Backpacking

music was covered except British "London" indie (the theme of the night...), in the time we were there, anyway. At 2-ish Emma faltered and required immediate evac. We took a taxi back to Tak's and those still conscious braced themselves for the price, but it worked out as only about a tenner each - cheaper than Bristle to Keynsham, loike!

Day 27: 26th February Takless

Tokyo, Japan

A lie-in was inevitable given the previous evening's excesses. The war had taken one casualty: soldier Dan had fallen in battle and emerged with a monster hangover. Resuscitation by Calpis was unsuccessful, so he braved a visit to Tokyo Edo Museum, documenting the history of Tokyo from its origins as the settlement of Edo through to the development of Tokyo and the transfer of power from Kyoto. The museum was an architectural curiosity (a polite was of describing ugly pretentious crap), raised above the ground on four concrete pillars that made it resemble a square tortoise. It was a freezing cold day and we were glad to nip inside.

I didn't find the museum particularly interesting. Maybe I'd had my fill of exhibits

behind glass by now. It was particularly difficult to concentrate when the English transcriptions dried up on entering the section about the Pacific War, and Emma, Dan and I spent a lot of time resting our legs.

On leaving, Tak translated a friendly Japanese light-sabre wielding security guard's cry of "go down that way in the warm, it's blood freezing up here".

Takeshi was meeting his family in Shinjuku for a meal, so we were dauntingly left to fend for ourselves. It made me realise how much we'd depended on Tak to get us to places and to converse and translate on our behalf since we's all been travelling together, but at the same time I'd coped clumsily yet acceptably on my own for two weeks prior to that and I was sure I could do it again, especially after a hugely reinforced Japanese vocabulary courtesy of Tak.

We parted company with Tak-san and Dan, Emma and I wandered around Shinjuku searching for a Ramen (noodles) establishment. We hesitated at the first we discovered due to a complete lack of English, but our increasingly eroding insides made up step inside the next joint we came across, and I ordered noddles, two portions of dumplings and beers all round, without English bumbling or resorting to Give Us A Clue sign language. Get