TRAVEL BLOG MOVED

The travel blog has moved over to Tumblr. I dunno why. Michael prefers it and I'm very neutral.

GOING BACK

Plane is TOMORROW at NOON! HOLY CRAP.

My feelings toward aircraft seems to have gotten worse of late for some reason, so now I'm officially nervous to fly. The only thing I really dislike is takeoff (maybe because I saw some Discovery channel show a year or two ago about a takeoff that turned two planes into a giant flaming death-a-thon, due to many factors (and a very rare occurrence in which two radios on the same frequency can resonate perfectly to cancel each other out)) I'm also not fond of the climbing-to-cruising altitude part, because it reminds me of how very high up in the air we are. :X Everything else about the flight is fine with me though.

Other that that, I'm pretty psyched. I think we'll have plugs on the plane (yay, tolerable 13 hour flight) and we - allegedly - might even have internet (yay SUPER tolerable 13 hour flight)! Today we're gonna search out some food options to bring on the plane (stupid liquid rules might prevent me from bringing my precious, precious Juicy Juice onboard... and we might have to search out some tiny condiment packages of mustard somewhere...) We've got some (crappy, non-New York) bagels to nom, and we're hoping that bologna sandwiches are feasible.

I think we'll have even more fun the second time around, because we know what we like to do and how to travel a little better than last time. Michael's still not confident in his Japanese language skills, although he's been hitting the Rosetta Stone pretty hard the past few months. I believe in him :)

We're heading to Shinjuku to recover from jet-lag for two days, then going to Nagoya for (oh my god) SUMO. Then we're hoppin' down to Kyoto and then Osaka to hang out with Evan-san (who's in Glorious Nippon for study-abroad, and is kind enough to let us crash with him AND do laundry at his place.) Then we're heading back up to Shinjuku (without Evan, sadly :( ) to spend the rest of the time up there. Hopefully we're gonna hang out with Alison (who lives around there) and she might show us a few new places. :)

wooooooo.

Back home, here's the update from the last days

This combini copyright-infringed that white bread mascot-girl, but I forget the bread she's from, so I can't google image search it up x_x Also featured is a, perhaps, a Yanki in a jumpsuit

A wicker shop :)



This awesome sunset temple turned out ot be a tourist trap by day :/
regular pic
photomerged panorama stuff (is there a difference? ... besides that white bit i didn't get? :x)






Also in Narita was Grillhouse Hero's, which was unbelievably delicious






This was all magical and shit:




Random leftover pics from the trip!:


]The front of UT.


Hard ;-;
Harder ;0; It's that DJing game.

This was a mural in an arcade, I dunno if I posted it.
<3




For those of you who are very internet-savvy, you may recognize the guy on the left.


This was the beginning of the walk to our favorite ramen shop in Shinjuku (and us talking about Café Ooze Charm... followed by the rest of the Road to Ramen.








OM NOM NOM NOM




The magic that is HALC:



Well, uh.. "the end," I suppose. It was bloody awesome. :D

I only took four pictures today :x

But that was mostly because we spent most of the day bicycling around Kyoto, so I really couldn't take pics... Micheal took videos though, which may be up tonight, but if not, they'll be up when we get home (as we very much doubt that the traditional ryokan in Tokyo will have any internets... we're staying there for our last night in Japan, and going home at 4pm Japan-time on Tuesday (arriving 4:30pm on Tuesday, NYC time x__x)

Also, the four pics are only of food. :x
Mister Donut only sucks a little bit, but it's cheap and not made of fish, so it's awesome, then.

And lunch was the new "BEST RAMEN EVER," in my opinion. arhghghg so gooddd ;0;
I took the picture when I was half-done, btw.



More things from Tokyo ryokan loveliness in the upcoming days, when we get back to the USA and are awake. x_x

Many Things

Hey, I wanted to rant about something silly.
(Pic unrelated)

But yeah. Perhaps one of the stranger things about Japan is their paradoxical approach to cleanliness. Every street is clean, with no litter, but NO garbage cans. At all. Like, anywhere. Yet there are countless vending machines with only one recycle bin near them. Also, the Japanese wear masks when they are sick, but lift them so they can cough. They have super futuristic toilets in public restrooms, with every button imaginable which can rinse you, air dry you, and they even have a button to make "Flushing Noise," (in case you're farting a lot or whatever, the fake toilet flush drowns it out)... but many of these bathrooms DON'T HAVE SOAP. Unless you are in a restaurant or a sort of fancy place, there is no soap in the bathroom. In some places, there is no toilet paper either. You must go outside the restroom before you do your business. There will be a little tissue vending machine which you must insert 100 yen (a buck) to find salvation. What the hell? A place so futuristically clean and efficient is so backwards in basic handwashing and toilet-paper-having? All I can say is "X___X" Thankfully, every restroom I've been in has had at least one Western toilet, and hasn't been all squatters (I think the Western toilets are mandatory, perhaps for the convenience of the elderly or blind.)

Speaking of blindness, there are raised markings on the sidewalks of all major cities (and buildings) in Japan, so that blind people can navigate the city more easily. (I don't have pictures right now, but I will provide tomorrow perhaps.) You can feel them through your shoes; the dashed ones mean "Walk straight ahead" and dotted ones mean "Stop, or a car will hit you." There are also tons of audio cues around the city (cuccoo noises for street crossing, and little doorbell rings for important places like bathrooms and subways) Cool huh?

Random pics from yesterday and today's Ann-adventureeeeee:

Yesterday:
Some fancyfancy restaurant

Hair Win was another restaurant, only with a horrible, horrible name. Not only do I not want to think of hair in my food, but it also sounds like "heroin" when you said "hair win" aloud.

Another stupid creepy scrotum-totem

A shopping avenue in Kyoto, where we desperately searched for.... MEAT

Glorious, glorious meat. All you can eat-meat. For 20 bucks each. We hurt them as much as I hurt myself.


So it was yakiniku (grilled meat) and/or shabu shabu (literally the sound of the meat boiling in water). It didn't take long for me to realize that boiled meat is stupid and dumb and grilled meat is far superior to its icky and lamely-named counterpart, shabu shabu.


Ann-venture Time!: (I didn't take any pics of Ann ;-; I'm a jerk. Sorry, Ann)
Gion alleys

Random mini-temple in Gion

Bigger temple in Gion, featuring wrong-location Michael.


It was awful pretty but it was really crummy outside and we're not big temple-people in the first place :x


Different cities:
Whale in a mall.

Whale in a subway.


Osaka is awesome and full of trinkety silly toy shops and stuff :D


The opposite side of this pillow had less clothing, so uh.. I thought of the children.

Also Ann is a sweetie. I hope we can meat again:
Maybe we'll just have a pizza party when you get back?





also, video of what may either be the diver's supervisor or a huge fan of cleaning tanks:

Kyoto

I was hoping we'd have an internet.

So I went to the front desk, "What do you mean, you have 20 modems?"
I was handed a bag marked "19" The contents:

Yes, they literally have 20 cable modems to hook up to your television. The dumbest way they coulda given you an internet.

Anyway, this is Kyoto.


And this is a giant carrot.


And this is our creepy-as-hell hotel.
Come play with us, Tommy, come play with us.

I have a feeling the place wouldn't be creepy if it were even slightly well-lit. Even the lobby feels like the Tower of Terror, a little bit. The elevators are spooky, too. They always happen to be at your floor already and they make absolutely no noise. The doors open noiselessly as well.

Also, I refuse to ever close to bathroom door, for fear of the gas.