The journey to Japan started off really well on the 7th when I unexpectedly met my Japanese teacher on the train. I had wanted to meet with her before leaving but I never had the chance, so I was really delighted to have the chance to catch up before I left. When I arrived at the airport things suddenly got a lot worse: the flight to London was cancelled, and then the later flight was delayed. I ended up missing my connection and sleeping in a corridor in Heathrow, which is just as awful as it sounds but at least I made an interesting friend who kept me company. Bob was on his way to Thailand, heading back to keep his farm running and to look after his go-go bar in Bangkok. He is a jiujitsu grand-master, has professional bodyguard experience, and is full of amazing stories. I think Satomi’s quite sick of hearing about Bob, though.
I finally arrived in Narita, to much warmer weather than Ireland/London—about 10°C with a little bit of sun.
Then it was off to Akihabara where I picked up a dual SATA to USB adapter for my hard drives (36€… it was about 115€ in Maplin in Limerick), introduced Satomi to the world of maid cafés, and had some dinner.
Yesterday we went to Kawasaki Daishi for Hatsumoude (初詣: the first shrine visit of the year). There were dozens of stalls selling various hot food and sweets prepared right in front of you. Everything you could want was right there, including sugar-glazed strawberries and apples, chocolate-covered bananas, octopus balls, Japanese “pancakes” (okonomiyaki.. not at all like a pancake really) in Osaka and Hiroshima style, hot dogs, candy floss, and lots of things that would take a lot of prose to explain but is very delicious!
They even had Fried Pikachu!
After passing through all the stalls, everyone was corralled into a narrow residential street and waited to enter the shrine.
Everyone was very orderly and quiet so even waiting there for about 30 minutes didn’t feel stressful or tiring. There were lots of nice decorations to look at around the shrine too.
Finally we got to the entrance of the shrine and got into a second queue.
The shrine itself was very beautiful.
Fun was had by all, especially me and my tanuki friend.
Awesome post. The experience in Heathrow sounds horrible but you have the rest of your life to be happy now that you’ve escaped the western world so no worries!
That last picture is hilarious.