Month: November 2002

Nothing much to update. Back in Tokyo. No more updates likely until Sunday night when I am back in London.

I am looking forward to catching up with some people a lot.

Last night we wandered around Gion. It’s an area beside the river famed for its shopping and night time entertainment. Somehow we managed to end up in the Red Light District although Patrick couldn’t imagine how. Grabbed some good and had a quick drink but after that I just had to go back to the hotel and sleep.

Today was a more quiet day. It had to be. We started off visiting Kinkaku-ji, the Golden Temple. Then we moved onto Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Temple. Each temple is stunningly pretty and surrounded by gardens just as beautiful. No picture can do them justice. The autumn colours add so much to the views. Both temples are well worth a visit and are certain to be the highlight of Kyoto and one of the entire trip.



Mobile phone penetration is in fact 96%. And when you think of mobile phone, your not thinking of what they have here. Full colour lcd displays. Useable internet and email and a built in camera is almost becoming standard.

The only thing more common than Starbucks is McDonalds.

Hit the pub last night for a while. It was about the only thing we were fit to do. Googled for and Irish pub and found one not 10 minutes walk away. So we headed there. It wasn’t a bad little place at all and improved no end when we found out that shots of 12 year old Jameson were in fact doubles and cost around £3.

This morning was not as bad as it should have been. We headed for the Imperial Palace, but just missed the first tour. So we wandered around the grounds and then went to the nearby Nijo castle and finally back to the Palace for the afternoon tour.

Not really sure on the plan for the evening. Done a hell of a lot of walking over the past week and I ache all over.



Right we have arrived safely in Kyoto and all is well. The hotel room is nothing like as nice as in Tokyo, but it will do. The train ride here was fucking expensive but was not a bad trip at all. Plenty of space and high speed through some lovely countryside for the most part. We wandered around Kyoto Station this evening, its a very new, very modern building with lots of shops and restruants followed by a trip up the Kyoto Tower Hotel for quite a stunning view of the sorrounding area.

More later





Where to start?

Well yesterday morning we got up at about 6am. It was not fun. We had a

quick breakfast and headed into Shinjuka to catch a bus to Kawaguchi.

Shinjuka is one of the newest and most modern areas of Tokyo. It was in fact

part of the inspiration for Bladerunner. Photos to come. Getting

there involved taking the subway during rush hour. Until now, I would have

taken the subway here over London any day. Everything is clean and runs

exactly on time. Well rush hour is a different story. There are

people employed to stand on the platforms at the train doors and to push

people in. We were quite lucky in that we got on an empty train not due to

leave for another five minutes. Just before it did, it packed up and trust

me you don’t know the meaning of the phrase packed up until you have seen

this. And just when I thought no-one else could get on, the queue was pushed

onto the train.

Kawaguchi is one of the ‘Fuji Five Lakes’ at the base of Fuji-san. W It took

about 2.5 hours to get there by bus, not even Tokyo is exempt from road

works. We drove through some absolutely stunning countryside. I have never

Autumn look better than it does here. The trees are just stunning. We

basically drove through the mountains for over an hour and it was all woods

everywhere you looked.

Anyways we got there and after some trouble sorted out tickets for

everything we wanted. Well that’s not true exactly. It is out of season and

we were not able to get anywhere near to the mountain itself. Even the first

few camps were closed. A disappointment but not entirely unexpected. So we

had a boat trip around the lake and then took the Ropeway (cable car) to the

top of a nearby mountain and took some photos.

After another bit of just wandering around we grabbed a bus back into Tokyo.

This was a little more of a scenic route and it drove about half way around

Fuji-san giving us some more views of it and of a couple of the other lakes.

We got back into our hotel shortly after 8. We were both completely and

utterly shattered. We had been planning to go out with my sister and some of

her friends. Nothing starts in Tokyo till well late. We had provisionally

arranged to meet at midnight and take it from there. The earliest you can

get home from a night out is around 5am when the trains kick off again. Well

anyway we weren’t up for it.

There is of course a ‘however’ at this stage. I was lying on my bed just

relaxing, glad to have a load off my feet and the line of thought was to

never move again. The other line of thought was along the lines of ‘Fuck it.

I am in Tokyo and it is a Friday night. I don’t care how tired I am. I am

going out for the night’.

So I did. I rang my sister and arranged to meet up with her. We met in

Shibuya. This is the going out district for the Japanese (and the gaijin in

the know). We started off in the a bar called the Lime House. You order some

food and get a drinks menu with it. You pay something like 1000 Yen (the Y

is silent by the way, it is actually pronounced ‘en’ with not much of the

‘e’. ) This works out to be about £5 for a hour. Given that drinks include

pitchers of beer and Jim Beam whiskey, this worked out well. This is also

the spot for students to hang out, and the place was filled with mainly

foreign students. Mairead knew quite a few of them and we ended up with a

group of people.

Then we moved on, a club called Fai was doing a 70’s night and it was cheap

in with some drinks included in the price. We arrived there and stayed till

about 4am. It wasn’t bad at all. I did find it amusing to be in a night club

in Tokyo on a Friday night dancing to Abba and Michael Jackson, but hey!

When we finished there, we hit a 24 hour restaurant kinda place for some

quick food and coffee for me. I was pretty much asleep on my feet. I had sit

down in the club at one stage, closed my eyes and I was asleep. Then just

after 5 off to the train station and back to the hotel. I stood on the train

and not once, but three times did I fall asleep. If I had not been holding

on to a handle on the roof, I would have fallen over. It was not good.

Anyways back to the hotel around 6am and slept for about 6 hours.

The photos have been resized hence the lower quality. Galleries with high

quality to come when I get back to London.