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url='/Videos/4412.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4412.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Clash of the titans! (The bums are back) Hopeless night's sleep - floor 7 of the capsule hotel was peopled by drunks, power snorers and a chap suffering the long drawn out death rattle of a man dying from terminal flatulence. We were understandably groggy when the unwelcome tones of my alarm clock set us on our auto-pilot way to the queue for tickets to the annual Aichi Prefecture Grand Sumo Tournament, one of the 6 premier meets of the year. Tickets secured, we faddled about relocating luggage to lockers, garnering the enduring image of a super-helpful cute metro attendant clop-clopping around the station in her wooden sandals at high velocity tracking down storage big enough for our clobber. The poor lass was so out of breath afterward that she could hardly speak ... read more

url='/Videos/4410.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4410.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Sheer Joyurl='/Videos/4411.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4411.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Festive Frolicks in Fukuoka (The powers that be have asked me to refrain from making any obvious puns about the name of the city from which this blog entry originates. Fortunately, the city has two names, so we'll stick to "Hakata", which is less potentially Fukuokan offensive.) When heat and humidity combine, I tend to resemble Tony Hart's plastecine pal Morph, who would degenerate into a pubble periodically. Profuse perspiration is a genetic flaw of the Osmotherly clan, so I blame my Dad. Thus when I "nipped out" into this morning's unforecast sweltering sunshine to have a gander at cloudless Sakurajima I returned a tad sodden. Fortunately, the heroic Mr N... read more

I’ve read Alex Kerr’s “Lost Japan” cover to cover today (Jeeva’s recommendation), and his cynical take on the concreting over of Japan’s cultural heritage has inevitably colored my response, especially to the artifical environs of Shirakawa-go, an assembly line of reconstituted thatched dwellings for the satiation of snapping salarymen, who wander around in a daze of incomprehension before returning to their fluorescent cubicles. Some comments on Mr Kerr’s diatribe about the Pachinko-isation of Japan. Yes the damned (intentional misspelling) rivers do run in pitiful concrete channels, the cities are assemblies of anonymous cubby-hole architecture populated by faceless business folk, and Hitachi tastelessly sponsors signage at every zen garden and buddhist temple, but the homogenisation of pop culture isn't unique to Japan. Every city in the world is acquiring it's own b... read more

We'd been putting it off too long, so all sightseeing ground to a halt this afternoon and evening as we finally itinerized Japan, and promptly decided we needed at least another week. This is prompted partly by Bro's continuing hinting that he's joining us Down Under 12 days after we're due to arrive, and partly by an attempt to catch the biggest Festival of the year in Kyoto. Whether every flight is packed for that reason, as seems likely, remains to be seen. The a.m. was absorbed by a pleasent walk through Ueno Park and down into Yanaka, punctuated by a visit to the Tokyo National Museum, from which Stace abstained to people watch and read the accursed Lonely Planet. Some splendidly fierce samurai sculptures, ancient swords, intricate calligraphy, kabuki theatre drag costume kimonos - ... read more

url='/Videos/4019.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4019.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;' Words cannot describe... Went up to the viewing platform of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office. View from the 45th floor? Meh - Tokyo's not a pretty city. Went to the Imperial Palace; the only part open to commoners is the East Garden. Looks like the walls of Canterbury. Only new. Verdict: meh. Not getting much outta Tokyo - I'm ready to leave but the Furlongs wanna persevere. I'm not convinced we'll penetrate Tokyo's ultra-civilised veneer and sample it's real character - I'm not sure it has one. Tokyo is too busy being Tokyo and completely ignores us. Example: Stace tried to play chicken with a late night salaryman as they both followed the yellow brick road that separates left from right pedestrian lane. The salaryman politely sidestepped. In the words (almost) of the ... read more