The start of the big adventure - arrival in Tokyo

So, the big adventure finally begins. What's it all about then ? The idea, of course, is to go to Japan, this time for a bit longer (3 months, no less!). The idea is to immerse ourselves properly into Japanese culture (and hopefully pick up a bit of the lingo on the way). Thankfully I have an understanding employer, that was kind enough to let me take the necessary time off...

The plan is, more or less, as follows: 1st we go to Tokyo to sort out our language school, accommodation and so forth. Then, we will stay for 3 weeks at the Izu peninsula seaside, staying at a hotel owned by a friend's friend. This will then be followed by about a month and a half in Tokyo, after which we finish our Japanese adventure in Okinawa. As the Japanese tourist VISA is valid for only 90 days, we will then go to South Korea for a week. And to finish off the trip, I will travel around China for a bit on my own (unless somebody fancies joining me - the more the merrier!?)

Anyway, our flight took us via London to Narita aiport in Tokyo. The long flight let me catch up on the latest cinema blockbusters, as usual... ;-) Our flight arrived on time in Narita, from where we got the train to Kameido, where our hotel was located. We arrived around noon, so had some time to kill, as we wanted to resist the urge to go to sleep, to get into a Japanese rhythm as quickly as possible. So we decided to explore Kameido for a bit. Now, the main sight in Kameido is a shrine (what else ?), called Kameido Tenjin shrine. It's a beautiful one - one of the prettier ones in Tokyo - and the perfect way to get back into a "Japanese mood".

The next day, the plan was to meet up with our good friend Matsuoka, and try to sort out our accommodation plans. But we had a bit of time to kill before our rendez-vous in Kita-Senja, so we decided to do a bit more tourism before heading over there (we'd actually slept pretty well in spite of the jet lag, so weren't too tired). After doing a bit of research on the internet, we decided to head to the Nezu museum. It's basically an art museum, which additionally has a rather famous garden. We jumped on the train, and headed to Omote-Sando, from where we walked to the museum. We started out visit by checking out those famous gardens, and didn't walk away disappointed. To summarize, this is just the way a Japanese garden should look like. The museum was pretty interesting - what was good was that they provided some pretty good explanations about the exhibits also in English (often not the case in Japan, unfortunately...).

The tourism bit done, it was time to head down to meet our friend Matusoka-san. We have to thank him already at this stage of our adventure for all his help in organizing our stay? The plan is basically to stay at a hotel owned by a friend of his in the Izu peninsula, and he's also trying to organize our accommodation here in Tokyo for the rest of our stay. Basically the plan is for us to stay at an apartment he has in Kita-Senja, which after a quick visit seemed just perfect. We were also honored to visit his family house not far from Kita-Senja, a beautiful traditional Japanese house (a rare sight in Tokyo!). We concluded our rendez-vous by devouring some delicious Gyoza in a restaurant back in Kameido, after which we headed back to our hotel, tired but happy after a rather productive day.

The next day, the plan was to sort out a Japanese course for our stay in Tokyo during September and October. Mathilde had found three candidate schools, so our mission was to find and visit the three of them. It took us most of the morning to visit the three schools, after which we settled on Koto Language Academy - we programmed in a Japanese level exam for Saturday.

The school bit out of the way, we still had a bit of time to kill before dinner. So we decided to head to the Mori Museum, located in the futuristic Roppongi Hills high-rise shopping/cultural/business complex. They had an exhibition on the Ghibli animation studio on - since both of us love the Ghibli films it was a done deal very quickly. The exhibition itself was so and so, but there was other interesting stuff at the Mori Museum, and what's cool about the museum is that it's actually located on the 53rd and 54th floors of the building (yes, that would indeed be the top). The panorama from up their around surrounding Tokyo is pretty amazing.

We finished our day with dinner at Din Tai Fung - a Taiwanese chain restaurant famous for their dumplings (we tried the place in Singapore and were blown away). We were a little bit less blown away this time around, but that's not to say the dumplings weren't delicious. They were.