We arrived at Narita this morning!! The flight was uneventful, and we will be forever grateful for the refreshments served, entertainment and bigger seats.
Our first impression of Japan was... cold!! It was only 4 deg when we landed and warmed up to 8 deg during the day. Everyone walks really quickly and everyone is extremely well dressed. From the airport, we took the Narita Express to our hotel, the whole journey took about an hour during which time an attendant selling goodies wheeled her wares past us twice. It's interesting that they don't have just a vending machine on the train seeing they have it all over the streets here.
Check in time for the hotel was at 3pm so we walked around Shinjuku for about 4 hours. The first stop Isetan Department Store. There was a large assortment of food at the basement that made our mouths water! Presentation of the food was just exquisite but incredibly expensive. A beautiful bento can set one back about AUD90. We bought two yakitori sticks. The stall seem to sell all chicken yakitori's, although they all looked the same to me. When she realised we were tourists she brought out a diagram of a chicken and pointed to us which part of the chicken our yakitori sticks were from. Note: they even have grilled chicken skin on a stick!
All this made us salivate for real lunch so we went in search of a highly recommended ramen shop. We couldn't find the place but when we had given up, entered the restaurant quite by chance. I was glad we found it, but the soup base was just fantastic! Rich and tasty.. there are no photos because I left the camera in the luggage.
After lunch we walked around more, and visited a shrine in the middle of the city. A very serene place.. we saw some devotees doing their thing but all we did was to get a free handwash (visitors encouraged to purify themselves by washing hands and mouth before praying), and standing in front of the temple for a few seconds. We visited more departmental stores, Takashimaya Times Square, their food hall, etc.
Quite by chance we stumbled upon the area where all the electronics are sold, and it was quite a spectacle. Lots of salespersons carrying placards advertising their products spruiking in the streets. Then we stumbled upon the area where the pachinko parlours are, the entertainment centre of the town. All this stumbling business... by the time we finished, we had visited all the areas recommended by Lonely Planet. It was really tough not knowing the language, and embarassing too when locals spoke to us thinking we were of the area then us looking sheepishly back at them. This happened to us a number of times.
Dinner was at an izakaya across the road from the hotel as it was raining. No one in the restaurant knew how to speak English but they found someone who could speak Mandarin so I ordered in what little Mandarin I knew.
Grilled fish
Yamachan's secret recipe chicken wings - Fried chicken wings with a blend of pepper. Very spicy!!
Onigiri - served warm, with rice puffs. There is some msg mixed in with the rice, but I liked it. I read that the msg served in Japan are of different grade, and more superior than the ones found in M'sia. But hey, msg is msg right?
Chicken rice porridge - for Gary who felt a little bit under the weather. It was really just steamed rice, drowned in chicken broth with beaten egg. I liked it.
Tonight will be an early night for us as Gaz isn't feeling all that flash. Tomorrow we plan to go to Nikko. Later!
Nikko has its own railway line. The trains and the station reminds me of old English style. 
Rin-no-ji - The shrine that houses the three big Buddhas. No photography inside allowed, but it was very impressive.
The most picturesque scene in the trip - water flowing down the mountains under the age old Shin-kyo sacred bridge. 
Yamachan's secret recipe chicken wings - Fried chicken wings with a blend of pepper. Very spicy!!
Onigiri - served warm, with rice puffs. There is some msg mixed in with the rice, but I liked it. I read that the msg served in Japan are of different grade, and more superior than the ones found in M'sia. But hey, msg is msg right?
Chicken rice porridge - for Gary who felt a little bit under the weather. It was really just steamed rice, drowned in chicken broth with beaten egg. I liked it.