USJ

For those of you who don't live in Japan, USJ is Universal Studios....Japan. I went the other day with some friends and one of their sisters from out of town. It was surely an experience. I'll have to go back sometime to hit the rides I didn't get a chance to go on this time. We unluckily picked a Monday that happened to be after a 'sports day' here in Japan which meant that kids were not in school that day and had swarmed the park. So.....it was a little busy. And we had to wait in line.....alot......it wasn't fun........but the rides were good. Here are some pics.


One mini skirt. Mwa ha ha ha.
2 peace signs. Mwa ha ha ha.
3 leather accessories. Mwa ha ha.

The Count is sure one lucky guy. Mwa ha ha ha.


Ikuyo and Kirstens sis - Bree.


Kirsten and Russ. Here we are all waiting in line for the Spiderman ride. I think it was a good 2 hours.


They had some cool stuff to look at while waiting in line - I'll give them that. Pics and bios for people and an imitation Daily Bugle to walk through. Here's a smashing pic of JJ himself.


One of the reasons people go to USJ is all the live 'shows' that are happening all the time. They have character actors wandering around all the time entertaining people. This of course is the Doc from Back to the Future. He was making audience members do all kinds of stupid stuff much to the entertainment of other audience members.


Its just not USJ without Snoopy and the Gang.


Munchkinland or somesuch thing. We went to see Wicked - a story about Glinda the good witch and the Wicked Witch of the West before she was wicked.


A classic Jurassic Park. He he. That rhymes.


Seeeexxy poncho baby! It turns out that you get wet on the Jurassic Park ride. K decided to buy a poncho to avoid the after ride wet hair look.


Peter Pan. Cool night show in the Man made Lake.


Sesame Street. Boy that brings back memories.


On my way to where the air is sweet......


Can you tell me how to get, how to get to E.T????


There it is folks. The big globe.


The Hard Rock. We were going to eat there for dinner until we looked at the price board outside. C'mon guys. I'm willing to spend $25 on a steak, but not macaroni and cheese. Needless to say, we went somewhere else. I don't remember them being THAT expensive in North America. Do Japanese people really pay that much for this crap food???

Anyway, that was our trip. It was fun. Probably do it again sometime :)

Nikko

Nikko is one of the most famous (and crowded) tourist attractions in Japan. In terms of finding Japanese culture and history, you can't get better than this. It's history is steeped in buddhist tradition stretching all the way back to the 8th century; hell, it even has the first shogun buried among the towering cedar trees at the top of the mountains. With such an impressive list of world heritage sites, I had to go! So, two and a half hours later, this is what I found.

Now this was a real steep climb, but it was worth it. You can visit the burial shrine of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who was the first shogun (overlords who wrestled control from the emperors for over three centuries) of a united Japan. Here you can pray to a man who has been deified and worshipped by countless people for years; the irony being that he was a ruthless warlord who at one point had his wife and son executed to further his goal for power.


The train ride back and forth was quite interesting too; the landscape would range from the typical japanese urban jungle to a bamboo forest. I was listening to The Chemical Brothers' song "Star Guitar" and found that the view from my train window did match up with the music video for it. Spooky...

You can catch the train from Asakusa Tobu Station. I highly recommend it.

I AM GOING TO SEE PUFFY!!!!

Wooo hoo! My friend Michiko helped me acquire some tix for the Puffy concert in Todaiji next month! 8th row, so we're gonna be able to see all the action. They're not rockabilly, but they are sooooo Japanese pop its great. I do have all their CD's and have been known to belt out a couple of their songs at karaoke. So Jason and I will be heading to Nara to see them perform in front of the Big Buddha. Yah us!! Love the PUFFY!

Heeeeyaaan. Heeeeeyaaan.

Aaah. The Heian Shrine in Kyoto. I know there are alot of posts revolving around Kyoto on this site but, gosh, darnit, there's just so much to see there!


Beautiful leaves inside the garden at the Shrine



Hello says my shadow


Another gorgeous shot in the garden


Here we are. The 4 of us grabbed a random Japanese person to take this picture for us.


Hop hop hop!


Contemplating


Tea House on the lake.


The beautiful orange of one of the shrine buildings


Fantastic Shrine


The enormous gates to the Shrine. They are actually located a good block or so away from the inner gates. Its hard to see the perspective in this picture, but trust me when I say they are huge.

Well, that was Kyoto and the Heian Shrine. Whats next.....?

Chilean Independence Day

Updates updates. I know I've been bad. I've been ignoring the blog. But I've been really busy I swear!!OK, now that I've finished with that!We went to some friends house for Chilean Independence Day. When the hell is that you ask? And why do we care. Well, actually we probably don't really care and didn't know until our friend who is Chilean said, "Hey, come over to my house for a BBQ in honour of Chilean Independence Day." . And that was that. It was fun. Good food, and good friends.

Tokyo, part 2

On my second day there I decided to head to the more (in)famous parts of Tokyo. Shibuya was something of a let down. It's basically a few crowded streets devoted to fleecing rich people of there money while buying useless tat (junk). The only place I wanted to visited was the crossing used in Lost In Translation. I sat in the Starbucks on the 1st (british definition of 1st) floor and just watched all the people huddle there way through the crowded streets.

All your snakes am belong to us...mutherfuckers!!