Kyoto!

KYOTO! This was our second most visited city next to Tokyo and it was beautiful and old and full of Temples. This one is Kinkakuji, the Golden Temple, in NW Kyoto. Apparently a monk burnt down the temple in the 1800s and they rebuilt the temple with gold 4 leaves thicker than the original. On sunny days it's nearly blinding, and the reflection in the water is just as magnificent.

The pond surrounding the temple was full of beautiful multicolored Koi, which are everywhere in Japan. In some people's backyards, a koi pond can often be found usually next to a rock garden.

Making Fun in Hikone

I love Lake Biwa what can I say. Note the crazy Lock Ness Quasi Godzilla Monster guarding the Japanese characters and the jetski. Brilliant. Only in Japan.

Also exclusive to Japan is the common tradition of parking one`s used vehicles in their yards. This is a trait entirely exclusive to Japan and never seen in Michigan.

Oh wait.

This is on the bike path we ride everyday to the Hikone train station or the Cainz Mall aka Japanese Meijer for ballers. This mall uses English characters for style more than practicality.
It`s essentially the same reason Americans get tatoos of japanese characters thinking its `stylish`. So yes since Japanese people usually go to the store for food every day or two, their shopping carts are clearly economy size. I filled this little puppy to the brim, like a true american. After shopping I ate this delicious meal inside a little fast food japanese egg, meat and noodle joint.
Actually it wasn`t technically fast food in the American sense of burgers and fries in 2 minutes. Delicious. All japanese food is prepared fast, but its actually quality food and doesn't give you heartburn, or worse, the runs (aka hershey squirts, sorry for the clarity)

Tokyo

There, Proof that I`ve been here.
That`s Tokyo tower, which is right downtown Tokyo, a short walk from our hotel we were staying at. The hotel by the way came with free bottled water, toiletries, and mostimportantly, a Kimono, for sleeping.
The city literally looks like this in all directions, it`s almost unimaginable. The view up here was spectacular, the tower is 333 meters tall, 13 meters taller than the Eifel Tower.
On one side was the river and the rainbow bridge, the other side was the Diet building (aka Japan White house, as described by one of my japanese friends...) and on all sides was skyscraper after skyscraper.






I slipped of the edge and fell from the tower, but luckily my trusty cameraman/professor fell with me and took this amazing picture. We barely survived, but I landed on a crepe vendor who saved me.

This was the main Shrine in downtown Tokyo. It`s crazy because Tokyo will just be buildings and then a Shrine or Temple will pop up out of nowhere. The people are wafting inscense onto themselves before then ascend the steps, throw money in a huge box to appease the gods and then bow and pray. There was a monk leading a prayer, which was awesome.

This is a five story pagoda at the same shrine, they have these at almost every shrine around japan. We ate beef and pork on a stick and had a beer from the street vendors, which are plentiful around the shrine and everywhere in Japan.













These were just delicious. And totally sanitary.

Tokyo is full of beautiful and amazing cars. The drivers gave us terrible looks as we gawked at their insane autos. Well come on guys what do you expect?

The Hikone Castle

...was amazing. It's one of the oldest castles in Japan and one of three castles that are actually real/not restored after WWII bombings. And it smells great. I mean fantastic. They used the best smelling woodInside the castle, to get to the top you had to climb stairs that were about an 80 degree angle, thus pretty much stopping all fat american tourists from hiking up to the top. Mike and I have been continually making comments on reasons why Japan is better than America, and also, reasons white Tall White Americans are unfit for Japan. I have not angled this picture, that man is actually walking up the stairs in that direction....Onward to the Top. When you were inside, you had to remove your shoes, as in everywhere in Japan, and you toted them around in a convenient free shoe back, provided, and shown here.

Finally, as a passing thought before we trek to the golden temple in Kyoto, I'd like to show you all just how small Japanese people really are.
simply amazing.

Love and Kisses, I miss you all. Especially you*

FantabulASH?

....is the new word I learned from Bill. Go Figure
After 3 days of backpacking, cultural brainwashing, and getting lost in this culture of SuperNew Technology and Very old Traditions, I've almost lost myself. But We're back in Hikone and I have pictures to upload.



HAI!

That is the Osaka castle. This Castle was ginormous. It had an outer wall, huge, and an inner wall within the outer wall, even bigger, and then a massive wooden gate surrounding everything. Fantastic
Inside this castle were groups of Japanese schoolchildren singing japanese songs in very very high pitched noies. I walked over and started directed them. Eventually they stopped singing in a roar of giggles. They wanted a picture with the tall American. ME.

We visited the Museum of History in Osaka which was on the tenth floor of this amazing building.
I took the elevator up, looked at one exhibit, and took it back down again to go rent an English Audio translation headset. After exiting the elevater I told the Japanese curators that the exhibit was terrible. Not getting the joke, the lady was so upset that I didnt like the museum, wondering what was wrong, etc. It took her a second to look at my face and finally get the joke. All japanese people smile, but hers was especially big that time.

The headset was like a police billy club. If it wasn't spouting out english I probably would have destroyed a certain someone with it. The whole Museum was amazing, state of the art, and efficient. Pretty much like all of Japan. We're talkign so effiecent that construction workers were actually WORKING, I could seem doing it. Unheard of in E.L.

Inside the Castle walls, (which we went to after the paradise museum) there was a training house for Kendo and Judo. I'm scared of japanese children. If I couldn't always fall back on my height to step on them, they could beat me down with their furious skills. I saw a probably 90 pound Japanese boy throwing kids my size over his body and slamming them into a mat. A Japanese girl the size of a desktop computer was attacking a person 3 times her size with a bamboo sword. I've never seen such fury.

And speaking of Fury.

My lunch today, which consisted of shrimp potato cakes, Japanese Ramen, and rice crackers, was not fulfilling. We are going to Big Boy for some (hopefully) slim Jims, and lets be honest, who can pass up a slim jim when the opportunity awaits.

So as a passing thought*

Pretty much explains itself.

It`s raining, and it`s JAPAN!

Konniciwa Homies. I`m apparently trying blogging, I`ve been watching Bill blog for this entire trip and Constantios decided that instead of writing a paper we`re just going to create a blog with pictures and whatnot. I`ll be loading some pics probably tonight, but for now, I`m in Japan and I can post crazy Japanese stories on this site.