The flight from Cairns to Tokyo took a bit under 8 hours, but it passed really quickly. We were lucky enough to get fire exit seats with masses of leg room, so I spent the first half of the flight stretched out sleeping. We managed to get a free hot dinner before landing as well. You normally need to pay for food on Jetstar flights but we asked if there were any hot meals left and were given some which people had reserved and paid for but not eaten.

On the flight we noticed we were the only 'gaijin' or foreign people, apart from one other woman. When we landed, we got chatting to her and found out she was British, in Tokyo to visit a friend. We got the shuttle in to the main airport terminal and through security, then met the woman's friend.

She helped us buy the correct tickets to get into Tokyo on the train, though the signs for the trains were really good and the people at the information desk spoke English.

We all got on the same train towards Tokyo, sitting together for about an hour, then Lucy and I got off and changed at Aoto station to get the train to the station near our hostel, Asakusabashi. Some helpful Japanese people made sure we got off at the right station, though again the signs and announcements made it easy for us.

We arrived at Asakusabashi eventually around half past 10, and left the station to be hit full force by a wall of hot, humid air. From the station we walked across a bridge crossing a canal and tried to find our hostel. We took one wrong turn and had to double back but eventually found the Khaosan Tokyo Ninja hostel, on a small backstreet in the area.

We got inside out of the sticky air, sweating, and gladly shed our humungous bags, and our shoes, as per custom. Because we'd arrived late, our keys were on the desk so we found our way up to our room and dropped off our bags. I nipped through to use the toilet and found one of the famous Japanese toilets with the fancy heated, bidet seats. It was quite fun to experiment with the controls, but I won't go into detail.

We then went downstairs to the common room in the hostel's basement. The common room was great, with air conditioning on, a big TV and vending machines selling water, juice and beer. We sat and browsed the internet for a while before making a late night call home on Skype to catch up with my family. After uploading the last of our blogs from Australia, we headed upstairs quite late to crash out for the night.

The next morning we got up quite early, had a shower, then headed out to explore Tokyo. The heat was stifling and the air sticky and humid from the minute we walked out the door, but that's what we had been expecting. We walked from the hostel through some backstreets and back across the river into the busy nearby neighbourhood of Akihabara.

Famous as the area to buy discounted electronics, and more recently as the home of Tokyo's geek culture, the area was filled with electronics shops and stalls, 6 storey video game arcades and shops selling manga (Japanese comic books), action figures and other weird and wonderful stuff.

We spent some time walking up the main street in the heat, in and out of air conditioned shops and game arcades, just taking in all the sights and sounds. All up and down the street were girls dressed in cartoony maid outfits, handing out leaflets. We had read about the 'maid cafes' popular amongst the otaku or geeks, and were keen to try one out.

We went into one building where we'd read there was a famous maid cafe, and found ourselves in a huge sort of low-end department store, spanning 6 or more floors and crammed with everything from clothes and toys to homewares, bikes and electronics. This building was like a lot we passed. What just looked like a door into one small shop would actually be the entrance to a huge, Tardis-like space full of all sorts of incredible sights.

On the 5th floor of the building, the Don Quixote building which seemed to be referred to as Don Ki, we found @home Cafe, the maid cafe we'd read about. After having the process explained to us by one of the maids, we were ushered into the place to a cheery shouted greeting from about 6 or 7 of the 'maids', young girls dressed in the frilly charicatured maid outfits.

Not at all as kinky as it may sound, the idea of the maid cafes is just a bit of fun. We were sat at a counter and had the menu explained to us before ordering a mixed juice for me, a tea for Lucy and a cute rabbit-shaped cake with whipped cream.

Included with the drinks was the option to play a game with a maid or have you picture taken with one of them. I opted for a picture while Lucy chose to play a game. It wasn't long before our drinks were brought to us. Lucy had her tea poured, then the maid who was serving us got us to help in making my juice more delicious as she shook it in a mini cocktail shaker, by getting us to repeat little phrases after her. Finally my drink was poured, and it did taste quite delicious.

We also had to put our love into the cake we were served by making little heart shapes with our hands, moving them side-to-side and saying a little phrase. It was so ridiculous but so much fun, and pretty much what I had expected to experience in Japan.

Once we had finished our drink, the maid who had originally taken our order came over to play a game with Lucy. Lucy rolled a dice to choose the game, ending up with a game we used to have as kids, which I've forgotten the name of but involves pushing down a crocodile's teeth with one of the teeth randomly causing the crocodile's mouth to snap shut.

Unfortunately the game seemed to be either broken or rigged, meaning the same tooth activated the snapping every time. Once Lucy sussed this out, she managed to win 9-1 during her three minuted of play. Her prize for winning was a little coin, which she used in one of those little plastic bubble dispensers, to get a prize. The prize was an @home Cafe sticker.

Then it was my turn to get my photo taken. I was allowed to choose a prop (giraffe ears) and a pose (hands in the shape of a heart again) then had my photo taken with one of the maids of my choice (I chose our original server).

We had the instant photo brought over to our seat before we left, adorned with little scribbles from the maid. Then it was time to pay up and leave. The maid cafe was so weird but so much fun, and a great introduction to some of the wackier side of Japanese culture.

After the maid cafe, we walked back through Akihabara, picking up some cheap memory cards for the camera and searching for the waterproof case for our camera, which I had hoped to buy there. Unfortunately, none of the shops had the case, but we still enjoyed walking through the backstreets full of little electronics and manga shops and the ubiquitous maids, one our way to the Akihabara station.

At the station we picked up a day ticket for the JR (Japan Rail) network in the city, and got on a train to Shinjuku, one of the main downtown areas of Tokyo.

After a short journey on the train, we arrived in the busy Shinjuku station. We first stopped at the information desk to validate our JR passes which we'd bought in Australia, deciding to activate them from the 10th of August, a couple of days away. At the same time, we booked some seats on a Shinkansen or bullet train to Hiroshima for the 10th.

After that we made our way outside. By now it was around lunchtime, so we decided to find some food. We went into a nearby department store and found our way to the basement, where there was a huge food court full of counters selling all kinds of food. We walked around for quite a while, checking out all the delicious looking food, before deciding on some steamed dumplings and a bento box, a little lunchbox filled with a variety of foods.

With our food, we left the store and headed into the west side of Shinjuku, through streets with lots of camera stores and restaurants, into an area filled with huge, impressive skyscrapers. We walked between the towers, then into a massive plaza in front of the gigantic, striking government buildings. From here we walked up past the government buildings and to a nearby park.
We had planned to find somewhere to sit in the park and eat, but it was filled with quite a lot of homeless people, so we made our way through it and back out to the street near the government buildings, where we found somewhere to sit and eat our lunch, sheltering from the rain shower which had just begun.

The other residents of the area around the park were the ridiculously loud insects filling the trees, making a hilarious sound which was like a combination between a fire alarm and a kazoo. We caught sight of one of the bugs which was like a huge greeny-grey beetle, sitting on one of the trees and puffing its little heart out to make its racket.

After eating, we walked back towards the station, but took a detour to the government buildings, this time queuing for the elevator which took us up to the observation floor at the top of one of the building's two towers. From here, we had a fantastic view over Tokyo, which sprawled in every direction, seemingly endlessly, into the distant hazy air. After relaxing on a bench in the cool observation floor, we came back down the elevator and out through the large, impressive lobby of the buildings and walked back, past the station and into east Shinjuku.

This area was immediately very different to the othe side of the station, with it's well ordered skyscrapers. There were little restaurants and bars dotted everywhere, with the odd large branded chain store, and a slightly sleazy feel to the area, with people handing out adverts on tissues for sex-related businesses, and posters to the same effect in some of the buildings.

We made our way through the area, past the shops and restaurants, to a peaceful shrine, the first one we had visited. Like a small park with a brightly painted small red wooden temple, the shrine was a nice antidote to the busy streets with their constant noise and bustle.

After looking at the shrine, we left by some steps at the back and found ourselves in the Golden Gai, a series of small, narrow alleyways arranged in a grid. This area was completely filled with tiny little bars, about the size of an average living room or smaller, in equally tiny buildings. The bars were all quirky with different designs and had loads of funny names like Death Match in Hell or Bar Plastic Model, but most were still closed as it was the early evening. We found one bar which was open and got a cold beer, leaning against the wooden counter and enjoying the air conditioning in the small place before we moved on.

From the Golden Gai, we walked back through Shinjuku, now positively heaving as people either went home from work or came out for the evening, to the station, and got on a train to take us to Ebisu.

At Ebisu we changed onto the metro and travelled to nearby Roppongi, the famous centre of Tokyo nightlife, particularly amongst foreigners. Tired from all the walking we had done, we were keen to just sit and relax so we found a nearby bar recommended in our guide book, which happened to have a happy hour on. We got a great seat in the upstairs bar beside a window overlooking the main street in Roppongi. We had a nice cheap beer and some rather un-Japanese chips to hold our hunger at bay.

After cooling down and relaxing sufficiently, we left the bar and walked down through the busy area, lit up brightly with neon and buzzing with life, across the main junction past numerous bars and shops. As we were walking we passed one shop which caused me to do a double take. I thought I'd seen a puppy lying panting in the window and when I looked back, that's ecactly what it was. The whole window of the shop, and the walls inside, were lined with clear plastic cases with tiny, pathetic-looking puppies inside, most lying forlornly looking drugged up. There were also cases with kittens and even one with a baby monkey in it. We really didn't like seeing all the animals cooped up like that, so we moved on until we found our destination, a huge karaoke place.

We noticed on the way through Roppongi that there were far more gaijin in the area, as we'd expected. We had hardly seen any other foreigners during the day, which was quite nice actually as it added to the feel of being somewhere far from home and very different.

At the karaoke place we checked out the prices and opted for an hour in a private booth, with free drinks. We were instructed where to go and hopped in an elevator which took us to the 9th floor of the building. Just along the smart, darkly decorated hallway we found our room, with a big TV and karaoke machine set up, dark leather couches and a window overlooking the brightly lit city below.

We didn't waste any time in ordering a pitcher of beer on the phone in the room, then set about trying to figure out the controls for the karaoke. There was a big wireless touch-screen panel that we used to choose the songs, queuing them up on the system. When the song came up, some cheesy stock video footage would play on the TV along with the backing track, and we would sing along.

It didn't take us long to lose our inhibitions and start belting out the tunes, dspite my complete lack of ability to sing in tune. With two microphones, we were able to sing together or alone, and had a great laugh picking out some classic tunes from the massive library, which had pretty much every western song we could think of.

To make the most of our free drink offer, we kept phoning down for more drinks, with the staff coming kneeling and bowing into the room to bring us our beer, not wanting to disturb us. Although we had only intended to stay for one hour, when the staff phoned to let us know we only had a few minutes left, we opted to extend for another half an hour, then again half an hour later.

After two hours of singing and drinking quite a bit of beer, we finally left the karaoke place to make our way back to the hostel. The karaoke was even more fun than I imagined, and would be amazing for a private party or with a group of friends. Some of the rooms we saw on our way out were amazing, with space for 50 or so people.

Knowing that the metro stopped running at midnight, we walked quickly to get back to the station as it was already quite late. We managed to catch the metro back to Asakusabashi after a change at one station, then made our way back across the river and to the hostel.

After a really busy day, Lucy went straight to bed and crashed out. I went downstairs to get a bottle of water from the vending machine, but ended up sitting for a while talking to some of the other hostel residents, before also calling it a night.

The next morning I got up, had a shower, then headed down to the basement common room, leaving Lucy to sleep for a bit longer.

Online, I found out about the terrible riots back home, and tried to book some hostels for the next few days of our journey as well as catching up on Facebook and email.

With the time approaching 11, I headed back upstairs to find Lucy still asleep. I managed to get her up and after her shower, we left the hostel just before midday.

We walked in the intense, wet heat back to Akihabara station and here, boarded a train to Tokyo central station. After the short journey we walked outside to find ourselves in amongst tons of incredible skyscrapers, with loads more being built all around us.

We decided to find somewhere to eat, so walked between the towering buildings, which I loved the design of. They were all straight lines and very utilitarian or industrial looking but without lacking character. My particular favourite was a huge dark metallic building which we entered on our search for food, which housed a load of fancy shops and eateries in its first 6 levels.

Deciding it was a bit too expensive there, we continued walking amongst the buildings until we found one excellent retaurant with lunch meal deals. Filled with mainly business people in this obviously commercialisd area, we were still welcomed and enjoyed a fantastic lunch of rice with eggs and tiny fish through it, and in Lucy's case a big bowl of delicious spicy ramen (noodle soup) with pork mince and for me, a small bowl of miso soup and a pot of sizzling pork mince and tofu in a spicy sauce.

After lunch we walked west from the skyscrapers towards the Imperial Palace Gardens. Emerging from amongst the towers, we crossed a bridge and passed through some incredible old sloping stone walls built from huge irregularly shaped blocks stacked together. We walked through a paved area with fountains and across a main road to the side of the moat surounding the gardens. Across the moat were more of the solid, sloping stone walls topped with white buildings with the classic Japanese style tiled roofs with upturned corners.

We were beginning to find the heat and humidity almost unbearable, as we walked along the side of the moat to try and get into the gardens. After walking some distance to a gate we were told by the guards that it wasn't the public entrance, and we'd have to walk a few hundred metres to get there. We did so, heading back onto the street and up alongside the moat, filled with gigantic carp floating lazily near the surface with their mouths open.

Eventually we reached the right gate and entered through it into the Imperial Palace Gardens. Our first stop here was a small rest building, where we bought bottles of ice cold water and sat inside in the cool, conditioned air.

After cooling down a little and feeling ready to explore, we left and walked around the gardens, the grounds of the old imperial palace. We walked between the imposing stone walls, through small groves of trees and around a pretty pond with dragonflies zipping around and more carp lounging around, past a little tea house and up a hill to the remains of an old tower from the imperial palace. Although only the sloping, blocky stone base of what would have been a big 6 storey pagoda, the structure was still impressive, and when we walked to the top of it we were granted a fantastic view back over the pretty green gardens, to the tall, shining modern skyscrapers of Tokyo, many topped with busy cranes and still under construction.

From the remains of the 15th century tower, we walked through grounds past big open lawns, stopping again in another rest area for a while to escape the heat and have a drink of water.

After a rest, we walked through the park back to the exit gate and then wound our way back through the skyscrapers to Tokyo station.

Hopping on another train, we once again took the circular Yamanote line around the town centre, this time getting off at Shibuya. We walked a bit through the station until we got a view over the famous 4-way intersection in Shibuya, one of the quintessential Tokyo images. We waited for the lights to change and watched the huge crowds of people cross the street from one corner to another, the streams flowing between one another in a rather hypnotic fashion.

Since time as getting on, we just got back on a train and continued to the next stop, Harajuku. We got off the train here and crossed the street from the station to Takes***a Street. This amazing narrow street was completely packed with people, mainly Japanese, browsing loads of crazy clothes and jewellery shops. There were lots of interestingly dressed characters in all manner of outfits, and lots of very fashionable young people around.

We enjoyed nipping in and out of the shops, as much to escape the oppressive heat as to check out the wild variety of clothes for sale, including the classic t-shirts with odd designs and mistranslated English phrases on them.

After walking the length of the street, we ducked into a colourful pastel-hued food court filled with young teenage girls eating various desserts. We got some Dippin' Dots, little balls of frozen ice-lolliness then set out to explore more of the area.

Around the corner from Takes***a Street we found a British pub which was advertising a happy hour, so stopped off for a drink. Not sure what to expect as we descended the stairs to the basement bar, we were surprised to find an incredibly authentic looking pub with an exclusively Japanese clientele.

We got some cheap cocktails, opting for the larger 'J size' which turned out to be a pint glass. We sat sipping our pints of G&T and cassis & lemonade, resting our weary feet and checking out the menu for the pub, offering traditional British meals like 'The Fish and Chips'.

After our drink we continued down the street to Omote-Sando, a wide, very European feeling tree-lined avenue which was filled with designer boutiques and fancy-looking cafes and restaurants. We walked up and down the street, among the numerous young and very fashionable Japanese in the area, as it started to get dark.

We also checked out some shops down side streets from Omote-Sando, and amongst the designer shops found Kiddyland, a huge toy shop filled with all sorts of cute and crazy Japanese toys.

Deciding it was time for dinner, we continued up the pretty avenue towards Harajuku station, finding a cluster of small food places on a corner near the station. With most of the places displaying bewildering Japanese menus, and without many pictures or the common wax models of the dishes available, we decided to go for a place up a tiny staircase in a building which advertised an English menu.

We didn't know what we were going to get when we got to the top of the stairs, but we were pleasantly surprised to enter into a small, cosy place with a long wooden bar and little booths. We were seated at the counter and given our menu, which described the specialty of the place, 7 different types of ramen. We chose two types of ramen, both based on tonkotsu or pork bone broth with noodles, topped with belly pork, sliced pork, boiled egg, and in my case, fish roe. We also ordered some gyoza, little fried pork dumplings, to share.

We had had ramen similar to what we ordered at home, but the bowls we were presented blew the stuff from home away in terms of tastiness. The soft, juicy pork and super-tasty broth were amazing, and we were soon slurping away at our noodles like the locals.

After dinner, we hopped back on the train and made our way back to Asakusabashi station, then walked back to the hostel.

At the hostel, I went for a lovely cold shower, changed into some clean clothes and headed down to the common room with Lucy. There, Lucy pottered about on the internet while I got a beer from the vending machine and read some of our guidebook, getting a bit distracted by an annoying Dutch guy who loved the sound of his own voice, and was talking about drugs to some of the other hostel residents.

Eventually we called it a night and went upstairs to bed, Lucy stopping off for a shower on the way.

The next morning we got up and got packed, ready to set off for Hiroshima. We had a quick look at the internet then left the hostel, walking quickly to minimize our time in the heat as we headed to the station. We caught a couple of trains to get back to Tokyo central station, then found a little restaurant for food. Just going by the pictures in the menu, we ordered what turned out to be another bowl of ramen with juicy sliced pork, and a big plate of noodles with a sort of spicy pork mince in a delicious sauce.

After lunch we grabbed a small bento box from one of the many stalls in the railway station, so we'd have a snack for the train, then found our way to the platform for our shinkansen. The train pulled in shortly thereafter, gliding in with its sleek, elongated nose and smooth white carriages.

We met one of the guys from the hostel on the platform, who happened to be on the same train and same carriage, though heading to Kyoto rather than Hiroshima. After the carriages were given a quick clean, we were allowed on, escaping the heat as we found our seats in our carriage and settled down for the journey.