Today we fly home, we got up early to get the bus to Narita. We settled the bill for the few extras we had on the room account (mostly internet usage fees) and then booked ourselves in for the next available bus. The ride out to Narita took a while but wasn't too bad and we got into terminal one at about 10:30 we had our luggage scanned and got our boarding passes then had a wander about the shops picking up a quick breakfast and then sorting out some postcards. It was then just a matter of getting through security and then waiting for our flight.

We set off more or less on time, the flight was fairly full and on take off the 747 seemed to crawl into the sky. I watched a few of movies on the flight, National Treasure Book of Secrets which was pretty awful, Helen Mirren must have really needed the money. Leon which was good as always, and the George Cloony version of Ocean's Eleven which is pretty fun. I watched a few episodes of tv shows and pretty soon it was time to land in London.

We were landing at the new terminal 5 which was interesting, the whole place feels a touch unfinished. It is also a bit of maze we had to go through lots of corridors, on a train, up umpteen escalators, down another load, round and round in what seemed like circles, all just to get to passport control. Anyway once we got to passport control it moved fairly swiftly and we our passports were scanned and we were waved through. Then a short wait at the baggage carousel and we were on our way out the exit.

My parents met us in arrivals and gave us a lift home.

It's hard to believe the trip is over but as they say all good things must come to an end. It's back to work on Monday and I'm sure it will soon seem like a dream. Anyway it's been a hell of a trip and I'm very glad we managed to do it after all the years of talking about it.

We had a light lunch of some noodles with added baby (at least that's what the pictures on the packaging seemed to indicate) and then headed to Akihabara electric town so Byrnie could pick up a Nintendo DS. We braved the train at a fairly busy time which was standing room only and it was a bit of a fight to get out at Akihabara.

We wandered up the streets to find a cheap place we had seen last time we were there and then Byrnie attempted to communicate what he wanted to the sales guy who didn't speak any English. Some rudimentary Japanese and hand gestures later Byrn was the proud owner of a Nintendo DS lite silver for about 15k yen or about 70 quid.

We got back on the yamanote line to head back some fiddling later the DS was reconfigured to English and ready to go.

We decided to catch the dolphin show at the aquarium so we went back there when we got back to shinagawa station. The penguins were bit more awake this time and the dolphins were pretty impressive doing all the usual tricks. They had maybe 6 dolphins and one that looked like a beluga whale, they did some pretty impressive acrobatics.

After that we headed to a Chinese restaurant we were a little late at 9:10 and we found the place closed at 10. They left us for a bit while we were thinking about what to order and as a result it was 9:40 by the time they had sorted that out.

We ordered roast pork to start, then braised chilli prawns, shredded beef with sweet soy, chicken and cashew nuts, fried rice with crab, and Chinese style noodles. It was all very nice but since we were late they wanted us to go quickly.

As a result they kind of rushed us through the food when it did show up stopping just short of force feeding us. So when that was done we were just a little unwell. We grabbed some drinks and headed back to our room.

Tomorrow we fly home it's been a great trip some truly great memories.

Today we decided to go for a wander over to the Tokyo Tower. This is a slightly larger version of the Eiffel tower initially made as a TV station. In our normal manner we noticed we could see it from the hotel, so we planned to just walk in that direction till we got there.

First, we needed some lunch. We headed into the 24 hour cafe in the hotel. I was sort of expecting to order from a fast food counter, but no - we were met at the entrance and guided to a table for two. Poor attempts at speaking Japanese ceased when we were politely answered in near-perfect English.

We set off, out of the hotel (which is a fair walk in itself) and down to a major road. As our guide we had the map in the guide book and a Tokyo tourist map - neither of which seemed to be any good for navigating in this case as they had no road names marked.

At regular intervals, every 100m or less, there are vending machines on the street, selling cold drinks at reasonable-ish prices (about 150-170 yen, 75-90p for a 500ml bottle) and also cigarette vending machines. No ID, no checks. TV adverts for alcoholic drinks carry the message "please don't drink if you are a minor". Apparently here that is enough...

After a fair distance, and the discovery that again pedestrian crossings don't actually stop all traffic - you still have to dodge peple turning left, we turned towards a visibly closer tower. A bit of a walk later we passed an attended petrol station - no need to pour your own. Shortly afterwards we were at the foot of the tower.

The views from the tower weren't bad at all. We paid an additional charge and went up to the "Special observation platform" where the views were even more impressive. Its a pity it was foggy/smoggy as otherwise we could have glimpsed Mt. Fuji.

After having a good look around and taking many photos we decided to make our way back, but first take a look at a temple and gate that were just off a nearby hotel's grounds.

e then wended our way back in the dying light, and on reaching the hotel we decided to check out the "Top of Shinagawa" restaurant at the top of the hotel - on the 39th floor. Unfortunately we had left it quite late and due to some communication issues we ended up ordering some bar food - a couple of pizzas to go with our monumentally expensive beer (around £6-7 for 330ml bottles....) but the views were impressive and much photography ensued.

On returning to our room we decided to make use of the beer vending facilities and watch a video on demand film. The lack of choice led us to Spiderman 3,which was not quite as bad as I expected.

Today we took a bit of a break. The flight was more comfortable than most but it was still eight hours of sitting in a tin can, which is more tiring than it seems.

We spent the day taking our time, reading the guidebook and then nipping out for a pre-dinner snack. We overbought a bit and ended up not needing to eat dinner.

Things are different here. The ATMs close at 11 but you can get a beer from the vending machine down the hall 24/7. High technology is everywhere but practically every transaction is in cash - cards are not generally used for shop purchases, restaurants and so on.

We seem to be in a very big hotel complex,which conveniently is near Shinagawa station which seems to be on one of the railway lines and some of the underground lines also.

After our "snack" we both got engrossed in games. Matt in puzzles on the DS and me in a "AI trying to hide its existence while achieving singularity" game.

A very wet and rainy day so we decided that we would try the in hotel aquarium (which compliments the in hotel bowling alley, cinema, and shopping centre). First we did a spot of interneting then we headed out for a meal. We went to the 38th floor which was a Japanese restaurant, or what appeared to be upwards of 5 different Japanese restaurants all doing separate styles. After much bumbling around we picked one that did mostly sushi and sashimi. It was a traditional sort of restaurant with kimono clad waitresses and an array of chefs behind a long bar who most of the time did nothing until it was go time when they became a blur of knives.

We picked the set menu which consisted of 8 courses (an appetiser, sashimi, pickled stuff, a sort of savoury egg jelly with bits of meat and fish in it, grilled tuna, sushi, red miso soup, fruit jelly with chucks of fruit in it) then green tea. Most of the stuff was nice but there were the occasional weird bit like whole baby squid, some sort of fish roe sushi, some sort of sea snail which we couldn't tell if it was meant to be eaten of if it was some sort of elaborate joke on us by the chefs ... there was laughing.

To dull the pain and keep with the full on Japanese theme we had Sake, we went for a local brand the name of which escapes me. It was all quite good and we finished up feeling fairly full and just a bit drunk. We settled up and headed for the aquarium to look at some of the things we had just eaten. En route we grabbed a can of coffee and gorilla pods.

The Aquarium had some pretty good tanks of fish including the industry standard tunnel tank filled with sharks and rays. They also had dolphins and sea lions, the dolphins had finished all their performances for the day by the time we got there but we did get to see them swimming round their little tank while the keepers tidied up, the sea lions were all shut up for the night. Other than that some of the stand outs were the puffer fish, some very tired penguins, a shark with a saw nose, a fish that looked like a flattened sofa called an amusing sun fish (which was quite amusing), some very grumpy looking eels, and some colourful little fish of similar kinds to the ones we saw at the great barrier reef.

After that we headed back to the room had a few beers and watched the top gear polar special.