We woke up to see how beautiful the golf course was from our balcony. Its really big. And we saw ppl mowing the lawn. Big lawn - i wonder how they do it. The weather looked gloomy and about to rain so that wasn't too good. We packed our bags and proceeded downstairs for our complimentary buffet breakfast. It was actually an ok breakfast. Very western. We spoke a little bit too loudly about private issues at the table that the couple next to us gave us dirties ahaha.

We had nothing to do after breakfast so decided to checkout early. Our flight was at around 2.30pm. Took the shuttle bus to airport and spent the next 45min asking about flights to hk coz I decided to jet off to hk on the way back for a few days and meet up with Kerry, Chris, Chun and everyone else from sydney. It worked out to be a lot lot cheaper to book online so i did just that.

After check-in, we went upstairs to this eatery section of Taipei Airport. Its really nice. Our row of food stalls. We ate lunch anywayz, taiwan is famous for their dumplings so that's what i ate. Shopped around and bought some snacks like pringles to eat on the plane. Didn't realise others had played a prank on me and stuck "This is a fragile item" stickers all over my back and bag and it was only when a Gucci assistant told me and when I took my bag off for xray screening that I realised!! I walked around like that for prolly 1 hour like that!

We had to run to the boarding gate with 10min to spare coz we spent too much time looking and shopping hahaha... Ran on the travelator. We did spot some Adidas and Fila concept stores thought which we would have liked to look at if we had a bit more time awwww.

The flight from Taipei to Tokyo was packed! So many ppl. The landing wasn't that smooth this time and I got a bit scared. Food was gross too. Had the pork which had a funny smell to it. I didn't touch it or eat much of it. Lucky we had a good lunch at the airport before we jumped onto the plane.

It was only 3 or 4 hours flight. Landed in Japan yayyyy.. Welcome to Japan!!! Lines in immigration was so longgg we had to wait for nearly an hour. At immigration we had to get a fingerprint and photo taken. Damn now they have a record of me. We got our luggage this time (thank god!!!) and Derrian was holding my luggage and customs decided to pick my bag to check within the whole group. Derrian was like so defensive like "THATS NOT MY BAG!!!! ITS HERS!!!" hahahaha... like i had a bomb in it or something lol.

We went straight to information to rent a phone. The guy serving us was cute... Rented a phone for 2100YEN with call rates at 300YEN/min? I cant remember the exact price. The reason we had to hire a phone was for emergencies. We didn't end up using the phone at all throughout the whole trip. Japan uses a different network or something so most phones from other countries won't work there even if you have roaming on or even if you bought a Japan sim. Thanks to Mimi we were able to call home now and then using her call card. =)

We exchanged our JR Passes which we bought from Jalpak before we left Sydney. $300AUD! This pass turned out to be quite useful. Basically entitles you to unlimited travel on any JR line including Shinkansens (bullet trains) which costed over $150 one way if you were to purchase it separately. Some ticket attendant taught us how to buy tickets for the train. Basically you look up at the map to see which station you want to get off at, and then pay the price in the machine. A really really small tiny ticket pops out and you use that to enter and it eats it when you exit at the station. But just say you decide on ur way that you don't want to go to that station anymore, there's a fare adjustment machine at each station that you can use to add money onto ur ticket so you can get out. I'm really amazed with the train network in Japan. Trains are so frequent (2min for each train). The subway map looked complicated. You got different lines overlapping each other. But we got the hang of it straight away and all you need is an english subway map and you'll be fine. Trains were never delayed. CITYRAIL SUCKS!

Caught the train to Asakusa which was were our Capsule Hotel was. Yes we slept in capsules. Its like a morgue or plastic coffin. Bigger than a coffin though. Its just a hole that you sleep in. It only fits one person. It had a pillow and a blanket and a little tv screen. The capsule was made out of plastic. You had a little blind with holes that you pull down for a bit mroe privacy. I slept on the top capsule. When i got in, it actually wasn't as small as i thought it was. Good size for me. Not recommended for claustrophobics. But its certainly a good experience. We all agreed that we wouldn't do it again though hahahha.

It was so cold that night. We paid for our stay using a vending machine. 3000yen. First of all, we had to change our shoes downstairs (weren't allowed to wear shoes in the buliding). Girls had to sleep on one level. The boys on another. When we went for a shower, it was a communal bath area. Inside were 3 shower heads and 3 stools and some buckets. Errr... didn't really know how to use it but i just showered. Felt weird. But luckily for us, it was really late at night so I had the whole room to myself.

We ate dinner at KFC opposite our accomodation. Japs have this special way of dealing with money. When you pay, you put ur money on the tray, they give you ur change first before putting the money into the till. And they always count outloud the money thats been exchanged. They didn't speak english so we relied on the pictures. Ordered a 4 piece feed which i shared with Cat. Walked around Asakusa at night but most places were closed. We saw lots of vending machines, it was outside ramen restaurants, it was in some isolated small street, it was everywhere! Items sold included alcohol, hot drinks, hot food, cold drinks, cigarettes.... funny! We spent our first night freezing cold in Asakusa!