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Things are wrapping up here in Korea. This weekend I watched the last World Cup game available to me at a decent time (unless I stay up for the 3:30am Final, which I probably will.) We visited Jin in Seoul for the last time, greeted by easily the clearest day since we’ve arrived. Seoul is really a great looking city when there isn’t haze hanging all about; kind of a shame that it’s normally like that. Jin, Vic and I ate at the famous Myung Dong Kalgooksu place, then moseyed around downtown Seoul until Jin had the idea to go to the Seoul Museum and see The Thinker. I didn’t bring my camera assuming a crap day, so that was slightly disappointing, but it was a good time regardless.

These next two weeks Vic and I will be having a number of going-away dinners, as well as a night at a pension in Yongju with our bosses and our best Middle School class. Somewhat of a 4th of July-esque environment should be expected, we’ll probably be playing with water guns and grilling hot dogs. Not a terrible way to end our time here.

A lot will be happening soon after getting back (Saturday, July 17th), but I’ll save that for some other time. I’m also going to to a re-cap of our year here, preferably when my pictures aren’t scattered across 5 different computers / usb drives. You should probably hold your breath now.

First thing we did in Hiroshima was take the ferry from Hiroshima to Miyajima Island. This island has some pretty steep mountains, and also a fire that’s been lit for 1200 years. So that’s something. There were also deer everywhere, as in walking around on the sidewalks as soon as you get off the boat, biting your clothes and any food you had. If you bought french fries, you could start a parade.

This island is home to a floating Shinto gate, the sign that a Shinto Shrine is near. When tide is in, it looks as if the gate is floating. We found out that the tide goes out pretty quick in the afternoon, and makes the area walkable up to the gate.

Also while on the Island we took a cable car up to the mountain and a ~30 minute walk to the peak. It was a good workout, nice weather and a great view. There was also ice cream being sold at the top (from Here is a restaurant), so it was definitely worth it. The internet and various signs claimed there were monkeys on the mountain. This was a bold faced lie to attract monkey enthusiasts.

After returning to Hiroshima, we headed to the Peace Park, and the Atomic Bomb Dome. It was a pretty intense scene, and a solid reminder of not only the power of the bomb, but the resolve of the Japanese people to rebuild. The park is pretty huge, and the pizza they serve in their cafe ruled. Japanese people love Italian food, which works for me.

I have to sort through 2000+ pictures now, but I’ll have a photo-storyesque version of our trip up soon.

Kyoto is the old capital of Japan. The Emperor used to be there, then something happened and he moved the palace to Tokyo, and the Shogun (Warrior General guy) lived in Kyoto. This is all we really know about the matter. First place we visited was Ninomaru Palace, which was conveniently right across from our hotel. One thing about being in Asia, is that I have seen more temples and shrines than I really ever wanted to. This place was cool and all, but enough is enough.

A Shinto shrine was next on our tour. Shinto and Buddhism are the 2 largest religions in Japan, and it seems that a lot of people have mixed the two and made one super-religion. Christianity makes up only 1%, so there weren’t a lot of churches and stuff. Following the shrine we headed to a Buddhist Temple, which for a change, was pretty awesome. It was way up on the mountain side, and offered some pretty awesome views. Vic drank water that came from the mountain. Exciting stuff.

Overall, I’d have to say Kyoto was least fun of all the Japantrip. There’s a lot of culture here, but when you’ve been immersed in Asian-style culture for a year, a few temples are just not that cool.

Full Pano Link (slightly massive (~15mb))

After the tower, we headed over to the Imperial Palace, where the Emperor lives. You can’t go in the palace, but apparently you can work in the Emperor’s garden for 4 days (paying all expenses during those days), and then you can meet him for about 20 seconds. The wait list for Japanese citizens is over 2 years, but for foreigners it is only 6 months. Maybe not the ideal vacation, but you could say you met the Emperor.

Following the slightly boring palace, we wandered around some Shinto temple for a bit, then took a ferry down Tokyo harbor. Easily the best 15 bucks we spent that day. Tokyo harbor gives you a nice view of the city, as well as the array of bridges that cross it. Every bridge is a different color and of constructed in a different style, so it was pretty cool as far as bridges go.

So our final day in Tokyo went pretty well. Tokyo is a nice city, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as advanced as people build it up to be. It’s got good trains (all of Japan does) and some really unique tech spots, but other than that it’s just a very, very big city.

Mt. Fuji took about 2 hours to get to, and we didn’t even see the mountain until we were half way up it due to heavy clouds. The upper portion of the mountain was closed still due to snow, our guide said that only in July, September and August can one climb to the peak. This sparked an idea to come back for a 2-day hike to the peak of Mt. Fuji immediately following our departure from South Korea. We shall see.

Our last stop of the day was a short ferry ride on some lake and then a cable-car ride up to the top of a lesser mountain. On a clear day, Mt. Fuji looms over the ride up and the mountain once there, providing a breathtaking scene. Here’s what we saw instead.

That’s Mt. Fuji you see in the distance, from inside a cold front. Photographic opportunities don’t get much rarer than that.

Tomorrow we’re touring around Tokyo itself, then wandering around to random stuff. I have a ton more pictures to upload, but using this tiny, stupid laptop makes me want to destroy it.

We left Incheon Airport at 8am today on a pretty smooth 2 hour flight in to Tokyo. After the hour bus ride from Narita (sp) airport to downtown Tokyo, we arrived at our hotel, the Shinagawa Prince Hotel.

After having some good old McDonalds for lunch, we headed to Akihabara, which is nerd central for Tokyo. Anime, robots, computer stuff, it’s all here. The prices seem reasonable-ish, but nothing extravagant. It was pretty amazing to see grown men perusing action figures of anime chicks though.

While in Akihabara, we stopped in a maid cafe. These cafes are staffed by Japanese girls dressed as maids, as one with a brain stem could deduce. They giggle a lot and bring you food and talk with you, or they do if you speak Japanese. This probably sounds awesome to most guys, but it was far more awkward than one would expect. One group of guys was in there when we got there, and that seemed ok, but then a few guys came in solo, and the shame was pretty thick.

While this seems pretty sketch, they had rules like no touching the waitresses and no pictures, hence the shot of their sign. From what I gathered it wasn’t a sleezy place at all, just kind of a net to catch lamelings. I guess good job to the girls.

The weather was crap today, hopefully tomorrow it’ll be better for Mt. Fuji. Weather says 70% rain. Japan is pretty much Florida with more shame.