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. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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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 ¥20,000 out of Akira's account. Had I not transferred a $1000 from it earlier today into our other account it would have had enough, what brilliant timing. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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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 probably have been more impressed if I hadn't seen his buildings in Wien. The short anime that we saw there was adorable and of course Miyazaki's drawings [View Full Entry]

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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 bought lots of lollies that we'd forgotten. Couldn't be better. [View Full Entry]

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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. [View Full Entry]

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