Hotel New Grand Yokohama

Japan was an interesting time. We arrived just in time for the cherry blossom season. Our first day upon arrival, I went to a tea ceremony. It was my first and last tea ceremony. We drove to a temple in Kyoto and experienced the entire ritual, which was interesting but very long. The second day in Kobe, we also traveled back to Kyoto. The day was spent traveling to different temples and palaces. The Golden Pavilion was one of the major places we visited on this day. It was so ...

Angela's 3rd birthday today, as well as a fairly full schedule. We set out at 9am to go to Yokohama Zoo, known as "Zoorasia". It was a fair distance out of central Yokohama. Firstly by train to one of the outer stations, and then we changed to the bus for the remaining 20 minute ride out to the zoo. The zoo is in a very green area surrounded by bushland, which is why it was a decent trek out of town. We ...

... and sometimes at church....but in japanese....yeah different story. I mean I am fluent in japanese but the problem is that I don't really speak it with many people. Nope, I don't have many japanese friends, i have friends of every other race but japanese. The group of people I hang out with are caucasian, african american, hispanic, spainish (those people from spain), korean, chinese, vietnamese, burmese..... but yes.. no japanese. Haha! Kind of funny huh? Well the only ...

Sitting here, in the midst of a huge, messy pile of homework, christmas packages, clothes, chocolate, games and last, but not least, Lonely Planet books, budget planners and many, many thoughts in my mind. Reminiscing all of my past trips, I keep thinking that I really need to start writing them down before they all bury themselves deep under all of my new memories. Like every other project in my life, it is a mighty ambitious one, but as I ...

... amp; the room smelt dank. I ventured out in search of the allegded facilities...... one shower for 20 rooms with a marker board & pen outside to form a list for the shower, a ŽkitchenŽ that comprised of a sink full of someone's leftover food & a whole bevy of flies & a shared toilet unit with 1 sink, 2 incredibly smelly urinals & 3 stalls. It smelled like the last person in there had some sort of VD. Nice. What happened to Japanese toilets ...

... something like this:- Me/Chris (duet) - Alanis Morissette - You Oughta know Carl (debut performance) - Green Day - Basket Case Chris - Oasis - Don`t Look back in Anger Mark - The Eagles Hotel California (with harmonies from Chris/Me) Carl - Robbie Williams - Feel (backing vocals by Chris) Me/Chris (duet) - Gun`s n Roses - Sweet Child O`Mine Carl/Chris (duet) - Red Hot Chili Peppers - By The Way Me - AC/DC - Back in Black The best five quid I`ve ever spent ...

... of guilt as a devout Catholic being excommunicated from the Vatican. At the next stop I told him to get off the train and come with me to the station police". The people around them reacted by backing off. They did not even try to co-operate with her capture of the man, she had to do it herself. She had to pull the man off the train and take him down. At investigation the man flatly denied his act. "He was so unrepentant. He even retorted 'So what!?". The ...

... today as well. I would really love to see some traditional Kabuki. This style of theatre comes originally from 17th century and is often about a tragic love-suicide. If this is not available, we will go and see another style of theatre called No. Classed as a 'hypnotic dance-drama' this style goes back to the mid 13th century and the song and dance production is meant to reflect the minimalist aesthetics of 'Zen' (which they're obsessed with). That's my day planned ...

... put it in a locker. There seem to be a lot of jobs like that in Japan - things we wouldn't bother with in America. Lots of extraneous "security guards" in what seems to be a pretty safe country. It was raining pretty steadily the whole time, so I decided to take the subway from Hibiya to Nozikaza to check out the Aoyama cemetery. Near the station, I saw a vending machine and one of the drinks was by Coca-Cola and called "Love Body Beauty Queen". For $1.50, how could I ...

... the ticket (160 yen). Our hotel for the night was the Taito Ryokan. A ryokan is a traditional style Japanese inn where you sleep on futon mats on the floor and sliding screen doors for walls. When we arrived however we had no idea that the doors were supposed to slide and spent about a minute trying to figure out why we couldn't push/pull the door, which we later found out from another traveller caused great annoyance to the owner! After 14 hours of travelling ...