Super Hotel Tottori Stationside

... say the Japanese are reserved conformists!!);
- Our hostel, where despite staying in cheap dorm beds, has a marble entry, super helpful staff and plays Christmas carols in the foyer all day long;
- The bathrooms with automatic lights, soap dispensers and taps. And completely unfathomable control panel for the toilet.
- Awesome beer... which maybe I`ve had enough of for now.

... the age of 33 months at the latest, and then they become well-known beef brands such as Kobe beef and Matusaka beef. The newborn calves I saw were beautiful with fine and shiny black hair, and they already had an air of dignity about them fitting of Tajima cattle.

Incidentally, Kobe beef has never been exported from Japan, but apparently this may change in the future. I hope those who live outside Japan will get to taste delicious Kobe beef for themselves sometime soon.

... an English menu, and ate there. It was a nice dinner, a few bits of sashimi, some edamame beans, some yakitori etc. We headed back to our hotel through the constant rain to our hotel. Tottori is a fairly nondescript town and we were there on Sunday which meant that many shops were closed, which made it even more boring and provincial. It kind of reminded me of Slough in its pure drabness.

... Britain`s without being anywhere near as good.) The museum and gardens were quite good, my favorite was seeing all the different Japanese gardens. These are very different to Englsih gardens, as they are ornamental ie you do not actually walk on the gardens just look at them from the inside of the building. There is a lot of attention to detail spent on the arranging of all the different features of the garden e.g trees, rocks, plants and water ...

... my childhood home in Jacksonville. I also counted 17 different places that I have stayed. I have enjoyed living in Tottori as the prefecture is blessed with a beautiful coastline and green mountains with not many people. The people are nice too and I am sad to be living the great friends that I will miss. It was a very tough decision for me to make, to stay in Tottori or go back to Oregon. I love both places very ...

It is the night before I begin the first leg of my trip and I am not packed yet. I am waiting my clothes to dry before I pack them away. The other day I bought all the train tickets from Tottori to Kyushu, around Kyushu, Nagasaki to Tokyo and finally Tokyo to Osaka before arriving back in Tottori on January 2nd. It cost a bit but I think I saved some money by buying everything ahead of time ...

Greetings to the first entry of my big trip. It is ten days before I start the first leg of my trip to Kyushu. It will be my second visit to Kyushu as the first one was in 1995. I am planning to go to Fukuoka and then head to Yufuin in Oita prefecture and then contrinue down to Kagoshima and onto Nagasaki. The trip is part of the plan to visit all the prefectures in Japan which will be down to 1 after the trip leaving only Fukui..

... of giggles. Kanazawa is well set up for foreigners though so I would have thought that I`d be less of a novelty, but obviously not since I was accosted (again) in the afternoon by a middle-aged woman who spoke reasonable English (a relief since it was too hot and humid to engage in a game of chirades!). I spent the rest of the day mooching around Katamachi, the entertainment district of Kanazawa, eating strawberry crepes and enjoying the sunshine...

... we're all from different countries, someone always manages to say something that makes the rest of us laugh. Today it was a girl from Ireland. She was talking about a sports weekend we'll be having in a few weeks. "It'll be great," she said. "We'll have karaoke and water sports and a bit of crack." A bit of crack!? Hahaha! Of course, she meant a bit of FUN, but we didn't know! I guess that's how they say it in her country. :) I ...

... The original intent for our trip was to withdraw some money from Zach's account back in Michigan, and Kyoto had the cloest international bank. We ended up roaming around the streets looking at stuff, and it was really neat! We began to play this game of Where's Waldo with the other foreigners (gaijin). :) It was so exciting to see them, escpecially since there aren't many where Zach and I are living. The two most common places people seemed to be from were Germany and France.