Wow, sorry about the silence, my final week in Japan was packed and I managed to get a little behind on working on my photos. But they’re done now and I’ll warn you up front that this is going to be a very long and picture-heavy post.

So let’s pick up where we left off: Abashiri on Friday morning. It was a beautiful morning, bright and sunny after the storm yesterday and I got up early and made my way to the docks to catch the first drift ice boat. Of course, I get there and they tell me that there’s no ice, it’s too early in the season. The boat was still going out but would be doing a sightseeing tour instead. Since I didn’t have any other plans for the morning and it would be cool to see some of the coast I signed up and got on board with all the Japanese tourists. We headed out and I went up on the top deck to watch the scenery and take some pictures (the windows down below were really dirty). The boat was underway for about ten minutes when we saw drift ice on the horizon! The storm the night before had blown it in and we changed course. It was really cool to see the ship cutting through the white mass, leaving a trail of blue water in its wake. The ice itself was in fairly small chunks but was like no ice I’ve seen before. Its long exposure to the ocean had left it smooth and opaque.

I managed to stay up on deck for the whole duration of the cruise but I was pretty much a walking icicle by the end of it. It wasn’t exactly a warm day to start with and the wind out on the water was brutal. So when we disembarked I hung out in the port building to warm up while I finished my breakfast. Then it was off to see the swans at a lake just outside the city.

Took me a little while to find the lake since it was a good ten-minute walk from the train station where I got off and things weren’t marked real well but I found it eventually had fun watching the swans and the seagulls (some of the biggest seagulls I’ve ever seen, they were huge!). Of course, me being me, I managed to lose track of time while taking pictures and ended up running to try to catch the train since if I missed it I was going to be stuck there till the next one came three hours later. I made thankfully and managed not to slip and hurt myself on the skating rink sidewalks as I made my headlong dash for the station. Safely on the train I put my camera away and focused on warming up a little before I headed off for an afternoon of museum exploration.

First stop was the Abashiri Prison Museum. From what I gathered (the English signage was fairly limited), Abashiri Prison was something like the Japanese Alcatraz; one of the worst places you could be imprisoned. The museum is actually all of the original buildings that were simply relocated when they built the new prison complex. It was quite interesting despite the lack of signage. Perhaps the weirdest part was the wax figures that they used to demonstrate prison life. They were creepy. Especially when you turned the corner in a dim room and there was suddenly a guard right next to you.

Next stop was Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples. Very, very cool building but the museum itself was not really what I expected. I was expecting it to be mostly focused on the Ainu, the native people of Hokkaido but it turned out be a little overview of northern cultures from around the world with a fairly heavy emphasis on the Alaskan Indians. It was still interesting and it was neat to look at the displays of clothing and crafts where they had laid all the different cultures out side by side. The majority of the signage was in Japanese, which was a little disappointing, so it took me much less time than I thought it would and I was able to fit in the third museum that I wanted to see but hadn’t planned on making it to.

The Abashiri Drift Ice museum is located on an overlook that commands a spectacular view of Abashiri and the surrounding area. The museum itself was fairly small but housed a collection of drift ice in a refrigerated room that you could actually walk through and touch the ice. The pieces they had were huge and in some fairly cool formations and it was pretty nifty to be able to get up close and really see the effects of the ocean on the ice. The rest of the museum was fairly boring but I spent a good deal of time in the rooftop observatory taking pictures and watching the sunset (sunsets in Hokkaido are spectacular when it’s clear enough to see them).

The next morning was an early start as I caught the first train to Kawayu Onsen, a little hot spring resort town between two caldera lakes. My guidebook and the brochures I picked up in Sapporo all made it seem like Kawayu was a fairly touristy place so my plan was to drop my luggage off in a locker at the station and explore the two lakes and have a good soak in a hot spring. Or not. The train station was a little, unmanned hut with a few chairs and a map. From what I could gather from the map I was going to want to attempt to take a bus to the bus station and use that as my starting point. Luckily the bus that pulled up first was going to the station and I got on, figuring that there would probably be lockers I could use in the bus station (I had no desire to haul all my luggage around all day). And I proved to be wrong again. The bus station was only a little bit bigger than the train station and again lacked lockers. There was someone working there though; a very nice man who spoke absolutely no English and seemed very confused about why I was there. After about 40 minutes of me trying to explain what I wanted to do and him trying to explain the bus schedule to me I ended up getting on a bus, paying for what I assumed was a day pass for the buses (aka, one flat fee to use any of the buses in the area for the day) and heading off to one of the lakes. Turns out that I had managed to sign myself up for a sightseeing tour.

The drive to the first lake was pretty until the fog set in and made it hard to see much of anything beyond the bus windows. But the fog did lend a neat atmosphere to our first stop to see the swans at Lake Kussharo and it cleared up pretty soon after we started driving again so we were able to see the whole lake from the bus. It was a little disappointing that we didn’t really get to spend any time at the lake or get to go to the Ainu village on the southern shore but the drive (a little over an hour) was spectacular. Once the fog lifted it was crystal clear winter day and you could tell that it had snowed recently; everything was covered with a pristine coat of fluffy white powder.

We switched buses at Mashu (a few stations down from Kawayu and where I should have gotten off this morning) and head up to the second lake. This time we had an actual guide (the previous bus had been like a typical city bus, this one was a more typical sightseeing bus) who gave a very energetic spiel about the history of the lakes complete with colourful pictures. And of course the entire thing was in Japanese but she was nice enough to let me flip through the pictures after she was finished and I managed to gather a rough idea of what she’d said. The drive was as pretty as the last one and about as long but there was no fog this time. The lake was jaw-droppingly beautiful; sapphire blue water surrounded by a snow-capped crater ridge. Luckily we had a fair amount of time to wander around here and I happily spent the entire time taking pictures of the lake and the views of the areas around the two volcanoes.

Took the bus back to the train station to kill time until my train so I had lunch (ramen, mmm) and hung out at the station since I was still hauling my luggage and there wasn’t a whole lot in the vicinity. And the place is packed with children. Like, over a hundred kids and their families, all hanging out at the train station. It took me a long time to figure out what they were all doing there but it turns out that there is a steam train that runs a couple times a year through Akan National Park and these families were all here to ride the train. The train was a beautiful example of a steam engine and the steampunk in me got all giddy at getting to see a real working steam engine. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to ride it, by the time I figured out what the deal was the tickets were all sold out. So I watched it pull out and speed off into the wilderness, puffing smoke and whistling.

My train took me to Kushiro, passing through one of the wetland parks on the way. There were deer everywhere and they seemed completely unphased by the train except when the conductor sounded a whistle that was specifically designed to scare them so that they’d get off the tracks before they got hit. My adventure with the buses had meant that I ended up catching a much earlier train than I had planned and I got into Kushiro with time to wander around and explore. My wandering led me down the river to watch the sunset and see the four statues on the bridge over the river. The statues were done by a famous local artist and are representations of the four seasons as women. They’re quite beautiful but not particularly Japanese in flavor, they seemed like they’d be more at home on a bridge in France. They were however, not the oddest thing that I encountered. MOO and its companion building EGG still confuse me. In my city guide it describes MOO as a market and shopping area. Well, there was a market and a little shopping but it was all spread out through what reminded me heavily of an abandoned warehouse, with some parts being fairly well-lit and finished right next to dark walkways of unfinished concrete and exposed ducts. There was no order to anything; with a staircase that ended in a wall and an elevator that you could get on and go up but with no place to get off other than where you got on. And the random plastic display of human fetal development just hanging on a wall. And the greenhouse full of tropical plants in the auxiliary building EGG. Odd was the understatement f the year.

By the next morning I had recovered from the mind-frag that was MOO and stuck my luggage in a locker before catching a bus out to the Akan Crane Reserve to see Tanto, the Japanese red-crested cranes. In the 1960’s it was believed that the birds, which are the symbol for long-life in Japan, were extinct. But there were a handful left and a farmer started feeding them in the winter when they migrated to the area. Slowly their numbers grew and now they are doing quite well and still migrate to the same areas in the winter. The Crane Reserve is one of them and they still feed them twice a day in the winter to supplement what little they can scavenge through the snow.

I wandered through their little museum, which was interesting and gave a general overview of the history of the area and the life-cycle of the cranes, before heading out to the viewing area. I was hoping to see at least a couple cranes, snap some pictures and hop a bus back to Kushiro. I was not expecting the field covered with cranes and swans, doing everything from eating to sleeping to dancing (Japanese cranes are known for their ‘dancing’). So I pulled out my camera (which felt decidedly small and wimpy compared to the other photographers’ gear; some of their lenses were easily twice the size of mine and all mounted on big, heavy tripods) and started to shoot. I ended up being there for about four hours and was glad I got there early and grabbed my spot. There was a feeding at two o’clock and the viewing area was packed with photographers, assistants and gear.

The feeding itself was really nifty because some visitors showed up for the party. There were two red foxes that darted in and out trying to steal fish without getting pecked and a whole contingent of sea eagles and falcons circling above. Watching the eagles dive and steal fish was amazing and the show went on for a good forty-five minutes with cameras snapping the whole time. I definitely had serious lens envy for most of the time but the rather hefty walk back to the bus stop carrying the gear that I do have reminded me that there is no way I’d ever want to carry something that big while I was traveling; I thought my shoulders hated me now…they’d probably stage a revolt if I made them carry anything that big.

Monday was my day in Sapporo and I ended up spending most of it on wrong buses and walking to and from places that were closed. The snow festival was the next week and the city was in full-blown prep mode so a lot of things were closed. I did get to see the beginnings of some of the ice and snow sculptures, which was really cool (they’re huge!). Anyway, the day started out a little later than planned since I slept through my alarm (I was exhausted after my week of early mornings) but I made my way to the Sapporo fish market to explore and acquire breakfast. I was expecting something like Tsukiji in Tokyo but what I found was more akin to a supermarket than a fish market. Everything was neatly wrapped and displayed in pristine cases with wide walkways instead of the barely controlled chaos of Tsukiji. And the two restaurants I found were so far out of my price range it wasn’t even funny. So I ended up grabbing donuts and making my way to the park blocks in the center of the city for a stroll. The park was closed for festival preparations so I figured I’d go to one of the museums nearby. The museum was also closed; apparently it’s only open in the summer because it’s in the botanic gardens.

Next attempted activity: the Sapporo Beer Museum. I had directions on the back of the brochure so I felt pretty confident that I could get myself there, just take the number three bus and get off at the Sapporo Beer Museum stop. So I get on the bus and off we go. After about twenty minutes I start to get a little nervous, the ride was only supposed to be fifteen. A few minutes later the bus arrives at a terminal and everyone gets off. I asked the driver if this was the bus to the museum and he laughed at me. Turns out there are two number 3 buses that leave from the stop I started at and I had managed to get on the wrong one. Great. Now, to compound all this was the fact that I was on a pretty tight time schedule, my train back to Tokyo left at 1:19 and I had to be on it. By the time I caught the bus from the terminal I ended up at and got to the beer museum it was 12:30 and the next bus back to the train station was at 12:50. So I ducked into the museum, glanced around, bought a bottle of beer for later and headed back to the bus stop. I spent the entire 12-minute ride back glancing at my watch and wishing the bus would go faster. I pretty much ran through the station, grabbed my luggage and headed to the platform, thankfully having enough time to grab some pork buns and donuts on my way past. I made my train with a minute to spare.

Tokyo was delightfully warm compared to Hokkaido and while I still usually brought my coat with me, it remained in my backpack for the rest of my stay in Japan. I took advantage of the beautiful weather to spend a day out on Odaiba, the man-made island in Tokyo Bay. My first stop there was the Tokyo Big Sight, one of Tokyo’s biggest conventions centers and a rather interesting piece of architecture. There was actually a convention going on in one of the wings so I was able to go inside and look around a little bit which was pretty neat, the inside is about as odd as the outside. There are a lot of strange random little side buildings and stairs leading up to roofs and down to little seating areas and I managed to spend an hour just wandering around and thankfully managed not to get myself horribly lost.

Next stop was Venus Fort, a three-story shopping center themed like Ancient Rome. I felt like I was in Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas; there was even a gambling area. The shops were the typical totally random mix of things loosely organized into three levels. Top floor was outlet stores, middle floor was normal stores and the bottom level was primarily children’s clothes and pet accessories. Outside the main building is a Toyota show room and one of the world’s largest Ferris Wheels. I didn’t go on the Ferris Wheel simply because I couldn’t find the entrance (there was a fair amount of construction going on in the area so a lot of the walkways were closed), so instead I walked across the “dream bridge” that crosses the center of the island.

On the other side of the bridge was another themed shopping area named Decks, this once designed to look like and old-fashioned Californian boardwalk and it offered a spectacular view of the Tokyo skyline across the bay. The shops were pretty benign but I made my way to the food court for lunch and found myself in a miniature Hong Kong, complete with neon signs and recorded street sounds playing over the speakers. Most of the food was Chinese in keeping with the theme and I ate at a conveyor belt dumpling place (same idea as conveyor belt sushi). It was an experience even though the food wasn’t very good.

The next floor down from Hong Kong was Muscle Park, an amusement park devoted to the insanity that is Japanese game shows. Participants were put through activities pulled from popular game shows, everything from trivia to puzzle solving to obstacle courses. It was pretty funny to watch but I chose not to participate, my amusement park money was being saved for Sega’s Joypolis digital playground.

My wanderings took me out of Decks near sunset and down to the hyper-modern structure which is home to Fuji TV. I’ve nicknamed the place Space Station Earth, because, well, it looks like a space station; all steel and glass scaffolding topped with a 12,000-ton steel ball. Definitely one of the coolest buildings I’ve seen and the sunset light was amazing, warm and bright with great clouds.  Then the moon came out and the space station feeling got even cooler.

Before the sun totally set I made my way back over to Decks to take some pictures of the sunset over Tokyo. It was one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen; amazing clouds and colours over my favorite city in the world. I wanted the sun to never set so the moment could go on forever.

But finally the sun set and after marveling at the Tokyo skyline lit up at night I went back inside Decks to experience Sega’s Joypolis. Now, I’m a fan of virtual reality rides and I’ve been on a fair number of them. I have never seen anything like this. The racing simulator puts you in a real car complete with manual transmission and you feel like you’re really driving because the screen fills the entire windshield and moves with the car. The futuristic bobsled race features ride vehicles that actually do 360’s when you manage to do on within the simulation (I managed to do four singles and one double, it was badass). Even the group simulators were amazing; the screens went almost all the way around you and on the white water rafting one you actually got wet! Did one called “The Room of Living Dolls” that scared the living daylights out of me. You walk down this pitch black hallway to a room lined with shelves holding porcelain dolls in various states of decay and sit down at this low table and put of a pair of headphones. Then everything goes dark and you hear voices in the headphones, very realistic voices with some of the best surround sound I’ve heard. I couldn’t understand what they were saying but I got the gist and there came a point where I took the headphones off because I was so freaked out. One of those attractions that I can appreciate the level of skill that went into it but there is no way on earth that I would do it again.

There were also a couple of non-VR rides that were pretty awesome as well. One was the Spinbullet, an indoor rollercoaster where the cars spun freely. It was fun but I was by myself so the weight balance was a little off, it was really designed to have two people of similar weight in each car (most of the rides were designed for two people; it’s a very popular places for dates). And there was the Halfpipe Canyon, a snowboarding ride where you stand on a giant snowboard (the safety restraints are like a hang coaster but you are still putting weight on your feet) and you have to rock your feet back and forth at the appropriate times to get the board to go further up the sides of the pipes and to do tricks to get points. It was a blast! I rode it three times and got pretty good (based on my points I was a pro boarder, please ignore the fact that I’ve never been on a real snowboard).

It was almost 11 o’clock by the time I left and I was exhausted but very, very happy. Dinner was a quick stop at a 7-11 on the way home and I barely managed to eat before I passed out. So if you like VR rides and you’re in Tokyo I highly recommend taking a day trip out to Odaiba and doing Joypolis, it’s mind-blowing (and if you go after 5 pm its 1000 yen cheaper for unlimited rides).

The rest of my time in Tokyo was spent just wandering around the city, soaking up the feel of everything. Saw Akihabara, the electronics/anime district, which was quite the sensory overload and a grand testament to the Japanese obsession with technology. It’s also the main area for Maid Cafes, which are themed restaurants where the waitresses are dressed to suit the theme (it started out with just maids but now the themes range from cat girls to gothic to J-rock). The sidewalks are packed with girls handing out flyers to passer-bys and it was neat to just see the variety of their outfits.

I also revisited some of my favorite places like Harajuku and Shibuya to have crepes and Starbucks and people-watch. Seriously, I could spend all day sitting in a café and people-watching in this city. But sadly it was about time for me to leave. I ran a few last errands, packed some boxes with my winter clothes to get shipped back to the states, and said ‘see you later’ to Tokyo.

Next stop: Thailand.

My trip north started early Tuesday morning as I made my way to Tokyo station from Yokohama to catch the Shinkansen. I made it with plenty of time to spare and was getting settled in on the train when I had a surprise visitor. The woman at the JR counter who had helped me make my train reservations to and from Hokkaido had come looking for me to apologize that some of the information she had given me about my return trip was false. Originally we thought that I could return on an overnight train from Sapporo that arrived Tuesday morning in Tokyo, even though my JR pass expires at midnight on Monday. After I had left the reservation office she had checked to make sure that that was the case and it turns out it wasn’t so she got up early on Tuesday to make sure she could catch me on my train to apologize and let me know what I needed to do to get the reservation changed. And she gave me a present as an apology for the situation! She was so sweet and helpful. I’m still just flabbergasted by the courtesy; totally unexpected and a wonderful way to start the trip.

The train ride itself was fairly uneventful. I slept for a couple hours on the first train and spent the rest of the time watching the scenery go by. Very pretty scenery too. Lots of snow-covered rice paddies and old-fashioned houses before going through the Seikan Tunnel, which is the longest underwater tunnel in the world (~57km long under 240km of water and rock). Kinda freaky going through it when you stopped to think about but it’s something that I’m glad I got to do nonetheless. The southern part of Hokkaido looks much like the northern part of the main island with a few more hills and more snow. Sadly by the time the train left Sapporo to continue north it was dark and I spent a good chunk of that ride plotting out my week after having acquired a ton of brochures from the info desk in Sapporo station.

Wednesday morning I was planning to catch a ferry out to one of the islands off the northern coast to do some hiking but a rather sever miscommunication (my Japanese is pretty abysmal) lead me to arrive at the wrong port roughly an hour and a half after the ferry had left. A very nice gentleman who was working at the port I showed up at gave me a lift to right port since he couldn’t explain how to walk there. Can I mention how amazing the Japanese are? Got me to the right port in about a fifth the amount of time it would have taken me to walk there (though I never would have found it, very few signs were in English and I never did manage to find a map the I could read), and helped me find the person I needed to talk to. Finally figured out that the ferry only leaves twice a day and if I took the second ferry I wouldn’t be able to make it back till the next day.

So that plan got scratched and instead I spent the day wandering around Wakkanai. Very slowly, I might add; the sidewalks were covered with a layer of solid ice that was several inches thick in places and I left my ice skates back in the states (silly me, right?). I found a cool little temple up on the side of a hill (after dodging all the heavy machinery that was loading piles of snow into dumptrucks to make room for cars on the roads) and had fun watching the crows that were fighting over something on top of one of the snowdrifts.

 Also made my way down to the rather interesting breakwater dome and seawall. The dome is strange because, well, it’s short and seems to serve no purpose other than to be a strange end to the seawall. Oh well, it was about as strange as the seawall itself. From the land side it looks really normal but the other side is made up of huge concrete jacks (you know, the things that kids try to hit with marbles?). It looked like a group of giants had been playing a game and then just pushed all the pieces in a heap against the wall. Made a really neat sound when the waves hit it though because it echoed up through all the empty spaces and distorted from the normal ‘waves on concrete’ noise. Also found some starfish that had partied a little too hard last night. Remember kids, moderation is key.

For the afternoon I took a bus out to Cape Soya, the northernmost point of Japan. The bus ride along the coast was beautiful and I got to see a sea eagle pull a fish out of the waves and fly off with it. The cape itself was pretty but not all that interesting. If it had been warmer I probably would have stayed longer and explored a little more but as it was I had fun shooting as the wind pushed me across the ice (like a moving walkway, only slipperier). Definitely glad I made the trip out there and I got to go back to the hotel and thaw out with a hot bath and a sushi dinner.

Thursday was another early morning as I hopped a train from Wakkanai to Abashiri over on the eastern coast. The first leg of the trip was really neat because we were speeding through dense forests and mountain valleys in the middle of a snow storm. Parts of it looked a lot like the Rocky Mountains actually; felt like I was taking a train home rather than through northern Japan. Had a brief layover to change trains and ran in to two other Americans, Fritz and Andy (the first tourists I’ve seen in Hokkaido). Turns out they’re doing a whirlwind tour of Japan while taking a break from teaching English in Korea and we had a good time talking about Japan and teaching ESL (I can’t wait to start my course in Thailand). The second leg of the trip was fairly boring, due in part to not having a window seat to watch the world go by, but I got some photos edited and listened to a good chunk of my book on tape (currently listening to “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein; absolutely fantastic novel, I highly recommend it).

Got into Abashiri early afternoon so I dropped my luggage off and managed to track down bus, train, and boat schedules in English so I could make plans for Friday. Having also acquired a map I decided to wander around town a little bit since it was still fairly early. Found the local Mister Donut to grab breakfast for tomorrow (would you believe that the Mister Donut was actually marked on my map along with all the tourist attractions and museums? I was highly amused) and walked through the pretty much deserted central shopping area. It’s interesting that a place that advertises itself as a winter tourist destination was so empty and most of the shops and restaurants were closed. Maybe it’s because it’s the lull between New Years and the Snow Festival.

Found a place that was open and sat down having no idea what I was getting myself into. The place was a yakinikku restaurant where you order raw ingredients and cook them yourself on the grill inset into the tabletop. And the ingredients here? All Wagyu (Kobe) beef. Now, Wagyu is one of those things you see them use on Iron Chef America and you think, right, like I’ll ever be able to afford that stuff (the price per ounce is obscene in the states). And I somehow managed to find a place in the home of Wagyu beef where I could actually afford to eat. Let me tell you, it was divine. The texture is smooth and buttery because of all the marbling and it just sorta melts in your mouth. And I proudly managed to not screw up cooking it (I had no idea what I was doing, never been to a restaurant like that before and there were no instructions). It was a fun and truly tasty experience and man, I could really get used to eating meat like that. Maybe I’ll move here and live of Wagyu and raw fish (the quality of fish here is amazing as well). Hmm, sounds like a plan to me!

Monday was Coming of Age Day in Japan; which means that everyone who turned twenty in the last year gets dressed up and celebrates. Monday was also the day that my sister and I went to Disneyland. Put the two together and you have one of the coolest, and oddest, visual experiences. Only in Japan can you go to Disney and see bad tourist fashion, crazy street fashion, and women in expensive silk kimono with elaborate obi and professional hair and make-up.

It was fascinating to watch them over the course of the day as they went about visiting Disney like everyone else (though they did get extra help getting on and off the rides because, well, kimono were not designed for clambering in and out of strange ride vehicles). Just getting to see all the different kimonos was spectacular, there were so many different designs and colour schemes and they were all amazing. And really, how many times do you get to see a woman in a kimono posing with the seven dwarves?

Disney itself was also amazing. The rides here are more low-key than the ones in the states but the emphasis is on the technology and creating the Disney experience. The technology is pretty impressive, especially on Pooh’s Honey Hunt. The ride takes you on a journey with Winnie the Pooh as he searches for the all-important honey and at one part takes you into this strange ‘dream’ world. The nifty part is that there are no tracks for the cars to run on, they are all controlled through a GPS system that prevents them from colliding but makes it appear that all the movements are random. Very, very snazzy.

And then there was the Haunted Mansion, which is a pretty spiffy ride under normal circumstances. But we happened to be there while they still had the special holiday edition of the ride up. Which meant that the entire ride was Nightmare Before Christmas themed! My glee was intense. And the ride itself was better than the original, with the decorations both inside and outside the mansion being totally over the top and fabulous.

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the park doing rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear’s Astroblasters, Monsters Inc., Big Thunder Mountain (which had signs for Colorado farmland in the queue), and of course, Space Mountain.

We also marveled at the interesting varieties of popcorn including honey (which was amazing), chocolate, and curry. And there were the funny hats. Big, fuzzy hats that came in designs ranging Stitch with the bog blue ears, to Tigger with stripes and a tail for a scarf, to Sully and the Cheshire cat. There were also your ‘basic’ mouse ones which were most commonly either grey or pink leopard print faux fur. And everyone was wearing them, not just the kids. Granted it was cold and they were quite warm (we tried some on just for the fun of it) but they were honestly rather silly looking and not something that I can see being real practical in the real world, even in Japan.

Tuesday was our day at DisneySea and all I have to say is that if you ever have chance to go, take it without hesitation. Seriously, the place is amazing. The place is themed down to the trash bins, water fountains and walkways. Disney at its best. The entire park is built around the central lagoon and the massive volcano that houses the Mysterious Island and each area is called a ‘port’ in keeping with the sea theme.

My favorite port was undoubtedly the Mysterious Island, which is a steampunk paradise designed entirely around the works of Jules Verne. There’s even the Nautilus docked next to one of the restaurant and the 20000 Leagues Under the Sea ride features small subs as the ride vehicles. The queue for Journey to the Center of the Earth is as spectacular as the ride is, featuring labs and schematics that make you feel like there really is an expedition going on around you. You even take an elevator to the staging point with depth gauges to show you how deep you are below the Earth’s surface. And then there’s the ride, which starts of nice and scenic as you go through some of the areas they’ve discovered to see the strange flora and fauna that live there and then turns into a swift rollercoaster ride through scarier places and pitch darkness when your vehicles gets diverted onto the wrong set of tracks. It offers a spectacular, if brief, view of the park as you shoot out the side of the volcano before plunging back into darkness.

Other ports included the Cape Cod (filled with shops devoted to the Japan-exclusive Disney bear Duffy), the American Seaside featuring a full-sized steam ship and the imposing Tower of Terror (same ride, totally different story line), Port Discovery with its idealistic view of the future, the Arabian Coast with its two-story carousel, and the immaculately and overwhelmingly detailed Mermaid Kingdom, which is all indoors and designed to make you feel like you are under the sea.

There was also the Lost River Delta, home to the Indiana Jones rides that was tragically closed when we were there and the only rollercoaster in Disney featuring a loop; as well as the Mediterranean Harbour, which serves as the entry way and main shopping area of the park.

The rides at Disney Sea were a blast and the lines were pretty much non-existent due to that fact that it rained all day.  There were more odd flavors of popcorn including strawberry and soy sauce; and more funny hats (though fewer than yesterday due to the weather). The day ended with the spectacular night-time show on the central lagoon recounting the tale of love between a water spirit and a fire spirit and featuring amazing effects true to Disney style. And after that we managed to sneak one more ride on Journey to the Center of the Earth (our fourth) before heading back to the hotel to thaw out.

All in all, Disney never fails to impress and a good time was had by all.

Wednesday morning was early. As in, checking out of our hotel at 5 am and having to take a taxi to the station because the buses weren’t running kind of early. But it was worth it to find ourselves at Tsukiji, Tokyo’s central fish market, just as the sun was making its first appearance.

I’m a firm believer that if you are in Tokyo there is no excuse for you not to put a morning aside to experience the insanity that is Tsukiji. If it lives in the ocean you can find it here and there are a lot of things that you question whether or not they’re actually edible. Also being there so early, a fair amount of stuff was still alive (hey, at least you know it’s fresh).

We wandered around for a good hour snapping photos and marveling at the strange variety while dodging motorized fish carts and trying not to get in the way of the people doing business. This experience was followed by a spectacular breakfast of tuna and salmon sashimi over rice and a hot bowl of miso soup.

Then we made our way over to a rather pretty garden near the market that houses a nice little tea house on a lake so that Tara could experience a simple form of Japanese tea ceremony. I personally am less than fond of green tea but it was a fun experience and a nice rest after the insanity of Tsukiji. The afternoon found us experiencing a traditional Japanese bath house and let me tell you, it was quite the experience. We kind fumbled our way through it and it sure was nice to just soak in the hot water. Then it was off to acquire donuts and dinner before returning to the guesthouse to pack.

Thursday was Tara’s flight back to states and we got the joy of dealing with our rather silly amounts of luggage on a packed commuter train (we called them sardine trains). But after dropping my stuff of in a locker in Ikebukuro, things went a little smoother and we got to the airport in time to grab lunch before she boarded her flight. It was sad to see her go; we had a fantastic time and got to see a lot of neat stuff. But it’s on to the next part of the adventure. I’m working on figuring out my trip to northern Japan (I’m stolidly ignoring the fact that’s it’s really, really cold up there) and will hopefully be heading up there on Tuesday.

Sp stay tuned for updates from the land of the frozen sea!

Yay for another long over-due post. I promise I’ll get better about posting regularly.

Anyway, where did we leave off? Oh yeah, off to Kyoto. No photos from monday since most of it was spent on the shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo and the rest was spent wandering aound the endless shopping arcades. Seriously, they never really end, they just run into a different arcade. They were interesting though; a little bit of everything with the high-end kimono dealers next to the trendy clothing shops and the kitschy souvenier places with a handful of restaurants thrown in for good measure.

Tuesday morning we hopped an early train out to Hiroshima and then a ferry out to Miyajima to see the floating temple at high tide. The huge red torri gate is truely impressive standing out in the water supported only by it’s own substantial weight and the temple itself is beautiful. The buildings are essential just a collection of bridges built just over the high tide line so it appears that everything is pretty much floating in the ocean. I was here two years ago but it was during low tide and, while still beautiful, wasn’t nearly as stunning as it was this time. It also helped that the weather cooperated; it was cold but sunny. After a warm and satisfying lunch of tempura shrimp udon we took the ferry back to Hiroshima to visit the Peace Memorial Park.

The a-bomb dome there is one of the few buildings that remained standing after the atomic bomb was dropped and is still an impressive and grisly reminder. The museum also serves as a reminder by exlpaining the events leading up to the bombing, the bombing itself, and the aftermath, including the lasting effects on survivors. The stories shared by those survivors are truely heartbreaking and visiting the museum is a sobering experience, even seeing it for the second time.

Wednesday was a late start as we made our way out to Fushimi-Inari, the fox shrine and graveyard that sprawl over the side of a mountain. The shrine is famous for it’s paths covered by long rows of red torri gates (if anyone’s seen Memoirs of a Geisha, the scene where she is running through all the red gates was filmed here). It’s one of my favorite shrines and the weather was good as we hiked up the first loop. We didn’t make it to the top of the mountain this time but one day I’m sure I’ll managed to set aside an entire day to do the whole thing since it’s supposed by be a pretty spectacular hike.

Thursday was really cold and fairly cloudy but we still went to see Kinkakuji, the golden pavillion. It was still beautiful and we had fun marvelling at the sheer amount of ice cream they sold there. Between the ice cream stands and the vending machines there must have been fifteen different places to by ice cream. And people were eating it even though it was like 35 degrees out!

From there we just kinda wandered around Kyoto since Ryoanji, the rock graden, was closed for renovations. That night we did a short (once the sun went down, it got even colder) walking tour through old Gion on a search for geisha and maiko (apprentice geisha). And we found one who was nice enough to let us take her picture before she hurried off to her next appointment.

Friday was our last day in Kyoto and we visited Nijo-jo, the castle with the singing floors. And they really do sing when you walk on them. The paintings on the wallscreens inside are stunning; the level of detail is just mindboggling and the care with which each design was chosen is very apparent.

Next stop was Heian-jingu. Though the gardens were mostly dead since well, it’s the middle of January, it was a nice walk and we sat on the bridge over the lake for a while to enjoy the sunshine and the scenery. Then the sun went away and it quickly became too cold to sit on the bridge so we packed up and went off to the train station to explore. Kyoto train station is a hyper-modern structure that is amazing to look at but incredibly confusing to navigate. Somehow we managed to find ourselves in what was essentialy an eight-story food court/ grocery store where you could get just about anything edible that you could ever want and most of which feature free samples. It took us nearly two hours to get through but we came out the other side with all sorts of goodies for the train ride back to Tokyo.

Saturday was the grand quest for dishes. See, when I was here two years ago I bought a set of dishes but only enough for two people. Well I kinda had the realization about a year ago that I really should have enough for four people. So Tara and I went to Kappabashi, THE street for anything kitchen-related from knives to dishes to uniforms. The dish shops were an experience unto themselves. They were so crowded and so disorganized. One shop we went into  my feet were too wide for the aisles at points and I had to carefully manuver around towering stack of plates and bowls. It was definetly a nerve-wracking shopping experience but a fun day that ended with seeing Tokyo Tower and night and marvelling over the sheer urban sprawl that is Tokyo.

Today found us back at Harajuku to explore Meiji-jingu. It was still incredibly crowded but not quite as bad as last week and there were ice sculptures. I have no idea why there were ice sculptures but the main path leading up to the shrine was lined with them. They really are amazing works of art and it made me even more excited to go to Sapporo for the start of the ice festival where they do hundreds of these sculptures all over the city.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around Harajuku people-watching and eating crepes before hopping over to Shinjuku in search of a store I wanted to check out and finding dinner to take back to the guesthouse.

The next update will hopefully be on Thursday after I put my sister on a plane back to the states and find my way out to my friend’s apartment where I’ll be staying for the rest of my time in Tokyo. So check back then for stories of Disney, fish markets and hot springs!