04/06 - back home

today we had to go back home, unfortunately. before our flight we planned to go do some karaoke and check out akihabara some more but the karaoke place was closed. we went around akiba shopping where keegan got ripped off on some of his purchases (not much, but costly when u have no money left). after shopping, we wanted to go back to the udon place from 2 days ago but they also weren't opened.

going through customs and immigration wa pain free but the flight sucked. we had no personal entertainment system this time, and the seats were very uncomfortible. the good thing was the flight seemed fast, the food was decent, salmon, and our luggage made it to vancouver.

our stop over in vancouver was 6 hours 30 min, which sucked and we couldn't get on an earlier flight.

04/05 - Tokyo

Today was the last full day in Japan, which meant frantically running around and buying stuff. We started by heading back to the temple district and hitting up the souvineer shops there for people. I bought a yukata there for my self as well. originally i wanted 1 that was black with red and white clouds, very similar to the atansuki ones (naruto) but got a normal one instead. I also loaded up on food and snacks to bring home. Japan has a bunch of differnet kitkat flavours.

the next stop was to go to akiharbara, the tech and anime district. there was tons to see here, lots of anime stuff, computers, airsoft...ect. here we did some more shopping, getting mini food for steph and some other stuff. i went back to yodobashi camera, where i bought my laptop to get stephs stuff and found out how my membership card worked. 13% of my laptop purchase was designated as points and each point was 1 yen to spend, so i had 15000 yen to spend for free. finding this out, i picked up a zoom attachment for my camera, so sweet!!!


after shopping we went around the trainstation to listen to the various street preformers. Dima found 1 preformer he likes from his trip last year and talked 2 her for a bit, pretty cool. after a while, a cop came by and everyone stop and all the preformers hid, it was really weird, stupid cops. after meeting up with keegan, who went off on his own to shop, we checked out the preformances some more. keegan fell in love with 1 of them, so dima and i got her cd for keegan and she wrote a nice message to him.

we went to a cheap place for dinner, which had udon, rice, and fried oysters for 600 yen, not bad. afterwards we went to ueno park to check it out at night. it was so busy there with many people having picnics and getting hammered there, was interesting.

04/04 - Tokyo

Today was a heavily sea themed day, with some sky thrown in. we started the day bright and early by going to to tsukiji fish market, the worlds largest fish market. we woke up at 5 and got there about 6am. the activity around the market was frantic and was very interesting to see. when we got there, the tuna autions were over, but we saw many people preparing the blue fin tuna they just bought.

The various fish on display in the market was impressive, with many things i had never seen before. one of the cooler things were whale steaks. keegan and i wanted to buy some to try, but it was 1.3 kg and would have cost about $30. we settled for some sashimi instead.

upon leaving the market area, we went to line up at sushi dai, a sushi restaurant highly recommended to us. the restaurant only sat 13 people, so the line up moved slow and we waited for about 1 hour 30 minutes before our turn, but it was worth it. we got the chef special, 10 pieces, plus a roll and egg roll and miso soup. you could pick anything at the end to top it off. the first piece was blue fin tuna toro which was amazing. it literally melted on your tongue and the fat content was very high. the second piece was something called hobo, but i don't know what it was. the third peice was golen eye snapper with was also very good. we then got some miso soup and tehn surf clam, which was fresh, different from the frozen stuff back home. it had much more flavor. the next peice was sea urchin which was amazingly smooth, very good and probably my 2nd favorite overall. we then got bonito, which was pretty good and nice to see in sashimi form instead of flake form. the next piece was spanish mackerel which was amazingly tender and my 3rd favorite. we then got shrimp, tuna rolls and clam rolls, and an egg roll, which was slightly sweet, very good. the last of the 10 was sea eel with was awesome fresh. for my bonus i went for another peice of toro since it was so good. as we left the restaurant, we walk to another market to eat some fresh unagi and snacks.

we met back up with dima, who didnt want to eat, and eached to tokyo odaiba, a man made bay. the main reason to go here for us was to go to muscle park and do the ninja warrior/sasuke course. before doing that we checked out the man made beach which was nice.

the ninja warrior course consisted of 4 stations. the first was the hand bike, the 2nd was a finger ledge, the 3rd was a pull up later, and the last was a bar slide. the first station was pretty each and did it no problem. the 2nd start required you to travel horizontally and vertically along a 3cm finger ledge with our falling, i couldn't do it. the 3rd stage, ytou had to do a pull up then remove the bar from the peg and place it onto the higher ledge, i got it higher, but lost my grip and fell. the final stage required you to hold on a bar and which suspended. push your way also parallel bars to the end then swing to the safe area. i got to the end no problem but lost my momentum and couldn't swing far enough to the save area. keegan and i both passed and failed the same stages and had very similar times, both under a minute. it was fun, but expesnsive or i would have kept trying.

we then walked to the toyota city showcase and history collection. it was an exibit about toyota stuff with all their models, a auto drive car course and some attractions. we saw a movie ride with moving seats showing a couple laps around toyotas speedways, it was neat. the classic car collection had cars from various makers and times.

keegan and i then went to tokyo tower to take pictures of tokyo at sunset and night. tokyo is huge and the tower was a great place to take pictures. while on the tower we felt a slight swaying sort of like a small earth quake. dima, who was at the hostel, said we felt the same thing as well, so it might have been a small one.

we went to a local noodle place for udon dinner. the cook/owner was really nice and we taked about his store and travel. he gave us a bunch of free food, which was very nice of him. i had to the fried tofu and egg udon. the cool part is the noodles were hand made and really good.

after dinner we went to the roppongi district to take some more night pictures before heading back home.

04/03 - tokyo

Today was our first day in Tokyo. This is also my 3rd time trying to type this so i will resort to point form reporting out of frustration. the first time, my ipod decided to delete my note and the second time, as i went to post, there was an internet error and it erased it.

- last night in capsule hotel was interesting, but hot and stuff. neat novelty but not something i'd do often.
- went to new hostel to drop off stuff and pick up keegan's friend.
- went to asakusa district to see temple, sonsoji.
- many interesting stores for souvineers and food. ate yakitori and fresh rice crackers.
- went to ueno park to see sakuras, very pretty.
- many japanese passed out by trees with empty bottles of sake around them.
- keegan's friend left, we went to shinjuku. dima got origami book for yukari, i got last volume for my FMP manga. keegan got clothes and pens.
- keegan and i went to imperial park to see gardens and sakuras. very pretty.
- went to dinner near ueno station for sushi, conveyer belt style, similar to sushi boat.
- 136 yen per plate, 2 peices.
- good and fresh, tuna, eel, ikura, maguro, other fish i didn't know.
- had 14 plates.
- went to hostel early as we planned to wake up very early next day to go to fish market.

- if this post doesn't work again, i will just skip it.

040/02 - tokyo

Today we went to Nikko and Tokyo. Coming into Tokyo station was pretty neat as the amount of people, trains and activity were much more then anything we've seem so far. From Tokyo we took a train to Nikko, famous for their temples, tombs and mauseleums. We first dropped off our bags at the trainstation day locker. It took a lot of work fitting all 3 bags in 1 locker but we somehow managed.

On the walk to the temples we came across a guy selling charcoal grilled fish on a stick so we ate one, not bad. We first came up to shinkyo bridge and eventually to the shrine area. One temple was closed for a traditional rice eating ceremony but we didn't see it.

The places we saw were rinnoji temple, toshogu shrine, taiyuin temple, and futarasan shrine. The temples and shrines here were covered in gold leaf and intricate carvings and also had a strong Chinese influence. It was really cool to see. One of the more famous carvings here is of 3 monkeys covering their ears, eyes and mouth. We ate some cheap soba at the temple.

Back in Tokyo we checked into our capsule hotel. The "room" is pretty much a torpedo tube with bed, tv, and some other stuff.

We walked around akiba first and Dima found the same street singer as last year, which was neat. Next we went to Yodobashi Camera so I could buy a laptop, it was one of the harder experiences in my life. No one spoke English so asking about duty-free and return policy was tough. Eventually we spoke via altavista translator. The laptop is Japanese only so Dima is going to make it English for me.

We went to shibuya next to walk around and see the busiest pedestrian intersection in the world. Its crazy how many people are in Tokyo. We found a little ramen store there for dinner. It was probably the best ramen I've had and the broth was a milky white color, good stuff. After wandering around a little more we headed to our capsules as we had to meet keegans friend the next morning.

04/01 - kamakura and yokohama

Today was a travel heavy day so we didn't get to see much.

I slept really well the night before as the futons and heated floor were a good combination. We started the day with breakfast at the ryokan which was pretty good, like the dinner before. We got a hotpot type thing with we first used to fry a lightly oiled and salted fish and then heated up a broth of tofu, mushrooms and seaweed. we had some pickled veggies, fish paste rings, miso soup, rice, chowamushi (steamed water egg) and some red olive like thing in sugar. The fish and chowamushi were really good. We did a quick hike around the area, taking pictures before checking out.

The next couple hours consisted of a gondola ride up the mountain, train down the mountain and multiple train transfer before we ended up in Yokohama. After checking into your hostel, we go on to another train to go to Kamakura, a town about 30 minutes away.

Kamakura is famous for the 2nd largest buddha in japan (first being the one we saw in Nara) and a couple other temples. We first went to see the buddha and got to go inside of it, which was interesting. Afterwards we went to hase temple, which had japan's largest wood carving, and a nice view of all of kamakura. after wandering around the town a bit longer and buying souvineers, we headed back to yokohama.

In yokohama we went to the downtown area to see if there was anything to see. None of hte buildings looked particularly interesting at night. They had japans tallest obervation deck, but we decided to pass on it. We found a pokemon center in the mall which sells everything pokemon related, which was also pretty interesting. Dinner in that area seemed pricy, so we went back to our hostel area to find a place to eat. We found a fast food place that was very cheap and i got a salad, miso soup, a big bowl of rice , and hotpot sytle beef for \490. not back.

we were all pretty tired from all the train travel, so we went back to the hostel afterwards. The room was pretty interesting. It is pretty small but is tatami mat covered. It has a thin futon to sleep on, a tv, fridge, and balcony. Also, the toilet is really cool. Like all japanese toilets, it had the butt washing spray, but this one also had a fan/drier and a sink on top. neat.

Tomorrow we are going to take a day trip to Nikko to see teh mauseleums and temples and stay in a tokyo capsule hotel.

03/31 - hakone

Today was our ryokan day in Hakone, but before that Keegan and I had a little more exploring to do in Nagoya. We didn't have to catch our train until 11 so we got up earlier and went on a walked.

The first place we went to visit was Osu Kannon temple, a Chinese style temple in Nagoya. It was pretty quiet there and we watched the priest catch up on blessing the various charms he had accumulated the day before. The other thing we wanted to find was some of Nagoya's speciality foods. Kishimen, a flat udon soup was on the top of our list as we couldn't find a place open the night before. We popped in a few places but they were all closed. We gave up and went back to the hotel to pick up Dima and go to the trainstation.

At the station we hunted down a few of the other foods, tempura rice rolls and uiro steamed rice cakes. The tempura were like onigiri but with tempura shrimp in the middle. Uiro is as it sounds and is sweet. Satisifed with our selection we made our way to the train platform. I walked around the platform and found a noodle stand which had kichimen. I grabbed keegan and went back to the store. We had 3 minutes to order, have them prepare, and eat before our train arrived so we gave it a shot. We ordered at the vending machine, found a place to stand an about a minute later it was in front of me. I wolfed it down as fast as possible, burning my mouth along the way and only had the raw egg left when the train arrived. I quickly slurped it down and ran for the train just in time. Keegan took had last bit with him on the train in a cup. It was pretty good, much better then regilar udon and sorts of like how fettucchini compares to linguine.

The train to the ryokan was pretty interesting as it had to go up a mountain. It did this by going up a bit and back tracking up the next line, zig zagging up the mountain. Its like leafing down the mountain when snow boarding. When we got to our stop we got into a private gondola which brought us to our ryokan. Our room was pretty nice with an entry room, food prep room, washroom, main room and sitting and storage room. All the wall dividers were slidding paper doors and the floor was tatami mats. The floor was also heated.

The ryokan has 4 public baths, 2 indoor and 2 outdoor. They rotate between men and women so we went to the big outdoor one first. We had it to our selves but took turns jumping in and covering up with buckets. The water was 40-50 degrees and was very refreshing. After about 30 minutes we went to the large indoor bath and repeated our entry procedure. Afterwards, dima and I taught keegan how to shave. Dima and I explored outside for a bit which keegan soaked in the outdoor bath longer.

We got back at 6 and got ready for dinner which was an impressive feast. We were first brought a personal hotpot with beef, carrots, mushrooms, cabbage, udon, vermincelli, and bamboo. While that was cooking we were given a sashimi platter, salad, appitizers, and egg dish, and plum wine. The sashimi had tuna, shrimp, yellowtail, and 1 other fish and was extremely fresh. The tuna melted like butter. The appitizers consisted of a tofu cube, shrimp, fish roe wrapped in imitation crab deep fried, and clam. The salad was a scallop and veggies in a honey mustard sauce. The egg dish was thin scrambled eggs in a broth with a pink sauce which I don't know what it is. Next came some stewed veggies, including bamboo, gailan, glutton and carots, and a tempura dish. The tempura was eggplant wrapped in tofu skins and deep fried, a veggies bulb, which looked like a Brussels sprout, and shrimp with a multi-colored seaweed thing. Lastly we were brought sticky rice with an underwater plant in a broth, and strawberries and grapes as well as a large container of rice. The meal was very good and the plum wine at the end, which was very sweet like a desert wine, was a great way to end the meal.

After dinner the main room was arranged into a bedroom with futons. Keegan thinks they are the greatest thing on the world and the heated floor really adds to the comfort.

In the evenning keegan and I went to check out the last couple baths, a smaller inner and smaller outer bath. The small outer bath was very interesting and was carved out of rock and overlooked the river. The cold rocks sa night was a good contrast to the hot water. We then went to check out the large outer bath but it was gated. We hopped the gate and relaxed in the bath for a while before returning to our warm futons.