The Telegraphic

New Koyo is the name of the youth hostel in Tokyo that we’re staying in. It’s tucked away down an alleyway in what appears to be a dodgy part of town. There’s a lot of homeless people around which I wasn’t really expecting and the buildings themselves are old and dilapidated but are also very atmospheric. Power lines stretch across all of the streets, which contrasts the old buildings and makes the streetscape seem even more strange.

New Koyo apparently used to be a flophouse – which I’m taking to mean ‘dodgy brothel’. The rooms are very small (at the moment I’m leaning against the wall and my feet are about 50cm from the other wall, and the bed fills almost the entire room) and have tatami mats on the floor. There’s a locker/cupboard, a 34cm TV, a bookshelf and a bed (which is quite comfy). It really is the cheapest guest-housing in Tokyo. Downstairs (I’m on the third floor), there’s a kitchen of sorts, a Japanese style bath, showers, toilets and a little place at the front for the guests to hang out.

When we got here we met up with 3 other Aussies from Melbourne, one of who I found out later knows Joe from Snowman, who went to school up in Carmel. I’ve known him for a while and Ryan went to school with him so it’s pretty crazy that I met someone in Tokyo who also knows him.

A big group of us from New Koyo went out to Roppongi for drinks. The plan was to drink until the subway starts again at 6 in the morning. Roppongi is the ‘westerners district’ where there are lots of nightclubs designed for Gaijins (foreigners). We went to Gas Panic – because it had 400 yen drinks. I’d have to say I drank too much. Gas Panic played almost exactly the same music as the Paramount in Perth although the atmosphere was quite a lot different. It was about half Gaijin and half Japanese.

We went for a random walk around Roppongi at about 12:30 and ended up in a karaoke bar. After trying to sing Paranoid Android by Radiohead (which sounded nothing like it), we left so we didn’t get a huge bill. On the way back to Gas Panic, Jo, Shannon and I were harrased to enter clubs by nigerian bouncers offering free drinks just so we’d go inside. Jo and Shannon were getting more harassed than I was although I did get asked by a Japanese girl “hey why don’t you come into my club it’ll be great” with a tug on my arm. I’d have to say that I was sort of glad that I was asked too, but I’d hate to be a westerner female walking around Roppongi by myself. It’s just too dodgy.

At 5:00, Simon and I decided to go back to the Hostel but the rest of the group went around Tsukiji fish market. I would have liked to have gone but the 10 hours of sleep I got in the last 72 hours got the best of me. Simon and I both fell asleep on the densha (train) and missed our stop. Then I lost my ticket and had to sneak out of the station using Simon’s ticket. I fell asleep halfway through setting up my fouton (floor bed thing).

I woke up at 7:30 for a traditional Japanese breakfast made lovingly by the youth hostel kitchen. It was pretty crap – a bowl of gohan (rice) with seasoning, some miso soup (which was nice), and 4 segments of mandarin (Mikan) and a few biscuits. After we packed up all of our stuff we departed on our trek to Tokyo.

We lugged our luggage around the subway then finally got to shin-Osaka station where you can catch the shinkansen from. The ticket cost 14,500 yen which hurt quite a lot, although we got seats which were bigger than the ones on the airplane. Simon introduced Jo and I to these little bamboo shoot biscuits with chocolate and praline in them and we ate those whilst we watched the countryside whistle by. The japanese countryside looks pretty cool – there’s loads of little farms around the place, nestled in between bamboo forested hillsides. The urban sprawl is pretty bad though – you could see East Perth-esque houses that filled the horizon. The only difference is the roofs are a hell of a lot cooler – they have those asian curves and parquetry on them. It was nice to watch all the fields and things go past – each a glimpse then gone forever.

We got to Kansai international at 7:00 in the morning. There isn’t really that much difference between Kansai and Perth – although they’ve invented a cartoon ‘Customs Hamster’ who has a customs badge and a little hat and delivers messages about customs in many different languages. We got off the plane and signed in, then went straight off to buy a train ticket (which was very close to the airport). Apparently Kansai International Airport is actually a big floating wad of crap with an airport on it – it isn’t attached to the seabed by anything more than wire.

On the train trip from Kansai Airport to Tennoji station we had all lost the power of speech and so were just looking out the window. Osaka is a really weird place – it’s got loads of small, badly made houses with exquisite bonsai trees, next to small basketball court sized fields of rice and cabbages. It’s odd how much little detail will go into things over here – the subways are pretty gross but you can look on a manhole and there’ll be a carved image of old Osaka on the front

So on the first day we decided we needed to drop off all of our stuff at the youth hostel, and then go to a really crowded place. I wanted to go to den-den town to buy a camera (which I got secondhand in firsthand condition so I’m happy), so we got on some random trains and eventually got there (after a lot of walking the wrong way). Den-Den Town is a cool place – there’s lots of electronic shops and then there’s also music shops, clothes stores and restaurants.

For lunch we went to a ramen bar – where we had udon noodle soup. It was a really nice place to go on a cold rainy day and was quite cheap (360 yen). I also had a cabbage pancake which was 100 yen and suprisingly tasty. After a bit more shopping we went back to the youth hostel and stayed around here until teatime. Our plan was to make a batch of instant noodles but when we got to the kitchen we met a sumo team who gave us some sumo soup (which was good and hearty – tasted like a chicken / vege broth) and some beers and green tea. Although Simon and the Sumo’s manager were talking the most (because Simon is better at Japanese than Jo and I) it was a good but very strange experience.

Tomorrow we’re off to Tokyo for 3 days so hopefully I’ll be able to get onto the net there.

Being the cool happening place Malaysia is, they’ve set up a wireless network in the KL airport. At the moment, i’m sitting in a Burger King in the international lobby thing.

At the moment it’s 10:45, and our connecting flight to Japan is at 11:55 so we’ve got some time to waste. The flight over here was pretty cool – apart from the whole cramped up shitty economy class seats. On the plus side though they have little monitors in the back of all the seats, so you can play SNES games and watch movies. There was also a cool thunderstorm in Singapore which had some spectacular lightning that lit up this evil looking cloud.

The airport I’m in is pretty schmick – this Burger King looks exactly the same as the HJ’s in Claremont (according to Simon and Jo) but it has a wash basin on the wall (ie not in the toilets). They also sell “yummy Mushroom Swiss burgers”.

Anyway, seeing as I don’t really have anything interesting to say at the moment I’m gonna go. Catcha.

Hello there. Welcome to my blog.

I’ve made this blog so I can document my trip to Japan. On the 22nd of March, Im flying over to Japan for four months as part of my uni course. I’m staying in a town called Himeji, which is famous for the beautiful Himeji Castle (I haven’t seen it yet so I can’t really comment). Apparently the rest of the town in ‘pretty average’. Oh well.

For those of you who are interested in webdev sort of stuff, this is a modified version of Douglas Bowman’s blue blogger scheme. Although I had a site idea already made up, I decided to use his as a base for a few reasons:
1. His css was written better than mine
2. It already had all the blogger specific code in it
3. I liked his choice of blues

I’ve made quite a few modifications to it to make it look ‘way cool’, and also so I can add different sections to the site about random things (look at the pretty menu at the top of the page – that’s all mine – go me). If you’re reading Doug – thanks . Mine’s better but.

Well that’s about it from me for now, I’ve got all those things that I left till the last minute to go and do. For all of you who I’ve forced into viewing this, my email address is dprice at gmm dot com dot au.

Jya Mata
Danny