Friday, April 01, 2005
yucks the last post was dotted with crap. im not that stupid but its been 3 days and its not like i havent got used to the japanese keyboard. im gonna be a little artistic in my approach and call this situation `lost in translation` cos what actually happened was that blogger fucked up and its server hanged, so i had to copy and store it somewhere else. and when i pasted it, shit happened. so there, japanese keyboards fault, not mine. yesterday we escaped the hustle of the city town to head for amakura. its like 65 or 65o or 6500 km away from tokyo and it is renowned for its kazillians of temples and shrines. we were there for about 6 hours but we managed to visit almost all the big temples and important ones listed in the lonely planet book = ) including a so called businessman temple where there is 7 gods of business?! there were of course tons of suit clad salarymen there. and then at that same temple there was this steep steep small bridge closed to public. i asked my dad what it was and he said that it was a bridge to tell your luck. if you manage to cross it ie. get to the highest crest while walking on a smooth steep bridge, youll have good luck. im like, thats cool. it tells your fortune straight away. if you fall, you crack your skull so thats bad luck. japanese like their food fast, and their fortunes told fast as well. apparently, many folks had misfortune and broke their heads so its now closed to public. hell. of all the temples, the one i wanted to visit most, the enno-ji was closed. drats. its supposed to be about the ten judges of hell and they would decide whether you enter the kingdom of heaven or my hometown hell. cos most people sin and do good things as well, so its a bit tricky. drats man. what kind of temple closes at 4 pm? isint everything 24hrs in japan? all in all it was a fab trip cos the air was so fresh there and the sights were stunning. i think i must have taken 200 pics there. thank god ive got my pod. after the temples we went to the amakura central where my dad says its also know as the little harajuku or whatyoumighthaveit. there was a lot of stuff to see, a lot of schoolgirls, a lot of schoolgirls and a lot of schoolgirls. we had sushi at a very reknowned sushi bar serving the freshest catches (amakura is next to the sea). and after all that, we had coffee near the station. then we went to get a train back. not just any train. but a romance car. to the japs, their idea of romance is a train that stops a only a few times and lets you smoke till you drop. thats fine with me. so that marks the end of my temple visits. but whatever serenity and karma i gathered there must have vanished in a blink cos at night, we visited the direct opposite of the calm and peaceful, a direct attack on peace of mind; shinjuku. this city really comes alive at night. you see the romance car stops at shinjuku for us to switch. shujuku is the biggest interchange in japan i think. at 10.30 pm at night, the JR line station is filled with people running and drunken men. the east side of the jr line was busy. the west side was hell. at 10.30pm, youd think its rush hour on a monday morning with the sun turned off. there was so many sounds, flashing bright lights, cos-play zoku and a lot of bars. when i say bars, i dont mean watering holes. i mean yakuza run clubs with schoolgirls running amok in them. i took some pics at shinjuku but alas, i couldnt take the pic of the porn clubs cos my dad says theyd kill me. so there were touch clubs where you can erm, touch the girls, lap dancers, strip clubs, i dont know. oh yes, there were hen clubs too where they put pictures of japanese men that look like shan and grade them 1,2,3 heh. then these cute jap girls asked my dad and i whether we had time for a drink or whatever but of course we didnt. such a waste. haha. im not that kind of guy of course. if shan comes to japan then its a differnt story. maybe he ll stop at the hen club first who knows. anyway, it was a totally wicked feast for the eyes. love to go back there to sightsee (of course) but my dad says its a shady and dark place. i mean i know. why else would i want to got there. then we went to a famous shrine hanazono i think. yes a shrine in shujuku. and then thats that. shinjuku is a must go i tell you. anyone in tokyo would be stupid to not visit it. but you must know your limits of course. so there, gonna go back and change and head to shibuya harajuku for some real shopping. then stop by yoyogi gyoen and see whats so hyped about there. stay tuned.


sammy says. at 3:58 PM