Sun 1 Sept 2002 - Today I went to meet my future flat mate. After frantically trying to find a place to live in when I first arrived in Tokyo, I realised that on my budget, I could only afford a 20square metre studio apartment. The 20 sq metre room did not bother me... it was quite an okay size for a bedroom but it was the tiny cubicle bathroom & toilet in one and the tiny stove which they called a 'kitchen' which were most disappointing. So once I discovered that another girl was joining my firm, I emailed her and asked her to be my flatmate coz that way we could get a 2 bedroom apartment for cheaper and with a bigger bathroom and proper kitchen!! Everyone was worried for me and kept asking "What if you don't like her? What if she has 2 heads and 3 eyes??".......... but she turned out to be quite a normal, friendly Canadian girl. However, what surprised me the most was that she was around the same height as me!! She told me that when she walks along the streets of Tokyo, she actually doesn't feel so short anymore (compared to her Canadian experiences). I definitely feel the same way........

Sat 31 August 2002 - Today was the last day of Summer so I thought I had better make it to the beach. My Japanese girlfriend and I were gonna take our very first surfing lesson. We travelled 1.5 hours on the train to Hochigoe Beach. I was amazed at the sight of the beach. The sand was black.... no kidding. The grains of sand were a mix of black and white and so the whole beach just looked charcoal in colour. The waves were small (thank god !! I had heard that there was a typhoon down south but it didn't affect this beach), the water murky and the sea-bed rocky. But the surfing was fun. The Japanese instructor was cute and very nice. He only knew a few words of English but tried to explain to me with a lot of body actions. It was very funny ! Afterwards, the surfshop held a bbq (Japanese style) next to the beach. It was celebrating the fact that summer was over and they could surf any time they wanted. You see, in summer, people were not allowed to surf between 10am and 4pm because there were too many swimmers in the water. We had lots of beer, sake and Aussie beef.....hehehe. Then we played with fireworks on the beach. It was such a beautiful night. Next to us on the beach was a rave party. Lots of young Japanese were dancing to the trance-like music on the beach throughout the whole day and night. They were crazy!! I spoke to alot of Japanese people that night. They were all very friendly although they really didn't understand what I was saying and I didn't really understand what they were saying. Maybe I should become a surfie chick...... bleach my hair blonde and get a really dark tan ??

Binny-san

Sat 24 Aug 2002 - The MATSURI was on at Azabu-Juban. Matsuri is a festival held in summer in various areas around tokyo. There are heaps of people ..... the girls and boys are sometimes dressed in their traditional summer clothing (the Yukata). One area had all the international foods - Thai, Spanish, Korean, Chinese, Brazilian, etc. The other area was a street full of Japanese foods and drinks. Yummy!! I went crazy just trying everything. And I managed to buy two hand bags for the bargain price of 1,000 yen and 1,500 yen. It was really cool just to be part of the Japanese festival - I almost wanted to try the traditional dancing.

Binny-san

Friday 23 Aug 2002 - Tonite was my first all-nighter. Since trains only run until midnight and cabs cost a fortune, alot of Japanese ppl stay out all night so that they can catch the first train home at 5am. I was invited to a closing down party at a restaurant in Ebisu. They were knocking down the restaurant and building a 5 storey business block instead. There was so much food and drinks .... and the best part was that it was FREE !! Apparently it is cheaper to just give away all your alcohol than to store it somewhere.... that's just good news to us. By about 3am, I was feeling really sleeping and was deciding whether I should get a cab home. My friends were telling me to expect at the ride to cost at least 7,000 yen (about $100 AUD). However, everyone wanted to go karaoking so we did...... we sang until 6am in the morning. In Japan, peak times for karaoke is actually between 4am and 6am. This is because they need something to do while they wait for their first train home. It's bizarre. The all-nighter just totally stuffed up my body clock for the rest of the weekend. But I do envisage many more of these nights.

Binny-san

Sat 16 Aug 2002 - Together we went to Shinjuku station to meet up with some people for our trip to Mount Fuji. There were 8 of us in total but one had not arrived. We purchased our bus tickets and got on the bus. The bus had started to move but was stopped at the lights to let Harvey (an English guy) on. He awas very lucky! Bus trip was about 2.5 hours. As soon as we got off the bus, the cold air hit us. It was nothing like the horrible heat of the city. Everyone started to put layers of clothes on. Mount Fuji is split into 10 stations and the bus took us to the 5th station,about half way up. We had a bit of dinner and started our trek at about 9:30pm.... hoping to make it to the top to see the sunrise. Everyone had bought these silly looking walking sticks from the souvenir shop. It seemed like it served no purpose but we found out that you could get a stamp on it at every station that you make it to. It only took us 30 minutes to get to the 6th station and I was already sweating so much. Geez..... if we kept going like this we were gonna make to the top by midnight. But it was very deceiving. The distance between the stations increased considerably and the climb became much steeper and tougher. We were climbing up big boulders in the pitch black darkness. I didn't have a torch with me so I was relying on everyone else to show me the light. Nor did I have a raincoat on and it began to rain ..... only lightly at first but it got heavier and heavier. We dropped off two guys from our group at the 8th station. They were too tired, etc and decided to stay at a log cabin until the next morning. The remaining six kept on going in the cold wind and rain. By now, Carlo and I were pretty much soaked to the skin. Just before the 9th station, we heard from some climbers that you could not climb any further because a typhoon had arrived and was causing very dangerous climbing conditions. The people at the log cabins were saying the same thing although I wasn't too sure whether they were saying that to make us stay there for the night. But we succumbed to the pressure and decided to get indoors. For 5,000 yen (ie. $85 AUD), we could sleep till morning in a room upstairs. Everyone was sleeping on the floor packed together like sardines. There was no choice but to remove all items of wet clothing (for some ppl, that was nearly everything) and get underneath the blanket. It wasn't very hygenic but what could we do?? After shivering and giggling for about half an hour, I finally warmed up but had to go to the bathroom which was outside. It was such a hassle. I must say that bathrooms on Mt Fuji are very primitive. It rained long and hard all night. By morning, a Japanese guy came to our room and screamed out something in Japanese.... apparently he said that the rain had stopped and we should make our way down the mountain. And so we did. Three hours later we were back at the 5th station. One bus ride and three train rides later (all costing about 5,000 yen) , we were back in Tokyo. Make sure you only just catch a bus directly back to Shinjuku.... it is definitely the fastest and cheapest way to get home.... we learnt that the hard way.

Binny-san

Friday 15 August 2002 - Carlo arrived from Sydney today. I actually got up early so that I could move most of my luggage into the office because I had to check out of the hotel tomorrow (ie. Sat). Carlo, after walking around Roppongi for some time, eventually found the hotel. The poor guy had to carry my luggage (which was quite big) around with him on the subway,etc. Thank you very much Carlo!! We decided to visit Kamakura for the day. Kamakura is one of the oldest cities in Japan and boasts a number of temples around the area. Our first stop was "Daibutsu" which means Big Buddha. The Big bronze buddha was completed in 1252 and is 11.4m tall. It was once washed away by a tidal wave but remained intact. We could even walk into the centre of the buddha which was hollow..... although we had to pay of course. After that, there was time for one more temple. This one was called the Hase-dera. The grounds of the Hase-dera was huge and was high up on a hill top. There were lots of little statues and little caves to explore.... each with either candles, little statues of the goddess of mercy, etc so that you can prayer for what you wanted.....i think. It was all very interesting.... and provided lots of photo opportunities.

Binny-san

During the Japanese Summer, the government has an obsession with providing spectacular fireworks. So we headed off towards Tokyo Bay to see it (Sat 10 Aug 02). All the girls and some of the boys were dressed in their "YUKATA" which is the traditional Japanese summer cotton kimono-thing with a pretty bow at the back and the wooden clogs on their feet. It was so pretty. No two girls had the same yukata on. It's something that I have to get for myself...... Anyways, it seemed as though the whole tokyo population had come out to see the fireworks. There was no way we could get on the train. The line was just so long. So we decided to watch the fireworks from Tokyo Tower. This is a fairly big telecommunications tower in the middle of Tokyo (looks a bit like the Eiffel Tower). However, when we were up there, we realised that most of the Japanese had the same idea. So I only caught glimpses of the fireworks (which lasted for at least an hour).

Afterwards, we tried FUGU fish which is the poisonous blow-fish. It is considered an expensive delicacy in Japan. You need a licence to be able to serve the fugu fish. The fugu fish is one of the most ugliest fish ever. I watched the waiter take it straight out of the fish tank and cut the fish up. The first course is sashimi fugu fish. ie. very thinly sliced raw fish which is quite chewy. The next course was fugu fish in a hot pot. They put the rest of the raw fish on a plate and I could see that the fish muscles were still moving... heheh..... not a very pleasant sight. Anyways, we cooked the fish and veges in the hot pot and ate it. Then they put rice in the leftover hot pot soup and made rice porridge. Dessert was some Baskin Robbins ice cream (that was the best part of the meal).... It was a strange experience although I don't think I will ever eat it again...

Binny-san