Shirafune Grand Hotel Matsumoto

... the bartender spoke amazing english (he spent two years of high school in the u.s) and let us sample a plethora of sake varieties - hot/cold, dry/sweet etc.. until we had all found a favourite. This was followed, as many night henceforth would, by staggering into a local karaoke bar, and proceeding to serenade with and to the locals until around midnight when, to the tune of sweet home alabama, we sauntered home to pack our things for our train the next morning to Hiroshima.

... some money on cab fare. Hopefully I can remember to ride on the left side of the street and the other vehicles remember to do the same. I'm also hoping that the rumors of English-speaking guides are true.<br><br>Adjusting my expectations... I had thought I'd zip through the castle and get to Kyoto early. Probably not. Everything takes longer than you think.

... les restaurants. En fait, les retardataires ferment a 7h maximum. J'ai donc pris un peu de temps pour vous ecrire parce que dans les autres villes, je ne suis pas certaine que j'aurai autant de temps de disponible.<br><br>Nous habitons dans un ryokan mais rien a voir avec le Motonago de Kyoto. Nous devons partager la douche et le bain....comme dans un gym. Moyen mais bon, il fait assez chaud, je ne passerai pas 2 jours ...

... at the architecture and subtle differences between houses of different functions. There were also a few buildings with people doing (or teaching) traditional arts, like wood-carving or ceramic painting, for the tourists&#8217; enjoyment. <br><br>Back on the bus at 4.15. Guess we did have enough time. At the train station, we got our tickets back to Tokyo. Since we&#8217;d left Tokyo 1 day too early, we had to buy ...

... face, give face, dont loose face... says nowhere dont break promises or dont lie...<br>Anyway, after she repeated her invitation 3 times i said ok, they paid my beer, i paid my food.<br>NIce...what annoyed me was that she was inching closer and closer to me sexual harassment from a over 50 years old japanese lady?<br>whowww....<br> She then wanted to sing karaoke, so up we went, after some time i got a bill over 1700 yen, 17 dollar, went down and off she went without even saiing ...

So sorry that you havent received any news from us....from Mt.Fuji on, we didnt have any access....We stayed at the World Heritag Cultural Site in Gokayama, which was like staying at a camp.Basically, we have been in a mountainous area...the students have been writing a journal every day - One student writes about our day and at the end of the trip these pages will be copied by the leaders and a booklet will be made for ...

couldn't get to the computer last nite. only have a minute this morning. <br>took a train here yesterday. it's up in the "mountains", which are like big hills. it's really such a neat town. their specialty here is making sake and woodworking. i think i'll get a few real pretty bowls. <br>tim said yesterday on the train "show me the pictures of sedona", he was really missing her and he continues to narrate. as of ...

A Takayama on loge dans un temple, plutot sympa ! La ville est assez touristique et on comprend pourquoi : elle regorge de temples, vieilles batisses, distilleries de sake. Il y a beaucoup d'artisanat local : bois laque, sculptures, herbes sechees... Les sobas (nouille) au sarasin sont la specialite du coin et on approuve ;-) Toujours impossible d'aller a Kamikochi, meme de ce cote. On declare donc forfait et on part vers le sud...

... I was wrong--we entered a tunnel on one side of a mountain to cloudy green landscape and existed, at the same altitude of the other side to a completely white world, including snow driving almost horizontal. So I had hoped that being situated behind a mountain range, the low, rainy/snowy clouds would be stopped from Kamikochi. Turns out this is only half true--the West facing mountains didn't stop the storm front, but the Eastern ones did, meaning that the storm came over ...

... the austerity measures we are still getting out and about. Two weeks ago we hit the hills with our hiking gear, no map, no plans - found some nice little trails and a great spot to camp. Last weekend we headed out of town on our bike to go to a wasabi farm - had some wasabi beer (I'm sure it was just Asahi with green food colouring though!). Once we amused ourselves by using the drainage channels to cross the city instead of the roads ...