Off the boat

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Osaka:
Well it just so happened that the day we all depart for the ship that he skys decide to open up and pour down on us... so instead of leaving for Kyoto that day my three friends and I decide to get a room for one more night in Osaka then leave in the morrning. It was great, we had a chance to graduly say good-bye to everyone and not in an akward enviroment.

Kyoto:
After our final good-byes to the boat (from afar) we grabed our ridiculus amount of baggage and hopped onto a train departing to Kyoto, it was a little akward with all our stuff and we kept bumbing into people but we got through alright. When we landed we had two JR ladies point us in the right direction of our hostel and we booked in without any troubles. We are very use to being in new places by now so we settled in quickly and made some freinds (we lost amanda to karyoky at some point).
WE woke up early the next day (its wired into us to get up at 7 from living on the boat... a skill whic i have sadly lost due to jet lag and time changes) to explore what kyoto had to offer. We had a train adventure right off the at, and found a great compleatly desolated area with had a path that lead up into he forested mountains surounding us! WE got a little to exited overthis, mostly because we hadn't seen trees for a very long time! we eventuly got baconto the train and went to a small town outside of the bigger one, it was a compleat tourist trap, though we did get to finally see geishas... and we ran in Sarah (its hard to miss her red hair amist the sea of black). we spent the reat of the day crashing in massage chairs and going out for dinner.
Right beside our hostel was a gorgous castle, so we when out to have a look around. It was really well put together inside and all the inner rooms had gold walls with murials of tigers and other nature scenes painted on them. Then we wandered around downtown Kyoto for a bit going into geisha shops and stopping every few minutes to see yet anouther temple.

We were determaned to start the day earlier today, one so we could see everything, and two because we promised to meet Joel at 10 in a different city... So after Zack and I droped our bags off at the train station we headed off to Narato explore the expansive gardens and temples there! We met up under a 5 storie pagota were we saw our friend feeding some of the many deer that populated this area, and since he had been here for a few days already, elected to be our tour guide. First he took us to see the worlds largest budda inside the worlds largest wooden structure. there was also a large pilar with a hole through the middle next to him that represented the buddas nostral, and if you could fit through it then it ment that you were inlightened, so Zack, the skinnest of our party, got down and wiggled his way through... I think it might have gone to his head now! WE stopped for lunch at one of the many surrounding parks, the boys threw a ball around while we had a good time feeding the deer that came to play with us (not as agressive as the other ones we heard about... one had kicked my friend james in order to try and get more food from him). After walking around for a few more hours Zack and I had to hop back onto the train and get onto a bullet one destin for Tokyo! We had no where to sit for the first hour and when we finally did we realized that we acadently had gotten onto the smoking car. But two hours later we arrived in Tokyo and found our acomidation fairly easily and crashed for the night after our fun filled day.

Tokyo:
Honestly Tokyo is not at all what its hyped up to be, all there is to do is club and shop, neither of which I teribly want to do, and you can only see about 20% of the sky at most at any given time! So we spent the last two days catching up on postings and wandering amilessly around the streets. The last night we went out for a fancy dinner at a place were we had to randomly point at items on the menu and hope they were good/edible. It turned out pretty good even though we werent exactly sure what one of the courses was..
the morrning that I left was simply filled with drama... first of all we had gotten on the right train going to Narita (the airport) but Zack wanted to get off to check, but unfortunatly the doors closed behind us, and when I deciphered the sign it showed that the next train wouldnt be for anouther hour. So we waited. Then when it finally did com it brock down 3/4 of the way there, now with about 1 1/2hours to go i was starting to get a little nervouse, and when the bu we were on didnt move for anouther 15 minutes in trafic I was getting a little more antsy. but we got taken to anouther line which wisked us to the airpore with 1/2 an hour to spare. by the time i got to the cheack in they told me I only had twenty minutes till boarding and I had to hurry. So I didn't get much of a chance to say good-bye, but it did mean that I got bumbed up a class!! So the flights when well and my family (Zane) was there to pick me up in London. So theres anouther part of my trip over and on to anouther one!

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