Nikko

Nikko is awesome... and huge. It's a temple town about 2.5 hours away from Tokyo. I was lucky enough to meet a pretty cool guy from Texas on the way up there. He was separated from his group of US exchange students, so he had to ride the rails with me to grt there (his group took a bus or something). I only spent about 3 hours there (and about 5 on the train), but it was comletely worth it. The gates and entrance ways to most of the shrines are supremely ornate. Most are gold and/or gold leaf, but it manages to come off without looking tacky. There's also a carving of the see/hear/speak no evil monkeys that I've been told are originally Japanese.
Here are the rest of the pics

 One of the big gates at Nikko
 Close up of the gate
 

 The monkeys 

Sakura

I wouldn't be spring time in Japan without cherry blossoms, so here's a link to a few of my sakura pics.
http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2107858770

Tokyo Islands

You can take a tram from Shimbashi station over to the islands in Tokyo bay, Kind of like Center Island, but with more to do. They've got a mini version of the Statue of Liberty, which was also apparantly built in France. There's also a bunch of malls with some Sony showrooms and any number of places to buy stuffed animals to fill the dashboard and the back seat of your car with. On the way out I managed to stumble on a live performance by a pre-teen girl group. The fists that you see in the audience aren't being raised in riteous indignation as you might expect; they're the cheers of the middle-aged male fans, singing along. I'd say, 'Yikes!', but I don't have a font large enough to expess my shock and horror.


The tram over to the islands is fully automatic with no driver



Studio of one of Japan's TV networks

A slightly more serene view of Tokyo


For all your stuffed animal needs


Surprisingly, this places DOESN'T sell stuffed toys


Teen girl squad, doing their stuff

Gwen's Friends

I spent the morning in 2 of the popular hangouts for Tokyo young-stars, Shibuya and Harajuku. Shibuya's nothing all that special in the daytime outside of clothes and music shopping (it's supposed to have some good night spots though). Harajuku on the other hand has on top of that the Tokyo Goth Ensemble (with special appearances by the Babydoll Bo Peep Posse) hanging out at the entrance to Yoyogi Park, which also has the Meishi Jingu shrine.
An odd juxtaposition for sure, but pretty much par for the course for Tokyo.



Goth-y Rocker chix in Harajuku

Parasols and Pretty Bows
Even the local media is caught up

Smallest Room Ever

So I arrived in Tokyo after a 10,000 hour flight and another couple hour train ride, tired, but not so hungry, since they did feed us twice on the flight. I gave over my luggage to a guy in the airport who is supposed to have the bulk of it delivered to Sapporo a day or so before I arrive there. This is an awesome service, assuming that it works, and in principle seems like the best way to deal with all your luggage when you arrive in Japan. (Look for the "Baggage Delivery" signs in the arrivals lounge at Narita). So with my newly lightened load, I headed off to find my hotel room, which is costing me about $30 a night. The place is nice, comfy, relatively convenient (though not in the heart of Tokyo), but the room is small. Really small. Like 5.5x8 foot small. Still, you can't beat the price and it's a comfy bed. I'll post a picture when I get access to a computer with a card reader.


Here's the pic, finally

The End

Well, this is it. Truly the end of an era. All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go, the contents of my apartment are safely tucked away in storage. Of course by tucked, I mean crammed, and by crammed I mean the contents of the locker are so twisted, stacked, packed and strained that it makes this look like child's play. Mad props and special thanks to my moving crew of Paul, Raf, Wen, Wendell and Zach for figuring out a way for a couch to safely rest on the top of a fully erect bookshelf.

So with all my running around complete, all that's left is to hop a plane and sit through 13 excruciating hours of Air Canada ghettoness. I don't dare wonder what fascinating movies they'll play.

Ok, then, time to run through my pre-departure checklist for the umpteen-trillionth time this week.