Akira had a good time at his dad's place. He liked he met the family, ate fugu and went out shopping for a lens for his camera. Haruki ended up giving Akira the money to buy a lens in Tokyo. We met A in Akihabara and he got his lens and we got a camera. Not a bad day really. [View Full Entry]

---

---

What a day! We went to Daiba with Andrew, Peter and their friend Kate. It was okay but the weather was bad and a lot of stuff was closed. Still it was nice to go out with them. We wet Haruki at Takas, he really hasn't changed at all, just slightly fatter but who isn't. Things went better than I expected, it's funny I worried so much about how things would go and of course expecting the worse, whatever that could be but apart from the meal he ordered being full of seafood it was fine, in fact Akira went back [View Full Entry]

---

---

We went for a drive with Yasu today through Chiba and Ibaraki to see Kairakuen, a beautiful garden and house. It's really interesting to see the different types of houses around and I always like going for drives. Tomorrow is a big day for Akira, hopefully he'll finally get to meet his father. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Sometimes one doesn't feel like doing anything. [View Full Entry]

---

---

I went with Kazunori and Akira to Shinjuku and Ginza in search of a lens. Not the most exciting passtime but at least we got to do something with K. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We did a train ride of Iwate, Akita and Aomori Prefectures, none of them are as beautiful as Yamagata but Aomori was a really nice city and it had very thick snow everywhere that made thin gs interesting. I think I've seen enough snow now, we've had a really nice few days of sightseeing. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We had some great Indian food tonight and left Akira at Mickey House conversation lounge. I hope he's had a nice time. Another early start tomorrow for our 2nd tohoku adventure. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We had another great day and it was very easy, we hardly had to leave the train. We Took the shinkansen to Niigata then took another train along the very beautiful snowy Japan sea coast to Sakata, took another very cute train along a stunning snowy river valley and finally took another Shinkansen back to Tokyo from Shinjo. It was very scenic all the way apart from the first shinkansen. We were on the bottom deck and we couldn't see a thing for the whole trip. [View Full Entry]

---

---

We went to Ginza and Akihabara this evening. Ate fast food, got some cash and booked some shinkansens. That's about it really. [View Full Entry]

---

---

It was such a good day, far better than any of us expected. The train ride was picturesque, even from the Shinkansen. The countryside near where the monkeys were was stunning, especially with a good layer of snow on it. The walk through the snow covered forest to get the the monkeys was magic and to top it all off there were possibly 100s of monkeys doing cute stuff everywhere, it was hard to leave them. We went to Obuse, a small town that had a Hokusai Museum that was supposed rto be worth seeing. The museum wasn't that great but [View Full Entry]

---

---