My husband and I have spent the last week in Tokyo. I’ve been here before, but it was over 10 years ago and this is Spiff’s first time. I know a little bit of Japanese, having studied it in high school for 3 years and for 1 year at university. So it’s been enough to get by here.

We have been staying at Citadines “Apart’hotel” in Shinjuku-ku. It’s a great place that I found on TripAdvisor, providing studio apartment style accommodation for a very reasonable price. Tokyo accommodation is notoriously small and expensive, so this place is a welcome change. It even has a little sofa and a kitchenette.

However we made the mistake of trying to walk to it from Shinjuku main station. We got lost, and only found it thanks to my meagre Japanese skills and a lot of help from a fellow Aussie named Terry (top bloke, walked us all the way to our hotel!).

Before visiting Tokyo, it pays to become very acquainted with the Tokyo train system. If you have almost any kind of smartphone, the “MetrO” app is an absolute life saver! It works offline and you can actually download metro train systems from anywhere in the world. It not only shows you which stations to go to, but also shows you which direction to go so you know which platform to stand on.

Speaking of great iPhone apps for travelling, I definitely have to say GPS Log is definitely handy for tracking down places that you want to visit again – like your hotel or a place that sells great coffee – especially in Japan where everything is so hard to find on a map. The best part is that it works offline, and if you cache the area maps when you find a wireless hotspot, you’re set (check this site for free wireless hotspots in Japan – there aren’t many because people usually subscribe to their own wifi services on their phone plans).

Of course like any sophisticated city, the train system is absolutely amazingly efficient, and you’ll want to get a “Suica” train card if you’re spending any length of time here, so you can just swipe it as you go through the turnstile. No need to even take it out of your wallet to swipe. Try not to resort to the “gaijin smash”, which is where a foreigner’s suica card does not work, so said foreigner smashes his/her way through the gates, relying on the flimsy little barrier and the politeness of Japanese people to let him/her through without incident. I did this by accident once, and found my suica card did not work on the other end, at which point I decided to feed my card into the machine (DON’T do this), and the machine promptly ate it and started flashing a red light to call a guard over, who looked embarrassed, gave me my card back and just let me through without even paying!

We craftily timed our trip to coincide with the “hanami” (cherry blossom season). So we have been charmed and showered in soft pink petals wherever we go. People are really into the cherry blossoms here. I mean really into them. At the park, they all pull up a tarp and sit around looking at the flowers! There are so many people there it looks like an outdoor concert, but without the concert!

I wondered what happens to all the cherries, but my friend informed me that these types of cherry trees do not produce fruits. But you can buy sweets containing the cherry blossom flowers.

That’s all I have time for now, hopefully I’ll have time later to blog about other stuff we’ve done!