Hello 2011

New Year's Eve

On New Year's Eve we took the shinkansen from Hiroshima back to Tokyo and had a full day and a half to kill before our flight to Sapporo. Since it was NYE we splashed out on accommodation and managed to find a very discounted room in a fancy hotel - Akasaka Excel Hotel. We were very excited when we saw the room - large bed, fancy bathroom, espresso machine, huge TV, desk and space to actually walk around in (not something you often get in Japanese accommodation!).

After checking into the hotel we went to Kanda, which is a district in Tokyo known for its discount snow gear. It was all amazingly cheap, designer snow jackets that cost more than $300 in Australia were on sale for less than $100. I bought myself some knee pads and wrist guards for snowboarding. The knee pads were $25 and in Australia at Snowbiz they were over $100. I'm glad I waited to buy them!

We decided to have a quiet NYE because we needed a bit of rest and recovery and Tokyo was like a ghost town (compared to usual!). The new year holidays here are very religious and family orientated and people normally leave the city to visit relatives or they stay at home. As most businesses were closed, we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant and three quarters of the meal was absolutely delicious. Unfortunately the last thing we ordered turned out to be a selection of skewered offal! Among it was heart, kidney, cartilage and chicken skin. It was horrible and Mike stomached some of it, but I couldn't. That's what happens when you can't read the menu and the pictures are misleading!

New Year's Day

Happy New Year everyone! We welcomed 2011 with a much deserved sleep in till 10:00am in our luxurious hotel room. After checking out and storing our luggage, we caught the subway to Shibuya (the district with the world's busiest intersection) to find some food. We also bought some incredibly cheap shoes - I got some original Converse for $35 and Mike found some Vans for $30.

One of the most interesting restaurant features in Japan are these ticket machines. You simply put your money in, select what you want and the machine spits out your change and tickets. You then give the tickets to the waitress as you enter the shop and the food is promptly brought to you. These machines are normally outside ramen shops.

Ramen ticket machine

Later in the afternoon we caught the Tokyo Monorail to Haneda airport for our flight to Sapporo. As the plane landed we noticed the piles of snow that had been ploughed to the edge of the tarmac! It was a slippery and interesting journey to our hotel, complete with uncomfortably hot train seats!