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Hello and welcome back
Sorry it's been a while but we've been busy busy busy.
So Tokyo ... well stepping off the plane in Tokyo was a little disappointing because for some reason we both expected to step straight into the Tokyo of Hollywood - high rise buildings, thousands of people and organised chaos. But it was in fact eerily quiet. We found later that, that Tokyo does exist but for some unexplained reason everyone was hiding when we first arrived.
We found them the next day though, as we visited downtown Tokyo and the city's main temple. Thousands of people all being very polite and quiet. It's quite funny to watch as the Tokyoites are very well behaved. They wait politely at street crossings for the green man, don't talk loudly, and from what we could see they like nothing more than a good old queue. Seriously, everywhere we went there were polite little queues formed, clearly waiting for something although what it was wasn't easy to tell.
The other popular passtime that we observed was sleeping. It appears perfectly normal to close your eyes and have a snooze at any given opportunity. Our first experience of this nearly caused chaos. We were politely sat on a bench when a little old lady sat down next to us and flopped over backwards - we were 'this far' off checking her pulse when a loud zzzzzzz signalled she was just dozing. As with 'sleeping lady' we saw people grabbing some zees in the following locations: tube train, park, city centre bench, cafe, restaurant, busy sports stadium midway through a tumultuous sumo bout. I think it might have something to do with the low crime rate making everyone feel safe but nodding off is perfectly acceptable and, with our jet lag, we felt it only appropriate to join in!
A particular highlight of the Japan trip was an afternoon at a Sumo contest (well when in Rome). A great day out and what an odd sport. From what we could determine it's a lot of showboating with a flash of action at the end of each wrestle. It goes like this: Fat man 1 and Fat man 2 walk into the ring, crowd admire their moobs and cheer, fat man 1 throws some salt into the ring (something about evil spirits) slaps his thigh (which wobbles) and squats down ready. Fat man 2 throws his salt into the ring, slaps his thigh and maybe his stomach, and squats down ready. Fat man 1 then decides "no I'm not ready anymore" and walks back to corner for more salt throwing and thigh slapping - crowd cheer. Fat man 2 decides he also needs more thigh slapping and returns to his corner. They repeat this 2 or 3 times then, in a sudden flash of action, they slam into one another with a delightful slap of flesh on flesh before the fatter of the fat men pushes the other out the ring - winner. They then leave the ring (dojo) and two other fatties come in and do the same. Excellent fun we really enjoyed it!
Another particular highlight was our karaoke evening. We had our own little booth and beer on tap and when we get the camera attachment from the bottom of our rucksack we'll put some cracking videos on the site - those reading on an office computer, or with dogs nearby, may want to turn the sound down.
All in all our three day insight into Japan was a huge success, and we would definitely recommend Tokyo. Although it might be wise to wait for the pound to strengthen again, as this is the first country on our trip where we have had to really watch what we spent and have not been able to live like kings! Oh it's a hard life!
Lots of love - glad to be back on the blog
Polly and Pete
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