Where did I get to? Oh, yes, I’d just landed after flying back from Helsinki…flying in to Haneda airport is a very different experience to arriving at Narita, somewhat akin to landing at London City, you fly toward the skyscrapers then turn south toward the runway at the last minute.
I collected my baggage and headed out to catch the monorail back to the centre of the city, this is the first time I’ve ever seen baggage receipts being checked….I guess thats because it was an internal flight with no customs to go through after, so it would be easier for people to make off with your cases….
The first thing to do upon arriving was to meet up with my parents, who had arrived on the friday night and were staying in Tokyo for the day before heading off on a tour around the country…
We went up to Shimbashi to take a look at some of the architecture up there and walk around some of the mall areas. Then headed back for a meal at the hotel, since I wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous by that time. I headed back home early for some sleep.
After a little nap, I got woken by Kate calling, by this time my body clock was well and truly broken so I figured that it would be OK to meet up with her and Tim to go to Dark Castle in the evening – there was no way it would lead to more recovery time anyway.
We arrived at Deseo around midnight, but the place wasn’t opened yet, so we hung around outside introducing ourselves to random gaijin, there was a good crop this time, including one guy who’d come all the way over from Colorado (or somewhere, gods I wish I could remember the names of all the states and where they were) for the event.
It wasn’t a particularly eventful evening, and I wasn’t really in the best state to enjoy it…I’ll let stompyboots tell you all about it, doubtless she’ll do a better job than I can.
We met again the next day to wander around Harajuku/Yoyogi-koen, it was raining a bit so the place wasn’t quite so full of beautiful people – the rain makes the make-up run.
They were leaving on Wednesday, we met again before they left, on Tuesday we tried to go to Trick or Treat, a ‘gothic dining’ experience in Roppongi, but we were told that it was ‘Japanese only’ and it was clear that we weren’t welcome….oh well, on to Xen in Roppongi Hills, poor Tims feet were not prepared for all that walking, so the rest once we arrived seemed welcome.
Since then, I have pretty much been working and nothing else – the project is about to get to its final phase, so we’re planning how we handle the build cycle during this time, which appears to be something more of a headache than anyone had really anticipated. We’re getting there, but there are a few nasty technical details that noone spotted until it was too late – I hope we’ve now at least gotten people thinking about them, but the Finns are on holiday at the moment so we don’t know what they think until Wednesday.
Today was some more frantic running around trying to get myself organised before meeting my parents again, they’ve returned to Tokyo after their tour around the country – they seem to have had a good time. We went up to Shinjuku to go up the government building, then back to Shibuya to take a look around there. If you’re thinking of coming to Tokyo there is plenty to keep you fully occupied for three to four days, trying to do it all in two afternoons is going to leave you wanting more.
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