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Argh… despite the glowing optimism I conveyed in my last post, due to the fact that a number of factors in my life were heading towards serious improvement, I wish I could say this week is looking even better.

I got a call Friday afternoon from the real estate agent to let me know that the owner of the apartment we had been approved for had “changed their mind” and given the apartment to a member of their own family. Whether that is due or not, I’m not sure, but either way, I’m still no further out the door of the family home. The search continues…

Regardless, at least one of my goals is continuing strongly. For the last 7 days, I have been able to maintain my “healthly” streak, either dedicating almost an hour each night on an exercise bike, weight training or playing a game of soccer at work. I haven’t lost any weight, but am feeling really good. The next two days are looking good. To make up for games lost due to weather or lack of numbers, the work team has a double header, tomorrow and Wednesday, to finish of the “departmental” soccer competition. We are yet to win a game yet, but hopefully, with a little luck, we’ll be able to pull something off.

My standard picture update… more flowers are gradually making an appearance in our garden, so today’s update comes from the same court-yard the majority of my other recent shots have come from.

I’ve continued my pursuit into the world of the anime/manga/cosplay culture. So far this week, I have taken delivery of 2 more copies of the Fate/Stay Night series of manga, I now have volumes 1, 3, 4 and 5, with volume 2 still on order (I love how Saber is the central character to the TokyoPop series covers…). I have also purchased the first 7 DVDs of the Fullmetal Alchemist series, of which I’ve watched just a few episodes and am looking forward to getting into the series when I have the time.

So far I have just a modest collection of anime/manga, mainly centred around Valkyria Chronicles, Fate/Stay Night and the Ghibli Collection. I don’t think thats a bad way to start, but now that I am more open to pursuing my interest in this culture, hopefully I’ll seek out some good series.

In a related note, if you want to check out the posts I made during my trip to Japan back in August last year, just click: Japan Posts –  I really think that trip opened my eyes to a massive culture packed into just a few Islands, and through that, I discovered the massive, worldwide community that supports it.

I am currently sitting in Narita Airport, a few hours before I’ll finally fly back to Australia. I’m totally spent. I’ve pretty much just lived through two days consecutively, without darkness let alone sleep, and it isn’t even finished (to give an indication of my tiredness, I am so desperate for coffee, I just spent 450 Yen ($5.50 AUD) on a Cappuccino that is tiny. I’m effectively loitering in the coffee shop, firstly because its directly across from my gate, but secondly because the gate itself is waiting to board a plane to somewhere called Guangzhou and as I don’t really feel like going to Guangzhou right now, I’ll steer clear of the gate until its cleared.

Today started in Paris, up at 6 am (Paris time) to walk down to the train station to see of my Dad and my Brother onto a train to Zurich, where they will spend about a week before heading home themselves. After that I headed to my own train, a Eurostar trip back to London. From there, I made my way on the Tube to Heathrow, arriving about 12.30 pm for my 4.30 pm flight.

Night passed during the flight, however I didn’t get much sleep due to the couple sitting next to me. I was lucky enough to get a seat behind the emergency exit, which gifts you the privilege of as much leg room as you would need, in return for being personally responsible for the safe evacuation of our section of the plane. A responsibility worth bearing. But with a British couple with no sense of respect for the cabin crew or the personal space of others, it was hard to rest during the flight. Throughout I constantly poked, prodded and bumped during the flight by the bloke sitting next to me, who had decided that his own seat didn’t provide enough room in itself, that he needed to spread himself into the seats next to him. Worst of all was their willingness to just throw their used food trays and rubbish onto the floor for the flight staff to pick up, but the same staff were whinged about privately when their English wasn’t sufficient (we were on Japan Airlines so I think they really should have given the flight crew a break …).

I’ve been upgraded to Premium Economy for the flight to Sydney, just through asking. Despite complaints about passengers, which can’t be held against them, I have really enjoyed flying with Japan Airlines. Service on par with Qantas at no where near the price.

It’s now about 5.30pm in Tokyo (Tokyo time, about 9 hours ahead), with my flight leaving around 8.30pm. I’m so desperate for sleep, but am hesitant to do it in the terminal out of fear of missing my flight. I’ve been in the airport since 12.30 and am bitterly disappointed that I wasn’t able to find a PS3 slim in the duty free shops (Wii’s and DS’s are in supply funnily enough…).

You may be able to tell that I’m just a little bit grumpy, but at least I’ll be home soon, to kick off another day by landing in Canberra at 9.30 am. Hopefully I’ll get decent sleep between Tokyo and Sydney. I feel like I’m doing a rewind of a month long trip, crammed into a period of 36 hours, with all the fun parts taken out.

I’ll eventually update on my time in Paris when I get the pics sorted out.

For my last full day in Japan, I decided to head out to Harajuku, the home of the famed Harajuku girls, but also home to one of the most impressive Shinto Shines in Tokyo. I had mixed fortunes upon arrival, with the Harajuku Girls, and their crazy fashion, seemingly brushed aside for a youth dance festival. The area surrounding the train station, as well as the main strip being over taken by performers. There were maybe a dozen or so Girls that had taken the effort to dress up in their fashions, but a least have of these were Americans trying join in rather poorly. Despite my disappointment, the dance festival did make for an entertaining day.

Harajuku appears to be a centre for youth fashion in general the streets in the surrounding areas were filled almost exclusively with clothing stores, drawing crowds comparable to Shibuya, despite the heavy rain that came through in the evening.

Practically boarding on to the train station were the grounds of the local Shinto Shine. Consisting of quiet a large nature reserve with the Shine, as well as a museum dedicated to artefacts belonging to the Imperial Family within.

Similar to the gate at the Asakusa Temple, the Shinto Gate was impressive. Normally are not to the scale of one at the main entrance to the Harajuku Shine (there were other, smaller gates around the grounds).

For 500 Yen you could buy a wooden slate to write prayers and wishes, seemingly popular with locals and tourists alike.

The grounds were remarkably dense with trees and undergrowth, there were also very few people actually walking the grounds after visiting the Shine. Besides the occasional sounds of trains passing by, you could easily forget that you were literally in the middle of Tokyo City.

One last shot of the Shinjuku station sign before I left for Narita Airport this morning. I enjoyed being able to use Shinjuku station, firstly because it services a huge number of people each day, with masses flowing in Shinjuku in the morning and away again in the evening, flowing between home and offices, I’m just a little proud of myself to know that I managed to conquer it. Secondly, because once you have conquered it, you realise that you can access almost any part of the city from this single station, with almost all others being a single transfer away.

A mix between my Lonely Planet city guide and an iPhone app which recommends a path to areas between stations meant that I was able to traverse the city without any major incidents. Looking forward to doing similar in London.

Thanks to my Lonely Planet city guide, I was able to head out to the Asakusa Samba festival, where the Brazilian population Tokyo have a parade down the main street in Asakusa.This brought Lots of noise and lots of dancing, but also lots of people! Quite literally thousands of people turned out to watch the festival, which meant the streets were packed. I ended up spending most of the day in the market area in an attempt to escape the rush, which was fortunate, as the markets were quite pleasant, but also meant I stumbled upon the Sensō-ji Temple (first established in AD 628), which I didn’t even have on my itinerary for the day.

This was the first Buddhist Temple that I have ventured into during the trip so fair and it made for an enjoyable change from the festival crowd. People made their way through the huge temple gate (seen below) and taking part in various rituals. (the main temple was unfortunately covered, so have no interesting pictures of the temple itself).

There were gardens neighbouring the temple, with a Koi pond and private prayer area. In the main square people were able to receive fortunes for different aspects of their lives, with the ‘bad’ fortunes left behind, tied to the racks in front of the temple.

Visitors were able to buy osenko incense bundles to burn, with the smoke believed to have a healing effect. People would bath themselves in the smoke (seen in the picture below, in front of the temple gate), washing all over themselves with the smoke. Prior to entering the temple to pray, it was also possible to visit a purification fountain, where people could wash their hands and face with water. As I said, this was the first time I had visited a Buddhist temple, let alone one of this size, so I found the whole process rather interesting. Everyone was calm, quiet and respectful for the temple and its visitors, such a change from the rest of Tokyo!

Going to head out to Harajuku tomorrow for my last full day in Tokyo before flying out for London early Monday morning.

Last night I finally made a visit out to Roppongi, a place that is apparently popular with foreigners and ex-pats (according to my Tokyo guide). I can understand why; the main development in the area is Roppongi Hills, a huge shopping district, which has been highly westernised. Walking around the shops, I may as well have been back home. Not quite the reason why I travelled to Japan in the first place…

The area is very modern, and has some very nice, new, architecture (including a massive, daddy long-legs style spider), but it didn’t turn out quite as exciting as I was expecting.

This morning I made a trip out to Tokyo Station and made my way towards the grounds and gardens of the imperial palace.

Below is a picture of myself in front of the double-bridge leading to the gates of the palace grounds (the gate is above). Unfortunately the palace itself is set well within the grounds, with the gate being about as close as you can get without a prior arrangement.

Also below is a picture of the samurai Kusunoki Masashige, the apparent embodiment of the samurai hero who, out of loyalty to his emperor, still lead his men to certain defeat on the emperors orders.

A visit to the Gundam had been recommended to me by an American I met during my visit to Akihabara (in McDonalds of all places…). Not being a Gundam fan (sorta like Transformers that don’t transform), I wasn’t sure if it was worth the trip out to Odaiba Island, where a 1:1 scale recreation had been installed. That said, it did make for a rather enjoyable trip out.

I seems a pretty popular attraction, with people able to walk under the Gundam and actually touch it. I was amused by how excited people got when it started to move its head from side to side (whilst talking to the crowd, I think).

After walking almost the length of Odaiba Island, I ended up down near the Science and Maritime museums. A very quiet area with quite a large park., however it was on the wrong end of the island for the Gundam, amazingly, I had managed to walk past it whilst it was hidden in the trees.

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Shibuya

The most intense part of Tokyo I have been to yet! Where Akihabara is the electronics district (part of it is actually called “Electric Town”), Shibuya is the fashion district, and is full of shops for younger people.

The main exit from the Tokyo Metro is right in the main square, so people stream out of the station right into the heart of the shopping district.

After this I headed into Ginza, specifically to see the Sony Building, only to work out that it had closed just before I arrived at the station. Something to do tomorrow I guess, will take pics of the aquarium they had out the front.

Today was the day that I had set aside to make a trip out to the neighbour hood of Mitaka (about 20 minutes away from Shinjuku by Train), home of the Ghibli Museum.

The museum is about a kilometre from the Mitaka station, which makes a rather nice walk, as the path is boarded by reserve. Totoro marks the way, and is also ready to take tickets once you arrive.

If only Totoro could take the tickets… Tickets to the museum are via a pre-booking, which can be done through travel agents, or through Lawson stores (similar to a 711 or IGA in Australia). Once you present your booking confirmation, they will give to a ticket for entry, which also allows you to watch a session of a Ghibli short film within the museum. The entry tickets consist of frames of film from Ghibli movies, such as Kiki’s Delivery Service, as seen in mine.

Mitaka is quite a pleasant part of Tokyo, whilst still hectic, it is a much more calmer experience compared to Akihabara or Shinjuku.

On the roof of the museum they have built a rather nice garden area, with a life size robot from Laputa. At the very bottom of the open, outside area they have installed this fountain, which everyone seemed infatuated with, but I am a little confused about its significance.

Soot spites make an appearance throughout the museum:

Due to a need to maintain interest in visitors travelling to the museum, they do not allow photography of the inside displays, which is why I don’t have any. Regardless, I was very impressed. They have a display dedicated to the craft of creating animation, including a device using spinning figures and strobe lighting, which was perfectly timed to give the allusion that the figures were running, flying, skipping etc. There were also large displays for Ponyo, an almost life-size cat bus for kids to climb on and even a display dedicated to Wallace and Gromit! Overall it is a very innovative and enjoyable museum dedicated to the Ghibli films.

Anyways, I’m worn out, time for a rest. Looking forward to possibly heading out to Roppongi tomorrow.

A quick update with some pictures after my first full day in Tokyo.

A Totoro, as promised, for my brother (there were larger Totoros, but I would never have gotten one, along with all my clothes, to fit in my suitcase).

A squirrel fox from Laputa and Nausicaa for myself, and a Cat Bus for a friend. (Just me Mum, all of this makes perfect sense…)

Ponyo, because I’m most likely to miss the Australian theatrical release due to being in the country the film was made! The caution sign is in the elevator of the hotel. Besides the poor spelling and grammar, I was amused by the fact that it says when and earthquake occurs, rather than if.

Just a couple to provide a perspective of the city. The first being a street in Akihabara, and the second being the view West from the Tokyo Government Building, looking away from the city and into the suburbs. My hotel is at the bottom of the pic, right in the middle.

Below is more of Akihabara, with the Yodobasi-Akiba department store, which is just intense! Rather than having separate stores for different things, the building is split up by floor, with each floor having its own them (like computers, cameras, game consoles or books and music). Surprisingly though, it is relatively easy to find someone to give you help with the products. Almost every single variety of a product is on offer, rather than just a selection (i.e. you can find every type of camera companies like Nikon or Canon currently produce)