This. Is an AWESOME toilet. It cleans your butt for you. Just press a few buttons, and you can have streams of lukewarm water cleanse your... erm, bum, for you. It's got different pressure choices, as well as an option for massage-type cleansing. Cool, ain't it now? My grandpa has one in Taiwan, and one of the obaasans (grandmothers) has one back home in America. They're not cheap, I can tell you that....
Inside my oh-so-nice Shinjuku hotel. I snuck upstairs to the second floor where it was nice and empty. Mm, so comfy...
So this is me in front of the .. err... I forget what it is. Really tall building. I think it was the town hall or something type building. Hehe. It was across the street from the Keio Plaza Hotel where we stayed.
View... I just kept imagining Go-jee-laa (Godzilla) attacking and trampling along this row of buildings... don't they look so... artificial? Haha~
Little kids! AAhh! SO CUTE!
BMW. Nice.
Wow-- there's GREEN in Tokyo? SO SHOCK. O_O Oh, it's either Meiji Shrine or the Imperial Palace. otherwise-- everything is silver and grey. And clean.
The sign outside of the building. Yup. I can't read it. Oh well. I can read the first three (the first two say "Tokyo") but that doens't help me.
A bunch of kids on their graduation field trip! We saw so many of these kids on our way through Japan. The small ones are SO cute. And these-- well, they were older, but still kind of weird, because they were all in uniform...
Ahh-- leaving the city. And into the wilderness....
of the MOUNTAINS! So green...
Ah! Here we are-- Lake Ashi:
Me, Ming, Mike, and Amy (yes, guys, this picture DOES look a bit forced):
I'm not kidding. This was our ride. Pimp, isn't it?
Mmm, kirei desho...
This guy was fishing-- and caught a fish while we were waiting! He's reeling it in right now...
About to board-- I put the hat away soon after because I kept getting afraid that it would be blown away by the wind~
CAPTAIN OF THE BOAT! Plus Mike, me, Amy, and Gordon.
Once we landed, we got on this little contraption that brought us to the top of one of the mountains. On the way up, we saw these kids on the way down-- such sweet kids! They waved, peace-signed, and took pictures of us every time they passed~ And at least four or five groups passed us!!
THE YELLOW HATS. OMG, HOW ADORABLE. CAN I TAKE ONE OF YOU HOME WITH ME TO AMERICA?!?!?!!!
My little car's obaasan and ojiisan (plus their kids on the very right):
Beginning of the cute yellow-capped kiddo pictures (Ming and children):
Amy with them:
Ming actually borrowed one of their hats:
Ah, Kevin (who has yet to come out of the closet, I believe) and the mountain that smokes. There's volcanic activity, and he just told us that, in case Mt. Fuji or any other volcano blows, that we might as well just strike a pretty pose and take a picture, so that future generations will be able to see us in a nice light instead of running and screaming and dying.... Weirdo.
The BLACK eggs... for sale. ~$5.00 for six eggs. Not bad, considering they're BLACK. Weird. Apparently if you boil eggs in the sulfuric water and the eggs turn black upon being ready...
This is how they cook them (well, after they're done, anyway):
The shells of all the eggs that people have eaten.
Crows are happy with leftovers:
And how do they get the eggs up the mountain in the first place? Well, they put them in this little pully operated contraption and send it up! Like a mini version of what we rode to get up the mountain!
Group shot (Ming, Gordon, Amy, Mike, and me):
Ming traumatized this poor kid. I tried to talk to him Japanese, and realized that I didn't know how to say "hat" in Japanese, so this is me: "Ano... Asoko wa anata no... err... haatto ga suki desu...." Hahahaha. Didn't reaaally work at all. But he still took a picture. They both made peace signs, but I kind of missed it.
Yeaaaah, don't really want to drink this sulfur-filled water.
Our next stop were the Atami Hot Springs. Oh, onsen! Here we come!!!Me:
Eric:
Our quaint room!
View from my room:
Our dinner (good gracious, it was a GREAT meal):
Ming and Gordon.
Erica and me.
Our personal hot pot!
Ok, this thing is green-tea flavored tofu, I THINK. I took a little bite and decided it wasn't worth pursuing. One of the few things that I didn't like in Japan.
YUM. OMG, SO GOOD.
Ah, karaoke time! That would be Kevin going up first to warble in his... err, beautifully inspiring voice. Inspiring in that we would be inspired to go up and sing so that HE wouldn't stay up there all night! The guy with the outer green coat on the in the foreground is actually a kid from my school, Eric. For some reason we ended up meeting halfway across the world. Weird, huh? And I had only just met him the week before because I'm friends with his girlfriend and we went out to celebrate a mutual friend's birthday...
The hot springs were behind these two entry-ways (guys on the left, girls on the right-- the character in the middle is "Yu"-- though I have no idea what it means here). We didn't take pictures inside (obviously), though Erica and I did go in and look around. We got freaked by the massive number of old ladies in their birthday suits sitting around that we just high tailed it out of there...!
Ready for bed?
Mmm... Bedtime!
Well-- until next time!
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