10th October 2008
Day 3
Tokyo, Japan
Today I didn`t do that much. Walked around a lot. When I first booked my accommodation in England for Japan, I booked 3 nights. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Today is Friday so I went on the internet to find somewhere else in Tokyo to stay for tomorrow. Only problem is tomorrow is Saturday. Everywhere is booked up. Whoops.
So I saw this as an opportunity. I always fancied going to Osaka so I checked for hostels there and found one that IS IN THE SIDE OF A SPORTS STADIUM! Cool, huh? A freaking sports stadium! So I booked it nearly straight away then booked mt transport from Tokyo to Osaka, which was a night bus leaving Saturday night and arriving in Osaka Sunday morning. This means though I have to wait around Shinjuku, Tokyo (where the bus is leaving from) all Saturday day until 11pm at night (the time the bus actually leaves) with all my stuff. Oh well.
So booked it all up! Then I looked at where the stadium was in Osaka and found out it is actually 30 mins from Osaka station. Whoops, didn`t intend on being that far away. Should be fun finding it! Hey-ho.
Oh and it is my last night in Ibekukuro (still can`t pronounce it, can bearly remember how to spell it) and there is an English girl in my room so now I have someone to speak to finally! Woo hoo!
I ventured out for some lunch today as I felt a bit adventurous. OK, OK so for the past few days I have been going to McDonalds... and now I feel up to going into a Japanese place. So went into this cafe and walked up to the bar but the man at the bar said something(??) and pointed towards a machine. That`s when I found out that I had to put money in said machine, choose my meal from the pictures, take the little card it prints out with the order on it and pass it to the man behind the bar then they make your meal. And it was only a little cafe place! I had to choose my meal from the pictures so God knows what I could have been ordering. Anyway when it came out iot turned out to be rice with a curry sauce and a beef burger on top. Beef burger curry. Well I think it was beef. It was really nioce anyway and sort of made me regret going to McDonalds for the past couple of days
Showing posts with label Ibekukuro. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ibekukuro. Show all posts
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
Time to update my blog me thinks
Well I`m here! JAPAN. It`s been 2 weeks and fabulous. I have been keeping a journal of all the stuff that`s been going on and now that I`m at a computer that actually works it`s time to write it up.
Here goes...
DAY ONE
Left England on the 7th October and travelled for many hours before reaching Narita airport in Japan on the morning of 8th October. Had some sleep on the plane, but not much as the woman sat behind me may have missed the point of a `touch` screen tv that was in the back of my seat. The operative word of the device being `touch` and not `point-as-hard-as-you-can`.
Anyway, on landing at the airport in Japan I got the directions to Ibekukuro where my first hostel was. 2 trains later I was in Ibekukuro (with a little help from a Japanese man on the 1st train who spoke English very well and turned out he was on the same flight from the UK as me too!). He got the same 2nd train as me aswell and told me which stop to get off for Ibekukuro. Found the hostel quite easily as had written down very detailed directions just in case. So off I was, all alone in Japan, assuming it was gonna be easy and that everyone spoke English. It wasn`t long before I found out that they don`t.
I had booked a 6 bed female dorm room for my 1st few nights. After checking in I made my way to the room. The other 5 girls in the room were all Japanese and spoke no English. Ok I thought, this is fine and went for a walk. Japanese people everywhere! I am not sure quite what I expected in Japan, but I pressumed I would meet some other travellers or at least be able to speak to some people at the hostel but I guess not. Had a walk around Ibekukuro (which I can`t pronounce) and there were no tourists anywhere (well I didn`t see any anyway). Not a single one! I was walking around in my own little world where I spoke no Japanese (looking back I should have at least learnt a little) and no one around me spoke any English. It was surreal, but really cool at the same time
Here goes...
DAY ONE
Left England on the 7th October and travelled for many hours before reaching Narita airport in Japan on the morning of 8th October. Had some sleep on the plane, but not much as the woman sat behind me may have missed the point of a `touch` screen tv that was in the back of my seat. The operative word of the device being `touch` and not `point-as-hard-as-you-can`.
Anyway, on landing at the airport in Japan I got the directions to Ibekukuro where my first hostel was. 2 trains later I was in Ibekukuro (with a little help from a Japanese man on the 1st train who spoke English very well and turned out he was on the same flight from the UK as me too!). He got the same 2nd train as me aswell and told me which stop to get off for Ibekukuro. Found the hostel quite easily as had written down very detailed directions just in case. So off I was, all alone in Japan, assuming it was gonna be easy and that everyone spoke English. It wasn`t long before I found out that they don`t.
I had booked a 6 bed female dorm room for my 1st few nights. After checking in I made my way to the room. The other 5 girls in the room were all Japanese and spoke no English. Ok I thought, this is fine and went for a walk. Japanese people everywhere! I am not sure quite what I expected in Japan, but I pressumed I would meet some other travellers or at least be able to speak to some people at the hostel but I guess not. Had a walk around Ibekukuro (which I can`t pronounce) and there were no tourists anywhere (well I didn`t see any anyway). Not a single one! I was walking around in my own little world where I spoke no Japanese (looking back I should have at least learnt a little) and no one around me spoke any English. It was surreal, but really cool at the same time
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