Business Hotel Ise Odawara

... ryysis Shinjukulla, huh! Yhden elämän voisin ihan hyvin käyttää pelkästään istumalla tuossa asemalla ja katselemalla meininkiä. Ei takuulla tulisi yhtään aika pitkäksi ja siinä vaan istua möllöttäisin perkule, kunnes muumioituisin siihen paikkaan! En tosin usko, että mitään pyhän miehen statusta napsahtaisi, vaikka istuisinkin tuossa, jossain retkituolissa irvistelevänä muumiona notkuen seuraavat tuhat vuotta. Ja Asahi tölkki tietysti edelleen sitkeästi kädessä. :-) No, matka Shinjukulta ...

... town, we got off and walked through the picturesque cedar avenue to the next town, Hakone-Machi. From here we got on the sightseeing boat to cros the lake (Ashino-Ko) - a pirate ship nonetheless. I kid you not! We also managed to not get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji all this time (the whole reason for coming this way) because of the poor visibility and low cloud. At the other side of the lake we caught the ...

... the 52nd floor of an office block, it is amazing at night you just see miles and miles of neon, shows just how big the city is! On Monday we hit the sumo basho, the last major tournament of the year. it`s a lot of preparation and ritual for a fight that only lasts about 10 seconds, but as a spectacle it was pretty amazing stuff. we saw the favourite lose his unbeaten record and got some good photo`s for ...

... with the other tourists. The coolest part was watching the tuna auction...seeing the men cut the tail of the tuna open to inspect the quality, rubbing the flesh between their fingers to test the texture. Then, once bid on, a man write the buyer's number on a piece of paper, dips it in a bucket of water, and slaps it on a the fish where it freezes to it. So while hunting for a sushi place in one of our books, Sushi Dai, we ...

... and then i asked the guy at the hotel to translate for me. Kanpachi and Syake Syumai, and I still dont know what I ate!! I am hoping hoping hoping I don`t get sick.... yikes. waking up early tomorrow to catch a flight to china.... more adventures to come!! I keep reminding myself I am not in japantown, I am in Japan. WOW!

The pacific ocean from the Japan side. It is the same ocean, but just feels different. Why is that? I don`t think the water changes and starts to grow black hair and narrow eyes as it gets closer to the islands of Japan... but still. There is something about water that calms people, or maybe it`s just me. Yes, I need water to survive, but there`s something more than ...

... I did a lot of rushing. Even though we were only confined to the shopping area, there were still many stores to check out. I bought a shuriken (a.k.a. ninja star...which later caused some laughter among airport security), a set of chopstick for friends, postcards, and a Hyde keychain. The last item was from what I called the "idol store" because it sold merchandise from Japan's biggest musicians and actors ...

... we'd give it a look. Lions, tigers, pandas, polar bears, giraffes and other animals entertaining the Japanese people. You would have thought they'd never seen any of the animals before the way they were reacting. From here we went on to Harajuku which was next to Yoyogi Park and the place where the Harajuku Goths gather. The Goths consisted of mainly girls that lived in the suburbs of Tokyo, in dormitory towns. They gather in Harajuku to ...

... gag and a nasal passage that resembles a mountain stream in torrent. And frankly, if I cannot see a moving mouth when a student speaks to me, I have absolutely no idea where to look. Worse still, from a professional standpoint at least, students could be speaking Swahili from behind their inadvertent muffling devices for all I could tell. So I guess mask removal might end up being the lesser of two evils, even at risk of developing my own ...

... of issues to deal with before we were allowed leave. Firstly we had two 3 foot long swords in our possession. We were given the relevant forms to fill out at customs but first they wanted to check them out before we checked them in, and check them out they certainly did. There were 3 security guards, one police man and a guy from the army. They unwrapped the swords from the packaging and all had a feel to ensure that they were blunt and safe and not an explosive ...