Roadmap Europa: ¿Entonces, que paso?

After a couple of months of packing, mailing, cleaning, organising and other excitement we finally got away on July 6. Thanks to Matt for lending us his pad and the help and patience of family, Stu, Adam and everyone else. Departure Day and C and I were absolutely exhausted after a hectic couple of weeks, four hours sleep and a 4.30am start, exhausted we finally got into town in Tokyo at midnight. The stress of it all had taken it’s toll.

Tokyo was…well…Tokyo. Buzzing, crazy, bizarre, so many people on the streets, music and lights all over Shibuya and Shinjuku, unique Harajuku and Omotesando fashions, Tokyu Hands stores, awesome architecture, contrasting with the big tranquil parks and temples big and small all over town.

We were lucky to have Stu G and Rie to take care of us and show us around and Yukimaru helped keep us amused (he even decided to relieve himself on our bed, surely a sign of affection). Stu and Rie took us for some awesome fresh sushi at the fish markets, tours around town, free home internet access, you name it. Stu´s hi-tech apartment block below, which took us an hour to find again each time we went out as Tokyo isn´t big on street names and numbers.

Of course the shopping is one of the highlights so C didn’t need much encouragement. Stu treated us to a couple of great dinners, the highlight of which was a cabaret performance by a guy who seemed to be channeling BoyzIIMen or Bobby Brown and serenaded C up close with a truly touching rendition of Lionel Ritchie’s ‘Hello’.

In Tokyo and Kyoto the heat and humidity were something else, the vending machines on every second corner keep the liquids flowing.

We caught up with international playboy and man of mystery Dan for a day or two, He can´t seem to keep away from Tokyo too long, its many attractions just keep drawing him back.

After a couple of days we headed to Kyoto to stay in a traditional-style ryokan hotel and wander around the Buddhist, Zen and Shinto temples. Wifey got pampered as usual but didn´t like my death march walking pace in the heat.

There were way too many temples to see in a couple of days but highlights were the Zen temples set amongst pines, gardens and cool streams in the hills on the edge of town and the temple with 1000 golden statues of buddha lined up five deep for about 100m inside.

The flight out wasn’t bad as the plane was half empty and we had a day flight over Siberia and Scandinavia before spending a night at Heathrow before we got to Madrid to realize there had been communication problems with booking flights to Santiago and our only option was Business…ouch!