Welcome to Japan!

Hi all...yep we have decided to start our own blog! Not only for everyone else's enjoyment, it will also help us remember what we got up to. We promise to keep these short (but interesting of course)!

What was supposed to be our glorious entrance into Tokyo was swindled by Jetstar, our choice air line carrier, who had to land in Kansai airport (Osaka) because it did not make the Tokyo curfew. It was about midnight when we landed at Kansai, only for the crew to take hours to organise hotels and buses for everyone. We were SO annoyed, not to mention starving, we just wanted to eat, shower and sleep! All of this was subsidised by Jetstar of course, including the next day's bullet train tickets to Tokyo. However we screwed

up by missing our bullet train for which we had reserved seating. We were able to catch the next one but we had to stand in the passage way for the 3 hour trip! Gerald was not so happy that day!

Disembarking in Tokyo, the city was just how we remembered it - tall buildings, winding roads, lots of Japanese people, but not a blade of grass in sight. Carrying all our luggage onto the subway trains was a back breaker, all the way to what would be our new home - Shin Nakano.

Aiming to save a bit of money, and because we've never lived in Tokyo before, we decided to rent a relatively cheap apartment called Hongo House. This one definitely goes down in the books as a 'fail'.

Studio apartment, the room is 16 square metres, which is pretty darn small already. But to make matters worse, a big chunk of that space is taken up by a wardrobe, a small desk, and the fridge...that's right - the refrigerator is in the room! 'Being able to grab a midnight snack while lying down in bed'...check! The kitchen stank...and whenever the lights when out we were invaded by a small army of cockroaches. Using my (richi) experience in war strategies, massing cockroach traps seemed to work. However Gerald managed to cook a real yummy meal (pictured inset). A week hadn't even passed before we started going crazy, so we got the hell out of there into a bigger, better, brighter apartment!

Pictured - A cockroach house. Nice, spacious, warm, with a meal in the middle...fools! mwahaha!

Shin Nakano is great, it's just on the outskirts of the main cities. Rent is quite high, but we figured we are on a working holiday so we wanna be in a good area. Lots of supermarkets, eateries and convenience stores! On our first day there we almost got done for jay walking, we actually jay walked right in front of the Nakano police station! So we quickly learned that in Japan, just follow the rules!

So yeah, we haven't had much of a chance to travel yet. Far too busy getting accommodation, phones, bank accounts and fighting cockroaches. However we did get a chance to visit Richi's cousin (Calvin Lay), his wife Aya, and two kids Rion and Kairi for a few nights who lives in Tokushima, which is an island just off the coast of Osaka. The kids are SO cute, especially with Rion speaking a spaghetti mix of English and Japanese.

On the job front, we both have received our contracts, Gerald at Gaba, and Richi at UBS. So we're set to start work! Unfortunately we both have to start soon, but I guess the rent isn't gonna pay for itself!

We definitely want to check out the Studio Ghibli museum and Gerald is drooling over Tokyo Disneyland, so stay tuned, and look after yourselves!

Gerald and Richard