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Thinking that we had 2 days left to fit in everything we wanted to do in Tokyo, one day at Disneyland and a visit to the fish market followed by an early night in preparation for our early flight on Wednesday, we noticed that the fish market was closed on the Monday so headed off to Disneyland instead - only to get to the gates and realise that it was sold out due to a National Holiday - Doh!

As we couldn’t get back into the magical kingdom we headed back into central Tokyo and wandered around Akihabara - Electric Town.  It was sensory overload with shop after shop of electrical goods blaring out catchy tunes and tempting us to spend our remaining yens - unfortunately there was no room in the backpacks!

So on Tuesday morning we got up super early and went of to the largest fish market in the world.  There should be a warning sign for sleepy-heads here - there were a few near misses with the carts that speed around the market delivering fresh fish from stall to stall.  It was so interesting to see where all of that fish in Japan actually comes from!  We were surrounded by so many different types of fish but especially eye-catching were the enormous frozen tunas - they were as big as me!

I felt a bit queasy to say the least after walking through a market of fish for about 45 minutes I didn’t think I was going to manage to eat any sushi but after a few walks around the block we stopped into a sushi place where I had the most amazing sushi ever!  It was great to know that this was as fresh as it could ever get - I think that our breakfast could have been auctioned off only an hour or so earlier!

After washing down my sushi with some green tea we headed off on the tokyo metro to Disneyland!  I was pretty excited after the disappointment of not being able to get in the day before.

We managed to get on most rides that we wanted to despite the park being really busy with Japanese people taking an extended holiday.  It rained non-stop from around noon but we didn’t let that dampen our spirits and still managed to sing and dance along with the parade which was Halloween themed.

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Unfortunately the night parade was cancelled due to all of the rain so it was off home exhausted and sleepy to catch a few hours sleep before our flight to Hong Kong the next day…

Today we visited the oldest temple in Japan - the Senso-ji - just a short walk from our hostel in Asakusa.

It was really hot so after our wander around Asakusa we went back to the hostel for a rest and to do some planning/hostel booking.

This evening we went up the Tokyo Tower.  The tower is 333m tall and based on the Eiffel tower.  We had some amazing views over Tokyo from the observation deck.  It’s quite strange, from above Tokyo looks very like the postcard image I imagined but when you are wandering around the streets it doesn’t feel like the huge metropolis that it is and more like a small town with lots of cute little houses.

Today we took the subway down to Shibuya then wandered around there for a while.  We popped into the Disney Store to check the prices of tickets for the themepark there - yet to decide when to visit - and then walked up to Harajuku.

We visited the Meiji Jingu shrine in Yoyogi park.  It’s a Shinto Shrine in honour of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken.  Emperor Meiji was the 122nd Emperor from Japan and is the first Emperor who encouraged and forged relations with the rest of the world - I guess we have him to thank for allowing us to be able to visit Japan.  When you enter the shrine there is a cleansing process at a trough of water where with a ladle with a long handle you rinse your right hand, then your left, then pour some water into your left hand and rinse your mouth and then rinse your left hand again.  Iain said a prayer at the shrine - for our bags to be delivered I hope! - although he used a 10 yen coin which is used for prayers to come true further in the future so maybe we won’t be reunited with our bags until Christmas!!!

Harajuku is a really cool area - it reminds me of a cross between Camden and Carnaby Street.  It is where all the young Tokoyites hang out and buy all their trendy clothes.  We had a tasty crepe which we managed to order by number by pointing at the page numbers in the guidebook - we are still working on our Japanese!

We went to another Japanese restaurant for dinner.  You have to take of your shoes when you go in and the tables are low on the ground with benches which you sit on.  We had a selection of Sushi and Yakitori which was very tasty.  I then managed to ask for the bill in Japanese - result!

On the way back to the subway station we stumbled upon a Japanese amusement arcade where Iain had a go on Mario Kart and won his race.  Then we went into this crazy photobooth where you can select your backgrounds and do different poses.  Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out where to get the photo from our booth so some Japanese teenage girl is probably on her way home with some photos of us doing silly poses.  Maybe will work it out next time!

No word from BA yet on our bags so no photos for now but I promise to upload some as soon as I get my camera cable.

So we have arrived safely in Tokyo. Our bags, on the other hand, haven’t!

We arrived in Tokyo to a handwritten sign informing us that most of the bags from our flight had not been put on the plane due to a baggage handling problem at Heathrow Terminal 5. We then had to queue for 2 hours and fill in a form to tell them where we are staying so that they can deliver our luggage to us. They couldn’t tell us which plane our bags would be put it on so we have no idea when we will get them but hopefully in the next few days. As our mobiles don’t work here we are waiting patiently for an email to tell us the latest information.

We have checked into our hostel ok and have a nice cosy room with bunkbeds. We are off out to explore Asakusa now and buy ourselves a clean tshirt!

A smelly bye for now…