Left off in Electric City. what an amazing place, the buildings are perhaps ten stories and the massive neon signs stretch the length of the building. there are arcades everywhere that ahve many levels. old businessmen and young boys mingle and play everything from shooting games to pokino and pokemon.

dancing and drumming and singing arcade games! the sounds attack you from all sides and even on the street there is music blaring from shops. the streets are lined with shops selling cellular phones and calculators and cameras and computers. tehre are baskets outside shps with computer components for discount prices.
remarkably the internet cafe in this part of town is archaic, and i cannot download my pictures... i;ll try again some other time. After electric town we meandered via the subway to meet with ryan after he got off work.
The subway is incredibly efficient and exact in timing, but it is tremendously expensive. yesterday alone i probably spent 2000 yen on transit! the trains are often super crowded, especially around 8pm when all the businessmen get off work. unlike vancouver, where people will refrain from getting on the train if its full, in japan EVERY one gets on the train, meaning the last one to get on must force the crowd back so he or she doesnt get smushedby the door. people do not fall over because everyone is so crammed in. its hilarious to watch people try to read the newspaper or play games on their cell phones while being so cramped.
After only two days on the system, and armed with an expensive map, andrew and i are becoming more comfortable with navigating the system, however it is still a living nightmare!
We got off at the station nearby the pub where we were to meet ryan, but we didnt know exactly where it was, so we wandered around a bit. we found ourselves on the wrong side of the tracks from the landmark ryan suggested we meet at, but for the life of me i couldnt figure out how to get tehre. the streets in japan are not named and they dont run in any recognisable pattern, so if you walk down a road it is not clear how to get anywhere. we tried for 30 minutes to find the place, and finally we did... ridiculous. we ended up at BLBY, a happy place that served north american style food, apparently. strange food. this place also had unlimited mix-you-own-cocktails for 580yen, a very good deal. we polished off the vodka, and most of the gin. akiko finished the red wine and later regretted it. had a good time visiting with ryans teacher friends and finally made one of the last trains home, around 1230am. lots of fun.
we didnt make it camping, but will look forward to climbing fuji-san on sunday or perhaps monday. i]ll report back with the good news of our safe return.
from tsurukawa, bonsai!!!