We had arrived by Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo that evening so we took the metro up to Shijo-Dori (handy for free wi-fi) then counted the side streets eastwards (take the eighth, head approximately 100m south) to find ourselves at 9hours reception.

At reception we placed our boots in individual lockers, and our large case in another locker, leaving us with just our day bags (with a change of clothes) to carry. 9hours has worked hard on their design, I thought it much reminiscent of an Apple Store, but in white. Instead of complicated dual-language signs, simple pictograms were generally used (with a note where needed) and the ladies-only floors were marked with red, instead of black/grey graphics.

After checking in and receiving our locker keys¹, The Australian headed for the 4th floor while I headed for the 7th to check out our pod accommodation. I had evidently been checked in as most of the pods were dark, but number 720 was glowing gently awaiting my arrival. Then it was back in the lift to the 9th floor to check out the lockers and grab a shower.

In my locker I found a set of three branded gels for the shower, toothbrush and mini toothpaste and a navy Jinbei. The styling at 9hours pervades everything, very simple branding but it doesn’t look out of place. Disappointingly though, the Jinbei was not branded² (The Australian got an Embroidered sporty looking number).

After hanging in the ground floor lounge/ lobby for a while it to check e-mail was time to try out the pods for real. Inside you get two small phone-sized ledges, a plug socket and a clock/ ambient light controller. The lighting is linked to the alarm so when you start it it slowly brings the lighting down over about 20 minutes, and then back up over a similar time frame just in time for your alarm call.

Tipped off by The Australian, In the morning I investigated the shower room further and found the hot bath. It was maintained at 45C (which, incidentally seems to be a perfect temperature to cook seafood in a sous-vide). It was unbelievably good, and I just wish I had found it the night before!.

I would definately recommend a stop over at 9hours if you are in Kyoto for a day or two. It’s not so cost effective if you are travelling with someone but really worth it for a nights sleep quite unlike any other!

1. Your asigned locker number is also your pod number ^↑
2. It would have been even more tempting to steal/ buy one ^↑

On this particular trip we lucked out completely – The Australian spotted a ‘we have english’ label attached to a menu, and a quick skim through revealed it to be a place specialising in Things On Sticks tempura-style. For ¥80 a piece we could choose from a wide variety of meat and non-meat goodness¹.

Inside, was a small bar with maybe ten seats and another five 2-person tables along the wall. A row of Sake bottles sat on the the bar and each pair of seats was equiped with an urn of soy², two small plates and a wire-rack tray.

The bar-girl was super lovely and with a mix of my badly pronouced English-translated-Japanese, pointing and some finger counting we ordered around a dozen items. The Australian also spotted Kyoto Cider so, being a Cider drinker I had one of those while she ordered a ginger ale.

It wasn’t long before a steady stream of skewered delights was headed our way. Each item was battered, cooked and served steaming onto our drip rack. The cook made sure to tell us what each one was and they were all delicious.

Top picks included the bacon, eel (unagii) , tofu, rice croquette and baby green peppers.

When we were pretty much done, I had a quick look through the menu again and spotted that they had Ume Chazuke – rice served with umeboshi (pickled plum) with green tea poured over. I had first been introduced to it by my internationally travelling friend Cem, so I thought it was only right to order one (which I manged in rough Japanese). Unfortunately they were out of rice that night so it had to wait for our return visit. It was fantastic; there were some fresh mint leaves in there too and the bite of the sour plum was perfect.

It’s hard to say how good the place was. It was definately a place for locals (as well as travellers) and the staff were lovely. A few business cards from around the world had been pinned over the door and I was disapointed to find I didn’t have any spare in my waller. We went twice while in Kyoto and I will make a point of going back when i’m there next.

We had just finished our last lap of Tokyo, picking up those things that we has seen previously but didn’t want to carry around all holiday. Our suitcases had been lockered at Tokyo station for the day so we distributed our haul into them ready for our flight back to Sydney. Everything was stowed and we were checking the shopping bags to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. At this point, I noticed something and asked The Australian ‘Erm, where are the Be@rs¹?’. ‘I thought you had them?!’. “You were carrying the shopping²!?’.

In a word: Ohnoes!

I hadn’t got a clue where we might have left them, but fortunately The Australian’s near perfect visual memory narrowed it down to the Yodobashi electronics store in Akihabara – our last stop of the day.

Since we knew where they were, we could go and get them. Right? Unfortunately we had a problem – tickets for the 17:30 Narita EXpress for our 20:30 flight. That left 50 minutes to get to Akihabara station (an 8 minute train ride), get to the store (5 minutes), find some help (I don’t speak Japanese and the store is 8 floors) and return. An unrealistic challenge which left us the choice – abandon the be@rs, or go searching, miss our train for a later one and run close to check in for our flight.

Not the best end to our holiday – there were a couple of sad pandas on the train, but I figured they might have been found at cleaning time. I hoped the good nature of the Japanese people we had met would help us out.

Once back Sydney on the Monday, I tackled their website and, with the aid of Google translate, I somehow found and slowly managed to fill in a fully Japanese ‘contact us’ form with our tale of woe, hit send and hoped.

Apart from an automatic reply, nothing happened for the rest of the day.

Three days later, I received a personal e-mail from one of the shop staff – they had indeed found a bag, confirmed it was mine and were happy to send it. On Tuesday it was siting on my desk.

Just to emphasize how awesome this store was, they had found my bag among 8 huge floors of electronics, found someone with fluent enough English to read my mail and correspond with me and they had just spend ¥1,500 to ship ¥3,500 of stuff to me. In a week.

So: Yodobashi Camera Akihabara store in Tokyo; apart from having awesome gadgets, toys and miscellaneous cool things, they also have awesome customer assistance.

While I am on the good customer service thing, Apple just replaced the Logic Board and Trackpad on my MacBook pro. It is all ready for collection 23 hours after I dropped it off.

Since the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano is disrupting flights into the UK I am currently stuck in the rather warm city of Dubai. At least with the regular updates on airspace closure, we know when we are not leaving, which gives time to explore a country I was only expecting to transit through in 90 minutes.

My brothers were in Australia for new year and we spent a week up near Cape Tribulation in Far North Queensland where these were shot.

Suggestions welcome, I have some time – my flight doesn’t leave until 2010 (ish)…

Well, that was fun.

In the unlikely event of the plane ditching at sea, the brightly coloured life jackets will help people find the wreckage and your laminated passport photo will be handy for ID purposes.

Hell, there’ll couple of minutes before impact so there will be time to hit the duty free alcohol you bought, get naked¹ and do whatever else you want.