T-O-K-Y-O

here we are in the big city.

i know i already mentioned going fishing, but here are some photos.

here is the crew


happy birthday majid
the mast fisher at work.
the catch. headed for the imperial palace.

after nagoya, we spent two nights in osaka. on friday we went to nara to visit shrines and temples. after having a rather lavish lunch (2.5k per plate) we went to one of the temples. it surrounded by tamed deer, which loved to be fed with crackers.


once we were in the shrine, some local schoolgirls wanted to have a photoshoot with us

one of my favorite parts of the temples are the statues. this one was one of two guardians placed near the entrance

and below you can see us in front of one of the oldest buildings in japan. this pagoda is over 1000 years old. many of the shrines and temples that we visit have been reconstructed time and time again because fires are so common here.

then on saturday we went to the island of miyajima for the morning and then to the peace memorials & museum at hiroshima. it was strange to be at hiroshima as an american. there were a lot of japanese there, a lot of europeans, and a lot of american soldiers (in civilian clothing). there is a marine post not so far away from the memorial, as i understand it.

on saturday night we ran away from our tour guides and snuck into an italian restaurant. we were able to successfully order pizza and cokes without any hired help!

sunday morning we woke up early to take the shinkansen (bullet train) to tokyo. it goes as fast as 300km/hr i believe, and it still was a 3 hour trip. my friend megumi's mom (peggy) was waiting for us at the station. she joined us for lunch and the first part of our tokyo tour. she is an american who has lived in japan for 30 years and studies its history. she is also a loud and direct and smart person. so when she joined our tour she really joined it, and put the other tour guides to shame (she knew more about the city and the country than they did). she taught us cultural lessons at lunch (reasons behind taking off shoes, how to place our chopsticks when they are not in use - if you stick them straight into the rice it means you are at someone's funeral) and then she took us to a museum of the city's history and guided us through it. i was extremely grateful to have a new person take direction of the group/tour. it was much needed breath of fresh air.

here we are all the museum togetherrrrr.
then we checked into the hotel and went back out to meet up with some mac kids.
i worked as a mentor with both shoko and jun, and jun was haider's mentor. they are both japanese and currently working in japan, so we got in touch and went out for dinner. they brought another friend who is a student at stanford and working at IBM this summer and we all went out for indian food. it was really exciting to see shoko again because she graduated 2 years before me and it was great to see jun as well. it is cool to know that through the mentor program, i can go pretty much anywhere in the world and find someone i know.

we also spent a bit of time shopping and i did find some transformers, including a soundwave figure who actually plays music!!! so of course i bought it.

i think i'll still use my ipod most of the time .... but it's a fun toy to have.

time to run to the imperial palace now ... sayonara