Crowne Plaza Kobe

... be doing so but I've decided not to other than to state that I'm simply not impressed by this type of upscale product. I just don't see the value. I was more impressed with the Apple store that was in the same district. I guess that I'm simply a provincial 'otaku' (geek)...

For our two days here in Osaka it seems like all that we've done is
eat, walk around, and sleep. In a city like Osaka with such great food,
life doesn't get much better.

Seconds please. I had to go back to Osaka, one way or another (my return flight was leaving from here). Ate just as well if not better than the first go around. Went to the Takoyaki museum at Universal city walk but it was more tako vendors than museum, not such a bad thing. Had simply amazing Kobe ...

Meaning to ruin oneself by extravagance in food. Heard another translation - "Eat, eat until you fall down." Why Osaka is my entry point to Japan. It also translates to eating as much Takoyaki and Okonomiyaki as possible. BTW Takoyaki - Octopus balls. Okonomiyaki - Pancake-ish dealies. Oh Osaka.

We left Hojo very early to catch the train to Matsuyama to catch a bus to Sannomiya station in Kobe. The trip was beautiful, but uneventful. There were a couple a massive bridges which were quite impressive, including The Pearl Bridge, the world's longest suspension bridge. It was very large indeed.

Once in Kobe, we decided to check out an information centre and the lady helped us with a simple walking plan that included the ...

... Asakusa, and Tokyo. There are also two different railways that run through Tokyo called the JR and the Subway. I feel like now that I have navigated the Tokyo trains I can travel anywhere because I have never seen such confusing transportation routes. Roppongi is in the southwest section of Tokyo so we had to walk to the Kyobashi subway station and catch the Ginza line down to the Ginza station then switch to the Hibiya line and travel to the ...

... flying Home. We went to the aquarium and saw a whale shark! I decided that since I was still sick from Cambodia I needed to end my trip early and go home with Matt. There were a lot of factors that influenced my decision, but the biggest was that the fun part of the trip was over, and I had 3 weeks at sea (minus a day or two stop) to look forward to. I couldn't afford to loose more weight or risk my health.

... be welcoming the half-naked beanpoles that struck through the place with a big smile. But I guess it's not my fight. I mean, we do let anyone into Graceland after all. The buildings of the temple though were massive and quite impressive. I had a hard time figuring out how they hauled all those enormous beams into place and how they have lasted for so long. I didn't see any mention in my guidebook, or anywhere else, of it being destroyed by fire (normally the first ...

... made the best of my hour though, pouring as many of the free drinks as I could onto of the mass of food in my stomach. The buses had stopped running by time I set off for home and halfway through the 45 minute walk I came to regret my monumental fluid intake. The Japanese are actually loser about urination in public that we are in America. Perhaps I should have taken advantage of this, but I chose to suffer bladder damage instead. The last few days in Japan were ...

... myself! the cool thing, though, was by the end of the second act everyone was laughing out loud. no one could explain what was going on. the cast had never had a reaction like that, but once people heard that it was ok, and fun to laugh out loud, the place went wild! and their costumes couldn`t hold a candle to ours! this friday i`m singing at a bar in sannomiya, and this saturday i`m takin a two-hour bus to a town called kyoto and doing the bus tour ...

... to Kyoto today for the first time, but the weather wasn't so good and it rained on me about an hour after I got there. I was only able to see one temple, Toji Temple. Its official name is Kyo-o-gokokuji, which means "the temple that guards the capital". It was the central seminary of Esoteric Buddhism and contains the treasures of Esoteric Buddhism in its exterior halls. The style of temple is called a pagoda and this one happens to be the tallest in Japan, 187 feet. It was ...