Photos only now folks, but at least something is back... [View Full Entry]

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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 re [View Full Entry]

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Hi groupies, Little Drummer Boy Cavey tapping away here on the blog. Day 86 of our sell-out world tour and we continue to chalk up the venues of Japan with the help of our high-tech 'tour bus' - the Shinkansen bullet train - which rockets us from venue to venue at a few hundred kilometres per hour. I've noted that each town or city we pass through has certain common features: 1. A ferris wheel 2. A golf driving range 3. A piece of Seventies sci-fi architecture, harking back to the golden years when Japan was truly years ahead of [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/4410.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4410.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Sheer Joy[url='/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, w [View Full Entry]

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Deafening thunder storms all night mean an sub-optimumly overcast visit to Sakurajima, Japan's most explosive volcano, which skulked shrouded in mist like a London office worker with the flu hiding under a towel sniffing hot Vicks. Trying to take it easy for a change, we took a bus tour designed for the Japanese touring mentality, which begat 12 minute stops at each site. Our gigglesome guide seemed to have been on the happy baccy - she could barely inhale for laughing. Saw some lava - meh, I've seen better. What a travel snob! Had a bowl of Happy Meal priced [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Kicked off with a mooch around the morning market, following a more successful breakfast hunt than that of the majestic crane we watched stalking the waters of the Miyagawa River. We sampled weird soy bean sweeties, bought puffer fish paper lanterns and got freaked out by creepy local faceless dolls. After a strawberry smoothie we headed out to the Festival Float Exhibit, where the fluorescent lighting sucked the soul out of the bleached spectres of the autumn parade. A crazily complex and costly museum next door featured sunrise / sunset lit, exquisitely detailed miniatures of the temples [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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"Norman Stanley Fletcher (clank!)..."We voluntarily incarcerate ourselves a capsulte hotel. I was prisoner 4019, or so said the PJs the super provided. Each inmate surrenders their worldly goods at a tiny locker and crawls into sleeping "quarters" about the size of an upturned wardrobe. The 13 quid per night is considerably less than a taxi fare back to the 'burbs if you're a drunken salaryman who has missed the last train. Increasingly travellers who only use their hotel as a flop house (i.e. us) are enjoying the novelty value of this quirky accom. We entered into the spirit of the [View Full Entry]

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[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 n [View Full Entry]

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