Friday:
It was a long flight I watched boy in the striped pjamas, bit of a sad ending. We arrived at Narita airporton friday morning, no problems getting through the various controls and asked our way to the JR endorsement office where we where issued with our train passes and given reserved tickets for a journey to Ikebukaro station. It was a bit difficult to find the train but after asking for directions (this is becoming a theme that will be repeated) we found the train and our seats. I thought at the time that this was kind and probably what they did for each new arrival but after reading the details on the tickets it seems that we are allowed to reserve as many times as we want to for our train journeys throuought Japan. We got as far as Tokyo and Jo wanted to get off so we had our first sights of this very very big city. We managed eventually to negotiate our way out of the station. It has many floors and miles of walkways. Once outside we walked around the corner and had our first meal, two bowls of noodles, this was a strangeexperience. The shop assistant helped us bewildered tourists by showing us the vending machine and where to put the money. Once chosen and the buttons pressed it produced a ticket that she then took. After showing us our seats she brought us some foul green tea and iced water then a little later two large bowls of noodles. A Very Strange first meal. After eating we decided to re-negotiate the train station to try and find our way to the ryokan that we had booked in England. We went in and out of the maze of train stations, there are so many differnt lines here. We eventually found a JR train to Ikebukaro station, standing room only like most of our short term journeys. It was about 30 minutes from Tokyo station 2mins/stop. Another complex train station to negotiate, we found our way out, Jo assuring me that it was the West kanji, we headed off in the wrong direction so back to the stationto find the correct exit. Once found it wasnt too difficult to negotiate the web map provided from thier website and we arrived 15 minutes to 3 so waited before checking in. Showered and changed into yukata we slep the rest of the day and night; I use the word slept loosely, in all Japanese style rooms you are given a thin mattress on the floor with a small pillow that I think is filled with lentils.