Good morning Tokyo!

After an eleven and a half hour flight, (with a slight delay in taking off - some people 'didn't make the flight' and had to have their bags offloaded) we landed, slightly jaded and very tired at Narita Tokyo airport smack bang in the middle of a rain and lightning storm. "I think we're back in England," Rosie said as the water poured over the windows in sheets. Luckily, by the time we'd made the long train journey into the centre of Tokyo, the rain had gone and the midday sun scorched down on our pale skin as we made the short walk from Asakusa metro station to our hostel.

"Check in not until 3 PM," the friendly receptionist said. "Three hours from now." Now, we were really tired at this point. Rosie managed a few hours sleep curled up in her seat on the plane, while my lanky proportions prevented me getting any shut eye at all and so I had resigned myself to watching films and TV shows, which, by the end, all blurred into one long, eclectic TV programme, all projected into my fuzzy brain from six inches away. By the time we got to the hostel, I had been awake for over 24 hours.

We dumped our rucksacks and took a good walk around Asakusa, an area we fell in love with during our first visit to Tokyo in 2008. In between admiring the many market stalls selling curiosities ranging from 3 foot tall dolls, tattooed from head to toe in Japanese designs, to fried octopus (octopi?) on sticks, we made a friend (Hideo) as we sat sheltering from the sun. Telling him of our travel plans, "I must have your email address, to follow you around the world!" he said, pulling a note pad and pen from his bag. After picking up some edamame and pork gyoza in a nearby seven eleven and falling into the bunk beds of our cupboard-sized room we fell sound asleep for around 3 hours until our carefully timed alarm chirped us to life. Showers felt utterly amazing and brushing ones teeth was like cleansing the soul of satan. You just have to love long haul flights!

Having shaken ourselves awake and taken in the amazing view of the river from the roof terrace of the hostel (pics to follow soon) we wandered around in the relative cool of the evening (although still around 27 degrees) and later found pints of Kirin beer at 300 Yen (around £2.45), fried meat and veg and big bowls of sticky rice for dinner. We now sit, sharing a can of Asahi beer from a vending machine in the street, while planning our day tomorrow. We are thinking we might sleep well tonight!