Blogs from Kawasaki, Kanagawa, Japan, Asia

Today was our first serious encounter with the Tokyo rail system,. It is incredibly efficient, well-organised and USEFUL (ACTION buses we're looking at you). It's also pretty easy to navigate and only occasionally confusing! Tess' awesome, super advanced three word Japanese conversation with a nice young woman at the platform ("Excuse me..." "" "Arigato!") got us on the right train and about an hour later, to Nihon Minka-en in Kawasaki City. Nihon Minkaen is the' Japanese Open-Air Folk House Museum' (now you see why we're using the Japanese name!). It's made up of 23 traditional houses (and a few other structures like a water mill, boatmen's shed etc) dating from the 1600s to very early 1900s, which have been relocated from all over Japan to a section of beaut... read more

Keiyo University Festival One weekend I met up with an old friend from the old place, Satomi. She showed me around as a kind of guide for parts of Tokyo. Neither of us live here, but we're just the next city over each, so no biggie. our destination: Keiyo University. Rumoured to be amongst the most prestigious of the Tokyo private universities (and with its 1st year campus just a stones throw in Hiyoshi from me) me met up and headed in. I was rather hung over as I had been to the all you can drink nightclub the night before for the 1st time. (in fact I had returned home sometime after sunrise caught a few hours sleep and was already back awake before some of my companions returned home, they had spent a lot ... read more