Tokyo and Takasaki

---

Travis

So, we're coming to the end of our second full day in Japan... Yesterday we looked at the Sensoji Temple which, it is claimed, has its origins from the year 628 when two local fishermen enshrined a small statue of Kan-non, the Goddess of Mercy, which they caught in their fishing net. Most of the buildings were reconstructed at various points in the 20th century, but one dates back to 1777.

We also wandered around the outside of the Imperial palace, which was lovely... & caught the shinkansen (bullet train) to Takasaki (about an hour out of Tokyo) to visit Megan.

There we had our first real Japanese karaoke experience... woohoo!

4 important things to remember if you visit Japan....
1) watch out for the bicycles!
2) "sumimasen" means "excuse me", "arigatoo" means "thankyou"
3) there are very few bins and even fewer places to sit down, so expect to carry any rubbish around for quite some time
4) vending machines are your best friend...

Amanda

As well as visiting historic temples and seeing other touristy sights around Tokyo I have managed to drag Travis through some markets as well. One good thing about Japan is that they have a great range of shoes for small feet like mine! So yes now I have a new pair of shoes.

The bullet train was very exciting but the ordering of tickets and finding our way throught the stations with the right combinations of tickets was very stressful. We ended up getting a bit confused... but some how we managed it. The language differences are something that Travis can cope with better than me... I now know about 6 phrases/ words of Japanese!

After we met up with Megan, we went out to dinner to a Japanese restaurant. I had sushimi... which was made up of a lot of raw seafood. Raw squid is very very very chewy and probably an experience that I could really only describe in person. But I am very proud that I tried it!

Megan also took us a Karaoke Club thingy... we had our own room and could choose songs from a huge list (if you have seen the movie "Lost in Translation" you will know what I mean). There was much 80s music involved. Big happy fun very joy karaoke - me like 😊

One thing I am missing at the moment (besides work of course!) is real coffee... cold coffee in a can just isn't quite the same.

Tomorrow we have a 12 hour flight to Amsterdam so we won't be writing for a little while. I don't like our chances of getting upgraded to business class again...

---

Photos

Karaoke!
Megan and Amanda singing it up for the camera

Interesting Architecture
These stylish buildings are meant to represent a torch with a flame (right) and a glass of beer with froth on top (left). The flame is lovingly referred to by some as "the golden poo"

At the markets
Amanda thinking of how much fun it is to go shopping!

Sensoji Temple
The main hall of the Sensoji Temple.

Oh yes I can read this - honest
Trying to work out the map for the train.

Lots and lots and lots of bikes
surprisingly none of these bikes (or any others we saw) had any sort of security on them...

Comments

[Helen]

Hey guys
Great to hear from you :-) Am loving the photos as well! Karaoke would be the best, I can just imagine!! Take care