We're back :)

Hey all, we arrived yesterday, but was too buggered to post anything :P currently staying with the cabalag's, and the food here is yummy too :)

Fuji trip was quite cool, and lots of photos were taken :) unfortunately tour buses refuse to stop when i see a good photo stop, so i had to make do with the stops they made :P because of the good weather we had an awesome view of the mountain, and got to drive up to the 5th station. Later we went on a boring ferry trip, but then took a cool trip on a cable car to these sulphur mines. They stunk like gayan after taking a dump in the mornings, but meh, we can say we've been there now. Later we headed to the hotel, and the tour guide pointed out a place with 2 hotels, one looked nice, the other looked dodge.. Luckily we got the nice one, and again we went onsen, but not as nice this time as it was kind of closed, and it wasn't snowing like last
time. Next day we were going to go to these themed hot springs, like beer flavour, wine flavour, tea flavour etc, but you had to bring own bather so we didn't end up going :( after heading back to tokyo we went to watch bleach the movie, but it was finished, so we watched national treasure instead.. But, considering we really wanted to watch it, we went back in the morning and watched it :) woot, we can officially say we've watched an anime movie in japan.. Could barely understand it considering it was in japanese, but that's not the point :P

After having our last random drink of the day, we boarded the plane back to aus. The flight back was fairly uneventful, though i do love my new headphones :) noise cancellation with awesome bass = happy camper :)

Well, that's pretty much it for our japan trip, and we all thoroughly had fun. Definately a country i'd love to revisit. Now the only problem is that the gla count has decreased significantly.. The only gla's at the airport were jap's getting off our flight :( oh well.. Back we go.. Some day, some day :P

Chans

Bus to fuji

It's a train post, no, it's a plane post? No, it's a bus post :P (say that with the superman music in your head, sounds way cooler). Haven't written for a bit now as we haven't had any long commutes lately.

Disneyland was awesome, towards the second half of the day we got to go on the roller coasters etc, their were 2 big ones which were awesome, but didn't last too long :( and the queue's are like 70 minutes, so we just used the fast pass system and went once (take a ticket, and get quick entry a few hours later). We did find this cool roller coaster though that lasted only about 15 seconds, but it was tucked in a corner, so there was no wait time, get off ride, run back to entrance, go again :P overall fun day, though we spent more on food than the ticket in i think >< oh and akki, i got you some cool stuff :)

The next couple of days weren't particularly exciting.. Mostly just shopping, buying presents for you fools :P yesterday night was cool though, we stopped off at this place for dinner which looked like a restaurant from naruto :P menu was in jap, so we just explained what
we can eat, and told them to serve us anything :) we got this yummy pumpkin thing, awesome sashimi, sweet fish and turnip, rice, miso, and this lemon sorbet which was the best. We then watched naruto with an asahi :) the beer was crap, and the one hour naruto special turned
into dbz style slow.. But oh well, we can officially say we watched naruto in japan :)

Now we're on a bus heading to mt fuji on a tour.. Not a gla on the bus :( bloody tourists.. Will let you know how it goes when back..
Chans

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Disney land

We have just arrived in tokyo disney land :) were going to meet carlos's friend here.. But uh.. Lets just say finding someone here is impossible :P atm gayan and carlos have lined up to buy breakfast, and me being lazy slipped off outside to 'mind a table' :P We haven't even gone on a ride yet, but it's so dam cool.. Firstly the gla meter is off the hook.. We've called a gla-g (good looking alert - global, kinda like an area of effect). So much gla in high concentration.. Woot :P may have had something to do with why we couldn't find friend.. Gla interfering with the view. Even just sitting here outside the cafe is so nice.. Cool music, perfect weather, like it's cold, but
clear blue sky.. I don't know why people bitch about japan in winter.. This is the best weather ever :P

Far out, i've been writing for 10 minutes and carlos and gay have moved like two meters up the cafe line :( ...

Yesterday we went to nikko again to explore. First stop was the temples. Quite amazing stuff.. But uh.. Maybe i'm uncultured, but see one and you've seen em all :P after temples we headed further up the mountain to chuzenji, where there is an amazing lake with a really nice view of the mountain. Coincidentally it was also the coldest day in nikko according to the restaurant lady. This makes for fun photography at 5 as the sun is setting with a lake in front of you
freezing your hands and encouraging all balls in the region to climb that little bit higher for warmth. Carlos and gayan stuck it out with me the first time, so thanks guys :) we then found a coffee shop to hang out till our bus came. Naturally i headed off again outside to get some night shots :P came back once more frozen, but chatting with the lady at the restaurant, she turned out to be a photo nut too, and she had these two awesome photos, both of the same place, but one was taken 50 years ago.

Anyway, i see food coming, will post later.

Chans

Bartenders in tokyo

We're now heading off to nikko again, as we didn't get to see enough last time. The dude sitting to our left on the train is our new best friend. It's an old dude quite happily reading a porno on the train :P dunno if that's the norm or what, but.. Dayem they have good magazines here..

Couple of days to fill you guys in on. After coming back from nikko, we watched a little naruto and bleach, then got ready to go to roppongi, the clubbing district of tokyo. The train station there was so cool, it's like 5 stories underground, literally. Once we got out onto the street, we realised we'd have to revise the gla concept, as their were too many around, every 2 seconds gla was going off.. So we created dgla. This is dayem good looking alert :P

After walking past the nigerian dudes telling us about their 'titties bar with beautiful girls' we finally made it to the first club, gas panic.. This place was the worst ever.. Dance floor with dudes only, few dodgy looking chicks, but the drinks were cheap. Soon left there, then went to another place called muse. Now that was a club. Pool table, 2 levels of dance floors, lots of hot chicks, drinks area, and the hottest bar tending chicks ever.. Australia, take a hint and start importing the bar tenders :P we have photo evidence too. We also met another 3 dudes from melbourne, and we all had a good time.

After a good sleep, we had brunch, and headed to harajuku where there a whole bunch of people dressed up as anime characters, and some weird emo people.. The emo ones weren't too keen on posing, but the others were fine with photos, with a lot of slr's around. We then went to shibuya just to eat but, dam, that was the most packed i've ever seen a train station. So many people..

Had an early night, getting to bed by about 7. Plan was to get up at 5 and go fish markets (500kg freakin tuna), but turns out without alarms we don't wake up :P so just had breakfast and now on way to nikko.

The subways here are awesome.. So much gla.. Gayan was thinking maybe we should just give up

Geotagging working... w00t

W00t... geotagging is working perfectly... click above, or if you view our album, click "show map" It'll show you where the photos were taken. Obviously this won't work for the earlier shots, but new ones will be geotagged :) Permanent link also added on right.

Returning from sulphorous paradise

It may have stunk of rotten eggs on the approach, but nikko was amazing. We started travelling from kyoto at about 10am, and only arrived at 5pm, but it was worth the trip. Heading off from our kyoto hotel, we eventually made it to the shinkansen. Here we made a bit of a boo boo.. We got onto the shinkansen that stopped at every station :P according to my gps we got to a top speed of about 250, but with all the stops averaged 130 :( oh, and we're going to start geo tagging our picture (once again, courtesy of the n95 woot) which means that all our photos from all the cameras should show up on a map showing exactly where the photo was taken :) so cool :P

After heading up to our hotel, we unloaded our luggage and headed outside to play in the snow :D that's right, snow, woot.. Unfortunately it was also a semi blizzard, but for retards like us who don't see snow often we still went outside to muck around.. Turns out snow is really cold when you hang onto it for a while.. Who'd have thought huh? So our plans for a snowman dissolved, but still had lots of fun. Almost lost gayan's camera and the room key, but fortunately both survived the drop into the snow :P

After an onslaught of dinner, like seriously, yummy dish after dish till we were about to throw up we headed over to the hot springs (and yes, gender seperated, and yes we did let carlos join us in the men's section.. Just this once :P) the system is strip, shower, then hop in.. nekkid. Check out the photos :P jk jk . . . The actual spring itself is outside, and it is so awesome. It's a rock style pool that is physically outside, so the majority of you is nice and warm, and your face is kept cool by the snow falling on you.. It's the most comfortable, relaxing experience, ever..

Then after playing with the vibrating massage chair thing (gayan had a strange smile on his face when he was on it.. Bit scary) we played with his laptop (which incidentally carlos took into the toilet that morning as he needed some 'reading material' and so took his laptop into the dunny and changed the background to 'carlos took a shit with your laptop' and drew squiggly lines on it.. Unfortunately a rather cranky gayan deleted this background, so no pic.. Bah, spoilsport).

Oh, and one thing i haven't written about here are the toilets.. They are so dam cool.. You take a dump on a warmed seat, press the button which washes your ass, then press another one which dries it!!! I for one bow down to our ass cleaning toilet overlords :P

Chans out

Kyoto exploration, and samurai too

Yep, a train post again, with gay stealing one of my headphones making me listen to gay ass girly songs :P (but i must be nice to the sensei of hair straightening). Today we're on the way to another night mall type area, and there's a gds, potential gla on the left. To fill you guys in, we made a convention to aid us in perving on chicks and warning the others..

GLA is a good looking alert, which signifies good looking chick close by

GDS is for good dress sense, which is quite often.. Dam they dress well, wish more chicks in aus would dress like this :(

GLC is the final one. Good looking commercial, usually posters, but anything with eye candy will do. Tv ads here are better than the shows, either they have glc, yummy food, or really random funny stuff.

Since osaka, the gla frequency definately increased here in kyoto, though gds was good everywhere.

So getting back to the travels, yesterday we went to this street which was lit really beautifully, bamboo things on the sides, bridges, and temples with lanterns etc. There were some cool stalls to buy stuff, and carlos found a particularly good place for gift buying (maybe for you :P), though he only went in first because he spotted baby clothes.. Hmmm..

We had the first 'western' food in a while for breakfast as it was included with the room, and we headed of to get dressed up as samurai and geisha. Haha yep, that's right, full sick re dress up :P gayan refused to dress up as a geisha, even though we offered to pay for him.. Spoil sport :( imagine that as his facebook profile.. Clearly pick up machine then :P We got some proper portraits done, but then went and took some random photos with gayan's camera, so make sure to check those.. Especially the massacre of pooh bear :P

Now we're supposedly going to the most beautiful street in all asia.. Will clearly be better once i get there :)

Chans out

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Kyoto

Just on train out to explore kyoto at night now that we've checked into the kyoto hotel etc.

Last night was spent in mt koya, and it was awesome.. Cold, but awesome. First we did some exploring around there cemetries, which sounds weird, but it was really an awesome sight to see, it was a huge area in a forest. Unfortunately no photos allowed of the grave area, but they did allow at the entrance, so that's all that we'll post. At the end their was a hall of lanterns, which was a huge building with heaps of paper lanterns. There was also this rock you could lift which is apparently supposed to weigh as much as the sin you have.. All i can say is it's bloody heavy :(

Later we returned to temple lodging we were staying at after parting with cam who is heading onto china. It was a fully traditional style jap room. The bath was FREAKIN hot.. Like sperm boiling hot.. Eventually though the 3 of us made it in after carlos continually splashed boiling water at us, followed by freezing cold water >< dinner that night though was the highlight of our trip so far. It was an amazing full traditional meal, vegetarian, but seriously.. I could live on that stuff for ever.. Simply amazing. Check the photos section, where we've labelled a pic with all the food.

After a cold night, the really nice old lady there offered to drive us back to the cable car, and we made our way to kyoto, but not before an all important NAANIII. To explain what that is, firstly, nani means 'what' in jap.. We think. So when we something really random or cool, we get a video of two or three of us pointing at it shouting Nani! These will be later montaged at the end of the trip :)

Cya soon,
Chans

On the train to Mount Koya

Updates have been a little slow as we weren't sure where to get
internet.. Then we found out internet was free in our rooms at the
hotel :P oops..

Currently we are on a train to mount koya, where we'll be spending a
night at a monastery. And they feed us traditional jap food.. Better
be yummy :)

Yesterday was spent in osaka shopping the first half of the day (and
it turns out burberry still costs 1k, so uh.. No sale :P). They did
have awesome scarves though.. But again, 80 bux for one :( then we had
a mixed lunch of random stuff (check the photos). Our big dilemma was
solved though at the electronics store we went to.. We found a hair
straightener :) 25 bux, and should be fine to use till we get back..
Disaster averted. Gayan also found a nose hair trimmer, and uh
apparently it was 'interesting' to use lol.

Later after going back for a bit, we then went to the world's biggest
ferris wheel, which was awesome.. Really cool view, and even better,
when we got down and went into the mall, they had a ninja store with a
dude dressed up as a ninja. Gayan tried this shuriken thing, but he
lost the game, but still won a little prize (check pics again). Dinner
was at a place called melbourne house.. Which unsuprisingly was
nothing like melbourne :P they did have koala's though, guess that's a
start. Later that night we headed over to dotonburi, the night life
of osaka. Lots of bright lights, yummy food stalls, and fugu
restaurant too, but we decided to go at a different time when we
hadn't already stuffed ourselves :P

Anyways, enough reading for one post,

Cya
Chans

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First post from japan :)

Well, this is the first post for the blog from japan, and yes of course i'm writing on the n95 :) currently we're on a train to hiroshima.

The start of our trip was quite.. Fun :P I may have gotten to the airport a little late.. Let's just say 2mins later, and i might have been writing this from australia :P but thankfully got on, and after two flights, we stopped in osaka. The airport and everything was quite organised, and we got finger printed and everything on the way in. They also had a health check thing, but luckily we didn't get one, as otherwise carlos probably would have got quarantined again.

When we got to the hotel, we realised we're not exactly slumming it, let's just say it's more the sort of place i'd be staying with parents lol, it's so bling looking. Anyways, we went looking for food, but all the places were closed, so we ended up going ten a fully authentic japanese convenience store complete with bowing counter guy :P we got cool microwave meals which they heated up, and i also got an orange flavoured milk, that's right, orange lol.

This morning was at a cool breakfast place which was quite cheap, and we got a pictures of the waiters too :P check out pics by clicking on the picture on the right.

So far everything's going awesome, polite people, clean organised places, and the occasional cute chick :P only one really big problem.. The hair straightener isn't working :( stupid 110v.. Everything else is fine except that. Gayan currently has decided not to shower, but i'm stuck with a cap :( it's quite a serious issue and we will be addressing this at the next electronics store.

Check out the pics, and stay tuned for more in the next episode.

Chans

Test post from N95

Well, as promised, here's the first test post from the n95.. Hope it works :)

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First Post

Woot... a blog... I created this blog to keep everyone updated whilst me, carlos, gayan, and maz are on our japan trip, and instead of sending out a bazillion emails to everyone, you can all just come and read whats been happening here :)

Oh, and don't worry... I'm working on getting the N95 involved in the process, so be prepared for N95 praise :P (note, blog is hosted on google... so the other requirement is met too :P)

Anyways, back to packing.. which I haven't started... oh and writing an abstract for conference too :(

Cyaz
Chans