Jamma’s blog

Here's a quick blog with pictures of our beautiful baby boy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We woke up early to get to the Station to get our train back to Narita Airport. This was by far one of the worse experiences we had in Japan as we had to lug all our large heavy luggage around the station and then we had to squeeze onto the train where I literally sat on my case and hung on to the air conditioning unit as we were packed in like sardines. After eventually arriving at Shinjuku station we set about trying to get to the right place to get back to the Airport. We walked for what seemed like miles before finally reaching the correct part of the station. Charlotte paid for three tickets for the train then I realised that we had missed the train we were supposed to get! Exhausted and annoyed I started to panic but Rich saved the day as earlier he had seen an Airport Bus service that runs from the train station. We went to see if we could get that and we were in luck. We got on the bus and got to the Airport with time to spare.

Here's Charlotte waiting to check-in. The trolley infront of her bears the advertising of the company that her dad works for! We checked in with no problems and got on the plane which after 11hours would get us to Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

 We got to Schiphol Airport at just gone four in the afternoon. As our filght wasn't until nine we had planned to leave the airport and have a look around Amsterdam. However we had not planned that we would have a load of hand luggage and it was absolutely pissing it down. Instead we opted to stay in the Airport and just relax before our hour flight back to Birmingham. Here's a picture of Charlotte with Schiphol's Ronald McDonald...

... and here's me with him in a different pose.

This is a picture of a strange sculpture at the Airport. It takes up quite a lot of space and doesn't really serve a purpose so is effectively a big waste of space and money in my eyes.

 Here is the final picture I had taken from our holiday. This is the plane which would take us back to sunny England/Birmingham. With that our Japan holiday was complete. I'd love to go back one day to visit Paul again and for yet more great experiences. I'd like to see Mt Fuji and go to the theme park at it's base and also visit some more areas such as Yokohama and Osaka, as well as going back to Kyoto to see more stunning shrines.

For our last full day in Japan we chose to just have a relaxing day shopping to pick up the final things that we wanted to buy for ourselves and those back home.

We went to Shibuya initially as we had not done any shopping here previously, however, there were no shops that were any good here so we ended up going back to Asakusa and Akihabara again. This is a picture of a strange man dressed in pink at the famous Shibuya crossing. He was trying to get people to do exercises as they waited at the crossing. It was not till later when we met up with Paul and Kozue that we found out that he was actually a member of a political party?! Here's another picture of the famous busy Shibuya Crossing. As you can see the weather was miserable. Umbrella's were a must here but I didn't have much luck as during our stay in Japan I got through at least three umbrellas.

Here's another vending machine that we spotted in another train station. This one sells umbrellas!

We completed our final bits of shopping then went back to the hotel to rest up before meeting up with Paul and Kozue for the final time. That evening we went to a restaurant with them where we had a good final meal. It was quite an eventful night as we came across the most grumpy Japanese person in the form of our waitress who completely forgot my order and didn't seem to care about it much. I had to wait till after everyone finished there food before I got mine! Whilst Charlotte was eating Rich spotted something moving near her. He found a praying mantis which was in a very sorry state that was crawling over Charlotte before Rich spotted it. To get back at the grumpy/unhelpful waitress I paid for our meals using all of our change. In Japan they would count out all the money to make sure that it is correct. Unfortunately though the waitress must have finished her shift and a different person collected the money. It was quite excruciating to watch him count out all the money as he lost count at one point and had to start again. After the meal we went back to the station and said our final farewell to Paul and Kozue. We got back to the hotel for our final night in Japan.

As this day was a Sunday we decided to take a trip to Harajuku. Here we had read that on weekend days here you have an opportunity to see the youth of Japan dressed in bizarre outfits. We arrived at Harajuku Station fairly early in the day. We decided to go into Yoyogi Park as here it was said that the youngsters hang out here. We entered the Park at an entrance which led us up to what you can see above. What they are barrels which once contained saki. They are decorated by the people who have donated them to the Meiji Jingu shrine which is also in this park.

This is the main gate entrance (Torii) to the Meiji Jingu Shrine. We didn't plan on going to the shrine but as we were here we decided to have a look. This is a view of the Meiji Jingu Shrine from inside the grounds. As you can see it is really busy here. There was actually a wedding being held here on this day and we were lucky enough to see the procession just before we left the shrine. Here is a picture of the said procession. As you can see we could get right up close to take pictures and no one seemed to mind. I took some pictures and then we left. We headed back out of the park to find the main entrance to the park bit of Yoyogi Park. We discovered that we would have to walk around the side of the park to get to the main entrance. As we walked around we came across lots of Japanese youngsters playing music. There were several bands along one stretch of path all with their unique styles. Here is another one of the bands that we saw. These were smartly dressed and played a strange mix of rock music mixed with a new age jazz. After listening to some of the bands we continued on to get to the main entrance of Yoyogi Park. We got there and were met by the sight of this graffiti on the overhead pass at the entrance to the park. This piece is next to the other graffiti on the overhead pass. Apart from this I didn't really spot much graffiti in Japan. This looks like it is a commissioned piece for the park and is unspoilt by other would-be artists. We entered the park and had a walk around. Here we saw various groups of people indulging in various activities such as playing football, doing some kind of Tai-Chi, playing other games and just generally enjoying themselves. After a circuit of the park we went to do some shopping in Harajuku. In Harajuku there is one shopping street of note. This is a picture of the entrance to Takeshita-Dori, this is a shopping street which holds lots of bargains. Here you can pick up things such as music, clothing, fast food, coffee all at low prices. As you can see this street is rammed with people and was quite a struggle to walk around. After doing a bit of shopping here we decided that we would spend most of the day shopping as this was one of our last days in Japan and we still had lots of money to buy keepsakes and gifts for people back home. First though I wanted to go to the zoo in Ueno as I wanted to see one of the endangered Panda's This is a picture of something we came across at one of the train stations. It was in a glass case and is apparently Panda-Land!? Little did I know that this is as close as we would get to a panda in Japan. We did want to visit the zoo to see one but just as we got there the Zoo was closing and anyway apparently the last one had died earlier on in the year! Doh! After just missing going to the zoo we walked back through the park in Ueno. Here we stopped for a breather and watched some baseball that was being played in the park. After the short stop we went on our way to do some get some food and do our shopping. We went to a KFC to get a bite to eat and saw this amusing sign. At a quick glance it appears normal but on closer inspection a rogue "R" had snuck into the smoking signs. Here is a quite scary looking KFC Colonel. He stood outside of the restaurant to attract (or detract) customers. For our final bits of shopping I decided to go to the places where we thought had the best shops. We agreed that some of the best shops were at Asakusa and Akihabara. This is a picture of a display of robots in one of the shops in Akihabara. These manga shops were among my favourite kind in Japan. After a day of shopping we decided to go to Shibuya for the evening to do one last experience that we wished to do whilst in Japan- Karaoke! Unfortunately for people reading this but fortunately for us we did not take any video whilst in the karaoke. The place we chose was the same Karaoke joint which was used in the film Lost in Translation. After eventually finding the place we decided to have an hour there to sing songs such as This Charming Man by The Smiths and Turning Japanese by The Vapors. It was a strange experience as here you are given a private room to sing which was good for me because I'm rubbish at singing therefore probably wouldn't have sung in public! After the Karaoke we went back to our hotel to get some rest before our last full day in Japan.

After the commercialism of the Disney Parks we decided to take a trip out of Tokyo. We planned to go to Japan's old capital- Kyoto. To get here we would need to take the bullet train or "Shinkansen". It is around a three hour train journey to get there so yet again it was an early start.

Here's a picture of one of the Bullet Trains. These travel up to speeds of 186mph, however you cannot really feel the speed and it is a very relaxing and smooth ride.

Here's Charlotte on the train. We had hoped to kill two birds with one stone in that we hoped to see Mt Fuji on this journey. For some reason though we missed it, we must have been kipping or were on the wrong side to see it. This was unfortunate as Mt Fuji was one of the things we wanted to see. On arrival at Kyoto we set about to find some interesting temples that Paul had told us about a couple of days ago. He had scribbled down for us a quick map pointing out where the interesting parts are. As we were on the train for over three hours we knew that we did not have a great deal of time to spend here as we didn't plan on stopping here for the night. We got out of the station and I Ied us the way which Paul's map took us. After what seemed like miles we saw the top of a pagoda so headed in that direction. We came across this temple which after getting a pamphlet we found it's name "Toji Temple". This was not one of the ones that Paul had marked so we was a bit confused as to where we were. Still as we were already here we decided to have a look around. Here's some images of the Toji Temple and it's surrounding grounds. We realised when were here that we were in fact in completely the wrong place so we headed back in the direction of the train station. This was a shame because we spent a lot of time getting to the Toji Temple and it took a while to get back to the station. Therefore I had wasted a lot of our time here and it was well past midday now. On arrival at the station we did the sensible thing of going to get some information on how to get about. Eventually we got a bus ticket that would take us around Kyoto. We had initially walked in completely the wrong direction! I had led us out the wrong exit of the train station! Doh! We got off the bus at the first place Paul had mentioned which was in the district of Gion. We found the temple that he had mentioned and as you can probably see the entrance was not that hard to find as it was bright orange! This was the Chionin Temple. Here's one of the main buildings within the temple grounds. Here we saw some girls dressed in Geisha costumes. They are in this picture but you can barely see them. They rang the bells on the exterior of this building. Like the Senso-ji Temple and Toji Temple the buildings here were quite stunning.

Here is another impressive looking building. I'm not sure what is written on the many lanterns which hang from this building though.

Here's another building on the Chionin Temple grounds. In the front of this picture you can see pieces of paper which are tied to pieces of string on a frame. What this is, is pieces of paper that you get by donating some money, you then take a piece of paper from a drawer at random which gives you a fortune reading. Those who get paper with bad luck on it usually tie it to this frame. This is supposed to do away with the bad luck.

 

As we walked around the grounds of this temple we soon realised that this was going to take a while to get around the whole place. We took our time at this Temple as we wanted to take in the scenery. This is a picture of what Charlotte called the "Famous Tree" we don't know if it is really famous but it did look nice!

Here's Rich in the grounds of the Temple. As you can see in the background the sun was begining to set so we didn't have much time left here.

Here's Charlotte in the grounds of the Temple.

Here you can see the sun nearly set. I took this picture as we exited the temple. Again this was one of my favourite pictures I took in Japan as it shows the old and the modern with nice lighting.

I love this picture! This picture summed up our experience in Kyoto. Both Charlotte and Rich were annoyed at me for getting initially lost here and it didn't help when we got taken back to the bus depot and kicked of the bus because it was the end of the line! We had to find another bus to get on to get back to the station to catch our bullet train back to Tokyo.

We arrived back in Tokyo late on in the evening. We got back Hatagaya where our hotel was really late but we were all starving. This is a picture of Rich in the place where we went to eat. This was a fast food restaurant called Moss Burger. We had eaten here before and enjoyed it. I liked this place not really because of the food but for the kind old Japanese man who ran it. He had a good grasp of English and was always happy to see us and have a chat about what we did that day. Rich found the Chilli-Dog on this napkin holder funny so I took this picture for him.

 

Today was the second day of our Disney experience this time at the Tokyo Disney Park. This time it was just Me, Charlotte and Rich as Paul and Kozue had already been here before.

This is the dispay just outside of the park again marking the 25 years of Tokyo Disney.

Here's Charlotte by some of her favourite Disney characters, the Aliens from Toy Story.

Here's the entrance to one of my favourite rides in the Disney park. They had changed the usually crappy Haunted Mansion ride in to the Nightmare Before Christmas- Holiday Nightmare ride! Although all the speaking parts were in Japanese the animatronic Jack Skeletons were amazing and I would have thought quite scary for kids as they stood around 10 feet tall!

This ride was by far the longest that we had to wait to get on a ride where we waited around an hour and a half at least. There was some respite though as we were treated to views like this and of the following pictures too.

 

I thought these displays were really cool and made up a little for the fact we had to wait so long.

I couldn't go to Disney without taking a picture of the iconic Cinderella Castle. Here it is with Dumbos flying infront of it.

 As darkness descended we were treated to a Disney light parade that went around the whole of the Park. Here favourite characters from Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Toy Story and all the other Disney characters ride huge spectacularly lit up floats.

This is the Pete's magical Dragon float. A Disney favourite of mine when I was younger.

Again the last picture of the day is back where we started the day at the display outside the front of the park. Our Disney experience was over. We all agreed that whilst we had enjoyed both of the Parks, the queuing overshadows the enjoyment making it a long drawn-out exhausting day/s.

Today was a day which we had planned with Paul and Kozue to go to Disney Sea. In Tokyo there are two Disney parks which are side-by-side. There is Disney Sea which has slightly more grown-up rides and Tokyo Disney which caters more for the younger generation. A few days previously Paul and Kozue took us to the Disney store to get some tickets. As they had already been to Tokyo Disney they were not fussed with going there but they wanted to go to Disney Sea. We decided to get a two day pass so that we could have a day in each park. This was the first day of out two-day Disney experience.

Here's a picture of Kozue just outside the Disney Sea park by a huge fountain. Everything about the park is big, flamboyant and completely over the top. This is the main entrance to the park. This year marked 25 years of the Disney Parks in Tokyo. This was a mini show that we came across as we walked through the park. I couldn't understand what the strange scientist men were saying but it was pretty funny anyway. This is the first ride that we chose to go on, the Indiana Jones ride. One bad thing about Disney is the queuing, sometimes you can wait literally hours to get on a ride which is over in 5 minutes. We got lucky with this one as I don't think we had to wait that long for this one. This is the inside of the Indiana Jones Temple, this is what you see whilst you are in the queue. When we eventually got on the ride I was very impressed with the animatronic Harrison Ford's, they looked very lifelike but it was funny hearing him speaking in Japanese. The ride itself was impressive too! there was lots of action and some real impressive parts. The best part was when Indiana is hanging from a rope above, he shouts something down to you then a massive boulder a la Raiders of the Lost Ark comes hurtling towards you. Just before it nearly gets you, you go down a dip under it which at the same time takes a picture. After exiting the ride you can see the picture that was taken. Our picture was really good, I was impressed as to how we all kept our cool as the boulder nearly hit us (eh Paul!). This is a picture of thge Msterious Island's Mount Prometheus. Inside of this was the Journey to the Centre of the Earth ride which we went on and again was very impressed. This is one of my favourite Disney pictures. We were walking down one part of the park and Micky, Mini and Pluto emerged from a gateway. No sooner than they had emerged the Japanese people swarmed them. I joined in to take this picture of Mini and Mickey Mouse being mobbed. This is a picture of Me and Charlotte on the Disney Sea Transit Steamer Line. This takes you around the park for some stunning views. We went on this later in the day so it was dark and everthing was beautifully lit up. This is a picture of by far my most favourite ride in the park. This is the Tower of Terror. We enjoyed this so much that we ventured onto it a couple of times. This ride takes you on a tour of an old abandoned Hotel which is apparently haunted. The ride ends with you being put in an elevator where you sit down and get taken up the various floors, suddenly the elevator gets possessed and you are taken right up to the top of the tower where the doors open and you get a birds-eye-view of the park, next the elevator droops at alarming speed and then continues to jolt up and down until finallly the ordeal is over. Again I cant beleive how brave we all were on this ride, it would have been easy to have let out a girly scream but we all stayed strong! (Eh Paul!) Here's the last picture that I took this day back where we started at the fountain with the globe which in the dark was now beautifully lit like the rest of the park. We went back to our Hotel looking forward to our next day of Disney!

After such an action-packed day yesterday we decided to have more of a relaxing day. We started the day by making our way to Ginza where we opted to go see a traditional Japanese play which is called Kabuki.

While waiting to go into the Theater Rich got a drink out of the vending machine. This is a can of coke which is also a bottle?! I'd never seen one before and wonder whether they will come out over here. Unfortunately you cannot take pictures inside the theater so this is the only picture that I have of this experience. The play we saw was ok but it was tedious in parts as we only had a headset which translates what is going on, on the stage so we found it hard to follow the plot. It was an ok experience but probably not something I would go to again unless the play was a ghost story rather than a drama like what we saw. We wanted to do some shopping today and I read how Ginza was a shopping district, however all the shops were super expensive so we went back to Akihabara to find some bargains. We went into the big department store and came across this in the electrical department. This was the biggest tv that I have ever seen on sale. It was around three metres wide and nearly up to my shoulder in height! After a day of shopping we took our luggage to our final place of stay- a Hotel in Hatagaya. This was a far cry away from the hostel as we had our own toilets and bathrooms and it was very comfortable. For this evening we decided to go back to Shinjuku and go have a drink at the Hotel where Bill Murray stopped in Lost in Translation. We got to the Park Hyatt Hotel and made our way inside up the elevator to the 52nd floor to the New York Bar. It was a strange feeling being in there as I was only sat a couple of metres away from where Bill Murray sat in the film. This is a picture of the view we had from our table. We were sat right infront of the Jazz band which played as we drank very potent and expensive cocktails. This is me in at our table. Just over my shoulder is where Bill Murray sat in the film. Here's Charlotte with her golden Margerita. I don't know whether it was the altitude we were drinking at or the amount of alcohol in the drinks but I felt incredibly light headed after just two cocktails! This is a picture of one of the murals inside the bar. As soon as we entered this place we knew that it was very high class. After having a couple of drinks each we decided to leave as it was incredibly expensive. We decided to go for a drink in Kabuki Cho which is kind of the red light district of Tokyo. After walking around for a while we found a decent bar to drink in. The prices of the drinks were not as expensive as I had imagined and were certainly more reasonable than the New York Bar. After having a few drinks we retired back to our hotel knowing that we had a fun packed day in store tomorrow as we had booked to go to Tokyo Disney Sea!

Today was the day where Paul had arranged for us to do a secret activity. All I was told was that we needed to go to Nishi-Shinjuku Station in the morning and wear comfortable clothing suitable for doing exercise. Paul met up with us here to reveal that the activity he had arranged for us was Samurai Sword training. Now this itself would have been amazing but it was made even better when he told me that the teacher would be Kill Bill actor Tetsuro Shimaguchi (Crazy 88 Miki!). Paul had asked my little brother to secretly bring along my Kill Bill Dvd so I could get it signed.

This is Tetsuro as Miki in the film Kill Bill. We were taken from the station by a guide to a studio. Here we met with Tetsuro and his assistant. They introduced themselves then we got to hold a real samurai sword. What we were training with would be wooden swords (bokkens). We were taught the various stances and strikes then had the privilage of practising the moves against the assistant and then Tetsuro himself! The conclusion of the session involved us doing a short routine with Tetsuro's assistant followed by us dressing in a traditional samurai costume to pose for photographs. This by far was the best thing we did whilst in Japan, it was a fantastic experience. Here's me posing with Tetsuro (left) and his assistant. Here's Charlotte's photo... ...and finally Rich's. Here's my attempt at the routine. As well as each of us trying the routine we were treated to see how it is meant to be done by Tetsuro and his assistant.

This is what they showed us.

 

Here's my prized possession of my signed Kill Bill Dvd! After the session we spoke with Tetsuro and he told us how he enjoys English football and how he has visited the United Kingdom appearing at festivals. After our chat we were led back to the station where we met up with Paul and Kozue to embark on yet another activity packed day!

Paul took us to a park in Shinjuku which was absolutey stunning. It is situated right in the Heart of Shinjuku which is one of Tokyo's more livelier districts. This was a good contrast to the sword play that we had embarked on earlier.

Just beyond the greenery in the background stands the collossal skyscrapers. This park is called Shinjuku-Gyoen Park and it is easy to see why this is rated as one of Tokyo's top attractions.

After walking around the park Paul took us to one of the skyscrapers in the distance. He took us to the Metropolitan Government Building where we went up to the viewing floor where you can look out onto Tokyo.

Here's one off the views that we were treated to, I think that the greenery in the centre of this picture is the park that we had just come from.

 This building is the Park Hyatt Hotel. This is the very hotel that was used in the Bill Murray film Lost in Translation. Most of the film is set in this hotel and the surrounding area. We found out that you can actually visit the bar which was used in the film where Bill Murray drinks the famous Suntory whiskey and listens to the Jazz band.

After spending much of the evening in the Government Bulding we decided to leave just as the sun was setting. It was then that I managed to capture this amazing sight of sunset over Toyko. With another great day over we headed back to our new accommodation for the night, the Capsule Hotel in Akihabara.

We arrived at the hotel with our suitcases and checked in to the hotel. Charlotte would be staying on a separate floor as women and men had separate floors. Our rooms were capsules which measured 1metre squared by 2metres long. They had an air conditioning unit, radio, light, alarm clock and Tv. It was a surreal experience as the capsules were tight together and stacked on top of each other. I was given a bottom capsule and above me was where Rich ws sleeping.

Here's me in my Capsule in my sleeping gear that is provided.

Here's Rich in his capsule.

Here is the view from my capsule. You can see the TV that is built in the capsule and you can also just make out the bamboo roller shutter that is the only thing that separates you from the rest of the capsules. I had been told horror stories about staying in these capsules where people say that it is uncomfortable, claustophobic and you get drunken Japanese people making lots of noise- none of this was true of my experience. I found the capsule very comfortable, strangely roomy and I had a great nights sleep there. All in all another good experience. 

We started our day like others, planning what we would do and where we would go. As we had a fairly early night yesterday we decided to venture to see the Tsukiji fish market.

This was our final day at the Hostel in Asakusa and we were not sad to see the back of it. Our room was literally two bunk beds, a metre square floor space and an air conditioning unit. The bathrooms and toilets were communal and there was lots of different nationalities staying here. It wasn't a bad experience but we were looking forward to trying out the Capsule hotel in Akihabara. We got off the train at Tsukiji and mused at the information map at the station trying to figure out how to get to the market. This is when we met a very kind old Japanese man who came up to us and asked if we were looking for the market, he said follow me and led us out the station and down the street. He told us that the Market was down this road and we could not miss it. With that we thanked him and he turned and went back the way he came. It was obvious to us that he had gone completely out of his way to show us where the market was. This was not the only kindness we experienced in Japan, In every shop you are made to feel so welcome and in most places no matter what you buy on leaving all the staff will come out to say goodbye and thankyou. From what I had been told Japanese people would be more stand-offish but we never had a bad experience whilst we were there. Anyway we found the market and began to walk through it's narrow lanes looking at the strange fish, squid and other seafood on offer. Although we got there early in the day the market was already winding down with swarms of people taking their purchases back to their shops to sell. As you can see from this picture even though the market was coming to a close it was still busy with people. You literally could not stop walking as there was not enough room to get past down some lanes. As well as lots of fish and seafood in polystyrene containers on ice there were tanks full of various fish and sealife. Here you can see fish and eels quite clearly. There are many sights at the fish market and if you can stand the smells then I can see why this is regarded as a tourist attraction. Here you can see them cutting the fish up into parts, the floor is awash with blood in some parts so this isn't an attraction for the squeamish. Down some of the wider aisles you had to be careful not to get ran over by one of these contraptions. These are mini transporters which are used by people purchising vast amounts to transport their goods back to their vans. We left the market and decided as it was early in the day we would investigate as to the possibly of getting tickets for sumo. We got back on the subway and made our way to Ryogoku. We stood outside the sumo halls trying to made sense of the box office signs when a Japanese woman walked up to us asking in English if we would like to see the sumo. We asked if we could get some tickets and was amazed when she said that there were some available for today. She helped us purchase tickets, were given a booklet in English as to the days events and we entered the halls. Inside I bought a superb T-shirt with caracaturised sumo on. We were told that the tickets were for the whole day so we decided to go get some breakfast as it was still early. Here is me and Rich outside the building with a sumo mural as the backdrop. After leaving and refueling we went back to the sumo halls and took our seats for the day's events. This is the what the inside of the sumo halls look like. it is quite a spectacular view. As this was early in the day with the lower division wrestlers fighting there were quite a lot of emplty seats. We watched enthusiastically as this was one experience that we were all looking forward to and at the bargain price of around £10.50 each per ticket we excited as to how the day would go. This picture shows the main fighting ring. Judges sit around the edge of the ring to see who is pushed out first and to judge the throws. Next to the judges on the left and right sit the sumos who are waiting to fight. I wouldn't want to fight the one sat in the top left, he was masssive! One of the biggest blokes we saw all day. Here is our view of the sumo from our seats. This is later on in the day when the higher division sumos were wrestling. When most people think of sumo they will just think of two fat men pushing each other around but that is far from the case. These men are atheletes and although they are bulky when they lock together you can see the muscles rippling and the sheer brute force. Sorry for the poor picture quality but these are my faviourite bouts of the day. This first one shows an unfortunate judge!

This was one of the main bouts of the day with one of the Yokozunas involved. Something tells me that they weren't happy with the result of this one.

After the day of Sumo we walked back to Asakusa along the river for our final night at Khaosan Tokyo Smile Hostel. This was one of my favourite days that we had in Japan.