The next day, we woke up and decided that the hot springs didn’t sound so enticing.  Instead, we went to Arita, one of the places where Japanese porcelain was first developed.  Since it was raining, nobody was around, and we had the entire place to ourselves.  Not just the …

Our current hotel does not have Internet access, so this is just a quick update from the Internet cafe in Fukuoka.  When we got to Hiroshima, we checked into the Oriental hotel, which is very nice, but the rooms are quite small.  It seems that the farther south we go …

Yesterday’s entry left off with the laundry, which we completed successfully.  Like everything else here, the soap is different from what you can buy in the United States, but it seems to work fine.  We didn’t find dryer sheets, but I don’t know if they don’t …

The weather was looking rainy in Kyoto when we woke up, but we decided to go sightseeing anyway.  We took the bus to Kinkakuji without too much difficulty.  At first, we had some trouble figuring out what the fare should be, but then we realized busses in Kyoto charge a …

We woke up and met two more friends from America in Tokyo, then we all went to the train station together.  We took a 75-minute ride on the bullet train to Atami, which is a seaside resort town in Hakone.  After arriving there, we discovered that the town is usually …

this morning we woke up early, it was about 5:15am. We went to the fish market, I took a lot of great pictures, not only of they live fish, but the people working it. They are basically the guys working the swords now. I will let the pics speak …

well we woke up late, went to the gas station got a new drink a coffee something, most of it was japanese and some numbers. It think they were the ounces, which the japanese have renamed milliliters. (ml). I liked akihabara, it was like vegas, if it had a flea …

Okay time to play catch-up. Kyo was an excellent tour guide. We took the subway to Tokyo station in the center of Tokyo, which took 40 minuets by subway. I can now say it is official, there is a thing called a ‘Subway’ and something called a ‘train’ and i …

Today we woke up extra early again so that we could visit the Tsukiji fish market.  It is one of the largest fish markets in the world and we were pretty excited to see the tuna auction.  Unfortunately, “extra early” turned out not to be early enough, so we missed …

Today we woke up around 7.  Not bad - I guess that means the jet lag is beginning to wear off.  After spending a couple of hours in the morning planning out the next couple of days, we met up with Kayo-san and took the train to Akihabara, the electric city …