July 30 - Last day in Japan

Yesterday, while writing my blog entry, I met another Spanish tourist, also a bit geeky, so we kept talking about videogames, anime, etc. for a long time, so I went to bed at 1:00... Not good, considering we had to check out by quarter to ten, and still had to pack our stuff...

After checking out, we bought a one-day subway pass, and used it to get to Shinbashi. Actually our hotel is located right above the "Shiodome" station (makes sense knowing that the building is called Shiodome Media Tower...), but you can only get to that station using Toei lines, and our ticket was only valid for Tokyo Metro lines. That is the only thing I don't like about the subway system in Tokyo, that you have two companies. You always have to plan your route keeping in mind that if you change from a line of one company to one of the other you'll have to pay extra. Shinbashi was really close anyway, so it just took us around five minutes to get there.

However, even though it were only five minutes, the weight of our backpacks and the heat in Tokyo really made us sweat. When we arrived, I felt a little awkward. I mean, it's an expensive, luxurious looking hotel, and we arrived there dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and sweating...
All this time Pia had been complaining about the amount of mosquito bites she got. Well, there sure were no mosquitoes in this hotel. At the entrance, they had some sort of ultrasound emitter to keep bugs away. The problem was that it was set way too strong, so it was somewhat painful to go through the door. We took the elevator up to the 25th floor. The cool thing about the elevator was that it had a window from where you could look over the city. The higher we got, the more awesome the views were.
The views from the room were really beautiful. We had gotten a "Tower Side City Queen Room", from where you can see Tokyo Tower, and on clear days even Mount Fuji in the background. Unfortunately, the weather forecast for Tokyo didn't look too good. It wasn't raining, but the sky was covered with clouds and the visibility was rather limited. Nevertheless, even though we coulnd't see Mt. Fuji, the view over Tokyo was splendid.

After resting a bit at the hotel while enjoying the view, we went to Shibuya to walk around a bit enjoying our last hours in Japan. We ended up going to a game station, where I spent some of the money I had left on the Gundam simulator. This time, we felt a little more adventurous, probably because we COULD spend some more money, and tried some other games. The first one consisted of a large Japanese traditional drum with its corresponding drumsticks. You have to hit the drums following the "notes" on the screen, which were represented by moving circles that moved towards a target. You had to hit them right when they reach the target. There were two main notes, the red one, meaning a hit on the drum itself, and the blue one, meaning a hit on the side of the drum. There were also some other notes such as long yellow ones, during which you had to hit the drums as often as possible, or the red ones with a balloon attached, where you also had to hit several times. With each hit, the balloon grew larger, and you basically had to make it explode. It is a very simple yet extremely entertaining game.
The other one we tried was DrumMania. I love it! It is a really addicting game. Pia, as a drummer, wasn't too happy with the game, since it doesn't have much to do with real drumming. But then again, almost no musical game has a lot to do with the thing it's simulating, and yet they are really fun, right?
We also discovered another really cool game, although, because of it's nature, we couln't play it. If anyone has ever watched Yugioh, it is much like it. You play it with cards, which you put face-down on some sort of screen which detects the card. You have another screen with the real-time 3D visualization of the battle from an isometric view. It didn't seem to have turns, so you simply had to play the cards on the right place at the right time.

At 6 pm we went back to the hotel, stopping at a store first to buy some champagne. We had a feeling that the sunset would be a great thing to watch from our hotel room. And it was! It was very beautiful to see the city become darker and darker, while more and more red lights lit up on the rooftops. The neon lights started to illuminate the city soon after, making it look even more colorful and alive than during the day.

At 8pm we went down again and asked at the reception for some good sushi restaurant. We had enough money, it was the last day, and we hadn't had sushi even once, so it was about time. They told us to go to the fish market, which was just ten minutes away by foot, and gave us the name of a good sushi restaurant there, even though the place was full of sushi restaurants. The restaurant looked like a bar, although instead of mixing and serving drinks, they prepared and served sushi behind the bar. When we got there, a staff member at the entrance told us to sit in front of one of the cooks, who spoke both English and German, as we found out when he greeted us. He told us that he had worked for five years in a Japanese restaurant in Düsseldorf, Germany. He recommended the two menus that included a bowl of miso-soup and a large plate with assorted sushi. We were there to try as many different varieties of sushi as possible, so each of us took one of the two menus. The miso-soup was excellent, much better than the one we always had at our usual Japanese restaurant in Madrid. About the sushi... Well, I really don't want to compare it to anything else. It was the most delicious thing I've ever eaten. The fish was extremely fresh, and it tasted very sweet and juicy. Before going to the restaurant I was thinking of buying some onigiri for tomorrow, since I loved them. After eating the sushi, however, the mere though of eating onigiris made me feel a bit sick. Seriously, I'm happy to have tried it at the end of the trip, since I'm not sure if I would have been able to eat the department store food we ate during the whole trip after tasting such a delicious, fresh sushi at the restaurant. You really can't compare it to anything in Europe, at least not anything with a somewhat reasonable price. Here, we payed 3150 yen for the whole menu, with 15 pieces of sushi and the miso soup (no, not sushi rolls -or makisushi-, but REAL sushi). That's about 20 euros. For 20 euros, in our (actually really cheap) usual restaurant we would get 6 to 8 pieces, and the taste wouln't be the same at all.
While we were eating, a German man came in. He told us he had been living in Japan for 12 years and he uses to eat at that restaurant. The cook that attended us spoke in German with him, and he answered in Japanese. I suppose that they do that to help each other practice.

After spending an hour and a half in the restaurant eating and chatting with the cook and the German customer, we used our daily subway ticket to get to Akihabara for the last time and look for a last-minute souvenir for a friend and spend some of the money we had left at the arcade. Pia asked me to try and get her a teddy bear from a "UFO-Catcher", one of those machines where you have a joystick to move a hook around and a button to make it fall and catch something. From my experience, those machines never work, since the hook is not strong enough to sustain anything. In Japan, however, the staff at the arcades always puts one object somewhere near the edge of the hole where the hook is supposed to drop them, so the aim of the game is not actually try to catch something, but to try to move it sideways in such a way that it ends up falling into the hole. Actually, you can call the staff and ask them to put the object you want near the edge. The first time we asked, the clerk put the bear really on the edge, so one try should have been enough to make it fall. We put in 100 yen and I tried to get it. I didn't know the size of the hook, however, and I was afraid that I would miss it, so I dropped it really near the teddy bear, and couldn't move it enough to make it fall. Since you could get either one play for 100 yen or six plays for 500 yen, and we were afraid that I wouldn't make it on the second try either, we put in 500 yen. This time, I managed to get the bear on the first try. We called the clerk again and asked him to put a different one, a panda, near the dropping place. This time, however, it wasn't as close to the edge as on the first time. After a few tries I only managed to move it a bit. I only had one try left, and didn't think i would make it. I dropped the hook as far from the bear as possible to make it move as far at the hook could force it to. The hook actually grabbed it, put the feet up in the air, but soon dropped it because of the weight of the head. The feet fell almost on the same place as where they were at the beginning. After a moment, however, they slipped down into the hole. The head was heavier than the rest of the body, so at first, the panda was hanging there with it's feet in the hole but its head still on the main platform. Luckily, the head soon slipped down, and we obtained the panda. Hey, two large teddybears for 600 yen is extremely cheap!
Afterwards, I had two more rounds of Gundam, which will be my last ones, at least until I get back to Japan, although by then the game will probably have become too old or something. We also played DDR and Drummania once more before leaving to catch one of the last subway trains.

Back at the hotel, we drank our champagne while enjoying the "Lost In Translation"-ish view over Tokyo at night, with that cloud of red lights illuminating everything as far as the eye reached.

Yeah, today we spent around four times the money we usually spent per day, but it surely was the greatest day ever.

I WILL DEFINITELY COME BACK AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!

Good by Japan!


PS: Sorry for the delay. I wrote the entry on the plane back home, but I couldn't upload it until now...

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At Shibuya
Watching the sunset from our hotel room
Coming back from Akihabara with the teddy bears
Eating the best sushi ever
The night at the hotel


EDIT (16.11.2012): I removed the map from the global page template, and I think this is the best place to keep it:

July 29 - Akihabara

Today was a really relaxed day. We didn't have almost anything planned, we didn't have to check out early, nothing. Which meant that our day started late. Really late.

After having toast for breakfast, I finished yesterdays blog entry. Sorry, but yesterday I was too tired to write... Anyway, later on we took the subway to Akihabara once again to buy the electronics stuff I needed, although this time we arrived there at 1pm, and could actually buy it. Later on, we walked around a bit looking for more stuff we could bring back home as souvenirs, although we didn't find anything other than Capsule Stations, where I bought some more Fullmetal Alchemist figures. While walking, we passed in front of an arcade, and I simply couldn't say no to another round in the Gundam simulator. This time, I asked Pia to take a video from the outside. The problem was that this time I wasn't fighting against complete beginners anymore... While yesterday I was almost never hit, today the opponents were a lot tougher. I ended up third out of four... But I got enough points to get a new mecha. I'll test it tomorrow... By the way

Here's a little video of me getting beat by my opponents :P :



Afterwards, we played another round of DDR, testing some more new songs. Yeah, WE. This time it was Pia who took the iniciative and asked me to play, even though she usually doesn't want to play.

Later on, we started our way back to Asakusa to eat chanko, but since it was too early for lunch and too soon for dinner, we bought some 100-yen burgers and ice at a famous burger restaurant and stayed there for a while enjoying the cold air from the AC. For some reason, these last days the weather seems to be a lot hotter than earlier... Which is also the reason why I didn't have any t-shirt left that hadn't been soaked in sweat. Damn, the laundry!

We went back to the hostel to get our things and hurried to the next laundry shop. We wanted to have chanko as some sort of lunch and dinner, which means at 6pm, but we definitely needed to do our laundry first... I put on my swimming trunks, and put all my clothes in the washing machine. The people that passed by looked at me wondering what the hell I was doing in my swimming trunks in the middle of Tokyo, but hey, at least I got to wash all my clothes!

After getting our clothes back to the hostel we finally went to the restaurant where we got chanko the first time. The cook recognised us instantly, and knew what we wanted to get. I think he put in a little less food this time, since last time we couldnt even finish half of it...
Today, it was just the right amount to allow us to finish it. And once again, it was delicious!

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In Akihabara. We found one of those cafes where the waitresses are dressed up like in mangas. No, we didn't enter ¬¬
Just a random and rather blurred pic of the Tokyo Metro
A the small restaurant where we ate chanko. The man in the right is the owner. The picture was taken right after he brought the raw chanko to the table to cook it.
The map of the arena for today's Gundam round. They change the map every day or every two days, and they always put printouts of it near the PODs

July 28 - Just too tempting

The first thing we did in the morning was, once again, move to another hostel. We'll stay at this hostel for the next two nights, and we'll then move to the "Park Hotel Tokyo" to spend our last night there :D.

The good thing about our hostel is that it's located in Asakusa, where we found a great, really large street full of souvenir shops last time. When we arrived there today, however, it was much more crowded than last time...
Lots of people had told us to bring them something from Japan, so we spent there a lot of time trying to find good yet unexpensive souvenirs for everyone. I ended up spending around 4000 yen... Fortunately, the financial problems we had at the beginning of the trip are no longer an issue. It's actually because we had them at the beginning of the trip that we don't have them now. It scared us so much that we kept our expenses completely to the minimum, and now we can afford a bit more. No, still we aren't rich, but we can afford a little more than the 4000 to 5000 yen a day we were spending.

At two we went back to the hostel to have lunch (spaguettis from the department store nearby) while watching an episode of "Detective Conan" :D. Afterwards, we set off for Akihabara to buy the electronics stuff I needed, but Pia started to feel a little sick, so we returned to the hotel, where she rested for two hours. When we got to Akihabara, the electronics stores were already closed, which meant that we have to go there once again.
While wandering around in Akihabara looking for a few more souvenirs (yes, I have a lot of geeky friends, and I want some souvenir for myself too!), we found an arcade. Pia insisted in taking some pictures in one of those pink photo booths with hearts all around them where you can afterwards edit the photos by adding some backgrounds, drawings (mostly hearts and that kind of stuff), etc, so we got in and did the photos...

The good thing about the photobooth was that there was a DDR nearby :P. Of course, I couldn't resist and tryed some more new songs out, again with very bad results. I ended up completely exhausted, so I had to sit down somewhere on the ground before leaving. And that's when I saw the mecha simulator again. My excel table said we still have money, and the looks of it were too tempting, so I bought myself a pilot card and entered one of the PODs (Panoramic Optical Display). Luckily they had a little sheet with english explanations of the controls. I read through it and tested it out before playing, by moving the joysticks, pressing the buttons, etc, and imagining what would happen. I just didn't want to have to look up the sheet in the middle of a fight... Here's a little explanation of the controls:

You have two horizontal joysticks, one for each hand. If you want to get an idea, it looks like the throttle of a combat flight simulator joystick, but it has two axes instead of one. Those joysticks control the movement of each side. For example, if you move one forward, and the other one back, you'll start turning. On each joystick you have two buttons, one for the thumb and one for the index finger (trigger). With the right thumb botton you can lock on a target that's in front of you, and with the left one you can switch targets. The triggers are of course for shooting. The right one shoots the primary weapon, with the left one you can make a melee attack, and if you press both, the auxiliary weapon is shot.
There are also two pedals. The right one activates the booster, which is really useful to approach someone to make a melee attack, and also to dash out of the danger when you're being shot. The left one is for jumping and using the jetpack.

To play, you first have to put in your pilot card and the 500 yen it costs. You then get a screen telling you to put on the heaphones and adjust the seat, or at least thats what I understood by watching the pictures. LAter on, several screens appear, but I didn't understand what they were saying. I hate not knowing Japanese... And finally the game started. The controls were made really good, as it felt completely natural to move around, and the locking and shooting methods were also really straightforward. The gameplay was really cool! There was a timer that signaled the end of the game. You basically had to stay alive until that timer ended while trying to do the most damage to the others in the opposing team. Oh, by the way, in case you're wondering what the mechas look like, the game is called "Mobile Suit Gundam: Senjou no Kizuna", so you can get an idea. After two rounds, the game ended, and a message on the screen told me to put my pilot card back in the pilot terminal (the machine where you can buy the cards and edit your account) to update my status. On the pilot terminal a message appeared about something new I could buy with the points I had obtained during the last play, but I didn't know how it worked. Next time I'll probably ask someone... Oh, yeah, there will definitely be a next time, probably tomorrow!

Later on, we headed back to the hostel. On our way, we saw a small "Döner Kebab" stand, and decided to have a Döner as dinner. It can't believe I had to come all the way to Japan to eat the best Döner. Seriously, it was delicious. I think it was the meat, which tasted really great.

Still on our way to the subway to get to the hostel, we found several cheap capsule stations, where we bought some more souvenirs :D.

After taking a shower, we went to the bar of our hostel to have some drinks and talk to the other guests. The barkeeper was the one we met on our first stay here, when he was doing barkeeping for the first time and didn't have much idea about how to make most of the drinks on the list.

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Buying souvenirs at Asakusa
Still in Asakusa, at the end of the street with the shops
In Akihabara. Sorry about the quality...
Eating Döner Kebap. If you zoom right above the garbage bin (not the best place to put it, anyway), you can see a poster saying that two of the members of the group "Exile" ate there once

July 27 - Mechas!

Finally, I got to see it! I had seen a video of it a month ago and definately wanted to see it live. Not, it's not a rock concert. I'm talking about the full sized Gundam atanding on the port in Odaiba.

From our hotel in Asakusa, we took the subway to Shimbashi, where we changed to the "Yurikamome Line", that took us to Odaiba over the Rainbow Bridge. The views from the window on the train were not as amazing as they should have been, since there was a fence blocking it, but we still enjoyed it. The trip was a little expensive, though. These two facts made us decide to walk over the bridge on our way back.

While we were on the train, we saw some sort of music festival going on near our station. It was on the exact opposite direction than the Gundam, however, and that was a priority :D.
Finding the way to the gundam was really easy: we just had to follow the crowds. The first thing you see when you approach it is it's back. At first, it doesn't look so tall. But as you get closer, you start getting an idea of it's height. It's feet are about as tall as a person. On the video I had seen the mecha was moving it's head. Unfortunately, they didn't show that today...

After taking a few photos in front of the Gundam, we walked over to the beach at Odaiba. You can get some really impressive views over Tokyo from Odaiba.
There was nobody taking a bath, so we assumed that the water was too cold. We got our feet in, and surprisingly, it wasn't cold at all. Weird...

After laying down on the beach and enjoying the weather for a while, I went to the water again to walk around a bit. There was a woman with two children nearby. They were playing in the sand, making figures, while the womas screamd "kowai!". When I looked closer, I saw a jellyfish that had been washed up on the shore. That -might- have been the reason why nobody was swimming...

At 14:00, we got on our way to Akihabara to boy some souvenirs, stopping at a deparment store first to get some lunch. The views from the rainbow bridge were amazing. What's better, almost everybody takes the train to the other side, so we were walking there alone. To cross the bridge by foot you've got to like the noise of the city, however, or else you'll end up with a huge headache. You walk on the first of two layers, right near the street, and the layer above creates the effect of a tunnel, amplifying the noise the cars make when they pass by.

When we got to the other side of the bridge, it started raining. When we got out of the hostel, the sun was shining, and it was extremely hot, so of course, we didn't bring our umbrellas. Running from one shelter to the other, with the towel on the backpack to avoid getting it wet, we somehow managed to get to the nearest JR station and catch the Yamanote line. We were soaked, but we had arrived...

At Akihabara, we first got to "Akihabara Electric City", where I looked for some rare electronics I could buy. I actually found something I needed, but there were different models with slight differences, and I didn't have the exact specifications, so I couldn't buy it. I'll probably return tomorrow or the day after to buy it, now that I looked up the specs on the internet.

Afterwards, we looked for a game hall, where I wanted to try the "POD"s, those mecha simulators I talked about yesterday. I asked one of the players there how to use them. Apparently you have to boy a "Pilot Card" for 300 yen. It's some sort of personal account. The more you play (and win), the more points you get on your account. With those points, you can buy yourself a new mecha or some accessories for it. Each round you play costs 500 yen. Obviously, even though I really wanted to try it, I wasn't going to pay 800 yen for just one round, specially since it would be my first round, and everyone who has ever played a shooter game knows that the first round doesn't usually last much if your opponent is someone with experience...

Nevertheless, I did the usual thing I do when I'm at a gaming hall: play DDR! The version they have here never reached Spain, so I decided to check out the new songs instead of doing my usual ones. That was definately not a good idea... I couln't get the rithm straight, so I had to try and guess when to step, which made me become tense, and thus a lot more tired... I ended up doing only "D"s... When I finished, a guy dressed as a business man started to play. When he got in the machine, I though he just wanted to check out the machine. But then he got to the song selection screen, where you can select the difficulty too... "Challenge mode", songs with difficulty level 15, etc... Ouch!

On our way back to the hostel, we did what we wanted to do in Akihabara in the first place: look for souvenirs. In the end, the only thing I found that was both cheap and cool were a few "Fullmetal Alchemist" figures from a capsule station. I'll try to find some more things during the three days left here. :'( Just three days left...

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On the train to Odaiba
The Gundam :D
On Odaiba. Pia wasn't posing, the picture just turned out like this :D
Akihabara Electric Town
At the game hall, watching someone play Beatmania. This is actually not the fastest I've seen around here... It's creepy

July 26 - Moving on

The first thing we did after waking up was to look for a public telephone at the station to call up the hostel we stayed at at the beginning of the trip and ask tehm for a free room. After trying for several times and getting a taken line every time, we finally gave up and went searching for a store to by¡uy breakfast. When we got back to the station, we tried again, but we still coulnd't get a line. We then rememberd that last time we were at a tourist information office they offered us to call up the hostel we were staying at to let them know we were coming. We got to the nearest tourist information office and asked them if they could find us a room for the next two nights. Yes, two nights. We already booked the other nights at the beginning of the trip.
After half an hour, and several phone calls, the woman that was attending us managed to find a room for each day, and each at a different hostel, but from the same chain. Unfortunately, they didn't accept phone reservations, and I cannot make a reservation through the internet, since I don't have a credit card We decided to go to the one for today, and make the reservation there for the other one. By the time we arrived, someone else had taken the beds. Fortunately, the chain has several hostels in the area. The staff at the current one called up each one of them and finally found one that had a bed in a dormitory and a capsule. Yes, a capsule! :D
Finally, we had a bed booked for every night! After resting for a bit and uploading yesterdays blog entry we decided to use our Japan Rail Pass during it's last day of validity and take the JR Yamanote Line to a place Jerome, the canadian tourist we met at Kamakura, had recommended. I cannot remember the name of the station. We wrote it on Pia's notebook, and she's already sleeping right now.
It was a rather small station somewhere in the northern part of Tokyo. Right near the station there was a park, with a cementery on it. This might sound weird, but watching the cementery while the sun was setting in behind was beautyful. We then walked around a bit in that really interesting district. It was more "old-style", with typical japanese houses everywhere, and very small streets. Walking through one of those streets we met Hana-chan, a small and adorable cat. The owner had put a small pink collar around her neck and taken her out for a walk.

When it started to get dark, we returned to the station and went to Shibuya to have some drinks and spend the time. After getting something at a famous cafe, of which I don't want to say the name, we walked around for a bit, and found a gaming hall. This time, I took out my camera, and filmed the most amazing game ever: a mecha simulator. I talked about them in some other post, but for those who didn't read it or don't remember, here's a little explanation. It consists of a cabin you get in that contains everything you need to control a mecha. The walls at the front and on the sides are all screens, so you get almost 180 degrees of vision. It is literally a mecha simulator. Here is the video. Enjoy!



Afterwards, we returned to the hostel, where we found a group of tourists we had already met in Nagasaki watching "The lord of the Rings", the extended version. Pia is a great fan of LOTR, so we joined them. Unfortunately, after finishing the first DVD, we found out that the second one was missing. The tourists didn't give up, and decided to put in the DVD of the second movie. Im actually still in front of the TV while watching the blog :D

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The view from our hostel room. For some reason, our room is always on the top floor in hostels with no elevator...
At the cementery
Hana-chan exploring her environment :P
In the subway, we found this yamamba sitting in front of us. Look up "yamamba" on the internet for more information.

July 25 - Backpacking sometimes sucks...

I just love not having to wake up early. We had nothing planned for today, so we decided not to set the alarm clock. And of course, before leaving the hotel, we took our time to enjoy our breakfast.
We got our backpacks and started walking to the station. It wasn't raining anymore, but it was hot. Really hot... By the time we arrived at the station, after half an hour of walking, we were sweating like mad.

We took the first train on the line to Ueno (Tokyo) at Sendai station. It was a local train, and it didn't reach Tokyo. It's last stop was Haranomach, a small town somewhere in the Fukushima prefecture. That was all right though, since we had no real place to go to. When we arrived, we asked at the hotels near the station, but they were all fully booked. There was some sort of festival about samurais going on in the city, which was probably the reason why the hotels were all full. Anyway, we decided to stay there for a while, have some lunch, and then catch the next train. There wasn't too much to see, and it was extremely hot, but it was nice to be there. We had seen a park drawn in the map at the station, and wanted to get there to sit down and eat. There was nothing to sit on though, and the ground was full of ants, so we headed back to a place we had seen on our way there that had a small table and some stones around where we could sit on.

After having lunch and resting there for some time, we set off for the station, making a brief stop at a store to buy some cold drinks. Once again, due to my thirst, I drank a whole liter of orange juice in about five minutes.

We took the next train, which was also a local one, and got off at Iwaki, it's last stop. We could have taken a limited express train half an hour later, but then again, our plan wasn't to get to Tokyo as fast as we could, but to stop somewhere along the way and spend a night there. Iwaki, however, didn't appeal to us, so in the end, we cought the limited express and went to Tokyo... Yep, we're back in Tokyo again! We both missed it anyway, so it might not be so bad to have gotten here so early.

In Tokyo, we took the subway to Asakusa, in order to get a room at the hostel we had stayed at earlier. The subway was completely crowded, so we got pushed in by the staff there. Fortunately, our stop was the last one, so we didn't need to make our way through the masses of people before us to get out. The problem began when we got out at Asakusa station. The streets were even more crowded than the subway. We asked someone on the street what that was all about and he said that it was because of the fireworks. Fireworks? Hmm... Fireworks... Where have I heard that before...? Oh, yeah, there should be some fireworks on the last Saturday of the month, but... Oh, it IS the last saturday of the month! Great... '¬¬. The police had blocked the entrance of cars over the whole place in order to make more place for all the visitors, but it was still not enough...

We though "Hey, let's leave our luggage at the hostel and go watch the fireworks!". There was but one slight problem. Let me explain: Get a map of Tokyo (for example at maps.google.com) and find Asakusa subway station. Ok, do you see the river nearby, and the bridge over it? Yeah, our hostel was located on the other side. The bridge happened to be the best spot to see the fireworks. I don't think I can explain how many people there were on the bridge. There was absolutely no possibility of crossing it. So, there we were, with over 15kg on our shoulders and moving through the crowds at five steps per minute trying to get to the next bridge... When we got there, a police officer told us that it was closed, and that we should go to the other one. Yeah, the first one, the one with the masses of people on it. By then, Pia was already crying out of pain because of the weight of the backpack. I gave her my camera case and took her backpack, and we continued walking, looking for a hotel on that side of the river. After a while searching, we decided that it was no use, and took the subway to the other side of the river. We didn't do that in the first place because we were trying to save some money and thought that there would be some way to cross the bridge.
When we arrived at our hostel, they told us that there were no free rooms left. We walked over to another hostel we knew that was nearby, but again, there were no free rooms left. When we asked if they knew any capsule hotel nearby, they told us that we probably wouldn't find any rooms in that area because of the fireworks, and that we should try at Tokyo station. There was no direct subway connection between where we were and Tokyo Station, so we got off at the nearest stop and walked there, looking for cheap hotels (meaning capsule hotels) along the way. In the end, we arrived at Tokyo station without having found any. Finally we saw a hotel called "Heimat" (oh, how I love irony...). We had been walking for three hours, and I had had over 30kg on my shoulders for two hours, so we just though "Screw the money, we'll pay whatever it costs (of course, there's a limit to everything)...". It was relatively cheap for a hotel, though: 4830 each for a double room with a private bathroom and shower, a TV and an air conditioner. It's not like we can afford that price every night, but we seriously were expecting having to pay a lot more for a room tonight.
After sitting on our bed for an hour, and taking a thirty-minute-long shower, my feet finally started to feel a little better.
My shoulders were completely red, and I had a few spots on my sking that were bleeding, but at least we had found a nice hotel to stay at. I was already thinking of going to a park and sleeping there, so...

By the way, no, I don't have any pictures of the crowds at Asakusa, or the firewors, or anything between the time we got out of the subway station at Asakusa and our arrival at the Hotel. I was not really in the mood to start taking pictures, and even if I wanted, my camera has to be held very steadily at night in order to take a proper picture, and I was way too tired to hold it still.

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Having lunch in Haranomachi
On the train, somewhere near Tokyo. The sunset was really beautyful.
The subway...
The view from our hotel room. The white building on the left is Tokyo Station.

July 24 - Robotics faire at Sendai

We had done our laundry yesterday night and the dryer didn't really do much the first time. We coulnd't start it again, however, since it was 23:30 and it makes a lot of noise... Which meant that today we had to wake up at 6:30 to have enough time to run it again. After this run our clothes were still soaked. We told the owner of the hostel, and he offered us an additional run for free, but this time splitting the clothes equally between the two dryers they have. After this third run, the clothes were still wet, but since we had to catch our train, we just put them in some plastic bags and left, hoping to find a laundy shop somewhere in our way. We had already decided our next destination: Sendai. It was the best choice, since from there we can catch several local lines bound for Tokyo, and get off at any station we want along the way.

At Sendai station, we first looked for a tourist information office to get some maps and information about hostels. We also asked for the next post office to exchange some traveller cheques, since we were running out of cash. While we waited at the post office, we looked a bit through our guide to decide what places to visit. Unfortunately, those plans were cancelled as soon as we looked out of the window: it was raining again... We decided to go to the hostel first to leave our bags and then decide what to do. The map we had was really bad, however, and the scale was completely wrong, so it took a lot longer than we expected to arrive. That's when we noticed that our bodies were accumulating the tiredness. We even had to stop and rest for a while...

The hostel we went to, Sendai Maple Youth Hostel, is a small, family-run hostel. The owners were really nice, and let us check in and took us to the nearest laundry shop even though it was 12 am, and they were closed...

Since at Kawayo Green they didn't have any soap for the laundry, we decided to wash it again, this time with soap. We put our money in and the display said 35 minutes, so we decided to wait for it to finish. For some reason, however, the counter stopped at 33, and started counting down again after 20 minutes. This same thing happened several times. When we finally got out of there, it was 3 pm, which meant that our only plan for the day, a trip to Matsushima, got cancelled too...

With nothing left to do, we decided to go to the only point on our map that said "Internet access", the Sendai Mediatheque. When we arrived, we found a group of people building up a stage on the first floor. Since there were several posters on the walls announcing art expositions, we just though it was one of those and went up to the second floor, where they had several computers with internet access. We looked up the timetable for tomorrows trains, and after resting for a bit on some couches they had, we went down to the first floor again. This time, we took a look at the poster in front of where they were building the stage, and saw something like "Tohoku University Science Cafe: Intelligent Robots". Woohoo!
The conference started at 18:00, which meant that we still had an hour and a half left to walk around and have some drinks at a cafe.

When we came back to the Mediatheque, they had put up several desks. At each desk there was a stundent from the univeristy that would answer the questions of the public sitting there. Most of them were japanese, however, and didn't speak English... Luckily, a student from California who was studying abroad was around. He sat down beside us and started translating the most important things.
When the conference started, it looked more like biology than robotics. The professor that was giving the conference explained that current robots, such as Honda's "Asimo", are very advanced, but they still don't resemble humans. Thus, the main aim of their lab was to look at lifeforms, starting at the most basic ones, and try to simulate them with robots. He said that one of the main differences between lifeforms and current robot is that robots calculate everything in one core, while lifeforms have several different organs that perform their own tasks while cooperating with the others, thus decentralising.
One of the most impressive things he explained was that an experiment was made once with a cat, where the part of the brain that is responsible for the movement was cut off, leaving only the vital parts, so that the cat could still live. They put the cat on a treadmill. The cat could still walk and run without a brain, which meant that the act of walking was not only controlled by the brain, but also by the nervous system running through the muscles.
One of the lifeforms that they were looking at was some sort of yellow slime. I think it was some fungus, but I can't remeber it's name. The amazing thing about the slime was it's cell's way of comunicating with each other. It apparently could transmit information by using synchronised pulses that created a flow of liquid inside it. They were trying to recreate that using some robots positioned around a round, air filled balloon. The robots would then start creating pulses by pushing and pulling on the balloon. At first, these pulses would be completely random, but after a short time, the robots would synchronize, with the ones on one side pushing while the others pull, allowing the the whole group to move forward.
They had observed that same way of comunication in several other animals, such as snakes, which move using sychronized contractions of their muscles throughout their bodies. They had created a robotic snake that consisted of several segments. Each segment only had information about the position of the one in front of it and the one behind it, and received the electric pulses for the timing through a pair of cables that run through all of them. Even though those segments didn't "know" they were in a row, and where they were moving to, the whole snake could move as one unit because of that synchronization. They had a remote with which they controlled the direction of the snake and it's speed. The speed was basically the pace of the pulses that controlled the timing. The faster that was, the faster the segments would turn, making the snake move forward. They even let some of the visitors control it, but by the time I noticed that, the queue for it was already too long...
They also had a group of robots that "talked to each other" using light flashes. Whenever one of those robots emitted a flash, the others would try to get there. With two units it is really unimpresive, but a swarm of those robots would always group together. They showed a video where the makers separated them as fast as they could, but the robots would always manage to go back to the group by following the flashes. I think this is a very good example to show how many extremely simple entities with almost no functionality can accomplish complex tasks when they are grouped together.

After leaving the Mediatheque, we wanted to go to a shopping center nearby, but Pia had a bit of a headache, so we decided to just buy food for tomorrow and go back to the hostel. We don't know where we will be tomorrow and if there will be a department store nearby, which is why we bought breakfast, lunch and dinner for tomorrow, and breakfast for the day after tomorrow, as well as an additional bottle of water, even though we had just bought one and it was still fulql.

As usual, I got myself some of the free tea they offer at the hostel, and started to write the entry. I'm seriously getting addicted to it. Not to the tea itself, but to the habit of drinking a cup of tea while I write my blog in the evening...

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At Mukaiyama Station, waiting for our train. We were completely alone. The only thing that broke the silence were the few cars that passed by from time to time...
In Sendai
Talking about task decentralization in robots
The projects his lab is working on
The robotic snake

July 23 - In the middle of nowhere

We woke up early today (deja vu?) to catch the train at 7:10. It wasn't raining anymore, but it was still freezing. The hot coffee can I bought from a vending maching at the station felt really great. I find it pretty useful to have vending machines with hot drinks. I mean, in the winter, I can't imagine anyone who wants to drink a cold coke when It's several degrees celsius below zero outside...
At the station, we met an older japanese man we had already encounted at the ferry terminal on our trip from Wakkanai to Rebun and from Rebun to Wakkanai. He spoke English relatively fluently, and a bit of Spanish. When I say a bit I really mean he could speak it. I've already encountered several people who said "I know a bit of [insert language here]" meaning "I can say hi in [insert language here]". We also met the other freign guest at Momoiwaso YH. Later on, on the train, we met another tourist we had seen on our way to Wakkanai. It's really incredible how, with so many people moving around everyday, and so many possible connections, you always manage to meet the people you know :D .

On the train, we tried to sleep for a while, although I wasn't too succesful... I finally could see how we entered the tunnel that runs underwater and connects Hokkaido with Honshu. It was somehow unimpressive, though :P.

Anyway, the further we went to the south, the more buildings there were in sight. For me, it somehow symbolises that our slow way back to Tokyo, and thus home, has already started. It's both sad and relieving. On one hand, I love it here, and would love to stay for much longer. On the other hand, after almost two months out of home, I'm already missing having absolutely nothing on my schedule, just free time to sit on my couch and relax. Yeah, I'm pretty lazy... :D

Anyway, here in Japan, you can either get a reserved seat ticket, or just get on a train and hope for some free seats. Since we always get to the train station some time before the train arrives, we like to get the reserved seats, just to make sure that we can sit together. For this trip, however, the guy at the counter told us that, for the last train we had to get, there were no reserved seats. Hmm. We had already taken local lines in the south, and even those had reserved seats... How small must the place be if the train doesn't need reserved seats?

Well, when we got out of the train at Misawa station to catch the local line and looked around, we felt like we were somewhere in the middle of nowhere. There were some high school students, however, who made the place look a little bit more... crowded. The train from the local line had only two small cars, and they were pretty empty.
When we got off at our station, Mukaiyama, it became worse. We don't really know the amount of population of this place, but, by the looks of it, we estimated it at around 300 people and a lot of cows, sheep and horses... Look it up in the map. Zoom on it, and you will see that it's empty...
Our hostel is actually part of a farm. The facilities, however, are way better than we imagined. They have a huge kitchen, washing machines and dryers, and even a computer with broadband internet access.
The only thing you should really keep in mind if you decide to come here: do so during the day! Don't you dare coming here at night unless you want to end up with your whole body covered with mosquito bites... No, it hasn't happened to me, but when I looked out of the front door (which is made from glass) an hour ago, there was a massive swarm of mosquitoes flying around...

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A few hours before leaving Hokkaido
Information pannels about the tunnel from Honshu to Hokkaido at the train.
Back to Honshu. We could finally see the sun again!
On our way to the hostel in Mukaiyama. When the lighting is bad, my camera tends to do some weird stuff. This is actually the only picture I have that looks well enough to be uploaded...

July 22 - Walking in the Rain

Remember what the guy from the staff at Momoiwaso YH said yesterday when I asked if they would wake us up? The thing with "Oh, wake up? Big voice! Aaaarghhhhh!". Well, it's as bad as I imagined it. At 6:30 I was already awake anyway, but it was really shocking. I was lying on my bed. Everything was quiet. But then, all of a sudden, they started playing really loud music over the speaker system they have installed throughout the hostel. How loud? Hmm. Let me see how to explain that... Have you ever been in a disco...? The floor was shaking... Although not with techno, which is the usual type of music that makes the floor shake, but the type of music you get in an old movie.

By the time we finished packing our things and having breakfast, lots of people came to the main room. Music began playing over the loudspeakers, and a member of the staff, who stood in front of everybody, started doing streching excercises, while everyone followed. It's incredible how they can gather such an energy at 7:00 am... Later on, more and more people came to the main room. We asked the foreign tourist we talked to yesterday, and she said: "We're going to clean now.". Then the staff started giving everybody either a broom or a piece of wet cloth. We then formed two lines, with the first one being the people that had the brooms and the second one those with the piece of cloth. At a signal of a member of the staff, they started playing music and making noise with some drums while we cleaned the floor. We had to do the same thing on the second floor and the dining hall. At the dining hall, however, we only had to use the broom. The staff members then got the pieces of cloth and started running around in lines while cleaning the floor with the cloth. I don't really like cleaning, but for some reason I enjoyed this. Maybe it's just that it was competely crazy...

Before coming to Japan, we were expecting to have rain almost every day, since the rainy season was supposed to last until July 15. In the end, it came down to a couple drops, which never really affected our plans. It was obvious that our luck couldn't last throughout our whole trip.
Our plan for today was to do a bit of hiking on the "Flower Trail" at Rebun. We didn't have time to take the eight-hour-long hiking trail, and the flora in Rebun is excellent, so the Flower Trail was our best choice. Unfortunately, it was raining, and there was a lot of wind. Most of the guests, who had planned to leave the island in the afternoon, like us, or even tomorrow, in order to do a bit of hiking first, left with the first ferry. But of course, not us. We went there to do hiking, and we wouldn't leave without.
A great thing about the hostel is that they have signs taped to the walls with the departure time of each ferry. You can leave your heavy luggage in front of the sign that corresponds to the ferry you want to take, and they bring it to the ferry terminal 10 minutes before the ferry leaves, so you can walk to the port enjoying the views withot having to carry all your luggage. So, we left our bags near the sing for the last ferry, bought some raincoats at the hostel, put our backpacks in some trashbags they gave us to keep them dry, and started walking. Some staff members even got out without any coat, despite the heavy rain, and kept waving their hands and saying goodby until we got out of sight, around three or four minutes later.
At first, I didn't want to take out my umbrella, since the wind was really strong, but I really wanted to take some pictures, and I couldn't allow my camera to get wet. I somehow managed to always keep the umbrella in a position where it wouln't be affected by the wind, and could take several really beautiful pictures. The view over the cliffs under the rain was amazing!
However, as we kept going up, the wind got stronger and stronger. At some point, we were struck by a sudden, strong burst of wind, and my umbrella broke. I had to run to the nearest toilet while keeping my umbrella as upright as I could in order to avoid putting my camera under the heavy rain. I put my camera in my backpack again, along with the broken umbrella, and we started walking down again.
For some reason, I don't mind walking around in the cold as long as my hands stay warm. The moment my hands get cold, I start freezing. With the umbrella, my hands always stayed dry and thus warm. So, now my hands started getting wet and I really felt cold. We walked as fast as we could to the ferry terminal, and arrived there at 9 am. The ferry we wanted to take left at 16:45, and our bags were at the hostel... Fortunately, the guys from the hostel were there saying goodby to the guests that left with the ferry at 8:55. At first, we only thought of asking them to bring our bags for the next ferry, but they offered us a ride back to the hostel. We were soaked and freezing, so we gladly accepted the offer. At the hostel, the first thing we did was change our clothes and sit in front of the heater. After around two hours, we started feeling a bit warm again. At 12, the hostel staff drove us, along with several other guests who wanted to take the ferry, back to the port.
The hostels tradition "forced us" to dance one last time on the ovservation deck of the ship, while the staff members stood on the port and lead the dance. I seriously don't know where they get their energy from. They looked as if they didn't mind getting wet and cold at all, and kept dancing as the ship was leaving the port. Then they screamed "itterashai" all together, to which we answered "ittekimasu". I wonder what the other passengers though about us. Hmm, a group of people out there, during this cold, windy and rainy day, doing weird dances and screaming... That can't be good...

The ferry shaked a lot more than in the previous trip, and Pia got a bit of motion sickness. However, I still think that the waves here are really small, even compared to what I'm used to see at the Mediterranean Sea. I think the trip took a little longer than it should have, probably because of the bad weather. When we arrived at Wakkanai, however, the weather was better. It was still cold, and a bit windy, but at least it wasn't raining.
We didn't know where our hostel was located. Fortunately, one of the guests at Momoiwaso who took the same ferry, had a little booklet with information about hostels, and could look up the directions. The hostel he was staying at was a few blocks away from ours, so we walked with him while having a little chat. Our hostel was located a bit further than his, so he offered us to take us there after leaving his luggage. However, on our way there, a member of our hostel's staff who was driving back to the hostel saw us and offered us a ride. We said goodbye to our companion and got on the car.
The hotel was very nice, although it lacked one very important thing [for me]: an internet connection. The woman at the reception gave us a map and showed us the location of a hotel near the station where we could get a free connection. We really needed to get a connection, since we didn't even know where to get a room tomorrow, and we certainly didn't want to have to look for a hostel after a twelve-hour train trip... We made a reservation at the Kawayo Green Youth Hostel, somewhere in very remote area in the Aomori Prefecture, and downloaded the train route.

Later on we bought some food for tomorrow and the breakfast for the day after tomorrow, since we don't know if we'll find any store near our hostel...

By the way, we're done with our "planning folder". It is a small pink folder where we have everything we had printed about our plans here in Japan, such as reservation confirmations, train routes, subway maps, etc. Well, today we "used" the last page, the reservation confirmation for the hostel in Wakkanai. From now on, almost everything we do will be improvised :D. Let's see how it goes...

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Rainy day at Rebun Island
The "Flower Path". Try and get a sharp image with my camera while holding an umbrella against some really strong wind...
The farewell ceremony - Some of the Momoiwaso Youth Hostel staff members, dancing in the rain, with strong winds and a temperature of 10 degrees celsius. And they do this everyday for every ferry that arrives and leaves... Somebody please tell me how to get such an energy! By the way, sorry about the black stripe. I had to keep my camera as covered as possible to keep it dry.
On the ferry, looking through the window...

July 21 - Crazy? No, insane!

What conclusion can one draw from this conversation?:

-Jin, owner of the hostel in Sapporo: "So, where are you going next?"
-Us: "To Rebun Island"
-Jin: "Hm. Are you staying at the Momoiwaso Youth Hostel?"
-Us: "Yes"
-Jin: "Ohhhhhh (O.O)! You're staying at the craziest youth hostel in Japan!"
-Us: "What do you mean by 'crazy'?"
-Jin: ":D You'll see..."

'¬¬ Right, we'll see...

We woke up early in the morning to catch the first train to Wakkanai. It was the only one that could get us there in time to catch the ferry. The farther we got to the north, the less buildings we could see. It was all just fields, farms and forests. The trip lasted five hours, so we had time to sleep a bit more AND enjoy the view.
When we arrived to Wakkanai, the frist thing we did was ask at the tourist information center for a map for Wakkanai and Rebun Island. In Japan, there are tourist information offices at almost every major train station, which is great if you're not quite sure about where you have to go. The woman at the office even called up the hostel to tell them we were coming. After exchanging some traveller cheques, we went to the only department store in the whole town to buy food for today and tomorrow. At the hostel they offer you dinner and breakfast, but it's way too expensive (for us). We bought two bento boxes, half of the onigiris they had at the store and some bakery for breakfast. Even though at firts the 2100 yen we had to pay seem like a lot, it's actually cheap, since it's for two people and two days. Then again, we had to pay 5000 yen each for the ferry tickets (with the return trip included).
The ferry trip was really amazing. We stayed on the observation deck for as long as we could watching Hokkaido as it faded at the horizon. There was a lot of wind, and it was freezing. Maybe it's not that cold, but we were already used to the heat in the south, and there already was a really radical change in the temperature between Osaka and Sapporo. Now, further north, it's even worse...
Unfortunately, even though Russia is usually visible from here, the bad weather made it impossible to see it.
By the way, the sea here is beautiful. It is extremely blue, at least compared to what I'm used to see at the Mediterranean Sea in Spain, and the waves really small.

So, there we were, at the ferry, about to arrive to Rebun Island, when we [thought we had] found out what Jin meant by "crazy":

[WARNING, THIS IS A SPOILER! IF YOU THINK YOU MIGHT COME HERE SOMETIME, READING THIS MIGHT RUIN THE GREAT SURPRISE. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]
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We were looking at the port when we found something rather unusual. Near an old-fashioned green military-style truck, three people were energically swinging some flags with the tag "Momoiwaso" around, dancing and screaming "Momoiwaso!". The locals that were beside us looking through the window said something like "Oh, it's those youth hostel guys again!". That's the moment I though: "I don't want to be here right now..." :D. When we approached them, they greeted us extremely cheerfully. Unfortunately, they spoke in Japanese, so I couldn't understand much of what they were saying. After waiting for a while for the rest of the guests that came with the same ferry, they helped us get on the truck, and a woman started explaining some things such as the history of the truck (which apparently has a name) and several other things I didn't quite get. Fortunately there was a japanese tourist sitting beside me that translated the "important" things. Before starting the truck, we had to shout "hasha orai" all together. The first time, we didn't shout too much, so the driver turned off the motor again, in order to force us to scream. During the trip, the woman explained a bit about Rebun and the youth hostel. For some reason, at the hostel they have all clocks set half an hour earlier, so when it's 6, they show 6:30 and so on. When we arrived, the driver parked the tuck with it's rear directly in front of the door, so we could get off the truck directly into the main room. Pia and I had to go first, since we were new here. When she opened the door we had to yell "Tadaima" ("I'm home"), to which they answered with "Okaerinasai!", also yelling. They had several drums, which they used to make a lot of noise as some sort of welcome ceremony. I really don't know where they get their energy from, but I guess that's the best way to enjoy life in an island with only 3000 inhabitants. Another staff member, who somehow reminded me of "Great Teacher Onizuka", started explaining everithing about the hostel for about five minutes at an extremely fast pace. Of course, we didn't understand anything... Luckily, even though none of them spoke English, they had an english timetable and rule list. The one thing that stroke us most about the timetable was the wake-up time: 6:30 am. We tried to ask if they wake us up or if we had to set an alarm, and after several minutes thinking about every possible way of making them understand our question, one of them said. "Oh, wake up? Big voice! Aaaarghhhhh!" while putting his hands to his ears and looking as if he was going through a lot of pain... I'm scared...
Anyway, after leaving our stuff on our beds, we had the ramen we had bought for dinner. It was 7:00 pm, but the timetable said dinner was between 6:30 and 7:20, so we had to follow. Also, after the dinner, the timetable said "meeting: we discuss hiking routes around rebun and show you local songs and dances. It's fun!", and we definately wanted to see it. We didn't want to arrive late, since we were a bit afraid of how they would react to that. No, I don't mean they would punish us, but after seeing the show they pulled at the ferry terminal and when we arrived at the hostel, who knows what they would have done. We seriously didn't want a group of hiperactive japanese guys yelling at us and telling us to do anything weird...
The meeting itself was the weirdest think I've seen. Remember those completely crazy TV shows I talked about a few days ago? Well, this was worse, and we were in it. I didn't understand what they were saying, but they were yelling, doing weird cosplay, and all sorts of crazy things. After some time, they finally started explaining some facts about the island, such as the dimensions, the population, etc. Actually they always asked someone from the "public" to guess the numbers. Yeah, I wasn't kidding, you really have to imagine it as some sort of TV show. When someone said something wrong, they started screaming and looked as if the world was coming to an end. Did I mention it was crazy?
Later on, they pointed at the wallscrolls that hung all over the walls, and asked some guests which one they wanted, or at least that's what it looked like. On each scroll there was a song written. The ones that were chosen by the guests were the ones that we had to sing afterwards. It's not like we could sing with them, since it was all in Japanese, but it was nice to be there and see how everyone, including older guests, participated. They even took out a guitar and a harmonica and started playing while the othere sang. After three songs, they put the instruments away, and started putting their bags aside. A foreign guest then came to us and said "leave your bags over there. We're going to dance now, and they might get smashed if you leave them here". What!? Dance? We didn't have to wait for too long to know what she meant. The staff members started singing and "dancing" in front of us, and everyone followed. The dance consisted of jumping around, holding hands and running in a circle, etc. It looked more like some sort of show for little children, with the exception that there were almost no children there, but adults, some of them well above 60. I think this might actually be the weirdest thing I've ever done...
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[THE SPOILER ENDS HERE]

Even though this is completely insane, and I don't know if I would be able to keep this up for several days, I really, really recommend you to come here and check it out. I can assure you, it's a completely unique experience!


PS: Sorry for the delay, but we didn't have an internet connection in Rebun. Actually, today we don't have any internet connection at our hostel either. We're currently at a hotel near Wakkanai Station using their internet connetion, and I haven't written today's report yet, which means that I won't be able to upload it at all today. We'll see if we get an internet connection tomorrow, although I seriously doubt it: We're staying at a hostel in the middle of nowhere ("Kawayo Green Youth Hostel" near Mukaiyama Station). I'm not really sure if we will have a connection before the 28th...


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Rishiri Island, as seen from the train to Wakkanai
The streets in Wakkanai. Everything was written in Russian (Russia is just a few kilometers away)
The view from our hostel
Chatting at the hostel





[SPOILER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]
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The welcoming at Rebun Island

July 20 - Waiting...

If you think about it, you spend a huge part of your life waiting. That was our main activity today. Waiting for the bus.

This is the first time during our trip that we didn't set any alarm clock. Although we were woken up by some other guest who had to leave early, we could fall asleep again and stay in bed until 9:30. We got up to get our free breakfast (when you don't have money, anything that's free is great!), and walked out of our hostel's dor without any real plan on where to go. We looked in our map for places that seemed interesting and simply walked in that direction. The first thing we noticed about sapporo is that you can walk in any direction and you'll always find a "Lawson" department store every 100 meters at most. We had already noticed a vast amount of "7 eleven", "Family Mart" and "Lawson" department stores in every major city here in Japan, but in Sapporo it's just excessive...
After some time wandering around we decided to follow the advice of some guys at the hostel and take the bus to Moerenuma Park.
And that's where the trouble started. After searching for quite a long time for the bus station, we finally got to the gate, where we watched our bus leave when we were just a few meters away. We had to wait for the next bus, which arrived half an hour later. We asked the driver how much it would cost to get to Moerenuma Park, and he told us that that bus wasn't the right one. Great, all that waiting for nothing. We asked a woman that was sitting at the bus station for directions, After ten minutes wondering what the hell we were trying to do, and telling us to take the subway to the place she had understood that we wanted to go, she noticed that we had mispronounced the name of our destination. She then told us to take the bus line we wanted to take in the first place, which meant another half an hour waiting. When we got on the bus, a message was played over the loudspeakers saying (in English) that the bus was bound for "Moerenuma Park". Finally!

The park was very nice. The first thing we did was to climb a small hill, from where you can get a very impressive view over Sapporo. It was really windy up there, and way colder than in the south, so we had to walk down again after some time to avoid catching a cold.
Soon after, we walked to the "Sea Fountain", where a show was about to start. From the moment I saw it, I couldn't stop thinking about "Golden Eye" (James Bond). Sorry, but it was just too similar to the antenna in golden eye (at least the concept of it), and I'm too much of a geek to ignore that.
The show itself was beatiful. It was amazing to see and hear the water forming waves, splashing against the walls of the fountain, etc.

After getting some soft-ice at the park and walking around for some time, we decided to make our way home. When we arrived at the bus stop in the park, we found a bus waiting there. We could have taken it, but we would have had to take the subway afterwards. With the other line, the one we had taken to get to the park, we would just have to walk for half an hour to our hostel, so we decided to wait, and sat down on a rock near the bus stop. We waited, and waited, and waited. And no bus arrived. After an hour I stood up and went to look at the timetable. The bus we had seen was the last one... There was a group of people there who apparently did the same as we did. We told them that the last bus had already departed, and went looking for the next bus stop together with them. We kept walking at the bus stop while waiting for the bus, and when we finally managed to get on the bus, they even payed for our bus ticket. From where the bus stopped at we couldn't walk to our hostel, so we had to take the subway. It wasn't too expensive, though, since we were only five stops away.

On our way back, we did as usual: we bough some dinner and breakfast at a department store. I bought something new for breakfast today. I wonder how it tastes...

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Walking through Sapporo
At the park, with the hill in the background.
From the top of the hill.
"Golden Eye", anyone?
At the Sea Fountain, during the show. It sounded like the waves at the beach, which is probably where it's name comes from.