Back in Tokyo :)

So... Monday night I got the bus from Kyoto to Tokyo and after nearly getting on the wrong bus, I made it to Tokyo having had about 2 hours sleep ....



....thanks to back ache from the teeny and non-reclining seats and the loudly snoring japanese man with foul breath sleeping next to me. I was feeling very tired when I arrived, having had pretty poor sleep the preceding two nights as well.
Having said that, it doesnt really matter as it was a quarter of the price of the train and it was great to travel through Tokyo as it was 'waking up'.. it was about 5am as we reached the outskirts of the city and you could see lights flicking on and some crazy people already cycling to work in their perfectly pressed suits.
I got the metro to Ueno station (the nearest big station to the hostel) and walked to the nearest cafe to get a cup of tea and a jam sandwich to try and revive me and keep my bleary eyes open!
Time dragged and what felt like about 5 hours had only been about 40 minutes. I planned to wait in the cafe until about 11am and then try and check in to the hostel and have a little snooze and then go out and about... However, with time dragging so much, I decided to go to the hostel about 9am and try my luck. When I got there they were really sweet - asking if i had a nice time and what I had been up to etc BUT they told me I couldnt check in until 3pm :( So I left my bags and I decided to head off to find a place called Roppongi Hills - I found it, but had such little energy I couldn't muster the enthusiasm to do much exploring... I had a little look around - it was very cosmopolitan - mostly flash shops and international bars and restaurants. I did like it but only stayed about 3 hours, after having another cup of tea at a another cafe! :) I then went to a place called electric city as I needed a new memory card for my camera as the last one had given up - kept saying "write protect" on the screen and wouldn't let me take any more photos. Boooo as my photos from my last day in Kyoto are beautiful but I had to take them on my phone and I cant get them onto the computer :(
So, I got a memory card for what I thought was a really good price - equivalent of about 7quid - but then I saw another one almost exactly the same down the road for about half the price. BUGGER. Usually I would have taken the other one back.. but I was feeling a bit zombied and just couldn't be bothered! Oops.
It was still only about 1pm so I went back to Ueno (the local train and subway station) and decided to see if I could find Ueno Lake.. I did, but it was 2 ponds: the first one being completely full of what looked like dead brown lillies about 7foot tall! It was really eery actually. Then I found the second pond which was quite pretty and had lots of boats and pedalos etc.. I was far too tired to attempt going on one of those - I would most certainly have capsised and drowned! haha. I then read on a map that there was a Peony garden in Ueno Park so I went to try and find that because i thought that Peonies flowered in November and around April time... I must have been wrong because there were no peonies in the peony garden - just lots of bamboo sticks, twine, stems and leaves! Boo. Anyhow, trying to find it had wasted just enough time looking for that (and on my way stopping to look at some acrobatics show that was going on in the park) and I headed back to the hostel and they gave me the key to the dormitory! I then decided to look at my budget/spending and do some washing, check my emails etc.. Having looked at my budget and having enquired about the transport costs Nikko and to Mount Fuji (where im going on Sunday), I cant afford to go to Nikko so I'm going to a seaside resort/beach called Zushi instead which is about an hour from Tokyo. Now I've thought about it, I'm quite pleased as Nikko is full of temples and I dont think I could face too many more.. I get bored so easily dont I? Maybe I should try and increase my concentration span! The thought of walking along the beach and dipping my toes in icy water is much more appealing! Apparently if you walk up into the hills the other side of the beach, there are wild monkeys too which could be fun as long as they dont try and steal my things! I also realised I am spending more than I thought on food and drink - mostly because things like a cup of tea or coffee is sometimes more expensive than a meal and I hadn't budgeted for anything like that, but was having it anyway! I have saved quite a bit on accommodation so it's okay but I need to keep an eye on food and drink now so I went to the 99yen shop to have another attempt at buying suprise food that I cant read the labels of.. i bought rice and cucumber (i thought i couldnt go too wrong with that) and then I got some milk and what looked like cereal. I also got 3 pots of noodles and i've had 2 of them so far and they've been very nice but i have no idea what is in them - other than noodles! The shopping spree was nowhere near as distasterous as the last one and it turned out I had frosties and full fat milk for my breakfast - fattening but very yummy! :) My dinner was pretty tasty too but a bit spoilt but some really annoying and negative american woman moaning at me about her employer while I was trying to eat my dinner in the kitchen/dining room at the hostel. Am I bovvered? She was sooo negative and condescending, I really wanted to tell her to bugger off but I managed to remain polite until the first escape opportunity arose!
I headed for bed about 10pm and read some of a book about "undiscovered tokyo" (that I found in the hostel lobby) and then I had a phonecall from my lovely mum! :) My room mates came back about 10.30 and 11.30 - they were from Singapore - a young girl about 17 and her aunty. I spoke to them briefly and they rustled plastic bags until about 12.30 and then I managed to get some sleep to be woken by more plastic bag rustling at about 6am hahaha. Tonight there is no space in the dormitories (i booked too late) so i booked a single room instead. Turns out they have put me in a double room and its lovely - slippers, towels, shoe polish (not that I have any shoes that can be polished!) tv, shampoo, toothbrush, japanese tea and kettle, fridge etc....! I realised that I have left my phone charger and plug adaptor in the hostel in kyoto and so I went to reception to see if by any chance they had an adaptor i could borrow for my camera charger and they did... Once I got to the floor my room was on I did a little leap and a skip to my room as i'm very happy to have my own space for one night and not having to worry about other people ... I can leave my clothes wherever i want and shower whenever i want and leave my purse on the chair and my tootbrush in the bathroom etc, whoopee! I am really looking forward to a decent night sleep too :) I have to check out before 10am tommorrow (as I had to do today) because I will be back in a dormitory tommorow night and the night after, and then back in a single room friday night and back in a dormitory on saturday night. haha... musical beds.
Anyway... back to today... I checked out about 10am and having read the book on "undiscovered tokyo" last night, I decided to head to a place called Shimokitizawa for a bit of a chilled out day strolling around ... 3 train changes later I arrived and it is a really lovely place: lots of second hand and vintage clothes shops, unusual quirky shops, basement clubs, organic food shops and cafes and just a very relaxed, arty type of atmosphere - none of the usual high pitched japanese sales voices shouting at you from the corner of each street.. though there was a bit of kylie's locomotive song blaring out from a couple of the shops - must have been a local radio station with excellent taste in music! ;)
I stopped at a vending machine restaurant for lunch... basically if you cant speak/read japanese, you look at the pictures on a big board outside the restaurant, you decide what you want from looking at the pictures and guessing what it is in it, you then try and find writing on the vending machine which matches up with the japanese writing on the picture you've chosen and then you press the relevant button, put in the money (in this case about 3 quid) and then it prints a ticket which you take inside to the kitchen counter/canteen counter. They serve up your food and then you walk through to another room where there are lots of business men sat slurping their noodles... we are talking about serious slurping here. In Japan it is not rude to slurp your food, in fact they think that the added oxygen from slurping makes the food taste better. It was a bit off-putting but lunch was still good! I walked around some more and then had a cup of tea (yes another cup of tea.. but this time japanese tea) at a really nice litle jazz cafe. I stayed there for a while and read my book and then headed back to the hostel and checked in to my lovely room!
So I am off to Zushi tommorow and then Friday I have no plans except going out in Roppongi with Noriko and her friend on Friday night. I hope her friend can understand my japanese or even better... speaks english! Saturday I have no plans and Sunday I am off as early as posible to Lake Kawaguchi - one of the lakes at the base of Mount Fuji and i cant bloody ruddy wait!! xxx