"Tokyo - Yatta!!!" a Tokyo Travel Page by clueless83

Tokyo has been on my list of must-see places for a long time and despite the initial difficulties we faced, I wasn't disappointed.

The language barrier was our first problem. We wanted a coach transfer to our hotel but the one we required had stopped running so after a 45 minute wait for a coach and then an hour long journey from the airport to the city we found ourselves standing outside a hotel that wasn't our own, in the dark, in the pouring rain, towing huge suitcases behind us and feeling pretty tired and pissed off by this point. Luckily, the bell captain at this hotel was very kind and got a taxi to take us to where we were staying.

The next morning we faced more rain, but hey we're British, we're used to it! The difficulty came when we reached our nearest train station and couldn't work out how much fare we needed to get to Harajuku. A nice Japanese man tried his best to help us but as he didn't speak English and we didn't speak Japanese we were kind of going round in circles... but somehow we got there in the end and once we had made it to Harajuku things seemed to get better despite running round in circles at the Meiji Jingu gardens and not being able to find our way out of Sunshine City in Ikebukuro! Still, you have to laugh!

Japan is well-known for being a little crazy and quirky with a love of all things cute (kawaii), so here are some crazy and quirky things (to me, as a Westerner) that I found while in Tokyo...

* Cookies to increase your breast size... being sold in a toyshop

* A cat petting zoo (for those who need a cuddly wuddly fix) at the top of a department store

* Huge bags of crisps (potato chips) in those grabber machines you get at arcades (there were cuddly toy machines too but I thought the crisps were a bit unusual)

* Toilets that are not only a bidet but also have a button with a flushing sound on to 'mask' any noises that may be coming from your cubicle

* Cutesy music that plays at train stations when the train pulls up and the doors open

* Condomania - a shop devoted to selling, you guessed it, condoms

Some other things I noticed while in Tokyo...

* Most people are either dressed in amazingly trendy fashion OR business suits

* Things weren't as expensive as I expected them to be (but maybe thats because I'm from rip-off Britain)

* Shibuya Crossing wasn't half as intimidating as it looks on tv

* Pretty much anyone (not just teenage girls) has a charm dangling from their mobile phone

* Vending machine coca-cola drinks were in what looked like half bottles, half cans

* Despite the amount of vending machines around Tokyo I was disappointed to only find ones that sell drinks or cigarettes

* Tokyo is quite an assault on the eyes, if you walk into a travel agent you won't see much in the way of pretty scenic pictures, mostly bright, headache inducing Japanese writing