Hotel Villa Fontaine Kudanshita Chiyoda

... was batting, or if they were down by 6 in the top of the 9th with 2 outs. They cheered their hearts out.

Then they would politely sit down, and in the bottom half the Swallows would come to bat and the same thing would happen in right field. Except the home fans had a brass section with trumpets and everything. They had a song for everyone, including one player named Aaron Guel who was apparently from Canada. Every time he came to bat ...

... self-hating westerner would have felt a tinge of annoyance at the way we were being portrayed. I would like to remind everyone that we were the ones that invented the television set I was watching it on, discovered the electricity that powered the television set, built the first planes, ancestors of those that these people were flying in and also used the first chairs, ancestors of those that they were sitting in, and created the ...

... did I mention earlier that Disney was celebrating their 25th anniversary in Tokyo. Right... anyways... huge Disney bags, even the students were lugging. And mind you, the stuff were NOT cheap. Not wanting to be outdone, we packed equally cookies, pens, stationeries, mugs, what nots.. and lugged at least 4 huge bags with many small bags in each big bag. Only consolation after that 5 hours of waiting time.. By then ...

... a great playground across the street from the hotel. The only other people there were old people doing exercises on the monkey bars. After a while, we went to a little store and got breakfast. There was nothing really for me to eat, not even cereal. Lu got a hot dog. We came back and woke up Mom, and now she is out for a run. Hope she doesn't get lost. Tonight we went to a Ninja restaurant with our friends Meredith and Isa and their mom ...

... has been a severe lack of escalators. So we trotted to see the Imperial palace, or at least its gardens (palace is closed to the general public as the King actually lives there) which were full of very fancy koi. We then walked down the road towards one of the main shopping areas. It felt like we were walking in the opposite direction to a marathon as the lunch time office joggers were out in herds. We spent some time walking around the sony ...

... and even the restaurants we visited were quiet. Most people seemed to have well established relationships with their phones and other gizmo's though. The first night we stayed at the ANA Intercontinental, Tokyo. A very fancy establishment (unlike the rest of our accommodation) stuck on the 26th floor of an office building. I guess for a city with real space issues. sticking hotel's on top of office blocks is a solution.

... to change depending on what part of the city you went to. At the palace... it was hot. Jeans was a bad idea today. We headed to the Tsukiji fish market after that, where fish auctions are held early each morning for shop and restaurant owners to purchase fish. That part of the market was closed to tourists, so we walked around the 3-4 blocks that made up the outer market itself. There were lots of little shops with tons of souvenirs and ...

... Last weekend on out trip! I have been informed there are fireworks on this sat night with 2 million people in attendance, so that should be sweet. This city is out of ****ing control and has the buildings the size of north terrace/grenfell street for about EVER when you come in from the airport. Dedicated lining up system when you board a train, smoking areas for the people with addictions and walking lanes on the roads. The city smells like a washed up night club, but all an experience.

... shopping mall which still wouldn't take our cards. Eventually we found one by a big hotel. The problem then being that we were asking for 300,000yen. Our brains were mush that day and instead of asking for 300 pounds we were asking for 3000! No wonder it kept refusing us! Apart from that, there is a nice china town there, (they sell Bruce Lee stuff which all says BLuce Lee - Ha Ha), and a nice per thing and some nice parks. It rained a lot, and was freezing though.

... to let it get me down. Last night, I found a cheap ramen shop near my new hostel and came back to meet some of the people staying there. I met a French guy named Didier, and we went out to a couple of trendy areas. I kept talking to everyone I saw. Tokyo really seems like an amazing city, and I am going to explore on foot in the morning. Wish I could take pictures.