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 chocolate we boarded our plane to Tokyo!

The flight was uneventful, other than the poor food and getting covered in dandruff by the gentleman on my right. We landed safely in Tokyo and despite a 5 hour flight almost due east we did not cross any time zones... Bob approved of the warm environment as soon as we stepped off the plane and having battled the robotic toilets we negotiated passport control, customs and an won some yen out of an ATM. Without too much fuss we found ourselves waiting on the platform for the super fast Skyliner which would cover the 90km to the city centre in under 40 minutes. It arrived and for all I knew it could have been the bullet train it was so shiny! We watched as all the seats did a little dance around the carriage whilst it was being cleaned and then we were sat in our seats watching the paddy fields shoot by.

We were soon spat out onto the platform amongst a mele of locals all heading pointedly in different directions as we tried to make sense of the huge, sprawling tube map on the wall in front of us. We gave in and the man at the ticket counter gave us 2 small postage stamp sized tickets and pointed us towards the baby blue line, which was Orange on the wall map and spattered with hieroglyphics, none of which we could quite match to our intended destination.

Completely bamboozled we went with our gut instinct and by some miracle arrived at Higashi-Jujo station, perspiring slightly, weighed down by all our bags. After a brief reccy taking me into the quiet, and stereotypically Oriebtal, suburb we found the hotel and checked in.

Our room was 'efficient'. It felt very much like living on a boat with a fold away bed, lockers, small stove, ridiculous bathroom (with several options for how warm you'd like your toilet seat) and a radio alarm clock which looked like the enigma machine.

Whilst Bob settled in I made a foray out for provisions. I was foiled by the 'Sweden Milk Complex' again. Upon returning triumphant with Twinning tea, the tetra pack of what had to be UHT milk, turned out to be mandarin flavoured fermented milk drink... Not so good for tea but I found it surprisingly tasty. Maybe I was just being stubborn...

After attempting to shower in the small plastic box which was our bathroom we headed out for supper. Our previous mastery of the train system was short lived and as the maps now contained no English and the colour coding appeared to not be consistent we were flummoxed. After some help from the station master we bought a strange type of ticket and headed out into the Tokyo night. As we flew along the city lights were impressive but only when we finally arrived in the Shibuya district did we appreciate just how bright the lights were. We headed straight up to the 6th floor of a skyscraper where we'd heard there were some good restaurants and after extensive selection we sat down next the window, overlooking the myriad of lights on the Tokyo skyline.

We levelled with the waiter that this was our first time eating Japanese food and he recommended the set menu, which had the added bonus of not requiring us to pronounce anything. To start the proceedings we had fish carpaccio with tofu and sesame seeds, which was swiftly followed by salmon, fried vegetables and miso chicken. We had evidently lost the talent we had developed in Hong Kong because food went everywhere. We blamed the chopsticks but the main course was no easier, with sticky rice and a clam laden miso soup. If was all a uniquely delicious experience, if frustratingly slow to eat, but the icing on the cake was being brought the label from the newly opened saki bottle and a glass of its contents. It was new to other of us and the waitress told us that it read ? Ku??? And brought us black tea to finish.

We wandered along the busy streets, illuminated by the endless flashing billboards from street level, to way up the sides of the towering skyscrapers. We arrived at a major intersection and with a sudden burst of the starwars theme tune an army of people exploded across the asphalt, turning the cross roads into a seething mass of bodies, completely covering the tarmac. Purely to get a Sharky's eye view of the spectacle we climbed to the second floor of an iridescent department store and ordered hot chocolate so that we could sit at the window and marvel at the mass migration in the kaleidoscope of colour thrown down by the countless moving advertisements. We negotiated the train back to our hotel and were soon reflecting on how much had changed since we had woken up this morning.