TOKYO, JAPAN - DESTINATION 8, DAY 103!!
 
Our arrival in Japan in the early hours was quite a culture shock, in fact a TOTAL culture shock from where we had just been ......... At the airport we were astounded by many things; taking your temperature as you arrived to check you were in good health (if not a free health check and advice was on offer, god knows how we passed as healthy!!), the extreme cleanliness, the heated public toilet seats (!!), the hoovering of stairs for minute dust particles, the smiley, friendly and willingness of staff to help you over and beyond all capability, in addition the assistance of them to help you get and take your luggage trolleys onto the escalators!!!..... the list goes on, so much so we ended up spending 3 hours at the airport on arrival just taking it all in! To add to this, we managed to get onto e-mail quickly to have an amazing picture sent through of Sasha's first scan which was JUST AMAZING and very emotional to say the least, so we sat for a while, missing home abit but eager to get out there and experience our already great impression of Japan and the people!
 
Outside didn't disappoint, it was peaceful, where were the repeated car horns, disorderly queues and where were the animals wandering aimlessly, it was all quite hard to take in at first! On boarding our train to the centre, even this was a technological master mind, it was not only clean, large and airy, but it told you exactly where you were and how many minutes you had to the next station with digitalised screens so you could see this exactly, PLUS trains were always on time, could measure when they were full so that they didn't get too crowded and so you didn't have your face literally rammed up to the glass, I really think London Transport needs to come to Japan for a re-think!!!!
 
On route to Ueno in the city, we passed lost of low level farmers fields which had been flooded in many places . On going through villages the one thing that did hit me was the land around the houses, the gardens were tiny with hardly any space at all, even in the more rural areas. I had heard of the land space within the cities but was quite surprised also to see this further afield even in new build areas with lots of free land.
 
On arriving in Ueno it was pouring down so we decided to take a taxi for the 3-4 minute ride to our Ryoken we were staying at after a Starbucks first to celebrate being here! Again another great wonder, the taxi man was dressed perfectly in a suit and tie with bright white gloves!!, the door automatically opened for you and the car lowered for you to get in....is this place for real! The experience was great, well until we learned off the price. In our 3 minute wonder we took in the sights of Ueno high street and both expressed that it reminded us somewhat of New York with the bright lights, buildings, style of taxi minus the smog and noise of horns though! Being one of the worlds largest cities I was so surprised how chilled it felt, how quiet and orderly, even right in the centre this didn't seem to change, we both felt that this was without doubt a city we could work in!

TO BE CONTINUED!