kat-ventures

so i just finished 2 weeks of travelling with kat, and it was a load of fun. kinda bumpy at times, but what travel company isn't? after her safe arrival to tokyo (after the bloody hour train ride from narita airport) we wandered around Asakusa for an evening stroll, hunting for some good japanese food to start off the experience. we decided on yakiniku, which is cook-it-yourself meat, with a grill on every table and a plate of the meat of your choice. we rented the deluxe suite of k's house hostel so we could live luxurously for the first night (worked out to 48 bucks apiece. not too shabby). on the first morning we woke leisurely and headed to denny's for a traditional japanese breakfast. yes, denny's. over the next 24 hours we checked out ueno park, the crazy fashion of harajuku, the busy shibuya, and the 45th floor of the metropolitan tower in shinjuku. we started off the next morning by checking out the madness at the Tsukiji Fish Market. i still found it nuts to be in the presence of so much fish going so many places at once. here's an update to my previous fish-cut-by-bansaw shot: enter giant axe and piles of frozen corpses. we grabbed a plate of maguro sashimi (raw tuna), hit up a convenience store for some wasabi and soy sauce, and had an outdoor picnic in a nearby park. next we jumped on the monorail for a cheeky ride around odaiba, from which you can see a lot of downtown tokyo (it was cheeky because we bought a ticket for the next station over, but took the train to the end of the line and back before getting off). we decided fleeing the big city was a good idea, and so headed for enoshima, a town barely on the map just west of Kamakura. it is a tiny island with a cool shrine, awesome ocean-side walks, and a totally wild park decorated by 'mirrorbowler', a group that uses disco balls, candles, and various other trippy materials to create psychadelic environments. all the photos for that are on kat's camera. there was arcade-style mariokarting, bewildered pachinko playing, and a long walk on the beach - trying our hardest not to be blown over by the insane wind. the crowds of surfers were loving it, however.

next stop: hakone. the lonely planet called this place a 'tourist mecca', and were pretty on the ball with that - there were some sweet sights to see. unfortunately we were plagued with bus shortages, gondolas under repair, and an excess of volcanic gas (see photo, left) rendering the hiking trails unusable. this didn't stop us from eating the local delicacy, black eggs, cooked in the sulphuric waters of the local volcano's hot springs.

we got to check out great views of mt. fuji;

ride on a gaudy pirate ship;

play on giant net structures;

crawl around in a fiberglass tube-maze (these last two were at an absolutely fantastic outdoor art museum with everything from rodin to lorne harris to people you've never heard of);

wear some old japanese armour (at a village designed after the old straw hut style where we also watched soba noodle-making, and checked out some traditional paper and silk work);

that's all the net time for now. i'll update again when i can.