Getting around Japan is a little confusing to say the least. If Akiko hadn`t been here I would never had gotten out of the airport. I`m adjusting a little better now though.

The subway/train system here is incredible. That`s basically the main way of transit as cars are quite expensive. But, unlike back in Vancouver, the trains are quite expensive. If you are coming to Japan, be prepared to spend quite a fair bit on transit. To get from the airport to her house was about 1500 Yen (100 Yen = $1.00 US). They are much more crowded than at home, with people backing onto the trains so that you are getting quite friendly with the person beside you. I`m glad I`m a little bigger than most of the people here so I can get some breathing room. I`m going to look into getting a day pass in the next couple days (about 1500 yen) if Erik and I are going to do a lot of traveling.

So the first day we were here we met up with Brian and Erik`s friend from Castlegar, Ryan Carter. Not all the streets have names here, only the major ones, so we kind of set up a meeting place near subway exits and landmarks. (I think addresses are done more in the sense that certain regions or a couple of blocks are given names and the addresses are based that way? Not 100% sure on this one). Anyway, we met him at a train station called Shabuya. which is right by what is (according to Ryan) one of the busiest crosswalks in the world. It`s wasn`t as busy as it sometimes is, but there were still around 400 people crossing at a time. The way this intersection works is that all the cars are stopped and everyone crosses at once. It`s a little hectic, but nothing that overwhelming.

His roommates suggested a sushi place near there and we got sushi for 105 yen per piece (usually 2 actually). It was quite good (although the better sushi in Van is comparable), but since no one there really spoke English, I had quite a few things that I had no idea what were. They also had powdered, or what we thought was powdered wasabi in little boxes by our seat. Only after we had all scooped it into our soya sauce and found that it added no flavour did we figure out it was green tea powder. All of the people around us looked at us and chuckled a little, I don`t blame them one bit :) I thought it was absolutely hilarious too.

After that we went up to a place called Shimbasu. Everywhere in Japan there are vending machines on the street. They all have coffee, water, pop, and other interesting Japanese drinks for sale. There are also cigarette machines all over too. I didn`t see a lot of people smoking as it is considered very rude to walk and smoke at the same time as it bothers other people. Pretty much anything that interfere`s with someone else is considered rude like talk loud (or on your cell) on the trains. Anyway, I`m sure there are a lot of people who do it cause these are everywhere. No panty machines yet, but I`ll keep you updated. Alright, back on topic, in Shibasu there are a lot of shops that sell all sorts of things. From electronics to very interesting clothes (not traditional Japanese, but my best comparison would be almost Goth clothes in North America). Apparently people can pretty much wear whatever type of clothes they want and no one even bats an eyelash. There were also a lot of hotels that you could stay for the night or for `a rest` which was about 2 hours. Now these weren`t at all like our sleezy rent by the hour hotels at home, but very swank indeed. Stuff like this isn`t really tabboo and a lot of time, it would be a person and their significant other renting the room rather than a complete stranger. Again, I didn`t really ask a lot of details on this cause it`s not something I really had a need to find out a lot about.

Well, dinner is going to be ready soon, so I should probably get off the computer. We still need to look up some detail about Mt. Fugi so I can`t spend too long blogging either. Talk to you all soon.

Drew