Nothing quite like meeting a bunch of Western strangers in a bar somewhere, drinking far too much wine, sharing a karaoke booth filled with cheesy eighties monster hits and topping it off with the best bowl of late night Ramen noodles this side of Tokyo. Arigatou gozaimasu Kumamoto!

Our new friend (and elected tour guide) Akane Suzuki was in charge of showing Matt and I Osaka's famous nightlife while we were in town. Although it was a weeknight, the city seemed to be as buzzing as Soho on a Saturday. First we went for Takoyaki (octopus and egg fried balls - the local delicacy), bought from a Namba street seller. She then led us to a place that specialised in 'all you can drink in 90 minutes' for under £15. Needless to say we took no per...

Walking around the temples of the ancient capital city, Nara, I was politely bombarded by a very enthusiastic group of kids, who had strayed from their school trip to ask me various questions from their English textbooks. 'Where you from?', 'What is your name?', 'What animals you like?' A firm believer in interactive teaching methods I thought I'd be very encouraging and ask them questions in return. Unfortunately we got rather stuck on question one ('how old ...

Sumo. I know what you're gonna say… Fat men in nappies. Well I think I might be coming around to the idea. Japan is the mothership of oddity as far as my Western mind is concerned. A baffling example can be found on most street corners in Japan - the Pachinko parlour. Masses of seemingly sane men (many Saga healthcare worthy) spending endless hours in these frantic, garish, neon institutions where you basically sit at a vertical pinball machine and try t...

I seem to spend most of my time here carrying rubbish around. No, I have not become a crazy bag lady (though my friends wouldn't be the least bit surprised). It appears that the recycling system in Japan is so technologically advanced that there's nowhere to dispose of actual, bog-standard trash. There's an almost ridiculous array of public bins for everything from bottle caps to tissues (I'm surprised there's no facility for the disposal of pervy Japanese men,...