On our last day in Tokyo, we awoke early to get a glimpse at the famous Tsukiji Fish Market. The most active period here is around 3-4 AM, so by early we mean that we were there before 7. Still a lot of people, and of course a lot of fish. A small heaven for anyone who likes fish, and we doubt anyone would have anything against having that big of a selection on you "doorstep". We didn't stay for more than about 45 minutes, before returning to the hotel. Fact: Fish smell.

Arriving just in good time to get some breakfast, we suited up (meaning we all wore pants and shirts) and tried to access the executive lounge in the 37th floor, instead of eating in the "normal" restaurant for the lesser guests. We gained access, and enjoyed a great breakfast in nice surroundings.

What was supposed to be a quick rest after breakfast, turned into a 3-hour powenap sleeping away precious time. The good thing was that we had more energy when we finally awoke. After looking at some options for things to do or see, we ended up going to Odaiba. A nice place with a long waterfront with some nice scenery and buildings and whatnot. Also, during this summer, theres a huge Gundam-robot on display in one of the parks in the area. After some searching we found the robot, along with the hundred locals taking their picture with said robot. The Odaiba district was kind of different from the other places we had seen in Tokyo, so it was a nice trip.





Since Torbjorn also wanted to buy a Vaio Pursebook, we ended up passing through Electric Town for a fourth time on our way back to the hotel. Torbjorn got his toy, and the rest of the group got to use some Yen on random shops selling fake bread and the likes. Back at the hotel, the evening mostly revolved around relaxing trying to book seats for our plane, and watching Japanese MTV. We left the hotel once more in an attempt to find something to drink, and use our last yen on something useless. Lars and Lars ended up with one bag each of random kiosk-merchandise.

Since we are leaving tomorrow, this will probably be the last post here, and we hope that at least some people have found either the writing or the galleries entertaining. We have had a great time in Japan, and could gladly stay for a couple more weeks. Maybe not a place we would want to live, but a great place to visit to experience something completely different from what you are used to.

Added a video of the view from our room, overviewing a small part of Shinjuku:

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Our time in Japan is nearing its end, so we are re-locating more close to the airport. Tokyo was a nice city, so we wanted to spent the last couple of days here as well. Our hotel of choice is the Hilton Tokyo, where our executive rooms are over viewing the Shinjuken district from the 37th and 38th floor. We fear that we are not fitting the dress-code in the executive-lounge, but we are planning to at least try to eat breakfast there tomorrow morning. After checking in, we relaxed a bit before we got restless and needed a place to go. For the third time, Electric Town was the destination of choice. Small stuff was bought, and dinner was had. On the subway-trip home, an elderly Japanese man entered and sat down besides Lars. After a while, he asks us if we are from Europe, and we of course answer that we are from Norway.

"Är ni från Norge!? Jäg har bott i Sverige!". Totally unexpected and random, but fun none the less. During the rest of the trip we had a interesting conversation with this Japanese Priest-Swede, married with a woman from Finland.

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Todays adventure turned out to be a total failure. Well, not as a whole, but we felt like we wasted a lot of time. Our goal was to take a day-trip to Nagoya, home of both a Toyota-museum, and a robot-museum that had gotten great reviews. Taking the Shinkansen train, we arrived in Nagoya about 40 minutes after boarding the train. Instead of taking the subway directly to the robot-museum, we wanted to explore by feet, since it was only four blocks away. We circled some buildings trying to find the museum, but had no luck. According to the guides and maps, we were at the right place, but there was nothing there. Getting help from a random Japanese guy sent us back to the area we already had searched, and we were close on giving up. We had read about the museum in the guides, and briefly read about it online. We should have read a bit more. Some minutes Googling later, we could read that the museum had been temporarily closed down never to be opened again (wait.. what?). In any case, there was no museum. Hurray for us.

Back at the station, we now wanted to get to the Toyoya museum. After finding -and boarding- the right train, it didn't stop at our stop. It just kept on going. 20 minutes later, it stopped in some place we don't know where was, and we could get off. We quickly re-located to the opposite side of the tracks, waiting for a return-train. 20 more minutes later, we were back on a train going back to Nagoya. Of course, this was a local train (stopping every 5 minutes) which was what we should have taken earlier. Add another 20 minutes, and we were at the right stop, about one kilometer (or 3 min) from our starting point. Success!

The start of the museum-exhibit was dedicated to weaving, showing different technologies and machines throughout the ages. Seeing that the museum was closing in roughly one hour, we rushed to the automobile-part of the museum to see something a but more interesting. There was a lot of interesting displaying everything from how they built cars in the old days, to showing how individual parts of the car works. We also got a glimpse of a future-concept vehicle that was on display. If we had been there earlier, it seemed like there would have been a possibility to get a live demo. In the exit-hall, there was an Asimo-like robot on display, but this clearly was a Toyota-robot. It (she?) played the trumpet whilst wiggling the fingers on its other hand. Amusing.





Taking the train back to Nagoya took about 3 minutes instead of one hour, and we didn't stay long at the station before we headed back to Kyoto. Our plans for getting some massage or going to the swimming pool, got left aside for instead going back to the shopping street. Lars bought some clothes.

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The train-trip to Nara only took 40 minutes using a local train, and the city itself was nice with a lot of sites to see. As a prior capital of Japan, you would expect it to be a more hectic city, but it came out as a calm and cozy place. Seeing that it was the very first capital in Japan, it might not be so strange after all. One of our goals was to see the Todai-Ji temple housing an enormous bronze Buddha statue. The trip there was long and wet, seeing that yesterdays sun had been changed with heat and immense amounts of rain. Nara is known for its deer, and spread throughout the parks and the city itself, you will find around 1200 deer wandering around wherever they see fit.





We did not photograph all 1200, but we were close. Both the temple and the statue was very impressive, just as all the thousands of stone-lanterns showing the way up to a shrine, we forget the name. We walked for about 11 kilometers, including some detours and getting lost in scary parts of the park. We had a quick dinner near the station before returning to Kyoto. The rest of the evening was spent within the hotel, only exiting for a trip to a nearby electronics-store where Lars bought a small car.

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Really nothing to report here. We went back to Kyoto, staying at the same hotel, at the same type of rooms. The only thing different was that this time Lars and Lars got an even more high-tech toiled that in addition to the normal control-panel had automatic opening of the lid and auto-flushing. The Japanese really knows how to make toilets. Our plan was to stay at Kyoto to be at a central station easing access to other surrounding places we wanted to visit. But this day was spent doint little to nothing worth mentioning.

On a second thought, something worth mentioning was the fact that the whole Kyoto station was pretty much closed down due to some important guests. Suited up secret agent-guys everywhere with an army of police waiting outside. Most important: All the vending machines in the area had been turned off and sealed off to reduce the amount of places to hide bombs or the likes. This caused us to have to walk the extra 20meters to the nearest kiosk, for shame.

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Being just a train-trip away, we didn't see the reason not to visit Universal Studios Japan. Originally we had planned to use a couple of hours there, but it ended up being more like six or seven. The weather was OK with some random showers of rain, but the best thing was the lack of people. In a big contrast to Disneyland, Universal Studios had about 70% less kids and people in general. Something that resulted in shorter waiting-lines (longest one was about 20 minutes, contra the 1,5h plus in Disney). and an overall feeling of it not being overly-crowded everywhere we went.

The first attraction we tried was "Terminator 3D", that was a mix between a 3D movie with live acting and effects thrown in. This ride was probably made shortly after Terminator 2, including all the actors from the movie on-screen. Arnold Schwarzenegger in Japanese is great, and the ride was OK even if we had no idea what they were talking about. Next up was "Back to the future", that takes us even more back in time (no pun intended). We entered a DeLorian, and were presented with a simulator-ride where the whole car moved corresponding with what we saw on a 180 degree screen in the front. The 80ies franchise was still fun, but the ride felt dated.

The map guided us to "Backdraft", a ride based on the 90ies movie with the same name. To sum it up in a sentence: 20 minutes of video in Japanese, ending with a pyrotechnical show. Slow in the beginning, but with a great finale. The longest line we encountered was at the Jurassic Park ride, where we waited for around 20 minutes before being guided into a boat/rollercoaster/something. We got a nice little boat-trip through a fake jungle with some animatronic dinosaurs popping up here and there, ending with a 30 meter drop into the water below. After getting back on land, we got presented some pictures taken during the drop, and we easily paid Y1300 for this masterpiece :



Just.. just wow. Please use the zoom function.

After exiting the Jurassic Park part we found ourselves wandering into a Waterworld-themed area, and suddenly we were rushed into a stage where a show was starting shortly after. This was a live-action show, with waterscooters, boats, and the Japanese cast from the movie. Apparently it was funny, but we still dont speak fluintly Japanese, so we missed most of the dialog. The effects was still nice though.

Getting ready for some lunch, we ate what must have been the worst burger ever at a 50ies styled diner within Universal. We could all agree it was horrid. Also, working in a Hello Kitty store must be one of the worst things possible.





Lars and Lars ate pancakes.
For dinner we tasted chocolate-banana-marshmallows pizza.
Thank you Japan.

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Another very non-productive day. After checking in at the hotel in Osaka, we visited the local electric town named "Den-Den Town". Both the subway and the place itself was very dirty, and was by far the dirtiest city we had come across in Japan. Den-Den Town was indeed very similar to Electric Town, with lots of light, sound, sales, electronics everywhere, and with the occasional shady hentai-shop halfway hidden in a back-alley. Of course, we ended up eating dinner in a small typical Japanese fast-food shop, that turned out to be big when we got escorted to the second floor. The food was OK-ish, but we got put off by the horridly dirty kitchen. A possible food-poisoning later we continued our browsing, but after not finding anything of interest, we suddenly found ourselves back at the hotel watching Japanese acid-television.

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Hiroshima had two attractions that we decided to take a closer look at. The first being the Hiroshima-Jo castle, with the surrounding park. We used a good hour and a half wandering around there, both outside and inside the castle. The museum-part had some interesting artifacts, and a couple info-videos about the history of the castle. The top floor had an outdoor area where you could walk around and overview the entire city, which made for some nice imagery you can view in our gallery. Also, someone stole Bjorn's umbrella, replacing it with a lesser umbrella.

Next we went to the A-Bomb Dome,with the surrounding Peace Memorial Park. The Dome was one of the few buildings that was not totally demolished as a result of the bombing. This mainly because it was situated almost exactly below the area where the bomb exploded. Today it stands as a reminder of the small incident that happened here, and was declared a World Heritage site in the mid 90ies. The site connects with the Peace Memorial Park, that had some monuments dedicated to the known victims of the bombs.





After a long day looking at historic disaster we had a nice dinner. The weather had changed from "slightly rainy" to the point where we were afraid of being outside. Instead we spent the reminder of the evening enjoying a beer and some sake in the top floor of the hotel. It was our first taste of sake, and we found it.. interesting. The atmosphere was great, over viewing a very rainy Hiroshima, with the occasional flashes of lightning blinking in the distance.

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Time to re-locate again! Kyoto was such a nice place that we decided to come stay some more days after visiting Hiroshima and Osaka. On the station we got stopped by an old man who was overly-eager to tell us about where he had been in the world. When we said that we were from Norway, he gladly could tell that he had visited the capital of Norway -Lisboa- and how nice it was there. The train-trip went fast due to sleep and the small fact that the SuperExpress Shinkansen train we were in was travelling in near 300km/t speeds most of the way. When arriving in Hiroshima, we took some wrong turns, and ended up taking a detour from getting to the hotel (that also was a part of the station itself).

After checking in, we went outside to explore the city. Again, we had chosen a hotel near both the station and the city-center, making everything just a short walking-trip away. Lunch was had at a local Subway-restaurant, before we tried to do some browsing through the shopping-district. Here it was pretty much similar as in Kyoto, meaning a long, overbuilt street with all of the stores in the world (again). Lots of interesting things to see, but we quickly got tired and retreated to the Hotel. Later in the evening, we surprisingly enough got hungry again. Being to lazy to look for anything special, we ended up in the basement floor, that had 3-4 different styled restaurants. We chose a Tavern-like place with both great food and beer. Lars ordered the 80cm sausage, which of course was both amusing and tasty.

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After spending the previous day shopping, we decided to take a tour of the temples within Kyoto. The temples are situated not so far from the city core, so we went by foot to the first location, Kiyomizu-dera. And by saying "not that far", we mean a one-hour walk. From there on, the sites were pretty close to each other, and the connecting streets were small and intimate, but at the same time not too crowded. One of the streets had gotten the achievement "the most beautiful street in the whole of Japan", something we couldn't quite see. We wondered if we had walked the wrong way, but after some map-searching we found that it was indeed the famous street. Pictures were taken, and we moved on. The sites them self had little tourists, making the whole "tour"a nice journey through the old districts of Kyoto.

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KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, Ding-dong!
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, Ding-dong!
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, Ding-dong!
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, Ding-dong!
KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK, Di..
/ Torbjorn wrapped in some sheets opens the door .

Maid : "Housekeeping?"
Torbjorn : "...no, not now."
Maid : "No housekeeping?"
Torbjorn : "No, not today"
Maid : "No housekeeping today?"
Torbjorn : "No housekeeping today."
Maid : "Housekeeping later?"
Torbjorn : "No, housekeeping tomorrow."
Maid : "OK! Surimaseeeen!"

5min wait. Telephone rings.

Torbjorn : "Hello?"
Phonemaid : "No housekeeping today?"
Torbjorn : "No, no housekeeping today."
Phonemaid : "Housekeeping later?"
Torbjorn : "No, housekeeping tomorrow."
Phonemaid : "OK! Surimaseeeen!"

Torbjorn puts the "do not disturb" sign on the door.

Thirty minutes later we were dressed and ready for new adventures. Lars could inform us that it was raining outside. We went to the centre in the first floor looking for some breakfast. Chicken liver is not as good as you might expect. By awaking late, and that the weather was not optimal, we didnt go for the trip around to the shrines as planned. Instead we went to the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Only two metro-stops away, it was a nice little trip. The museum was interesting, and was filled with all kinds of manga (duh). We read and heard a bit of history, and got to see some examples of "live picture shows". Here you have an example, The adventure of Golden Bat (muahahahaha) ;



The museum was close to the Kyoto imperial park aswell as to a shopping street. We didnt feel like a park-trip, so we went to the street after a quick cup of coffee. The first street was insanely long, and had what must have been all the shops in the world. The other facinating part is that evey store has its own style and products, making every store equally interesting. After eating some donuts for lunch, Torbjorn bailed back to the hotel for some relaxation. The rest of the group finished street number one, two and three. On the way to the metro, we walked by a huge arcade, where we spent some time. Some of you might be familiar with the photobooth-craze in japan, and this arcade had a big section dedicated to this. We couldnt resist the blinking lights and pink-ish colors, so we ended up in a booth together. All the instructions were in Japanese, so we had no idea what was going on. The results were just as amazing as they were cute.

From 2009.21.07-Manga Museum

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Today we were leaving Tokyo for this time, so we checked out of the hotel around 11. We went directly to the train station, where we located the correct bullet-train that was took us on a three-hour journey to Kyoto. The train was very comfortable, but Lars was the only one sleeping parts of the way. Arriving at Kyoto, we were pleased to find that our hotel was part of the station. Not only that, its also part of a huge complex of shops, restaurants and cafes. The "mid-standard" notation we had gotten about the hotel was by our standards quite wrong, since the place seemed pretty high class. As Torbjorn put it after inspecting the room: "I think this is the nicest place i have lived in". In the first floor we found a conveyorbelt sushi-bar, where we ate some lunch or dinner. Post-food we wandered around in the shopping mall surrounding the hotel, but didn't find anything interesting. All we wanted was some swimming-wear so we could take a relaxing trip to the pool, but we only found women clothes stores.

Also: we have updated our blog. Enjoy the backlog, and look at some pictures in our galleries. The old (empty) galleries have been replaced by Picasa-galleries for both our convenience, plus for the general user-friendliness for the viewers. Feel free to comment on the pictures, we might read it and give some half-enthusiastic response.

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Being out of the hotel before 9? Of course its possible! Yesterday we decided to go to Disneyland, and in an effort to out-smart the local ninjas, we tried getting there early. We took a couple of metro lines, and started our JR-pass to get to the resort (the JR-passes are the "free use on JR train-lines for 4000 NOK" offer that tourists can take advantage of). Claimed to be the second happiest place on earth, our expectations was of course through the roof. And by roof we mean the mediocrity that is visiting a kids park at the age of 26. We only took a total of three rides, seeing that the lines were in average 1.5 hours++. Our first stop was at the "Haunted Mansion", where a army of animatronic dolls did their best to scare us. Having a fast-pass to that attraction resulted in us not having to wait in line, and by having that in mind the ride it self was OK. After wandering around looking at characters and houses inside the park, we ended up outside "Space Mountain", where the lines were long, and the fast-pass tickets were active about 6 hours later. Space Mountain seemed like the most exciting ride in the whole park, so we got in line and hoped for the best. How can the keywords "roller-coaster" , "in the dark" , "aggravated" and "unusual body shape" not result in fun? We waited for 1.5 hours, but it was worth every minute of it.



We left the ride happy, but hungry. Disneyland is full of kids that tend to eat. Most restaurants, like the rides, had overly-long lines, making us postpone dinner until we exited the park. Walking past an attraction with a somewhat short line, we joined in on the fun. This time it was "Honey I shrunk the audience" and yes, it was based on the 90ies franchise that most people are acquainted with. We were presented with a pair of 3D-glasses, and was put into a cinema where they showed a 3D movie with physical elements like wind and water being used on the viewers. Good fun, but maybe a bit dated, On our way out, we visited a huge Disney shop that had everything Disney-related to cover anyone's Disney-needs (Disney). All in all we were very happy with the visit. We had a fun time in Tokyo Disneyland, but we have our own individual opinions of its place on the happiest places on earth -scale. Also, at some point bjorn ate popcorn.

Directly from Disneyland we went back to Harajuku, which seemed even more crowded this day. We even got a glimpse of some freaks cosplaying nearby the metro station. Among these you had the free hugs guy that seemed like a molestation lawsuit waiting to happen, the pink and feminine Harajuku one-man welcoming committee, and a small group of western girls dressed in goth-outfits. We ended up in the shopping-street once again, looking for good deals and strange food. The end of basement-stairwells are always a good source of good food, and this time we ended up in a DJ/rap-themed pasta-restaurant. Shopping took a even longer time this time, since we this time visited almost every shop down the strip. Torbjorn and a Lars started falling behind, and we decided to fall back to home. When coming back to the metro station, the cosplay-freaks had been switched out with one single lady toitally spasming out to some random musing. Highly amusing. Finally we were back at the hotel with destroyed feet. During a quick trip to the convenience store, we decided to take another trip to Electric town before we left Tokyo. Since we were leaving for Kyoto the day after, we had to go that same evening. Half an hour later we were back in Electric Town with the purpose of buying a extra netbook for the trip. At the third store we found something of interest, and three minutes after closing time, Bjorn could exit with a Vaio pursebook.

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We finally made it into the Imperial Palace gardens! Well preserved and park-y. The best would be to let the pictures speak for themselves. Both nice buildings and nature in what can be described as an oase in the city. We only spent an hour and a half there, not covering all the DO NOT ENTER and restricted places.

Straight from the gardens, we went to the Harajuku-district. A well known area for shopping, random cosplay-showcases and even more people. It seemed like a popular place for youth, and we we got to see everything from your normal everyday boys and girls to "is that blue-haired girl wearing a gas mask?". The main walking street was overly-crowded, and filled with colerful shops selling mostly clothes and apparel. There was a lot of things to see, and we quickly decided that we were going back at some other time. Before going back to the metro, we visited the close by park, where we had the chance to briefly get lost, plus seeing more freaky people doing less than normal things. Also, there was what seemed like an arranged water-fight.

After-dark we headed to the Minato-district to visit the Tokyo Tower. It was pretty much the same as the Metropolitian Building, only that we had a bit better view, but at the same time a shorter viewing-distance due to some smog. Theres many pictures in both Lars and Bjorns galleries, whilst the other Lars is keeping all his photos for himself. He has a lot of secrets.

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Our least productive day by far. We didn't care that we awoke late, because we were going to the Imperial Gardens, and they didn't close before 17:00. Intense heat, and lack of water did not stop us from starting another journey around the park. When we finally found an entrance, we got reminded of the opening-hours that clearly stated that they were closed on Mondays and Fridays. We got rejected by the same park two times in one week. It wasn't a total loss though. We got some nice pictures from the outside, including some of a sneaky-looking blimp hovering over the city (yes, we're on to you, blimp!). Admitting our failure, we found refuge in a 7-Eleven nearby, with what seemed like the greatest air-condition in the world. Using some $ on Google maps, we located a Starbucks two blocks away that could cover our iced coffee needs.



Akasaka seems to be our favorite place, since we always end up there. Or maybe its because its the biggest place we can go to without having to use the metro. The metro stops running at 24, which limits the nightly-exploration throughout the inner areas of Tokyo. No need for that today, since the evenings goal was only to find something edible. By walking up some stairs and ending up in a buffet-style restaurant, we got to try a lot of different food from the Japanese cuisine. They had everything from sushi to strange desserts I'm pretty sure is illegal in all other parts of the world.

Lars ate a waffle with ｓｙｒup.

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You know the morning-routine by now: we woke up late, Bjorn was sicker, shady breakfast, going on subway. Today's area to be invaded was Ginza. Now this was our type of area! High-class shopping district with all of the designer-brands filling up a huge area we explored by foot. We could have liked it more, but we aren't girly enough. Switching to something more manly, we visited the Tokyo Sony Center that was just around the corner. Needless to say, it was just like any other Sony-store, with lots of new technology spread across six floors. Nothing really blew us away, and the "top floor entertainment you should not miss" was just a huge TV showing some dancing. Checking our nifty guides for anything else of interest in the area, we quickly turned the manliness to something more boy-ish. We forgot the name, but it was a five floor toy-shop with everything a child could dream of. We left empty-handed.

After a well-deserved rest back at the hotel, we went back outside after the sun had set. A few metro-stops later, we found ourselves in Shinjuku, a high-class area where we went up to the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitian Goverment Building (TMG Office). Little smog and clear weather gave us a good view and some nice pictures. We didn't stay for more than 30 minutes before we felt we had seen the 360 degrees of Tokyo. Being struck by a sudden hunger, we jumped passed the whole "where to eat" routine, and just sat down on the first McDonalds we found (And no, in Japan a quarterpounder with cheese is not called quateru pounderu with cheeseruuu).



From being dead tired and ready for bed, we suddenly found ourselves walking away from the hotel in search for beer. We ended up in Akasaka again, where we dodged a couple of karaoke-prostitutes (they are real) and found a small place in a basement called "Music street pub". This was our first visit to a bar/pub, and we desperately looked around for a karaoke-system. It was well-hidden, but behind a some sound-proof windows, we could see some locals singing along to some 亜あ's. We found a somewhat quiet corner where we got semi-drunk before going back to the hotel. I would really like to lie here and say that we spent the whole night karaoke-battling with local heroes for pride and glory, but we were tired and you have to accept that.

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We felt proud by again sleeping until 12, missing out on most of the daytime yet again. Bjorn was not feeling so well, complaining about flu-like symptoms, but nothing too serious. Its not like there's an epidemic going on or anything. After some quick ramen-noodle breakfast, we were at the subway station. The day before, we decided to visit the Akihabara district, aka Denki-gai or "Electric Town". Once known for its low-low prices and huge selection of electronics, the area acts like a market, only for electronics. Apparently, in the later years the prices on electronics have become more or less the same as anywhere else, forcing the district shifting its focus to games and manga. This (of course) including stores of the adult fashion, along with everything from action-figures and arcades. In short: something worth checking out.

After exiting the subway, we found ourselves in a street with a lot of noise, sound and people. Just like any other part of Tokyo. The streets were filled by electronic-shops, selling everything from laptops, toys, and the most useless USB-shrimp-keychain-memorysticks you ever could dream of. We browsed a couple of these stores, and found some more or less interesting things. Most of the arcades were huge buildings with own floors dedicated to either men, women, or fourteen year old schoolgirls. It also seemed like the arcades had one floor for grappling-machines with all kinds of prizes (from candy to schoolgirl outfits), at least two for Street Fighter-styled 2D fighting games, and a floor for different kinds of poker-machines and the likes. Lars did not win a schoolgirl outfit.



Another type of arcade that is popular here, is huge areas densely packed with small machines you put metal barbells into. Easily the loudest game ever, seeing that 100+ of these machines were passing through multiple barbels a second mixed with loud music and other sound effects simultaneously. Upon entering the automatic doors, you got hit with a wall of sound. We never figures out how the game was played, if there was any prices, or why anyone would want to spend their time in such a crowded and loud place. On our journey through the districts, we also walked past a restaurant (?) called MaiDreamin (www.maidreamin.com). From seeing the greeters outside and reading the pamphlet, we got to know that it was a place to go if you wanted to eat, play or just hang around cute Japanese girls in pink lolita-costumes. That being said, we ate lunch at McDonalds, buying our food from normally-dressed Japanese girls. Lars did not play with the waitresses.

After returning to the hotel, we of course fell asleep again. But this time we could justify it. Our plan for the evening/night, was to spend the night awake at the famous Shibuya-crossing we visited the day before. This for both people-watching, but also in an attempt to fix our sleeping-rhythm. Most of the night was spent in the second floor of a Starbucks with a great view of the crossing. Pictures were taken, and there's probably a short time-lapse video showing up here at some point. Our original thought was spending the whole night at Starbucks, but our intel about them being open 24/7 proved to be wrong, and that they really closed at 03:30. We relocated to a 24/7 McDonalds nearby where there was even more people sitting around sleeping. Filled up on pure excitement and coffee, we lasted until 5:30 before we took the subway home.

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Ahh, Tuesday in Japan. Just like Tuesdays in all other countries, just a bit more japanesy. Of course the jetlag resulted in us not waking up before 13:00 in a utterly confused state. We took the subway to the Shibuya district, where our plan was nothing more than wandering around sightseeing. It was more or less what we expected from a big city area. I know you are keeping logs over what we eat on the trip, so this days entry include a kebab wrap for lunch. The area was dense in both people and stores, but we thing we got a overview of the area in the few hours we spent there.

We have all heard about the Japaneses love towards vending-machines, and that you pretty much can find anything in them. In reality, they mostly include soft-drinks, coffee and ice cold water, i.e: normal stuff (no used underwear) ...(yet). The most impressing part is the pure amount of machines spread around in any given area.

Our hotel was just a short subway-trip away, so we quickly found ourselves destroying our sleep-rhythm even more. Just like kids and the elderly, we enjoyed some soothing mid-day hours sleeping and regaining energy. Our hotel is of a high standard, and we have two double rooms (that's four single beds) for our disposal. Lars and Lars in one room (the Lars room), and Torbjørn and Bjørn in the second (the Bjørn room). Each room is equipped with everything we might need, including air-condition, a TV with a lot of confusing acid-programming, a mini-bar and a high-tech toilet with all sorts of nifty and ...interesting features. If we by any chance needed something else, there's always a vending-machine nearby, in addition to multiple 24/7 supermarkets.

Waking several hours later, we were confused and hungry. During yesterdays trip to Akasaka, we saw a lot of different dining-places, so we took the 15 minute walk there to get something to eat. There was almost too much to choose from, and many if the places had very similar displays on the outside. We ended up making it simple, by going into a place with little information on the outside, with what seemed like a more "traditional" atmosphere. At first we thought that they were closed, but they just hid their other customers. We were still not used to that all of the personnel were shouting whenever a new customer arrives (which is something we need to bring back to Norway).

The menu was of course confusing in knowing what was what, for how many, and what was included. After trying to question the waiter who didn't speak English, we ended up pointing to the phrase "You decide for us!" in one of our many handy japan-books we keep with us at any time. In retrospect, this was a 50% good idea. The first dish arrived almost after a whole beer, but was a pleasant surprise. We were presented by a selection of raw fish, soy sauce and rice. The quality of the fish was excellent, and the appetizer was gone in no-time. With happy but still hungry bellies, we waited for around 30 minutes wondering if that was all he decided for us. Suddenly we were served an interesting looking dish, that looked like a whole deep fried fish with some spikes. After some closer inspection, we could determine that in fact it was a whole deep fried fish with spikes. This was the 50% disappointing part, seeing that the dish itself looked impressive, but the amount of edible meat was nothing to get excited about. Lars tried gnawing on the head, but there was no meat to be found. Of we understood the waiter correctly, which we probably did not, this was a "high class restaurant". Anyways, we left the place happy.

To the reader, it might seem that we only eat, sleep and wander aimlessly around. This is true, and we will continue to report back here as good as we can.

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It looks like we are taking a small break in the hotel now, so why not write some sentences about the trip thus far. The plane-trip went ok, nothing big to report. It took approximately ten hours, spent by watching the on-board entertainment or sleeping in a uncomfortable position.

After arriving at the airport, we spent what felt like one hour in line to get through the first checkpoint. In reality it was more like 45 minutes, but slow none the less. Seeing multiple people wearing those fashionable "I don't want SARS" -mouthcovers, made us wanting the same ourselves. After picking up the baggage, we had to go through the customs. The funny thing is that I (björn) was the only one getting questioned, seeing that I'm traveling with hand luggage-only. Apparently this is suspicious behaviour for a three week vacation.

Before taking the airport express to Tokyo, we ordered what we thought was refreshing ice-coffee at a local Starbucks. That being said, coffee and jelly should not be mixed, and coffee should never need to be chewed. The train-trip itself was fairly short, mostly because we were sleeping the whole way. We didn't leave the station, and just found our way to the right subway-track right away. Eight stops and one subway change later, we finally moved outside, and could breathe "fresh air". Our hotel is just vis-a-vis the subway entrance, so we are never far away from getting more lost.

We arrived at the hotel around 12, but they did not start their check-in before 15:00. Luckily, they could store our baggage, leaving us free to explore the local area whilst waiting. We had two goals, to quickly finding something to eat, and a park to relax in. We failed at both. After walking in the direction of something green (park?), we suddenly found ourselves on a 5km journey around the imperial garden, with little to no places to sit (in the shade), and no places selling food nor liquid. Of course the attraction itself was closed on Mondays, so circling it was as close as we got.

We ended up in a vending-machine style of restaurant, where you bought a "ticket" form a machine with lots of nice pictures on it, which you deliver to a chef. The chef says something Japanese, you smile, nod and say "Hai!", and suddenly get served something completely different than what was on the picture. Lars and Lars hated their food. The actual eating was done standing up in a overly-crowded area, perfect for relaxing after walking a long time.

After eating, we still had a lot of time to kill. But at this point we were too exhausted to do anything else, so we just sat on the floor in the lobby feeling sorry for ourselves. I'm pretty sure that all of us fell asleep at some point. Three minutes after checking in and getting to our rooms, we all went to bed. Separate beds. Sleeping felt incredibly good after all the travelling, so we didn't wake up before in the evening.




Time to do some more exploring. We went up, then down, then a bit to the right, we found a Korean restaurant with brilliant food. We have no idea what we ordered, but it was a set-course with lots of (good) unknown ingredients. The rest of the evening included some more exploring, and we were back at the hotel shortly after 12.

So that's pretty much what happened yesterday. Hoping to give more interesting updates with more pictures and flashy graphics in the future, to keep your attention.

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For the three or six people maybe following our blog, we can inform you that we are in Austria. After some wandering around in the airport, we ended up in Starbucks. Great coffee, fantastic chairs, and just 3 hours until the next flight leaves. Thus far we don't have a lot to report. The only honourable mention is our encounter with what might best be described as the angriest man ever. He was the first thing we heard when we arrived in the airport, and by pure luck, we ended up sitting next to him at some random rest-area.

"Bring back the steam-trains, horses, and hot air-balloons! "
Everything was wrong. Lars took a picture out the window with his SLR camera, and the man started ranting about how the flash made him blind due to his glasses reflecting everything, and how "they should go back to the old type of cameras with film". He then continued rambling on something about computers and how they are useless. Of course he did not own a computer, nor a TV. He only had a radio. We're talking a lifetime with built-up anger. He really hated technology, along with everything else. Shortly after, his significant other came and took him away from us. Kind of sad since he was a great source of entertainment.

(Also; we apparently write in English now. )

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o_O o_o O_o
Loeve!

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Da er det blitt lørdag, og 2 av de 4 reisende er ferdigpakket og klar til avreise. Planen er å trille nedover mot Gardermoen rundtom klokken 4, slik at vi er fremme i god tid før avreise til Wien kl 07:05. Etter ankomst kl 09:35, så blir det en liten venteperiode før eventyret går videre til Japan kl 14:00. Hvilken tidssone de ulike klokkeslettene er i, kan variere. Om alt går etter planen, så vil vi være fremme i Tokyo mandag kl 08:10 lokal tid (minus 7 timer for nordmenn). Det kan godt være at dere mister all kontakt med oss etter dette punktet (vi skal tross alt til et annet univers), men vi satser på å rapportere her i ny og ne for alles glede og nytelse.

Oppdateringene her på bloggen kommer så hyppig som vi enten har mulighet eller orker å skrive et par ord. I de fleste tilfeller vil vi nok bare skrive noe kort via Twitter, som blir vist øverst på denne siden. Om du måtte ha interesse av å vite ca-nøyaktig hvor vi er i landet, så er det bare å sjekke siden "Hvor er vi" som inneholder et google kart som blir oppdatert ut i fra GPS-koordinater. Ønsker du derimot å se hvor vi har vært, og hvilke byer vi har vært innom, så kan du også besøke siden "Reiserute", hvor også et annet google kart kan vise dette på en noenlunde oversiktelig måte. Dette vil bli oppdatert i ettertid, etter hvert som vi har tilgang til nett.

Akkurat nå er klokken 01:05, og vi kan oppdatere med følgende :
* Torbjørn har en bolle og pakker.
* Bjørn har en bolle og en kopp kaffe.
* Lars S pakker uten bolle
* Lars M sover.

/Bjørn

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Nå nesten to uker før vi reiser har vi fått opp webside for turen.

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