Sayonara Nippon

I woke up with a very dry mouth due to the air conditioning. I badly needed water. We got packed up and went down to the changing rooms and lockers. We had a shower... well, a kind of sento style bath. We embarked on our final trip to the train station with all of our luggage. Eric was going to stay in Tokyo and decide what to do later and Philip was going back to Hyogo as Kay was home from Cambodia for her New Years celebrations. We bought our train tickets. My JR Rail pass had expired so this was the first big train ticket I had to pay for. The JR Rail pass is a life saver and even though it is expensive (€551 for a 3 week ticket), I definitely got my moneys worth from it. We then said our goodbyes to Eric and went through. Philip's train was leaving after mine so we walked up to my platform. After a goodbye, Philip left me there to go to his platform.

The train finally came. I tried to sleep on it but with no success. In Narita airport, I checked in my bags, was relieved I didn't get stuck with a middle seat like the trip out and made one las use of a Japanese toilet & I spent my final yen on souvenirs. In my usual manner, I didn't queue up for a half hour to get on the plane so I was one of the last on. The lady scanned my ticket and it said "Not Checked In". I had a brief moment of panic until she quickly brushed me off by giving me a ticket and saying "I'm putting you in Premium Economy". Extra leg space and an aisle seat... brilliant, and a free newspaper. So before take off, I was already caught up on British current affairs. I only slept for about an hour in the whole flight and I watched "The American" starring George Clooney. An awful movie.

In Heathrow, I killed some of the 5 hours wait by eating an over priced burger. I wasn't even hungry but boredom prevailed. When booking my flight from London to Dublin, I decided I would be so exhausted and treated myself to paying for a seat, row 1, seat D (aisle). The plane was empty so I could have just taken it anyway. When the air hostess was starting the whole spiel pointing to the exits etc, I fell asleep and when I woke up, I thought we were moving to take off but we were on a Dublin runway. It's happened once before but those flights are the best. It was weird being home but after a long day of travelling, it was relieving.

And that was the end to an absolutely amazing trip. 

Tokyo - The Last Supper

We were moving out of Kozue's apartment because she was leaving to visit family. So we packed up & looked for a capsule hotel that we could stay in for the night and said our goodbyes and walked to the train station. We eventually found our capsule hotel. I was very excited as I thought I missed my chance to stay in one when we decided not to go to Osaka. Capsule hotels are hotels that don't require a booking. Your hotel room is a small capsule with just enough room for a bed and a small television. We got a locker to put our bags in and went out for lunch. We saw a Freshness burger so we had lunch there.

We went back to Yoyogi Park to see if the Rockabilly Dancers were there. Apparently they are there on Sundays. Not every Sunday but most. I really wanted to see them but unfortunately, maybe because it was so soon after New Years, they didn't gather on this Sunday. After the park, we went to Kabukicho, the "entertainment" district of Tokyo. We went to an arcade. It was so noisy and it was obvious that this was where teenage kids came to hang out and it was evident some of them spent too much time there. One guy was on one of those dancing arcade games and he was almost break dancing, he was that good on it. We didn't spend too much time in there.

We went back to Shibuya. I saw the statue of Hachiko the dog, who waited outside the station everyday for his owner to come home from work and when his owner died of a haemorrhage, the dog kept going to the station everyday for 9 years after.

We went to Burger King for lunch as Philip only gets to eat in Burger King when he is in Tokyo. He had a few Dr Pepper too for the same reason. We noticed probably the best badly translated pubic sign in Burger King which I assume was meant to tell customers that the toilets were for paying customers only but said "We are not welcome only the toilet user." Brilliant.

While walking around the city, one of the places we went to was Hotel Hill, an area full of Love Hotels (hotels where the room can be rented for a few hours at a time) or as Eric called it, Hooker Hill. There was nothing up there anyway. We went back to the hotel to regroup and just lay down for a bit after walking all day.

We went out again for dinner for an epic Japanese meal. It was amazing! Eric and Philip quizzed me on what I thought about Japan and asked a variation of questions about my time here. After dinner, we went to  Dubliners pub and met with a few of Philip and Kay's friends and had a few drinks.

Back in the hotel, we just went straight to bed as there were other people sleeping in our corridor. The air conditioner was on to a hot setting and it was making the air extremely dry, I knew I would wake up with severe cotton mouth. I watched some tv and fell asleep.

Tokyo - New Years Day

New Years day turned out to be a "do nothing" day. By the time we all woke up and got showered etc, it was time to start discussing what should we do for dinner. We decided we would go to a nearby diner for food and see what happens. Along with our dinner, we all got the nomihodai - all you can drink. This diner didn't have beers so in this case it was just coffees, juices & soft drinks. We probably wouldn't have touched a beer anyway. We went there at about 5pm and ate dinner. Eric was a bit ambitious in his order. Along with his burger and chips (which was a big serving) he ordered another plate of chips (also a large serving).

They left the final decision up to me whether we would go into Tokyo or just keep it local. I could see that everyone was so tired, myself included and also I figured that if we went into Tokyo, we would be wrecked again tomorrow for my final full day in Japan so we didn't end up leaving the diner until about midnight.

It was fun though just hanging out drinking coffee after coffee and hot chocolate after hot chocolate and soft drink after soft drink and hot chocolate again after hot chocolate etc etc. Another reason I was happy to stay in the diner so long.... it had a Japanese toilet !! Also included in our detox day was popping into a supermarket and buying cranberry juice. As always, it hit the spot. We discussed going to the fish market early in the morning but when we looked it up, it was closed for the Christmas holidays. After the diner, we just went back to Kozue's and hung out there.