We arrived in Tokyo after 12 hours of traveling (and 3 weeks of goodbyes) to be confronted by "the language barrier" wow.... don't get me wrong the japanese are super friendly and helpful, i can't imagine how far you'd get speaking only japanese in Brisbane, but ordering food is an adventure if your vegetarian, if not then pointing will suffice. the subway is amazing clean and fast and easy to get around, if you haven't been traveling for 12 hours. When the first thing you see at tokyo central is this map the brain tends to try and go to sleep on you. But we managed after a couple of phone calls to the hostel and a bit pointing to get on the right train. Once we had our bags safely in our room we went out for a walk to see where the hell we were. We has noticed on the way from the train station that the japanese had a mortal fear of being more than 10m from the closest food or drink source, man i kid you not vending machines everywhere, snacks, cold drinks, hot coffee and best of all beer!. A word of warning to the rookies, the trip down shakes the can up. Heads up!