Tokyo (Day 1)

We land at 9:50am after two uneventful legs (8hrs to Singapore, 6hrs to Tokyo) - Hoorray, we made it to Asia!

We sort out our metro cards and away we go to find our hotel. Transport is easy (lots of English in the stations) and we have no problems finding our place. We can't check in for a few hours though, so we dump our bags and head straight for food.

Our hotel is on the ourskirts of the big district of Shinjuku. It's a Saturday and everything is pretty quiet, but we find a hole-in-the-wall ramen place and try our luck. We are directed to what looks like a cigarette machine and place our order
by feeding in some notes and picking some options based on the pictures. 2 minutes later we are knee deep in our first Japanese ramen (and some gyoza, of course). The noodles are actually cold, but once we pour in the hot broth, it makes no difference. Freaking delicious.

With a belly full of ramen we head out and aim for the Imperial Palace which is nearby. Its about 10 degrees outside, so good walking weather. We clock up a few KMs and start taking in our new city. We are getting USA vibes for sure; an interesting East meets West which I'm sure we'll be exposed to more over the next 2 weeks.

We check out the Imperial Palace, but you can't really see much. It's only open twice a year.

We head back to the hotel and check in. A quick power nap and now its time to get our plan for the night sorted. We hit the street and aim for the heart of Shinjuku which should have plenty going on on a Saturday night. The walk is about 30 mins
and the city lights up more and more with every block. Eventually we are right in the thick of it and you could be forgiven for thinking you're in Time Square at times. We are here for the "alleys" to find a small bar for some drinks and a bit of
grub. We get the first part right (a drink), but we want somewhere else for food. We head around the corner and find a few options, hilariously wandering into a Chinese place. Eh, close enough, dumplings are on the menu, that's the main thing.

We head to the more official "Golden Gai", a small block of a few alley-ways with ridiculously small bars holding around 10 people at a time. We wandered through and walked into a few. Courtney nearly knocked herself out on a low hanging beam in
one of them - that gives you an idea of what we're dealing with.

We find one a little more accomodating of our size and have a drink and a chat with the locals behind the bar, and some tourists from the Pacific North West. As we find out, the largers on tap in Tokyo are all frothed up with what seems like extra CO2 so the head is silky. I could get used to this.

We wander around for a bit more and take in all the sights. We stumble upon a potential "casino" so we have a look. It's closed, but the guy who is packing up lets us know its a poker room. I'm still not clear on what the legalities are around
gambling in Japan. There seems to be a lot of slot machines and "pachinko" places around, but no proper casinos. Stay tuned.

Jeff has "hitting baseballs in a cage" on his list, and we tick that off tonight. For 300 Yen you get 20 odd pitches blasted at you at whichever speed you want. A very cool setup. Courts jumps in and goes 1 for 20. Not bad.

We decide to keep it low-key tonight and grab a cab back to the hotel. Not a bad start. Looking forward to more!