Sutton Place Hotel Ueno Taito

... century). And Yasukuni is really supposed to be a controversial place - recent prime ministers have prayed there before negotiations with foreign nations such as China and Korea, both of whom suffered from Japanese cruelty during the Second World War. We had a pretty good idea of what we were going into. I think we left feeling a little more patriotic about our own country too, if that makes any sense. So it`s definitely a place worth visiting.

So, as you can probably guess by my videos, French toast was all I did today. I didn't receive an email back from Gaba today, so hopefully tomorrow. I bought a garbage can! yay! I really needed it, my garbage was starting to fill my corner. since there is nothing really to type about for today, I will type my plans for tomorrow!. I think tomorrow is Burnable Garbage day, so that means I should probably put it by the street ...

... like *What sports do you play?* or *What is your favorite color?*) but then they can't understand my response. They did appreciate my awesome volley ball spikes during recess though. They were high-fiving me like crazy - international for *We like having a giant american on our team!* Apparently there is a party planned for next Friday to welcome me. It's going to be held at a local Karaoke joint. More on that later....

... Why were we travelling to Omiya, a city just to the north of Tokyo? It's quite simple really - here one can find the recently openned new Japanese National Rail Museum! Although, we still had to make 1 more connection from the main station at Omiya to the museum entrance. There is a signposted walking route but it follows the dingy, semi-industrial road for 2km so we travelled on the local elevated people mover system the 1 stop to get us there. Japan's National Railway ...

... were young lovers can pay by the hour, or night, to 'be together'. Kampai! (Cheers!) A Kareoke Night to Remember That first night, after a rush around town, we decided to go out to karaoke! There was Hideko, Subacko, Leanne, one of the girls I'd met on the plane, some newfound friends of hers and me. We were all ready to go, all we had to do was wait for the teacher to run and put his bag back in the hostel because he didn't want to carry it ...

... road led to this temple where some monk was saying mass with loads of people watching and throwing money into these drain type things in front of him. It was pretty fun watching all these japanese kids chucking all thier change over peoples heads into the money drains as i like to call them/ Anyway im tired of writing now and am gonna get ready for my only full day in tokyo, i hope it goes well!

... have everything provided to pamper yourself. Hair dryer, moisturiser, hair product, even sterilised hair brushes. We were both very spoilt. We walked around and had soba noodles for dinner. We even tried throwing some ninja stars!! There were shops selling all sorts of cute Japanese souvenirs like cartoon ...

... itself was massive and there were plenty of people catching a few Z's on their lunch breaks. The Imperial Palace, a reconstruction after the original was destroyed during WWII is the home to Japan's emperor and the imperial family. I took time out also to visit the Sony building, which is home to all of Sony's latest gadgets and some that haven't been released. Mainly I made use of the ...

Well.. it's over.. 2000 has been and gone- and I think it was the best year of my life so far.. I touched true happiness and I'm sad that for a little while I'll have to let that go. It's not that Oz won't bring me true happiness.. It's that I'm gonna be so damn homesick for a while... I've had a fair bit to drink tonight too so it's making ...