First up, we went to Kamakura. I think everyone else who has ever been to Japan has been to Kamakura but me, so I really wanted to go. The giant Buddha in Kamakura was buried in the earth for hundreds of years but then there was a tsunami (an old tsunami, not the one last year) and he was uncovered! Isn't that awesome! I wonder what other cool stuff is buried in the ground that we don't know about!
He was a bit creepy and looked like he was going to start shooting lasers out his eyes, so I went inside his belly for a look. This picture is taken from his belly up into his head. There doesn't seem to be any laser-making equipment, but who knows!!! The Buddha has mysterious powers!
This guy is also a famous tourist attraction in Japan. I don't get it, myself, but I do like that vitamin C drink! We have a very similar picture on our fridge but we definitely acquired it by legitimate means and not stealing it off the vending machine means or any other means that would have me deported.
After seeing Daibutsu-kun and DaiSho-kun, we headed to the beach. There were lots of windsurfers and surfer-surfers even though there wasn't proper waves, apparently that's normal here. On a clear day, you're supposed to be able to see Mt Fuji from the beach at Kamakura, but even though it was clear and we tried really hard, we couldn't see it. I decided I would be Mt Fuji so Lynne could have an authentic seeing Mt Fuji Japan experience. I am not quite as symmetrical as the actual mountain though.
But we also saw this cat, which was awesome, and apparently also a sort of old Japanese arms.
Then we went and ate loads of gyoza. This guy was my best friend. Then I ate him.
After Utsunomiya, we had a two hour stopover in Sendai. We asked the people at the station what the best thing to do was, and they gave us lots of instructions. In the end though, we decided to just go on the Loople bus, because then we could see all the sites without getting off our bums, and also because it was called the Loople and that really amused us. At first we couldn't all sit together because the Loople is very popular, so I took a photo of Lynne sitting on my head!
We saw many lovely sites of Sendai and the people were all very lovely, then we got on the super fastest sort of Shinkansen and went to Aomori. In Aomori, we were greeted by this guy!
Aomori is a very beautiful city, surrounded by mountains and ocean. It is famous for its apples and also ramen. I ate an apple but it wasn't as good as apples at home, the apple juice was amazing though.
The first night, we went to this little izakaya for dinner where there was this funny guy working who said he was Japanese Johnny Depp. He didn't look anything like Johnny Depp though. There was this other guy in there with a string of chicks and he kept being amazed at how good our english is. Japanese Johnny Depp was watching Music Station so we got to see Arashi sing their new song, and had an amusing conversation about how bad Nino looks with his yellow hair.
I am not sure what I am doing in this photo. There is a giant A building, so maybe I was impersonating it? Lynne and I went up the A building to see the view. On a clear day you can see Hokkaido from there, but we didn't see it. We got a free 100 yen drink though!
The next day we went to the famous art gallery where lots of works by Yoshimoto Nara are exhibited. He is my favourite artist. You weren't allowed to take photos of the art, so I took a photo of the flower which is strong from growing amongst the weeds.
The only thing you were allowed to take a photo of was the giant dog sculpture. How did he make this sculpture? It blows my mind! It is bigger than the giant Buddha!!!
After that we went to look at Jomon town, which is where the Japanese people lived a long time ago after they came over from Korea and before they learned how to do shopping. It was very pretty here, I think the Jomons picked a good spot.
This is what the people looked like in the Jomon period. (Confused donuts apparently!)
After that we went to this seafood market place where you paid for a bowl of rice and then got all these tickets and you could go around all the stalls and get different things put in your bowl and pay for them with your tickets. See that scallop there on the left side? It was the best thing I have ever eaten. It made me cry it was so delicious. Every time I think about eating that scallop, I almost cry again. It was a very moving experience for me.
That night we went for a walk along the beach. It was very beautiful with the sunset and all, and then we uncovered a North Korean infiltration plot. It was an high tension action packed adventure!
After saving the world, we went and had curry ramen. This was more difficult than you'd think, as a lot of the ramen places were shut, and this one that was open the lady was a bit creepy and didn't have curry ramen so we left and found this place where the lady was very nice and watching the Aiba drama where he solves crimes with the help of a cat. This would've been nearly the most delicious thing I've ever eaten except that I'd already eaten the scallop. It was incredibly good though.
Then this creepy old drunk guy came in and acted like he was going to talk to us and ask us where we came from and then say "kangaroo! koala!" like people do here, so we quickly left and went back to the hotel to watch Arashi.
Every August (I think) in Aomori, they have this massive festival with these big floats. The floats are like guys fighting demons and stuff and it keeps the bad spirits away for the year. The floats are amazing, so when we went to the float museum, I took lots of pictures, though the amazingness doesn't really come through.
Then we got back on the train and went to Morioka. Morioka has a loople as well, though it wasn't called the loople, it was called the den den mushi. You had to get off the den den mushi to see most of the sights, so we ended up doing basically the whole town by foot. There were some awesome sights though! Here you see a cherry tree that has grown through a big rock! It's a symbol of perseverance and stuff.
We also stumbled on a random festival. I don't know what the festival was for and it was kind of low key affair, they didn't even stop the traffic for it! But we got to see lots of pretty portable shrines and guys wearing those g-string wrap belt things like sumos wear. I don't know what they're called.
Then we went to the castle grounds, which were also very beautiful. There is no castle there anymore, but I don't know why.
Next stop on the den den mushi was the devil hands! There are these rocks, right, and apparently this demon guy came out one time and caused lots of havoc, so they made him go away and he had to put his handprints in these rocks to seal his promise that he would go away and not cause any more havoc. We couldn't see the handprints though, and neither could the nice family from Hokkaido who we met. You have to put coins in the cracks of the rocks - I guess to keep the demon away? I put in 1 yen, because I don't really believe in the demon.
After doing everything possible to do in Morioka, we got on the bullet train back. I had a delicious bento. It wasn't really a bullet train, it was more like a stops at all stations and is full of stinky meathead guys with cabbage ears train.
We made it back to Tokyo station and to the right platform with only three minutes to spare for Lynne to catch the last Narita express out to the airport! Lucky!!! These guys were waiting to tell us good job and welcome back.
After that, Kathryn went to Kochi and had many wonderous adventures for the week. I had many sleepy adventures sleeping in her bed and it was awesome. I have actually been quite sick since then, so sleeping was good. When Kathryn got back from Kochi, she still had a day left on her JR pass, so we decided to split the cost of my ticket and do the full circuit of the Boso Peninsula in Chiba.
First up we went to Kisarazu (nyan) for coffee. It was early in the morning and we got to see lots of dodgy dealings out the coffee shop window. If you have seen the drama Kisarazu Cats Eye, you will remember lots of dodgy dealings in that - apparently they are not fiction. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it because it is very good. Anyway, there was this blonde guy who got handed off by this dodgy man to a guy in a fancy car and exchanged for papers of some sort, and this other bogan girl got in a different fancy car for five minutes and then jumped out to run for the pachinko parlour. It was fun times for all.
After coffee, we decided to go to the cat town from Murakami's 1Q84. If you haven't read it, you should because it's a very good book. Anyway, in the book there's this story the guy has read that's about this guy who gets off at the wrong stop of the train and gets stuck in this town where there's no people. He can't leave because there's no trains and every night these cats come out and take over the town. Even when he decides he wants to leave he still can't. The guy in the book has this dad whose in a home on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba, and when his dad is dying he goes there and it's just like the cat town in the story. Only metaphorically, obviously. Anyway, so we went to cat town and it was actually more like the literal cat town than the metaphorical! There were no people! Well there were a few, but they were very creepy! I thought we were going to be stuck there and they'd eat our brains! The ocean was pretty though.
When we got back to the station, we had to wait like 50 minutes for the next train, so we sat outside and watched the cab drivers napping in their cabs. Part of me feels like it's still in cat town.
He was a bit creepy and looked like he was going to start shooting lasers out his eyes, so I went inside his belly for a look. This picture is taken from his belly up into his head. There doesn't seem to be any laser-making equipment, but who knows!!! The Buddha has mysterious powers!
This guy is also a famous tourist attraction in Japan. I don't get it, myself, but I do like that vitamin C drink! We have a very similar picture on our fridge but we definitely acquired it by legitimate means and not stealing it off the vending machine means or any other means that would have me deported.
After seeing Daibutsu-kun and DaiSho-kun, we headed to the beach. There were lots of windsurfers and surfer-surfers even though there wasn't proper waves, apparently that's normal here. On a clear day, you're supposed to be able to see Mt Fuji from the beach at Kamakura, but even though it was clear and we tried really hard, we couldn't see it. I decided I would be Mt Fuji so Lynne could have an authentic seeing Mt Fuji Japan experience. I am not quite as symmetrical as the actual mountain though.
This is actually the only Mt Fuji we saw in Kamakura.
But we also saw this cat, which was awesome, and apparently also a sort of old Japanese arms.
After we left Kamakura, we were going to go and see Mt Fuji for realz, but on the train we decided we were too tired and headed back to Tokes instead. We had to change trains at Tokyo station though, so we took Lynne to see the Imperial Palace, and we could see Tokyo Tower through some buildings. I didn't take photos of that though, maybe because my camera was flat or maybe because I'd seen it before. I am so jaded!
For the rest of the week I had to go to school and study like a good student while Kathryn and Lynne had fun Tokyo adventures, but then that weekend we headed off to Aomori! I felt a bit bad for Lynne while we were in Tokyo because all the things that excite you when you first come here are no longer exciting for Kathryn and I so it was hard to be enthusiastic, but Aomori was fresh and exciting!
Because we had our JR East special pass, we firstly took the bullet train to Utsunomiya because it is the gyoza capital of Japan! These guys were there to greet us at the station, like good little tourism ambassadors.
Then we went and ate loads of gyoza. This guy was my best friend. Then I ate him.
After Utsunomiya, we had a two hour stopover in Sendai. We asked the people at the station what the best thing to do was, and they gave us lots of instructions. In the end though, we decided to just go on the Loople bus, because then we could see all the sites without getting off our bums, and also because it was called the Loople and that really amused us. At first we couldn't all sit together because the Loople is very popular, so I took a photo of Lynne sitting on my head!
We saw many lovely sites of Sendai and the people were all very lovely, then we got on the super fastest sort of Shinkansen and went to Aomori. In Aomori, we were greeted by this guy!
Aomori is a very beautiful city, surrounded by mountains and ocean. It is famous for its apples and also ramen. I ate an apple but it wasn't as good as apples at home, the apple juice was amazing though.
The first night, we went to this little izakaya for dinner where there was this funny guy working who said he was Japanese Johnny Depp. He didn't look anything like Johnny Depp though. There was this other guy in there with a string of chicks and he kept being amazed at how good our english is. Japanese Johnny Depp was watching Music Station so we got to see Arashi sing their new song, and had an amusing conversation about how bad Nino looks with his yellow hair.
I am not sure what I am doing in this photo. There is a giant A building, so maybe I was impersonating it? Lynne and I went up the A building to see the view. On a clear day you can see Hokkaido from there, but we didn't see it. We got a free 100 yen drink though!
The next day we went to the famous art gallery where lots of works by Yoshimoto Nara are exhibited. He is my favourite artist. You weren't allowed to take photos of the art, so I took a photo of the flower which is strong from growing amongst the weeds.
The only thing you were allowed to take a photo of was the giant dog sculpture. How did he make this sculpture? It blows my mind! It is bigger than the giant Buddha!!!
After that we went to look at Jomon town, which is where the Japanese people lived a long time ago after they came over from Korea and before they learned how to do shopping. It was very pretty here, I think the Jomons picked a good spot.
This is what the people looked like in the Jomon period. (Confused donuts apparently!)
After that we went to this seafood market place where you paid for a bowl of rice and then got all these tickets and you could go around all the stalls and get different things put in your bowl and pay for them with your tickets. See that scallop there on the left side? It was the best thing I have ever eaten. It made me cry it was so delicious. Every time I think about eating that scallop, I almost cry again. It was a very moving experience for me.
That night we went for a walk along the beach. It was very beautiful with the sunset and all, and then we uncovered a North Korean infiltration plot. It was an high tension action packed adventure!
After saving the world, we went and had curry ramen. This was more difficult than you'd think, as a lot of the ramen places were shut, and this one that was open the lady was a bit creepy and didn't have curry ramen so we left and found this place where the lady was very nice and watching the Aiba drama where he solves crimes with the help of a cat. This would've been nearly the most delicious thing I've ever eaten except that I'd already eaten the scallop. It was incredibly good though.
Then this creepy old drunk guy came in and acted like he was going to talk to us and ask us where we came from and then say "kangaroo! koala!" like people do here, so we quickly left and went back to the hotel to watch Arashi.
Every August (I think) in Aomori, they have this massive festival with these big floats. The floats are like guys fighting demons and stuff and it keeps the bad spirits away for the year. The floats are amazing, so when we went to the float museum, I took lots of pictures, though the amazingness doesn't really come through.
Then we got back on the train and went to Morioka. Morioka has a loople as well, though it wasn't called the loople, it was called the den den mushi. You had to get off the den den mushi to see most of the sights, so we ended up doing basically the whole town by foot. There were some awesome sights though! Here you see a cherry tree that has grown through a big rock! It's a symbol of perseverance and stuff.
We also stumbled on a random festival. I don't know what the festival was for and it was kind of low key affair, they didn't even stop the traffic for it! But we got to see lots of pretty portable shrines and guys wearing those g-string wrap belt things like sumos wear. I don't know what they're called.
Next stop on the den den mushi was the devil hands! There are these rocks, right, and apparently this demon guy came out one time and caused lots of havoc, so they made him go away and he had to put his handprints in these rocks to seal his promise that he would go away and not cause any more havoc. We couldn't see the handprints though, and neither could the nice family from Hokkaido who we met. You have to put coins in the cracks of the rocks - I guess to keep the demon away? I put in 1 yen, because I don't really believe in the demon.
After doing everything possible to do in Morioka, we got on the bullet train back. I had a delicious bento. It wasn't really a bullet train, it was more like a stops at all stations and is full of stinky meathead guys with cabbage ears train.
We made it back to Tokyo station and to the right platform with only three minutes to spare for Lynne to catch the last Narita express out to the airport! Lucky!!! These guys were waiting to tell us good job and welcome back.
After that, Kathryn went to Kochi and had many wonderous adventures for the week. I had many sleepy adventures sleeping in her bed and it was awesome. I have actually been quite sick since then, so sleeping was good. When Kathryn got back from Kochi, she still had a day left on her JR pass, so we decided to split the cost of my ticket and do the full circuit of the Boso Peninsula in Chiba.
First up we went to Kisarazu (nyan) for coffee. It was early in the morning and we got to see lots of dodgy dealings out the coffee shop window. If you have seen the drama Kisarazu Cats Eye, you will remember lots of dodgy dealings in that - apparently they are not fiction. If you haven't seen it, you should watch it because it is very good. Anyway, there was this blonde guy who got handed off by this dodgy man to a guy in a fancy car and exchanged for papers of some sort, and this other bogan girl got in a different fancy car for five minutes and then jumped out to run for the pachinko parlour. It was fun times for all.
After coffee, we decided to go to the cat town from Murakami's 1Q84. If you haven't read it, you should because it's a very good book. Anyway, in the book there's this story the guy has read that's about this guy who gets off at the wrong stop of the train and gets stuck in this town where there's no people. He can't leave because there's no trains and every night these cats come out and take over the town. Even when he decides he wants to leave he still can't. The guy in the book has this dad whose in a home on the Boso Peninsula in Chiba, and when his dad is dying he goes there and it's just like the cat town in the story. Only metaphorically, obviously. Anyway, so we went to cat town and it was actually more like the literal cat town than the metaphorical! There were no people! Well there were a few, but they were very creepy! I thought we were going to be stuck there and they'd eat our brains! The ocean was pretty though.
When we got back to the station, we had to wait like 50 minutes for the next train, so we sat outside and watched the cab drivers napping in their cabs. Part of me feels like it's still in cat town.
Because we were doing the full circuit of the peninsula, we went along the east coast and got to see lots of the ocean. It was the real ocean, not just Tokyo Bay. We started getting hungry, as there was no food to be had in cat town, and we got to this station where they advertised delicious steak and lobster dinners! Yay, food! So we got off the train there to look for food in Lobster Town. There was no lobster! No lobster anywhere! Only some mean kids who tried to take photos of us for being foreigners. I cannot convey my disappointment at No Lobster Town adequately through words. Or pictures, because I didn't take any, but it was a giant disappointment and now I hate that No Lobster Town. I got some of my feelings out through interpretive dance once we got back to the station though.
We headed back to Chiba city, because one time we stayed there and had this awesome Mt Fuji hotpot. We kind of wanted either lobster or yakiniku, but there was no lobster and the yakiniku was super expensive, so we went back to the Mt Fuji hotpot place. The Mt Fuji hotpot was full of chicken entrails though, so we got food on sticks and mochi potato cheeseball things and other yummy stuff. Take that No Lobster Town!
Anyway, since we came back to Tokes, I have been too sick to do very much at all. At least I got to do some fun touristing though!
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