London - Tokyo

Claire's make up made it down to London in time! Got the bus to the massive Terminal 5 and found the right counter to go to. Tried to blag an upgrade but it was a fully booked flight and we were stuck with our crap seats :(

Met my mum and dad (thanks for coming down to see us off!) at Carluccios and had some olives and coffees and then it was time for some more emotional goodbyes. Wave one more goodbye before going through to security and then we were all alone.

Claire was buzzing around like a blue arsed fly whilst we went around the shops trying to find a place with Yen.
The time came to fly and as we went through the guy says 'oooh you've been upgraded'. SWEEEEEET!

Got on the plane and our seats were dead posh. Loads of leg room, massive headphones, touch screens, bar menu, free food and drinks all the way. Luxury. Took off on time and waved by to my mum and dad and then Heathrow, London, UK, Europe....

Got over Russia and thought it was a good time to pay a visit, so I walked through the commoners in Economy and grinned.

Didn't sleep all the way to Tokyo and drank a fair bit so we were a little confused on arrival into Narita international. Somehow found out that the cheapest way into Tokyo centre was a local train service that took two hours. Lots of pointing and miming later we bought the right tickets and found the platform. The signs on the platform said that lots of stations are shut due to APPROACHING TYPHOON. What the funk?

Got on the train and off we went. The train map was rubbish and each station we stopped at caused a bit of panic as they were not on the map we had. Decided to stick with it and see where we ended up. There were two little Japanese primary school girls in sailor outfits. Probably dressed for the imminent typhoon. One of the stations we stopped at was getting the full pelt of the typhoon - never seen anything like it! There were some people getting very wet. Soggy Nintendos and Pokemon all round.

Eventually we make it to Shinjuku and walk to our hotel, or so we had thought. It was the right name but the wrong place. Grrrr. Manage to print off some more directions and grab a taxi (because it's a rather big place and it's pissing it down) to our actual hotel about half a mile away. It was very hard to ask the driver how much it would be!

Got in the hotel and it was pretty cool - we were on a very high floor! It was a bit Typhoony outside so we decided to go for a walk. The umbrellas lasted all of ten seconds and we got drenched in the Typhoon. Ended up in a cafe next to our hotel and had a bottomless coffee and miso soup. 8 or 9 coffees later we went back to the hotel room and accidentally fell asleep, despite all of the caffeine. Woke up at 4am and the worst Typhoon had passed so we decided to go out on the town.

Found a cool little bar and had some beers, then found a place for some noodles and tempura and then we wandered around til first light and then went to bed again. Jet lag? Whatever.