Holiday Inn Kochi Nankoku

... view was quick to disappear though as we went into a long series of tunnels. I arrived to hard rain in Kochi, which matched my mood. After a rough night in the business hotel and finding out my CF photo card aquired a virus (damn Hostel PCs), I was pretty irritated and vaguely sad. This blog will have to do without photos as I'd rather not inadvertantly infect other computers. The good news is the virus doesn't appear to affect my camera or ...

ciao a tutti e che bello vedere un po' di commenti!! solo un rapido aggiornamento, ieri ho fatto i mille mila gradini (1800 e passa + il ritorno) del tempio Kompirasan, stupendo davvero, mentre la notte l'ho passata in una casa molto molto giapponese in mezzo al bosco e sulla riva di un fiume ...

Primo traghetto che personalmente a me da una particolare libidine caricarci la moto e navigare per mare ogni tanto. Fiondo nell' isola di Shikoku , l' isola di un pellegrinaggio Zen da 1500 km attraverso 88 templi . Io la taglio a meta' naturalmente per montagne e dormo a Kochi altra citta' di mare e naruralmente si cena a base di sushi freschissimo . Sto viaggiando un po in fretta un mio amico a Shizuoka mi ha invitato ad andare ad Iwata a visitare la fabbrica della Yamaha .Potevo dire di no?

brianne made the mistake of NOT coming home and sitting right down to enter these details.... so now she barely recalls them :( ~but to make a long story short.... my friend shannon copp (a shiga JET) invited myself and two other shiga JETs (Nan, and Anna) to ...

... labour and a number of American prisoner of war soldiers who were not known to be in the area.They burn a flame at the site and it is supposed to be extinguished when the last nuclear device is destroyed. I guess unfortunately it might as well be an eternal flame.From Hiroshima I bulleted my way to Okayama.

... or early for that matter). Also there has never been a Shinkansen accident. That is if you exclude the poor desperate soul who jumped in front of one somewhere the other day and was splattered fair and square on to the wind shield. Anyhoo, I settled back and enjoyed the consistent view of houses zipping past me, whilst sucking down a Marlboro Ultra Light (just because I was allowed to, but admittedly it was gross and weird smoking on a train). Was very relaxed and ...

... want her to point, but she takes me outside, in her kerchief & apron uniform, and walks me a block to the door of the restaurant I'm after} - but Taeko-san went far farther, driving me to different sights of her area (old kabuki theatre, temples, gardens, ocean overlooks, and the birthplace of haiku). We had really great conversations and then went back to her home to prepare for the party. The what now? A party with a few friends & their ...

... dog controlling the match or the other yelping or turning to get away, the top dog is declared the winner. Other research says that there is supposedly full tournaments, similar to the Sumo ones that they have here. The top dog is given the rank of Yokozuna, just like in sumo. They even have small posters that are similar to the sumo ones showing the names of the dogs and their rankings as ozeki. The matches have a 30 min time limit, and the matches sometimes end up bloody, and deaths ...

... some laws for noise ordinance. Kochi is famous for it's open air markets on Sunday. You could buy anything from fruits and vegetables, toys, knives, souvenirs, cellphone danglybobbydealies, and shaved ice. It was like any other open air market, but it was a few kilometers long. As we walked along we ended up in Kochi's Gintengai (which I guess means golden market street, so there must be other cities besides Matsuyama and Kochi with Gintengai ...

... battered by its fair share of typhoons, which is precisely why my mate James (aka "Thrillsy") made it his city of choice while teaching English in Japan. You see, aside from the advantage of very surfable waves Kochi is not exactly known for much else. Considered one of the poorest areas of Japan, he assured me it was (in)famous for the highest rates of alcoholism and wife beating. Nice. In an effort to make the most of my couple of days ...