3 days

I haven’t posted in a few days since things have been pretty random, busy and travelific. I’ll give a quick review of each day and post the more interesting pics I have.

Mon. the 22^nd, Tokyo day.

The day spent in Tokyo was great… the night, more “interesting”.

We spent the day wondering around Akihabara looking at the multitudes of game stores, comic stores and electronics stores. There are many, many indeed. We at at a Mos Burger (a Japanese burger chain) and yet again marveled at the selection and the amazing service they have at these places.

Then we missed our train… We spent the next couple hours trying to find a capsule hotel, with no results. We did find one, but were turned away since it was Japanese only, at least, as best as we could tell. We finally happened upon a very nice and observant gentleman who could speak the English. He was slightly amused at our folly, but in the end lead us to our final destination for the evening.

Our final destination was a Manga-Kisa. Imagine if you will, a small closet basically as big as a bathroom stall (and that is not an exaggeration). In it a desk with a computer and a TV on it and a reclining chair. This place has a huge library of Japanese comics (Manga) and Anime films, a free drink machine and restrooms and showers all at your disposal when you get a room/closet. They have hourly rates as well as all night (8 hr) rates. Perfect we’ll take it. This probably would have the perfect situation for being stuck out in the city over night except for the fact that non of us Idiots have the build of a Japanese person. I don’t think any of us were ever able to get fully comfortable in the bathroom stall sized room. I did manage to get about 4 or so hours of consecutive sleep, so I guess I was pretty well off.

Tues. the 23^rd, back to Osaka

In the morning we woke up and headed to the train, now with a fond memory of Tokyo in our heads and a warm… back not quite right, non-showered feeling. Back to Osaka please.

We then spent the rest of the morning and a bit of the afternoon catching up on our sleep.

We did finally get our butts our the door to grab some shabbu shabbu. This was actually a big hit. You get a boiling pot of water (hot plate in table) in which you throw in an endless stream of vegetables and meat. The meat is a raw beef that is cut so thin that just putting it in the boiling water almost instantly cooks it. This all comes with a few different dipping sauces which were also great. All-in-all a great meal and fun as well.

I don’t think any amount of sleep that day would catch us up for the running around we did in Tokyo. So we decided to follow up the drinks we had at the shabbu shabbu place with more beru (That’s beer ya’ll). After that we called it a night.

Wed. the 24^th, To Toyama

Courtland has a few Japanese pen pals that he talks to. One of which was gracious enough to invite us out to an area sort of close to her home and show us around. This made a day an extra special treat since aside from a few friendly restaurant and rail workers we really hadn’t talked with any Japanese people since we had been here. Saiko, showed us around Toyama and brought us to see Toyama Castle and Toyama’s shopping areas.

Toyama Castle

Much fun was had and it was great talking to someone other than the other 3 I’ve been with for over a week already :). We also went for some more Karaoke and finished off the evening with some food a another Japanese restaurant with Saiko.

For me our visit to Toyama was a highlight of the trip since we had our own personal tour guide. Many, many thanks to Saiko for having us out to Toyama and showing us around. You are a great ambassador for your Country and prefecture.

It’s now Thurs and it’s rainy here in Osaka. We were going to hit Kyoto today, but we will see where the day takes us. It’s been a late start so far. I think all the traveling is getting to us :).