Kim's Travelling Adventures!

Hi again!  My first couple days here have been really crazy but I have loved it so far.  On my first day here I met a girl named B (short for Beatrice) and a guy named Tadhgh (sounds like Tige, its a Gaelic name!) and we have been travelling around together for the last 2 days.  On my second day here we were to Harajuku and Shibuya, which takes about 30 minutes on the Subway line.  For those of you that dont know, Tokyo has probably the most efficient subway and train system in the world!  Everyone uses it (either that or takes their bike!  Outside all of the stores here there are racks and racks of bikes), there are surprisingly few cars on the road.  There are about a million different subway lines so it can be a bit confusing but everything is colour coded and they have engligh and japanese signs so its been alright so far.  We got off at Harajuku, this is where most of the teens are and everyone is dressed up. We didnt go on a Sunday, and apparantly thats when there are loads of people dressed up very strangely, so I am going to go back again in a few weeks.  The shopping was really cool and there were lots of random things to see!  Then we went to Shibuya where the famous street crossing is.  We were the biggest bunch of nerds when we got there, every time you could cross the street we ran right into the middle and started taking loads of photos and videos!  Oh well.  Shibuya is the main shopping area in town and I dont think I have ever seen clothing stores like they have here.  There is a store called Shibuya 109 and its 9 floors high, but the building was shaped like a big silo so each floor was quite small.  The stores were unbelieveable, you werent allowed to take photos inside but I managed to get one of a shoe store.  The people working in the stores look like they took about 3 hours to get ready in the morning, everything was so elaborate and beautiful!!  I am going to go back there and try to sneak some more photos, and it will be towards the end of my trip so hopefully I can buy something!  We went to a few other department stores that were once again AMAZING, and I got very upset that I had no money to shop.  That night we found a lovely Scottish couple named Keith and Truda and we played cards with them, Keith had some sake in what looked like a milk carton.  He tried to convince us that it was only 13% alcohol but there is no way it was, because we literally had a few sips and everyone was acting a bit funny.  Today Tadhgh, B and I went to a zoo in Ueno which is about a 2 minute subway stop away.  The zoo was really nice and there were lots of nice animals, but apparantly their beloved Panda bear died only a few days ago so everyone seemed very depressed!  I liked the monkeys the best.  Tomorrow the weather is meant to be alot nicer, so far its been about 12 degrees and either raining or windy or cloudy every day.  The sun came out for about 2 seconds today and it warmed up instantly by about 10 degrees, so hopefully thats a good sign of things to come.  Tomorrow im going to walk around this area where my hostel is (Asakusa) and then the next day I am heading to Kyoto for a few days, then Osaka, then Hiroshima.  Take a look at my photos on here if you would like, although I put the same ones up on facebook with captions and they are in the correct order.  I cant seem to get my photos up on this site properly!  Hopefully I will work it out soon.  Anyways, I miss you all alot so please write to me on facebook if you get a minute!! Love Kimbo  :)