shove our bags in a locker in the train station, and hope to god we wouldn't want to go home at 1 am. The weather was fabulous so we spent the day walking around various gardens and taking in the sights. By mid-afternoon we were pretty tired, and needed a nap. Ensue the discovery of comic book cafes. Pay 5 quid and get a cubicle for a few hours to ''read'' (*sleep*). Strangest place in the world….imagine a big dark basement, filled with smoke, serenading music and divided into small cubicles that contain a squishy pleather mat and a computer. I've been in nicer places, but we both managed a power nap, and were delighted to find ''the powder room'' to get ready in, complete with hairdryer, straighteners and curlers. Win Win.

Disaster one struck when we spent an hour trying to locate ''Golden gai'' street for dinner...its essentially a little crooked street with restaurant after restaurant that seat like 6 people. We had stumbled upon it the previous day, but completely failed to locate the street, ended up in the karaoke and red light district and walked around in circles for ever. I swear to God we were one street away the whole time. Having given up, we ended up in a distinctly average noodle bar for dinner feeling miserable and hoping life would get better as we didn't have a bed until 4 pm the next day. In the ideal scenario, we would have gone for a lovely dinner, had a cocktail in the sky lounge then make our merry way to WOMB which is a big club in Tokyo. In reality, we walked around in circles for an hour, ate dinner, then got on the tube sober as a judge for our night out as it was getting too late to go for drinks. Disaster two struck when we tried to get money out. Loads of Japanese banks don't take international bank cards, and we had approximately 5 pounds to our name. Dead good preparation. We spent the next 40 minutes trying different banks in the train station to withdraw money-rejection after rejection…very sad times, not very happy faces. Thankfully the stars decided to align as we found money in a supermarket, Hoorah. We passed a random bar on the street and decided to go for a wee and grab a drink, but it turned out to be super cool so stayed there. Two G and T's and some Bob Marley later life was looking up. We made friends with two Japanese guys, who then took us to a tiny underground Jazz Hip Hop bar come club and paid for all our drinks. All of the wins. Awesome music, so naturally we were throwing shapes on the dance floor until 4.30am.

Our train to the airport was at 6 so we went to Mc Donalds for some nutritious grub to absorb the ethanol. Then we somehow managed to get our rucksacks from the locker, make our train, and get onto the plane to Sapporo. All in all we smashed it.

Lessons learnt from Japan thus far.

The Japanese are basically the friendliest nation I ever met. They go out of the way to help you. Even though they hardly speak any English, most of them know how to ask you where you are from, and in response to Liverpool or Manchester, you tend to get a big beam, and something related to the beatles, football or simply ahhhh MAN-CHEST-ER followed by lots of excited hand gestures and smiles.

The Japanese toilet is a revelation. Not only do they have heated seats, but they have bum washes in all directions, music to serenade you whilst doing your business, deodorisers and other buttons I haven't yet managed to work out. Often, finding the flush is the trickiest part of using the toilet, so I would suggest to the Japanese toilet companies to perhaps make it more obvious.

Japan is the cleanest country I ever visited. God knows how because the place does not have any bins. Nada. Not even in the train station. The only bin you can find is the ones in the coffee shops. I found out last night that the Japanese take their garbage home and dispose of it themselves. I have no home so a slight conundrum for me. Trails of rubbish have been haunting me in my dreams.

Tokyo was epic-busy, colourful and exciting. Hokkaido was a complete contrast but absolutely awesome. I shall update you of that part of the trip tomorrow including eventful plane landings, bear bells, 4 ft snow drifts and our nature spotting adventure. Currently staying in a temple in the Japanese Alps….wondering if I will find my inner zen whilst here???? definitely contemplating Yoga before bed.

Cheerio for now-sending lots of love to all

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