Chisun Shinsaibashi Osaka

... checked in in our Hotel Toyo. All good again and run by this old Japanese man. Helpful and friendly....but his Hotel did have a curfew!! If not back by 12....you no sleep here!! Oh, okay....we´ll make sure we get back in time.!! So bags dropped and off we went to check out the neighbor hood. As we stayed a bit south of Osaka center, and this would be our first Japan visit, we wondered what to expect. Well our neighbor hood was like an old Amsterdam ...

... 1,000 yen admission - about $12. CDN). This area encompasses about 15 square blocks and I would estimate there are a couple of thousand shops and restaurants here. We finally did discover, in this area, (Who Hoo!) two 100 yen stores, and a Mr. Donut, both we had heard were plentiful and everywhere (so we were looking for them!) - it took us 8 days to stumble onto them and amazingly both of them in the ...

... I guess that tells you where their beer allegiances lie. One thing about Japanese food is that there is so much fantastic variety. Teppanyaki, sashimi, udon, tempura, sushi, sukiyaki, and a dozen others. Their desserts are also out of this world - they're really light too so you don't feel sick after eating them. You will never get bored eating in Japan. Actually, we think as a whole Japan had the best food of any country we visited.

It has been 45 minutes and Amy and I are still in line waiting to register our fingerprints in the airport (a procedure all incoming visitors are required to do before entry to Japan). Plenty of time to think about all the shortcomings in our knowledge of Japanese culture and language. For instance, "Hey Amy, what are we supposed to call our host parents?" "Shoot, I don`t know. Okaa san and Otou san I guess." "Is that not too ...

... t really come in handy when your town is under attack by an army of angry Samurai wielding flaming torches. Which is why almost everything is a reconstruction. Unfortunately, Todaiji was partially burned down during the first few years after it was made. Yet it still stands to this day and is gigantic. Whats scarier is that what stands now, is still just one third of the original.<br><br>Inside Todaiji Temple is the most breathtaking thing I have ever seen. It contains Japan's ...

... confirmed by not only my own suspicions, but th*t of *n Americ*n b*ckp*cker I met this morning, this viewpoint w*s not only sh*red *nd *ll too entirely recognized by other tr*velers, but it seems just *bout eighty-five percent of foreigners within J*p*n seem to be Austr*li*n. Something to do with che*p *irf*res no doubt. Anyhow, when they're not oggling R*ch*el, drinking *nd gener*lly keeping everyone in the hostel up with their drunken shen*****ns, they're *ttempting to cr*m this 'go to ...

... for two d*ys *nd spent the first d*y exploring Fukuok*: Which *ctu*lly only re*lly involved going to C*n*l City, * huge complex th*t h*s been n*med * 'city within * city'. It h*d ret*il stores from Gucci to Hello Kitty, Pokemon Centers, Hundreds of b*rs, * The*tre (Which w*s showing the Lion King music*l) *nd even Hotels. We ended up wondering *round *nd getting lost *nd eventu*lly found * Movie The*tre, *nd decided to go see Sweeney Todd. Lets just s*y, I ...

If there are two things and two things only that confuse the **** out of me about Japan it is simply this; for a country that appears to be so clean and hygienic in even the busiest of big cities, why is it that there are never any bins to be found? Secondly, for a people that are so obsessed with hygiene and world renowned for their taking of certain inventions and improving them above and beyond the call of duty - namely, the toilet - why is it that eighty percent of all ...

... you would see around home, lots of Native American - well, in this case I suppose they'd be Native Canadian - artwork, totem poles, whales, raven etc. There was this neat tropical fish tank in the center of the food court and it was on a bridge over a river. Not a real river mind you, a fake one, it even had fake, metal, salmon in it. I spent two hours there just waiting at the gate to talk to ...

... state, it's like she's got different sections of her brain all competing to fire at some random order. She said something about nosehair, called my uncle "Masahiro" which was my grandfather's name (this apparently happens each week), and changes moods from being angry to this time, being really happy. I'm not sure if being stuck in a state happy is good - is the person really happy? or are they just physically laughing because some part of their brain ...