Monday, February 16, 2009

Crazy times

Sorry for not posting yesterday, but it was madness.

We all woke up early on Sunday morning after a horrid nights sleep. The room we stayed in was dusty and stunk of cigarette smoke. This led to me, Dean and mum snoring because our noses we’re blocked. Dean and I got up and went for a walk. If you know anything about Tokyo/Japan, its that their shops and business don’t open til later (10.30-11am). Also, compared to other areas of Tokyo, Ueno is comparitive to Fortitude Valley. It has hobos, girly movie places, and pachinko parlours galour. So we walk down the street and stumbled up the store Donki/Don Quixote. This shop would be a booze hounds dream. It has everything from fullsize Hello Kitty, Pooh and Pikachu outfits (for 2990¥) to suits, suitcase, bicycles, games etc. and its open either 24hrs or from 10am til 6am. After a quick look around in their we decided to head back towards the hotel.

Then it was time for breakfast. Fortunately there were quite a few restaurant chains nearby the hotel. Our pick for the morning was First Kitchen, where I got a bacon & egg burger (small size), pepsi and hash brown for 440¥. After finishing that off, we decided to pack up our stuff and stow it downstairs for a while. Dean and I decided that we had plenty of time so we would walk to Kanda/Otemachi/Jimbocho, where a lot of snow shops are (they line the street). Mum and Whitney decided to tag along, which made things slower going (their legs don’t know how to be as long as ours), but we still got there about 10am. The only shop open at that time was London Cheap (Kanda Sports) which was good. This was the shop I was mostly aiming for, and as their name suggests, they’re cheap. We could have gotten a previous year model board and bindings from Salomon or K2 for 13990 with bindings. Unfortunately, because its previous years stock, some of the more popular sizes (I’m a 152-154 and Dean is a 154-156) were gone. Bummer... After buying a coffee and waiting til some of the other snow shops were open, we looked around but couldn’t find anything as cheap as that, which was disappointing because I would have loved to buy, but we decided to head up to the snowfields and hire or see if they had cheap stuff up their. 

After grabbing our stuff from the hotel, next came the daunting task of buying tickets from the Shinkansen (bullet train). After buying what I thought were the right tickets, we were informed in very broken english that we needed another ticket as well. Un/fortunately the japanese train systems are efficient so even though we had reserved seats on the 12.30 train, with all the confusion of having the wrong tickets, and mum and Whitney stressing out, we missed our train. We hopped on to the next one at 13.10 but were a little wired afterwards. At least we’ll know for the trip back.

We were on the shinkansen for about 1 1/2 hrs, and then had to get a bus to the snowfields. We just asked around and then got told to go down the stairs and jump on at stop 3. Easy as... no dramas.. Then we spent about 70mins on the bus as it followed a very winding road through the mountains. (Shane, you would have loved this). We got to our stop then had to walk down hill to our hotel. Fortunately when planning this all, I had planned it so we would be there before dark, as last year, we didn’t get to our hotel until 8pm and Dean and mum stressed out a bit. Planning is the key sometimes people.

We dumped our stuff, had some dinner, then passed out after going for a dip in the ultra-warm jacuzzi.. just the thing to help tired/sore muscles that have been carrying a uncomfortable, heavy back pack all day.

So that was yesterday’s events. I will update you all with today’s crashes and bails later on, and when/if I find a converter plug for my laptop, I’ll update this post with pics.

Bye all, time to fake my death in an avalanche, then become an international man of mystery.

1 comment:

  1. Poo head... anywho.

    Sounds like fun - I wonder if the temperament of my wife will be worse, should the same thing happen to us in a foreign country. Aaargh.

    Be sure to take some good engrish photos too.

    I thought you were faking your death for an insurance payout? Didn't say anything about being a spy, and now everyone knows.

    Not much doing here. T20i was incredibly exciting - Aussies won by 1 run - yes 1! After a 6 was hit off the final ball. In the last over, an almost 6 was hit, the player caught it on the boundry, overbalanced, threw the ball in the air as he fell in the boundry, ran back into the field, tripped and dived to re-take the catch - out and 6 runs avoided. Helluva play.

    Shows you how exciting things are here. Looks like I'll have some movement employment wise, but will tell you when I get back - all good!

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