OH I forgot to mention, I have a telephone answering service thing... message bank.
Check out www.istc.org.au to find the number to call. For Melbourne, it is 9909 0888, or toll free in Aus on 1800 150 812.... I dunno, try them both.
My account number is 7 061 001 678 799. HOWEVER, you may have to drop the 7 from the beginning. Yeah, everything is so clear cut when you travel、ぇｔ芽　　師ｔ！　ｓｆｄｓｆ師ｔargarh! These Japanese keyboards are killing me ! gah... time is money in these cafes, and I tend to crap on and on and on and on and on, so don`t expect much more till I get to Budapest.
Please test the messagebank thingy, as it would be nice to hear your voice and really, I just want to know that this thing I paid for works. :) No, please, it will only cost you a local call, eh? Ciao.

Yikes, already been in here an hour just organising banking and flight contact details, advance tickets to things, blah, etc. Went to the Tokyo National Museum today... they have some cool samurai swords and armour, fwoah!
Went to Shinjuku last night, that was pretty cool, not quite as crazy as Shibuya, though. Spent almost the whole night in one shop, or rather, department store. Why? You could buy outfits off the shelf and look like something from Fruits. I didn`t know whether to look at the products on sale, or the people buying them... I was agog! There was just outrageously dressed people, mainly girls, selling and buying this stuff. A little disappointing to learn that it can be bought from a huge department store on the main road. Some of the stores/labels in there were Angel, No Future, agh, I forget... but just insane. 8 floors of insane clothing, oh, actually one or two floors were quite conservative. So, 6 floors of insane clothing! heheh. Prices like South Yarra, so I dunno how these kids affords them. On one floor there would be perhaps eight stores, each with their own attendant, music and range. Each floor is not huge, maybe twice the size of Peril, so everything is packed. I dunno, I`m really bad with estimating area. But it was stimulus overload, as are most experiences here. Tried on some black overalls with something-"TERROIST" above the breast pocket amongst other decorations... a tempting purchase, but at $250 I opted to think about it. I don`t think us gaijin really carry off the intended look. heheh, speaking of gaijin, Terence and I have been amusing ourselves no end with self-deprecating humour about being "stupid gaijin", it makes me giggle just thinking about it... in faux Japanese accents (but with deep respect, of course...) we talk to each other about "oh, you stupid gaijin, you too tall, you bump head on everyfing! - your hands so big, so clumsy! - you round-eye, you no know how to buy twain ticket!" ahhh... it`s reassuring to be able to take the piss out of one`s own incompetence in a foreign country. People here are generally friendly and helpful when approached. Actually, last night, I had dinner by myself at a Yakatori (I think... no rice or sushi, more like chicken kebabs) restaurant that was obviously not designed to cater for us stupid gaijin. Have I told you about how often I say "wakarimasen" (I do not understand)? and you know "gaijin" means "foreigner"? yeah, anyway... so this stupid gaijin walks into a restaurant, with a sliding door no less, so the entrance was noisy to boot, has to be told to hang his backpack up at the door (ohh, you stupid gaijin), and takes a seat at a bar to find... NO PICTURE MENU... OMG, I CAN`T JUST POINT AT WHAT LOOKS GOOD!! Ah yes, a myriad of hiragana and not much else. So anyway, fuck I tell long stories, don`t I? So anyway, after a few minutes of my looking around in painful obliviousness, wishing that I had freshened up on my Japanese or bought my own guide/phrasebook, and being given iced tea and cutlery before I had any concept of how to order something other than maybe cooking it myself, this guy sitting next to me obviously takes pity and suggests "you like, chicken?". heheh, saved! "Yes, hi, hi!" So he helps me order chicken, makes sure I realise that I`m up for 1,000 yen ($13), and all is good. We get chatting, in very broken English of course, my Japanese only consists of yes/no, hello/goodbye, etc, and sort of get to know each other! Amazing. So I met Shige, who works in R&D for a chemical company that makes adhesives, he likes rugby and doesn`t know how to play chess. :) heheh, there was more, but the long and the short of it is that he offered to pay for my dinner, which in typical paranoia I thought he might be hinting at something more lurid, because he used the word "invite" to mean "shout", BUT ANYWAY... he paid for my dinner! On the condition that I pay for his if/when he comes to Australia. Bizarre. oooh... you can smoke in a lot of places here, including this internet cafe, and it has just started to give me a headache. I think we`re off to a goth club tonight, cyberage voodoo or something, which will be funny, as the one thing that I forgot to pack were clothes specifically for "goth clubbing"... whoops. :P So chances are I`ll be there in my new Kenzo pants that are, as Sophie reckons, `taupe` coloured (think dusty canvas), and a woolen rollneck. But tomorrow night is Babbage-02 with Riow Arai, which should be cool, and the following night.... MERZBOW!! FUck me,m what a tremendous fluke. :) I wonder if they censor this blog thing? I wonder if... hmm, nevermind. Ciao.

It`s funny... street workers here look just the same as everyday people, nothing like the glaring product for sale in St Kilda that I`m used to. How do I know about streetworkers here? The first thing we did when we got off the train from the airport is accidentally walk into the red-light district looking for food. Brilliant. Once realising that the little guys with big hairdoes in suits were the lowest in the hierarchy of gangsters, we backed up and found saviour in a tiny restaurant... what am I saying, everything here is tiny... well, not completely but you get what I mean... ummm... so to order in this resaurant, you put money into a vending machine, choose your meal, it spits out a ticket that you then give to the staff. The chef, who looks kinda evil but I`m sure he`s a great guy, even if he does talk funny like everyone else, whips up your meal in about sixty seconds.
Too verbose, too verbose, I`ll be here all night if I keep talking like this...
Accommodation is cute, traditional Japanese Ryokan... Terence and I are wondering how long before they kick us out for accidentally offending them... as we tend to come and go alot, laugh a lot, and say all the wrong things in response to their Japanese greetings... tadaima, tadaima, must remember tadaima....
my god, it is legal to drink on the street here! Drinking in bars/pubs is ridiculous though, two vodkas at the Green Apple was about $40!
Ok, ok, enough about drinking.
coffee... best coffee I have had was from a can.
hahah, the other night, Terence and I went back to the red-light district and went to the Hub... an English pub, where we encountered Troy from Boronia. Whoops, that was drinking-related again...
ummm... Shibuya, crazy, like from a film, lights, music, everywhere, people dressed exceptionally well, not quite on the scale of Fruits but getting there. Bought a DJ Krush EP from... hehe, HMV of all places, funny where you do go into when you are in a foreign country... but HMV here has a whole lot of flyers and stuff for clubs and gigs. And Tower records, which is huge too, also have an impressive collection of avant-garde/experimental music, and OMG I cant believe it ... Merzbow is playing on the last night that we are here!! ahhahahh AAAARRRRRRGHHHHHHHH!!!! Ive been oncloud 9 since I discovered that, he s playing with Bastard Noise somewhere in Shinjuku. jhmm...
washing here is interesting, no western showers at Homeikan RYokan... but being the prudish westerners that we are, we have shunned the public bath house and use the private `family` bathroom, which is the same gig but you can lock the door. oooh, the final bath in 40 degree water is heavenly, come out lobster. I kinda dig washing like that actually, waste less water and time, not that I usually ever give the impression of being against wasting time.
the bed, crikey... so first of all it`s about six inches too short, to be expected... the pillow! It`s like a rock! Filled with beans or husks or pebbles or something... and surprisingly comfortable.
Oh yeah the DJ Krush CD came with a bandana type thing, very brightly coloured, it`s nice, Bill Laswell is on the CD too. Yeah whatever, ok.
yeah had a look a Buddhist temple in Ueno, which is where we first got off the train from the airport and the red-light district is, well, we don`t _know_ that it is the red-light district, but this woman grabbed me by the elbow at one point and said it was five, or fifty, so I`m guessing 5000 yen (about $65) to have a beer with her. She wasn`t happy when I said "no thank-you", but they must have been thinking "stupid foreigners" about Terence and I, as we kept getting lost and walking in circles in that place, coming back to intersections we`d been at before just from another angle.
I think they`re more spun out about my long hair than about my mo.
Everyone here is really good looking, I`m not kidding. Well, the girls anyway. Well dressed, and just generally cute. And the schoolgirls, ohhhh the schoolgirls, now I understand! For a conservative society, hmm, nah, don`t get me started. Over and out.

Ａｒｇｈ,,,Ｔｈｉｓケｙボアｒｄ伊ｓ ｓﾁﾞｊｆｄｓｄｓｊｆ ijojsadf ah,　　0032ｗｔｆ？？hhh ah. Thank ｆ＃’ｋふぃｒてゃｔ…

one two hmmm ok. Now,　あｓ was trying to say, but this computer keeps doing straaaange things... which fits in with this culture, really. I do not　ｋのｗ yamate!! demons in the keyboard. Everyone looks really weird here (unless you hang out at Bourke St Village a lot), and these weird sounds come out of their mouth when they try to talk... spooky. And for some strange reason, they won:t let me wear my boots into the house! Barbaric. Anyway... internet cafe not much fun. Blood issuing from finger. Asahi is, hmmm, about one third the price as in Australia. :) (Hey, I like to take in my culture slowly, and drunkenly.) Tim efor dinner. Ciao, ciao.,