Alllllrighty! Here we go. From the 28th of December or so until the 6th of
Jan I headed off to Tokyo. Mostly I will work on this in the same order as
the pictures came out on my webpages. (www.dons.net.au/~nevre)

So, firstly, I had to get to Matsuyama, the nearest airport. The nearest
big city is Yawatahama and the fire station there is nice enough to host
the vehicles of travelling ALTS. Next is a train trip. You have two
options. Either catch the 'local' which runs every hour or so and takes a
bit over two hours to get there and is 1000 yen ($14) or the limited
express which runs every half hour, takes 45 minutes and costs about $30.

Anyways......a short time after that I was in Tokyo. A cool monorail trip
was required to get me to the Yamanote line. This is operated by JR (Japan
Rail) and is green, green on the maps, green on the trains. Basically, if
you go to Tokyo, look for the green trains and dont get off them. It goes
round in a big loop and everything that is anything (with a few minor
exceptions) is on this line. Travelling ro9und it at night is awesome (and
warm in winter, even the seats are heated) as you pass from one island of
neon and high rise to another. I took the opportunity to check out a few
digital cameras and minidisc players and whatnot round town then I headed
off to find my hotel in Ryogoku and in the end it turned out to be
directly opposite the big sumo hall in Tokyo, and I mean, it is bloody
huge! I had a bit of a wander around the area which was packed with neon
and convenience shops and little old Japanese noodle shops. In my hotel
room was an add for dominoes Pizza which I will puit on the net...pizza
here is topped with things like tuna, corn, eggs, mayonnaise, various
seafoods and strangish cheese. You can get pepperoni but its hard to get
more than two or three different things on one pizza. (and the local pizza
place is about $25 for a large pizza here!).

Next day it was off to the airport to fetch the fetching Ash Taylor, an ex
many times removed but still good friend, who was on her way back home
from studying in Canada. So, another $14 gets you to the airport if you
know where the cheap train is...took me about 20 minutes to find it
wandering around Ueno (the nice big park area). *smiles* Its just over an
hour out to the airport.

So, it was great to have Ash around, we had a lot of fun together in
amongst some typically heated argument. We spent the first day checking
out many electronics shops for cameras and minidisc players and just for
the fun of it! In the end (many many days later) I bought a canon
powershot s40 (neat little camera) and a mz-n10 sony minidisc player. I
bought them both second hand and saved about 50% compared to buying them
new in Australia. I am sooooo happy with my toys!

For most of the time in Tokyo we stayed in a really old Japanese house run
by a very friendly old guy as a hostel. It was called English house and
was cheap ($30 a night)(cheap enough that many people in my office
woulodnt believe me till I showed them a receipt), right near the GREEN!
JR line and good all round! It also had no curfew (many hotels and hostels
in Japan have a 10 or 11 oclock curfew.)

Ok, I will try and get with the plan now. Page 1. Top left to bottom
right. The communications building in Odaiba. Odaiba is a new suburb in
the Tokyo Bay which is mostly built on reclaimed land, it is very new,
exciting, has a few interesting buildings and was one of the few places
where everything was open. Over New Years many people go home or away so
Tokyo was virtually empty for most of the time we were there...except for
the shrines but I will get to that later....Apparently the Government has
a plan to reclaim a large part of the bay in the form of an Island which
would require the removal of the top 10% of all of the mountains in Japan
to get enough dirt. Next we have an example of wood block printing from
the Tokyo Edo museum (which was really cool, all about the history of
tokyo, very detailed!) Capsule Hotel: This was one of the best experiences
I had in Tokyo. On my last night I stayed in one of the famed Capsule
Hotels, it was called Green Fields or something like that. These places
are for businessmen who are out too late or are too drunk and miss the
last train (apparently there are only a few that accept women). So, I went
in, put my shoes in a locker, got a velcro wrist strap with my locker key
on it and went to my locker, changed into a light yukata (guys kimono
thing) and some shorts and proceeded to cruise round the nicely warm hotel
in not very much. There was a whole floor of hot baths and spas and saunas
(one of them was 96 degrees, that was amazing!) There are bars and a
restaurant and rooms to lounge in and smoke and watch sport. There is a
huge room with mirrors and shavers and hair gel and deodorant and whatnt
for your groming needs. There are massage stations everywhere (but they
are expensive)....its interesting seeing a bunch of women working in the
spa area where everyone is walking about naked....Then back to your
capsule (which was just big enough for me sleeping diagonally) for a bit
of TV and sleep. All in all it was very relaxing and fun! The car lift was
in Odaiba and the car below it drives itself around following sensors in
the road (we went it in, was good fun). I was kicking myself cause they
let you test drive cars there (Toyota) including the top level sports cars
for about $5, but I didnt have my international license on me!!!!! (I
almost cried). There is a view of Tokyo and Mt Fuji (it really is
impressive and wonderful). All the flags were being waved around at the
emporers palace which is only open two days of the year. We saw the
imperial family. The palace itself isnt so nice but it was quite an
experince. Everything was so well organised and ran very smoothly. The
next bunch are night shots from the Government Metropolitan towers, one of
the biggest buildings in Tokyo and with a wonderful view, all for free.
Ash missed out on this cause it was closed for New Years so I took lots of
shots. One of them has a building that you can barely see, it is so
reflective it blends in with the background, one has the moon (you cant
really see it), one has a big black park in the middle. There is one of
Shinjukus Neon ( a famous area) and of course the Tokyo Tower. We spent
one night walking from Roppongi (wherre all the westerners hang out in
bars but we just ate Sushi there and met the leader of Tokyos Jewish
community) to the Tower and around the place for a few hours (running into
some interesting big temples and parks and stuff on the way!) Then there
is the imperial palace and the night shots are from kamakura, the old
capital, which we got to at night but saw some cool temple action, and
they had the entire main road done up with old style lamops which looked
cool. A bit of an American moment there in Odaiba! The, the main gate of
Meiji Jingu, the big shrine in Tokyo where about 5 millions people go
through in the first three days of the year. We spent a few hours after
midnight on new years getting through this place. When we finally got in
there was a line of police in front of an area for throwing your monetary
offering in. The police all had full riot gear on and the crowd roared and
jogged towards them, furiously hurling their money at them and over them
and into the crowd before coming to a halt just before them and bowing and
clapping (the ritual actions). Got talking to a few people in the crowd on
the way in so it was all good_! It is now the year of the sheep (?!?!)
here and apparently a lucky year for people born in 1975!! Yay! Then there
are some pics from the Tokyo Edo Museum. And ONe of Shibuya for New Years
(It was packed). There were 5 huge multistory TV screens that we could see
from the square in Shibuya but no-one organised a count down, so there
were many!!! *smiles* Page 3 The top left shows a black right wing
imperialist van. These guys want the emporer back in power and an active
armed force and so on.....they had some really big fully armored busses
around the place as well and their loudspeakers were constantly blaring! A
bit scary overall really, lets hope they dont get into power. Then Sonys
robot dogs are performing a musical. I guess they are easier to keep than
a real dog..... Thats Ash with snow in her hair in Yokohama. There was a
cooll bay area there as well with an amusement park and a nice park and a
chinatown (which had suspiciouslyt Japanese chinese food) and some
interesting buildings and stuff. (twas on the way to Kamakura).

I am sure there is heaps I have missed. The huge park in Ueno is awesome,
the buddhist temple in Asakusa which was so packed an American guy said to
me something like, This is Crazy! and Im from New York. Inswide the temple
grounds there were areas of calm and also stands selling meat on
sticks...interesting. The only thing I missed seeing were the art
galleries but they were mostly shut for new years. Getting around the last
few days was hellish as everyone came home. We also spent a few days with
a Japanese women which was very nice! There were also these crazy hotted
up vans near a rock concert on new years, our 1.5 hour long search for a
single restaurant (its hard to find places from the address here!) which
turned out not to exist, walking around love hotel hill (love hotels are
wacky hotels where you can anonymously rent theme rooms for short 'rests'
or overnight 'stays' and are apparently quite popular due to the lack of
privacy for younger people in Japan (often live with their parents) and
just cause they are so fun!! Try searching for them on the net.

On the Japan page there is me doing my first Japanese calligraphy. I
sucked, but some of the kids were really good at it!!!!

Burns Night (named after the famous scottish poet) was last Saturday and
so I learned about scottish culture and ate Haggis and learned to Ceilidh
(dancing). Twas great fun and a few of us interrupted to sing Advance
Australia Fair as the date rolled around to the 26th.

So, there you have it. PLease ask any questions!

It snowed yesterday (more like a blizzard really) and last night so there
is no school today and the World is looking pretty beautiful and its fun
to throw around! Yay!

I have decided to stay here for a second year and to get involved with
Zach and his farm project (see my webpage www.dons.net.au/~nevre). Cant
wait to go home for a visit and for my brothers wedding!

Hope you arew all well!