“You’re going to get into a honey pot and enjoy it”

So today was the first day that we slept through the night and woke up at a sensible time, that is about 10AM. We slowly surfaced, although bed was indeed a nice place to be. I had a tea and my cornflake replacement cereal (I have no idea what it is, but the picture looks like Frosties and it tastes just fine). Jamie took about half an hour to put his face on and do his hair. I took about three minutes. We repeated yesterdays journey and arrived at Disneyland Tokyo at about 11:30. It was packed and it was hot. We got fast passes for space mountain then meandered a bit. Did ‘It’s a small world’, which is just as irritating here as it is in every other country in the world. We then went back and did Space Mountain, which out of all the non-inverting versions of it I reckon this one is the best one, as it’s all pretty much pitch black.

We then took our places sat down for the parade, now this being Japan everybody sat nicely and nobody stood up, if this was the USA then everyone would have stood up and some fat twat with the ass the size of Texas would have blocked everybody’s view. If it was France the parade wouldn’t have gone ahead anyway as everyone would be on strike. The parade was very good.

We then went and had lunch (pizza, it was Friday, actually it was a fairly awful sausage pizza so it doesn’t really count). Then went back and did the haunted mansion. Then Jamie insisted we queued for over an hour to do the ‘Winnie the Pooh’ ride. I wasn’t overly impressed, after about 50 minutes of me moaning he finally said, “You’re going to sit in a honey pot and enjoy it”, I was apparently a small scalded child. I sat in a honey pot and enjoyed it. Technically it was quite impressive I’ll have to look up how it actually works.

We then had a Churro and a coke which I ordered from a stand entirely in Japanese. I’m very impressed with my 250 quid investment in the language so far, where all I’ve asked is ‘Does chicken exist?’, and ‘Two churro’s and a small coke please’. Mind you I was impressed than I could get the ‘small’ in. Also never go to Japan with me if I have more than one extra person as I only know the words for ‘One of’ and ‘two of’.

We watched the electrical parade, which again was impressive and again we had a non-restricted by fat American arses view. It was getting a bit chilly, I would say there was a bit of a ‘nip’ in the air, but that wouldn’t really be appropriate.

We then queued outside one of the Disney full service restaurants, we didn’t wait long to be honest. Had a fairly nice three course meal. Thanks to the power (or lack of) of the Yen we ate for about 13 quid, which by any standards, let alone Disney is pretty bloody good.

We then made the crawl back to the hotel again. I was insisting we went out tonight, but Jamie is moaning about being tired and requiring his beauty sleep, so I picked up a couple of cans and decided update everything instead as I’m a bit behind with a few bits.

Off to Yokohama tomorrow.

Towa of Tera

So today we were planning on starting early anyway. But we were both wide awake at about 4AM. We couldn’t really get back to sleep either. It ended up with Jamie creating a bit of a mess in my bed. Nothing quite like crusty sheets.

We made it to the subway for 9:30AM and through a variety of trains got to Tokyo Disneyland. We ended up at the train station bit where a friendly lady guided us to where the hell we were meant to go. Today we were doing Tokyo Disneysea, tomorrow we are doing Tokyo Disneyland. We would have spread it out a bit but that’s how the tickets work. So we spent the day in Disneysea. Well we spent the bulk of the day queuing to be honest. We got a fast pass to the ‘Towa of Tera’, sorry, ‘Tower of Terror’ and then queued for the Indianan Jones ride and then another ride. We went back and did the tower which I must admit although not based on the ‘Twilight Zone’ stuff it had a great drop sequence. We then queued an hour and twenty minutes for the ‘Toy Story’ ride. We watched a couple of shows and then it decided to piss down, which actually was quite useful as it thinned out the crowds. We ate at a sort of buffet thing which was a hell of a price but was cheaper than some options.

Came back to the hotel at about 10PM. Picked up some munchies and beer. Must admit feel fairy tired after the whole day, but have to do a pretty much identical one tomorrow.

Maid cafe – I really thought I’d seen it all

The alarm was set for 9:30, my body clock wasn’t. So at about 11:30 we finally made it out. Jamie was dressed as some sort of preppie, I was dressed as an extra from a death metal band as usual. We walked towards Shinjuku and admired it’s true chaos in daylight.

Hopped on a metro and went to Ginza. The Sony building. Which wasn’t as interesting as I remember it, so did the whole thing in about twenty minutes. Walked round Ginza for a bit. All very pricey. Hopped on a train again and went to Akiharbara. Then spent about an hour trying to find this ‘Maid Cafe’, which Jamie was obsessed about. In the end we didn’t find the exact one as it appeared to no longer exist. However we found this chain on the second floor of a tower block. Now I’ve experienced some strange shit in my life but this really takes the biscuit. There are a bunch of 30 year old woman dressed as 13 year old school girls. Now I just don’t know where it’s coming from. In the restaurant was a couple of guys, a French couple and then a bunch of whats best described as fucking weirdos. One was I’m sure just going through a bus timetable and giggling to himself. There were two others who I’m sure their penises had only ever been used for pissing and self mutilation. Anyway, this ‘Maid’ came to our table and we had to do this little ‘song’ for the candle. Then we ordered some chicken stuff. Jamie went for the set menu which included a photo with the maids. The food was okay. I had a giant beer. Considering I hadn’t drunk anything other than a sip of water since 5AM it was well required. Anyway, after food it just got fucking weirder. The maids puton this show which basically consisted of one standing on a stage lip-syncing to a very loud song, while several of the scary people (who new every move) danced around with glow sticks. It was a weird experience. Very Japanese.

We wandered round Akiharbara for a bit and visited several arcades. Eneded up playing this new type dance game thing which was very fun. Went back to the hotel, felt very tired again so had a little nap.

Then ventured out. We decided to eat traditional Japanese tonight, so found a place which had the dishes in plastic shown outside in the windows. The menus were all very Japanese, I’m very pleased I practiced my “Regarding Chicken, does it exist?”, phrases. I ended up with a rather nice chicken and tomato dish. Very reasonable price as well.

We then ventured off to find a bar. Which we found in about 30 feet. Sat down. All the menus were in Japanese but they understood the concept of ‘large beer’, Asahai. I like this bar. I had two, Jamie had one, it came to 1400 Yen which isn’t divisable by 3 so they didn’t charge me for one. I’ll be back to this place again.

So all in all, a very strange but yet very enjoyable day.

The land of the rising sun

Most of the day is a bit of a blur due to me being up for about thirty hours on the trot. So started off first thing with delivering the dog to the new kennels, she seemed somewhat ancious but I’m sure she’ll fit in just fine.

Then mother arrived and moaned that we were not ready. She then talked about her dull life for about the full hour we were on the way to Bristol airport. Sat at airport. Got a text from mother that the directions I gave her were wrong, well at least she had something to moan about. Got on the first plane to Amsterdam, journey is about four minutes.

Sat in Amsterdam airport for a bit then boarded the 777 to Narita. I watched Les Mis, okay I still think that Russelle Crowe is a bit of a twat but it was a hell of a film. I tried to sleep on the flight, this failed. I even tried to aid it by drinking about seven bottles of those wine miniture things. It was actually avery good Chillien number. Still no avail. The food wasn’t bad. But the flight overall was as boring as hell.

Arrived at Narita airport. Baggage also arrived which was a plus. Picked up the wireless pocket thing we ordered. Good Japanese efficiency there. Got the Narita Express, which isn’t that express. Got to Shinjuku, got on metro system. Found the hotel. All checked into a very nice little suite. We had a bit of a power nap for a few hours. Then ventured out, all a bit scary and very busy towards the main Shinjuku, we ended up in a small place just round the corner from the hotel. Ate pizza, drank lots of Japanese beer. Bought what I thought was milk, it wasn’t, will need to attempt that one again. So now going to call it a fairly early night as been a very very long day.

All packed ready for the off

Started this morning being rather lazy, actually been like that pretty much all day. Didn’t get up until the early afternoon. No we didn’t spend all morning having sex, Jamie kept complaining that jamming his cock up and down to various tunes on Radio 2 was not the way to arouse him.

I got and put the alarm sensor back on the wall and did some packing. Not too bad, the only things we appear to be missing are shaving gel and toothpaste. Everything has been charged up, I’ve got the boarding passes, sorted out the dog food into nice individual bags and got the neighbour to stick the bin out. Fed the lizards and topped up their water bowls. Watered the plants (they will still die). Printed out various directions.

So that’s it really, just need to drop the dog off and off we go.

So if all goes to plan…..my next update will be coming from Tokyo. If it doesn’t it means the plane has crashed and we are probably dead. In which case please look after the dog.

Well thats the last time I’m going in M&S again until I need sensible pants

Didn’t have a great deal planned for today, which was a good idea as I didn’t get an awful lot done. So slept, walked the dog and went to Tesco’s. As we didn’t really need anything for next week I bought huge amounts of chocolate bars, which is the standard holiday food. Still it still came to over sixty quid.

Came back and had lunch. Still needed to obtain more Yen for Jamie and a comb. Tesco had combs but I wasn’t spending a fiver on a comb just because it had the signature of some coiffured twat on it. So ventured into town, went to the post office which was bound to have Yen, it didn’t. Went to Thomas Cooke, which also failed to have any. The lady there though said to try M&S, which I thought was rather a strange idea. However, behind all the sensible underwear lurked an exchange booth where they preceded to have plenty of Yen. So that was all very satisfying.

Oh and I did manage to get a comb, in Boots. It was still 99p for a bit of bloody plastic tat, but at least it was twat signature free.

Well I’ve got as far as printing out a Yokohama bus map

So last day of work for a couple of weeks. So basically it was just chasing round people finishing stuff off, nothing too dramatic. Managed to get up to Unit 6 on the Japanese course, may do a little bit more on the weekend but will probably leave it around there for now.

Walked the dog. Went to pump. Tried to do a copy of Jamie’s passport which failed due to the colour printer not being used for a year and all the inks have dried up. Printed out a map of how to get from the train station to the hotel and another one of the Yokohama bus system, which is so small I can’t read it, but at least I feel I’ve made the effort.

It’s all just so much easier now of course, we are going to be offline for about the duration of the flight and that’s about it. We’ll probably pick up data sim cards there and we are taking a mini router, so we’ll have full wireless access in the room. So any info we want we can obtain there. I did dig out my old passport collection last night, I went to Japan first in 1996 and then again in 1999, so 14 years since the last visit. I’m looking forward to going back to Yokohama, it will be interesting to see how much its changed and whats happened to the old ‘English Tavern’. I have a lot of old memories there, could be quite emotional.

And now the BT line has reached an all new low

So today was still working on database stuff, but hey only one day left on it now. It is all coming together but it is a bit chaotic. Got my hair cut, I seem to have a bit of an ’emo’ fringe, I can dress in black and get all depressed, I think I quite like that idea.

Weather was piss poor, so apart from hair cut I didn’t venture out other than to pick bum boy up from work.

So spent quite a long work day dipping in and out of database stuff waiting for feedback and then going through more Japanese lessons. I’m now about halfway through Unit 5.

Halfway through the afternoon the Zen line dropped and resynced for no apparent reason. It’s now got a 12db margin and is syncing to just over 2mbps, which is just complete shit. I’m not going to piss around with it now but certainly if it continues that way I’ll log a fault with Zen as it used to be about 7mbps.

Watched the first episode of the new ‘Apprentice’, spent most of the time shouting at the telly and saying ‘what a complete cock’.

So one more work day to come and then I must really think about packing, I’ll think about it, but probably won’t do it.

A day without email, actually fairly pleasant

So the pppoe dropped sometime over night. Rather than kicking it I want to see if the auto drop at about 4AM kicks it off again. If it doesn’t I want to see if I can manually restart it using the backup firewall access. So there’s been no email today, pinging the gateway works but it doesn’t get beyond the firewall. It’s actually been quite nice with no annoying spam.

On Saturday I installed DropBox on the Ubuntu server, this involved large amounts of python scripts. I’ve then set up a cron task to tar the apache directories into by home DropBox directory, this then is mirrored on DropBox. Oddly that all works.

Summer is over as it was pissing down today. Took the dog to daycare, she didn’t mind. Went for a run in the drizzle.

Did a lot more Japanese. Still can’t find enough to fill ten days with, so stocking up the phone with crap I need to watch. May take a few Kindle books as well. Two more days of work left, yey.

Three suitcases and a step ladder

Woke up in a pile of sweat. It was either a very hot evening or I’m going through ‘the change’. Actually started early, so I could finish vaguely on time. Working on dull stuff for the next four days, but it’s only four days, so grin and bare it.

Managed to get in a few more bits of Japanese revision in breaks. Went out for a run. Finished on time so went out to Almondsbury to find another Geocache. Spent about twenty minutes thundering about in a thorny bush, I was looking for a nano-cache not attempting a dogging feat. Failed.

Came back home and once again failed to find a decent location for three suitcases and a step ladder. They are currently all sat on the landing, every time I need to move across the landing I have to shift them all around. They will probably stay their for eternity.

I realise that we are going to be in Tokyo for ten nights, so far we have Tokyo Disneyland for two days, nothing else planned, better have a look.

Tonight is very warm, the dog is asleep in her basket, even she can’t be arsed to do anything.