Backpacking
Round the World
frustrating to travel over 6000 miles to meet a girl you really click with, and see her head back to your hometown of 26 years and not be there to continue things. All the carefree, temporary joys of travelling I had enjoyed so far seemed to be working against me.
I retired to my stomping ground of Tokyo Station and Cafe Maranouchi to catch up on my travel diary. The International Forum I walked through to access the Cafe situated a huge Oracle exhibition promoting Oracle 10g. Oracle was (allegedly) my "specialist subject" at WPC Software, so it was odd to be wandering around besuited DBAs and managers as an unshaven, unkempt backpacker (although to be honest, not too much different to how I used to turn up at work each day). WPC will be glad to hear I resisted the temptation to discuss the improved web-based enterprise manager facilities proffered by Oracle 10g, and just walked on by.
I then headed to Shunjuku and The Dubliners Irish pub for a cheap but unfulfilling fish'n'chips and Guinness (hooray for happy hour!). The others had spent the day in Kyoto and I met up with them in the evening at Shinjuku Station. We were all pretty haggered, especially me after less than 2 hours sleep, and so headed to the Hub again for a few beers and cocktails and an early night.
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Day 26: 25th February Club Wire |
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Tokyo, Japan
Twelve fantastic hours of sleep later, we awoke refreshed and were presented with the largest breakfast spread we'd ever seen, courtesy of Tak's grandma. A special mention needs to be made here of Tak's family, who had put us up whilst we stayed in Tokyo. Tak's grandma, a spritely 85, was possibly the happiest person I'd ever met, constantly laughing in between quizzing us in Japanese, which she knew we couldn't understand, to Tak's amusement. Tak's mum and dad were also very sweet, laying on bedding for us and coping with late-night entries announced by the barking of the final member of the family, Tinky the dog, a loveable little piece of fur that was so excited to see us each morning it would lose control of its bladder, roll over for tickles, flight with us for a plastic bone, then tease us by dropping it and snatching it back when we reached for it, and occasionally assaulting Dan (Tinky surely knew he had a Harold Bishop-stylee allergy to dogs). On a typically English grey day we headed to see the Imperial Palace from afar - it is only open one day a year for viewing, and that day was not today. A group of Korean tourists were taking cheesy peace v-sign photos in front of