The Return

At the start of February, I returned back to Scotland for the first time in over a year.  Although, thanks to BA I almost never got there.  I landed at heathrow from Tokyo, and found out immediately that my flight to Glasgow had been cancelled, due to a tiny little bit of snow!!!  I wasn't the only one in this situation, hundreds of flights had been cancelled throughout the day at T5, which meant thousands of passengers.  Once of the plane I was told that I would need to go through to check in and re-book my another flight up to Glasgow, well all flights that day had been cancelled, so I knew that I would more than likely be staying the night in London.  I got through to check in to be met bit a queue of about 10,000 people trying to re-book other flights all over the world.  Many people were pissed off and tired, including me as by this point I had been up for almost 18 hours.  So I joined the queue and 5 hours later, I was still no where near the front, this was when one of the customer services people got to me.  I was that because I booked the flight through quantas and not BA I had to phone up Quantas to re-book the flight and that standing the queue all this time had been a waste of time.  Well, I almost hit the guy that told me! Although, I refrained but then he told me he didn't have the number for Quantas and I would have to find it myself. I did, as I am sure most people would do at this point, felt like crying and then punching and kicking anything in my way.  I eventually got through to Quantas, and although BA had put another flight on that night, it had been fully booked in the time I had spent in that queue.  I did get a flight at 7:05 the next morning though.  Which meant I had a night at my Aunt Barbara's in Marlow, just 20 minutes drive down the road from Heathrow, and £75!!!  Which will be getting claimed back from BA! But thanks for the feed and looking after me aunt Babs!

Anyway, eventually I was home and I had 3 weeks to look forward too in Scotland.  The first week was spent catching up with family and friends.  A lovely dental appointment, and some shopping.  At the weekend I travelled through to Edinburgh to stay with Gary and Ais, a night out in the Kings Wark on the friday with some current Leithers, which was great catching up with Matt, Jill, Grant Christine etc!  Then on the sat Gaz and I went through to Kilmarnock to watch the hearts game and enjoy a killie pie!  We then went out that night for dinner and drinks with Ais, Hayley, Tina, Kris, and Sarah.  It was a great night, made even better by heading to the famous place of CITRUS!!! Our favourite night club in the burgh!

The following week, my dad took the monday and tuesday off work and the 4 of us, Nic and Mum included, headed to Stirling castle, the first time I had been there in about 15 years.  I love our Scottish castles but I had forgotten how amazing stirling castle is, it was a great day! I learned so much more about scottish history and spending it with the family was great.  What was also amazing, was the views available from all around the castle! I'd love to show some of my Aussie friends around there one day.  The next day we headed up to Loch Lomond, and had a great lunch and a walk around Cameron House.  The following weekend I headed back through to Edinburgh, a great curry and beers with Gary on the thursday night was followed by a night out on the friday, with loads of people from Uni days.  Again it was great to see everyone ans hear all your news! 

On the saturday, Cat and Emma came up from London to Edinburgh and Robbo down from Inverness, just to catch up!  A group of about 10 of us went to our favourite pizza place, Pizza Express and then headed to Garibaldi's!  One of the worst but best clubs in edinburgh the broken floor, pole dancing pole and mirrored ceiling says it all I think.  I think a few of us who had the Calabese pizza thought we were going to die after eating it though, especially Gary, he actually looked like he was going to have a stroke. I could feel my eyeballs sweating during eating it, it was that spicy.  My last day in Edinburgh was very relaxed, robbo, ross and I all stayed with Gary and Ais, and Robbo was up fairly early and away to Inverness.  A few of us then had lunch and Ross and I headed back to Irvine.  My last week in Scotland was spent in Irvine, meeting friends, and family for meals and drinks, doing a lot of shopping in Glasgow, I bought a whole new wardrobe! 

It was great being home, I am sorry if I didn't see you when I was back, but it's likely that it won't be long before I am home again so will definitely catch up next time!  Thanks to everyone who travelled to see me and thanks to Gary and Ais for letting me stay with them, and everyone who took time to come see me and catch up, it was a great holiday. 

Tokyo

On the way home to Scotland at the beginning of February, I took a slight detour to Tokyo.  Where I met Mr Thomson.  Dave has been living in Japan since we left Uni almost 5 years ago.  I had never been to visit him, something which, every now and again, he gave me a bit of grief about over the years.   So I saw this as the perfect opportunity to go visit.

I arrived incredibly early at Narita Airport, about 70km outside of Tokyo city centre.  After catching the train into the city I met dave at a local station in Shinjuku, it was actually a bit weird at how neither of us had changed and we carried on the friendship as if we had seen each other the day before.  Once we got to the hostel, I was immediately in trouble within seconds of walking in, I hadn't taken my shoes off, a terrible sin in Japan.  After being sent back to the door to take my shoes off and put the tiny white slippers on that they provided, we dumped our stuff in the bedroom, had a shower and went to explore.


Firstly, we took a walk around Shinjuku, and the first thing we came across was a huge screen advertising Rod Stewart who was playing in tokyo that night.  Although we did consider going, we thought against it.  Dave, acting as my tour guide for the weekend, thought it best to head to one of Tokyo's most famous shrines, the Sensoji Temple.

Most of Tokyo's shrines have been rebuilt since the war, I have been relialble informed, although reconstructed to just how they were beforehand.  This place was amazing and clearly many of the locals found us fairly amazing too.  As we arrived at the shrine a few school trips were there and it was obvious they don't see many westerners where they come from, as we instantly became famous. They were waving and shouting hello at us, however, we did stick a bit, considering I am 6'5 and dave is 6'2.  After blessing ourselves in a big smokey thing, that too me just seemed like a big bucket of insense, we left and headed to what dave referred to as future town!  I don't think it really was future town, but it was certainly where all the technology shops were, and some other shops of great interest.

Now if you don't want to know about Japans seedy side, best to skip down a bit to the next part.  Dave was adament that we had to go into a shop on the main street.  The picture of the building at the bottom of the post shows what it looked like from the outside and each picture apparently represents each floor in the shop.  Although, one floor looks like it represents a strip club, Dave was certain that it didn't, however, I was a little unsure.  As we went into the shop it was just a big CD shop, all selling CD's from one girl band, AK48.  This band has 48 members all female and all mental!!!  They realise albums as a group, as smaller groups or as soloists.  I had to question why dave wanted to take me in here, but he then suggested we head up to the 2nd floor.  This is where all the weird Hentia cartoon stuff started, the 2nd floor was just normal, lots of DVD's and dolls of the characters that are famous on daytime TV over there.  The 3rd floor started to get weird though, it basically took their cartoon characters and made them slightly saucy.  Then the 4th floor was basically cartoon porn.  It was weird, but what was really weird was the people in there with their kids and also men of all ages buying stuff.  There were DVDs and characters all in sexual positions for sale.  The next floor just turned into real porn and the floor above that was, let's just say slightly more serious porn and then the top floor was all the memorbilia that the porn stars had signed and left when they had visited the store.  After dinner and a few drinks that night my jet lag started to set in and we decided to call it a night and make the most of the next day.

We got up fairly earlyish the next day and walked to one of the most famous sites in Tokyo, Shibuya crossing.  I have to be honest though, it is fairly disappointing, it is one of the busiest crossings in the world but, it is just that, a crossing! We left and headed through Shibuya to the Meifi Shrine which was in the middle of a park. Although, I did have the police shout at me for J-walking on the way.  As we arrived at the shrine a traditional Japanese wedding was going on.  We took a walk around the shrine and then learned a bit about Saki and all the important people that had influenced Japanese culture and history.  We then decided to get some traditional Japanese food at a burger joint, but that was only after we walked part the smallest shop in the Tokyo, Condomania! I'll let you guess what it was selling.

After an afternoon of shopping and then going to a beer museum and sampling lots of the local brew.  We headed to a restaurant Dave had been planning to go to as it was based on the area of Japan he was staying in, Akita.  The food was amazing as was the local Saki from Akita, apart from the pregnant fish that I bit into without knowing it was pregnant, and all these little yellow balls fell out.  I was almost sick!  But what was particularly fun was the Namahage monster that came out and shouted at us and everyone else in the restaurant.


We tried to stay out to watch the Scotland v England game but considering it was a 2am kick off and I had to be up to get to the Airport at 5:45am.  We decided at about 1am to call it a night, and that was it for my Japanese adventure.

I was up early said my goodbyes to Dave and was away to the airport for a 12 and half hour flight to heathrow, where the fun really began, but that is for another post on another day.  For now, here are some pics of Tokyo. And I just want to say thanks to Dave for being my guide for the weekend, even though we did get lost a couple of times and almost arrested.  It was a great weekend and was great to catch up again.  Your turn to come to Sydney now!