I am going to give you a very very brief account of the journey and my first day here. I apologise for any spelling mistakes - I am not going to be being very thorough with this.

Tuesday: Left house at 10ish in the morning. Trained it up to the max and got to Heathrow in the afternoon. After the customary long waits and check-in etc I boarded my flight at 7:15pm. The flight left at 8ish and took about took about 12 hours or something. Well, we landed at 3:30pm local time, so that would've been 7:30am in UK I think. I met all the other Nova people travelling during this time as well. Anyway, we're now on wednesday...

Wednesday: We arrived at Narita airport, Tokyo. We went through customs and were then met by a Nova representative who sorted out our luggage for us (it was delivered next day to our respective homes) and told us how to get to our different destinations. I travelled via train (the Narita Express) to Yokohama. The trains in Japan really do make me embarrassed for British public transport. They all air-conditioned and clean and even though the average height in Japan is shorter that in England, there is still loads of leg room - even for someone of my height. I was met at Yokohama by an american guy called Greg who worked for Nova. He was very nice and had been living in Japan for 10 years. He showed me to my flat (eventually - the map Nova gave us was rather inaccurate, so it took quite a while). I then met my housemates - an American called Russle and a Scottish guy called Callum. Callum took me to the local bar/restaurant which was fantastic. You take off your shoes and walk around in socks - which is brilliant. Then you sit on the floor and there is a well under the tables where you put you're feet. The food is really cheap (in terms of the price of each dish) so you can order loads of different little dishes. The beer is also fantastic here. They even have slippers that you put on to go to the bathroom in, which is kinda neat - even if they are all size 6. He then showed me round the local area a little before we headed back for the evening.

Thursday: This morning my luggage turned up which was nice as I could finally get a shower and change my clothes, so I smelt less like a dead camel. This afternoon Callum showed me round Yokohama which is large and basically broken up into lots of smaller sections (or wards), like how in London you have Knight's bridge and Camden etc. I also had to register at the Ward Office today to get my certificate of alien registration (yes, I am an alien - though I prefer the term Gaijin). It was a relatively painless process anyway, as Japanese people are all very helpful. The one thing that is a pain here is the heat and humidity. I got back today and was absolutely dripping. I have never sweated so much from doing so little - it was absolutely disgusting. I came back to the flat on my own as Callum is off to watch a football match (some Scottish team against a Japanese one - just a friendly I believe). I got a shower and then powered on the aircon in my room, which is a god send. I am now waiting till 9pm (is 7:55pm now) as I am off to shin-yokohama to meet up with Callum and his mates for beers and food. I have a vague idea how to get there. All I know is that it is 30 mins on the tube, I know roughly which train to get and it's about the 25th stop. I have a feeling I will get terribly lost, but lets hope not. I will try and get some video footage of it for you all. I have included below a very brief bit of video footage from my travels today. You will be able to see the big wheel etc from that picture of Yokohama that I posted on here previously. The really tall building that I am near is the tallest building in Japan. Don't worry if you can't see the video yet as it takes YouTube a while to sort it all out. Anyway, hopefully tonight's adventure will go well and I can tell you all about it tomorrow. Adios.