Bodaiju Myoko

... If you dont already know, Hokosai painted the many scenes of mount fuji including the famous Wave picture you will all have seen. So it was quite a busy little place, with quite a few tour buses around. After checking in to the hostel we walked down the road to the museum and were inundated with free samples of various japanese foods, some nice some so very not. The exhibition was great, we were both very impressed by his work which included beautiful landscapes, scenes on ...

... icone (symbolisant la mort et la renaissance tout en s'etant connecte avec Bouddha...). Bref, tres interessant ! On a aussi assiste a la priere de fermeture du temple pour la nuit : chants, percussions et cymbales creant une atmosphere spirituelle tres particuliere. Mais voila, ca sera tout pour Nagano, il n'existe meme pas de cartes postables de la ville !

... and I was in the wrong sub-terminal, and following signs for Keio (which also operates a train line) lead me to all the wrong offices. The first spoke no English and gave me a map without orientation; the second spoke English but gave me vague directions to the actual booking office and the office in question was a cubicled slice of Hell I'd like to forget. A waiting room of masked customers, two harried tellers at desks clacking away furiously on the ...

After Spencer sleeping all day in the TV room nursing a hangover and then me booking a hotel in the completely wrong area of Japan (although very very luxourious resulted in a 7.15am wake up call to get to Nagano) we made our way to the snow monkeys!

After getting our bus to literally the middle of nowhere, we then walked for 40 minutes along a beautiful snowy trail to where the monkey sanctuary is hidden in the snow. The path is covere din ...

... Japanese punk rocker, HAI!!! Somehow managed to stay in the seediest part of Osaka where we managed to find a cubicle hotel. It's just after the second love hotel on the right, before the "adult souvenir shop" and opposite the beer vending machine. Japan's probably one of the few countries where you'd be completely safe stumbling around drunk in the seedy quarter with a wad of cash hanging out of your pocket, so it was all fine, except that the capsules are ...

I am going to keep the chat to a minimum here and let the (many) photos do the talking. I went to Nagano to see the "Snow Monkeys". They were awesome. After a short 2km hike through snowy forested mountains, suddenly there were monkeys running across the path - and they literally came within an inch of my feet! Well worth the visit.

... 2 TVs and machines, we could order drinks by ringing down to the bar. Once we all started there was no stopping us!! My favourite act of the night has to have been Brian and Takakos rendition of Barbie Girl!! Yudanaka Monkey Onsen Brian brought us on a fabulous scenic drive through the mountains north of Nagano. this is particularly spectacular at this time of the year due to the changing of the leaves. The mountains were like a patchwork quilt ...

... day to see all full with pagodas, temples, Buddha... but also to nourish some deer - 1200 deer in freedom in the parks in the neighbourhoods of the temples. In this temple, one can admire an enormous bronze Buddha. Behind Buddha, there is a column with large a enough hole for a pre-pubescent teenager. This hole is apparently the size of one of the nostrils of the large Buddha and if one passes through, one is ...

We landed in Tokyo last night and stayed the night at the Nikko Narita Hotel. This morning we took the shuttle back to the airport and then took the train to Ueda Station, where we met four gracious folks from Tomi City. They took us to a nice lunch of soba noodles and other tasty bits. Then, we stopped at the home where the Courtains are staying, and got to see a traditional Japanese home. Our hostess served us some locally grown fruit--huge, dark ...

... and ice-skating rink. We went through the rather disappointing museum and through to the ice skating rink to find the lights off and half the ice melted. It was then that we realised that the sign out the front in Japanese probably said the rink was closed due to maintenance.

We left M-Wave, had lunch and then had to wait ages for another ...