The first stop

My lack of sleep was put to good use on the 9 hour plane ride from Brisbane International to Narita Airport in Tokyo. It was a very very very long trip, but I managed to pass the time by either sleeping, watching this crazy in-flight movie on jamaican bobsledders or sneeking peaks at the rather cute flight attendant (who offered me a Yebisu at lunch).

When my flight had finally reached it`s gate, I filed out of the plane accompanied by what was dominately a home-coming crowd. I was admittedly very nervous, as this was my first time through an airport (of any sort) by myself. I was off to a bad start when I reached immigration. I hadn`t filled in the box titled "address of temporary residence" as I had not yet asked for Duck's home address, and the little man behind the desk let me know it...

Baggage claim, customs and buying a train ticket were all a walk in the park having asked an erray of young Japanese uni students for a prod in the right direction. It's true that the Japanese airports are harder to find your way around (purely based on the rarity of adept English speakers) compared to airports in Europe and the US but I honestly believe that the odd bloke on the street compensates for this by doing anything and everything he can to help you out.

The train from the airport to Shinjuku station was scheduled to take an hour... It took two. 100m from my station, the train came to a sudden and violent stop. Then, all the lights in the train were killed and within minutes the train became surrounded by flashing red lights and Japanese police. I thought we were being attacked! The train driver began to announce the situation over the loud speaker, but of course, I couldn't make sense of his rushed voice. What did make sense to me was what I saw next... 6 policemen carrying a stretcher, shielded by large impearmeable sheets rejecting the public eye. I soon found out that there was a car accident and that the bloke on the stretcher was its victim.

Later on, when I had caught up with Duck (for those who don't know, Neil Duckett or Duck is a mate of my dad's who works and lives in Tokyo. He's been kind enough to let me stay with him) we went out to a place called "Doma Doma". In short, this place provided us not only with good food, but the nicest beer I've ever had on tap - Kirin. It was served in a frozen glass stein which was about an inch thick all round. The beer stayed ice cold the whole time we were there.

What am I doing? It's almost 1 o'clock here and I haven't even left the house yet! It's time to explore...