The early morning commute to Hamamatscho station was done through sleepy eyes and following a disappointing breakfast we joined the queue for our bus, wearing our top tourist badges, and analysed our fellow passengers. Of note was a friendly English chatterbox who was intent on telling an equally enthusiastic American all about his commute to work, followed by a group of young girls accompanied by a Japanese don, and then there was Mr and Mrs P. Obnoxious. The P ...

With everything crossed I booted my laptop, in the vain hope that it had had a little chat to itself overnight and got its act together. Unfortunately the flashing and beeping that issued from the grey screen suggested otherwise, so our first stop of the day was the Apple Store in Shibuya. With an appointment with a genius booked for later in the day we picked up breakfast at a cute 'French' Patisserie where the coffee and croissants were excellent. Feeling much ...

We set off for round 2 with the most confusing train system in the universe and somehow we managed to find our way through the scramble of irrationally coloured lines and maze-like stations, emerging in the LED rich electric area of Alhibara station. After a short walk we ended up exactly where we wanted to be, outside Ruogoku, the sumo stadium, and by some stroke of luck (genius) it was a fight day! The whole place was packed, with no hope of getting a ticket bu...

It wouldn't be a proper early morning Mongolian travel experience without a tannoy call for Bob to descend into the bowels of the airport where the X-ray machine had found an irregularity with her bag. As the sniffer dog paced on the conveyor belt Bob rifled through the contents of her bag to try and explain Chris's thoughtful leaving gift of a lead cast of Banter's paw to yet another set of airport officials... Having choked down the worlds worst attempt at hot ...