Business Hotel Cosmo Ayabe

... the mum had probably used the spa the whole time she was pregnant and the baby got used to it. The daughter's job was to run between the hot and cold spa to get a washer to wipe her baby sibling's face. There were many old, wrinkly Japanese women too, with skin sagging over boney hips and ribs. Cameron's experience over in the male section each night had also been progressing. This third night, he actually fell off his plastic stool. But, true to ...

... and Horikawa-dori, only to find that the damned place is closed from Christmas to New Years. Then we braved the subway to Daitoki which turned out to be very easy. Daitoki was sprawling. It is also the one of the most important Zen Buddhist temples. Peter was afraid of the Germans...(and wondering what the draw was for Germans to visit their WWII ally). Then walking out of Daitoki, Peter incited dissent between an American ...

... the Pokemon ride in the kiddie playand area, we left by going down a different set of elevators. We found that we had crossed over into the even-more upscale side side of Takashimaya - think DeBeers, Cartiers, Tiffany's etc...best of all, we found a section with traditional Japanese cultural arts, ranging from the affordable (surprisingly) to the very, very expensive. There was also a section dedicated to kimonos/obis and ...

... vegetables and a main course. They brought the beef to the table in a small ceramic canister with a lit sterno underneath. The raw beef and sauce was sitting on a very large leaf above it. When it looked cooked enough, I removes it from the leaf. The beef was very soft and melted in my mouth, but too fatty. While we were eating, the television was showing the burning of the Obon fires on the mountains around Kyoto. We returned to our hotel, and Yehuda again tried the hot springs.

... he explained, to remember the burning thirst that people had suffered on 6th August 1945. Many survivors recollect the constant begging for water. The cruelest thing is that if you give someone who is severely burnt a lot of water, their internal organs burst and they die - this is not a commonly known fact and many people died inadvertantly by not being aware of this, either trying to clench their thirst themselves or giving water to ...

... our goodbyes before heading back to the ol' PONY HOTEL. Back at the PONY everyone went straight to their rooms and packed. The guys packed for a time before settling down and watching episodes of Venture Brothers on Matt's laptop. I must say that Matt made a fan out me. Today I learned something about patience and remaining composed even when things aren't going the way I had hoped. I had originally hoped to spend the rest of my summer in Japan, Korea, and Mongolia. Dealing with ...

... but I always seem to forget it. When you indulge in spirits and push your body throughout the wee hours of the am, you ultimately sacrific a good part of your next day. As for learnings unique to Japan, I learned that though Sunday is a time of rest its also a big day of recreation for a lot of Japanese. Walking around the city, I noticed that many of the schools were having baseball games and the school playgrounds seemed full of kids with their parents.

... after our 40 minute commute from Osaka. We left the train station and Tomoki lead the way. It was so great to have him with us, because he knows the area so well. He was even married here!! Quite a tour guide to have him join us. Kyoto is large, so we only got a chance to see a few small areas. Our first stop was Gion. Anyone who has read MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, will recognize this area... as it is the main Geisha area of Kyoto ...

Long bus journey to Koyoto, but it was a well good bus - really easy to get good kippage... However it would have been a nightmare to find and book if it wasnt for Chie, so cheers Chie for sorting it for us! However Japanese punctuality was put a little to the test by the road conditions, and it failed. We arrived 3 and a half hours late...... Then I made a misjudgement as to how far away our hostel was, I thought 15 minute walk, it was more like 1 hour 15 ...

... tummy was going into overload thinking of all the different types of food that it would be forced to digest in the space of an hour. It didn't take long to realise that amazingly there seemed to be only 4-5 different types of stalls mass cloned in large quantities separated by mere metres from each other. It gave rise to the thoughts of some thoughtful Japanese company having franchised a whole street full of Yaki-tori stalls. Another thought was where ...