Pension Wings of Angel 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 !

... by a rope of multicolored strings. This creates a 'direct' connection between the Buddha and pilgrims who touch the wooden pillar. Of course this means that there's a ton of people waiting for the chance to create this cosmic connection, which apparently is supposed to help you get a peaceful death. How...comforting? I don't know why, but I'm always a little saddened by Buddhist related stories and events. One of the side attractions was a lantern ...

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 ...

... photo. fluckenshitnfluck*******poo. Next stop... Hiroshima. Having come all this way, I thought I'd take a few snaps of the Hiroshima dome. However, I hadn't reckoned with the 20 megatons of scaffolding it was under. AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! Why are the best bits ALWAYS under (re)construction whenever I'm in country? So I contented myself with further studies into the fattening effects of 17 servings of Japanese food per day washed down with Japanese beer ...

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.

We spent a fantastic four nights in Nagano with Brian and Takako. On our first day there, I decided to go to the hairdresser and have my hair chemically straightened! The Japanese invented this treatment and so where better to have it done (and for so cheap!?) Takako very kindly came with me and explained to the girl what i wanted done. So I had a lovely relaxing day which was needed after the madness of Tokyo! We had somne lovely nights with some ...

... ve encountered. The place looked basically like a Japanese version of IHOP. There was a conveyor belt running past every table, with some nice-looking, and some scary-looking sushi on it. Just grab whatever strikes your fancy off the belt. You make your own tea with hot water that comes from a faucet on the table. If you want a specific food, just push the corresponding button on the computer screen at your table, and a little "bullet train" will ...

... to come by to take us back into town. Eventually one arrived and we walked up to the Zenkoji Temple past a street full of temple residences.

We wandered around the temple complex and gardens and even saw someone ringling the large bell using a wooden log before walking back down to the train station and catching the train back to Tokyo.

... was being said and just watched and listened to the music. The show started out with a dance, and then went into a skit of what seemed to be a short story of a young man who liked a girl, and he talks and sings about the girl for a bit. Then the mother comes into the scene and after some conversation, he's told to sit on a stool and cover his head. After she leaves, he tells his servant to sit there for him, and he runs off to drink or something. Then the mother comes back ...