Historical Japan to Modern Japan!

Monday 13th April

Today we took a trip on the Bullet Train for the first time! We allowed a fairly late-ish wake up ready for a trip to Himeji Castle. The bullet train is awesome, we go on the Hikari which is the second fastest (our rail passes do not allow us on the Nozomi which is the fastest bullet train, but it is only about 30 mins difference anyway!) The speed is phenominal but you wouldn't know it when travelling inside as it is as steady as an airoplane.

It was great to be able to see Japan whizz by, many places we will not have chance to visit, fabulous country side and loads of hidden bits and pieces such as secret archways with bells in the middle of the trees - possibly leading to a temple?

Hijemi was amazingly different to anywhere else we had been so far, the streets were wide and empty with large important buildings down the main street, very much what I imagine America to be like. Loads of trees lined along the sidewalk, most of the cars seem to be either black or silver in Japan? They are nearly all Hybrids from what we have seen.

From the main street we can see a fabulous view of the most impressive castle in Japan, it stands high on a mountain ahead of us and has been featured in many films like James Bond!

We have packed lunch in the lovely parks surrounding the castle and see a black cat skipping about among all the visitors. Then we seperate into groups and head into the castle to explore. The castle grounds were full of interesting facts and places, deep wells and secret escape routes. The castle itself was gigantic and we climbed about 7 floors up the the very top where you could see an amazing view of the city.

As the youth members met again in the castle gardens they decided to act out short scenes based on American tourists etc which amused them for some time, and a few of the girls created a fan dance using their Japanese fans!

For lunch we found a lovely cafe and were able to get everyone seated. This was great as we could order and pay one at a time with no fuss and they had a fairly decent selection! This gave everyone a different option for a change, aside from the usual Noodles!

We headed back as quickly as possible in order to get a good nights sleep ready for an early start the next day in Tokyo! On our arrival at the hotel, we spent most of our time ushering youngsters to bed and rushing them to get their showers etc, they had dutifully worked out a rota between them of who would shower that night and who would shower in the morning to avoid a big queue!

Tuesday 14th April

Tokyo today! After setting off at about 5.15am...AM!!! We got the loop line over to the Shinkansen (our bullet train again!) and arrived just in time to grab some cheap breakfast bits and jump on the first bullet train of the day! Incidentally, the Rail Passes we bought are AMAZING, they allow us on MOST trains in Japan and it has made a massive difference to our wallets! We could pretty much go anywhere we wanted around Japan really...

It was a 3 hour journey but several youth members slept or read books, or updated their diaries so it whizzed by. Arriving in Tokyo, we made sure everyone got something to eat if they needed it before jumping quickly onto a loop line to Shybuya, the notorious trendy shopping area for the youth of today! This is the place famous for starting youth fashion trends around Japan and the world! Getting out of the train station was pretty amazing, with MASSIVE skyscraper buildings and flashing neon signs, very much iconic of Tokyo we see on TV. In fact, we even saw TV crews and cameras filming some young people!

Everyone was pretty blown away by the sight and enormity of it all! Then we went shopping....after brief exploration we decided it was best to split the young ones into groups and send them with a youth leader per group to accompany their shopping spree. We had a special meeting place agreed at every section of Tokyo we visited. A few bits and pieces were bought, generally things were quite expensive though. A few of us sat and 'people watched', the Japanese people in Tokyo were very very different to the traditional Japanese people we had seen in Osaka. These young people had crazy hairstyles and fashion sense! Some a little too over the top!

For lunch we found a fab pizza place, something we had not eaten yet! It was an all you can eat buffet which we could pay for individually in advance along with our drink order and then help ourselves to slices of different pizza, spaghetti and even rice and curry! The pizza was delicious, they had different options with plenty of vegetables! We had a good meal and fuelled ourselves up so we would not get hungry too quickly in the afternoon.

We then went to the Sony building to look at their showroom, this has all the latest technology including stuff that hasn't even been released yet! So we are going to keep our eyes out for adverts for the stuff we have seen, such as the Rollo! We got to play with a lot of expensive equipment, from video cameras which automatically capture photos when you smile, to amazing cameras and music players.

After this we headed to one of the largest Asian markets in Japan, this was a wonderful bizaarre market with LOADS of stuff imported for good prices such as Chanel and Gucci (it used to be a huge black market but is now very legal and popular!). This is where the group really had fun spending money on well priced bags, shoes, coats and even pineapple on sticks as snacks!

Tokyo was fun but is not as fantastic for young people unless they are incredibly rich with loads of time on their hands! Most of Tokyo seems to be aimed at older people who like Sushi bars, karaoke, great nights out on the town, museums and sophisticated boutique shopping. Needless to say, we made the most of it anyway!

We grabbed some snacks from the train station, ready for when we got hungry on the train home then hopped on board the Bullet train in order to head back to the hotel. Another early night was agreed even though it is not an early wake up tomorrow. Just to make sure we catch up again with our sleep!

Night!