Nothing Wins the Justice

Missed me?

'Course you have. Well, here's some more news from the front lines to keep your fires burnin'.

We're gonna have a lot of great photoes to show at NerdFest this year, to be sure.

Day 6 - In which a Liv gets pissed on by a toilet

Today started in the same way many subsequent ones did: with devouring a ton of Pocky. I think I ate about 3 packs just this morning, just while chatting with Ashnil and Andrew. Then, it was time to ninja.

This morning's class was run by Nagato sensei, apparently the most influential of the Japanese shihan amongst practitioners in Australia (not counting Soke himself of course). Nagato has something of a thuggish reputation around here. Just the other day he called for any students who had newly been graded to the rank of go-dan, and when one put up his hand, Nagato proceeded the hurl the man across the concrete floor of his dojo BY THE BALLS. Like some sort of ninja drill sergeant, he also has been known to rant that his class are "worms" or "amoebas" as he taught them.

It was this reputation that left me largely unprepared for the man: In actual fact, Nagato sensei was full of humour, and a lot of fun. I liked his approach to teaching as well, though I likely would think differently had it been me that he hurled by the family-jewels. His teaching today was simple and powerful, building on Soke's recent teachings but incorporating more strikes than Soke, with the net effect of his techniques looking less like the enemy walked past you and fell over, and more like you nutted 'em with your elbow. A little less subtle, in short.

Nagato's wasn't the only class today, however. In between classes we returned to the Saizeria for some protein, which is where I had my first (and hopefully last) encounter with those fancy Japanese toilets, as seen on The Simpsons. You can tell when you're in the presence of luxury here in Japan, and you can trust me when I say this was one luxury toilet. We're talking heated seat, lemony-fresh smell, complimentary magazines, and a huge button panel at the side covered in dials and thingamies. Once I had taken time out for number one, however, two flaws became apparent to me. The first, was that the entire thing was covered in kanji. That is, not only was it alien language incomprehensible to the modern man, but it wasn't even that dinky katakana alphabet whereby they can pretend they're not just writing English, while we gaijin can read it with little difficulty while sniggering at the quaint customs of the locals. When stuff is in kanji you know you're in trouble. It's the Japanese way of saying "This isn't FOR you". More worrying, however, as I stared down at the quietly buzzing porcelain monster I had just soiled, was the lack of any visible means to flush it. Aside from the button panel, there were no visible control mechanisms whatsoever. So I did what I would say seems to be the right option in this circumstance: I leaned down over the button panel, studied it briefly as though I could somehow read it, the pressed the big blue button up the front.

Immediately the buzzing noise intensified. To my chagrin, no flushing occurred. A thin white appendage extended within the bowl, humming menacingly. I raised an eyebrow. There was a sudden 'click'. I jerked back. Suddenly: Yeeaaarrrgghhh! It was shooting a powerful jet of water out, directly at my face.

Dripping and shellshocked, I staggered out of the cubicle and straight towards the soap, drawing the stares of some bystanders. The moment that I shut the toilet door, there was a click. The toilet flushed.

Once I had cleaned myself up some, and Andrew had finally stopped sniggering, Gillian showed us the way to the Grandmaster's old house (now full of cats), and the Bujinkan Community Center (where ninja give back to the community by, um, contract killing? I don't know, really). More importantly, yours truly bought a cool new bokken: stained black hardwood for superior Elo-slapping power. Very well balanced, too. Just gotta work out a way to get it home...

That evening's class was run by Noguchi sensei. He was good fun, and has become the favourite Japanese shihan for a few of us. He always seems to be ever so slightly inebriated, and smiles almost as much as Ed Martin. His class today was on trickery: disguising your moves as other moves, and cool stuff of this sort.

Unlike the other shihan, Noguchi sensei doesn't use an interpreter. He doesn't need one! This isn't 'cause he speaks English (although I have my suspicions that most of the Shihan and Soke could speak English well enough if they wanted to) but because he teaches in such a way as to make words unnecessary. In fact, some of us have found that the way he displays the technique and occasionally takes on an exagerrated stance reminiscent of the correct movement (as a helpful analogy) can often convey the feeling of the move a lot more efficiently than a description in words. Oftentimes a simple mnemonic used by Noguchi sensei (such as comparing a stance to 'the tango') can make a technique very memorable. I was able to remember more stuff after his lessons than anyone else's.

On the way back, I got another nice hot lemon tea out of the drinks machine to ward off the chill. Tonight was laundry night, so we retired early.

Sorting through Ash's wet underwear looking for my ninja sock is disgusting. Everything he wears looks like a jock-strap. Ugh.

Day 7 - In which Liv gets a wicked tat on his neck

Today I saw my first fat chick in Japan. I don't envy her in this country, must be a hell of a life what with everyone's first thought being "whoa, bitch!", but I can see how she got that way. I ate a whole pie on my own today... And just writing that now makes me hungry.

Naguchi sensei ran a basics class this morning - a special extra class that wasn't on the roster. Ash and I are glad he did, because it was a darn good class. Again, sensei's talent for explaining things without words was amazing - and both me and Ash are sure to have learned something.

After the class we headed back to kick Andrew out of bed, and started on our biggest trip yet: the journey to Kamakura!

Kamakura is a fabulous little seaside town with some of the most expensive damn hot-dogs I've ever seen. It was here that we came to catch the ambience of non-Tokyo Japan (Tokyo apparently being quite unusual in many ways - which is easy to believe).

Kamakura was very touristy. This meant some lovely tree-lined avenues and such, but it also meant a whole lot of shouty Japanese guys trying to sell you tacky knick-knacks and those fabulous obese-American shuttles: the rickshaws. It also meant we didn't dare eat anything despite a certain hunger - not out of any concern for our pocketbooks, but for those of our offspring (who would inherit our Lunch-mortgage).

Incidentally, the buses were also pretty expensive, and the locals would glare at us as we stood at the bus stop with them, waiting. I think they were mostly staring at Ash, but it was creepy either way, so we ended up getting around on foot, as well as hungry.

The first thing many of us noticed was that the streets, buildings and seaside, etc., here outside Tokyo looked exactly as we remember them from various anime. I began to feel like one of those nerds doing an anime 'pilgrimage' (visiting locations from your favourite shows - apparently quite popular), since everything I looked at from small cafes to those blue-white-and-red flags with the symbol for 'water' on them was hauntingly familiar. It speaks to the skill of Japanese illustrators that they replicated the feel and appearance of these communities so very well.

Kamakura's shrines were beautiful, as usual, and I finally got to see some shrine maidens (although they are slightly less adorable and affectionate in reality than I had been led to believe). Wandering about, we got to see some fancy lamps, taiko drums, big ol' temples, little altars up on hills surrounded by offerings and red flags, purification fountains, what looked like a dance stage, and traditional-style inns (with traditionally horrifying prices).

I also saw some fabulous Japanese private gardens at the foot of a massive hill and all sorts of interesting architecture, in my wandering to try and find the giant Buddha of Kamakura. This Buddha, tradition indicates, had been washed out of the temple on the hill by a wave, causing the townsfolk to erect a new shrine upon the spot where it landed.

This wandering lasted a great deal longer than we would've liked, but after a lot of scouring the city, consulting of maps, overpriced food, visiting Baskin Robbins, etc. we finally did find the damn Buddha - three monorail stations away. Must've been a big fuckin' wave.

We saw a bunch more shops cunningly arranged on the way to the Buddha (traditional shops this time; remember, you can tell 'cause of the beans), but didn't buy anything in our haste to look upon the perfection of the uebermensch. When we got there, however, Ash's tour guide turned out to be wrong about opening hours in spring. The Buddha shrine was closed.

Chagrined, Andrew and I obviously set about trying to sneak in (as Ash reprised his role of "panicked citizen", hissing at us that we were breakin' the laaaw!). Unfortunately, prominent signs in English warned of the alarm system and not to enter outside hours... Meaning we couldn't really pretend to be ignorant of the rules, unless I wanted to try my "German tourist routine"... in court. I still climbed the walls at the sides here and there, but I couldn't get a glimpse or photo of Buddha even up there. They planted rows of trees in front, and hid the giant statue in a giant recess, the bastards.

And so we headed home; but not before - in defiance of The Man, who will not let us see his Buddhas, also to go with my leather jacket, and to shine on the ladies in and around the ninja class - I took advantage of the great prices on some stuff here in rural Japan, and got this wicked cool tattoo done on my neck.

Sweet as, mate.

Day 8 - In which Liv goes dog-crazy

Hang on to your hats, folks, 'cause today's post comes at ya straight from the fashion center of Tokyo!

Well, to tell the truth, there are a great many fashion centers in Tokyo, with one available for just about any age, wealth level and style. The one we went to see was Harajuku: the ultimate place for hot & trendy youth styles and alternative (read: unusual) fashion.

As it happens, however, this is also the location of a historically important location known as Meiji Shrine. Built to commemorate the fruitful cooperation of east and west, Meiji shrine honours the Meiji emperor: notable as the first emperor to actually wear pants.

This enlightened man clearly had some excellent architects at his disposal, because his was the nicest shrine we'd seen yet. As an added bonus, we even got to see a Shinto wedding procession pass through. Ironically, the groom actually was not wearing pants, but the sheer lavishness of his outfit far eclipsed our western modes. Most Japanese wear suits to work every day, so I can see why they might prefer a luxurious ceremonial robe for their special day. I would love to wear one of these to my own wedding, actually, since it makes you look like some kind of awesome black wizard. If Harry Potter's marriage scene is ever filmed (instead of happening implicitly outside our view like every other damn thing in the respective book), he will be wearing one of these.

We paused here momentarily to soak in the ambience and eat another pile of baked goods we had picked up at Ueno (I swear, that bakery at the top of the stairs will bankrupt me), bought some ice cream to wash it down, then headed out to get fashionable.

In fact, we were later to find that our chosen route through Harajuku towards Shibuya actually bypassed most of the attractions, forcing us to backtrack, but for whatever reason our first reaction to seeing the bright lights of Harajuku was to make a beeline for a store named Condom World and go from there.

As one might expect, this store was chock-full of the kind of products a non-Tokyoite might expect not to be out on display where all the mothers and their babies stroll. Mind you, such items as the 'penis pacifier' would have to still be classed as 'baby goods', so this makes a certain kind of sense. After all, aside from some kind of really sick toddler-fetish roleplay, what possible use could there be for that product other than taking some priceless snapshots for the little tyke's eventual 21st?

Be it a side-street or a main street, every part of Hatajuku sells high fashion at high prices. Needless to say, we much enjoyed a bit of a stroll through the shops and trying some stuff on. Andrew and Ash even bought some heinous hats in honour of the occasion. (Has anyone ever thought to tell Ash that you actually have to pay back the stuff you put on Credit?)

From there, we basically walked the length of Harajuku all the way to Shibuya, where we went to see one of the most famous places in Japan (somewhat unaccountably): the big statue of a dog. Now Shibuya station is one of the busiest places in the world. Millions upon millions of people pour through it each day. It is an engineering marvel, extremely efficient, and surrounded by high-class shopping districts, massive neon billboards and super-giant TVs of all sorts. For this reason, it is difficult for me to imagine why the actually famous bit of the whole affair is the big ol' dog out the front.

Hachiko (as the dog is known) sits like a dog faithfully awaiting its master, facing the station entrance, surrounded by a very small garden with benches. Apparently the story behind the dog is that it would wait for its master (just in that pose) every day at that station, until one day he died and never returned home. The dog continued waiting at the station each day, coming back every evening to await him, until eventually it too passed away. Touched by its faithfulness (and perhaps a feeling a little guilty for not having fed it, what with it having died and all), the Tokyoites threw up a big ol' statue of the dog in that spot, and to this day it awaits folks exiting the station in its little park. Apparently that spot soon became a favourite meeting-place for all manner of trend-setting types, and the legend was born.

See, we have been to a lot of attractions recently... but none of them have been so extremely crowded and popular as Hachiko. That dog had crowds gathered consistently around it, and getting a picture with the dog involved standing in line for a while as Japanese folk from all walks of life take turns doing V-gestures and thumbs-up for the camera, and/or hugging the dog. So palpable was the crowds' enthusiasm that we were swept up in it ourselves. After a while of waiting around it we simply had to go and take a picture with the dog, even if we didn't know quite why, or really see what the big deal was. I patted its head for luck, too. Just in case. I mean, if you're going to wait in line for your personal minute of fame with the big metal dog, you might as well be thorough.

Thereafter, of course, we got to be a part of the multi-million-people-moving phenomenon that is Shibuya Station, because we had to head back to Harajuku and find the attraction we were looking for in the first place, namely Takeshita Street. This street is known as one of the trendiest places in the world, a street so chock-full of hot youth fashion that it is practically bursting at the seams with awesome. Now, that's a tough claim to live up to, but anything the fashion-store frenzy lacked in awesomeness was easily made up by the sheer amount of crepé stores lined up here, one every minute or so that you walk. Have I mentioned yet that I love crepés?

Well, I like hot girls, weirdass getups and flouncy dresses just as much, and there was plenty to look at on each count. Whereas we weren't there at the right time for the famed Harajuku Girls, nevertheless the thick crowd was a human tide of the weird and the wonderful - and though my attempts to surreptitiously take pictures as particularly bizarre looking dudes or lovely young ladies walked past was foiled by my camera's tendency to blur every darn picture I take without a tripod, you can take my word for the amazing variety of looks to be found here - even outside of 'peak' hours.

A couple of shots did come out largely the way I intended, however, with the central subject more or less in focus and the street around them blurred: you'd be surprised how bloody hard that is to do, however easy the books make it sound... anyways, I've included my two nicest shots above.

That said, there really wasn't that much to do there but shop for clothes. There were altogether too many chains and skulls on everything that looked made for dudes, the skate-shop we entered mostly had the same stuff as in Sydney, and every other male fashion store seemed to just be selling the latest American stuff. If I were a hawt gurl I could probably get pretty darn creative over here, but as it is I'm really quite happy with just the stylin' stuff I picked up for my Tokyo trip back in Sydney (which keeps me lookin' pretty well dressed the majority of the time). Once we'd had our fix of big ol' fashion-store crowds, and wandered around taking in some of the surrounds, we headed back to get ready for Soke's next class.

Today's grandmaster-level technique I shall call the "Diamond Hand". Sensei spoke of his own teacher, Grandmaster Toshisugu Takamatsu, and the hard-as-iron, claw-like hands he had from years of stripping the bark off trees bare-handed. Rather than counsel that we do the same (apparently it doesn't do wonders for your skin - Ash was already quailing at the thought of having to give up, or seriously step up, his moisturising routine), Soke told us to cultivate a means of striking with your hands that conveys the same effect without the whole deforestation treatment. Thus, "Diamond Hand" refers to his techniques for striking the enemy with a clawlike, hardened hand - but doing so without actually striking the enemy directly, nor hardening your hand. Sound impossible? Yeah, well, they all do at first. Head on down to Japan and you too can find out how it's done. Provided you can piece together what he's doing. Personally, after his second or third paradoxical statement ("you see, these techniques are strong - precisely because they are weak!"), I really just did my best to replicate what he was doing, and left the more abstract components for Gillian-sensei to interpret for our puny green-belt brains.

Best of all, however, I today got to ask Soke for a piece of calligraphy all for myself. I presented him with the fancy bit of quality paper and stiff card that I had picked up along the way, did not ask for anything in particular but let him do whatever he felt, and in a fancy series of strokes he gave me a fantastic little piece of calligraphic art. It looks pretty awesome, and is going straight on my wall when I get home, but I of course wanted to know what it was. I asked the cool black-belt dude who was acting as sensei's interpreter, therefore, and was told that this particular series of characters translated to "A thousand changes, no surprises". A fabulous piece of work, and one I'm very happy with.

Incidentally, Andrew asked for a scorpion and was rewarded with a very cool calligraphic rendering thereof. Ashnil just said "please draw whatever you think I need", and was rewarded with rather a saucy rendition of a curvaceous naked woman, thrusting out her assets.

Doesn't take a Grandmaster to tell 'im that.

Day 9 - In which the inside of Liv's nose is broadcast in panoramic HD

Today we returned to the man-made island of Odaiba for a look at the Miraikan (which translates to something like "future building"), a museum of science, technology, and the fuuuuture.

Now, Japan itself is pretty darn futuristic most of the time, and it'll be a while until most of us even catch up to the sheer convenience of life in this country... but the Japanese people are constantly looking to the future, and the most fabulous thing about this museum is that it is also a working scientific research labotatory, with the occasional big glass windows allowing public viewing into the scientists' section. To paraphrase Mythbusters, they don't just tell their theories of future science, they put them to the test. (And you can watch!)

The public exhibits were pretty fun. There was a lot of computer-vision, telepresence, user interface and robotics stuff on display here that frankly puts a lot of the 'cutting edge research' our university is always presenting to shame. Heck, even the medical inaging demos me, Ash and our supervisor are constantly presenting to all the bigwigs were one-upped pretty severely in the "future of medicine" exhibit down at the Miraikan.

It was all so well explained, too! I think an eight-year-old Japanese kid who had been to the Miraikan would not only be extremely underwhelmed by the 'Research Conversazione' or open days at our uni... he or she could probably explain our work better than many of us do.

There were some exhibits here that were downright inspired, such as a huge metal machine full of black and white balls which illustrated basic LAN networking by allowing kids to transmit binary messages (in sequences of white and black balls) to other nodes on the network. The big, clicking contraption was great fun to watch, and I just love how they did it.

There was an awesome amount of cool Japanese science on show, and I don't really have the time to go into it here. Suffice it to say that they even had a talking humanoid robot, a space station (with 'space fish', the first creatures born and bred by Man in outer space, and returned to our planet - which is to say Real Extraterrestrial Fish!), a big giant globe that showed Earth's weather patterns, the famous ASIMO, superconductors, fancy environment-aware crawler robots with a futuristic 360 degree control chamber, and a simulated neutrino catchment thingy, all in the one building. What with all the increasingly intelligent robots around us, however, and the building's hi-tech vision of the future, let's just say I was a little bit concerned when I saw this guy:

After the Miraikan, we made our way deeper into Tokyo to see the district of Ginza. This district is the fanciest and classiest shopping district in Tokyo nowadays, and if there's one thing Tokyo does well it is shopping. Big design houses do not limit themselves to simple 'clothing stores'. Not here. Rather, their impeccably and uniquely designed skyscrapers of incredibly expensive designer clothing tower stylishly above a glittering sea of TV screens and neon.

We weren't about to buy any Ralph Lauren suits, Gucci iPhone covers, or Prada sweaters for our dogs, however, so we instead headed to one of the nicest little joints in this section of the city: the Sony Building.

Here we were exposed to a vast variety of audiovisual equipment of superlative quality - as well as some pretty convincing proof of Sony being top dog in the games market over here as well. They'd be doing better in Australia too if they bothered to release some of these Japan-only games to the rest of us, methinks.

Amongst the fantastic stuff on show were some cameras with incredible focusing power, resolution and clarity the likes of which I'd never seen. Certainly these are the latest models, but they really are incredible for consumer cameras. You could shoot a HD movie with one of these puppies.

Sony had these cameras set up pointed at some sample scenes designed to show off their capabilities, such as some lovely still-life compositions of juicy fruit, wineglasses, etc. Next to these, super-HD screens showed off what looked like awesome computer wallpaper/picture slideshows - until you nudge the camera and realise this is a live feed.

Wine glasses and fruit are well and good and all, but you and I both know that the true test of a camera's power is how it deals with being picked up and shoved into one's face or pointed up one's nose. Happily, these cameras did not disappoint. Indeed, having picked up the nicest one and started playing with it with rather a wide audience (all seeing it in panoramic HD on the massive LCD screen behind me), I was awestruck by its sheer power. This was like holding an electron microscope in my hand, and the focal length was incredible. Onlookers got an eyeful of the rolling vistas of stubble on my face - each hair like a thick black stump sprouting darkly from the craggy, barren landscape of my skin.

Enchanted with my own flea-level visage, I of course pointed it up my nose a moment later. As one, the whole room cringed.

Thereafter, we had to leave in a hurry. Not, mind you, because of this little stunt, but because if we stayed any longer I would buy myself a Rolly. The Sony Rolly is one of many Sony products that are just too cool for us foreigners (although technically, you can get it in America and Europe now). It looks like something Steve Jobs might come up with while stoned. Basically, it's a small, white robot egg (with two rubber tire-tread thingies). When you tap it on the head, it's sides flap open into chobits-style robot ears, which play music. Tap it twice, and it'll dance!

And boy, this thing sure can dance. I saw it go, and I immediately wanted one. Slight problem, however, Sony is selling it at $600... which, even in my current spending frenzy, I'd be reluctant to spend on a little speaker thingamy, however nicely it may dance. Sealing the 'no' vote is the fact that despite the so-called global warranty, the only guarantee that would apply in Australia was the salesman's own personal guarantee: "Is Sony, so no problem!"

This did not fill me with confidence.

We dared to eat in the ritzy Ginza district, which I did largely by scouting around for tiny and/or inexpensive eateries and making a meal from a combination of their cheapest offerings (since one lunch will never suffice for the LivMan). It was in this way that I was able to finally answer the age-old question: bacon or tempura?

The answer is bacon. Oh God, is it ever bacon.

Also, I eat too much.

Having done this and that and the other, we were really quite sick of upscale shopping by now. Simply put, there was nothing hereabouts to keep us. And so, we decided to let the rest of the place go hang, and return to Akihabara instead.

As soon as we got there, the whole glowing district opened up to greet us like a neon coccoon. We were home.

Now, Andrew was pretty keen to get straight to some virtual reality robot warfare, and I suppose I was pretty interested myself in how to use some of the 8-10 buttons outside of the 4 I had mastered already (namely speed-boost, sword-swing, jump and snipe-the-bastard). In the end, however, I decided to browse the bookstores of Akihabara a little more closely than I had had a chance to before.

In so doing, I discovered something I already knew a little something about, but which was very interesting to actually see in action. That something was the Japanese 'Doujin' culture. You see, I figured out pretty quick that roughly half of this bookstore wasn't actually 'professional' work: vast reams of comics, here, were in fact fan-made productions.

Manga itself is full of examples of young wannabe manga-ka (that is, obviously enough, "Manga Artists") working hard to make a name for themselves and establish a readership, and this echoes a very real subculture of young people who, in order to gain experience and hopefully to one day become true professional manga artists themselves, create and sell their own comic books. These comics are typically done in homage to existing comics, franchises or shows: filling in untold parts of the story, character backgrounds, etc., or existing simply as wish fulfilment (often somewhat ... naughty) or resurrecting beloved characters from completed shows for new adventures.

Unlike typical 'fan-fiction' as we understand it, however, these works always take a huge amount of work to put together (being fully illustrated comic books and all), and are sold to other fans - often quite discerning fans (which is to say, they're actually worth buying: a lot of them are amazingly high-quality, and even the least among them display a lot of passion and dedication). Moreover, the publishing houses that actually own the characters in question (where these comics use established characters, which is a lot of the time), aren't chasing these guys up and down for a pound of flesh or forbidding the sale of their work. Actually, they use this doujin-artist group as a fertile recruiting-ground for new talent, enjoy the free advertising for their products, and use the surge in popularity these doujins can cause to sell more merchandise themselves and make big money selling the original works, etc., at the various big conventions.

Thus, these doujins end up side-by-side with original works in the bookstores, fans get all the comics and merchandise they could want, the artists have a chance to break into one of the biggest industries in Japan (you wouldn't believe how much manga there is here!), the publishers get two bites of the pie as well as free recruitment and demographics, and everybody wins!

Just flipping through these fan-creations in a bookstore is inspirational, and one more great thing I can note down about this country. I wish things were like that here.

I didn't buy much for myself this time, but I did pick up a thing or two for other people, such as Ran's requested DS-i (which I was able to find at a great price). I was tempted by a DS game myself, called Cross of Venus - not because of the game itself (some kind of random fighting game featuring popular characters) but because of the four figurines that it comes with (all of them popular characters). I didn't get it in the end, because I took too long to decide and the store closed... but I could always go back for it, maybe.

We were going to stick around for a nighttime concert by Akihabara's resident all-girl band, AKB48, but it turns out that they're actually incredibly hard to get a ticket for. See, you don't just go somewheres and buy a ticket. You go online and enter the lottery for a particular day, out of which only about a hundred lucky punters actually get chosen at random for the honour of being allowed to purchase tickets. Moreover, those tickets do not get you a seat: they only get you into the venue. See, when you're in there, you take part in another lottery (drawn by some of the band girls themselves) to receive your randomly allotted seat in the concert chamber, at which time you receive your actual ticket. It is at that point only, that you get to take your seat in the chamber, and watch the band play. This is rather a personal performance if what I read is to be believed: although they are separated from their legions of admirers by some pretty industrial-strength glass, the girls take the time to chat with the audience, and answer a few questions, etc. If it's one of the girls' birthday, you may also have a chance at some kind of special gift or performance afterward - and you get to have cake with the girls! For that special AKB48 experience, I'm pretty sure there's also a programme on offer whereby you can sign up for a video-call with one of the girls in the near future, allowing you that extra bit of rope with which to hang yourself, since you can bet that the one girl out of 52 (there aren't actually 48 of them, go figure) who has stolen your heart would be quite put out were you to stop attending her concerts. And how else would you find out what her favourite flavour of ice-cream is, or whatever? You need to KNOW!

So, yeah, digression aside, you could do all of that to get tickets. Or you can say "fuck that" and go to sleep. Take a guess at what we did.

Day 10 - In which Ronald tries to kill Liv

Dear NWTJ brethren, I direct your attention to Exhibit A, shown below. This innocuous looking foodstuff, also known as the Mc Hottu-Dogu, may initially appear to be some kind of breakfast food.

In actual fact, it is poison.

Today started much like any other day, except that the early ninja class got us up early, finally allowing the chance to taste Japan's favourite breakfast food: the famed Mc Hottu-Dogu! (Play ball!)

Unbeknownst to us, this was to make us a little late to our ninja class, because the Mc Hottu-Dogu has certain side effects. Halfway through eating his, my ninja friend ChiaPet broke into a sweat and was overcome with nausea. Muchly amused, I took this for play-acting... Until I returned to my room at the hotel with the definite feeling of needing to regurgitate this monster into the toilet.

My stomach is churning in distress even as I write this, hours later. Do not let Ronald's big smile and baseball aphorisms fool you. I would not wish this food on anyone.

Our last ninja class was today, and was run by Soke himself. As mentioned already, we were a little late, but that's OK because it turns out Ash had once again made a 30 minute allowance for our 'adventures' in giving us the train time. It turns out, it was Soke himself who got to class late - which gave us sortofa two-for-the-price-of-one deal, since Naguchi-sensei taught us some awesome stuff while we waited.

Soke's last class for us was a very interesting one: his Grandmaster-level technique for the day we shall call The Invisible Rope. He showed us how to capture the feeling of binding someone with a rope in such a way that we can really bind somebody up without the need for any sort of weapon.

The class was especially good because it served as a great way to drive home all of the things he had been teaching. After days of Soke's teachings, we had started to get used to it all, and even the cryptic asides began to make a certain sense in the context of what he was doing. In short, I at least saw it as a great chance to muster my thoughts on his teachings, and allow as much as possible to sink in.

Thereafter, the whole ninja crew headed back to the hotel area and then out to a restaurant somewhere deeper in Kashiwa. Gillian promised us the best Indian food ever, and the place didn't disappoint: my dish was extremely spicy, absolutely delicious, and served with a heaping helping of Bollywood glamour (showing on the TV above). I even got to have some of Ash's food, since the man (unexpectedly) can't hold his curry, and found that to be highly delicious also (even if the spiciness level was reduced to a womanish degree).

Here we discussed the intensive ninja training we had undertaken, and our survival thereof, just generally bonding over humorous stories, Japanese beers and garlic naan. This was followed by fond farewells, etc., a side-trip for myself and ChiaPet to pick up yet another delicious dessert of crépes, and escorting our friends to the station to see them off.

From here on in, it would be just me and Ash.

Uh, oh.

The remainder of the evening was spent doing some preparatory packing for our own trip down to Osaka, such that after tomorrow's excursion to Mitaka we could go straight to bed and be ready to head out early the following morning. I won't go into it, particularly, except to say that if these crazy Japanese made yet another strange vocational anime entitled "King of Packing", it would probably star me as the lead character. How I managed to cram so much stuff in my bags when they were pretty much full to bursting to begin with, I will never know. Let's just hope the Jetstar weight limit and I do not come into conflict. After all the effort I put into packing this bag, we would have... words.

I ate an entire packet of cookies before bed tonight.

It was delicious.

Day 11 - In which Liv isn't allowed on the cat-bus

I have found my new favourite place in Tokyo, perhaps anywhere.

It is in Misaka, which I have dubbed the 'garden of Tokyo', and is called the Ghibli Museum.

Now, excited as I was about this place, I really did not expect to enjoy it this much. See, it seems like something aimed at children, being made by the 'Disney of the east' and all, which I could still appreciate perhaps, but no longer really feel the wonder of (like that cuddly show of commercialism, Disneyland itself). Imagine my surprise, then, to find a space handcrafted for my enjoyment.

I'm not going to say that this place also features attractions aimed at adults. Not so: rather, the museum is aimed at all people, pure and simple, and aims insofar as possible to treat everybody equally regardless of age.

Step-ups were placed in front of every window and raised object so that the little ones could stand at the same height as their more 'seasoned' counterparts, and the artwork on display did not exist in a whitewashed world of black and white, child-friendly bullshit: there was artwork here depicting, for instance, a knight in armour cleaving a line of bright blood from his foe, and even a classical French painting of one naked young woman tweaking another's nipple. Overall, it was an unexpected and refreshing place, the more so in that rather than showcase the (excellent) Ghibli artwork visitors have already seen, the museum seeks to expose them to a wider spectrum of the arts, and provide background material as well as unique work created specifically for the museum (amongst which, indeed, may be counted the design of the museum itself).

The museum was designed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, the way he would design the sets and visuals of a Studio Ghibli film, and executed faithfully by a crew of construction workers, gardeners and television set builders (who are credited in a poster on-site). It is larger than the average museum, and built in such a way as to encourage exploration rather than funnel visitors in any particular way.

Comparing the museum's reality to Miyazaki's sketches shows it to have been perfectly translated. Every section has a different feel to it, with the architectural style, the colours and lighting, and the way one engages with the space (or moves through it) changing with each section.

Upon arriving at the Museum, one is met by a giant grinning Totoro (for those who don't know, this is a nature spirit resembling a really big, round bear/owl thing with a very wide grin) sitting in the ticket window. He doesn't actually sell tickets, though, since everybody who comes here must already have a ticket (given as they are sold months in advance, and limited to about 200 per day). He does, however, have an infectious cheer about him, and point the way to the main entrance.

Here, happy Japanese folk trade your ticket receipt thing for a unique Museum pass incorporating a small random section of filmreel from a Studio Ghibli film. Happily, I received a bit of reel from Spirited Away - in fact my favourite Ghibli film! Ash got a scene of an old woman exiting a door, which I don't really recognize.

Upon entry, one enters a corridor with stained-glass windows showing various cheerful things which curves down into the museum proper - already here, however, the museum begins allowing exploration options as a side passage with pillars leads off the beaten path and outside, which is precisely where I went.

Here, in the museum's center, stairways lead up to the other outdoor sections and the popular cafe. An old-school hand-pumped well dominates this space, its water flowing to a bronze happy-sun mask. All around, potted flowers are arrayed in beautiful arrangements, and doors and windows are done in a colorful old-world European style reminiscent of films like Kiki's Delivery Service and Howl's Moving Castle. A small woodshed here holds firewood, which the cafe staff occasionally come down to cut, to fuel the cafe's wood-fire oven. In the corner, a little scene from Kiki's Delivery Service is recreated, complete with her broom, for a bit of a photo-op.

Incidentally, photoes are allowed in the outdoor spaces of the museum, but not the indoor ones. Miyazaki believes that these spaces should be experienced for oneself, and not through a camera lens, and I can appreciate that idea: the kids and adults alike seemed more curious and engaged with everything than I've seen in any art museum, some of which can be ascribed to the fact that they weren't just wandering around photographing everything. It does mean, however, that neither of us brought out camera, leaving us with only iPhone photos for today.

Above the well area, more plants and flowers framed a scene of little dome houses and outdoor tables and chairs, etc. that felt a bit like Tolkien's Hobbiton (and because it was some way above the lower section, didn't clash in appearance). Here, there were a cafe and a snack bar, and a colorful mosaic-tiled hand-washing spot with little gilded brass cats (ala The Cat Returns) on the faucets. A spiral staircase inside a green metal mesh led up, and a glass walled chamber with gold-hued adobe walls, an elevator with an interesting bubble design, and a collection of bonsai trees led back inside.

Ash and I decided to try the 'colours of spring fried chicken' as a snack, and were handed a cup chock-full of healthy-looking stuff (for maybe the first time in Tokyo)... It really did have all the colours of spring, with a bed of white and gold rice full of green salad bits, light brown beans, and other colorful stuff like bits of red radish and carrot, topped (of course) with golden-brown crispy fried chicken. Well worth the price, actually, despite the usual price inflation for organic food (everything here was certified organic, etc.) and almost a meal of itself.

After we ate, we headed inside, to check out the mini-Louvre. I had expected the paintings to actually be tiny, given the tiny Mona Lisa on the ad, but this was in fact a proper little Louvre, with real-size replicas of a variety of Louvre stuff. The décor and lighting were classical and elegant, with numerous artworks gathered around a Venus statue. Visitors here explored as appropriate, quietly giving their attention to each piece in turn. Further in, the gallery environs gave way to sortofa cave feel, and an Egyptian sarcophagus and the Mona Lisa herself were among the displays therein.

Of additional interest, however, was what else got mixed in: small, framed windows that looked out into open spaces beyond containing detailed models of Paris, as well as an interesting assemblage of many more Louvre pieces behind one frame, carefully arranged to get smaller and smaller, the walls they hung on shaped to suggest perspective, etc., giving a feeling of more and more paintings stretching out into infinity. There was also a 3D reconstruction, again built to suggest perspective, of one of the paintings, itself framed near the original. In the last section was a collection of vintage posters, paintings and propaganda detailing the Louvre's own history, its destruction and subsequent rebuilding, and its symbolic use by a variety of politicians and dictators.

Incidentally, I can see why my parents left me behind when they went to see the Louvre proper. If it had been built anywhere near the Vatican, they would be calling it the Musee de Fig Leaves. Should an art exchange between an Australian gallery and the Louvre take place, I fully expect it to get raided by police.

So once we were done 'analyzing' the Mona Lisa and trying to pretend we knew anything about art history, we left the tiny Louvre by passing under the archway with the poster labeled "Le Louvre du Napoleon!".

This took us to the central chamber of the museum, which we hadn't seen yet. Beneath a big Victorian-looking clock, this space was decorated with various brass fittings, clockwork stuff, another enclosed spiral staircase, beams coming out of the wall at odd places, etc. The elevator was quite unique, there was a raised crosswalk, and generally the area encouraged people to wander between levels and down the various paths at multiple angles. As a further cute touch, there were a few tiny doors and rooms with tiny furniture which only small children would be able to comfortably enter.

From here we walked into a reconstruction of Miyazaki's own house and workspace. This was put together as a tour of his life and work by showcasing how he worked, his interests, his family, etc. all without actually telling you anything outright. Rather, items were scattered about that together wove a picture of the man's life and work. There was a room full of odds and ends, a drawing table and little treasures, which was wallpapered on all sides by original sketches, arrayed near books and such which showed the reference material used to create them -from old political cartoons and woodcuts to books full of armour and a photograph of Miyazaki's niece (looking very much like the character Kiki).

Further rooms were filled with animation cels, shelves full of books (gardening, philosophy, art, all carefully chosen), old photographs, storyboards, film reels and player machines, etc. The whole place was like getting to know the director personally.

As someone who is fascinated with the process of art and animation, I spent a lot of time in this section, and came back to it twice. The sketches and storyboards on show were amazing, and it was great fun to pore through his books, unwind some filmreels, and look at all the hand-painted cels.

Upstairs was the museum shop (notable for selling hard-to-find works by influential animators all over the world in addition to Ghibli's own stuff), and a display corridor that led to the catbus room. The corridor was full of artwork from an animation about Joan of Arc, which I didn't recognise except to note that it had a less stylized, more realistic look and seemed pretty awesome. I shall want to look it up when I get back. It is here that a few slightly disturbing pieces were on show, such as a one-eyed priest weeping atop a pile of skulls. I guess if the kids want to be treated like adults, they can't have it both ways. Not that it seemed to bother them any. Heck, I know my reaction as a kid would've been something along the lines of "way cool!" (or the German equivalent).

Beyond that was what all the kids were actually looking at: the cat-bus room. The cat-bus is a character from My Neighbor Totoro. It is a cat, which is also a bus. In the present case, however, it is the world's biggest plushie: a massive cat, also a bus, and soft and cuddly and there for kids to clamber all over and inside. Not allowed inside due to my age, I allowed myself a moment's jealousy before heading on outside. (Incidentally, near the cat-bus room there is also a Reading Room, but unfortunately we were unable to read any of the stuff in there.)

Outside, a couple of clockwork contraptions made music under the careful ministrations of a number of small children. One of the clockwork thingies also sprayed water, so we went on up to the top before some kid decided to spray us. The top of the building is a big rooftop garden, dominated by a huge iron robot on one side, and a huge tablet carved with text in what looks like... sanskrit? Whatever that script is that consists largely of straight-line horizontal and vertical gouges. People wandered around the garden (alas, no fruit this time of year) and took in the ambience, everyone stopping for a photo with the robot (from... Laputa, Castle in the Sky? I don't quite remember). Then, they went down the big ol' spiral staircase to the cafe area.

Each ticket to the museum also entitles you to a screening of a Studio Ghibli film exclusive to the museum (of which there are a few, screening at different times of the year). The cinema is on the first floor (hence, we'd completely bypassed it 'til now), and is a big colorful chamber with mechanised windows ala Howl's Moving Castle, a big sun-and-moon mural on the ceiling, and an old-school giant-projection-machine which you can watch humming and whirring as it screens the film. This doesn't impact the quality of the film negatively, however: it looks gorgeous. All the more so because the visuals are lavish, beautiful, and clearly made to the full Ghibli standard. The film Ash and I got to see echoed the story (very closely) of one of the picture-books in the reading room, except done with the inimitable Ghibli visual flair.

Thanks to the simplicity of the tale, it wasn't really necessary to speak the language to follow along. Essentially, a girl that grows vegetables (really BIG ones) trades a cart full of huge radishes to a frog and a fox for a magic seed which grows into a small clump of crystal-filled earth that floats above the ground. Under her loving care, the little planetoid keeps on growing, becoming more and more wondrous, until eventually it is a little world unto itself. Stuff happens, the girl moves away into the big city, etc., but she never forgets about her little world. Eventually, her care is rewarded with a big trip on a floating cablecar of some sort into some kind of outer-space-dimension wherein her own planet is but a tiny speck. Here, her little planet is added to all the other tiny specks, and she gets to watch it become a part of the universe proper, every bit as 'real' as the world she is from. She goes home to her own little speck, wiser and more fully aware of the wonder and fragility of nature and the value of hard work. And she lived happily ever after.

Of course, a lot is lost in translation to this medium... namely the breathtaking visuals!

Opposite the cinema is a room showing the wonder of animation and the human visual system, etc. It's basically a big room full of tricks-of-the-eye, etc., that make things appear to be moving and alive. One exhibit here is especially cool: a big wheel of statuettes which is initially visible in full, before the lights are turned out and it is spun around really fast while a stroboscopic light flashes almost imperceptibly fast. The net result is to make the figures appear not to be changing location at all, but to be moving their limbs, etc., as the human eye registers only every 'frame' of their movement. The little rabbits seem to be wandering about, the girls are jumping skipping ropes, the Totoros are bouncing, and the catbuses are running exuberantly through the air. Very cool.

Beyond that, of course, there are a bunch of little things to discover (like the happy soot-balls all over the place), since this place rewards close inspection with all sorts of clever details, but I think I've pretty much covered all I'm going to about this museum. After seeing everything, we shopped a little at the museum store, then hit the sumptuously decorated cafe for a delicious porky meal and some cocktails (all of which you can watch the chefs preparing by hand through a variety of windows, as even the food preparation is an attraction of sorts).

The rest of the day consisted of Ash and I wandering around Mitaka itself. It's a beautiful place, and we strolled past a big local zoo, around some pretty palatial residences (for Japan, at least), and into a big, well-tended park.

Japanese people get around a lot by bicycle, and there were a vast number of them tied up around the park area, as well as a great many people riding them around or just jogging. Not a bit of space was wasted, however: everywhere that wasn't taken up by various plant displays was being used by children to play, or converted into a tennis ground, or full of people picknicking, etc. Even the bare, rocky spots had been turned into... rock gardens.

Moreover, there's a thriving industry of food stalls and whatnot that have grown up around all of these popular spots - and I saw rather an interesting sight as we headed into the park: someone had converted a truck into some kind of semi-roadworthy wood-fired furnace, and (as his loudspeaker proclaimed with a child's piercing cry) was using this to bake the most delicious of foodstuffs imaginable. Given the amount of smoke belching from his truck and his own unsavoury appearance, I didn't really feel like taking him at his word and trying one of his ashy-looking brown things, but I appreciated the funkiness of his converted vehicle nevertheless.

It didn't take a lot of walking before we hit another big red Shinto shrine. No prior preparation necessary, really, save for looking for the 'temple' symbol on a map of the park. They really are everywhere, and they're all beautiful and surrounded by water, lanterns, dragon carvings and Koi fish.

To tell the truth, we were getting a little tired of Shinto shrines. When you've seen one, you've pretty much seen 'em all. But they're all highly picturesque, and it's as good a place to sit around watching cherry blossoms or eating a "Crunky" bar as any - even if it is impossible to take any decent pictures given the lighting conditions and the shittiness of your tiny camera-phone.

Day 12 - In which Liv rides the coat-tails of a boy-band

Today started with both of us fully packed, and looking with a certain chagrin at some of the bulkier items we had managed to acquire. I, especially, had perhaps overdone it in at least a couple of my purchases, which I knew full well would never fit in the space (and weight) allotted. Thanks to my heroic packing effort, I did not need to ship very much, but what stuff I did ship turned out to be a little heavier than I (and other weight-estimaters I'd consulted) had envisioned.

But then, you only live once, right?

Not long after, although I will interject that the narrative time-skip does cover a great deal of grunting and heaving to get our luggage up and down stairs, we got on the famous Bullet Train. Now, although Japan is apparently planning to build an even faster one (the E5, if memory serves), this is one bloody fast train. Moreover, it's luxurious - much like business-class on an airplane, albeit you have to pay for drinks-cart purchases. This luxury was most welcome, given that there is no bloody way we would've been able to fit all our stuff on without the extra space.

Watching the Japanese countryside go by on the Bullet Train is really something. It is a land of contrasts. Rampant industry competes for space with placid rice-farms. The ultramodern joins with the traditional and timeless everywhere you look. Rolling plains give way to rugged hills and stunning mountains. And, best of all, the train takes you past these things so super-fast, you never have the time to get bored!

One other thing that I like about the Shinkansen ("Bullet train") is that unlike with other Japanese trains, you're allowed to eat on it. Hence, the journey down was rather a pleasant combination of sightseeing, snoozing, watching anime on my iPhone, digging around in the huge bag of baked goods we had bought for fortification on the long journey, and scarfing down delectable treats.

Some time later (again with a lot of stairs and grunting... oh, so much grunting), we arrived in Osaka.

Like the countryside in general, Japan's major cities all seem to have a different feel to them. Osaka is hard to describe: it's not quite the bustling megalopolis of Tokyo, but if anything it feels denser... more tightly-packed, somehow. One gets the feeling that there's always something happening around every corner. Unlike Tokyo (which despite its bustle runs along reasonably predictable and orderly lines, with everything in its place), Osaka is chaotic: a mishmash of sights and sounds that don't belong together. Overall, I quite like the place, but it takes some getting used to - and is a good bit harder to navigate.

In fact, when Ash and I got here we joked that we had just hit level 2 of Japan, and everything had gotten slightly more difficult. This was before we walked in circles for an hour and got stuck underground.

Osaka is divided into two main sections, though of course there's few hard and fast rules about what you will find where. Generally speaking, they can be divided into the 'business-end' and the 'pleasure-end' of the city. This is rather a cool way to set up your city, but if I hadn't known we were in the 'business' section, it wouldn't have been my first guess given the look of the area around our lodgings. Surrounded by seedy one-night stand 'love hotels', catgirls and hookers as well as building facades labeled only "Information" with big signs stating "18+ Only!" on the door, and such evocatively named locations as "Gal Shop Popteen", we came to the early conclusion that if this is the 'business-end' of the city, the 'pleasure-end' must be WILD!

The Hotel Kansai itself, to my relief, turned out not to be a love hotel - and given we were paying a quarter the price for our lodgings, it was also a surprisingly nice place to stay. All set up with our room and keys and such with reasonable haste, we decided we had plenty of time to still go enjoy the rest of the day. What better way to do this, then, than to go see Osaka castle?

Especially since we were no longer paying for trains (thanks to the awesome Japan Rail Pass), this sounded like a great idea, so that's exactly what we did. Once we managed to find our way through the mazelike streets of Osaka back to the station, we hopped a train to the aptly-named "near-Osaka-castle-gardens station", which took us exactly where we needed to be.

The gardens themselves were a little dry this time of year (which looks set to be a common observation on my part), but there were plenty of folk enjoying a leisurely bike-ride through it, etc., and a long line of traditional-looking stalls selling various foods made of octopus, bean paste and/or pancake batter lined the steep paths up to the castle. These were easily recognised as frauds by their limited selection of beans, but I bought a pancakey thing full of bean paste (it wasn't even shaped like a fish, but I was in a forgiving mood) and a few 'tasty balls' nevertheless.

As it turns out, these 'tasty balls' weren't filled bean paste, or in fact anything at all: they were just balls of pancake batter. Having bought a fair few, and been given extras by the excited stall-owner (undoubtedly shocked to be selling any at all), I now had to either pretend to enjoy these, or admit to Ash that it had indeed been a terrible idea to eat here. As a man of principles, I of course ate every last ball of batter on my way up the castle road.

Osaka castle is a beautiful castle at the top of a long series of curtain walls, looking down upon Osaka from a height, and serving as a lovely centrepiece to the city. It seems like most of the cities in this region have their own castle, and they all look about the same as one another (namely just like the Japanese fort in Age of Empires III ).

The inside of Osaka castle is one big museum showcasing handpainted folding screens, imperial Japanese armour, the history of various warlords and shogun, fancy little vignettes from the lives of the founders, and a big model of the castle and surrounds back before Osaka was a modern city full of noodle stands, catgirls and sleazy pink motels. At the top of Osaka castle, conversely, affictionados may take advantage of the spectacular city views to get their fix of noodle stands, catgirls and sleazy pink motels. There is even a thoughtful safety net installed, so overeager tourists do not hurl themselves from the battlements trying to get that one perfect shot (although, ironically, its mesh gets in the way of photoes a lot, prompting many wannabe photographers to try leaning out to work their camera around it).

Overall the castle was fun to visit, but nothing too spectacular. We just about caught the end of its opening hours, so we soon headed back out, and decided to take the scenic route back to the station.

It was here that we found out why the stall owners hadn't yet closed up shop for the day. As soon as the sun went down, girls started pouring out of a nearby building that looked like a stadium. More and more girls came out, various barricades and guys with flashing rods herding them down the hill to mill in the park below, while keeping an eye out for interlopers (such as ourselves).

As taught in the ninja stealth class back home, I put up my hood, broke up my shape, watched the security staff's point-of-view, then wandered on past 'em in the opposite direction, using the curvature of the ground to reduce the recognisability of my human shape, ghost-walking my way to the girls.

(Ash, black-on-black, just walked right past.)

And so it was that I found myself in the midst of the biggest crowd of Japanese cuties I have ever seen. Moreover, they were all in their Sunday best! Since I'm feeling generous, I will even include the girls dressed as pikachu, etc., in that statement - and though I suppose those girls wearing as little as possible given weather conditions weren't technically 'all dressed up', let's just say I'm not going to fault them for that.

By helping myself to some pamphlets I probably wasn't entitled to (including application forms for a fan club), I learned that these lovelies had just come out of a concert by a Japanese boy-band whose heartthrob musicians were apparently all the rage with the ladies. Better still, this piece of news explained and confirmed another unusual phenomenon: the fact that aside from the baton-wielding security guards (whom we avoided), we were the only guys in the group! Truly, God had been good.

God, however, doesn't like me quite that much. I cause a fair bit of chaos that works nicely into his design, but he doesn't like how I keep repeating that joke about the pope shitting in the woods, so an unexpected resistance manifested itself in the form of one of the Lord's lowly human minions.

It started when, in attempting to photograph these lovelies, I found myself thwarted by my camera's inability to take decent photographs at night. Several horrible blurs later, I decided to ask Ash, who stood paralyzed on the spot. Try as I might, however, I couldn't get him to photograph even one of the girls.

Sensing the wrathful hand of the Almighty at work to stonewall my plans, I got creative and had Ash photograph the 'picturesque traditional food stalls' instead, thus capturing many an image of these girlies in the process. His natural lasciviousness reasserted itself, and a meddling God was foiled. So far so good.

Seeing a number of the girls heading down toward what looked like a collection of bars and clubs in the city center, I tried the trick again. Pointing in that direction, I said to Ash "hey, we should get some dinner". Alas, it would not work this time. Ash dug in his heels, saying "no!"

Fine, he'd caught me. Why not go get a drink with the girls, then? Hm? "These girls are probably all underage!" cries he, as if he hadn't been mentally undressing pikachu just moments ago. Since Japanese girls seem to look teenage well into their 30s (if cosmetics ads are to be believed, this is due to rubbing rice on their face... so maybe it's just the messy eaters), it was hard to argue on this front with any sort of solid footing short of actually asking someone's age. Instead I suggested that the bars and clubs probably wouldn't let children in, so we should definitely go that way! I had found the winning argument. So far so good.

Alas, he just gives me that same look I always get when we talk about World of Warcraft. You know the one, the look that means "Geeze, Liv, haven't you even obsessively researched this matter for the last seven years?!" Then he proceeds to rattle off some airport brochure word-for-word about the legal age in Japan being different from Australia's, but it being wise to stay away from the girlies nevertheless, because Australia's jurisdiction covers the entire planet, and the moment someone rings up Kevin Rudd your play-date is going to turn into a jail sentence. Or something like that.

Fine. Duly noted. I changed tack. "No-one's going to arrest us for just talking to some girls, right? How about we go have a chat with those two over there?" Ashnil's mouth firmed up. I could almost hear the gas escaping as his bowels clenched. This would be another 'no'. I would have to start smaller. Quickly, I added: "I'll just go over and ask them if we can take a picture of their nice Pokemon costumes, OK? They wouldn't be dressed like that if they were particularly self-conscious about being photographed, right? You just wait here." Baby steps. I was onto a winner here. Walking slowly toward the girls, now. So far so good.

I took a quick look behind me. There was Ashnil, disappearing down the hill at a run. Not so good.

Luckily, my grandma runs faster than Ash does, so it was the work of a moment to catch up to him. He was not about to give in to my demands, however; any more than I was going to admit I probably couldn't find my way back to the hotel if he left me here.

And so we had a stalemate on our hands.

Long story short, this ended in me holding Ash in a submission-hold and attempting to physically drag him towards the (somewhat startled) girls, while he squirmed, gouged his thumbs into my ribs and threatened to scream as loudly as he could for security if I didn't let go.

Given the sidelong glances the security guards were already casting in my direction ("wait, who let those guys in here?"), he had his way in the end. I was left with only a few mournful looks back, and a couple more blurry-ass photos, before I had to follow him onto a train and let all those girls walk out of my life forever.

*sniff*

The hookers and catgirls were out in force when we returned to Osaka, and the ladies standing under a poster for the upcoming hit "jerASSic park" offered me many a 'massage'... but let's just say that when a man has turned down every course at a complimentary feast, he doesn't pick up some crusty ol' bread at the corner store on the way home.

Instead, I stood thoughtfully at our open window that cold night... memorising the path to our hotel off a small brochure as I cast an eerie shadow over Ashnil's sleeping form in the moonlight. When finally I let the brochure be carried away on the frigid Osaka night wind, my eyes settled meaningfully on a large dumpster in the alley out back of the hotel, its chill black iron red in the reflected neon light.

If I wanted to enjoy this holiday fully, I would first have to do away with a certain ball-and-chain...

Day 13 - In which Liv sees red in Kyoto

We started the day today trying to find the way back to the station through the unfamiliar city of Osaka-by-day, which led to an unexpected discovery: it turns out that the entire region we had thus far thought of as Osaka, the huge space between Osaka station and our hotel (with a requisite corresponding section out the other way), was all lying atop an extensive subterranean network of colourful tunnels which between them formed a vast underground mall known as "Whity's".

I hear Harrods in London is pretty darn big, but I wonder how it compares with a commercial fever-dream like Whity's. Taking the steps down, anywhere in the Osaka we knew, invariably led to this same familiar Undercity, a whitewashed consumer paradise shot through with traditional-style noodle stalls (where the observant will note a wide variety of beans on offer in the advertised cuisine).

Our destination for today was the picturesque expanse of Kyoto. This huge city essentially straddles a mountain, its every side-street dominated by fabulous shrines, imperial gardens, and other fine touristy material. All in all, this served to make Kyoto feel a little bit fake to me. Streets upon streets of well-laid out stalls lined up to gouge the average tourist, with nary a bean in sight. Gates and shrines and dragons and gardens were so plentiful, one had to wonder whether this was even a functioning city.

It was undoubtedly beautiful, however, a paradise of shrines and gates and vegetation where the Koi fish probably outnumber the people by no small amount.

One of the first things I did in Kyoto was to stuff my sleeves with brochures, information and tourist maps, to the extent that we would consult my 'sleeve library' whenever we needed to know something. Since the day had looked to be quite lovely before freezing up entirely, lulling me into a false sense of security regarding cold-weather gear, this added padding also served to keep my hands a little warmer in the long run. Though not by much.

Since my dear comrade also apparently never learned the ability to move at anything faster than a crawl, and didn't know how to ride a bike (?!), I also soon added a 'walking-tour of Kyoto' map to this sleeve library not long into the trip, by pilfering it from the unattended front-room of a ryoukan. Even this guide, however, could not keep my irritation in check for long, and I many times considered leaving Ash to waddle along on his own chasing the snails while I got me a bike and actually went to see the city. Whenever I began to get particularly put out with Ashnil's glacial pace (as he disappeared from view somewhere three blocks back), however, the sheer density of tourist-traps in this city meant we had already reached another attraction.

Eventually, we worked out a system that took into account our relative walking rates and camera capacities, whereby I would point out a place on the walking map that we wanted to see, then would go ahead, take all the pictures, wait for him, let him take his one or two, and we would move on. This worked out pretty well overall, particularly since our policies on whether a closed door meant we were supposed to keep out differed (resulting in my getting a lot more quality photos than him, and taking a little longer to explore each site).

Anyways, I don't know what to say about the shrines, etc. we've been visiting; once you've seen one you've kinda seen them all. I'm sure my parents would've loved them to death, but I mostly just enjoyed trying to get decent pictures of them. We got to experience a few new things in our tour of Kyoto, however, such as seeing a Buddhist shrine in action, actually getting used for prayer and chanting, etc. This was pretty cool, as was sneaking into the occasional shrine which wasn't seemingly intended for tourist consumption (with or without the less adventurous Ash).

As we walked, having not really eaten anything all day, I continually pointed out places to eat, which Ash would flatly refuse almost as emphatically as he refused to move his sluggish ass any faster. I have no idea why I stuck with him this time, instead of telling him where to stick it and eating something without him, but I suppose - given that he'd only had a glass of water all day - I simply didn't think he could keep it up much longer. Turns out he could: it was a long time before we ate anything... And even then probably only because I didn't suggest it. I don't think he's agreed to a single thing I've proposed since we lost ChiaPet (and I consequently lost the power of peer pressure).

It may also be that my suggestions are too... individualistic? Perhaps it's all a consequence of Ash's bizarre herd-mentality: come to think of it, I haven't seen him do anything all trip which large groups of people weren't already doing. In fact, he has been known to freeze up and make me take over whenever we need to do anything even slightly out of the ordinary in the present context (not just talking to people for him, but also to the extent of telling me he wants something from a coin-operated figurine-dispensing machine, but refusing to actually turn the knob himself, and making me do it). I guess it is true what they say about learning a lot about people in an hour of leisure. I actually decided to try a little experiment, in that respect... but you'll hear about that in Day 14's entry.

Kyoto was also graced with some beautiful gardens. These were very nicely tended, and much like Ueno park had had their trees carefully molded and trimmed into the right shapes for a long, long time. Their lakes practically exploded with Koi fish, tame enough to actually eat from your hand (I've never had a fish eat from my hand before!) and colorful as a tank full of tropical goldfish. These gardens yielded much in the way of nice pictures - not least of which were yet another billion pictures of cherry blossoms (hey, it's not my fault they're the only darn thing in bloom).

Unfortunately for me, a certain effect began to manifest itself today which would not leave me be for days upon days: namely the irresistible pull the photographic frame of my camera exerts upon people in heinous bright-red sweaters. It's bad enough trying to capture the stillness, serenity and beauty of a Japanese zen garden when the lighting is sub-optimal and every place is pretty much always crawling with tourist crowds... but when half of these people simply must wear the ugliest, most clashing bloody outfits they can, and their mere presence in your frame is enough to make them the ugly-ass out-of-place focus of the image, it just all gets that little bit more annoying. There are a lot of pictures I've wanted to take which either I never got to take, or I had to wait the better part of ten minutes to be able to line up without somebody's ugly-ass red sweater ruining the shot. Moreover, these people moved so incredibly slowly (and always paused to take in the ambience of that exact spot) that I felt sorta bad about getting annoyed with Ash. He moves like a slug, to be sure, but at least he bloody well moves.

So it was that the legendary peace of the Japanese Zen garden was somewhat lost upon me as I gritted my teeth at my fellow sightseers and hung around the high places waiting to pounce, dashing the length of the garden whenever tourists vacated an area I was looking to photograph, then snapping off as many shots as possible as I watched the magnetic attraction of red sweaters from all directions right back into my frame.

When I get back, I think I will use my entitlement to shirt-making discounts as a society executive to create my own bright red shirt. I will cover it in a series of grotesque penis photographs, vignetting a single block-letter caption that reads "I'm sorry, am I blocking your shot?!" This, I will wear whenever I go somewhere fatass American tourists are wandering around, to finally realize my bizarre and petty revenge.... mwahahahaha!

Right, so, shrines. After feeding the Koi fish by hand (a singularly slimy experience), I was pretty much over the whole zen garden thing for the time being, so we started heading up the hills of Kyoto toward more shrines, and more shrines, then more shrines again. We saw one way up near the forests which we could reach before the sun went down, and this became our target for the day, but there was a great deal to see on the way there, and some of the more palatial residences, as well as some Buddhist cemeteries, made for some interesting sightseeing as well - as did some of the twisted paths that led off the beaten track, all of which led to a variety of picturesque locations that were probably private property (or at least, Ash refused to go near them), but were beautiful or culturally interesting in their own right.

One such place was one I discovered high up a beautiful green hill, amongst the peaceful graveyards (all covered with fresh, bright and beautiful flowers - not a single fake flower about), was what I came to call the Cat Shrine. Beneath a weathered red Shinto arch, a beautiful green garden fell away down a steep, flowery hillside, and a pair of blooming sakura trees framed a scene of rough-carved temple flagstones, columns and cats, behind them a traditional Shinto shrine with all the accoutrements, flanked by massive stone catlike defender gods. The cats themselves were everywhere, and of every colour cats can be. They were bounding up and down the roof, yawning and stretching on the little fountain, sitting by the garden, curling up in the smaller shrine building with the big bell, and exploring the path that wended away amidst the trees back down into the backstreets of Kyoto on the other side behind the shrine. It was an amazing find, and it is truly a pity that Ash refused to come in, because it is one of my strongest memories of Kyoto. There was nobody here, not a soul, but every little stone told a story, and hidden in the trees and around the shrine were not only more and more cats, but all of the various symbols one associates with Shinto locations, from the stone antenna-pyramid-thing you see atop Pagodas to the dragons with their sacred water, all were hidden here somewhere, but rarely out in plain sight. Inside the shrine, offerings and figures, and inscrutable catlike gods, completed the scene.

Seemingly abandoned, and certainly unvisited by tourists, it was the most definitely one of the 'secrets of Kyoto' Lonely Planet likes to wax lyrical about - and something guided tour groups would probably never get to see.

We made it up to the big shrine at the top of the hill eventually, as well, but our many digressions and stopping to photograph everything got us there just as the place was closing. There had been nothing really to indicate that this would be the biggest, awesomest temple yet (except maybe its location), so we were a little chagrined to find that this was exactly that - and closing!

Needless to say, Ashnil walked up (without a sign of haste, even though he was in a hurry - this is one thing about Ash, he never runs) to the barricade they were putting up, then started complaining about getting there too late. I, meanwhile, ran up the hill and managed to zip up behind the guys who were closing the place up, and zip around between the slowass Americans who were being ushered out, as well as hopping around between buildings out of the sight of the various monks, taking picture after picture of the place as I did. In the end, I photographed just about the entire complex before I got chased out by one very loud, angry dude, and met up with Ash back at the bottom.

Aside from the size of the place, however, I can't say this shrine was really much nicer than any of the others: it was just bigger, and with a much bigger bell and a Pagoda. I liked the Cat Shrine much better, myself - and its feline occupants were much friendlier to foreign interlopers with cameras, overall.

From there, we headed down a picturesque shopping street full of lanterns and faux-traditional knick-knacks (but still no beans), and ate just about all the sweetcakes and cream-puffs we could have without overdosing on sugar, before getting back on the road for the long, cold walk back to Kyoto station.

That night, Ashnil again displayed his incredible ability to be slow, deliberate and disgusting regardless of what he is eating or drinking; but given the day I had had, it didn't really bother me as much.

If he were, however, to eat a Pocky stick in tiny bites the way he does, one loud crunch-slurp-smack at a time, slowly in front of me while wearing a red sweater... well, I think I would have to kill him.

Lunzo: As always a thrilling roller-coaster ride to read.

GrubLord: Thanks, Lunbags, more coming tonight.

Ranneko: Well Gurbs, I two important comments:

- Soke clearly is awesome, and I'm sure Ash will treasure that image - Your other travelling companion whose name begins with A needs to be renamed! His use of a name that has already been claimed is occasionally distracting.

Lunzo: I'm with Ranneko, I can't cope when characters in a story have the same name as me.

GrubLord: Duly noted. Henceforward, he shall be known as ChiaPet.

Incidentally, I have posted up Day 10 for your enjoyment.

Y'all better get to enjoyin', too, 'cause I have to stumble down 8 levels and through a wind-tunnel in my bathrobe and a painful pair of pinchy 'inside shoes' for the privilege of fighting drunken Japanese businessmen over the three available LAN cables, in order to get onto NWTJ here at all.

That's just about as hardcore as posting updates GETS.

teh_saq: Soünds ŀîke an awesome hoŀîdaÿ, geŧ ŧo vîsîŧ anoŧher coünŧrÿ and leäŗñ secŗet ñiñjä äŗts.

Ŧhe "Dőujiñ" ideä is iñteŗestiñg, I heäŗd ä guy őñ the ŗädiő ä cőuple őf mőñths ägő whő wŗőte ä bőők äbőut hőw he thőught iñtellectuäl pŗőpeŗty (äñd the zeälőus pŗőtectiőñ theŗeőf) weŗe stifliñg cŗeätivity iñ the develőped wőŗld. I guess Mäñgä iñ Jäpäñ is ä gőőd exämple őf hőw beiñg ä bit ŗeläxed äbőut hőw yőuŗ IP gets used cäñ be beñeficiäl tő äll cőñceŗñed.

Is thät tätt főŗ ŗeäl? Dőes it häve secŗet ñiñjä meäñiñgs? At leäst yőu didñ't get sőme ŗäñdőm Käñji tättőőed őñtő yőuŗself thät yőu thiñk säys "Lőve/Peäce/Awesőme" but ŗeälly säys "I äm ä stupid gäijiñ".

GrubLord: Haha - yes, the Kanji is a double-edged sword.

As to the tattoo's authenticity, I'm deliberately keeping that mysterious. Mostly to freak out my mother.

GrubLord: Despite the best efforts of iPhone OS 3.0 (beta) to keep on crashing and make me retype the bloody thing three times, I just posted Day 12.

Enjoy!

... I gotta go now, this Belgian guy has been eyeing me for several minutes, and whether it's me or my LAN cable he's interested in, I ought to head upstairs as soon as possible.

Lunzo: My theory about the Tat is that its an April Fools Joke. But a good one if it is.

That part about the girls is hilarious . I'm surprised Ash wasn't interested.

GrubLord: I think he'd rather irritate me than spend time with girls, any day.

Bastard.

Day 13 is up!

Ranneko: Would the irritation with a certain phone be contributing to the overall tone of irritation through days 12 and 13?

Syfro: To be fair, I'm pretty sure that trying to convince Ash to go talk to girls was more fun than actually talking to girls would have been, given your command of the language. At the very least, it was more fun to read.

Although I'm not sure Ash would agree that it was very fun at all.

GrubLord: Ran: You have no idea...

Syfro: Given my attempts to chat with maids back in Akiba, you're probably right. But I do like to have the option... and sometimes all you really need is a closer look at someone's lacy blouse.

Syfro: Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and count you lucky that you didn't get to talk to the fine ladies of Osaka, since the numerous security personnel would likely have been more than you could chew... eye contact may not be a big thing in Japan, but it takes years of practice to imitate a respectful downward gaze while you're actually checking out one's boobage.

GrubLord: Speaking from experience, oh master of the cosplay competition?

Syfro: Oh, hells no, that would be completely unprofessional of me.

That semester of Professional Japanese may not have been completely useless, however. "And now, let's practice our bows!"

GrubLord: Some progress at last!

I'd hate to think you were wastin' your time in those classes.

Catch you soon back in 'straila, dawg!