I'm writing this through a jet lagged fog. So if it's incoherent babble (see food blog) then please excuse me.

It's now 18.30 Wednesday evening Tokyo time so 10.30 in the morning for you lot (Japan really is in the future).

You know that feeling when you're on holiday; that first view of the coastline as the plane gently arcs towards the runway? and how it makes you know your on holiday. I didn't get that. The first I saw of the Tokyo was as the plane wheels hit the tarmac with a thud. The plane I was on was one of those ones where you can see the pilots view - and I didn't see nothing on the camera except the white of clouds before we landed. So this was my first view of Japan:

Tokyo had well and truly turned the weather up tp Welsh to welcome me - here's my lovely view from Narrita to Tokyo:

Abdul was kind enough to meet me at the station, and then after I'd settled into the apartments took me into the city and we went for lunch. We managed a bit of pointing to order and I had a lovely pork dish - you can find out more about what I've been eating here.

Last night Abdul, Alun, John, Matt, Michelle & I went for dinner to catch up and plan - Abdul took us to a place he'd been before and we ordered surprise dishes form the menu - getting by with a mix of pointing, and bad translation - a favoriate moment was when Abdul aske dthe waitress to surprise us and she brought us baby eels, then explained what they were by pretending to  make the sounds of baby eels squealing. Nice.

....

Thursday morning

Today will be my first full day here - though it's the fourth day after I left Cardiff (?) - and I've woken up to a glorious morning. So I'm going to catch up on my emails, have some food, make plans and try to catch the cherry blossom before it disappears completely.

sayonara