hmmm.... so according to the plan, this day would have been rather easy and straightforward. getting up, having breakfast, bidding farewell to the lovely staff of the hotel, taking pictures of them[1-2], getting on the train to the airport, checking in, getting on the airplane, watching movies, eating, sleeping, doing stretching and stuff because my feet will hurt after some time, then about fourteen hours later and having a stop in moscow, getting of the plane and going to bed to be at work the next morning. yop, that was the plan. but somehow it did not work out that way. seems we lost a few minutes here, a few minutes there, and already got late to the train station. there we also found out we had a ticket for a very slow train, not the "N'EX" as we had it on our first day to get from narita airport to tokyo central station. but not only was it a slow train, we also missed that one by one minute. so our idea was to upgrade our ticket to a "N'EX" ticket, but it turned out we lacked about 1.000 yen (that is f****ing 7 EUR). oh damn... looks like for the first time in my live i will miss my plane. and that's just what we did. we arrived at the airport ten minutes prior to the departure of our aircraft. a grumpy guy at the check-in counter of aeroflot said it costs 100 euro each to rebook our flight. hm... did i mention we were broke? ah, i think i did. ok, so we explained to the guy that we would basically have some money, it's just we cannot access it, and also my credit card limit was reached, and blablabla. turns out, that made the guy even more grumpy. he offered we can call someone and charge someone else's credit card. good idea. it's just... it was 04:00 o'clock in the morning back home. so we tried to phone nina's parents. no one picked up. then nina's brother. luckily he answered the phone and gave us his credit card information. puh, lucky us. thanks to nina's brother for helping us out here. happily we returned to the grumpy guy, told him we can buy the new ticket. that was the good news. bad news was, the next plane was in about 24 hours. there's only one plane a day. oh great, that means staying at the airport. having no money, and not much left to eat. there were basins with drinking water everywhere, so at least we would have something to drink. although the water from the tap had this intense chlorine taste and scent. ok, so we strolled around the airport, and hours later we decided to camp at a nice couch with power outlets right next to it to charge our electronic devices. next to us was an old woman with two kids sleeping. soon she came over to us and asked if we know french. in french. well, i understood that much, so i said that i understand french a bit but i'm very rusty at talking. the lady told me a story i did not fully understand, but it seems like she was stranded at the airport with her two grand children and she needed to get somewhere. or someone would come. or... i don't know, it was hard to get the full story for me, as she was very talkative and i could not really sort out the important parts of her story. so i asked at an information desk if there is a french airline check-in around here, so she can talk to someone who actually speaks french. the lady said yes, but they will be here in a few hours. i tried to explain that to the old lady. it seemed she understood, yet she was not happy with that. so she told me more stuff i did not fully understand until i finally thought i got what she wanted. a single phone call to someone in her hometown in new caledonia. she showed me a number in her notebook that also had some comments next to it. according to the notes, it seemed like it was a number you dial, then the receiver can take over the costs for the long distance call, so the caller does not pay for it. as the lady at the information desk refused to do such call with the telephone provided at the information desk, i took our last coins and went to the nearby public telephone. i dialed the number, but it somehow was the wrong one. in the meantime the lady at the information desk had found out this number was only valid for calls from australia to new caledonia. by now the french staff had already arrived, and the family went there, accompanied by the information desk lady. the family was totally happy and the old lady thanked us over and over again, smothering us with kisses, and inviting us to visit her. hehe, well, maybe one day we will do that. after all this excitement, it was only 21 hours to go. thank you lady from new caledonia for keeping us busy for a few hours. after informing our bosses that we will not make it to the office on monday morning, writing emails to our beloved ones, and killing time with reading, and listening to music, we both took a nap. another few hours later, the shops were closing, and it was time for us to find a nice spot to sleep. so we loaded our luggage trolley again, and kept exploring the airport. soon we found a nice and quiet place where not many people came by. we had a bathroom right around the corner, and power outlets right next to our bench, and massage chairs for which we had no money. that would be our perfect place to sleep. or so we thought. around 22:00 o'clock a watchman came and said we cannot stay here. the only place to stay over night was the main entrance hall. oh crap. we also noticed other people being forced to leave their places. so all the people at the airport were herded and had to stay in one small area. arriving at the main hall we found what we had expected. around 50 people, and only benches with armrests, so you cannot really sleep on them. the only ones that were suitable for sleeping were of course already taken. oh man... this will be a long night, with not a lot of sleep. then came the police, asking everyone why they wanted to stay here, what their flight was, and checking if it was legitimate reason to stay, taking notes of the passport numbers, etc. also they almost panicked when people tried to leave the area. people were forced to stay in the area of the main entrance hall. every time someone went to the toilet a guard followed them. we found that rather disturbing. when later i brushed my teeth at the bathroom it seems it took too long, so one of the guys even came into the bathroom looking if i was still there. very very very disturbing. things got better once the policemen left, then the guards got more relaxed too. walking around freely was possible again, as they had already taken all the information of everyone. also a girl that was sitting on our bench left the area, so we even got some place to sleep. two seats for nina, then an armrest, and three seats for me. not really very comfortable, but at least we could sleep. lights were put out at around 23:00 o'clock... ...just to be put on again at 05:30. five thirty - what a madness. also they put on a tv screen and some other machines that made a lot of noise. yop, bye bye good night sleep. by now it was only another four hours left until we could get on our plane. yuhu. at a bakery we spent our last coins for my last japanese hotto cohi and a muffin, a tea and a bagel for nina. at the check-in we met the grumpy guy again, who was remarkably turned into a quite friendly guy within 24 hours. and then we finally were able to go home. missing a plane is not fun and staying at the airport for 24 hours neither - at least not when you don't have any money. a capsule hotel would have been nice, for example. i think next time i will try to catch the plane. makes things easier. ah, and remind me to bring traveler checks next time. anyhow, besides a really bad beginning, and an even worse end, this trip was still wonderful. so still thank you, nina.

last day in japan for us - buhuuu. to lighten our mood we drove to the ghibli shop at tokyo station, as we wanted to buy some merchandise stuff we already saw at the ghibli shop in kyoto on day two. unfortunately they did not have the items we were looking for, so we decided to go to the imperial palace (opened today, yay), and later go to another ghibli shop. on our way to the imperial palace we spotted an area in front of a big hotel with loads of fountains[001-014], that had different activity cycles and stages. seems like it was a programmed choreography. we enjoyed the water wall[007-013] the most. also it was nice to cool the hands in the cool water a little bit. then we finally made it into the imperial palace garden[033-049], where nina got her own multi-pass[034,038]. awesome, isn't it? but as it was again hot and humid we tried to avoid staying in direct sunlight, which is kind of hard to accomplish, as the garden mostly consists of spacious open areas. to cool down, get a rest, and get nina something to eat we went to a nearby din tai fung branch, like the one at "tobu" that was closed four days ago, and nina wanted to taste their dumplings again so desperately. the restaurant had just opened, so no queueing (wow, imagine that), and not many people. we ordered a mix of all kinds of dumplings and buns, filled with meat, fish, or vegetarian stuff. we tried a novelty[059-060], sweet dumplings filled with red beans and a taro bun. soooo nomnom and delicious - nina was happy all over. after we left again, one could look right into the kitchen, as they had a big window there. the cooks inside were happy and amused that we took pictures of their artwork[062-064]. next stop was sky tree city. sky tree is the tallest building in tokyo, and had not yet existed the last time i was here. there would have been an observation deck, but due to lack of money, and as we already had quite a lot of observation decks, we skipped that. same to the aquarium that is there too. instead we went to the ghibli shop at sky tree city. and for the first time we were officially allowed to take pictures in a ghibli shop. inside we found a lot of cat buses, totoros, and all the lovely characters from the movies. also i found the item i was looking for, a cat bus flower pot. so cute. happy me. it really is frustrating when there is so much stuff you want to buy, and actually you could afford it, but you cannot buy it, because you cannot get to your money. aaaaargh, we hated that so much. it is like you have a cigarette, but no lighter. all the cool stuff they had here in tokyo... but we pulled ourselves together, and bought nothing else, because our last yen also dwindled. and so we reduced our activity to stuff one can do without paying. like enjoying the sky tree lights[088,091,093-094,097-102]. it seemed to us, that there was an opening ceremony for olympic games stuff and as soon as the ceremony was over, the sky tree was more colourful than the days before. it was some event to increase the liking of tokyo being a candidate city to host the olympic games in 2020. so there were loads of people enjoying the spectacle. we treated ourselves with a cold stone creamery ice cream. another thing we will definitely miss. then we went back to the hotel. last night at the edo sakura, this time again in an eastern style room. and again a different room. but once more, the room was great. after having a tea, we went to bed - very tired, and very sad, as it is our last night in japan. what a great trip. besides all the troubles and inconveniences that had happened to us, it was really a pleasure, and we totally enjoyed it. thank you nina for this wonderful holidays. 1944 pictures taken.

for today we decided to go the source of all the excellent food we had so far, namely tsukiji fish market[01-25]. the last time i have been there, i saw creatures of the sea which i had never seen before. so nina was kind of excited to get there, as i had told her about my last visit here. and while our guidebook recommends to go there very early, we could not get up early today, like all the other mornings for the last week. the hot humid weather, the long walks, all the new stuff made us weary to death over time. and although we really want to see, do and experience as much as possible, it got harder and harder each day to get up early. so, in our case, "early" for this day meant something like 10:30 o'clock. but for the fish/crustacean/food industry this meant almost end of business for the day. in other words: we got there too late for the cool and weird stuff. too sad, too late. nina was really frustrated and sad. but still, we could lay our eyes on some crabs, octopus, huge clams, squid, prawns, fish, and severed body parts. all nice, but not very exotic. on the area of the fish market are some small restaurants that sell fresh sushi. but to get your food there, one had to practice the art of queueing[24-25] again. we did not want to do so (and besides that it would have been too early for my stomach to have fish anyway), so we went on to walk around the imperial palace[29-40]. no, just around, not inside the palace, because - guess what - it is closed on mondays and fridays. additionally it started to rain again in the meantime. not a good day so far, and nina got even more frustrated and sad. hm, we should have checked the opening hours prior to going there. but we will come back here tomorrow. then we drove to shibuya crossing again, as nina saw some lovely shoes at a shop in "shibuya 109" the days before, and has now decided to buy them, since they are unique, and stylish, and... i honestly had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed like they were really something very special. so why not buy them, right? and besides, it makes nina happy. which makes me happy. then we found a new spot to watch and study the shibuya crossing crowd movements. an overpass nearby. it was interesting watching the change from dry to rainy weather and how people use underground passages to cross the street then instead. so from the usual mass[46] to almost no people[49] at all in about seven minutes. quite impressive. as it did not stop to rain, and shibuya crossing had mutated to an ordinary crossing, we decided to go back to our hotel again. at the hotel i checked my credit card balance online, as ATMs still refused to give us money. and it seemed we made some miscalculations and wrong estimations of how much cash in total we would have left. so to make sure, at first we put aside the money we would need for transportation to the airport. then we put aside the money we would need to pay the hotel. uh damn, we were missing around 3.000 yen (appr. 25 euro) to pay the rent. so we returned our suica cards, and got the deposit of 500 yen for our two cards each back. so 2.000 yen to go, and no cash anymore. desperately, i gave it a last try at an ATM using my credit card with smaller amounts to withdraw, hoping i would get at least some cash. and starting from 50.000 yen descending in steps of 10.000 i got some money at trying 10.000 yen - yippieh, we got cash for food and stuff. so 8.000 yen that we can spend on last day. not much, but better than nothing, right? lucky us. nice. with all the excitement and horror of almost not being able to pay the rent, we thought it is the perfect time to enjoy the private onsen for the last time. and yes, it helped to calm down and relax a bit. oh, we will definitely miss that onsen.

first thing today in the morning was to check if i had packed all my stuff for the camera. i had, and the cam was working properly - good. so we were ready to take the metro to the senso-ji, a popular, highly frequented, and pretty colourful temple in the asakusa district. but to get there, one has to walk through the thunder gate, aka kaminarimon[001-005], with a huge lantern[001,002,004,005] in the middle and a wooden carving of a cute dragon[004] at the bottom of it. the statues of fujin and raijin, the gods of wind and thunder are placed at the sides. next one has to walk down nakamise dori[003,007], the shopping street leading from the first gate to the second gate, where one can buy all kinds of stuff - from touristy souvenirs[007] to super cool things[006]. nina was looking for souvenirs and those wooden sandals, but could not find a pair she liked. having reached the hozomon[008,009,011-014], the second gate, one can see two big metal lanterns, or toros, and huge straw sandals[014] on the back of the gate. right next to the gate is the temple[017-025]. loads of people, incense sticks, and dragons to see, smell and find there. time for a way smaller and much less popular shrine, namely the inado jinja, or cat shrine. the one i have searched so desperately on my last trip, and i took me two attempts to finally get there. so we walked there by foot to get to the inconspicuous cat shrine[032-043]. this place has not changed much, except for the watering can "altar"[038] and the tables and seats they put there to have a rest. we bought an ema[041], wrote down our wishes on it, and hanged it to the tree, where i had hanged my ema five years ago. also we did do some praying at the shrine. the procedure was described by a sign fortunately. the ritual starts with throwing a coin into the offertory box, then ring the bell to get the deities attention, then bow twice, then make your wish, then clap twice to get the attention again (i think), and finally bow again. done. now that was easy. at least for nina. i mixed it all up and did it all wrong. i hope the cats are not angry with me (n)ow. after a little rest we went back to the senso-ji, because nina wanted to do some souvenir shopping on the nakamise dori again, and also we wanted to try out omikuji[050-058], the fortune telling paper strips. to do so, one has to grab a big, heavy metal box full of wooden sticks[050], then shake it thoroughly[051], then shake it thoroughly[052], then shake it thoroughly[053], then rest a little[054] from the strenuous shaking, then turn the box, and get one wooden stick[055] out of a tiny hole on the top of the box. on the stick some symbols are imprinted, which you have to match with the symbols on loads of drawers[057]. once you found it, open the drawer, and take out your fortune telling paper strip[058], which will tell you your future. fortunately, they have english translations on the sheets at the senso-ji temple. and once more, nina's future was brighter, better, and shinier than mine. blessed with good luck, we walked on, and nina bought some incense sticks. again we made our wishes, and put the sticks into one of the big censers as described on the packing. next, we walked towards the sumida river bank[084-089], where we found a ghibli shop, but unfortunately it was closed. too bad. have the paper strips been wrong about our luck? hm, let's hope not. so we walked on, saw a cute cat[084-085], on the other side of the river the asahi flame[086-088] (aka the golden turd), and the panda bus[089], a small bus that drives around asakusa district and definitely looks cool. i would love to have such a vehicle. then we drove on to ueno to stroll around in ueno park and the nearby area. when we got off the station we found a bakery[091-096] selling cute little pies and cookies, inspired by the animals of the nearby ueno zoo. so we had a hotto cohi, and a tiger and turtle biscuit. so cute, so good, so sweet. we were quite fascinated by the huge water lotus pond[097-103,107-113] and the lotus seed pods - yeah, we both definitely do not suffer from trypophobia[098,103]. and actually everything related to the lotus flowers[107-109,111,112]. but they also have a boat pond[119,121] right next to the lotus pond, full of hungry fish[122-125], and hungry turtles[126-127]. and a cat lady[117,118] was there petting and combing a cute cat that seemed to enjoy that very much. by now it was already late and it got dark, and nina got hungry. so time to go to the near-by shopping streets to grab some food. so we entered ameyoko, a busy market street, that seemed to have loads of places to grab some food. a hawker showed us a menu on the street, and it looked good and delicious, so we agreed to be taken to the restaurant he works for. after following him for quite a while through a labyrinth of small and narrow streets, we finally arrived at a stairway that brought us down into the basement, where the actual restaurant was. we tried shabu shabu, a japanese dish with a pot of boiling water, where you can put in all kind of stuff, like vegetables, sliced beef, etc. while it was delicious and tasty it was also quite expensive. more expensive than the pirate meal we had a few days ago. in fact, it was the most expensive meal we had in ages. we are still not really sure if this had to be that way, or it was some tourist rip off we fell for. oh well, at least we tried shabu shabu once. and we are now a big step closer to my credit card limit. we don't have much cash left, and i don't think i can withdraw any more money. back at the hotel we moved in to the western style room. we both agreed that we prefer the japanese style rooms, as there's no tatami floor, no paper wall windows, and the bed takes up way too much space. also the toilet seats were different and less nerdy as the ones in the other room we had. but still, the room was wonderful and i am sure we will have a good night sleep.

the unthinkable happened today. and now that i think of it, i do not know how this could have happened. usually i charge the battery over night, put it into my cam the next morning, turn on my camera, check for the CF card to be inserted, add a new folder each new day, and check the time offset to my gps tracker. but this morning i did none of these things, simply because i... forgot. i guess. i forgot if i forgot. while not creating a new folder and not checking the time synchronicity is a not so severe thing to omit, not putting in the battery pack is. and so i ended up in ikebukuro with a huge, heavy, and dead camera. my bad, so sad - buhuuu... well, there has to be a first time for everything i guess. also i did not like to go back to the ryokan again to get it, so i thought let's try something totally new this day: a day on my japan trip with- out my beloved camera. crazy, ha? turns out you look at things more relaxed, as you do not have to worry about moments you did not capture in a picture. so i left this job to nina. but, for you to participate in this day trip to huge shopping malls, i will put it into words only what we did today. since a lot happened, this means a lot of words. just for you. and don't do the TLDR thingie here, it would make me really sad. really. so, here's the day... first thing in the morning was to extend our stay at the wonderful edo sakura hotel. while we asked a few days ago if we could stay longer, the owner told us there's no free room for this weekend. but while browsing the site at booking.com today for a new hotel, we found the edo sakura to be vacant for the last two days of our stay, which surprised us. so i decided to go downstairs and book right away. but lucky us, it turned out that there actually is a room for all the days we stay here in tokyo. yay, so we booked again. but this time a western room for two days, and a japanese style room for the last two nights. puh, we were really happy. after that we took the metro to ikebukuro, a district full of little shops and huge shopping malls, like "seibu" and "tobu", both very famous in japan, and both operating their own railway line (seems this is a nice add-on to have for huge companies?). starting with "seibu" we got a multi-storey mall full of shops with edible stuff. all kind of known and unknown dead animals, products of, or by them, tons of variations of sweets in all kind of flavours, colours, shapes and consistencies. overwhelmed by the variety, we bought a thing from time to time, because it looked so delicious, and we could not resist - we simply just had to buy a sample to try. and every time we did so, it was all nomnom and delicious, and sometimes strange and new. those shopping malls are really impressive, and sometimes they seem to me like a little town in this huge town of tokyo. but there was a reason we came here, besides all the things one can do in malls. and the reason is called "din tai fung". yes, that excellent dumpling cooking company we got to know in taiwan. they had some branches here too, and ninsti wanted to relive the experience of having those little hot and steamy dainties, which she was craving for so much, on her palate again. the restaurant is in the other big mall called "tobu". but hey, for some unknown reason the entire mall was closed on this day. poor nina, so close, but closed. being very depressed we had to find something for cheering up. and what would do a better job than petting a cat? right, nothing. so we went to the next huge mall called "tokyo hands", because on the eighth floor they have the "nekobukuro", a cat house in ikebukuro, with a little shop outside, where i have already been back on my last tokyo trip. so we entered the playground, found loads of cats, and also loads of people - this place seems to be very popular. the place is not a classic cat cafe, but more a playground for cats. also there is no time limit, you pay only for the entrance. there are between 20 and 30 cats (we think), all kind of races, colours, sizes, and shapes (like the sweets in "seibu") - from grumpy cat, hoover cat (yes, they have a glass top under the ceiling which seems to be the favourite spot of one particular white long-hair cat) to looong cat. from the popular scottish fold, and main coon, persian and siamese, to norwegian forest, and crossbreed cats. all so cute, most of them sleeping (of course), but also curious once awoken. while we lost track of time in there, the hunger built up in nina. so we went back to "seibu", as nina's guide book said that you can get cheap food when it gets close to closing time of the food court. market criers shouted, people were busy finding the best pieces, and this place was crowded. we joined, and grabbed loads of stuff[1-6], from sushi to sashimi plates, and some deep fried stuff for me. all looking so good. it was hard to decide what to take. and the longer we stayed, the more hungry the both of us got. and it was really very very cheap. we hurried back home to the hotel and had a feast - nomnom. oh, and by the way, it's not much of use if you know some phrases in japanese like "what is that?". i used that on a lady selling me the deep fried stuff, and there were four different kinds of them. so i asked her in perfect japanese "kore wa nan desu ka?" and she answered in japanese. so after a while i replied "wakarimasen", which means that i did not understand a word you just said. asking her coworker to help out, i got to know that it was different meat flavours inside. but, at least i know that my pronunciation is excellent. hehe. in the meantime it had started to heavily rain outside. so one more reason to hurry home and eat all the wonderful stuff we just acquired. later we did the laundry at the hotel. and while i loaded the machines, it was nina who fetched the things from the dryer later. the machines were on the ground floor, and the heavy rain had flooded the basement in the meantime. although, according to nina, it looked pretty bad, the owner refused all offers for help from nina. either he was too proud, conscientious (guests do not need to work), or he was used to that - we do not know. we hope the rain does not get worse. poor owner. and i really hope i do not forget my battery pack ever again.

remember when nina wanted to go to some beach? well, today we went to odaiba beach. and to get there one has to ride a non-person train. so the train runs fully automatically, from driving to opening and closing doors - really nice. and when we got there, guess what... another anniversary celebration was going on there. this time the fifth anniversary of "united states of odaiba", whatever that means. for sure it meant tons of people and crowds all over the place. so, for starters we decided to take a nice walk to and on the beach, since there were not many people. to get to the beach one can walk down a wooden pathway that is right next to a small replica of the "statue of liberty"[007-009]. also the nearby bridge[011-013,028-029,054,058,093,108-111] somehow resembles brooklyn bridge. almost felt like NY. at the beach[011-033] we also saw a cool baywatch boy[030] for nina, and a cool baywatch girl[032] for me. let me tell you, cool as ice - both of them. with our feet in sea water, and nina's skin peeling off from her sole[031] (as she had some treatment a few days ago with a japanese product to remove callus, we spent some time at the beach. and as you can see, it seems it worked pretty good. to cool down a little again after the long walk on the beach we entered the shopping mall close by the beach. cool stuff they had there, like an automatic baby swing[035]. after some cold drinks and a hotto cohi we were finally ready to join the crowd, and headed to the fuji tv building[042-079] to go into the big sphere[040,045-046,051,069] which i had not done at my last stay. to get there, of course a little queuing was obligatory. inside the "hachitama", that's what they call the 1200 tons titanium sphere, there were more of the family attractions shown at this anniversary festivity. first of all, there were some of the minions[043-044,053,061] from "despicable me 2", a professor's lab[060] from a japanese tv series that seems to be very popular, as there's even a professor hello kitty[062], and loads of professor merchandise. then there was this penguin[067-068], loads of merchandise for another japanese series[065], and much more stuff like noodle advertisement[071-073], original props[074] from another series, etc, etc, etc, etc... so yeah, if it says anniversary celebrations, you really get a lot to see. but by now we already had a crowd overflow, and thus decided to get something to eat. we found a pirate restaurant[080-088] in one of the many food courts in one of the many shopping malls on this little island. the staff was dressed as pirates, the menu cards[085] were really stylish, and the food was delicious, and also the table was nice, as it was with a nice view[086] to the brooklyn bridge. also this was the most expensive dinner so far, as one also has to pay a little extra for the pirate stuff, like the staff shouting and singing each time a customer enters or leaves the restaurant. but hey, it was fun, and good, and we enjoyed it - arrrrigato. yeah, speaking of joy... as it was already late (meaning that it got darker, and most of the stuff was already close to closing), we decided to spend the rest of the day at "joypolis", a huge indoor amusement park from sega with all kind of attractions. actually the plan was to store our cameras in a locker, ride/see/do/enjoy all the stuff that one can rise/see/do/enjoy there, and then take pictures of it afterward. but we totally lost track of time in there, as there are no clocks or windows at all, like in pachinko halls or casinos, and so all the stuff had already closed when we got to our cameras again before getting thrown out because they were closing. too bad. but here's a little textual overview of what we did. we started with "storm-g", a futuristic bobsleigh video game with a cockpit that can turn 360 degrees. while in theory one could use a brake, nina and i did not do that, and also the two persons riding need to perform actions synchronously when shown so on the monitor. this means the team members of each bob have to press buttons or turn the control levers. and guess who won the race and got a "best team"-nomination? yeah, it was us - yippieh, we rock. next were "wild river", "wild jungle brothers", and "wild wing", all simulator rides through a jungle with a jeep, through a canyon with a speedboat, and a flight with a plane. all with moveable seat-rows, air blowing, and water splashing at the people. all the stuff was btw pronounced as "wildoh" by the japanese staff or speaker during the rides. so cute, and really fun, but pretty shaky, and our stomachs did not like the three rides in a row either. we felt a little sick. to recover we chose to do something romantic, called the "fortune forest", where you answer questions as a couple, and some mystical forest calculates your level of matching, and in the end you get a printout with all the collected facts about you. according to the mystical forest, my favourite colours should be either black or white, while nina's favourite colour should be black, and nina and i were not a good match. ownoez, too sad. and if you're sad, what's better than to shoot some zombies? nothing came to my mind, so that's just what we did (although it would have not been nina's first choice). so we entered the zombie shooter "the house of the dead 4", which was similar to "dark escape 4d" we played in taito game station in hiroshima. only this shooter was not only 3d, but also had a rotating row of seats and two screens, so whenever zombies were attacking from behind, you got rotated to face the according screen. har, that was a lot of fun (at least for me, nina though was still not so convinced of the fun in that). "dark chapel" was our next attraction. it's a 3d show where you sit in a room that looks like an old chapel. the language is japanese only, but it's basically the old fight good versus evil, and of course good wins (uhm... spoiler alert, sorry, i forgot to mention that beforehand). again shaking seats and warm air blowing into your face whenever there's fire involved in the story. cute and fun. the next thing i did alone, as nina was too scared to join me. it was called "another" but i totally failed to get the plot. basically it starts in a very small classroom, then some guy guides you around, you get scared here and there by other guys suddenly appearing behind curtains or behind glass windows that suddenly get lit. then you're brought to a room where there are several booths. you go in, get the order to fasten a seatbelt, hold on to the two handles, and the door gets closed. then you are in that coffin, it gets dark, and you get rotated to horizontally lie in there for a short while, and hear the sound of earth hitting your coffin cover. that was it. afterwards a japanese guy who could speak a tiny little english said he could not explain to me what it was, but it was somehow related to some japanese series or movie. or so i think. ah well, that was weird and strange... and if you're confused, what's better than to shoot some zombies? yeah, right, shooting zombies... in a roller coaster. that is what "veil of dark" is about. fun part is actually that the rails go through the big hall in the building[100-105]. unfortunately there were not many zombies to shoot, and the ride was rather short. but still, total fun. last thing, as we were already running out of time, was the "tokyo halfpipe"[096-099], where you get strapped to something that could be a snowboard, and you get a simulation of a half pipe. there's also a pad under your feet which you can press. by synchronising the push of the pad one can determine the amount of degrees one gets rotated. a few times we got the maximum rotation of 1080 degrees. but in the end we were third of four. too bad. yeah, that was our day at odaiba. pretty much to do, to see, and to play. really enjoyable. but after some night shots[108-111], we really wanted to get to our hostel and go to bed. so we took the automated train, crossed over to the mainland via the rainbow bridge, and changed to the metro to get home. what a wildoh day!

we started this day with a tea ceremony at our hostel, which was offered by one of the people running the hotel. so the lady invited us into the little tea room[02-05] inside the ryokan, with access right to the garden[01]. notice the pit, which is for western people if they cannot sit japanese style, on their knees, so they can sit on the ground and put their legs in there. also there is a samurai armour displayed, and now we could take pictures of it (remember when we did not take any at the wakayama castle because it was forbidden), and even touch it - ha. and then we started our tour for today and drove to tokyo dome city[07-21], with its giant ferris wheel, the roller coaster, and amusement parks. we wanted to take a cohi break at the moomin cafe, but it was crowded, and - of course - people were queuing outside. but soon we found out, that they offered lunch sets that are available until 14:30 o'clock. actually, we found out waiting in the queue at around 14:20. so we were the last ones to queue, and were asked if we wanted to have lunch, which we did not. instead we had ice cream desert with moomin cookies on our moomin table with moomin cutlery. but there was no huge plush moomin sitting at our table, which made us sad. and while the waitresses carried the plush toys from table to table to shuffle the mute companions, all we got was a small snufkin, the character i dislike the most (which nina found quite amusing, and inspiring to mock[28] me). pah, snufkin... i wanted a moomin, or maybe cute stinky[29]. well, also nina was disappointed we did not get a moomin seated at our table. too bad. we came to the conclusion, it might be we are gaijins, thus most of the times getting not the best tables in bars, restaurants, cafes, and now, not getting the beloved moomins. but at least nina got a free plate with her order, as there was moomin day on the 9th of august. so they're giving away those dishes. too cute! outside there was a big moomin[30], which we then hugged hearty and extensively, and after a walk around tokyo dome we drove on to akihabara[31-42,90-92], the electric city. here i met gullevek on my last trip, but unfortunately this year it seems he will have no time to meet us. while on my last trip to tokyo i had no troubles finding a cat cafe, as they seemed to have been everywhere, especially in the akihabara area, it was not really easy to find even one nowadays. so we asked loads of maidens, advertising maiden cafes, and even some girls with nekomimis handing out leaflets for nekomimi cafes (yop, that's waitresses wearing cat ears, and costumes that, in a way, resemble a cat - very kawaii). but even asking the girls where to find real cats did not help, although they seemed pretty surprised i asked them. but a lady at a counter in a big shopping mall could help us find one. and since it was quite far away, searching the cat cafe was our next quest. but finally we found the... "neko cafe jalala" - yuhu. this neko cafe seemed pretty small and rather strange when it came to house rules. at the entrance we got instructions what to do prior to touching one of the approximately ten cats, and how to interact with them. that included going straight to the bathroom where they had soap and liquid alcohol to kill all the bacteria on our hands. it seems all those rules work well for japanese guests and protecting the cats. so we approached the cats as instructed and had fun petting and admiring them. strangely enough only the staff had toys to play with the cats, it seemed guests were not encouraged to play with the kitties. also, in our opinion, there were way too many cats in the cafe, that actually consisted of only one room. but it seemed the cats got along together quite okay. after having extended our stay, and thus paying for one hour, while we had planned only half an hour, but we could not resist, we sadly left the cute kitties and walked around akihabara by night, but then drove home, as we already were rather tired. also we tried to book tickets for the studio ghibli museum, which you can only do at a lawson's stores with a loppi ticket vending machine. unfortunately the museum is all booked out during our entire stay in tokyo. seems again we hit a bad combination of holidays, and the new film that was just releases. oh nooooo, no totoro, and no huge nekobus, and no giant metal robot. i really wanted nina to see that, as the museum was definitely one of my highlights on my last trip. too sad.

day 15 is a sunday, and sunday means "yoyogi park"-time! or, in other words: seeing japanese youth culture live-performing all around in the park. at least that's what we expected to find at yoyogi park, as i had told nina all about my last visit to this park. but times change, and there was no cosplay folk at the spot where they used to hang out. but there was also some other festivities right next to the bridge, so we thought the cosplay people are kind of shy or fled that much people. too sad. so we went on. but the rockabilly crew[006-023,085-086] was still there. same place, and even almost all the same people. they performed their show and had loads of fun. besides that i missed all those bands. there were only about three of them scattered all over the park. again, too sad. maybe they also did not come because of the other festivity? but at least one band[024-029] was having fun and did quite a good gig. then we noticed a huge crowd and loud music nearby. we went there and found a hip-hop festival with breakdance battles[030,036-037], and live music[033-035]. the battles were special fun, as they really were mimicking and teasing each other. but all the teams had really much fun, and some of them were really really good - impressive show (almost like in LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem" video - so you get an impression. oh, but without robo-man - sorry to disappoint you. yeah, i know, i was sad too. *sniff*). but then came something new, and shiny, and total cool. we saw a sign saying "2nd performance". so we sat down, and waited. then the artist started to draw. and he chose to draw me[041-043,065]. once that was done, he modelled my head in clay[044-056], sprayed it with something[057], and provided the head with a black hat and coat[058-062]. awesome. also this crazy artist and his performance were really jolly, fun and kawaii - and i think he had fun too, especially with my bearded face. when his work was done, i gave him a voluntary fee for this really enjoyable show and in return (and i think he did not expect that much from me), he gave me the drawing - yippieh, what a cool souvenir from japan. after exchanging loads of expressions of thanks, we moved on and took a stroll through the rest of this really huge park. we saw some more groups, like a drummer group[066], a little girl with her own group of devoted fans[080], a dance group[080-084], and other performers[067-069]. i think yoyogi park must look breathtaking in autumn, when all the trees change colours. near the exit/entrance there was still the rockabilly group. i really like their name "lebels", btw. yet their wildest act of lebellion was throwing opened beer cans and catching them, drinking them all bottoms up, and then throwing the can away. but not too far away, so some other guy of the group can pick it up and put it in the bag with all the other empty cans. rebelism interlaced with highest decency. so cute, so japan. and while we thought yoyogi park was done, as we already were near the shopping streets right next to one of the park exits, we got another great performance of a guy with an instrument he called "the chopstick piano"[089-093]. it was obviously selfmade (respect for that) and was made of guitar pickups, steel strings, planks of wood, and ... of course chopsticks for the piano keys. astonishing appliance, that made a mystical, wonderful, and addictive sound. to get an impression, feel free to feed the search engine of your choice with the keywords "bazl whammy". there's a video of him and his chopstick piano online. nina bought his CD to support him and enjoy the music at home. after that long walk we decided it's time for a hotto cohi and a little snack for nina. we found the "sad cafe"[096-097], which was full of little figurines from series and movies from the '80s, like the terminator, gremlins, rocky, all kind of superheroes, robocop, neo and wolverine (yop, not so strictly 80s), star wars and trek characters, aaaaaaaaaaand a cute little alien[097], yippieh. and then we entered nina's paradise, the takeshita dori[098-109] in the harajuku district. this district, and especially takeshita street offer endless shops for young people, providing all kinds of styles, from punk to goth to hipster and all the shades in between. also they had loads of shops there providing cool dresses. nina was like someone had cast a spell on her. shopping spree deluxe. hehe. especially one shop[107] had a clearance sale (or so we thought) and was full of little japanese girls trying to get their (cosplay) dress, wigs, and/or accessory. nice to watch. also the dresses nina bought really look totally awesome (what else?), and where pretty cheap - at least according to nina. so girls, if you ever get to the harajuku district be prepared for great, exclusive, and good value stuff and buys. when we got home we were already looking forward to the private onsen. we had booked it at the reception in the morning. it is a small bath with an in-ground bath tub from special stones to keep the heat, and a glass window with a view to a small garden. the hot water and the atmosphere really made us relaxed and weary. so all that was left for us to do after the 30 minute bath was to go to bed. what a great day.

tokyo, yay, i am back. so a little sightseeing today in the capital of japan. for easier travelling we bought ourselves a "suica" card which is a rechargeable smart card, valid for metro, JR ring line, and loads of vending machines that have the suica logo on them. first stop was shibuya crossing[04], world's busiest crossing, but actually it was not very busy today. right there is also the statue for little dog hachiko[05], of which there's already a movie too. maybe you have seen it, i have not - there is richard gere involved. it's about the dog in the 1930s, who still came to the station to wait for it's owner even years after he had died. cute, faithful dog. so we paid a visit to "shibuya 109", a multi storeyed store full of fashion shops. and here another surprise: nina is also a fashion victim. we spent several hours in there, and nina enjoyed every minute of it. hehe. for the sake of fairness we then went to the "shibuya 109 men" store, which contains men stuff (but not only, as the name would imply). i was looking for some nice t-shirts but did not really find any that i liked. instead i spotted those cat-donuts in "shibuya 109" - so cute, but i did not buy one, as i was not hungry. but we had ice cream later at a cold stone creamery, where we had already enjoyed ice cream in taiwan last year. after that we visited roppongi hills[17-78], with the spider[18,21-22,78], mori tower[17,20,22-23,26,39], mori garden[25,27,40-43], and the tv asahi building[25,42,44-51]. funny thing is, last time i was here, tv asahi was celebrating their fifth anniversary. five years later, guess what they were celebrating - yeah, ten years. so again there was loads of activity in the spacious atrium. stuff i haven't seen in 2008 was the kitty shop[28-30,32-34] with the cute kitty slowly falling asleep as i was taking pictures. right next to the kitty shop was a dog beauty centre[35-38] for getting your little doggy super pimped. then we entered mori tower to enjoy a good view over tokyo. but a few things have changed. first of all, there's no "sky aquarium" anymore. then there was a harry potter exhibition that reduced the size of the observatory deck where i have taken my favourite picture from my last trip. so the room was too small to enjoy the reflections on the ceiling. too bad. also we were told we could not go on the "sky deck", the uppermost platform where one can walk on the roof, outside. the exact reason no staff could explain to us properly. so we got quite disappointed, and did not really have much fun in visiting the "mori art museum" either (which i omitted on my last visit) with an exhibition on the topic of "love". also "sky view" was pretty crowded (you know, japanese style crowdedness). another fact that did not really amuse us. so far it was really much of a disappointment, when suddenly a security guy could finally explain to us what was going on here. there will be fireworks today, so sky deck is invitation only, and sky view was so crowded[63]. but it will be opened after 20:45 again. so we decided to stay a little longer. ha, finally we were happy again (that was not so hard, wasn't it?). so we enjoyed the sunset[52-54,56-58], later the fireworks[59-62], night over tokyo[64-66], and at last the sky deck[68-77], yippieh. puh, if only japanese people would be better in talking english, or us better in talking japanese, it would have been much easier today. but also less fun, because, ahm, hm... well, let me put it this way: "i am free to do soup stock another helping"[79] - sou desu-ne...

today morning wakayama was still a ghost town, but fortunately we did not stay there for long, as we got to the railway station and got on the kishigawa line, the sole line of the wakayama electric railway company. the route is around 15 kilometres long, and goes from wakayama to kishi station. but already to get to the platform for this train at wakayama station it becomes clear why this train is beloved by the people - cat paw prints on the ground[88] guide the passengers to the train that goes to two stations were cats are station masters, namely kishi and idakiso. so we got on a train to go straight to the final stop, the kishi station were super-station master tama[01,03-09,11-20] was on duty[45] today, from 10:00 to 16:00 o'clock. usually there are three train cars, with special themes. one is the "ichigo" (strawberry) train, in which strawberries are sold (if it's strawberry season), one is "omocha" (toys) train where the train is full of toys, and tama train, full of tama stuff and pictures of tama on it. and this was the train we totally wanted to ride, but unfortunately only the strawberry train[82] was in service, but no strawberries were sold either. the other trains were parked in the carriage shed[41]. too bad, too sad. but at least tama was on duty (she is off-duty on weekends, and it was friday today, so lucky us). so we got off at the kishi station to admire the super station master at hard work[13-14,17,19-20,33-39]. her office in a former ticket-booth, where she slept all the time, sometimes moving a leg and once even getting up shortly to change her sleeping position. and while she consistently continued doing her job, we had a little break in the tama cafe[10,23-28], admired tama's super station master dress[21-22], including the super station master hat and a robe, in a display case. also there's a museum[04,12,40] included in the cafe, showing more tama stuff and offering the same tama merchandise items as the tama shop that was also right next door in the station hall. the station hall[10] was rebuilt in 2010 and now resembles a cat's face - meow. and there's tama everywhere. even the chairs[23] look like a cat, and the cups[24-28] and cakes[24-26] at the cafe have tama printed on it. we liked that a lot. so time to put a stamp into the tama book[43] that nina bought me as a present, and hop on the train to get to the idakiso station, where another station master was on duty, namely nitama. nitama[44,46,50-81] was more active than tama, and so we got a good impression of her hard daily working schedule. also nitama's hat and ribbon[43] were in a glass display case. actually the wakayama line was saved by the calico cat, as they had severe financial problems and were close to being shut down, when tama, an adopted street cat from kishi was appointed station master by the company. soon the station master became very popular, and people came to see tama. so the train line was able to continue services for local residents. due to this huge success tama was promoted to super station master. purrfectly awesome story - meow. but then it was time to bid farewell to the two station mistresses. so we got back to wakayama station[89] and got a JR train to shin-osaka to change to a train to tokyo, as we had discussed the day(s) before what to do next. nina wanted to go to the beach, but beaches are either far in the south of japan, or more like a family experience park, full of people and with a quite limited "beach feeling" - at least according to pictures and reviews on the internet. also our JR passes were valid for 14 days, so only one day left for free rides, and, again it was weekend to come, so all of japan is traveling. with all this in mind and nina wanting to go on loads of shopping sprees, we decided to go to tokyo right away. but as we booked our train, unfortunately there was only a seat in a smoker compartment available, so we had to sit in a smoky train for almost three hours or wait for another hour, which we did not want. nina got headache after a while, i didn't enjoy it much either - cough, cough. but we took a little joy in eating our bento boxes, which were really delicious and quite cheap, and available at every bigger railway station, like the one in shin-osaka. a really wonderful surprise awaited us at the ryokan in tokyo. first of all it was right in the love hotel district, where hotels had "hidden" entrances and two price categories called "rest" and "stay", which means either you stay for a couple of hours, or you spend the night there. also when searching for the hotel, we spotted a little cat there. and then there was the super friendly staff, really, really nice (not the usual japanese nice-level, but way beyond), and our japanese room[91-97] was awesome. also the atmosphere at "the edo sakura" is so quiet and peaceful. you enter and feel home instantly. a total recommendation from our side.