Joel in Japan

At the end of January I finally took some leave and went to another country. Luckily my sister Kelli lives in Japan and it was her birthday so it was the perfect time - I even had the great honor of being Kelli's first visitor without jet lag! Since Kelli was working during the first few days I ventured out to Kamakura and Yokohama on my lonesome. My first action was visiting the Great Buddha in Kamakura.

I think there was field trip or something because there were hoards of Japanese students everywhere. This picture makes it look like it was closed just for me though.

After wandering around for a little bit I went back to Atsugi for the night. Most of the day was me trying to get my JR pass sorted out and also a whole lotta me standing around in the subway super confused at what was happening. The subway is like a human ant colony with hoards of people going everywhere but eventually I was able to understand the chaos.

The next day started off with me going to Yokohama to check out China Town and get some highly recommended dumplings.

Except I went way too freakin' early so it was completely deserted. I decided to kill some time by wandering around the city and seeing the sites. Then I came across this place.

Happy science is gonna be my go to health service in the future. After walking around few a few hours I headed back to see if China Town was opening up.

Still deserted. I was pretty tired of walking around for hours so I decided to head back to Atsugi and meet up with Kelli to go to Tokyo. After a few train rides I arrived in mega city 1 (Judge Dredd reference... get it?!) Seriously though Tokyo seemed to sprawl for hundreds of miles.

After checking into our hotel we headed out to see a robot show. It was the greatest thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Up to this point I thought Japan was pretty tame; I was expecting robots and weird anime characters everywhere but it was completely normal. But this robot show - this is what Japan is all about baby!

Alley leading to the show!

Outside of the theater. Girls with giant boobs riding in robots of girls... with giant boobs.

After getting our tickets we were sent to a waiting room. It was extremely shiny.

It even had a robot dino that reacted to you petting it!

Then the show started. Here is just one picture to whet your appetite.

I have video but I didn't feel like putting in the effort to upload it to the blog haha.

After the show Kelli and I checked out the tech district (Akihabara) at night. It was pretty dead but you could see the skeleton of awesomeness. They are interested in foreign buyers!

After that we made a quick stop at the party district (Roppongi) where we were harassed by Nigerians. Picture below. We were pretty tired at this point and went back to the hotel to crash.

The next day we took the bullet train to Kyoto. Kyoto is the yin to Tokyo's yang - by that I mean Kyoto is an older city that has more culture and an old fashioned feel to it compared to Tokyo's fast pace. The first order of business was checking out The Thousand Torii Gates.

Kelli and I did not realize that it was a 3 mile hike up a hill but we gutted it out anyway. Along the way were lots of shrines. For more information on the history of the gates you can check out her blog since this one is running kind of long.

After the torii gates we went to visit the Golden Pavilion. This place was super peaceful and I wish I could have seen what it was like back in the day.

The last stop of the day was at Nijo Castle which was the seat of power of the Tokugawa Sogunate for a few hundred years. One thing that was interesting about it was the nightingale floor. This is a special floor that squeaks when you walk on it to make it harder for people to sneak around.

I originally was going to go to Hiroshima after Kyoto but by then it was pretty late in the day and I didn't want to spend only a few hours there. I will have to make a return trip sometime soon and see more of the country.

Extra picture of Mt. Fuji-san on the bullet train ride back home and a Banana King. No idea where to put them so here they go.

That's all for now! I leave you with "A day in the life of Cat".