Hotel Jal City Kannai Yokohama

... a rock, paper, scissors tournament broke out. Chrystal joined with 2 other women that we'd just met. Chrystal was a pro at the game! She ended up coming in second place individually and their team won overall.

After that we headed to Chinatown in Yokohama. It was really neat, a lot of people and a lot of shops in a really small area. It was a bit overwhelming and seemed like every other door led to ...

... to be in the one hotel room for the next 4 nights. Both girls said they wanted to go to the toilet about halfway through the shopping trip, so Veronica took them out to the toilet, and I finished the shopping. When it came time to pay at the cash register, this particular supermarket must have a frequent buyer stamp type rewards program running, and the checkout girl spoke some rapid fire Japanese to me, and offered me a ...

... The great part is that it's free incoming calls! Yes no matter where people call from it's free! For a prepaid phone it's great!. God gave it to us. He allowed Kouta's mom to come looking for me to tell me that she could get us one. I didn't even ask her....she came to come. God sends these kinds of things. Yes it's a luxury, but a useful one. I believe that is a miracle. So yes we have been meeting that nicest people ever. People who will go ...

... there is a sensor so that it knows when your bum is sitting down or it doesn't function. Jeff, in his infinite wisdom, covered the sensor with one hand and pushed the "wash" button with the other. His fascination to the little "arm" coming out from the back of the seat quickly faded as it turned on and squirted him with a jet of water all over his sweater and down his jeans to his knee!! He went out of the stall to get paper towels only to ...

... me that he was going to town to meet someone from Okinawa. "Okinawa, Okinawa, Okinawa" he muttered. He then closed his lips tight, showing his determination by forming a straight horizontal line. He will keep on shooting. Maybe he will produce enough photos for another exhibition. Maybe he will receive further critical acclaim as a true late bloomer. I hope that cops will leave him alone in his artistic pursuits.

Minor problems with Carl`s PC, absense of wi-fi in the Dai-ni Tower Kyoto and lack of sleep the night before last meant that we we`re too tired to upload the latest travelogue yesterday. So here`s the latest......... Thursday involved a short train journey from Kyoto to Osaka (Japan`s second city) followed by a lunctime visit up the Umeda Sky Building - similar to the twin towers except for a roof top garden linking bridge (oh, and it`s still standing of ...

... The squares indicate the doors of a female-only carriage in a ten-carriage train. The square says that the fifth carriage is reserved for women from the first train in the morning until 10h00 and from 17h00 till the end of the day. Apparently this is responding to the perennial problem with groping on packed trains. Sexually frustrated men are known to satisfy their sublimated desires in crowded commuters. I wondered if anyone really enforces gender segregation. But I ...

... then catching the bullet train to Kyoto tomorrow morning for a 3-day stay. Then we catch the bullet back to Tokyo and fly to Bangkok on the 21st. I'd love to stay longer, the place is amazing, it is sooooo fashionable, fast paced and has a great vibe. Everything is super modern and cool, the restaurants and bars look either look ultra modern or really traditional Japanese. There is culture all over the place whilst at the same time it seems to be the leader in technology ...

... naps to avoid going insane." Very true, very true. Works for me. Sunday, June 11, 2006 I didn't sleep great last night since some noisy people who came in late last night and the paper-thin walls, combined with jet lag. See, I'm so tired that the previous sentence is not properly constructed and I'm too mentallyd drained to figure out how to fix it. Woke up at 5:30 Found Minowa subway station and took it to Tsukiji. I knew the fish market was closed but there was ...

... Northern Tokyo. The journey took 70 minutes and the views were pretty good. It was endless rows of houses and buildings as far as the eye could see. As there is so little flat land to build on in Japan, they just have to build wherever they can. This definitely shows as there is no real blocks of houses like there are in the UK. It looks quite common to have a 1 story house crammed in the gap between 3 large buildings. Either way it looks very claustrophobic. The ...