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Right now I'm sitting in the school gym in a "PTA" meeting. Yes, it's Sunday. Yes, they had all the students come in for classes today. Now all the students have been sent home, and the "PTA" (of which maybe half are parents) are holding this mandatory meeting.

Everyone received a stack of paper, about 20 pages, containing the budget. Now someone is reading off each number straight off the tables. What a goddamn waste of time. There's enough bullshit here to fertilize every rice field in Miyagi.

"Your roaring tiger style will never defeat my urinating bulldog style."

(Seen in Osaka.)

Where was I? Oh yes, we just got back from Hiroshima.

Our next day was spent in Osaka with my buddy Mitsu. Although I don't really have any photos from there except on my phone, we walked all around Namba, tried some okonomiyaki and some shabu-shabu, and took pictures in front of the Kuidaore drummer boy. If haven't been there you'll have no idea what I'm talking about, which is exactly why you should go and see it for yourself!

The next day we went to Nara, home of pretty much All Old Cultural Sights in Japan. First stop was Nara park, where I bought a pack of deer biscuits and gave them to Mom. Watching her freak out while a dozen deer surrounded her was worth the 100 yen. We wandered a bit before arriving at Todai-ji, the big big wooden temple, where the cherry blossoms were actually blossoming.

Spring strikes back in Nara

And of course, the inside of the temple is really cool, but they don't allow tripods inside-- precisely because it's impossible to take a good photo of the inside without one, and they want to sell you their photos. Screw that, I'll put the camera on a ledge and take my own anyway.

Inside the temple

Afterwards, we meandered up the hill and had lunch in a small restaurant that didn't look like it was doing much business, then wandered around to see some other temples.

I'm not sure why I was so fascinated with this wall.

Some neat bronze lanterns up the hill

Next stop was Nikko, which we thankfully hit out of tourist season. Located near Tokyo, Nikko is another place famous for its temples. The first night we were directed by the hotel owner to a yakitori restaurant; the walls were covered in business cards and paper money from all around the world. Most of the customers were English-speaking foreigners, and so the staff were used to people who didn't speak Japanese. What caught my eye was the surprisingly mature 5 year old kid who was astute enough to figure out what orders went to which person at each table, and even gave everyone at one table a piece of gum from a plastic box. When our order came, he walked right up and sat down in the empty chair at our table to eat his dinner. When he was done, he quizzed me for a while on different things in the restaurant before bringing a book over to look at. I asked him to draw his favorite animal and just chatted with him for awhile. At one point he asked me with a straight face if I was Japanese, which is seriously the best compliment I've ever gotten.

The next full day was spent wandering around the rest of the temples and then taking a bus up to see Kegon falls. That twisty one-way road up there is awesome. At night I met up with Ian, who had arrived that evening, and we stopped by the conbini to grab a couple beers and chat for awhile.

The one in the middle just caught a whiff of natto.

The tomb of Tokugawa

Final stop was Naruko up in the mountains near me, where I hoped to treat the parents to some relaxing hot springs. My buddy Yassan helped secure the hotel reservations, and I have to admit he has excellent taste. The food was fantastic... at least I thought so. He also drove us all the way out to Matsushima with his two daughters who had never been there. I had exactly 3 photos left to take on my card, and none of them are really better than previous shots I have of Matsushima.

Anyway, that's it for continuity. Now maybe I can go back to posting random stuff again.

(My laptop keyboard is crapping out on me, so this entry is going to be a bit more brief than I'd like. Thankfully I know how to remap keys.)

After walking all around Kyoto, I figured a day of relative rest was in order, so the next day we went to Himeji to see...

Himeji castle

While the castle itself is about 10 minutes walk from the station, we took a cab because we were all getting blisters from walking so much. And as it turned out, the cabbie was quite a chatty fellow once he figured out I spoke the lingo. He pointed out a couple restaurants before dropping us off at the back entrance to the castle (as close as one could get by car). The cherry trees weren't quite in bloom yet, which was a bit disappointing. Mom complained about going up into the tower but I think she had fun overall.

Back by the hotel in Kyoto, I bought a bag of donuts from Mister Donut. Apparently it was a MAGICAL bag of donuts.

The amazing levitating donut bag

Next day was a trip all the way out to Hiroshima. Normally this would be like taking a trip to Los Angeles from San Diego, but since Mom and Dad had JR passes it didn't wind up costing that much. The standard peace museum was part of the tour, but I always love going to Miyajima for the oysters and the view.

Pagoda, building, and a cherry tree

Dad and I decided to ride the cable car up to the top of Miyajima, so we paid the expensive ticket prices and hopped on. In reality, the ropeway system is a pair of lifts, one which takes you most of the way up the mountain to a minor peak and the other which takes you from there across a yawning gorge to the very top. As fate would have it, the second lift broke down just as we hopped on, stranding us at the bottom. The attendant stamped our tickets for a refund and told us that he'd never heard of this lift breaking down before. He then started up a narrow steep maintenance trail to meet up with the people stuck at the top. And of course, we followed.

Halfway up we stopped on a ridge with a breathtaking near-360 panorama of the entire island. This is what we saw:

A rare sight, indeed

After about 5 minutes the adventurers from the top met us and we returned to the first lift, where I chatted with some ladies who had come up on holiday. They were very impressed with Dad's photos of the waterfall in northern Arizona, which he had forgotten to delete from his camera.

I bought some gifts and some snack food, one of which was the spicy rice cracker from hell. I ate about half of it, and gave the other half to a couple college students we met on the trolley back into town. One was a local, and once he was finished gasping for water, he gave us some great advice on where to go for some good okonomiyaki. It turned out to be a part of town very much like Kokubuncho in Sendai, with little side alleys to get lost in. I believe I had some from a different restaurant on the same street when I went there before.

My parents just got done with their big trip to Japan. Okay, here goes. I'm going to try to list out the stuff we did. I'll leave it up to them to fill in the gaps in the story.

We started out our journey at Narita airport in Tokyo. I'd taken the shinkansen down from Furukawa and was unlucky enough to schedule a train for myself which had no unreserved cars (?) and wound up standing between cars the whole hour and a half down to Ueno. I met my parents at the airport, and we took a train back to Ueno and a cab to the hotel. The hotel itself was right in the middle of Asakusa, the perfect location for that old Tokyo feel.

After a rather fitful sleep, we decided to take it easy the first day. We walked through some back alleys looking for food on the way to the subway station to Ueno. Mom couldn't find anything she wanted to eat, so we wound up strolling into a Denny's, of all places.

We took a stroll through Ueno park, admiring the cherry blossoms along the way, only to discover that the museums were closed that day. I can't remember doing much else that day aside from a bit of shopping and howling at the moon.

Next morning we got up early to go to the Tsukiji fish market... at least, I think. I was feeling extremely dizzy for some reason, so I just staggered around behind my parents, attempting to walk in a straight line between the towers of styrofoam fish containers and the legions of motorized fish carts trying to mow everyone down. To my surprise, as we walked out of the maze of seafood my brain figured out which way was up, just in time for an old guy to walk up to us asking if we wanted to try some sushi. Hey, I figured, while we're here we might as well indulge. "OK, sounds good," I replied. That's when he points to the motorized fish cart. All three of us step up onto the plywood bed, and before we've even gotten a good grip on the rail he takes off down the street! Mister Toad led us on a fantastic wild ride through the back alleys of the fish market to a small sushi bar about 3 meters wide. That was some pretty fresh tuna, let me tell you. We then hopped on a train to Harajuku, where I promptly attempted to get us lost in the throng of teeny-boppers. And yes, we did see some Harajuku girls with their latest styles and such, but I didn't have the time to stand around until I could get a good photo. So we went to Meiji shrine and then called it a day.

Our last day in Tokyo we went to the Imperial Palace to walk through the gardens before hopping on a shinkansen to Kyoto. The gardens weren't quite as green as I remember, but then again the last time I visited them it was summer. The cherry blossoms seemed to be blowing out like it was going out of style though, so I guess it was worth the trip anyway.

This man was bent over on the bridge, but I'm not sure whether he was looking at the fish, looking at his reflection, or just passing gas.

On arrival at our hotel in Kyoto, we pretty much just sat around getting settled in and figuring out where the restaurants were. Our hotel wasn't just close to the hotel; it was actually inside it.

The next day I wanted to show off the sights of Kyoto, so I picked up some all-day bus passes and we rode a crowded bus to Kiyomizu-dera. I figured Mom would want to wander along through all the little stores in Gion, and I was right; we didn't even get up to the temple until around noon. But the nice thing about the big temple areas like this is that just watching the people milling around is fun. I seem to remember taking group photos for quite a few people that day. Some folks get really dressed up.

Sorry Jennifer, I tried to take some pictures of Harajuku girls but they didn't come out so you'll have to settle for Maiko girls in Kyoto instead.

And of course, the main attraction of Gion didn't disappoint:

Kiyomizu-dera

At that point it started to rain a bit on and off. It never poured, but it was enough to egg us on a bit faster than I went last time. The blossoms weren't out yet, so instead of taking the canal road all the way to Ginkaku-ji, I just decided it would be better to make it to the big orange Heian-jingu, catch a bus to Kinkaku-ji, and then go home. As we entered those giant orange gates, the rain really started to come down for about 10 minutes, giving me enough time to figure out where the bus stopped.

Thankfully, the rain stopped just as we were getting off the bus, and the winds died down to a breeze, as if the temple itself was posing for photographs.

On the way back to the hotel, I winked and waved at some girls on the bus. After we arrived, I dug into my bag of tricks and planned out the next few days....