16th May 2007

Arrived into Hong Kong, but unfortunately missed the connecting flight at 9.10am but they re-arranged us onto the 10.30am one instead, so only an hour delayed so not too bad. Flight to Hong Kong from Johannesburg took us just over 12hrs. Then flight from Hong Kong to Tokyo took around 4hrs. Hardly got any sleep on the flight, so were exhausted when we arrived in to Tokyo's Narita Airport. As also the time difference is GMT plus 8 hours. It took us about an hour and a half to get from the airport to our hostel, as we had to use the subway and make a change, and it is all in Japanese, so we struggled, but eventually got here. The hostel is better than i thought it would be, bigger rooms, we have bunk beds, and free internet usage! but because its free u can hardly ever get on because there's always people on them! You have to take your shoes off when u enter the hostel, which i expected. thats all just part and parcel of the japanese regime and religion. Dumped our bags in the hostel room and ventured down the street. Lots of neon lights and Japanese lanterns hanging everywhere. It's almost Asias answer to Times Square, New York (theres definitely a similarity) But its cool! Lots of Eastern restaurants not much on the Western front although we found a McDonalds and had tea there! haha very adventurous, but we thought it would be quick and easy so we could get back and go to bed.

17th May 2007

Today we woke up at midday because of jet-lag, so only had the afternoon to do something. So we got up and had a wander down the streets looking for a place to eat. We found what looked like a little sandwhich shop and went in to just have a look at the menu, and they immediately sat us down, gave us hot towels and a glass of water! so we thought it would be rude if we upped and left, so decided to look at the menu which was ALL in Japanese, so we had to point by picture, as the waitresses spoke no word of English either! i ended up with an egg, tomato lettuce and cucumber tiny double decker buttie, and jen had a ham and cheese tiny toastie! lol. it looks as if we're gonna starve in this place, either from the small amounts of food, or the fact that its almost impossible to order a meal what with the language barrier! lol Smoking is banned 'whilst you are walking' apparently! lol there are random 'smoking booths' on the street which have an air vent to suck the smoke in. i think its more about the littering of the cigarette butts than the actual pollution, although most restaurants and cafes u can smoke in. Bizarre! Another thing about pollution, is we saw a few people walking by wearing face masks to cover their nose and mouth.

So this afternoon we are gonna take advantage of the free internet usage, and try and book a place to stay in Hong Kong i think. Other than that, we're still pretty tired, so no major plans.