Golden Week cont'd.... Kamakura.

I've been here several times before, but it's worth photo-ing every time. The beautiful hike through a range of heavily forested hills from my aunt and uncle's place takes us down into the ancient city of Kamakura, featuring magnificent temples and shrines.

This boy was deeply into his DS. I think his family made him come on this trip when really, all he wanted to do was stay at home and play DS so he compromised by doing both. He would run ahead of his family, plop himself down and play for a minute while his family caught up with him, and then run ahead again, etc...

Bamboo is awesome.

There's that kid again! Brett and I were a bit startled... "Didn't we just pass him...?"Old, old trees received as gifts from China in the year 7th century.

A father chasing his well protected-child.

Stacks of traditional sake kegs... with Asahi beer cases??

Golden Week continued... Tokyo.


A really weird Uniqlo store in Harajuku district. Uniqlo is a Japanese clothing brand specializing in cheap, simple fashion - cool t-shirts, sweaters, jeans, fleeces, etc. Nothing high-brow, but ideal for everyday fasha. This particular store, however, had nothing but t-shirts... moreover, t-shirts sold in plastic canisters with codes written on them... it was like a giant t-shirt vending machine.

The floor was a giant mural.

My cousin Taiki and me. He took me and Brett to a really good yakitori (lit. "grilled bird") restaurant that he works at. I gave it a thumbs up.

Here is photo that I felt moved to take. Japan's cities are really messy and cluttered and much of that has to do with the fact that they don't bury their telephone or cable lines like we do in the rest of the modern world. When I first came to Japan, this was something that I noticed immediately... Why the heck are their so many powerlines everywhere?? It brings new meaning to the image of "urban jungle".

Azusa at the gate of the controversial Yasukuni shrine. It is dedicated to the memory of soldiers and others who have died serving Japan. The controversial part is that of the roughly 2.5 millions people enshrined, over 1000 of them have been convicted of war crimes by a post-World War II court. Some of these guys did some sick sick things during the war.

A bookwall.

"Live at the Budokan!" We didn't see a show, but we saw the outside of this legendary stage where many a rock star has made their Japan debut.

Oh, wait, this isn't part of Golden Week at all! This was when Brett, Aaron, Matt (above, with Brett) and I went to Tokyo to see the FOO FIGHTERS. Which rocked the hell out of us. Here we are pre-show, eating outside a nice cafe. It was cold out so the waitress brought out these really nice Scottish wool tartan blankets.