Eleven Hours on a Train

Hello everyone,

As you might have expected from the title, we`ve travelled somewhere. We are now located in Sapporo, Hokkaido. We went from the last town that we were in, Urabandai (I`ll write more about that later), at about half past 2 p.m., and we arrived here this morning at 06:10. We switched trains a couple of times, so we had to wait at the station for maybe 10-20 minutes, and one time even 3 hours. However, the last train, the one from Aomori to Sapporo, took from about 22:50 to 06:10. That was rough, since we didn`t have proper sleeping-cars, just fully reclined chairs, and the noise it made could have vanquished demons. That wasn`t maybe so nice, but when we got here some 6 hours ago we "checked in" at a mangacafe and went to sleep (it`s from that cafe this post is coming to you folks). It`s a room with a small sofa, two japanese floor-chairs, a table, TV, PlayStation 2 and of course a computer with internet. It only took us back 2000 Yen each ( ca 14 euros) for 9 hours "accomodation", oh, and there`s thousands upon thousands of mangabooks to read, all in japanese of course. Though we`re leaving this place in a couple of hours, I`m a bit tempted to grab Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix and just play it for the rest of the day, but I won`t.

Since we have only seen a few blocks of Sapporo yet, I won`t write about this place, except that it`s one of the newest citys in Japan, and therefore is built western-style (i.e. square-grid, like New York for example), which makes it a lot easier than Tokyo to navigate in, since that town was built entirely random.

The main reason we went here is to avoid the rain-season in the south right now, but also to drop of two bottles of Stallhagen-beer to a guy named Phred; an american running a beer-bar here. That will be nice since they do carry their weight.

Before we went here, we went out in the Japanese mountains for a couple of days. More exactly, we went to the town of Inawashiro, and from there took a bus to Urabandai (Bandai Plateau, Japans second largest national park). We went there to see the Goshiki-numa; the five-coloured lakes. They`re called so because they have different colours, logically, but the reason is more cool. In 1888 (gather round, children) there was a huge volcano that erupted, people say that it took of 600 m of it`s top and, as a result, the landscape was completely altered. Different minerals gathered in different places, and therefore coloured the lakes that formed there. The biggest, probably most famous lake is blue (coppar maybe?), and it really is blue. Not "The Beach"-blue-lagoon-paradise, no, this is Slushee-coloured-blue. You can see it in the picture above, though it looks better in real life. The other lakes weren`t as magnificent, there was the red lake, which was really greenish-yellowish with darkred edges, but I didn`t get a good photo of it, so you`ll have to make do with just the one.

The town itself of Urabandai (we think that`s its name) was really nice, it looked really Canadian. Jeeps everywhere, pinetrees, many log-houses and treehouses in general, and almost all signs were in english, oddly enough. They even had rangers instead of police. So, to me, it felt Canadian (look at the picture at the top of this post). Everyone there were really nice, and the hotelmanager at the place we stayed (also a log-cabinish place) picked us up from the busstop, and made us a huge breakfast (for some money true, but we`re pretty sure we got it cheaper, because we thought the price of lodging and breakfast woulkd be 5400 Yen, but it was only 5000, 32 euros). When we left the day after he even gave us a lift to Inawashiro where the trainstation is, which is a good half-hour away. He was really nice. So if you ever go see the Goshiki-numa (which you should, `cause it`s awesome), you should stay at the Pension Chalet. We briefly met this other gut at the pension, whom also was nive. He took this photo of us, and the next we took of him.

The Below picture is of our room there.

The big blue lake was, by the way, thick with carp. And they were fat; really, really fat. The biggest fish I`ve seen in real life (except sharks). And here`s a pic of one:

Another really cool thing we experienced (as we are nerds), was that we found the Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Special Potion. It`s hadn`t passed it`s expiration date yet, so we could drink it, and it was good. It tasted like the swedish soda Tropicano. And; I regained 200 HP, so that was also nice. Here`s a picture, (of the many, many I took):

That`s it from the backroads of Japan, back to Tokyo for a bit.

The day before we started travelling north, we went to the Tokyo Tower. 333 m of metropolitan vistas. The first view-station was at 150 m, and the second (more expensive one) was at 250 m. It was really nice though, since you could se the worlds biggest city at your feet. There were also parts of the floor which was glass, so you could look directly down (not something for people with vertigo, which I have myself quite a bit). I took a photo there, as you can see.

And the last thing worth mentioning from Tokyo this time around is really just another picture, we found this temple-gate besides a large park. It was quite nice I must say.

That`s it for this post. We don`t really have any plans today since we`re so tired, only to find a hotel or hostel or something; somewhere to sleep for a few nights basically. We will probably go and vouyer the town for a bit and then go to sleep early.

Well, see you!

Tokyo is Truly a Big City

Hello,

I'll start with the depressive/tragedic news. On sunday, we went to Akihabara, "electric town", where one can purchase everything (and I mean everything) in the fields of electronics, manga, anime, games etc.

Anyhow, we had walked around for maybe an hour or so, entering a lot of stores (many of which go up for 5-6 floors or more), and when we exited one store, we noticed there were a lot of people, and a lot of cops, ambulances, firetrucks and maybe 5-6 helicopters in the sky. We figured that something huge had happened, but we didn't know what. And there were a lot of cops. Then, we noticed a large pool of blood on the street. We first thought 'jumper', from one of the many tall buildings, but there were too much going on for that. A bit later we noticed another pool of blood, this time on the street in a crossing. Then Japan's version of CIA arrived to the scene, all dressed in black in their suede cars, and we realised that it was a murder that had happened.

We turned on the TV on our cellphones (yep, got TV on our cellphones, and it's free) and it was on the news on maybe three channels, sending live from the scene (at this time, a freakish amount of reporters had arrived), but we couldn't understand so much except that they said something about 5 people and 7 people. We realised that it probably meant 5 dead, 7 injured.

We were somewhat wrong though, we later found out that some lunatic had gone berserk and started running over people, to then start stabbing people. A total of 7 people died, and 10 were injured. And we were on the same block, maybe 100 meters from the scene, except a couple of floors up. It feels weird to have been so close to something like that It's not really something you think will happen.

Well, enough about that, we are still having fun here in the biggest city in the world, except that it's been raining a bit the latest days, especially today. It's been pouring down actually, and it started just as we were about to see Tokyos imperial palace. Well, if it's better tomorrow, we'll see it then.

Other things of interest we've seen are the gardens around meiji-jingu, and more Harajuku-people. Oh, and of course the Sony Building. That was actually really cool, and we got to see a lot of new products, and even one that hasn't been released yet: a brand-new concept of loudspeakers. Well, at least I think it's a new concept, because I've never seen anything like it. It is to be released next month to the price of 10 000 US dollars. It looks like a two-meter tall tube made of transparent glass, very stylish. It emits sound in 360 degrees, and therefore can't really be used for surroundsound in movies for example. This is only used for music, and it has really, really good sound. Smooth bass and everything. If it wasn't for the pricetag I'd buy one immediately.

Another rather interesting experience was sleeping a night in the famous capsule hotels. We went there on sunday, and I must say, I really liked it (Jonas too). It consisted of a 9 floor building, with the reception on the second floor and capsules on floor 3-8 (8 is for women only). the ninth floor had somewhat of a spa, which was a nice surprise. You even got a razor, toothbrush, towels and linens. The spa consisted of a sauna, shower and even a small onsen ( kind of like a hot tub). That was really nice, and when we went to sleep we noticed that the capsules were a lot bigger than we had imagined, something like 1m x 1,5m x 2m. So you could easily sit inside of them. Each capsule had a TV, radio, alarmclock and thankfully a lamp.

Anyhow, since it only costs 3000 Yen (18 euros), we highly recommend them (even though the beds were a bit too hard).

Well, enough writing, time for pictures. Won't add as many as the last post, but a select few at least. Enjoy!

We encountered this lady on the street, so we asked if we could take a picture, and we could!

Some more Harajuku-girls, I especially dig the girl above with bright, red eyes.

The iris-garden near Meiji-jingu.

Meiji-jingu itself.

The moat that surrounds the Imperial Palace (famous from the movie about migrating ducks that aired on christmas that we all enjoyed).

A dog wearing rainprotective gear. Perfectly normal in Tokyo.

And lastly, the dinner we're having tonight. Very healthy (well, the sushi-maki is).

See you again soon, please comment and good night!

We are Officially Bad at Planning

Hello,

Well, it's been a couple of days since a regular post, so we have had time to do something. Anyhow, yesterday we were planning on going to Tsukiji Fish Market (the biggest in the world), and to see the good stuff you have to be there really early, preferably 5am. So we set my cellphone to alarm at 6 am (we didn't want to get up too early), but apparently, my cellphone died. So; at 1 pm, we wake up. And we went to sleep at midnight the night before! Another 13 hours of sleep. Really odd. So we didn't get to go to the fish market.

That's why we decided to go today. So this morning, we set the alarms at 5:30am, and get up at that time, only to realise the market's closed on sundays. Yippie-kay-yay. And to add to the pain; we only got 4 hours of sleep (well, Jonas did, I couldn't fall asleep at all).

Well, yesterday didn't totally go to waste, we went to Harajuku and Shibuya, the two, perhaps, most famous places in Tokyo. Shibuya is famous for it's grand crossing and huge TV-monitors above, which appears in every Tokyo-movie worth its salt (for example, Lost in Translation). And Harajuku is famous for it's messed up kids, whose way to dress is a strong influence on the fashionistas of the world. Madonna names them in one of her songs by the way.

Well, Harajuku is also famous because it houses the biggest temple in Tokyo: Meiji-jingu. It's located in a 55 hectares-park in central tokyo, and it's really big. We snapped some photos, but by the time we got there the temple had somewhat closed. Yay. We might go there again today, as it only costs 230 Yen to travel across Tokyo (something like 1,6 euros).

Well, this post is starting to be long, but this is one of the few moments where we're not in such a hurry, since we got up so early. But, I'll sum it up; the days before yesterday we visited Senso-ji, another big temple here in Asakusa where we live, and we went about exploring Asakusa. We bought some fine sushi for 2300 Yen (15 euros), which I'll add a picture of, among a lot of pictures I'm about to upload. Hope you'll like them!

These two girls were in shop next to this cool motorcykle, and when I went to take a photo of it, they wanted to be in it, so here they are.

These giant hamster-thing were the focus of our attention for a couple of minutes when we desperately tried to haul them, only to have lost a couple of hundred Yens later.

Jonas next to a famous Kabuki-actor.

Some statues in the Senso-ji gardens.

Senso-ji main temple.

This is Hideo, a very nice guy who started talking to me as I watched the many giant Koi in the ponds of Senso-ji. He gave us some tips of what to do in Tokyo, the main attractions and so on. Very nice.

This is the five-storied Pagoda in Senso-ji.

The many-many small stands in the Senso-ji temple area.

The sushi we ordered. Almost all of it was good, except the weird yellow one. It tasted like mud.

This is the Torii to the Meiji-jingu. Grand, made of cypress. Would be nice to have in your driveway.

This is one of the many bonzai-trees inside Meiji-jingu.

A few of the famous Harajuku-kids.This picture is mainly for my nerdy friends (you know who you are). It's a huge poster for MGS4 which is to be released soon. They played trailers for it on the big screen too.

The last picture. This guy was in the subway with a huge camera and when I turned my head to look at him he had it pointed right at med, and just when I turned my head he snapped a photo. don't think it was intentional to do it right then, but still. So I took out my camera, whistled at him, and when he looked, I snapped this picture as revenge. He, and maybe 3-4 more people on the other side laughed. Very amusing.

Well, that's it for now, hope you liked it!