KONICHIWA JAPAN!

After a pretty uneventful stop over in Helsinki, Finland airport we finally arrived super duper tired in Tokyo. Mick didn't get ANY sleep & I only got about 2 hours. The only highlight of our flight was seeing a young man who looked like Indiana Jones. He was wearing the hat & the jacket. We were joking that customs must have confiscated his whip.
We caught the airport limosine (which is actually just a bus and not a limo at all) to Shinjuku and from there caught a cab to Tama Ryokan.
The Ryokan is a traditional boarding house (kind of like a B&B in Australia). We are shown to our room by the lady owner who runs us through the workings of everything & the 'rules'.
You must remove your shoes at the front door (inside) and wear the slippers provided, however, you cannot wear shoes in your room and you must change into a different pair of slippers in the toilet. Our room is just that.. one room with a roll-out futon mattress on the floor, a TV and most importantly AN AIRCONDITIONER.
It is perfect! It has a communal bathroom down the very steep stairs. There are also 2 resident cats called Arnie & Luna. These cats look about 100 years old and unfortunately are not very friendly. They also have lopped tails which we have noticed that most cats do. Yucky.

After dumping our luggage (around 3pm) we decided to go for a wander up the road to see what was around. Lots and lots of restaurants. We ducked into one & had yummy noodles and Kirin beer. It was really really hot and humid & we both were so tired so we came back to the hotel and had a shower. We sat up for a while 'watching' TV while drinking Chu-hi lemon drink (kinda like Vodka lemon) and snacked on some things like cheetoos & milk popcorn things.
We then lapsed into a coma ready for Japan adventures.