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I successfully contacted Krysta by sneaking internet at work and we made plans to meet in Tokyo for the weekend - she hadn't been in yet and I had 12 more hours experience and I couldn't wait to do the full on tourist thing… Meeting at Ueno at 12pm, we headed to Ginza (Tokyo's version of 5th Avenue with prices to match). Since it was a Sunday, all the streets were closed to traffic and we were amazed to see among the expensive shops, café umbrellas set up in the middle of the road that a day earlier, there would be cars everywhere. Wandered around, and took heaps of photos, and wandered into the shops that we could actually afford to shop at. Body Shop, the Apple Store and we even saw a Harrods, but wait (I thought they were just in London .. nooo…) After being really depressed cause we couldn't afford anything, we headed into the Subway and went to Shinjuku - Concrete jungle of Tokyo. Shinjuku station is considered the busiest in the world, with 3 million people a day going through the turnstiles and I can see why. I now know what Tokyo crowds mean with 100s of exits and shops underneath, we went there with the aim of finding the government buildings with the free observation decks to get a view of Mt Fuji (that's right we will keep on trying). It took about 30 mins to walk through the station, trying to find the correct exit and to head to the main government building. I was going by the description of the building in the Lonely Planet and we found two buildings that looked like microchips, and with a festival going on underneath. We chilled here for a while with lunch, watching many children dancing to J-Pop and western music to the adoration of the crowds. It looked like a Girl Guides / Scouts festival with everyone in their uniform on a weekend and was good fun to see all the outfits and versions of songs and dances.. After chilling for a bit, we went for a wander around Shinjuku to try and find more shops and the neon lights - after a bit of aimless wandering and finding the first SIZZLER in Japan - all my Aussie family and friends will know how good SIZZLER is, we gave up in Shinjuku and caught the subway to Shibuya. It was Krystas first time in Shibuya and it was even more insane then last weekend. We took videos of walking across the crossing and grabbed a star bucks coffee when we survived the insanity… While sitting and relaxing in Starbucks we saw heaps of singing advertising trucks and a rally going on - turns out it was for Japanese against Foreigners - the party that want to keep all of us ALIENS out you've got to be joking! We went to Tower Records and Krysta got a Japanese Guidebook for all her travelling then I took her on a walking tour of Shibuya. After seeing all the night time neon lights and taking heaps of pictures of the buildings, lights and people I showed her the accommodation for the night - the internet café where I went last week. We would be back though. Since we had an all day subway pass, we then headed over to the SensoJi Temple - the biggest temple in Tokyo and it is bright red so when it is lit up at night - looks magnificent. The rain had started lightly when we got out of the subway and we wandered through the touristy shop area before arriving at the temple - it was amazing! Very colourful indeed. There weren't many people around and we had free reign around the temple. It was getting late so we caught the subway back over to Shibuya to settle into our accommodation for the evening. We booked out a booth with a double leather futon and the internet computer, so we settled in for a late night of internet research for our trip to Hokkaido for Christmas and by the time we finally got to bed, we only had 4 hours sleep - the free internet was too tempting.. After being forced awake at 7am and getting McD for breakfast, we dodged the peak hour traffic to Shinjuku and went on a loop of the Yamanote Line to see Tokyo waking up in the morning - it was nice to see the main parts of Tokyo and with the rain brewing, I knew where I would rather have been. Next stop was Ikebukero for the day where we had a shopping day in the malls, and went ten pin bowling which I haven't been for ages. It was great fun and we stopped in at a JTB to enquire about our ferries to Hokkaido before heading to Ueno and back to Tsuchiura for the week at work.
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Mohammed We just got back from two weeks in Japan, mainly Tokyo, Yokohama, and Kamakura. I can't tell you where to stay chaeply as we stayed at the Mandarin Oriental (as in Lost in Translation) and it was simply fabulous (and fabulously expensive). But I can echo a few other commenters.1. It is hot. It will be hotter than Florida or Southern California. It will be humid. You will sweat buckets. That is why the Japanese carry washclothes. They wipe the sweat off their faces at every opportunity. Japanese airconditioning will not be able to cope. Sometimes it is cooler, but never as cool as San Francisco is naturally.2. We spoke no Japanese. We could get around in the stores by pointing and in the train and subways by reading the Katakana (Roman) characters on the stations. You will not be able to read Kanji. It is very complex. The hardest thing for us was food. You might think you like Japanese food, but when you get to Japan you will eat food that you can only guess whether it is animal, vegetable or mineral. Some of it is very good (I loved the Tonkatsu), but breaded, fried things can contain anything. I got a Yakitori I thought was beef, but it was liver. I did love buying food in the department stores as sometimes I had samples and sometimes I could tell I what I was buying (eel!)3. YES! Get a Japan East Rail Pass. You should be able to buy one here before you go. It was well worth it for us, although we also rode a lot of subways. At Narita go to the JR (lower) level and get a Narita Express RESERVATION (they can get you one for the next train out). Be sure and get a JR East Rail Map (I printed one out from the JR website). Also get a Tokyo Metro Subway map (also printed from the web). But be aware THERE IS MORE THAN ONE SUBWAY SYSTEM IN TOKYO and your day/trip pass may not let you transfer from one to the other. We found this out the hard way. But even if you need to buy another ticket, it is not too expensive (170 yen, about $1.50). Going back to Narita you can also go to any main station (like Yokohama or Toyko) and make a reservation in advance on the NEX for your return trip.4. Yodabashi Camera in Akihabara is definitely a trip to visit, but I don't recommend buying electronics there. I bought a tiny portable mouse for my MacBook Pro and IT DID NOT WORK. Luckily I got the concierge to call the company and tell me how to return it. She even wrote me a letter to take to them. No one in the store speaks English. What I did buy there that I love is tiny, tiny Japanese plastic food. It comes in sets of boxes like Cracker Jack toys. The box tells you which set this is for, but not which exact food items are in it. We bought three boxes and luckily for us, all of them were different. I guess it is like collecting game trading cards. The eighth floor there is full of restaurants. We went to the sushi boat one and it was good.4. For something completely different than Tokyo, I suggest Kamakura. It is a little less than an hour from Tokyo and full of temples. We got off the train at Kita-Kamakura and walked around two temples, then caught a taxi at the train station and took it to the large Buddha. I love cats and found a cat store (many of the stores in Japan are very small and very specialized) just a block or so from the Buddha and bought a bunch of fabric cats holding one paw up. We were going to take a taxi to the main Kamakura station, but the locals (speaking no English, us holding our JR Rail Passes out) told us to get a bus. Get a ticket when you get on the bus and pay when you get off. It was only 160 yen to take us down the hill over a mile. And they give change.5. Speaking of change. You might want to bring a change purse. The smallest yen bill is 1000 (less than $10). You will end up with a LOT of coins (500, 100, 50, 10, 5, and 1).6. We spent most of our time in museums Contempary Art, Modern Art, Crafts, and Photography and shopping. Brought back sake cups and chopsticks and handmade books. Lovely.Have a good time. It is clean, safe, and lots of fun.