Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Wednesday, December 28, 2016

*DYLAN*
The morning started with Blake sorting out a refund with the inexperienced receptionist. Success!
We then met our tour guide for the day, Callum. He was a nice fella who wore matching sneakers and jeans, social suicide if you ask me (see photo below). We looked pass his fashion choices and took off on his thoroughly organized and planned walk for the day. He ran a very tight ship and any suggestion I made that was of a detour to his mapped out plan was quickly shot down. We were to stick to the plan. The day was a successful one. We decided to target the Shinjuku region of Tokyo. It's located west of the main CBD and is the entertainment district for the city. We eventually made our way to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Observatory and caught a lift 45 floors up. It provided a special view of Tokyo and its surrounds, as well as Mt Fuji in the distance. The city from above didn't really look that pleasing to the eye (a concrete/apartment high rise jungle), but was impressive nonetheless. We had lunch in a yakatori restaurant (pronounced yakatori); they served small meat and vegetable kebabs. With the restaurant full, we were moved up stairs into the attic which provided a nice and cosy lunch. It was a tasty meal, with our first rounds of sake of the trip to wash it down.
We then went to a samurai museum in the afternoon
some interesting costumes on display. We then watch a samurai show which was a bit off the mark but still interesting to see. Imagine a man with a sword, holding different samurai positions staring into everyone's eyes for 15mins and that is what we got. A few of us were close to nodding off. With the show heading for the gutter it was rescued by an exciting battle between the samurai and the ninja. A slightly awkward but interesting show was the final judgement.
Come night time we went to see the Caretta light show which was very impressive. 250,000 lights flicking away to music + smoke and bubbles.
Quality Indian for dinner and then back to the hostel where we experienced our first earthquake tremor. Coincidentally we had discussed what we would do earlier during the day. We sat and didn't move. A strange sensation. According to our rookie receptionist it's quite normal.

Weather report: Clear skies, very windy which made it quite chilly but weather was good.

Snow report: Hakuba 11cm and Niseko 4cm. Hopefully some more snow over the next day or so.