Japan. Part 1. Tokyo, We love you.

Oh Japan.
Sweet Land of the Rising Sun.
I love you so very much.
Back safe and sound from a wonderful and life-changing holiday with Spomes.
(Okay, I was technically back two weeks ago, but I've had the dreaded task of un-packing and work and kitten to attend to so i have been so very slack. So very, very slack)
I've experienced so very much and it would take me weeks to adequately describe all the things I discovered and all the awesome stuff we did. So, I'll be breaking our trip down into a few parts with mostly pretty pictures and wit-filled comments. Then i can get on to filling your eyes with deliciously cute pictures of Minette in all her rumbly glory.

Our Hostel in Asakusa, Tokyo, with it's tiny room and ridiculously powerful air conditioning.




My first meal in Japan. Ginger Pork and Cabbage, fluffy rice and Miso. SO delicious and about $7.




Kokugikan Sumo Stadium.





SUMO!!! We were lucky enough to grab a quick photo with these two, they were so lovely! It was really great to see them first with all their strict traditions, then watching them after they had competed on their ipods and catching the train home.





The terrifying 'Big O' Roller coaster at the Tokyo Dome. 27 stories high, it goes through a Ferris Wheel and a Building. No, i did not go on it but Spomes and the rest of the gang did. Yup, i am a giant chicken, but i did get to watch them scream their lungs out while eating a GIANT Baskins and Robbins Rocky road ice cream. Win.





Cake and Crab hat.





Sensoji Temple in Asakusa, so beautiful. You can walk through and discover shrines, waterfalls, weeping willow trees and statues. Also fishies! So many streams of fish! I want to say they are either Koi or Carp? They are everywhere.




There were heaps of these cut-outs around the place. Naturally, we took advantage of them.




The greatest restaurant host, ever. Udo.





Udo fed us Okonomiyaki (a Japanese savoury pancake filled with all kinds of delicious), which we were supposed to cook ourselves, but failed miserably.
Udo saved the day!










Wonderful Harajuku. Where we sat and watched the uber-hipsters being cool. Way to cool for us. The streets were filled with little, winding boutiques and behind those boutiques, market stands and music booths, there were places to lounge, the walls were covered in quirky street art and on every corner there were crepe stands. CREPE STANDS PEOPLE. Filled with every kind of sweet thing you can imagine. Le sigh.





We pottered around the Disney Store for a ridiculous amount of time. I considered buying...EVERYTHING, but ended up with a few postcards and a serious case of the giggles and a child-like glow. Spomes on the other hand, bought this.






It's Baby Face from Toy Story. It also moves creepily around the room while its head swivels. Arg!





These pillows are terrifying, as soon as we saw them we knew we had to have one (We named it rape-face of death, it now sits on our couch scaring everyone that enters the room). We believe it is Astro Boy with his face morphed into this scary cube face that seems to be everywhere in Japan. We even saw one with a Mickey Mouse cube face.














Baseball was incredible. I'm not a huge sports person, but the atmosphere kept me absorbed the entire time. The crowds are crazy enthusiastic, they have synchronised dances and chants that they keep going for over three hours. We chose to go for the Tokyo Giants, who have a bright orange team colours which looked great against the bright green field. (I can't actually remember the name of the other team, but they lost. Suckers.) Every time they scored a home run, orange would explode throughout the entire arena and trumpets would sound. By the end of it, we were screaming and cheering along with it, even though we couldn't understand anything that was going on, it was awesome.







There were also these adorable Beer Girls who ran up and down the stairs of the arena selling cups of beer. For three hours they sprinted around with big smiles on their faces and giant kegs of beer on their backs, amazing and SO cute.










Of course we had to try Karaoke. Hugely popular in Japan, there a booths of it everywhere. Karaoke in bars is rare, instead they have these amazing multi-level buildings with giant sound-proof booths that are filled with couches and a big screen. With plenty of songs to choose from and a little man that you could call up on the phone to bring you drinks, we stayed well into the night.

That was my four days in Tokyo.
We boarded the Shinkansen (Bullet Train) and headed off to Kyoto.
More photos and stories to come!

Oh, here are a few photos of our perfect Minette.
She has settled in completely and makes our lives brighter every day.



She likes to NOM faces.




She protects my LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts when we are not home.




and stops me from doing any work at all.
(i'm okay with this)



Hope you all are well!