China: "We Are Ready" Me: "Are you sure?"

We arrived in Beijing on the 13th August, from Tokyo via Shanghai. I was really sad to leave Japan, I'd kind of been Tokyo-ed out though cos it's pretty mad, but the country is really, really beautiful. Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back there someday.

Wow China. 10% of the world's websites are blocked for a sixth of the world population... including my blog.

So I find myself writing my Chinese blog well after leaving China for two reasons. 1) While I can still post on my blog, I can't access the actual finished product and 2) the Chinese are pretty sensitive about what you write about their country... so while I was a guest of theirs, I decided to keep my gob shut. Especially in *whispers* ....... Tibet.

So Beijing - our first stop. Now we've been here before, January/February 2005. Had a wonderful stay at Leo's Hostel (old one, now destroyed for the sake of the Olympics, along with that whole road... er, hello? Bitch about China #1). There is now a new Leo's, but we decided to stay in another part of town, in a little hutong (only-to-be-found-in-Beijing-alleyway-very-old-but-loads-are-being-destroyed-because-of-the-Olympics - Bitch about China #2). ANYWAY! Templeside Hostel, a lovely little place (so little that the taxi driver got lost three times and ending up dropping us off at the wrong place and washing his hands of us...) with 2 white kittens and their momma. The kittens, that were girls, ended up being called Frank and Dave on account of one of them having lovely blue eyes (Sinatra) and the other having different coloured eyes (a la Bowie). Their momma was Mama Cass.

We met loads of nice peeps there, Beth and Martin, Robert, Lorenzo, Hilda, Jane, Avery and her mate from Canada (I want to say Helen but I'm not sure). Oh, and who can forget youknowwhoatyouknowwhatdotcom (I don't want to advertise him here but my fellow Beijingers will know who I mean)! Had a few nights of too much beer/baijiu drinking (see Facebook photos)... courtesy of the crazy woman at the shop in our hutong who would sell us beer at 2:30am even though it was clear we didn't NEED any more... also she would be doing her washing at the same time. In the shop. Anyway, it was great meeting so many people cos in Japan, we hardly met anybody. It didn't help that we were mostly staying in Toyoko Inns or other business hotels full of business men in yukata wandering around smoking and choosing porn movies to watch in their room...

Oh, you want to know what there was to see in Beijing? Rubble, pavements dug up, dodgy watch salesmen trying to rip tourists off, pollution (yes you can actually SEE it), big signs about the Olympics declaring "We Are Ready" (that's the official song)........ oh God. Bitch about China #3. Am I only on #3? Okay okay... I'll stop.

Tiananmen Square. The world's largest square - Wikipedia says 440,000 sq metres - (very rectangular for a square though...) and home of pickled Mao (on holiday in Russia at the moment, being re-whatever needs doing-ed) and the Olympic countdown clock (they start on 08.08.08 the luckiest date in China, ever). At one end is the Gate of Heavenly Peace: TIAN (heaven) AN (peace) MEN (gate), the entrance to the Forbidden City, whose English audio tour is NO LONGER voiced by the one and only Roger Moore. Gutted. Ant bought a waving Mao watch for too much money and we watched the flag being lowered at sunset on the square. Kids fly kites everywhere which is quite cool. Also, the weather wasn't -7c like it was last time we were here! It isn't as stuffy as Japan was, but the pollution in the air makes it pretty dusty and a lot of people have coughs.

What else did we see? The Forbidden City, being rebuilt (okay, re-something-ed, not exactly rebuilt) for the Olympics so it's covered in scaffolding and green mesh. We skipped the audio tour after discovering the shocking truth about *gasp* Roger... Jingshan Park, Beihai Park (very nice!) and other stuff... The Temple Of Heaven, Summer Palace (much nicer actually IN summer) and the Lama Temple. Ant went to the Great Wall again. Last time we were here we had the Wall to ourselves. We went to Huang Hua, which was deserted on account of the temperature. Brr. This time Ant went to Simatai and Jinshanling, but I stayed in bed with... HUTONG FEVER.

Within days I had developed hutong fever, started by (as always) Patient Zero, one of the girls who worked at the hostel who I swear sneezed into my breakfast one morning. After a while, EVERYBODY had got it. Snotty, feeling like crap, sneezing, and general rubbish stuff.

We got the train to Xi'an after a week in Beijing. Hopefully there would be cleaner air, less sneezing, and some Terracotta Warriors we could have a look at...

Tokyo (finally!)

We actually arrived in Tokyo for one night before going up to Sendai and Matsushima... we spent the afternoon wandering around Ginza, Tokyo's answer to Park Avenue which was jammed with so much Armani, Gucci and Louis Vuitton it kind of made you want to get out of there as soon as possible. It was just a bit snobby for my liking, that's all. Then we chilled out in the evening cos we had an early morning at Tsukiji Fish Market, which is the largest in the world, and only a couple of subway stops away from our hotel. So we were up at 5:30/6ish (I can't remember, early mornings always seem a bit fuzzy) and there within half an hour. It's apparently open every day of the year, 24/7, but the best time to go is before 8am when it's full with people buying for their sushi restaurants and the like.

It was closed.

The sign said 'Today is a regular holiday.'

Well it wasn't a regular holiday anywhere else in Tokyo and you couldn't help thinking that they saw the tourists coming their way and all hid. Hmm.

So anyway, the rest of Tokyo had to wait until we came back down from Sendai. I'll write it in area sections cos I can't remember exactly what order it came in, besides, we revisited some places a few times...

First of all, an introduction: How's this for superlatives... Largest pendulum clock in the world. It's here. World's longest escalator. You got it. Busiest train station in the world (at last count 3.31 million people PER DAY pass through). Yep, it's Shinjuku. Largest department store in the world? Well it's in Yokohama, barely 20 minutes by train. Biggest fish market... you know it!

SHINJUKU: Shinjuku has to be seen to be believed! We went on a walking tour on our first day to get our bearings. We wandered through the mad neon chaos of camera shops, restaurants, pachinkos and God knows what else. To say it was a sensory overload would be a huge understatement! Yodobashi Camera became Ant's new best friend, along with Bic Camera, which are every photographer's fantasy and a fraction of the UK price! It was lenses this, tripods that, 'oooh I should've waited to buy stuff here' and all the rest of it... I kind of lost interest after a short while but it was nice to see Ant so obviously engrossed. I love nerds ;-) The walking tour took us through Kabuki-cho, one of the red-light districts, where we had the worst sushi EVER. Really leathery and gross. We also went to Hanazono-jinja, a small shrine that looks totally out of place here, where a couple of nights they had food stalls (Ant had okonomiyaki - he's slightly obsessed with it) and drumming and dancing. Random people were just joining in and picking up the moves as they went along. I don't know what it was for but it was good. Golden Gai was behind the shrine - it's an area of tiny, TINY bars - it's like people have made their front room into a small bar with only 2 or 3 chairs at the counter. It seems very inaccessible to non-Japanese. There are some signs in English, but also some that say they do not allow you in unless you speak fluent Japanese. Hardly the hospitality we were used to in Japan but hey. We returned a few times to Shinjuku, bought sunglasses, had some GREAT sushi, shopped, shopped, shopped and generally soaked up quintessential Tokyo. Also, cross over to the other side of Shinjuku Station (the busiest in the world remember? And, yeah, it's um, heaving all the time) to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices and there are two free observation decks, which give you a great view over the city. Apparently on a clear day you can see Mount Fuji, but we were not so lucky. We went up in the evening as well, which is even better as the city looks amazing covered in neon lights.

TSUKIJI FISH MARKET: We made it!! And yes, it was open. Phew! It was crazy busy, people had brought their small children (not a good idea) and were constantly yoinking them out of the way of speeding delivery carts that stop for no one (they give you an angry BEEEP about a second before impact). Everyone was a little bit crazy and we felt like we were always in someone's way (we usually were). There was all kinds of fish - big, small, in shells, dead, alive, suckers, turtles (no!) and worst of all... WHALE. Now this is my blog and I can say what I like, so... there's just some things that shouldn't be allowed. Anyway, we quickly vacated that section of the market and wandered outside. Tradition amongst tourists has it that you visit the fish market then have sushi for breakfast at one of the restaurants there. I'm a huge lover of sushi (sorry vegetarians) but Tsukiji had really not put me in the mood for a sushi breakfast! So we went to Jonathan's and I got some pancakes.

HARAJUKU: Trendy and mad. All the crazies congregate here! Omote-sando is a proper posh shopping street, lots of European-style cafes, Kiddy Land (a 7 floor toy shop... as much for grownups as for kids) and the place is full of trendy Tokyoites. Jingu-bashi is a bridge next to the train station. This is where the Gothic & Lolita girls hang out. They are dressed, well, kind of like Bo Peep... We have photos, but before they go online, just google Gothic & Lolita and you'll get the idea. They just hang out on the bridge with each other, posing for pictures by gawping tourists. Meiji-jingu is nearby - a well-known shrine popular at weekends, but the star of the show is Yoyogi-koen! It's a park just around the corner, complete with 'greased-back cats' (think, the Fonz - all leather pants and Danny Zuko hair) just hanging out and smoking - how cool... Also to be found are skaters (see Ant's Facebook photos for some great pictures), bands playing gigs along the paths at the weekends, people practising dance routines, stalls, food, drinks, everything. At the weekends, people all set up stalls across the road from the park and sell their old stuff, kind of like a car boot sale, but all 'cool' Tokyo clothes, bags, shoes etc.

SHIBUYA: Another huge shopping area, Shibuya didn't have the snobbiness of Ginza or the crazies of Harajuku, so it was kind of nice. There were a lot of young people, not many older than us as far as I could see. We had a good wander round - the only sights really are the Hachiko Statue and Love Hotel Hill. The statue is of a faithful dog and positioned just outside the entrance to Shibuya Station. Every evening, the dog would greet his master there when his train had come in, and even after the poor guy died, his dog was there every day, same time, for the next ten years or so till it died. The statue's a bit rubbish though, very small, but people seem to use it as a good meeting point. Love Hotel Hill is full of gaudy, cheap-looking, rent-by-the-hours. The rates are pretty good though! It feels, um, kind of seedy though so we left sharpish. There is one bad thing to note about Shibuya: we could not find Mister Donut. We know you're out there Misdo!! But where?!?!?!

IMPERIAL PALACE GARDEN: You aren't allowed in the Imperial Palace and are only actually allowed in the East Side of the Palace Gardens. The gardens are pleasant enough, nothing really special, but nice to get out of city life for a few hours.

IKEBUKURO: Ikebukuro... it has two of the world's largest department stores. We went to the longest escalator in the world... it's not the longest escalator in the world, the one in Osaka at the top of the Umeda Sky Building was longer. I Wikipediaed it and the longest one in the world is somewhere in Moscow's extremely deep underground system. That's all I have to say about Ikebukuro!

UENO: We went to Ueno on one of our last days in Tokyo. It's apparently how Tokyo used to be. It's messy and loud, full of markets and stuff. It was actually a lot like South East Asia and made me a bit more excited about going to China, cos I'm sad to leave Japan. But I like a bit of grime so this was nice! Ueno-koen is the park. It's a great spot for cherry blossom viewing in the spring, but there were no cherry trees blossoming in August! There were lots of people doing skits, juggling, tricks, singing etc. Very cool. In the afternoon, our last afternoon sightseeing (the day after was SummerSonic Festival), we decided to go back to Harajuku for a final look around. What we didn't know was that it was the afternoon of the Tokyo Pride Parade!

PRIDE PARADE: I've never been to a pride parade before but it was great fun. A huge brass band were playing, dancers, drag queens, anybody and everybody was dressed up in some way (men in bikinis anyone?!). The parade people kept appearing more and more opposite Yoyogi-koen (we don't know where they were all walking from, there were hundreds!), everyone was waving flags, singing, it was brilliant. The band were amazing, they played for ages and ages and when a few guys waving a big Brazilian flag came past as part of the parade, they suddenly launched into a rendition of Copacabana. It was absolutely wicked. What a perfect way to end our Japan leg. We were very sad to be packing that night :-(

SUMMERSONIC: A great line-up and a great last day in Japan. We were on the guest list (as guests of the Arctic Monkeys (natch! cheers Willy!!), so we arsed around for a bit, trying to get our wristbands, and gave a holla to our Japanese wristband homies. Some crazy ladies at Tokyo tourist info centre had written in Japanese that we were on the guestlist so that we weren't just stuck. It was held at a huge exhibition hall, with a nearby stadium as the main stage, so it didn't have the same festivally feeling of say Leeds or Glastonbury with tents and crusties, but, when in Rome (ain't that right, Lorenzo!)... We saw (not in this order) Kasabian, Reverend And The Makers, The Polyphonic Spree, Hot Chip, Bright Eyes, Bloc Party, Manic Street Preachers and of course the aforementioned Monkeys. Managed to meet up with friends Will and John and were ordered around in sheep pens all day. That's Japan, they like things orderly!

A final note... Japanese businessmen + sake + needing to get home at the end of the night = not a pretty picture! Imagine swaying, stood up on the subway... station after station... standing on people's feet... riding the train to the end of the line, not realising, and still being on it when it started again in the other direction... Bless their cotton socks. They sleep like babies!

Japan all the way down and back up (not quite to the top)

Phew - well we've covered a lot of ground before finishing in Tokyo - here's what we've been up to...

After being a bit templed-out from Kyoto and Nara, we headed for Himeji-Jo, allegedly Japan's most beautiful castle. It was pretty nice and there were some lovely gardens next door, you'll see the pictures, but there's nothing much else to see in Himeji, so we hopped back to Osaka for a final night before leaving our Kansai hub that we'd come to call home...

Our next two stops made pretty harrowing viewing (you have been warned), comparable to when we went to the Killing Fields or Auschwitz: Nagasaki and Hiroshima. First up was Nagasaki, the furthest south we'd come. Now don't get me wrong, the people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima couldn't be cooler - they're not all 'oh poor us', they've sprung up two vibrant cities since being flattened by atomic bombs and it kind of serves as a big **** you. But it's the museums, the pictures, the proof, that is just so awful. There's only so many pictures you can see of melted skin and dead babies and... anyway, I'll move on. Nagasaki has made the Hypocentre Park out of what was directly below the bomb (it went off about 500m above the ground). It's very peaceful, as is nearby Peace Park, full of memorials, stuff sent from other countries and things like that. When the sun is shining it's hard to believe what happened here. Hiroshima was very similar, but it has the A-Bomb Dome, the closest building to the bomb that remained standing as it was blasted almost directly from above. It's pretty creepy at night. It also has a Peace Memorial Park and depressing museum, but to top it all off is the Children's Peace Memorial. Sadako (not the creepy girl that crawls out of the well in Ring, J-horror fans) was two when the bomb went off. She seemed unharmed and was athletic, popular, smart - until she was 12 and developed leukaemia as a result of the bomb radiation. She was hospitalised and wished she could be better again. An old Japanese tradition is to fold 1000 origami paper cranes and your wish will come true (like Hiro did for Charlie in Heroes). She folded well over 1000 but died anyway. The Children's Peace Memorial has a statue of Sadako to represent all the children who died and is full of thousands of paper cranes sent from all over the world.

***End of depressing part!***

To relieve our depression, we took a day trip from Hiroshima to the island of Miyajima, which has one of the famous (in Japan anyway) Nihon San-Kei - the Japan Three Great Sights. Itsukushima-jinja, a Shinto shrine, was built on the edge of the island, as Miyajima was considered too holy to even walk on for hundreds of years. Worshippers would approach the shrine by boat, passing through a torii (shrine gate) that was out in the water. It is this torii that covers the postcards in the souvenir shops and has tourists there from sunrise to sunset, trying to get the perfect picture. While we were there, we were lucky enough to witness a Shinto wedding, although it was a Saturday, and everyone gets married on a Saturday, so it's not that much of a coincidence Ant says. For lunch we had yummy oysters, a Miyajima must (I don't think the restaurants actually serve anything else) and afterwards saw the biggest rice scoop in the world! Wow-wee!

Takayama was our next stop on the way up Japan, at the foot of the Japan Alps. Yes, Japan has alps. I was not previously aware of this. The place to go in Takayama is San-machi (three streets), which are stuffed with sake breweries, Hida beef (the local beef, highly recommended!), and sarubobo dolls. These are scary-looking faceless red dolls, that are supposedly monkey babies. They do not look like monkeys. Or babies. In old Takayama, mums and grandmas used to make them as dolls for their kids and they have now become a symbol of the town. We also had a sniff at the pickles (the Japanese love their pickles) at the morning markets and had some lovely light cheesecake at La Viennoiserie de Nicolas near the train station. Unexpected, but very nice!

We shinkansen-ed it up to the Tohoku region to Sendai, home of the legendary Masamune Date. He has a Nike swoosh on his helmet and ruled the area for a good many years back in the day. They called him the One-Eyed Dragon. Cool. The people loved him (still do) and still visit his mausoleum (he is not on show like Chairman Mao, he died in like the 1600s or something!). Nightlife in Sendai is limited to Club Shaft that has Manchester nights (!!!) and Bar Isn't It?, whose logo is 'cheap and more fun'. Needless to say, we didn't go to either.

The main reason we stayed in Sendai was to visit the nearby Matsushima - Nihon San-Kei number 2. It's about 250 or so islands, which we saw quite a few of on a boat trip - they all have a little story attached to them - this one's where they send horses to die (?!), this one looks like a man sitting in the water with a cap on and smoking a cigarette (quite a stretch of the imagination) and so on. There was a very small cute one that had a single pine tree growing on it. Apparently Date (Nike guy) was so taken with it, he offered a huge reward to anybody who could bring it back to Sendai! Anyway, we had more oysters, got bitten by lots of mosquitoes and then went back to Sendai...

We hopped back on the shinkansen back to Nikko, just north of Tokyo. Nikko is Nippon. That's what all the posters say. Come here for the temples and the serene beauty, blah blah. It was pretty, up by the temples (they're all in the National Park so lovely surroundings). The decorations of the temples are all pretty gaudy, such was the style, but it makes them more interesting I guess... Some of them looked pretty Chinesey, lots of detail and dragons and stuff.

One evening we ordered the Zen dinner at the ryokan - it was totally vegan (something not to be sniffed at in Japan, where most meals include pork - or if it's "vegetarian" only pork broth!) The Zen dinner was lovely - mushroom hotpot (and I don't even LIKE mushrooms), fried tofu (nice - and I HATE tofu!), salad, pickles and fruit for dessert. It felt like a detox. Like Gillian McKeith was saying 'you go girl!'. Ant will have something to say about that when he reads this...

After Nikko, we went to Kawaguchi-ko (Kawaguchi Lake - one of the Fuji Go-ko - Fuji Five Lakes). It's a beautiful spot to view Fuji-san (as the Japanese call Mount Fuji), but unfortunately we didn't see it for over a day! Too cloudy. But then it suddenly appeared, looming over us as the clouds parted, just before Ant set off to climb it. Oh yes - Ant went and climbed up Mount Fuji didn't he? Trying to make me look bad... Argh. I went over it in my mind.... (now let's see, uphill- don't like it, walking- not a big fan, effort- not if I can help it!) so I did at least think about it. He did it at night too, leaving me at the hotel at about 6:30pm, he got a bus up to the 5th Station (on the mountain itself - where everyone starts from unless they're a pilgrim... or a mad tourist) then climbed all night, sat freezing at the top for two hours before the sun rose, then took the most amazing photos I have ever seen. I'm not jealous though. See, he got me a tea towel from the top. If you ever come to our new house (and I hope you do), I will probably make a point of showing it to you! How sad, I know, but I'm very proud of him. Oh, for the record, he said I would have totally hated it. He knows me so well.

RANDOM OBSERVATION: For some reason, smoking is banned on the streets in most big cities (unless in designated areas) - if you need a fag and want to sit down, you have to go into a restaurant!! Twisted logic...

Until next time, my pretties xxx

Nara & Kyoto - Chasing Geisha

Okay okay, here's another blog. It will probably be enormously long and boring, but it has been requested. If you prefer Ant's comedy blogging to mine, I don't blame you. But you WILL be off my Christmas card list...

Nara (as recommended to me by my good friend Laura Mullineux - who, in my humble opinion, is the first port of call for info about all things Japanese) was our second city to visit. Summary: temples, shrines, deer. We spent two full days here exploring probably most of the 8 World Heritage sites and quite a bit more. It's the second biggest drawcard (second on to Kyoto) when it comes to old-school Japan with the lovely pebbly gardens, cherry blossoms and carp (lots of carp). Highlights of our trip to Nara include Todai-Ji Temple which features Daibutsu-den Hall (Hall Of The Great Buddha), which is the largest wooden building in the world - fancy! - and is home to a MASSIVE bronze buddha. Also Kasuga Taisha Shrine is big and the path up to it (in the middle of the forest) is lined with lanterns. It must be really beautiful on a dusky evening but we were there on a cloudy afternoon and it started spitting! Anyway, shrines, temples, gardens, deer - it's all lovely. Highly recommended! Plus they have a Mister Donut...

Kyoto has so much stuff to see you could be here for months and see something different every day! We had five nights there so we really had to jam it in. It's pretty easy to get templed out so we decided to see the temples that really were essential and then mix it up with other sights. Believe it or not, one of the sights is Kyoto Station - it looks like something from the future. It has an 11 storey department store attached to it and is officially the biggest train station I have ever been in. Having just had a look at Wikipedia, apparently the largest train station in the world is in Japan, in Nagoya. FYI, the busiest in the world is Shinjuku in Tokyo. Can't wait for that one!

Nishiki Market is a full-time food market that sells everything from Japanese pickles (they LOVE their pickles!) to fish, doughnuts, meat on sticks, weird sweets (they aren't really sweet and are kind of hard to describe!) and anything else you can think of! We had a wander up and down, but didn't fancy buying anything... and there was a long queue for the doughnuts.

Ponto-Cho is a small alleyway (also mentioned in Memoirs Of A Geisha) which features out-of-our-league restaurants and bars (classy ones, not karaoke ones) and little tea houses. It's supposedly very authentic but with all the tourists it was a shame because it made it seem really fake. We had a wander up and down though...

We wandered down Tetsuagaku-No-Michi (the Path Of Philosophy) while I philosophised and Ant shot down everything I said. What a magical experience... It was so named by the scholars of Kyoto University (I'm not sure which one - Kyoto has about 30 universities!) who used to ponder over the meaning of life or such things whilst meandering down this path by a trickly stream.

High on my list of must-sees in Kyoto (and indeed, all of Japan) was Gion. Gion is where the geisha and maiko (apprentice geisha) attend appointments at tea houses so it's prime geisha-spotting area in the late afternoon/early evening. Unfortunately what that means is that there are a load of white people hanging around with cameras and not many geisha at all! Me & Ant wandered around the windy back streets around the little tea houses and spotted one maiko walking from one tea house to the next. I was absolutely made up that I saw one IN REAL LIFE!! :-))) It happened so fast that there was no time for a picture.

We've seen some beautiful temples and shrines as well of course! Ginkaku-Ji, Nanzen-Ji, Chion-In and plenty more. They're all lovely and you'll see some highlights of the pictures if you go on Facebook.

Well that's it for now. Keep in touch x

Osaka - My first blog!

Wow, look at me all 21st century!

Well, here goes I guess...I'm now in Kyoto, but let's start from the very beginning... in Osaka.

On Sunday July 1st we set off from a usual grey-morning-y Manchester to fly to my all-time-can't-remember-not-longing-to-go destination... Japan. Qatar Airways (a poor man's Emirates) took us to Osaka, via Doha, and we finally landed in Japan on Monday afternoon, 8 time zones to the right (we're ahead of you, if you're confused). After being a little bit put out that my backpack weighed 3kg more than Ant's (consider the fact that he probably weighs about 20kg more than me...), I slung it on my back and we headed for the train. Japan (in the 8 days that I have experienced it) has an excellent train system and we haven't had to use the bus or a taxi once. The worst thing I find about buses in foreign countries is the problem of do-you-get-on-at-the-front-or-the-back? Does anyone else have this problem or is it just me?? By the way, I THINK you get on in the middle here, and off at the front. There is no back, just to confuse matters.

So we got to Osaka without further incident and checked into Hotel Chuo, in the Tenno-ji district. We had been warned that the area was a bit dodgy, hookers, homeless people etc but to be honest, like most people here say, IT'S JAPAN. It's never dodgy. We went up to our room, which was a traditional Japanese room, 4 1/2 tatami (traditional straw) mats big. That's not very big for those who don't know their tatami... We got our futons out of the wardrobe, made our beds, donned our yukata (cross between kimono & dressing gown) & house slippers and were ready to roll! After changing & going for dinner at an okonomiyaki (iron hotplate in the middle of the table, you order, they slap it on the hotplate and then you eat), we slept like babies.

Osaka doesn't have a lot to offer the new tourist in town, but there were quite a few places that we enjoyed. Dotombori is an area described as 'very Bladerunner' - all huge neon signs and dystopian chaos. Wicked. There were loads of restaurants out there, but we headed for one where the locals were queueing. It was a vending machine that dispensed tickets for either: noodles with pork OR noodles with more pork. You then handed your ticket to the guy behind the counter who dished out the noodles and the appropriate amount of pork and gave it you. Huh. It was okay, surprisingly. We even went back a few nights later. Other nights we mostly frequented a new favourite - a kaitenzushi - a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, just like Yo Sushi! Yum yum. We found one here in Kyoto last night, but it wasn't as nice :-(

Anyway, in Osaka we went to Minami (Japanese for south) which contains Dotombori, Den Den Town (all electrical gadgets shops - nerd alert!) and Amerika-Mura (America Village) which is where all the trendies hang out - it is extremely unlike the America I know of, but they all seemed happy enough. Kita (Japanese for north) is where everyone works in their office jobs in cubicles (the karaoke and sake seem to take away the pain!) so there's not much to see. We did go the Umeda Sky Building, 'Osaka's most dramatic piece of modern architecture', which is a huge office building, compared to the Arc de Triomphe because it's an arch. That's the only similarity. On the very top is an observation deck. You take the lift (almost) to the top, then the last five floors are climbed on a glassed-in escalator. Gulp. I clung on like nobody's business. We were on the floor below admiring the view (before you head to the open-air observation deck) & THEY CLOSED IT. So we never got to the observation deck. Gutted. Pah, the weather wasn't great that day anyway...

On another day, we went to Osaka-Jo (Osaka Castle). '100,000 workers toiled for three years to construct an 'impregnable' castle.' It was destroyed 32 years later. Oops. So they built it again. they do that a lot here, build things again, as they used to make everything out of wood but pesky fires would mean they had to start all over again. Oh well.

Anyway, that's all I have to report on Osaka. They have a LOT of vending machines (drinks - not usually water - cigarettes and that's about it). There are thousands of bikes. Everywhere. If I think of anything else I'll let you know. We've also been to Nara and are on our first (full) day in Kyoto, but I'll leave that to another day...

Sayonara...