The Oddessey Part the First

Hi all,

The trip has begun and all is well, now.

I managed to spend half the flight to Narita and the entire next day kind of spaced out with a massive headache which didn't make Blair's special first day outing to see the Big Buddha in Kamagawa particularly fun. The buddha was big, and Sandles and I had the strangest feeling that he may not be the last buddah of great stature we see on our journey through.

I will say this about the japanese. When a fat hairy gaijin vomits a pint of clear liquid a couple of times into his own jacket on a 40 minute crowded commuter train journey, they don't seem to mind.

But I'm better now. I think it was computer withdrawal.

Tokyo is one of those cities that is everything you hope it to be and more. Every William Gibson reader or sci-fi devotee among you has to come see. It's the sci fi equivalent of going to NY and realising that Woody Allen just transcribes street talk and calls it a movie (or did when he was good). I fear many of you are going to suffer through my 'Japanese working mans helmet' photographic series.

We have spent the last three days treading the streets and districts. Ginza is very chic and would be even chiccer on a 15,000 dollar a day budget. Yesterday we managed to walk through Shinjuku (pachinko parlours, cheap stores and giant department stores). Down through Yoyogi and the park, watching the crowds enjoying a particularly sublime sunday. Come out to Harajuku station for the requisite snaps of the rockabilly dancers and cosplay kids in their zany threads, there, it seems, only to be photographed by and with tourists. Then we discovered the real harajuku which could be described as Chappel St the size of Melbourne CBD. V cool. The best thing about all of Tokyo is walking the back streets of any area and checking out the little shops, which we did all the way down to Shibuya.

We stood in the main square/junction opposite the station and looked left and right and I thought to myself, neither of those video screens look really big to me. Then I happened to glance up and realised we were standing under the 100 foot tall one that is so pretty in lost in translation. I think i could spend the next three months in Shibuya, just eating cheap gyoza and people watching. The river of people washing around you as you sit and take it in is fantastic.

Roppongi-dori on the other hand, is not. Unless you want to go to a sports bar full of westerners, which i don't at home, let alone here, but it's a quick bus ride back to shibuya for more people-river. It's so easy to get around this town, all of the trains and buses have english on them and half the trains have english announcements too. I'll let you know if Ulaan Bator has the same setup.

That's all for now, it's a mish-mash I know but we spent the day in Akihabara (Electric Town) and I have a video camera that must be played with now. Dear god if there is a heaven for geeks, it is akihabara. 10 blocks of electronics, parts, extremely misogynistic manga figurines, 6-floor mac shops .....

SO

In short. One more day in Tokyo, then Nagano to see some bathing monkeys. I think if we waited long enough, it could become fashionable to dress as Bathing Monkeys outside Harajuku Station and we could just see that, but Sandles insists that if we don't move on, we wont hit Sweden for supper.