Post - Educationalism

Osaka sucks. We should have stayed in Sapporo. Only now that we are out of the fiery inferno that is Osaka and back in the dank pits of Tokyo did we realize how nice Ino's Place in Sapporo was. It was 35 and 36 degrees C in Osaka. That is upper 90's in F. We did see a few Tadao Andao buildings...he built a Christian church and a Buddhist temple; pick a side! Other than that we lived it up in our hotel for 3 nights, drinking beers and eating edamame and onigiri rolls. And as our trip winds down we are back in Tokyo for 4 more nights. I want to go to Akihabarra, and find some bizarre technology to bring back to the States. More to come after I eat my Tea Cheese Cake

Yesterday: We awoke from our comfy loft beds to a stifling heat here in Sapporo. It is more or less like Berkeley here. No one has A/C for when it gets hot. But that aside, our hostel is incredible. A get away resort more accurately describes the place. Nice hardwood floors, light colored, hardwood furniture, leather couches, beautiful kitchen, free coffee and tea, a tv with a huge dvd and cd collection, and a very very nice japanese woman with 2 little kids who speaks english very well. But yeah, we went to the beer festival in Odori Park near the hostel. It is quite impressive. Odori park is a long and skinny park spanning about 5 or 6 blocks. At each block, there is a corresponding beer sponsor, who has set up hundreds of tables, and booths, selling their respective beer and foods. The Kirin block was really rocking, so we went there. The tables were crowded with those enormous 6 liter beer bongs, and tons of japanese bar food. We joined in the fray, had some fried octop...

We managed to get a few photos up from the trip so far: http://picasaweb.google.com/farrbear/GoingToJapan

well, I have been out of touch the last few days. A lot has happened. After yokohama we ventured over to Kyoto and stayed in what must be the worst hostel in all of Japan (but I will not slander them here in this venue). While in Kyoto we saw the famous red gate temple (and walked 5-6 miles to traverse the whole area...this also includes the distance we walked after taking a wrong turn in the forest and ending up in a residential neighborhood). Before that though, we did what might possibly be the highlight of the whole trip: fed monkeys. Atop a mountain in one of the smaller parts of Kyoto there is a clan of about 200 japanese monkeys (appropriately named Monkey Park). We made it up right before feeding time and were able to witness all 200 of them gorging on what looked like buckets of peanuts. Also, I should note that they are not caged...they just run around everywhere, at your feet. We were able to go into a special enclosed area were we could feed them dried fruits through ...

we are hanging out in the yokohama hostel right now while we wait for Ichiro to come and meet us. There's a level 5 typhoon in Okinawa right now, so there is quite a bit of rain here. this morning we went out to japan's largest china-town in yokohama and ate lots of steamed niku-man (meat buns) and panda-man(panda buns, filled with chocolate egg custard)....not our best breakfast. but soo delicious. In case that you didn:t know my sister's blog, here you are: http://farrenforcella.blogspot.com/

Walked got up early for tokyo\s Fish Market, had breakfast from one those those ticket stores, and walked around shibuya and harajuku yesterday. feet are sore. we also went into this up-scale dog boutique and saw such a good welsh corgi! his name was Rai, and he was huge too. anyway, We are heading to Yokohama today to sepnd some time with my friend Ichiro. when I can figure out how to get pictures off of my camera, i'll update more. You can also check out my sister's blog for a more detailed slice of life description.

I know it's a bit early for niceties, but a week from now I'll be in Japan. For 23 days. I know I haven't been keeping up with my dear readers, or friends for that matter, but I think that's what happens during these times of post-college crisis. I'll try to make it up you to. That said, if anyone is interested in my plans and whereabouts, I give you this: And if you give me your mailing address, I'll be happy to send you a postcard ^_^