Japan is so yesterday.

We left Japan yesterday and made it back to cold Mongolia. It was hard to pry ourselves away from all the wonderful food and the mild weather, but we did it. We saw Venita and Jean-François; Eric and Tanisha; Daisuke; Mike, Yuka and Heagan; and Peter and Shannon. We saw Tokyo, Kamakura, Okayama, Nakasho, Kurashiki, Kyoto, Hiroshima and Miyajima.

Tokyo

Tokyo was huge and bright and clean and sunny. It was fun to explore.

The weirdest things we ate

1. Fish sperm sacks (think silky smooth and creamy)
   
2. Cow tongue (delicious barbecued yakiniku-style)
3. Deep-fried chicken cartilage (crunchy, yet satisfying)
4. Half-cooked chicken (the Japanese have a thing for raw things it seems)
5. Pounded rice balls (really elasticky)
   

Christmas and New Year's

Christmas Eve dinner was a feast at Venita and JF's place. Tourtières, stuffing, chicken, chocolate cake, oh my. Christmas morning we woke up really early to go to a fish auction. We spent New Year's Eve with Mike and Yuka (Yuka for the first part of the night). We were in an amusement park for the countdown with thousands of others and saw fireworks from behind a tree. We were in Kyoto on New Year's Day visiting temples along with the Japanese who were doing their prayers for the New Year.

Dinner with Daisuke

One evening, Daisuke brought us to this hole-in-the-wall chicken yakitori place near Shinjuku station. It was pouring rain outside and we walked down this tiny alley that had one tiny chicken place after another tiny chicken place. We walked into one and huddled in the back corner and ordered one little dish after another. Chicken skewers. Shochu (a Japanese alcoholic drink). Raw fish. It was great.

Daisuke is Ryuko's boyfriend, a woman we met in Ulaanbaatar.

The vending machines

Aaron and I calculated (on a really long walk in Kyoto) that there's one vending machine for every 60 citizens of Japan. They were everywhere! We hiked to the summit of a mountain and sure enough, there was a vending machine at the top. And we used them quite a bit. Many offered hot and cold drinks; others, cheap cigarettes and still others, beer. There was also the ice cream vending machines.

The washrooms

Heaven! Pre-warmed seats, soap (a luxury in Mongolian washrooms), toilet paper (also a luxury, heck intact seats are a rarity) and loads of buttons that I didn't dare push. There's public washrooms everywhere too. Aaron's bladder seemed to shrink in Japan and he spent his time visiting as many facilities as he could. Only one thing, why the cold water for washing hands?

The trains

Japan's train system is plain amazing. It runs on time, it's frequent and the subway and longer distance trains are well-integrated. We had one-week rail passes (thanks Linda and Michael for the quick work on sending those our way) that allowed to hop and off anywhere in the country and they were the greatest things ever.

The ferris wheels

Japan is littered with ferris wheels. Every city has at least one. We didn't ride any.

Hiroshima

It was a strange feeling walking around in a city that 60 years ago had been obliterated by an atomic bomb. It looked like any other Japanese city with bright lights and lots of shopping opportunities. There is only one building left standing in the city centre that show damage from the bomb. The Peace Museum nearby tells the story of Hiroshima and they do it quite powerfully.

Peter and Shannon were wonderful hosts and took us around Hiroshima quite a bit. And we got to sleep in a real tatami room in their apartment.

Aaron will post photos shortly.