Hotel Universe Chuo

... of a public performance of traditional Japanese music Dion & I parted ways.

Deciding to head back to the hostel as I was still covered in soy sauce I was politely accosted by 3 female Japanese students. Answering the questions of their short tourist-survey project they were especially delighted at my knowledge of Ichiro Suzuki (a famous baseball player & the Japanese equivalent of David Beckham, except actually good-looking & able to string a coherent sentence ...

... find the sukura house office. I get to the street and
still the load of people had not lightened. Hot, sticky and wet from
the moment I stepped outside, I start my search for the office and I
found it just fine. After all the paper work and blah blah blah, I go
back to Shinjuku and am totally lost on trying to figure out the metro
system here in Tokyo, lucky me though I find one person who speaks
english and helps me find my ...

... little bit and she accepts my plea for some food. (See one of the pics below that verifies the menu and our predicament) Birnie does the same, and we start dying laughing, fantasizing about what we will actually get when the food arrives. Well, we learned a couple of things. In this restaurant, no one, including the cooks, spoke a lick of English. That was verified when one of the cooks nodded hello to birnie, and he returned greetings by saying "hi" which in ...

... It was interesting to learn that there were fires very often in Edo because everything was made out of wood (even the water pipes) and so they had to be extremely careful with fire. There were devastating fires at least every year in the 1700's! This explains a lot about why the city looks the way it does today, I think. Everything is very close together and there is so little room for what is there. After touring the museum, many people returned to their ...

... heads and upper bodies. It's a beautiful shrine. From there, Kirilee was complicit in my interesting visit to the Pentax Forum and photography area near Shinjuku where I indulged in all things photography and imagined all the countless pieces of photography equipment I might buy if I ever won the lottery... it's expensive stuff, surprisingly even moreso here in Japan than in London. Shinjuku is a bustling shopping area full of towering high ...

... choice of kimono wear. Some women seem to just wear them because it's the choice du jour. Find a ramen shop - since I couldn't find the recommended tempura restaurants. But fabulous people watching. Again, mostly pairs of women shopping. One Buddhist monk, one family, two gai-jin (me and some guy). Then off to the Niimu Biru. Giant chef head on the roof kinda gives it ...

We got up at 7ish, ate at our breakfast buffet spot in the hotel, and got in line for the DisneySea bus. We were all really excited, because we knew this park was going to be special. And let me tell you, we were not disappointed. We have been to every Disney park now except Hong Kong Disneyland (next year!), and DisneySea is our favorite. We were trully amazed from the moment we walked in the gate. I was nearly in tears, it was so beautiful ...

... nd the tsun*mi in Asi*, horse r*cing in Austr*li*, g*ngs in Gu*tem*l*. These *re photos th*t hold your *ttention *nd le*ve * l*sting impression. On the 38th floor of Ebisu G*rden Pl*ce Tower, there's * fine pl*ce to see the city's sights while enjoying dinner. It's *ppropri*tely dubbed Top of Yebisu. (Ebisu is the new w*y to write Yebisu. The "Ye" in J*p*nese is ne*rly non-existent now*d*ys. Thus, the "Y" h*s been dropped in this us*ge. Ebisu ...

... museum was closed on a Tuesday. By this stage I was confused as to which days of the week the Japanese regard as weekends. I always thought they were hardworking people, but finding shops that opened at 11am and closed at 4pm, plus closing on Mondays and Tuesdays led me to think otherwise. Speaking of weekends, we saw students wearing uniforms 7 days of the week - they must really love their uniforms. According to Owen, they still wear their uniforms on weekends when they have to ...

... her. We decided to ask at the post office, thinking they would be able to help us. One of the mail clerks actually showed me on a map where we were and where we were supposed to go. I vaguely understood - for those of you who don't know, addresses here in Japan are random and not on any sort of grid line, so finding an unknown address is nearly impossible for foreigners, and still quite a feat for the locals - but we headed off in the right direction. Along the way ...