Monday, April 03, 2006

ok, BORED of talking and thinking about feelings now, instead I wanna talk about my trip to JAPAN!

It was an awesome trip. Spent the first couple of days in Tokyo, which is a huge, modern city, but increadibly clean, neat and organised. Saw a few sights there then took a tour to Hakone and Mt Fuji. It really was a a stunning view and they drove us up to the 5th station, half way up the mountain, as I said it was beautiful. From there we went to Kyoto and spent about 4 days there. Kyoto is a fantatic city, modern but incredibly cultural and ancient at the same time. There are about 200 temples and shrines alone! Obviously there's only so many temples you can look at though! Saw some of the most impressive, walked around a bit, shopped a bit, saw and did a few other things (including where the Shogun used to live a couple of hundred years ago, and how they detcted assassins and how his harem were trained in martial arts to protect him).

It was the cherry blossom season too making it all extra pretty. The people were so friendly, which really helped when you could hardly understand anything written down around you! Though there was a surprising amount of English on the trains and public transport systems, even though it seemed very few people actually spoke it.
It's also a very safe place, having a really low crime rate, so you don't feel to weary about flashing you camera about which is always good. Actually, speaking of technology - there is SO much cool stuff there! Bullet trains, self-flushing loos, loos with heated toilet seats, self-rotating train seats so they all face the direction the train is going, the cameras, phones. Oh, there are also vending machines EVERYWHERE. Especially in Tokyo, temple, shrine, random street...and it's almost all drinks. Rarely do you see chocolate or food machines. Ah, food. We had a few problems as my mum is veggie and everything there haas meat or fish in, but when we did get some real japanese food, it was actually really nice. Often there was quite a lot of small dishes, but it was rarely too much.

All in all, it was a great holiday :) Quite tired now, but it's to be expected! Will try and put a few photos on here when I get the chance. Back to uni on tuesday...life goes on....

ps. The photos on my page have all been lost because STOOPID WALAGATA closed their free accounts and neglected to imform me, so I wasn't able to transfer them. Hopefully I still have them on a computer somewhere, otherwise I guess it's time for a change of background!

xx