Rose Hotel Yokohama - Formerly Holiday Inn

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 ...

... well. The Japanese would clap to get their god's attention when in the main shrine area. I actually found it remarkable that these people had such a spirituality when just minutes away was a techno-crazy world of 6-storey gaming arcades, Pachinko gaming-slot machines on every block, vending machines as common as doorways, and bright neon signs that made the daylight seem gloomy. We struggled on the first and second nights to find a place to eat dinner. We couldn't ...

... 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 ´kitchen´ 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 ...

... there and sucked down our first (or at least my first) authentic sake. It was served in a tall shot glass inside a short square box. I would also encounter my first authentic Japanese bathroom system at the Smile Café. At first glance the bathroom seemed normal. There was a sink and mirror followed by a row of stalls. The first stall opened to what looked like a urinal built into the floor. I hoped that the second door would prove to be a better ...

... 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 ...

... letters) as well as symbols. The real problem is that there are often no street signs to be found, and there is no logical numeric or alphabetical grid as there are in other cities. Streets wind and you can find yourself suddenly on a different street than you started on without warning. Most maps do not label the majority of streets since the city is too big to do that. We really need an extensive atlas which has maps of each neighborhood- which we are shopping for now ...

... in unison. This event ends when the last out of the inning has been made and will restart once again in the next. Quite amused after the first four innings, our ears grew heavy from the racket and we made our way to more site seeing excursion. Regardless of what's been said above, Tokyo is a city that must be experienced to truly understand this place. The sights and sounds are so rich and very western, yet at the same time, very much foreign. Go now!

... I understand. How can you possibly be ready for 100 days that will be like nothing you could even imagine before? How could you be ready to meet people that will change your life forever? How could you be ready for beauty in a sunset that words cannot describe, encountering a culture that is foreign in every single element, poverty, gratitude, forgiveness, clashes with your own morals and ideals, or even for missing people from home that is impossible to feel when you know ...