Daiwa Roynet Hotel Kobe Sannomiya

... br><br>The boat leaves from right in the centre of Shanghai so you go past all the famous skyscrapers of the financial district. It`s all very glamorous and exciting, unlike our bedrooms which were apparently `japanese style`&#12288;which basically meant we slept in a room with loads of other people on a tiny mat on the floor. But what the boat did have was a karaoke room! I couldn`t muster up the courage to sing to a whole room of chinese karaoke enthusiasts but Sarah ...

... at Steak Ron, delicious Sakuyaki at Hariju and more helpings of takoyaki/okonomuyaki/yakisoba.<br><br>S teak Ron<br>1-10-2 Sonezaki Shinchi, Kita-ku | Umeda, Osaka<br><br>Hariju<br>1-9-26 Nishishinsaibashi Chuo-ku Osaka<br><br>Takontetsu (Pizza Ball House)<br>1-9-20 Maru Bldg Umeda 1 Chome <br>

... and three months study in Japanese language and culture.<br><br>At the end of our conversation Akram said, "Please stay in touch. You are the only American I know."<br><br>That's kinda cool. I'm definitely going to stay in touch.<br><br>During the course of my brief stay I also met Jeanne and Toshi...<br><br>Jeanne had just arrived from Korea. She was an interesting sort - a French-Canadian art student working on her masters degree. Her current project was in ...

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... him in this post!] we went by his directions pretty sure we'll find nothing we walked for ages and then desided that if we walked that far at least we'll see the bridge which is supposed to be the longest and is near our hostel so we wanted a good view on it although we had no camera so you can google it if you really want... its just a bridge though.... and there it was a gourmet restaurant which i really wasnt expecting! even if i knew kobe beef would cost our lives to eat i ...

... careful if we did. All of Japan was extremely safe and people were friendly. They have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. The area wasn't that bad and it was where you go if you wanted to party, so that's where we went. The only thing off was the mix of people and being hassled to go into the different clubs and even being offered prostitutes. The next morning we went back to Tokyo Dome city and walked around. There was a lot going on there ...

... can't settle but just know that their home town/country is not where they should be right now. They are quite the inspiration - hey, life is no rose garden, but they are showing that even with a toddler there is no need to give up the dream and return to the easy life in the homelands of the coalition of the willing. So check out the photos and related stories and enjoy the 3rd last edition of "Leaving OZ 2006"

... family (the Kawashima's - Akemi, Sayumi, Nanami & Rikako) who treated me like royalty (a girl could get used to that). I had 3 days to see Kyoto and 1 day for Nara so I was pretty busy. On the first day Akemi and Nanami accompanied me into Kyoto. We went to the temple with hundreds and hundreds of red gates (I forget the name) and then to Sanjusangen-do. 'San ju san' is Japanese for 33 and so this temple is named because of the 34 columns inside the temple and ...

... has far from forgotten this horrific event - the Disaster Reduction and Human Renovation Institution documents the quake and its aftermath. As soon as we were sorted with somewhere to stay for the night (more on that below) we headed to the institution. One would really need more than the 2 hours or so we spent in there to get full value for the entrance fee but we were still able to get a good appreciation for the scale of the destruction caused by the ...

... 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 ...