osaka!
:: day 6
we got up earlyish to check out and get our JR passes. nothing all that interesting =p we just waited a japanese hour in a japanese queue for a japanese lady to give us a japanese rail pass =p hehe, its still more interesting that if u replaced japanese with Sydney =p we got on the Shinkansen (the bullet train) and pretty much jsut sat and slept and ate Pocky sticks for a few hours =p we stopped off at Shin-Fuji (new fuji) station to attempt to get a photo of Mt Fuji.. but as u can see in this photo we didnt do too well =p

when we got to Osaka it was pretty busy (i believe it was peak hour) and we made our way to find some cheap ryokans (traditional japanese hotels) which chito had looked up on the net earlier, and suprisingly easily found one. it was owned this really nice japanese couple, who were pretty helpful considering how bad our jap was =p the room was pretty sweet.. it had paper sliding doors and bamboo mats and a tea set =) hehe it jsut reminded me of the Tendo Dojo from Ranma 1/2 =p

we decided to have a peek around the local night life in Osaka. we went to this place where u can stand in the street and see three Big Echos (a chain karaoke place). there were about 6 or 7 Big Echos in total which were within 5 minutes walk from where we stayed as well as a few other no-name brand karaoke places.. and these are little karaoke places, some of them were 6 storeys high with 99 rooms.

next we went to have japanese pancakes at a local restaurant. it was pretty cool.. if u dont know, a japanese pancake is mostly made up of lettuce and egg.. with a number of variations like adding meat, noodles, cheese etc.. theres a hot plate on each table so ur pancake gets cooked in front of u, and u get a lil metal spatula to play with ur food =p on the table next to us, there was a group of 6 girls who all at the same time pulled out their mobile phones (equipped with a built in digital camera) and took a photo of their cooking pancakes.. quite funny =p

after that we headed to this music store just to check out the local music. there was this giant used cd and rental cd section which also sold CD-Rs =p hehe, how convinient.... we checked out some stuff like j-pop, j-punk, j-hiphop and even j-reggae. these two foreigners came up to us to tell us about a local hiphop gig which was on in Amerika Town (thats not a typo).. one guy was indian/scottish and the other was indian/canadian =p turned out he gig was also a break dance comp =) .. but we left the day before it was on =p Hunt bought a snowboarding DVD and the guy at the counter gave him a Smirnoff Ice to go along with it.. how odd =p


::day 7
according to our schedule, today was designated to be the checking out Osaka day.. it basically turned out to be a bit of a bust. we jsut walked around our local area for ages and went to karaoke =) the karaoke was good though.. heaps more songs than ud get in Sydney including english songs. then we went to heaps of electronics stores.. and another Animate store.. which didnt have Naruto headbands =p gah! .. worst holiday ever!

we then stopped at a 100 yen store to stock up on groceries.. and hunt and chito stumbled upon our favourite drink: Miracle Body V.. with all the goodnes off ginseng, caffine, guarana, taurine.. and nicotine! it was pretty vicious stuff.. we saw all the basketballers we played against at tokyo drinking it. hunt had half a bottle and he was pretty hyper for the rest of the nite.. and pretty wrecked the next morning too =p

:: day 8
today is the hiroshima day.. but we kinda slept in (partially due to Miracle Body V). had instant ramen for brekkie then headed back to the Shinkansen for a train to Hiroshima. along the was we stopped at Himeji Castle.. not suprisingly in the town of Himeji =p we only had a small time fram before our connecting train (about 1.5 hours i think) so we ran to the castle and took a pretty speedy tour... it was pretty cool inside, it was riddled with secret rooms to hide ninjas.. and various other military defensive structues. the place had really low doorways to hinder the advance of tall western invaders =p .. chito hit his head pretty hard coming down one set of stairs..

.. onto Hiroshima and we caught a light rail to the various memorials and museums. it was all pretty mind blowing to see the kinda of destruction the atomic bomb caused. i cant even explain it in words.. it was all pretty terrible. some of the parts about how people died and such were all too graphic for me.. and i had to skip those cos it made me sick. but there was also a lot about nuclear weapons in the current day and about what people are doing to make sure it never happens again. lotsa of Peace merchandise around the place.

we walked a bit around and stumbled upon a basketball game going on =) we managed to get to shoot around a bit with the guys.. but they were playing a comp, so we couldnt jsut join in =p but we watched a bit of the game.. it was ok =p we went on to check out some local traditional japanese archery.. then walked back to the station for probly the earliest nite we had all trip, except we stopped at an internet cafe.. and kinda ruined that idea =p

:: day 9
we woke up and i had charlie brown choc cornflakes for brekkie =) and started maybe the most boring of days =p we headed to kyoto cos im a stupid tourist. we basically rocked up all excited and started on this walk that took us to all these famous temples.. the first one was heaps cool.. but after the next one we were already sick of temples =p and we pretty much jsut looked at whatever was on the way back to the station.. cos it was along the way. we took lotsa photos that day cos all the other days we were having too much fun to take photos =p

back at Osaka, we tried to find this Baseball hitting centre which hunt saw from the train yesterday. we basically walked around for ages before asking a police station and found it right away =p the baseball place was cool.. u payed some number of yen (i forget how much) and u had 20 balls pitched at u.. and u got points depending on where u hit them. i totally suck at baseball.. but i partially blame the hard to adjust height of the pitches. they were a bit too high for me.. and thus i missed heaps and hit lots straight up in the air. but in a real game i couldve jsut left them and got a walk all day =p

hunt and chito played this table tennis game.. neither was all that flash.. but it looked pretty hard to me =p and i suck at table tennis too.. i played the frisbee game.. and i was one triangle away from winning a portable toilet.. whatever the hell that is =p outside the baseball place was a public foot bath right alongside a major road =p it also had this massage thing where u walked along all these bumps n stuff to relax your feet. i wasnt really game to try it =p

:: day 10
today was scheduled to be a trip to Nara.. but after kyoto we were pretty much all templed out =p we went back for some more karaoke.. and we recorded our own CD! hehe, cos they have this facility to record as u sing, and they burn it to cd for u.. for a small fee... but it was worth it =) they had a problem with the machine.. so we had to pick up our CD later.. gah! i sang Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet, Chito sang Complicated by Avril Lavigne and Hunt sang High and Dry by Radiohead.

.. a few days earlier (i forget exactly when) chito logged on at a net cafe and someone had forgotten to log out of their email. so they (not me =p) decided to read the email.. and it was an email about basketball! =) some open training session on in Midoribashi (green bridge). because we werent at Nara, we figured we may as well go down and check it out.. hehe. after a small amount of wandering, we found the place and the ppl there were really nice. it was some basketball organisation who had some office in north sydney, so they were open to australians =) it was a mixed comp, not jsut guys n girls, but japs, koreans, australians.. and even a jap/Austrian guy. we played half and full court.. and me and hunt pretty much dominated all day =p i was on fire from everywhere.. mostly by outrunning every1. but i did soem pretty spectacular aerial moves like a one handed double-clutch in traffic .. and me and hunt did off the back board alley-oop trailers all day.

afterwards a few of us went out to dinner at the "Friendly" restaurant =p it was heaps fun to mix with some local japanese people =) one girl was japanese, but studied in New York, so she spoke pretty good english.. but it was still sometimes a struggle =p the coach guy kept trying to teah me mandarin and malay cos chito told him i was chinese from malaysia. i couldnt understand whether he was speaking jap or mandarin or malay.. they all sound the same to me =p he said soemthing about how i was very open and honest (although apparently in the literal translation he said i was very pure). he also compared me to Michael Jackson.. but he actually meant Michael Jordan =p we swapped emails and such.. then headed off home..

.. we had to stop and pick up our CD.. but it was screwd up =p which uber sucked. they said we could get free time at the next Big Echo (like 5m away). but i was busy buying Brilliant Green CDs.. and chito didnt feel like negotiating with anyone... but i basically forced him into it (which he wasnt happy about).. but jsutice was kinda served when my recording was heaps more crap than the original.. and both of theirs turned out much better =p

.............
thats it for Osaka.. Hokkaido up next... in a coupla days probly.