Alright.... so i haven't written a blog in a while.. with good reasons! I'm going to try and recap what has been happening. I believe that I should pick up right around Mount-Fuji, where I believe I stopped writing.

Mount Fuji was a little hazy when we got there, but it was still a shocker. Is everything in Japan so geometrically perfect???? Honestly, look at this :



We got there in the afternoon I believe, checked into our CRAZY BEAUTIFUL Ryokan, which happened to be conveniently located across the street from an ice cream shop/karaoke bar (I'll get to this later), and right in front of Mount-Fuji *seriously, the mountain was our view from our hotel room... AWSOME!!*

Josh, Laurren, Maya, Justin and I all went for a walk/snack searching after check in, around the lake and through the little streets. Nothing big happened, but it was a nice walk... and then we saw this :



I believe it is some form of whale-boat... quite entertaining, let me tell you!

Here are some random pictures as fillers





I believe that it is safe to confirm that those were indeed ninja turtle statues... with those red bibs. If anyone knows the significance of the red bibs, please let me know. Myself along with everyone else completely forgot!! (Mike 2, Rhi, this might be your domain, help please!!)

Alright... so then we went for dinner, don't remember where, then we all regrouped, and decided to cross over for some karaoke times. This was a LOT of fun! We discovered Tom (Sweden) had a wonderful Barry White voice that could be added to just about any song, Josh rediscovered his inner-signer (and he's quite good too!), Laurren used up what ever voice she had left, I let everyone know that I somehow managed to learn all the words to Mr. Brightside (I don't think I even knew that), Alain discovered he was a wonderful MC with some sick sit-down-dance-moves etc etc... Overwall, it was a beer-filled wonderful night.

Next morning was a little rough. It was the Mount-Fuji climb. With backpacks full of water and snacks, skate shoes on foot and our best "game on" faces, we went on to tackle the mount. Maya, Pam, Dee and Alain were smart and took the bus up. The rest of us climbed up. To start off, there was a beautiful shrine with MASSIVE trees.






The little thing in white next to the tree is Justin... for sizing reference.

It was a really nice walk, but I was a little upset that after 40 minutes of hiking, we had only gotten to the base of the mountain. When we finally got to station one, we had a little bit of a lunch break, then Josh and Laurren stayed behind to go back down, and I decided to go with them. Probably a good thing too (read Justin's blog for the story). Our story was that be pretty much just bee-lined it all the way down. When we stopped for a bathroom break, we had fish-eye vision. We were staring at a tarp, and the tarp looked like it was moving when it really wasn't.

We hung around the shrine for about an hour to an hour and a half (enough time to get the feeling back into our feet) and look at the huge trees and pretty gardens.





We walked aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way back to the station, took the train to our little town, walked aaaaaaaaaaall the way back to our Ryokan, and then I went to the Onsen, which felt AMAZING. Dinner was after (Indian, again.. DELICIOUS!!!), and then... you guessed it!! MORE Karaoking!! YAY!! We met a bunch of drunken Japanese students after who were so eager to practice their english. Bed time came after.

The next day, we were leaving to go back to Tokyo. I believe we got back to the Shinagawa Prince Hotel in the early afternoon, and after check-in, we (Pam, Maya, Josh, Laurren and I) all went to lunch. Justin and I went off to Ginza to search for Ricoh head office, and low and behold!!! We found it!!! It's kind of hard to miss actually, it's one of the tallest buildings there. It is GORGEOUS!! I wanna work there...





BEHOLD!!! The MPC 4500!!!

We had our last group dinner at some tempura restaurant, and then went to Shibuya so Pam and Maya could see the cross-walk (which was even more amazing because of all the umbrellas!!)



We had an unfortunate individual in our group we desperately needed to ditch once and for all, so we met up with Alain, and ran off to our room for some vending machine beer and bonding time. It was Maya, Pam, Alain, Justin and I. We talked, we laughed, we drank. It was good. Maya and Pam left around 1am, and once Alain was about ready to go as well, Josh and Laurren and friend came in, so Alain sat back down, and we all talked, and laughed, and drank, in our room, until about 3am, when Laurren decided it MIGHT just be time to go.

NO HANDS!!

NExt day, Sunday, Josh and Laurren left in the morning. Pam had to leave in the afternoon, so Maya, Justin and I headed back to Yoyogi for some Yoyogi sunday-life. I think a video would best describe what this is like, because really, I don't think i've ever seen anything like this.



Super Rock Star!!



Went to dinner with Maya, talked about how much we missed the group, especially Josh and Laurren, big blur there, decided to meet up the next day for breakfast.

Next day, Monday, SUMO!!!! We decided to chance going to Sumo wrestling, thinking we had no chance in hell of getting cheap tickets. Well we were SO WRONG!!!! We managed to get tickets and to watch sumo wrestling. We were pumped. I think we spent all afternoon at the stadium. It was fantastic!



We went out for dinner with Maya and her friend Melissa, to say good-bye because they were leaving the next day. It was hard.... We were really upset. Tuesday morning is a bit of a blur... I know we randomly decided to attempt to go see our friend on Osaka, so we hopped on a Shinkansen, got overtaken by emotions and memories of the group, and had a very quiet 3 hour train ride to Osaka. We failed at seeing our friend Moko, but we did see a wicked aquarium!



Went for dinner after, and left to go back to Shinagawa station. We got back to the hotel 5 minutes before it closed, which is truely amazing because we had left our key at the reception, and would not have been able to get back in.

Yesterday, we went back to Akihabara for some shopping. Nothing huge, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing new really. We weren't as upset, but we did sleep in a LOT. I bought some Japanese music, which is good stuff! I may go back and grab some more actually. We went to Shinjuku for dinner and to check out the night life. MAN!! That place is CRAZY!!!! It's like a never ending party/weekend. And there are SO many restaurants. We went for some delicious Shabu-Shabu, and then found a Hagendas ice-cream shop (yes, I just about fell over), and walked around for a while, dragging our jaws on the ground in disbelief of what was in front of us. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to charge up the battery of my camera, so I have no pictures. Justin does though!!! I'm sure you can catch some on his blog.

Today, we went back to Ginza to go to "the island". It was REALLY nice, and very very modern. The architecture was MIND BLOWING!!! And oh so interesting too. We went into some mall for food, and this is what we came upon :



If we would have listened to ourselves and not our stomachs, we would have slowly walked out backwards, turned as we got outside and RAN. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and we stumbled upon more random japanese stuff, like a casino :



and some random statue that would make anyone say WTF?!?!?!?!



We found the Toyota City Megaweb, which was equally as amazing. It's pretty much a MASSIVE show-room if anything and everything Toyota, from curent models to future models to F1 cars and engines to simulators and even a track to test out the EV (electric vehicle) trial model. AMAZING!!!









Tonight, we are going to have a quiet night, inside, eating munchies, and possibly going for a walk. Last night, we came back late, and had to walk 1 hour back to our hotel because the trains stopped running 3 stops before ours. Tonight, we are not taking that chance, plus both of us are pretty tired. It took me almost two hours to catch up on the blog too. We will be leaving saturday evening. It will be a very sad moment. :( So we will make the most out of friday. Should be interesting!

Until next time!

Alright... now that I updated for Nagasaki, let's talk about Kyoto... I would first like to say that I STILL have not seen a Geisha... I saw a trainee, but not a real one. Let me tell you also... now that I know what a Geisha actually IS and DOES, I WISH I could become one. They are some of the most educated people on this planet, and put roughly, their job is to hold intelligent conversations with men that approach them, about the subject they wish to discuss. This means they have to be ready for anything, and have to learn everything they can, from dance to politics. We still have one more night here in Kyoto, so i'm gonna go hunting for one and i'm going to drag Justin with me. We were going to go tonight, but I wanted to do laundry instead. Apparently, things close during Golden Week, including laundro-mats and hospitals. This means that I did my laundry by hand, in the hotel tub.

Alright, so... on our way to Kyoto, we stopped in Himeji to see the Himeji castle. That did NOT work out so well.. It looked like new years eve in Disney World Orlando... it was a ZOO.. For the first time since I got to Japan, I felt overwhelmed by people... I have to admit, there were a LOT of tourists in there who just did not seem to respect certain japanese-y things, like the directions in which to walk on the sidewalk. Needless to say, we indeed DID see the castle, but not the inside.

This would be the castle

We made it to Kyoto fairly late. I believe we got into our hotel room around 6:30 or so, and we were exhausted. Travelling always seems to take more out of us then our crazy walking days. Dinner was alright, nothing spectacular really, and kind of expensive, and we went out for Geisha hunting and beers after. THAT was something else. As I said, failure to spot a Geisha, and almost failure to spot a bar. We found an abandoned cement room on the fourth floor of a building, and then, when we thought all hopes were lost, we found a fun irish pub on the top floor of some other building. Beer was SUPER expensive, but we drank the cheap flat one, and it was all good.

TODAY... Josh, Laurren, Justin and I went hunting for breakfast, then made it (after a few detours, one being on a highway onramp) to the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Let me tell you, we were excited at first to see Shinto Gates.... boy...I'm not sure how we feel about them anymore!

These, my friends, are ALL shinto gates. They were EVERYWHERE. I love shinto gates, I really do... but MAN... this is a LOT of shinto gates... big ones small ones some as big as your head... you get the picture. We must have spent a good part of the morning, dragging onto the afternoon at this spot. It was gorgeous.





We came back to the hotel after, had some lunch, and I had a power nap, which did me some good because I would not have survived the afternoon otherwise. We went on a VERY looooooooooooooong walk looking for a pharmacy (turns out there was one in the shopping mall to which our hotel is attached to), and stumbled upon what looked like a nice little temple... just like the hundreds that we had seen before. Boy were we ever wrong. This is by far the mother of all temples. It is currently being restored, so it is under what looks like a warehouse, but it is MASSIVE. I do not remember all the dimensions, but I do know for sure that it is 38 METERS (not feet!) tall. Most temples have around 3 doors in the front that are a couple of meters long... this one has like 25 of them. It is truely UNREAL. We are going back tomorrow and I am going to take some real pictures of it. In the mean time, this will have to do :

And this is the little building... that barely fits in my camera...

This is all for now! Shower time!!