Goodbye Japanese Alps....Hello hip and happening Tokyo!

Snowploughing over a little jump (before a spectacular crash into Gunnar!)

On Friday morning, we ventured out for our last day of skiing, albeit in the rain. We were so lucky with the weather whilst in Hakuba, we had sun most days and fresh snow on one day. It began raining on Friday and continued until we left on Saturday morning. After several farewell drinks on Friday night with our new friends, it was time to head off to Tokyo on Saturday morning.

Our amazing hosts, Konno and Junko.

Shopping in Tokyo! After a fairly uncomfortable bus trip to Nagano (we had to sit in the aisle), we arrived in Tokyo, stored our luggage and hit the town, hoping to buy some affordable souvenirs to take home. Our first stop was a stunning paper shop, where I oohed and ahhed over the beautiful products, only choosing a few small ones to purchase as it was incredibly expensive. We then found ourselves in the designer precinet where we felt very out of place - Tokyo is so sophisticated and chic, we definitely felt like the country bumpkins wandering around in awe! However, I can sniff out a bargain and we found ourselves in FCUK where they were having a 70% off sale, so we now can say we belong the fashionable set of Tokyo!

There are vending machines like this all over Tokyo.

Shibuya crossing - people everywhere!

We decided to continue our exploration of modern Tokyo and headed to the Shibuya area where all the young and trendy Tokyoites hang out. Again, we felt out of place, so after several wrong turns in the huge department stores, we decided to head to the movies. I adore the movies and haven't been for so long, so it was incredibly exciting to not only find an English movie but one I also wanted to see! After a lovely Italian dinner (yum, not to be found in Wuxi!!), we settled in to watch 'Lars and the Real Girl' - great movie if you haven't seen it! The movies provided another cultural insight - not one single person made a sound before, during or after the movie and everyone waited until all the credits had finished rolling before leaving, I wonder if some westerners could learn from this?!

Trendy Shibuya area at night.

From the traditional .......

Gunnar left early this morning, heading back to Wuxi for work, whilst I stay on to visit the Yokohama International School, about 30 minutes out of Tokyo. After he left this morning, I was trying to have a bit of a sleep in (after a late night making lots of wrong turns on the subway system!), when I was rudely awaken by a series of tremors in the ground - I won't exaggerate and say that it was an earthquake, but it was enough to rattle everything in the room and was quite scary.

....... to the freakish

Melbourne goths and emos have something to learn from the cosplay teenagers!

After my little scare this morning, I set off into Tokyo to find the famous cosplay area. Those involved in cosplay (costume play) dress up as cartoon characters and other weird and wonderful creatures and spend their weekends hanging out near a train station - imagine Flinders Street station only bigger and classier. As well as the cosplay teenagers, there were heaps of tourists, busily snapping away at them. A very interesting sight! Around this area is also where these people shop - fascinating and bizarre shops to be found. I stumbled across a small Japanese antique market here and really enjoyed wandering through examining the goods for sale. There was a lot of war memorablia and lots of beautiful vintage photo albums, still filled with family pictures. I wonder how people can sell such precious family treasures?

A pleasant find - a Japanese antique market with affordable prices! I then wandered to a nearby temple for a look at the more traditional Tokyo but didn't stay long, I'd had enough of the crowds by then. So I did as I always seem to do in big cities in Asia, headed for the bookstore where I spent a pleasant hour browsing the large selection of English books. I am now in Yokohama, a lovely harbour city that I'm looking forward to exploring after my school visit tomorrow.