Hotel Route Inn Aizuwakamatsu

... stood up in ash and cooked around some glowing embers. The skewers can be coated in an amazing sweet/salty miso glaze that I wish I could take home, except customs might have a field day with it. I aimed for 3 skewers (tofu, rice and meat), but accidentally ordered the sausage (good...and German, but not what I was aiming for) so I had to get a fourth of the local herring because not having fish is a crime. Overall though, really enjoyed the lunch and had some much needed ...

... You had to wash yourself completely before you got in the actual spa. You could not have any suds on you when you got in. There were separate spas, one for the girls and one for the boys. For brekky we had to have fish, seafood and rice. It was all yuck except for the rice. Mike: One of the things I'd most been looking forward to was the traditional ryokan experience and it certainly didn't let me down. To bathe ''au naturale ...

... the northern peninsula is pretty remote. We looked into driving or taking a train to Hokkaido (there's a v-e-r-y long tunnel that connects Honshu and Hokkaido), but that is one LONG trip! It will have to wait 'til next time, and we'll fly. The expressways allowed us to make good time, and we got there in about 3 hours. However, as I've stated before, they're expensive; we spent ...

Now we decided to head 3 hours east to visit the apline snow monkies of the japanaese alps. Probably not the most constructive use of our time but when I heard that the young monkies dive bomb their parents in a natural hot spring I was sold. We got there and it was so true, the monkies are helarious and complete unafraid of humans, they don't really care that you are there. You should ...

... you take on the Pass actually takes 2.5 hours, but there are some you can take without the Pass that take about an hour and 50 minutes. You head for the Tobu line once you get to Asakusa and they will direct you to a small tourism office next door where you buy the pass. Unfortunately, most of the Temples close at 4 in off season and 5 in prime season. Being off season we weren't left with too much time. We arrived at the station and ...

... believe I wore it with pride the whole afternoon... Including Sound check! Just some goofy, fun back stage stories for y'all. After the show, people were pretty tired from the week before, but I was able to get a Jason, Amy, Tatsuya, and Ken out to the bowling alley. Thank GOD Tatsuya and Ken were there... because we would have NEVER figured out the Japanese and the way to get registered on the First floor. But with their help, we figured out easily ...

... got her another yet!)so we wanted to get one, the owner offered to drive us to get a new one which was really nice after we got the bag he then took us out for ramen his treat. the food at the hotel was great but even tho they had an english menu the waiter made a mistake on the second night and we had curry and rice two days in a row. we basically spent two days relaxing, we had a walk and saw a shrine, i got to know a japanese dentist in the outside bath (and no there was no gay love).

... sake cups (Yakuza style): - always fill others' cups before your own - hold the bottle in two hands when pouring, whilst saying DOOZO - hold your cup in two hands if you're the receiver, and don't move it up or down until the pouring has finished completely otherwise it indicates you're greedy and can't wait - never shake a sake bottle to see how much is left since it implies that you're craving more. You should be able to tell just by the weight of the bottle All these lessons on ...

... but we had nothing else to do. All else I can remember in Kitakata was that Mike was really ****** off at Dave (fast becoming a daily ritual). Dave kept trying to make amends (being primarily responsible for dragging everyone to the DVD stores) like offering to pay ¥500 of a taxi fare for us. That was until we found out that a taxi to Aizu would be ¥5000. Even a bus ride was a bit high (¥800 per person). So we cut the day's activities short (we had originally planned to cover ...

... or cleaned, giving it a milky appearance. It also tasted and smelt a bit like rice, unlike the Jun Mai Shu. We were sitting around a traditional indoor briquette heater. The damn thing burns steady for 24 hours unattended. It can also boil your water. We had a good chat with Yamaguchi-san about the area and his family. Aizu Wakamatsu's samurai were apparently the elite samurai, whilst the Shinsengumi (probably the most famous in Japan) were more like the police in ...