the end.

I'm home now, and I have been for a little while, but here's the rest of the story anyway...

From Shin-Osaka we caught the Shinkasen (that is not the correct spelling, I know) to Tokyo. Tokyo Station is the MOST horrid place to find your way around, ever. Fortunately, they have a little old lady at the information counter whose job it is to give you directions (win). So we visited her, and then managed to find our way to our hostel.

At the hostel we were met by Summa's friend Sandra.  She took us to Harajuku for the afternoon.  I know this place is famous, kitsch and full of more tourists then locals, but it is genuinely excellent.  There are so many young people everywhere, crazy fashion, retailers calling to you and tourists snapping away with their digital slr's. So we spent the afternoon walking around and gawping at the clothes. I got followed around for a while by some crazy old Japanese man with bleached blonde hair for a while which was entertaining.  Then we went to a restaurant called Gonpachi.   Apart from being totally excellent, this restaurant is famous for two main reasons: firstly George Bush and the Japanese Prime Minister ate here last time Gee Dubbaya was about, and secondly (and more importantly) Quentin Tarantino modeled part of the set of Kill Bill on the interior.

Monday was Ghibli Museum day and OH MY GAWD I was so excited it was actually embarrassing.  We caught the train to an outer suburb/city called Mitaka to see the museum.  Basically, the museum was full of screaming children (children in a museum seem weird and wrong, especially when they are screaming and in the way and existing).  But anyway, the museum is wonderful and beautiful, but in Japanese so a little bit limited for international visitors.  Mind you, for me the most important element of Miyazaki's work is the transportive quality of the images and the ideas, so it wasn't really a problem.

Tuesday was DISNEYLAND DAY (!) and gosh it was fantastic.  In Tokyo there are two Disneyland's (I'm not even joking), we went to Disney Sea.  Many rides, ice creams, photo opportunities and the purchase of one crazy sparkly red bow for my hair later it was 8pm and we'd stayed to see the 'big show' which was big and filled with fireworks, lights and more sparkly things.

Wednesday was our last day in Japan.  We went for a walk from our hostel to the Imperial Palace to have a nosy around.  Then lunch. Then we missioned on off to the airport hideously early in order to miss the famous Tokyo subway rush hour of doom.

And then we flew home. The end.

Love you and missed you.