http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/lens22/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from lens22 en-us Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:04:46 +0000 Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:04:46 +0000 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. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-245909.html 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 what http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-245522.html Sometimes one doesn't feel like doing anything. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-245155.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Ibaraki/Mito/blog-245150.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-244402.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Aomori/blog-244162.html 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. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-243807.html 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 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/blog-243506.html We went to Ginza and Akihabara this evening. Ate fast food got some cash and booked some shinkansens. That's about it really. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-243505.html 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 leav http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Nagano/blog-242913.html Tokyo has been good to us we woke up this morning and there was snow everywhere and it was snowing pretty much all day. Akira and I went out and took photos and had a snowball fight. There's a park nearby where there were kids and parents making yukidarumas and having lots of fun. It was so unexpected... maybe the expectation in Prague stopped it snowing. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-242359.html We went to the Salvation Army Bazaar today and spent 7500 but I suspect the same things in Australia would have been several hundred dollars. We sorted out the train tickets today with help from Kazunori. After todays spending we'll have to borrow more money from him unfortunately. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-242087.html We went to Shinjuku tonight to get our JR tickets and meet up with Yasu. It was really good to see him again he's hardly changed at all. Problems with getting the tickets. My visa card expired yesterday the emergency Mastercard didn't work for some reason useless bloody thing it is... and I could only get 20000 out of Akira's account. Had I not transferred a 1000 from it earlier today into o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Shinjuku/blog-241788.html We went to a museum today where they have reconstructed old buildings from all around japan. It wasn't just focussed on traditional buildings there several houses that were mixing both Japanese and western styles from the 20s and 30s. I found the bathrooms and kitchens particularly interesting. It took quite a while to get through them all because we had to take our shoes off in most of them. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-241358.html Akira and I looked at camera lenses and speakers but the most entertaining was looking at the large household appliances. They have the best fridges and very odd dishwashers here. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Akihabara/blog-241065.html We went to a waterfall a cave and ate soba today. It was very nice I didn't realise such country existed in Tokyo. Kanji and Sachiko took us to their house we had a great time and Kanji gave Akira a watch that he is most impressed with. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-240672.html We went to Harajuku and Meiji Jingu today with Craig and Sandy. It was a beautiful day and we had a great time. We were lucky enough to catch a wedding at the shrine and for a change the bride and groom looked really lovely. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-239922.html It's been great here at K's place. he's spoiling us. Akira went to Shinjuku with his mates last night and now he's off to Shibuya to meet them. Hopefully he'll find them because he gave K's mobile number for contact and K has been out all day. We went to the Miyazaki museum today it was fun but I must admit I expected more. The building looked like a poor imitation of Hundertwasser's. I'd probabl http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-239612.html We're here at last. Our flight got in early so we had to wait at Nippori Station for Kazunori but it wasn't that difficult to get here with his help. Akira is in Shinjuku with his mates... hopefully they remembered to meet him. It's been good so far we've met K's sister Masao and his dad. Hopefully they won't mind us taking over their living room for 3 weeks. We've eaten ramen and gyoza and bough http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-239297.html Apart from some computer glitch with Akira's boarding pass all went well. We checked in more than our luggage allowance without having to pay and we didn't get anything confiscated. We have so many bags even after posting the 15kg home we seemed to have more than we came with. It's sad to leave Europe but I can't wait to get to Tokyo. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-239295.html