All Hostels are not Created Equal!

So it's time to regail you with my tales (sadly, photoless) from the last few days; then onto a hostel review!

So the day before yesterday I went out shopping for a tie, as I forgot to bring my own and I have the interview on Friday and all.  So I took my friend along to interpret my wishes, and being female, I assumed she would impart some kind of magical fashion sense onto my tie choice.  Except I made a few crucial mistakes along the way.

Firstly, I forgot to bring my sole shirt with me, so there was no material to compare the tie against.  This was easily overcome however, as I pulled out a blue shirt from a rack, much to the dismay of a shop assistant whose purpose in life, presumably, is to do such things for one.

A note must be added here to say, I was not in an extremely expensive shop.  This  is simply normal customer service here.  There are always three people on hand to help every customer, and this may go some way to explaining why prices here are what they are.  In petrol stations for example, upon requesting a refill, someone pours your petrol, while any available attendants clean and buff up any shiny surface.  It's 50's america style service, times ten.  Would you like a cigar after your shave sir?

So after pulling apart their carefully crafted customer service system within five seconds of walking through the door, me and my partner proceeded to search for the perfect tie, upon which we hit on snag the second.

There's no accounting for taste.  There are no plain ties in Japan.  Apparently it's not fashionable at the moment.  The feminisation of men in Japan is complete.  Or the Italianisation, if you prefer.  Armani suits and all that junk, belong in armani stores with appropriate price tags.  I just want a plain cheap tie!  What's up with all the stripes and patterns and polka dots?

So we bothered the assistant again, who then had to search their wardrobes for a plain tie, and after a lengthy process of behind closed doors escavation, brought with her three ties.  One of which was plain.  That is the crisis of taste that is happening in Japan right now.

Anyway, I picked the plain one, I think it'll go well with my shirt, all is well.


The Great Hostel Review!

Ok so not all the hostels I've stayed in are great.

Firstly we start with the new Koyo in Taito-ku, north Tokyo.  It's a twenty minute walk from Asakusa which is a great place to visit (for most, it's all temples and whatnot), and is generally indicative of the ease by which you can access the city from the location.

So it's well placed to experience Tokyo then.  The hostel itself is quite old, and feels a bit like the old 60's prefab places in England that were so in vogue, but fell out of favour as quickly as they were put up.  Inside it looks old, with linoleum floors and great big metal fire doors everywhere.  Here's the kicker though, the people who both work there, and frequent the place, are absolutely amazing.

The staff are friendly enough that one treated me to lunch, and one of the others talked to me at length about nothing in particular, just because I was persistent...  Patience is a virtue.  If I had more Japanese under my command I'm sure I could chat to the cleaning staff for as long as I wanted too.  It's worth noting that the rooms are also quite old and shabby looking, but the staff are constantly cleaning something, so the whole place is clean; just tired looking.

The other travellers who frequent the place generally fall into similar categories as me.  Some had just started their trips around Japan, some were at an end, waiting to head to Narita.  Tokyo is the entry and exit point of Japan for most people, so it's definitely an ecclectic mix.

Of the Japanese who live in the hostel; there are  tons of homeless Japanese as I've already said in a previous post, so most of the hostels hire rooms out to the low paid workers in the area.  Infact, most hostels originally started as work houses for those very people and have since converted into tourist hostels.  Therefore, the number of native Japanese in these places is quite high.  Unfortunately the kind of person who lives in a hostel is one who isn't always able to find work, and is therefore very poor, so some might be put off by their less than kempt initial appearance - however, they pretty much keep to themselves, besides the occasional hacking cough...

So the new Koyo scores an 82/100, primarily for its' friendly staff.

The second hostel is called, 'Yokohama hostel village,' and on initial observation seemed promising.  As with a lot of things, initial observations proved wrong.  The sole female receptionist staff was very nice, friendly and extremely helpful.  The other male receptionists were bullish and quite blunt.  They weren't rude per se, but I expect their kind of service in England, not really Japan.

The facade and interiors of the rooms were clean and well kept, and were in a Japanese style; so futon and tatami floors here.  Depending on personal choice, this may be preferable or otherwise.

All in  all, I only really saw native Japanese workers who are less than forthcoming with conversation in this place, bar a couple of americans whom I chatted with for a while.

Essentially the clientele here seem to be rather boring, and there's no communal area to meet people in the same way as the new Koyo.

The cleaning staff are basically a bunch of boys, and are rather aggressive in their cleaning and communication habits.  They're not pleasant, and this annoyed me considerably on my final day.  Also, the internet is both slow and difficult to connect to here.

All in all, 55/100 - It's clean and nice looking, but that's about it.

So I've only been a day in my current hostel and will give it a couple more days before I review it!

Special mention:  Aizuya bar - open 8AM - 12AM for  breakfast, 8PM-12PM for dinner and drinks.  The staff here are really nice, it's an extremely small place and has a very nice atmosphere, again entirely  generated by the staff.  Really great place!

The Trip from Minamisenju to Yokohama

So this particular post covers the night before I left minamisenju, to the day after I arrived in Yokohama.

It's worth noting that drawing money out here is really difficult!  If you have a visa card it's fine, but if you have a debit card like mine, it's nigh on impossible.  I have to go to the big post offices and draw money from their machines because the banks don't accept my card, and none of the normal atm's here do either.

Also, they only use cash here.  Unless you're buying a  car or some expensive tech, they use  cash.  Essentially drawing money out at atm's is important here, and I can't do it easily!  It's quite the pain in the backside.

On the plus side it means I don't tend to keep drawing money  out, and I think this helps me keep track of my finances.  I'll draw a certain amount out and say to myself, ok this has to last x number of days.  Quite handy in that respect I suppose.

So I arrived here desperately needing to pay for the rent in my new hostel, and it took me two hours to find an atm that accepted my card!  Really annoying.

So having found the atm I went and ate dinner with my university language exchange buddy, who came to hull for a month between her normal degree study, and her masters.  She's a biologist studying seaweed and algae and wahtnot.  It's all very clever stuff.

Ok so the pictures start with the night before I left minamisenju, and me and the girl who works behind the Aizuya bar in minamisenju went to eat some dinner, that took about four hours...  Taking your time is important to me apparently, I never realised this before.

Ok so we had 'western' foods tonight.  Pizza, pasta, that kind of thing.  I remarked that even the pizza is tiny and cute, then couldn't resist making a little face out of it.

Don't play with your food children!

Yeah we got some strange looks from the staff...

Then we added a nose...

I don't know why...


But it's fun I guess?

Ok so this is the Aizuya bar.  The woman working behind the bar also works in the adjoining hairdressers.

The people that work here are the best I've met so far on my trip; amazing and friendly!

I'm pretty sure the bar makes no money, it's just something to do for fun, and it shows with the way the staff talk to customers, and how easy it is to strike up a conversation with them.

Really nice people.

The woman on the right owns the hostel/bar with her husband, and they have the cutest baby ever.  It's this devious and cunning little blob thing that already knows how to break things and spend peoples money, in the coin machines they have around the place.

It's a shame about the picture really, but the lighting didn't allow for a very good photo.  If only I had a good camera!

Ok so I forced her to do the bunny rabbit ear/peace/v sign thing.  She works behind the counter in the new koyo hostel and is an amazing help.  She showed me how to get all around the place, and is just generally awesome.

She also bought me lunch!  Thank you very much!

I'll definitely head back to that hostel on the way back to the airport.

Ok so now we're in Yokohama.  My bags weighed too much to take photographs while travelling, but there really wasn't much to see anyway.

This tall, cool looking tower is on the coast of Yokohama overlooking the sea.  The cool thing is that this isn't particularly tall, there are buildings nearing 100 storeys that have obsvervation towers at the top, but this is probably only fifty or so, if that.

So many unbelievably tall buildings in Tokyo and Yokohama.

So I like this picture, even though it doesn't really have a story behind it.  All the birds are facing the same way, because the wind is blowing directly in the faces and when they want to take off, they simply hop off the edge and use the headwind to fly off.  Literally zero effort required!

Another view of the same boat.  Nothing more to say here really...

Moped modification...

You know you've taken it too far when you put a massive fin on the back of a moped to make it look like some kind of shark...

Big bikes are few and far between here, even on the motorways you'll see more harleys than sportsbikes, which again makes no sense.  Harleys work on american roads, but Japanese road are like English ones.

There are side-streets that have turns a harley would literally not fit around.  Bizarre.

Speak of the devil...

I've seen a few R1's parked around the place, and a few more 600cc bikes about the place, always parked.  Never ridden.

This cool looking structure is a hotel/apartment building overlooking the bay area.  It's gargantuan in all dimensions.  Most tall buildings are quite slender, but this thing is broad as much as tall, so you recognise it all over yokohama.

The distinctive curve reminds me of the gherkin, only this building is pleasing to the eye.

I really struggled  to get a good photo of this wheel.  It's substantially smaller than the London eye, but it's still a skyline dominating lightshow.  It's called the clock, and each spoke lights up like a second hand.  It also has a digital display in the middle showing the current 24hr time.  It's impressive.

Inside there's a log flume, as you do, and running around the area is a small roller coaster.  No I didn't go on any of them, my companion is quite timid.

Ok so now we're going to play a little game.

Guess what this shop is...

A little more will be revealed in the next picture...

Ok so there's no name yet, but the little figurines should give it away...

That's right!  It's a pokemon shop!

It's actually styled to look like a shop in the game, and has places to meet other pokemon players and trade junk!

It's a whole shop dedicated to a game franchise, frankly that's incredible and well worthy of a few pictures!


That's everything for this portion of the blog!