I PASSED!! Also featuring markets, dragons and capsule hotels

I'd just like to start off this post with the news that I passed my last ever CA exam!!! 

Apparently my diploma will be in the mail shortly and should be received within 10 working days :-) So now I am officially a fully-fledged Chartered Accountant which is a huge relief and I never want to study ever again. 

Anyway - onto what we have been doing recently, apart from celebrating passing my CA exam...

Yesterday it was time for a change, so we left K's house to go to a different part of Tokyo. We really liked it there and were sad to go. Would thoroughly recommend for anyone going to Tokyo, the price is budget ($70 per night, per person for a double bed with ensuite) but the actual place is very nice, amenities are great and the location is brilliant.

We checked out early, but left our backpacks so that we could check out more of Asakusa before leaving. For breaky we grabbed a very interesting combo of buttered toast, coleslaw, a fried egg topped with ham and half a banana (very yummy). Then it was onto the legendary markets.

This was the best move ever! About 30 seconds down the first arcade we realised that something was up. There was a crowd of people waiting outside the 5-story pagoda and a little way down the street we saw a little temple garden filled with important-looking people and a big golden dragon! No, not a real dragon, one of those long ones held up by guys with poles. Then the music started, coming from a moving pagoda with women playing traditional instruments and dressed in traditional make-up and kimonos. The procession went from the garden to the pagoda, preceded by these cute little school kids carrying staffs with bells on them. Then they started doing some speeches that we couldn't understand so we left.

At the time we had no idea what the special occasion was, but we found plaque in a nearby shrine that talked about festival rites performed on the 17/18 of March to honour one of the deities that supposedly protected the temple from raccoon dogs, or something along those lines. Anyway, it was very cool.

Then we meandered the markets, which were really interesting. There were sooo many little stalls. Like Bali but not, because the stalls are all orderly (even the roller shutters are painted with lovely Japanese landscapes), the place is really clean, the salespeople don't hassle you or rip you off, the merchandise is great quality and it doesn't smell. 

Basically this was an entire day of shopping and food. First I had this 'ice-cream burger' which was a wafer shell filled with sakura (cherry blossom) ice-cream. Then I had this chocolate custard sandwiched between 2 waffle/pancake things. Michael tried the chestnut flavour but it wasn't as good as the chocolate. We bought a nice set of chopstics and I got some gloves because it is REALLY COLD!

Then we picked up our bags from K's and went to the new place near Shinjuku in Akebonobashi (Ace Inn), which is a capsule hotel and not as nice as K's. You get a locker and a coffin shaped capsule with a mattress, in a dorm room with about 28 other people. It is shared bathrooms. But it is less than half the price, so more money for food and entertainment, yay!

Anyway, we dumped our bags and continued our shopping and food spree by going to Sunshine City in Ikebukuro. It was once the biggest mall in the world! Now - not so big, but still at least twice the size of anything in Perth. 

We started at Macca's and then tried to do some shopping. Trying on clothes is a pain because you have to take your shoes off before going into the fitting room (not cool with lace-up sneakers), then you have to tie your hair up in these little hair net thingies, plus the sizes are not quite the right shape for me! I felt super-under-dressed, since all of the girls around that area were pretty dressed up, and there's me with my cargo pants, t-shirt, fleecey jumper and sneakers!

The fashion is definitely centred around denim, plaid or tutu mini-skirts teamed with either boots or knee-high socks with high-heels (haven't seen one pair of ballet flats yet!). The clothes shops definitely catered towards that kind of thing, very eclectic but girly, with lots of frills and shirts with english slogans that make no sense. Shops which sell sensible and casual clothes are few and far between, but I still managed to find 3 nice tops that weren't too crazy.

We stayed at the shopping centre for dinner, we had some surprisingly good Italian food, finished off with a delicious banana, chocolate and custard crepe. Mmmmm... crepe.

By the end of the day my feet were in agony, but we saw heaps so it was worth it. I limped back to the hotel and had an awesome sleep (possibly due to the fact that Michael and I are in separate capsules, so no fighting over blankets!).

We are having a lazy day today - maybe will go see Tokyo tower a bit later, and then go and try some of the local sake to celebrate, did I mention passing my exam??

Ueno - A Nice Surprise: Cherry Blossoms

We started our day by attempting to replenish our cash supplies. The guy at the place we were staying had mentioned a couple of days earlier that there was an ATM at the local seven eleven. When we tried this ATM, we were a bit worried because it kept rejecting our card, but we were relieved shortly after when we attempted to use the post office's ATM instead as this accepted our Australian debit cards and allowed us to withdraw some cash.

After that we set off to Ueno. If you ever go to Tokyo and have an iPhone, I highly recommend you get the app 'trains.jp'. Thanks to this little app, we think we have finally figured out the best way to deal with Tokyo's crazy rail system. The app allows us to enter in a departure station and a destination station name and it will tell us what trains to take, which trains to transfer onto and how much it will cost you to get to each station. Using this app, getting around via the trains is a breeze.

Once we arrived in Ueno, we walked through the Imperial Park. Here we saw the 'Grand Fountain' (sorry to be a spoil sport, but that just didn't seem that grand...). To our surprise we also saw some cherry blossoms (Sakura). The cherry blossoms only appear once a year in Japan for a very short period (about 2 weeks I think), so we were delighted to see these as we thought that we would be too early to see them. There were lots of people in the park, including us, taking photos of them.

We continued on through the park to the Tokyo National Museum. It too was very busy due to a special exhibit. We decided to get a regular pass (rather than paying the extra money to see the special exhibit and brave the line which snaked its way what looked to be about 500m long) and see the regular exhibits in the museum. This did not disappoint. We spent a good 2 hours or so navigating the amazing building seeing sculptures, tapestries, swords, samurai armour, dolls, gowns, pottery and many other things that were all from various periods throughout Japanese history. The oldest pieces we saw were from about 20,000 BC. The most impressive exhibit that Jenni and I saw would have to be a clay statue that pre-dated a few thousand years BC that were very intricate. How on earth someone managed to excavate that piece and retain its intricacy after so many years is beyond me.

After the museum we found ourselves very hungry so we on search for some food. Unfortunately all of the local museum restaurants were full (probably due to the fancy pants special exhibit). Instead of waiting we thought we would take a quick walk through the National Museum gardens before exiting and getting some lunch. At this stage it started to get really cold, but luckily on our way through the gardens there was a food stand where we were able to purchase a 'Japanese Lunchbox' and a nice hot chocolate. The gardens had old Japanese houses throughout. It was interesting to see how short the houses were. The little old Japanese ladies walking in front of us were right at home with their height, but I had to duck under some of the low roofs.

After our late lunch, we moved onto the Ueno zoo. Entry was nice and cheap (600yen ~ about $8 AUS). We only had about 2 hours to rush through the zoo before closing time, but we managed to see pretty much all the exhibits we were interested in.

The zoo is as big as Perth zoo, but the exhibits are far more exotic. The highlights would have to be: very colourful birds from around the world that looked like someone had painted the colours on them; a couple of very frantic Red Pandas that looked like they had been drinking red cordial; massive eagles that stood about 2.5 foot tall; massive penguins that were about 2 foot tall; lions and tigers prowling back and forth in their exhibits; a gorilla with a tea towel on her head; polar bears, Japanese black bears and a sun bear; Hippos that were swimming about 1m away from us; orange and pink flamingos; small mammals chasing and wrestling with each other; and a family of lemurs huddled together to try and stay warm in the cold.

After the zoo, we went back to Asakusa. There we went into the ROX shopping centre. ROX is a multi storey department store, similar to Myer. There I picked up a funky looking T-Shirt for about $15 AUD. Jen and I have noticed that prices for clothes are quite comparable to Perth. In fact, we have noticed that Perth is actually probably more expensive in terms of clothes, shoes and electronics in comparison to Japan; not something I was expecting. (Claire: We found a franchise of fashion accessory shops named after you!)

Even an amateur shopper such as me has noticed that the variety of clothes available in clothing department stores is far superior to the selection available in Australia. I will let Jen elaborate on the available fashions in her next post.

After some shopping we had some ramen at one of the local ramen stores and then headed home to do some laundry and get an early night so we could wake up at a reasonable time the next day to get out and see the rest of the Asakusa markets before making our way over to Shinjuku for our next place of accommodation.

A Computer Nerd's Take On Akihabara

Jen and I agreed that she would write up what we did the day we went to Akihabara, but we agreed that I would do an additional article as a computer nerd's take on what is essentially Japanese nerd central.


Akihabara is known as 'denki town' (electric town) because it is a maze of electronic stores that sell all sort of electronic gadgets, video games and computer gear. It is also home to what is probably the biggest collection of manga and anime (japanese comics and cartoons) shops in Tokyo.


Many people claim that Japan is ahead of the rest of the world in terms of electronics and computers. After visiting Akihabara, I would have to say that I disagree. Let me explain... They definitely have the latest electronics and computers, but they are by no means ahead of anywhere else. Pretty much everything we saw in Akihabara anyone in little old Perth could either buy from a shop in Perth or at the very least order it over the internet.


HOWEVER, what you CANT do in Perth is go into one single bloody department store and buy EVERYTHING in one fell swoop! THAT is the difference between Akihabara and the rest of the world in terms of computers and electronic gadgets.


As Jenni mentioned in the previous post, the first Akihabara store we went into was Yodobashi Akiba. This is the Mecca of electronics. It is a EIGHT storey high electronics store, with each floor about the size of a single floor in Perth's Murray St Myer Store. The first floor was just mobile phones, netbooks and laptops. I have NEVER seen so many mobile phones for sale as well as so many phone accessories. I am talking aisle upon aisle of headphones, replacement batterys, phone cases, you name it, they have it. They had pretty much the same netbooks and laptops available that we have in Australia, but already have the newest models that we would not be getting for another month or two. I was quite surprised to see that the prices of the netbooks and laptops were actually about 3/4 of the price that we would pay for the same models in Australia.


The 2nd floor was all PC gear and small computers like PDAs. I was quite surprised to see all of this because I always assumed that the Japanese weren't that big into computers, but I must be wrong. I was really surprised to see that you could buy things like replacement laptop batteries and power cords right off the shelf. In Australia, in order to buy these sorts of things, we would have to contact the manufacturer directly.


The 3rd floor was a photographer's heaven. It had pretty much EVERY camera available on the market today. There were hundreds of digital point and shoot cameras, SLRs and even polaroid cameras to choose from. Stands, replacement lenses, bags, etc etc were also available to buy.

The rest of floors had heaps of other electronic things in them that I will skip over, but I will have to mention the video game and toys floor. This floor was completely jam packed full of anime toys, hundreds.. nay, thousands of boxes of model Gundams - popular cartoon robots (Anth: You have to check out the pictures, you will probably wet your pants!) and stacks of video games. I was not surprised to see that Nintendo hailed supreme in the video game section taking up about half of it. Just like the mobile phone section there was stacks of Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS accessories. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Xbox 360 section was about the same size as the PS3 section (but neither was anywhere near the size of the Nintendo section). One thing that they had which we don't get many of in Australia was hint guide books. There was a rather large section of video game hint guides with a guide for every game under the sun available for purchase.

Speaking about books, the floor above the video game and anime floor was the books floor. About a quarter of this dedicated to Japanese comics. The comics were quite cheap in comparison to the imported ones that we can get in Perth (about half the price).

Another highlight of Akihabara was the video game arcade that we went into. We have noticed that instead of standard arcade games, most people play "UFO" games. The name of these games in Perth are "Skill Testers", the ones where you have to try and navigate a claw to pick up a prize (in Perth, it is typically a stuffed toy, but in the arcades here the prizes range from anime figurines to boxes of chocolates). I did have a go of a 'standard' arcade game (Anth: if you didn't wet yourself before, you probably will now!). It was a Gundam game where you have to first buy a 'pilot card' from a machine that prints out a card like a credit card with your 'pilot name' on it. You then you take the card and go into a private giant cockpit, insert the card and then you get to pilot a virtual Gundam. You use it to fight against other people in a giant virtual arena. The game connects to the interent, so you can be fighting against people who are playing in other arcades around Japan, not just the one you are in. There is a voice communication and everything, so you can try and co-ordinate your attacks with your team mates - although this didn't really help me because I had no idea what they were saying.


All in all it was a pretty interesting day. With all of the computers, video games, anime, manga and girls dressed up as maids trying to hand you flyers to go to their 'Maid Cafes' on the street, I definitely feel like I need to watch a good old game of football to make myself feel less nerdy and more 'blokey' again... not that I was ever that 'blokey' to begin with!

Day Two - Gadgets Galore

After an awesome sleep, we were pleased to discover that Michael's plan had worked and we had a lovely cheap breaky of cereal and OJ (and then realising that there is a shared fridge downstairs!) before heading off to Akihabara. After first attempting to buy a train ticket using the bike rack ticket machine, we finally figured it out and arrived at Akihabara - the electronics district.

Most of the time we spent in the 8 stories tall department store which specialised in electronics but also seemed to have everything from cosmetics to golf clubs. I got a lovely Japanese style watch with a mother of pearl face and Michael got some electronic stuff. After lunch we went off to see the rest of the district. We wanted to see a maid cafe, but when we found one, the entrance was off this dodgy alleyway and it kind of put us off the idea, so we had to make do with Starbucks instead. It is coming up to cherry blossom season (Sakura) soon - there are fake cherry blossoms all over the place. Even Starbucks had some special Sakura additions to the menu. I tried the Sakura Frappacino and a Sakura steamed bun - they were delicious. 

After that we headed back to 'A-sock-sa' and checked out the temple area. It was  a beautiful place to have a wander around. The temples weren't open, so we might go back tomorrow. There was also a nearby kiddy park which had an awesome slide which I decided to have a go on. Unfortunately, I forgot that I'm actually not 5 years old anymore. The slide was a weeee bit small for me and I ended up scraping the skin off the side of one of my thumbs. But all better after some Betadine (ouch!) and a bandaid from Nurse McGonigle.

After some cheap Bento and watching Hot Fuzz we are ready to crash again - Konban-wa!

Day One - Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas any more

We got off the plane and realised that it's pretty cold over here! However a few minutes of trying to navigate the airport and we were down to t-shirts. Getting through immigration and customs was easy - no waiting. The tricky bit was figuring out where to pick up the Rail Pass. Found it eventually from the map on the back of the exchange form and a bit of wandering around. The lady at the ticket counter helped get us to Tokyo Station. There was pretty scenery and lots of old Japanese style houses on the way. We've realised that nothing over here is less that double story!

Once at Tokyo Station, Michael's Japanese got us directions for the next two trains to Asukasa Station, the closest station to our accommodation. Then came the hard bit - figuring out where the damn place was. We had the address, but in Japan there are hardly any street names, the address goes by block number -> section number -> suburb. Unfortunately the block numbers aren't in numerical order, according to Michael they're in order of construction date or something crazy. They also aren't signposted. Once you have a map that shows the block numbers you then have to make sure that you are looking in the right section number. Because if you are looking for block 14, there are about 5 of them on the map! One helpful guy noticed us squinting at a map and offered to help by walking with us for a bit to point our feet in the right direction... but we still got lost.

In the end I just ended up following Michael, who managed to figure it out before we both collapsed (something we'd better get used to I guess!) - if only there was an emoticon for the feeling that we felt when we finally saw that sign!!! It was so good.

The hostel is really nice with free WIFI, free computers, tea and coffee, TV and ensuite with fancy toilet that has heated seat and makes a flushing noise so that people can't actually hear you going to the toilet! The staff are really friendly and speak english and told us all about the area.

Our beds weren't ready yet so we stashed our bags and went in search of MOS burgers, recommended by Chang, Anth and Sharon, which we had seen on the way over. Michael reminded me of enough Japanese to be able to order the most delicious little cheeseburger. Mmmmm, cheeseburger. After that we went back to the hostel to chill for a bit before the room was ready, reading some Sherlock Holmes and sending emails to anxious family members to assure them that we were still alive. Then up to the room for a nanna nap. Then a quick shower (quick for me anyhow) and a costume change, then out in search of more food. This took ages. There were too many things to choose from! Luckily one of Japan's specialities is fake food so the displays were very helpful. After a bit of wandering around we found somewhere promising, cheap but clean, with other customers, always a good sign. When we tried to order they directed us to a ticket machine where you put in your money and select the button that's got the picture of what you want. It gives you a ticket and you give that to the cook. We didn't really know what we had ordered, but it turned out to be really nice noodle soup. Totemo oishi deshita!

Then off to the supermarket to stock up on supplies - tissues for my permanent sniffles (a pain since blowing your nose in public is considered rude!) and some breaky for the morning (utilising our collapsible bowls and cups so that we can eat in the room. The issue of keeping the OJ and milk fresh (no fridge) was solved by Michael's ingenious plan of putting them into a bag and then hanging it outside the window (since it's freezing outside at night!). Now we are just going through the rest of our trip, making accomm bookings, since everything seems to be booked or nearly booked out already. And then I am ready to crash, what an awesome crazy day!

(Ladies and) Gentlemen; Start Your Engines!

I am sitting here on the plane to Tokyo, listening to Pink Floyd, Green Day, Muse and a whole load of other fine rock artists on the  'Rock on Q' in-flight music channel while writing this article.

We were really busy for the entire of today; packing our backpacks, helping my Dad get all of our stuff into the storage shed (I swear I haven’t seen him so in his element in years, he was like a pig in shit!), seeing Anth and Sharon for lunch, packing our suitcases to get sent over to the UK to meet us when we get there and trying to get to the airport in time.

As per usual, Eileen, Stewart and Claire arrived at the airport before us. When we got to the airport there was no line at the check in desk, so we managed to get our bags checked in nice and quick. Jen and I have packed as light as possible so our total weight shared between us was only 21kgs.

The last hour or so before the flight was spent in the airport's ale house, sharing a few drinks with Eileen, Stewart, Claire, Matt, Catherine and my dad Pat. Mum couldn't make it to the airport because she had tickets to go and hear the silky smooth tunes of Tom Jones, so we said our goodbyes before we left for the airport. (Mum: If you are reading this, Jen and I both hope that you enjoyed the concert and that you weren't too upset to enjoy it).

When it came time for departure Jen and I said our goodbyes which were very emotional for everyone. (Eileen: If you are reading this, don't worry, I'll make sure that I take good care of your girl and bring her back home safe to you).

Once in the departure lounge, Jen and I got to utilize her Platinum QANTAS Frequent Flyer membership to get us both into the fancy pants QANTAS Lounge (thank-you Rio Tinto!). There we treated ourselves to a couple of free glasses of Chandon, along with cheese and biscuits while watching the soccer on TV.

Before we knew it, it was time to board and we were in the plane.

As per usual, the in-flight facilities on the QANTAS plane are non-existent. Let me say to everyone that I've talked to about this that 'I TOLD YOU SO!'. As you can see from the attached photos, there is little to no in-flight entertainment :(

Fortunately, due to such a busy day, both of us feel asleep shortly after takeoff. I awoke about 6 hours later thanks to the snoring sounds of the guy sitting behind me that sounded like he was hocking up the world’s biggest ball of phlegm.... Yuk!

Anyway, we will be arriving in Tokyo very soon and I still need to fill out my customs declaration form. Tune in during the next couple of days to see what we get up to in Tokyo!

Miss Sassy Pants - Not Quite the Adorable Loving Kitty We Thought She Was

One of the main reasons Jenni and I moved into my parents house for the 2 weeks prior to leaving Perth was to get Miss Sassy Pants acquainted with what will be her new home and family members for the duration of our travels. For the first couple of days she was very anti-social; hiding under the couch in the family room and hissing and spitting at various members of my family, especially my mum. Over the next week she started wandering around the house a bit more (although retaining her main base of operations as the family room) and being a bit more sociable with everyone (although I am told she is only being sociable on occasions where Jenni and I are around).

As time has progressed she has come out of shell a bit more, getting back to her chirpy old self.

By the end of the 2 weeks she is mostly back to her old self, although she is still a little bit jumpy. This probably has mostly to do with households existing feline, Hamish. Hamish is a few years older than Miss Sassy Pants and is used to having the run of the household, so it has been a bit of a shock to him having another of his kitty brethren moving in. After a week or so, he seems to be rather indifferent to Miss Sassy Pants, but she HATES him with a passion. When they have an encounter, Miss Sassy Pants turns into a cat that has been spawned by the devil and hisses, spits and makes horrible high pitched screeching noises at Hamish. It is no wonder than on multiple occasions he has turned tail and ran away to his mum because he wants to get away from what he is thinking is 'that crazy bitch'.

As time has progressed Miss Sassy Pants seems to be a little bit more tolerant of Hamish, so hopefully they will get along eventually.

Even though Jenni and I have been recently exposed to this evil side of our kitty cat, we will miss her with all our hearts because she is our little kitty that we adore so much and it breaks our heart to leave her because we know that she will miss us just as much as we will miss her.