A look back…
… to my last month in Japan.
The last thing I posted with photos relating to my time in Japan was at the beginning of July with some pictures of Osaka and a coffee machine… A lot has happened since those relaxing days sitting drinking the machine made coffee and pondering what tourist jaunt to go on next and now, with the aid of the digital photograph, I will attempt to reconstruct these days highlights and points of interest…
The first one of these isn’t so much as after Kyoto, but how I got back to Tokyo from Kyoto. By the second fastest train in the world, the Shinkansen Nozomi.
The left most picture is a 700 series Shinkansen which run the Nozomi service, the fastest train service in Japan. The actual train itself, the 700 series is actually the third fastest in the world getting upto 285km/h. The rightmost train is an older 500 series shinkansen which is the second fastest, getting upto 320km/h (200mph) generated from the 25,000 horsepower it kicks out! The 700 series was built to be more cost effective and almost as fast.
Once back in Tokyo I had one night at the guest home before the Kids Gospel Team arrived. I am not going to put up too much regarding it as there is already loads of info etc posted up at:
OMF KGT Journal pages
But here is a photo from fun with my Yotsukaido homestay family in a local park.
The front girl is Mai-chan the daughter of my homestay family who was in the Kids Gospel Programme at Yotsukaido. The girl behind her is Nanae-chan, her friend and also in the programme. the mini-railway was pretty cool, but I’m just realising I will need to start into the non-train photos or I’m gonna get labelled a trainspotter or something…
Some of the stuff that wasn’t overly documented in the KGT journals is the fun we had on our day’s off and during debriefing…
On several of the Monday days off, JP headed over to the Tokyo Dome City amusement park to ride the big mad roller coaster. Each time it was raining though, and it wasn’t running. The third time he went, Lawrence and I joined him and sure enough it was a sunny day with plenty of roller coaster potential.
The first pic is actually a different ride in the park, but the right hand two are of the rollercoaster as it goes through the ferris wheel and then the main building of Tokyo Dome City. Great ride!
I have already talked a little about the fish market, so here are some pictures of the Irish tuna and some little octopusses (octopi??)… And one of Lawrence enjoying a nice bit of fresh sushi and a guy ramming a wire into a fish’s spine to stop it wiggling after it’s been killed…Lovely…
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While on the subject of fish, I didn’t try this:
The famous puffer fish (fugu - ふぐ)
But I did try this:
The controversial kujira, or whale meat. I don’t think the flavour is worth the hassle though! Not nasty, just nothing special…
On a debriefing relaxing trip to Odaiba I got to go to the Emerging Science Museum and see Ashimo (I know it says Asimo behind him, but they say Ashimo) the Honda Robot.
He can stand, walk, climb 2 steps with special markers AND dance slowly! Quite impressive that he actually doesn’t fall over, but still a long way to go before anyone will want it in their house!
At the Emerging Science museum we also got to try a robot riding simulator kind of thingy. The idea is you go into a room and sit on seats mounted on some hydralics and see through the eyes of a robot on a table outside the room. People outside then watch as you make the robot walk about and so on chasing giant toys and the odd baby. We also managed to clone JP. But luckily the clone disappeared when he walked away from the mirror…
The next sequence of shots are related to a new way to enjoy the game Jenga. With chopsticks… and toothpicks…
Some other things of note:
A girl playing the trumpet by the river…
50 flavours of toothpaste at Tokyu Hands dept store in Shibuya… Including Tsugaru apple flavour…
A trip to a sumo museum…
Found Nemo… he was in a tank at the top of the Landmark Tower in Yokohama…
An elevator that needs to keep it’s doors to itself…
A pre-typhoon sunset from the top of the mission home…
And trouble at the Suzuki showroom that required the Power Rangers to go sort out…
August 27th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
Love the pre-typhoon sunset picture. Japan looks like such an interesting place!
August 28th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Great to see those photos coming out! Hope you didn’t get too samishii while writing this one.
August 28th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
You saw the Power Rangers in real life?!!?!!?!?! You’re so lucky. It’s not fair.
August 28th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I think they were Power Ranger clones, not actually the Power Rangers. I don’t remember the name though. But they saved the day anyways…
I tried to make a panorama from a few sunset photos, but it wasn’t so great… Maybe I’ll try it again some other time!