Made it...

So... we're in the Shibuya district of Tokyo. This is the view from our hotel room. Not bad, eh? I've seen these crossroads in so many movies that it seems utterly bizarre to me that we're now towering above it as we sleep.



The flight was long and arduous, although not as long and arduous as I was prepared for. The strangest thing was flying into the night, watching darkness take hold and trying very hard to sleep even though my body knew it was really about 4pm. The steady flow of Gin and Tonics helped matters, as did the ample movie selection (I plumped for Taladega Nights and Severence, if you're interested) but there's no denying that when we hit the 11th hour it all started getting a little bit too much.

So we've now been up for well over 24 hours, although I appear to have tricked my body into not believing that by taking off my watch and refusing to contemplate UK time. We're off out for dinner at 7 so we're all just hanging onto conciousness until after then...

Tokyo is insane. It's like they just plonked buildings down in every available space and then built up from there. The first 5 floors of this building is a shopping center, then 14 more floors of hotel, then 5 floors of private apartments, then a restaurant... the whole city is piled on top of itself. Shops are within shops, bars are in doorways, TVs on sticks, speakers on crossings... getting down the street is like a scrum but everyone is so damned nice.

There is obviously lots more to report but, frankly, I need to get a shower and lay down for a few minutes before going out. Paul is writing postcards, Joe is asleep, Rob is bored and Simon is jet-lagged... just an hour and a half to go before food and then we can sleep. In the venue at 11 tomorrow to set everything up - the tour crew over here seem really nice so we shouldn't have too many problems...

Food
Sleep
Food
Sleep

More photos at Day of the Dave.

Food
Sleep

Out.
xxx