• Akihabara was much more fun the second time around. My brother-in-law watches some anime and collects Transformers, so he was kind of like having a tour guide. We checked out several hobby/toy shops and went to one of the capsule machine shops. I spent way to much yen for trinkets. So much fun. And we went to another arcade and got sticker pictures taken. Hilarious!
• Ginza for dinner and a Kabuki play (which was so boring I almost fell asleep and we only went for 1 act).
• Harajuku for people watching and socks shopping.
• Meji Shrine, a forest in the city.
• Tokyo Metro Government Office Tower for views of the city.
• Sony Building for cool gadgets.
• Tempura restaurant in Shinjuku area where we saw live eel being murdered in front of us. I was glad I was done eating. The chef held up an eel, smacked it, pinned it’s head, chopped the head off, slit it down the middle, skinned the inner meat out, rinsed it, dipped in batter and threw it in the frier. Oh geez. Now that’s fresh seafood.
• Ghibli Museum in Mitakato was a magical place.
• Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest fish market in the world. This place is so busy.
• Shopping in Shibuya.
• American actor advertisements. This was very “Lost In Translation.” Tommy Lee Jones and Cameron Diaz do a lot of advertising in Japan.

I’ve loved my time in Japan, especially Tokyo, but I’m ready to move on (and to get some sun)! I’m flying to Cairns, Australia this evening, (I’m also saving an expensive night of lodging in Tokyo by sleeping on the plane). Goodbye, Japan!

We planned to meet for dinner later in Shinjuku and I headed back to my hotel to pick up my bag and move to my hostel that’s closer to the Shinjuku area. It was pouring rain and rush hour on a Friday and I was so tired and frustrated. I finally got back on the JR line with my pack, transferred to the Shinjuku line, and finally arrived at my hostel. I’m staying at a capsule style hostel near Shinjuku, that has a floor for females. Regular capsule hostels are really cheap, but don’t allow female customers. :( Thankfully, my “capsule” is by the window and my pack fits in my locker. Since I’ll be here for about a week I dumped everything out of my pack. After unpacking I jumped back on the metro and then walked around and around Shinjuku station. The Shinjuku station is huge, it’s the busiest train station in the world with over 200 exists, so to say I wandered around (and around) several times is an understatement. I’ve often been accused of having internal GPS, so to pass the same exit several times was so frustrating! Well, I finally arrived at their hotel and decided that I needed a better strategy for navigating the station next time. :) After dinner, I started my long trek “home.” Oh and my new Shinjuku strategy is to find the biggest tourist attraction near where I want to go and then follow the signs for that exit only, much easier!

Later, we checked out the Roppongi area, a nightlife and expat district. It didn’t really seem to Western-y, but there were more foreign influence than the rest of Tokyo: Italian restaurants, Irish pubs and African club promoters.

It was fun to stay at another Ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, though. Dinner was included, so I tried yellowtail sashimi, and some other kind of smoked fish. After dinner we went to the onsen.

Later, we took the tram to the train to the ferry to get to Miyajima island. The JR (Japan Rail) pass makes traveling here so easy. It’s kind of like the Eurorail pass, where you can just jump on any train without buying special tickets for exact times. It makes traveling really low-key.

Miyajima is best known for the Shinto Shrine Torii gate, and it’s one of the most photographed monuments in Japan. Another thing that’s memorable about the island is the deer. They’re everywhere! They’re much smaller than North American deer. And they like to eat paper, so they stalk tourists. After walking around the island and visiting with the deer, we headed back to Hiroshima.

We found lunch food at the supermarket in the basement of Hiroshima station. The supermarkets under the stations are one of the best-kept secrets for traveling on a budget in Japan. Affordable food at its finest! I had sushi and inari. We took our picnic food to people watch outside the station. There were several crazy Japanese TV personalities running around out filming some kind of TV show. Locals were crowded all around and they were asking people questions. Eventually they came over to harrass the Westerners. He shoved the microphone in my face and asked which of two people pictured were funnier. I picked the one that obviously wasn’t him. Which resulted in the over exaggerated “Ahhhs” and “Ohhhs” of the eccentric Japanese TV personality. So I guess I was on some odd Japanese TV show today. :)

Well, all bets are off in Hiroshima. The town is disarmingly safe I guess. So safe that while my roomie and I were just sitting peacefully in the park, we managed to be approached by creepy, old photo guy and not only took the candy he offered (mothers everywhere, don’t worry, we didn’t eat it), and then agreed to pose for photos. And then he wouldn’t leave. And so I took his picture, just in case he did something creepy. About 5 minutes later we were like “what the hell was that all about?”, “why did we do that?”, and “Oh my God, we’re going to have our faces attached to dirty pictures on the internet!”, and “Oh my God, what if some people come to kidnap us later by using our photos to find us!”

While taking time out from my stranger danger photo shoot in Hiroshima, I checked out the Hiroshima War Museum and the Peace Park. Initially, I was expecting Hiroshima to be a very depressing experience. In contrast, it makes you feel hopeful about the world, and peace, and the ability of the human heart to forgive. During our tour of the museum we met an elderly woman who survived Hiroshima, and it was amazing to meet her. I visited Pearl Harbor last spring, and was expecting Hiroshima to be on a similar level. And while I agree Pearl Harbor was horrible and devastating for America, it was also a war, while the A-Bomb at Hiroshima was disgusting. I’ve never cried in a museum before. It’s amazing the healing and forgiveness that comes with a new generation.

I spent way too long wandering around in the castle, but it was just so amazing. We also visited the Samurai gardens, before riding back into town for lunch. We parked our bikes, while we walked around the town and then realized too late that we were going to be late for our 3:02pm train. So we sped back to the bike return and then ran, ran, ran to the station. We missed the train by 2 minutes, but we made excellent time. We ended up taking a different route back to Kyoto, testing out our Japan Rail passes with a transfer instead of waiting for an hour at the Himeji station.

After another day of temple roaming in Kyoto, we decided to go geisha spotting in the Gion district. We saw one almost immediately and then didn’t see any more, for the rest of the evening. I’m glad I saw ‘Memoirs of Geisha’ before coming to Japan. It made visiting the Gion District more interesting. After venturing down several side streets and being turned away at several restaurants (apparently this area is notorious for turning foreigners away), we went to a place that serves a local Kyoto specialty. It’s a pancake/omelet type dish, with ginger, which really added to it. After dinner, we walked around more and checked out a few of the local places. We ended up taking the metro two stops closer to the hotel, before grabbing a taxi, since they’re fairly expensive here. Oh and the ticket machine in the metro had a “help” button, which when pressed, opened a little door and a real person leans out. Maybe it was the Asahis, but it was pretty sweet. And the taxi drivers wear white gloves and the doors open automatically. Too much in this country makes me giggle.

The afternoon was spent visiting several temples and shrines in the Kyoto area. I’m very glad that I used the Frommer’s Japan travel guide book to get their star ratings for temples. I get templed, shrined, and pagoda-ed out rather quickly, but I like to walk, so it was great to spend several days walking through Japanese gardens and temple grounds. The Kyoto bus pass is so easy too. The bus route map is color coded and numbered, they make it almost too easy to travel here. :)