more pictures!

empire state

long face

the quest for Lolita shops CONTINUES!

misty Brooklyn bridge

bustin' makes me feel good.

America! 30th July - New York to Newark, DE.

Today I woke up very tired but Charles was totally okay.  We went to a Starbucks for breakfast and used their free wifi.  YES.

We wanted to go to Kinokuniya bookshop, even though there's one in Sydney.  They are a Japanese shop and have lots of nice Japanese magazines.  On our way there we came across the New York Public Library - from Ghostbusters!  We were really excited and went inside to look.  It was a lovely old building with marble floors and wooden ceilings.  We had fun.  We are such nerds.

At Kinokuniya we bought a magazine each and then went upstairs to a cafe.  They had Japanese foods up there that we really liked!  I drank a giant iced coffee.  We got really dehydrated walking around in the sun all day.

We went back to the hotel to collect our bags and got a cab to the big station.  There were one billion people there and it was pretty loud and awful.  We didn't know what track our train was leaving from until they announced it, and then there was a huge bunfight to get to the train.  Literally hundreds of people trying to get down a tiny escalator with huge bags  - crazy.  Luckily we found a seat together.
I fell asleep on the train which was dumb of me, but when I wasn't asleep the scenery was really beautiful.  Green and leafy and lots of quaint houses.

At Newark we were chucked out of the train.  The man organising our workshops, Harvey, picked us up along with another guy from Switzerland.  Harvey was really nice and friendly.  We first went to the School of Music to meet some people (not everyone was there yet), and then he gave us our room keys and took us to the dorms.  The dorm room is really strange.  It's got lino floor, two very tall beds, two tiny desks, and a sink.  It's kind of militaristic.  The bathroom adjoins our room and the guy next door's room.  So I hope he doesn't walk in on me in the shower (there's no lock weird weird weird).

We walked back to the School (Harvey said it would be an 8 minute walk and it took like 20) and all went out to dinner down the road.  We went to an Italian place.  Charles and I decided to share a small pizza.  When it came, it was 14" wide.  And thick too!  It was so huge.  I could only manage one piece and Charles only one and a half.  We brought it home in a box and will have it for breakfast (I'm not really looking forward to that).

And that's it!  Photos to follow!

America! July 28th, 29th.

Charles and I are in America now!  I am here to attend the Bob Becker Ragtime Xylophone workshop and Charles is here to attend the Jazz Vibes course.  Anyway!

We stayed at the Formule 1 in Sydney the day before the flight on the 28th.  The flight was 14 hours to LA, and then another 5 hours to New York.  We left at 10am on the Thursday and arrived at 5:30pm on the Thursday!  It was hard convincing ourselves that only 8 hours had passed instead of 22.

We took a taxi to our hotel in New York - the 30 30 hotel in midtown, Manhattan.  After a brief rest we took a walk and then had a late dinner at a restaurant outside our hotel.

Sleep was not had that night!  Jetlag attack!

On Friday the 29th, we got up at about 10:30 (accidentally slept in) and went for a walk down to a shop I wanted to visit called Tokyo Rebel.  They import Japanese fashions and it's really nice.  The walk was very hot and humid, it was cloudy but one thousand degrees.  We went to a park on the way and saw squirrels!  I'd never seen squirrels before!

At the shop I tried on a beautiful Victorian Maiden dress that I really wanted, but I wasn't prepared to spend that much money.  Instead I bought a little tote bag by Baby, The Stars Shine Bright.  It's really cute.

Me and my bag (looking pretty tired):
 

After that we went to a really nice cafe and had lunch.  What we ate:
BBQ'd asparagus with cheese and pepper and lemon - very nice!

Giant burger and giant amount of lovely chips!


After lunch we meandered back to our hotel where we had a little rest.  I was feeling really bad with jetlag.  Charles was tired but seemed to be feeling okay.

At 6 we took several trains out to Brooklyn to meet Charles' cousin Melissa.  Subway trains are air-conditioned, but the stations are NOT.  They are very hot and stuffy.  It's disgusting.  At Brooklyn Melissa showed us the beautiful view of the river and Manhattan.  Then it started raining.  We popped back to her house to get something and then went out to walk to a restaurant.  It was raining SO HARD that their front steps had turned into a lake.  I just took my shoes off and waded through because there was no way round.  We went to a restaurant called Rice whose specialty was rice.  I had dumplings though.  It was lovely to talk to an Australian.

Around 9 Charles and I went back to our hotel totally exhausted.  Despite our tiredness we still couldn't sleep!  Worst ever!

3rd January!

(Christina)

Today we just wanted to do some relaxing shopping in Oxford to take advantage of the New Year sales.  There were a few shops that we each particularly wanted to visit, so we arranged our walking tour around those stops.

My cold has developed into a bad cough, and now Charles is showing symptoms.  I hope that his cold will not be as severe as mine.  He was a bit grumpy today, which I totally understand - the first day of a cold feels like impending doom.

So the first place we wanted to go to was the Monocle shop - not a shop that sells monocles, but a shop run by the magazine/brand Monocle.  Charles loves reading Monocle, which is a magazine written for super rich, first-class flying, travelling, executive, arty writer types.  Charles is not all of those things, but he does like reading the magazine because it's interesting.  Anyhow they sell stylish things that are mostly collaborations with other expensive brands.  There were Porter/Monocle bags that Charles liked, but that were also all over 200 pounds.  We had a fun time looking but didn't buy anything.

Next stop was Vivienne Westwood!  There were two shops - one for men and one for women.  Charles spent a while in the Mens shop and LIsa and I went to the Ladies' shop.  They had lots of beautiful VW/Melissa shoes but NOT the Dragonball ones that I really like.  They were all on special too… The clothes were lovely, but all were designer prices - too much.  Anyhow it was super nice to visit such an iconic English brand.

Then it was lunch time!  We went to a "Pret a manger" which serves really fresh delicious sandwiches and stuff.  It was really nice!  I didn't feel like eating anything at all because my throat was all swollen but the food was SO NICE I ate almost all my sandwich.  Awesome!  

That was at about 3pm (late lunch) and it was getting overcast and horrid outside.  We walked around for a while and I spotted an Irregular Choice shoe shop - the brand Irregular Choice makes really awesome, sometimes bizarre shoes.  It was an exciting shop and I ended up buying a beautiful pair of shoes that were on special!

Then we went to the Lomography shop that was just round the corner - didn't buy anything but it was fun.

Lisa didn't buy anything all day, because yesterday while Charles and i were at my family's house, she bought TWO JACKETS.  She deliberately didn't go into any tempting shops today!

We went to a bookshop and Charles bought a science fiction book while Lisa and I browsed books about Madrid - she's going there tomorrow while we're going back to Sweden!  Then it was to Marks and Sparks to get some salads for dinner, and then home on the tube.  Since then we've just been watching telly and eating!

It's been a super lovely holiday!

2nd December 2011

Christina

Today Charles and I had arranged to go and see my sister-in-law Natasha's family, who live in Greater London.  First we went to have a look at Buckingham Palace (much more simple than Versailles).  Then we took a Southern Railway train from Victoria to Purley, where Natasha's dad picked us up.  I'm still quite sick today, but my sickness has moved from my nose to my chest.  Bad!  Oh gosh will this awful illness never end.  I hate it.

We had a really good time at their house!  We found Natasha's brother particularly charming, as he is really interested in maths and talked to Charles about algebra for ages.  Lunch was a delicious curry!

After that Charles and I took the railway and then the underground to Camden Town, where we met Lisa and shopped around.  I bought two dresses immediately.  Crazy!  We stopped for a cupof tea when I started to flail, and then took the underground to Chinatown, where Lisa and Charles tried to make me eat something.  Dudes and ladies, I was so not hungry.  I stopped talking because every time I did, I coughed a gross painful cough which was gross and painful.  The restaurant was a lovely Japanese place that was REALLY Japanese and was super nice.  Lisa had Unagi Don (fried eel with egg and onion mixture on a bowl of rice) and Charles had oyakodon (Same as Lisa's except chicken instead of eel).  I had delicious miso soup and some salted beans (sounds weird but is like snow peas cooked with salt - nice).  Then i started to REALLY fail so we took the metro home!  Now it's 9pm - I think I did pretty well feeling so sick.  Charles and Lisa are real blessings, so kind.

Tomorrow - last day of the holiday!

1st January 2011! New Year's Day!

Christina

Today we all slept in because it's new year's day and NOBODY wakes up early on new year's day.  After breakfast downstairs and a Berocca (apparently it helps give you back your B-B-Bounce) and in my case, another Sudafed, we went and took a metro to the Natural History Museum.  I've been watching a series on ABC about this museum and was really looking forward to it!  (plus it was free).

First we visited the Dinosaurs exhibition!  It was awesome!  They had the bones of lots of dinosaurs and lots of interesting facts and pictures and stuff.  It's one of those cool museums that have history facts and information AS WELL AS objects - I guess that's because it's aimed at children too.  There were SO many kids and parents there.  Lots of kids being frightened by the big animatronic t-rex.  Lisa didn't quite understand our fanaticism about the dinosaurs - she doesn't yet understand that dinosaurs are AWESOME.

Then we went to an exhibition about MAMMALS.  It was great.  There were heaps of old taxidermied animals which is sad but also interesting.  I saw how big a moose is!  It's big (not as big as 3 school buses though).  Mammals are often categorised by how many toes they have, which seems kind of arbitrary to me.

After a nice lunch at the cafe and another Sudafed, we walked over the road to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  I'd heard they have a lot of interesting fashion stuff.  This is a HUGE museum and has one billion exhibits.  Unfortunately, the fashion exhibits were closed for refurbishment, but that still left plenty to look at.  At one point we found ourselves in a huge gallery with only wrought iron stuff, like gates and fences and keys and stuff.  My favourite was a room that was just full of lace.  There was also heaps of fabric and embroidery samples from centuries ago.  I loved it (lisa got a bit bored i suspect).  There was a big amount of theatre stuff, like costumes and sets and advertising and stuff.  Fascinating!  There were also big paintings by Raphael and lots of giant sculptures and a hall of jewellery.  We didn't have time to look at everything and we would have been there for 6 hours if we had tried to.

We were pretty tired after that, and there were no shopping places open (being new year's day), so we came home and watched TV for a while.  I started to feel really awful and decided not to go out again.  Lisa and Charles went out to Sainsbury's and bought me tissues, a greek salad, and 3 different types of cold medicine.  They are so nice!  Now they've gone out to have dinner in Chinatown (wherever that is). I await their return with bated breath to see how it went.  I feel bad for staying home tonight, but I think I would've felt much sicker if I went out.  I've been having a nice time playing on the internet.

31st December 2010

(Christina)
Today is the last day of the year!  Gosh!  We woke up in our lovely big triple hotel room and had breakfast downstairs at the hotel.  I have a really bad cold (terrible runny nose) but decided to soldier on.  Unfortunately, we don't have free internet here in the hotel, so we trooped off to Starbucks around the corner to use theirs.  We had to buy special membership cards and charge them with money to get a login!  Crazy.  Annoying.  So we did that.  My cold decided to get worse then and so Charles took me to a pharmacy and we asked for some medicine.  I  was given some sudafed (the real stuff), which is nice.

We took the underground to Notting Hill, where we went to Portobello Road markets.  It was super fun!  We didn't buy anything, but had a great time looking at all the interesting shops.  There was a shop that sold both Hunter gumboots (lisa wants some) AND Melissa shoes (I love them).  There wasn't much there to interest Charles particularly, but he had a good time too.  We had lunch at a SUPER DELICIOUS gourmet burger place, which was totally filling and awesome.

After lunch, we headed back to the station and trained to St Paul's Cathedral.  But when we wanted to go inside to have a look, we found that it was 12 pounds!  12!  That's expensive!  I was super cross because I think it's WRONG to charge to see a place of worship.  It would be okay if they'd asked for a donation.  Imagine how many other people are turned off by the price!  I think it's not in their interest to charge so much.  I have opinions.


So we walked to the Tate museum of modern art, which was just over the river.  The best thing was a huge room with what looked like gravel on the floor, but was actually porcelain painted to look like sunflower seeds.  Hundreds of thousands of porcelain sunflower seeds!  We watched a documentary about it and it looks like the artwork is more about the people who made the seeds rather than the work itself.  It was really interesting and heartwarming.  It was made in a small town in China which had become a bit bankrupt so the business really helped bring the town back to life.

Other exhibitions were on surrealism and other modern art.  Surrealism is cool, but other modern art seems to mostly consist of guts and creepy stuff.

Then we were hungry again!  There was nowhere to eat near there so we randomly took the metro to Green Park station, thinking it might be busier.  It wasn't, and we walked for ages not seeing anywhere to eat.  Finally found a "japanese" place which was really disgusting but we ate there anywhere and it was okay.  Then we continued walking in the same direction and began seeing millions of eateries and NYE revellers.  It was a happening part of town!  Lots of big lights and big city.  It kind of went to my head, and I started to feel horrible so we went home.  Now we're home watching Die Hard 4 or something, listening to the police cars zooming around outside.  We're right over the road from a police station, it's not a bad part of town or anything :-)

PS every time Charles and I hear sirens or see a policeman, we just immediately think of the theme from the Bill.  Dun-nuh, dun-nuh, DAH!  

30 December

(Charles)

Today was our big day to go to London! So when we woke up we organised our things and moved out of the room. We left our bags at the hotel and went out to walk around Paris for the day. 

Our favourite bit of Paris is the Marais Quarter, near our hotel. So many interesting shops. We just walked and walked and found nice things to look at.

Towards the end of the day we wandered around St Martin's Canal which was also interesting. We found a shop there called "Mutant Mutant Mutant Mutant" which looked awesome and WAS AWESOME. It sold super cheap bright tights and socks which are Chrissy's favourite thing. Lucky us for finding it.

Then we met Lisa to get the Eurostar to London, our seats were a group of four facing each other so we could have intelligent conversation all the way.

In London we found our hotel in the west end, near victoria station. It's nice area, not very far from the queen. so that's nice.

The room is big and comfy, BUT the "internet in all rooms" is expensive! 2 pounds per hour! Ridiculous!! 

So we can't upload the blog yet! Bad alert. 

So, time for sleep now and walking around tomorrow!!

29th December

Today we wanted to go to Versailles.  We were feeling a bit tried from yesterday so we slept in and then we went out to Republique and got a huge delicious breakfast bread thing.  It was delicious.  Chrissy thought it was smaller than it was, and then it was 3 times bigger.  She ate one third.

Then we caught the train to Versailles.  This took a while.  Ad then when we were in Versailles we went to the ticket office before we got to the palace and didn't have to wait in line.  Charles got in free since he's a resident of the EU and is under 26, but Chrissy had to pay 20 euro.  

Then we went up the Chateau and we went in the entrance.  It was totally confusing and we didn't know where to go.  We went into the main chateau museum and it was a long tour of identical rooms which were confusing and forgettable, even though each one was amazing.  The highlights were the room with a thing in it, and that other thing that was in a room.  Refer to photos.

Then we went to the garden which was all snowy and slushy and slippery and we walked a LONG way looking at all the fountains that were off, and eventually we got to the second building which was called the trianon which was kind of more interesting i thought.  The last building was called the little trianon, and then there were a collection of little whimsical farm buildings made for marie-antoinette to play in.  Then we had to walk back to the main house which was SO HARD, oh my god, it was bad.  then we stopped for McDonalds but it was too late for lunch and i felt bad, we both felt bad.

Then we got the train back, but instead of going home which would be sensible, we went to Muji.  Chrissy bought a bag because her other bag strap BROKE!  And then instead of getting a train home we decided to walk home, which was also totally crazy, but we passed some interesting shops, including a bookshop which was totally interesting.

Then we got some salads from the better bakery, then we got home at ate them and they were super delicious, oh my gosh.  now our legs hurt.  Our last full day in Paris!

28th December

(Christina)

Oh no!  We forgot to blog for a day!  We got home so late last night that we were too tired.  It was a huge day!

First off we met Lisa at Republique as always, and she took us to an AMAZING bakery we'd never seen before.  We had ham and cheese croissants which SOUNDS pretty average but was actually totally amazing.  We felt full and energised.  

We wanted to go to Printemps, which is a department store.  We found a brochure with a 10% discount at Printemps so thought it might be interesting.  On the way we went to UniQlo, which is a Japanese brand that just sells basic clothes - not fancy ones, but good quality and fairly cheap.  I was thrilled to find that they had a bunch of dresses that were a collaboration with Milk - another Japanese brand that is usually to expensive for the likes of me.   But since it was a collaboration with UniQlo, they were only 19 euro!  So I bought one.  I also FINALLY bought a jumper (thanks mum and dad) which is warm grey cashmere.  Charles bought a scarf and a new plain black t-shirt because he was sick of all his old plain black t-shirts.

We finally got to Printemps, but it turned out to be exactly the same as La Fayette - all really expensive name-brands.  Boring!  We took the metro to the Champs-Elysses and went to a museum called Palais de Tokyo.  It was only - ONE EURO - for each of us to enter.  The price was 1 euro for "artists" and "students studying art" so we claimed to be art students which is kind of TRUE.  We didn't need to prove anything!

The gallery was interesting contemporary art, my favourite piece being a sculpture that was a circle of jeans with concrete in them instead of legs.  We had lunch at the museum too!  It was fairly cheap!

Next we walked up the Champs-Elysses again - this time with Lisa.  She and I went to Sephora, the big cosmetics shop, and she bought some nail polish and I bought some extreme red lipstick.  It's rad!  We walked all the way up the street to the Arc, took some photos, and then took a metro away from there.

Next stop was dinner.  Lisa had a place she wanted to take us that was on the left bank.  It was a pretty classy place!  I had "vegetable soup" which turned out to be "vegetable" singular, pumpkin.  Lisa had the duck, which was not off, and Charles had a delicious beef… stew.  (his imagination was broke).  They were all really yummy!  Right outside the window next to our table there was someone in a Smart Car who was totally parked in by these two other huge cars.  We enjoyed watching him do a 7-point-turn to escape.  In Paris people just bump into the other cars to get in and out of a parallel park.

Next - Tour d'Eiffel!  We took a metro there and immediately went right to the top.  I was so scared!  The lift goes fast and it makes your ears pop because the tower is SUPER TALL.  It was foggy at the top so we couldn't really see anything, which is kind of a relief because it's scary at that height!  We went down to the second level and could see lots from there.  By the time we left it was about 10:30 and way past our bedtime!  So we went home to bed!  The end!

27th December

(Charles)

Today was our BIGGEST day YET.

We met at the bakery at République for breakfast croissants and pain au chocolat. YUM. We sort of wanted to go the the Champs Elysses again, but some museums over there were closed on Mondays so we decided to visit Montmartre instead. 

SO, we hopped in a metro out to Montmartre and wandered around for a while trying to find our way up the hill to the big church, Sacre Coeur. The church was nice, but the view from the top was really interesting. As it was approaching coffee-o-clock, we stopped for espresso and cakes. YUM. 

Suddenly I realised (with the help of LP) that there was a Dali museum in Montmartre. Christina suddenly got sparkly eyed and so we had to go, so we wandered around a bit more to find it. The museum was pretty good, a small gallery with mostly sketches and sculptures, it was a bit busy for a really relaxed look, but it was worth seeing and pretty cheap. Probably the best bit was the Dali quotes on the walls. He was clearly completely mad and totally awesome. 

NEXT, Lomography Shop Paris! I've wanted to go to a lomography shop for ages and finally we were able to go to the Paris gallery store. I was very relieved to find it open since lots of things were closed most of the day. They had ALL the fun cameras and films and things. I bought some interesting film and an awesome case for MY Diana mini camera. (Chrissy has claimed the camera AND the case. So that's that). 

Lisa and I want Lomo LCA+ cameras but they're too expensive! (250eu!!)

NOW was the time for walks in the Bastille area. We somehow decided to walk because it wasn't too far and because the big train stations are a bit tiring to figure out all the time (Gare du Nord is closest to the Lomography shop). So we walked to République and then got a metro two stops. Suddenly it became clear that it was lunchtime and we quickly stopped to eat. After food, we started walking around an "area of interest" according to LP, in the first street we found a cool contemporary art gallery, lots of great windows, and a little cute clothes shop where the shop assistant / designer was actually sewing while looking after the shop. Sometimes Paris is just too cool. As it got darker, we found more shops and more people came out to walk around. It was super fun running around all the cool shops.

Eventually we ended up at the Pompidou Centre and took lots of cool photos. 

Dinner was in two parts -- first, Crepes, second, super cheap pizza, salad and wine from a touristy sort of Italian restaurant. I ate too much cheese.

It was basically a super rad day. We three are an awesome travel team!

26th December!

(Christina)

We met Lisa at around 10:30 today an went straight to some markets in the south of Paris.  They were fun markets - lots of stalls and interesting stuff, mostly antiques.  I bought a hair thing and Lisa got a little set of kitchen scales.  It was obscenely cold and both of my feet went numb.  We stopped to have brunch at a bakery.

Then we took the metro to the left bank - or the south bank - to see a cool museum that Charles found, Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain.   It turned out that the exhibition was about a particular French comic book artist called Jean Giraud  or Gir or Moebius.  It was super interesting and awesome.  I wish I could read French!!

Then we walked around the cool streets on the left bank, over the river from Notre Dame.  We went to Shakespeare and Co bookshop (a famous English-language bookshop, mostly run by poets and authors and beatniks), and had lunch at another bakery.  It was all very pretty, but not many shops were open because everything shuts on Sundays.

Home now yay!  Another dinner of home made sandwiches!

PS. In Paris we mostly eat sandwiches. The bread is soooooo nice.

Christmas in Paris!

Today was Christmas! yay! Unfortunately, we were both feeling a bit sick so we took the day off from doing too much stuff. Chrissy wanted to go to church, so we went to a service at Notre Dame this morning. There was a nice choir, but we were so far back that it all sounded a bit washy and unclear. Even though everything was in French, I found it only slightly more boring than a regular church service. so, not that bad?

For lunch we settled for macdonalds, since we were too tired to find somewhere good... Boring. In the afternoon we watched Xena and then for dinner we went to a supermarket and got stuff to make sandwiches. Bread in Paris is generally SUPER DELICIOUS. Yum.

More interesting stuff tomorrow!

Photos 24 December

24th December - Christmas Eve!

Today was the second day of our two-day museum pass, so we met Lisa early to go to as many museums possible!  We were a museum viewing three-headed monster!

First we went to the Louvre, obviously, and headed straight for the Mona Lisa.  Lisa and I lost Charles on the way there and discovered that we'd overshot the entrance to the Mona Lisa room by about 50 metres!  Poor Charles thought we'd left him forever!  Anyhow the Mona Lisa was pretty okay, much smaller than I thought, and kind of annoying to view because of all the billions of people there.  BILLIONS.

Other things we looked at at the Louvre: Venus, Ramses, a MUMMY, various Egyption relics, Ancient Greek stuff, lots of paintings of Jesus.  Charles and I would like to go back again!  It was really good and we hardly saw anything, even though we were there for over two hours.

THEN we went to another museum called Musee des Arts Decoratifs (or something).  It was all about hand made stuff and design, I think.  We mostly looked at a bunch of fashion by famous designers (Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christan Dior), which was cool.  Then we went into a gigantic maze of rooms with art deco stuff, art nouveu stuff, old chairs, renaissance stuff.  We felt tired and wanted to leave, but to get out you had to go through another gallery of "animal" stuff, which included crocodile skin boots, a giant metal rhinocerous, and also chairs made in the shape of dogs.  At the end I didn't really know what the museum was trying to achieve.  We also noted that there were about 5 floors we didn't even look at.

Following that, we walked in the freezing cold snowy weather to Musee d'Orangerie, which is famous for housing some of Monet's Waterlilies.  The museum was basically two large oval rooms with four huge curved paintings covering almost the entire wall space.  Look it up!  Awesome.  And beautiful too.

We were tired after three museums, so took a train to a place where Lisa said was a good Japanese restaurant.  We all had ramen, and it was pretty good DESPITE the staff all being Chinese (lisa overheard their conversation - she's a handy person to have around).

We went to a famous department store called Galleries LaFayette which was in full-on crazy mode because everyone was buying last minute presents.  We saw lots of fashion by famous designers (Vivienne Westwood, Jean Paul Gaultier, Christian Dior), which all had dresses for thousands of euros!  A BIT out of my price range, you guys!

After we got all crazied out, we all went home.  The end!  Happy Christmas!

23 December

Paris blog 2010/12/23

Paris was very snowy today! Totally annoying! The air isn't that cold, so the snow is sort of wet and sticks to you, BUT, the wind is super cold and annoying. So, we all agreed that it was too cold to wander around and we decided to do museums today and tomorrow. We met Lisa at Republique and bought a Paris Visite pass for 5 days so that we don't have to keep finding change for the metro all the time. We decided to do the Centre Pompidou first because it looks so interesting. The line to get in wasn't too bad and we bought 2 day Paris Museum passes. The first thing that happens at the Pompidou centre is that you have to go around the outside of the building on the escalators. This is totally awesome. The view was great, even though the weather outside was frightful. We took a lot of photos at the top. The main galleries are modern art to 1980 and then 1980+ and the 1980+ section had a focus on women artists. It was totally awesome. 

We then spent AGES in the bookshop and interesting thing shop. Lots of books were on special, but they were usually really heavy and annoying. Lisa and I agreed that we wanted a cool book for around 10 euros which was small enough to carry with us. We couldn't find anything meeting all three conditions.

LUNCH was at a nice place nearby that specialised in grilled cheesy sandwiches. Nice and inexpensive.

THEN, we wanted to do another museum, but it was pretty late, so we went to Musée de Arts et Metiers since I remembered it was pretty small. Getting in was a bit weird. They wanted us to produce our museum passes to get ANOTHER ticket, and then a lady waved us through while trying to get us to join a tour or something which we didn't care about and then ANOTHER person scrutinised both tickets. Weird. We had no idea what was going to be on at this museum, but the temporary exhibit was a retrospective on video games and it was totally rad. The focus was playing the games and they had lots of representative games from the last 30 years set up and ready to play. Obviously, NES had Super Mario Bros, Gameboy had Tetris, N64 had Goldeneye, there was Lemmings (Chrissy played) etc. It was super awesome. We were all blown away.

The rest of the museum was a bit dusty and tired but was still reasonably interesting (or maybe we were tired).

Luckily the museum shop wasn't selling awesome video games and consoles or charles may have spent all his money.

THEN we got tired and had to come home! Baguette and salad for dinner from the boulangerie. Yum.

Extra info: We went to a supermarket and got some deserts and some more bottled water. When we got home, the water turned out to be all salty. Weird? Who wants to drink salty water??

December 21st!

21 December

Here's a blog post detailing what we did yesterday, since we were too tired to write a blog.

We got up at 4:30 from our hotel in Stockholm and went directly to Arlanda airport.  I was feeling cautious excitement at the possibility of being in Paris by noon, and Charles was feeling cautiously grumpy at being woken up so early.  We DID make it to Paris, and we took the train into town.  Paris metro stations are easier to navigate than Japan ones because people aren't in such a pushy hurry, and because the signs aren't in Japanese.  French is easier to read than Japanese in English.

We got to our hotel to find that it is PRETTY small.  I could not swing a cat in here!  If I wanted to swing a cat.  It has a place to sleep and a place to wash, so it's okay really.

We went out immediately and had lunch at a local lebanese place.  Nice!  Then it was straight to the Champs-Elysses for a walk.  We walked all the way along the lovely street, looking at the pretty Christmas market stalls and the big shops.  It was pretty similar in feel to Omotesando-dori in Harajuku, the same wide street with big fancy shops and big fancy people.  We had a good look at the Arc de Triumphe at the end, and agreed it was pretty good.  Here's Charles wearing it like a hat!

Here's me eating it!

We just walked back down the Champs-Elysses again.  Stopped at Louis Vuitton to see what all the fuss was about, but I still don't really like chequered bags.

THEN we took the metro to the stop near the Eiffel Tower, and saw the Eiffel Tower.  It's really big and cool!  There were lots of christmas market stalls there too and we enjoyed looking through them.  Charles bought a crepe with nutella in it… delicious.  At the actual tower, there were one thousand dudes selling stuff.  Mostly they were selling miniature Eiffel Towers, which they carried around on huge rings and shook about.  Some people were selling hats and scarves, because it was really cold, and some were selling animatronic barking dogs.  Some really annoying dudes were selling roses which they kept shoving in my face.  The WORST dudes were the ones trying to tie a string around my wrist and then get 2 euro for it.

Anyhow we saw the lights come on, but it wasn't super spectacular because it was so foggy!  What a terrible day to go up the tower!  Good thing we didn't go up.  Saving that for a better day.

Then: home to our hotel!  Yay what a lovely day!  By the way, there's a REALLY NICE view of Paris from our window.  Not like a spectacular panorama, but a nice view of parisian streets.  Cute!

22nd December

22nd December

Today was our first full day in Paris.  We met Lisa at our hotel at around 11am.  We walked all the way from our hotel to Baby, The Stars Shine Bright, through Bastille. It should've been around a 30 minute walk but there were many interesting camera shops that we were all interested in.  At Baby, I tried on a few dresses but one Alice and the Pirates dress was really nice.  I didn't buy it, but I DID think about it all day.  Might go back and buy it tomorrow.  What do you think?

We had lunch at a nice restaurant, and I foolishly got an entree AND a main (they had some special lunch deal), which turned out to be a ridiculous amount of food.  I didn't finish, but I did nearly explode.  Lisa and Charles had normal amounts of food.

We decided to walk to Angelic Pretty and then to Notre Dame.  On the way to AP we spotted a Muji and had a nice time in there.  Muji is a really cool shop.  We bought a couple of things and best of all, picked up a catalogue.  Awesome perusin' ensued!

We went to the address where AP was supposed to be, but found a shop called Boddywood instead.  It stocked a lot of Milk dresses, and also Hellcat Punks (not want), Vivienne Westwood stuff, and Melissa shoes.  I could tell that before I saw them because of their heady perfume.

We figured out that AP was actually ABOVE the shop, and asked a shop girl who took us around the back and up to a bright pink apartment where they had the Angelic Pretty shop.  It was kind of awkward - a super tiny room with bright pink and red walls and huge dresses, while the shop girl stood and looked at us, and I tried to be casual… but I did not buy any AP dresses.  They're too crazy!  Oh my gosh!

After that experience, we took the metro to Notre Dame.  When we got outside again, it was raining!  We hurried into the cathedral, where it was warm and dry, and especially beautiful.  It was SO nice.  It's really big.  I don't know… it's great.  It's real good.  Go there?

We walked to the city hall (Hôtel de Ville) where there was an  an outdoor ice-skating rink.  For christmas i guess?  It was pretty, and the roof of Hôtel de Ville lights up!  Over the road was a famous department store called Bazaar Hôtel de Ville, where we spent a while perusing and having coffees.  It was nice!

Then: it was raining even more!  We took the metro home and picked up some delicious cold salads and tarts from the bakery.  We're eating in our hotel room!  Fighting over who gets to eat what salad!  (ps the prosciutto salad is the best)

Last Day! 8th February

Today was our last day in Japan!! Luckily we did as much as two normal days just to wear ourselves out for the overnight flight in the evening.

I woke up early to look out the window again! I could see Mt Fuji again and also some skyscrapers in Yokohama.

After window viewing, we went downstairs... to the twentieth floor... to have breakfast. We got to sit right at the corner of the building looking over the tracks of Shinjuku station all the way south to Harajuku and Shibuya. It was so much fun watching trains that we almost forgot to eat!

After eating as much of the buffet as we could, we got all our stuff packed up and checked out, leaving our bags at the hotel. This was at about 10:15, just in time for our first appointment at Tokyu Hands which opens at 10. We took the torturous one minute walk to Tokyu Hands which was right across the tracks from our hotel. The MAIN thing I wanted to look at was Porter bags, but we also wanted to check out their toy cameras and other such things! It was fun and we spent a bunch of our remaining cash on cameras. 

Having potentially chosen a bag I wanted to buy, we moved on to our second destination, Daikanyama, which is an area near Shibuya. I wanted to go to *another* bag shop before leaving Tokyo! (thankyou for understanding, Christina...) We took the Yamanote line for free to Shibuya then changed to a private line for a short ride to Daikanyama. Lucky for us, Daikanyama is the most awesome place ever. It is super fashionable. We were there about 12, just when shops start opening, so it was a bit deserted, but the few people we saw were amazingly fashionable. Awesome. The bag shop wasn't hard to find. It's the only place where you can buy Monocle x Porter bags in Tokyo. I got to fondle all the amazing bags, but the ones I wanted were sold out :-( which is lucky because they were about $600. Wow, expensive.

Having left the bag shop we wandered around for a while oogling the cool shops. We stopped for lunch an italian style cafe named Eataly. It was delicious! I had nice coffee and nice sandwich and Christina had an amazing spherical cake and disappointing tea. Yay. I opened up my new Diana Mini camera and loaded film to take pictures!

We headed back to the station and on the way photographers were photographing a model who was modelling. Awesome.

Back at Shinjuku we quickly went back to Tokyu Hands and I bought my new bag yay. THEN we went to Marui One which was only a short walk away. I think this was the first day that Charles activities came before Lolita activities. Wow!

Chrles just got a severe tickling for that. HRRUMPH.

Marui one was fun but Christina didn't find anything good to buy that we could afford so we left. On the walk back to the station we stopped at a few places and looked around Shinjuku for the last time (for now!). 

It was easy to pick up our bags and get the station early for our 4:10 train! We spent some time on the platform watching the trains and taking fun photos. 

The Narita express was a nice trip. It was good to be on it while it was still light so that we could see the scenery. Interesting!

Checking in for our flight, we were distressed to find that we couldn't have seats together! We complained to the lady since we were very upset and luckily they upgraded us to premium economy so that we could be together! It was horrible! But it worked out ok...

The flight back was just tiring... I would have liked to sleep or relax more but they keep coming up with more activities... dinners... breakfasts.... cups of tea...  too many!

Finally we got to Sydney and got our bags through customs etc. I had assumed that you could go to some kind of desk and buy a bus ticket. This was not the case... we found the bus terminal... but there was no official people or anything...

In the end, we bought a ticket for an 8:30 Greyhound bus from their website. When it turned up, the driver didn't have our names on his sophisticated passenger tracking system... a piece of paper... eventually we got on the bus after he'd inspected the "e-ticket" on our iPhone. It was so depressing after travelling on Shinkansen for ages... Australian things suck sometimes.

Anyway, we got home quite early. Trip finished!! Until next time Japan! Mata ne?

7th February again!

So Emi had told us that we'd be dining at a good udon restaurant today for lunch, so we would have a small breakfast. She said maybe a piece of bread, and then some bacon and eggs (Japanese bacon and eggs are smaller than Australian). When we got to the breakfast table, it was ham and egg sandwiches and lots of fruits. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was big.

We packed up all our stuff, which took a while. Emi took us out to the 100 yen shop again because we wanted to buy some more lollies for presents. We got stamps at the post office on the way back to Emi's, which took ages because the lady was worrying that we were sending giant postcards.

We went out to the udon restaurant with Emi's parents and her sister's family. Udon is a kind of thick noodle which is served in a soup, like ramen. Emi ordered a small one for me, but it looked full size and I couldn't finish. It was delicious though. The noodles were about two metres long.

Before going back to Emi's, we went to a Japanese sweet shop where we went last time. Emi's parents insisted on buying us four small sweets, that we could eat in our hotel that night. I bought some other sweets too. They're expensive because they're handmade and special. On arriving back at Emi's, however, we were presented with two giant boxes of sweets for our families. Somehow we managed to fit everything in our bags. We went off to the station to catch the Kodama to Tokyo.

Our hotel was Shinjuku Hotel Century Southern Tower, which is very close to the station. In fact, it is on top of the station. So we exited the station and there was a live band busking on the street! They were really good! A real rock band! They were called Bring, and were advertising some upcoming concerts. After they finished, we clapped and the frontman came up to us to talk! We had a conversation in Japanese, and he said that he was really happy that Westerners could enjoy Japanese music. We told him that we're musicians too, and he said he was EMBARRASSED.

We walked 20 metres to our hotel along Shinjuku Terrace, and found that the lobby is on the 20th floor. The lift was glass again, and we could see Tokyo spread our before us as we rose. The view from the lobby was spectacular! Our room was on the 32nd floor. It had an even better view, and we could even see the sun setting over Fuji-san. We spent ages just looking at the view.

We dressed up to go out that night. I put on my Victorian Maiden outfit and new shoes and beret, Charles donned his new trousers and scarf and we looked like real cosmopolitan peeps. We were proud to be seen with each other. We took the Yamanote line to Harajuku to visit KiddyLand in Omotesando street. We had dinner at a Lotteria first. At KiddyLand we had a lot of fun, but didn't buy anything. Afterwards, we walked up Takeshita Dori, where all the shops were closed. We saw a few Decora girls (or boys?) around too, which were bright. We took the train back to Shinjuku and I had to go and change my shoes. It hurt.

We went back out and walked to Don Quixote, which sells everything ever, which is in the night-clubby area of Shinjuku. Despite it being 11pm, the shop was packed. It's a 24-hour shop. I got what I came for - a tiny suitcase that I can use as a lappy case/handbag. It's red. After that we had to leave because it was too crowded. We went back to our hotel and looked at Tokyo at night. It was super!

Last full day - 7th feb

- Anjo City small breakfast turned out to be huge
- Gigantic Lunch at udon restaurant
- received one billion presents
- to shinjuku
- saw an amazing band who talked to us
- rocked the party
- our hotel is amazingly amazing.
- out to omotesando kiddyland wearing rad outfits both of us
- Dinner at lotteria
- back to shinjuku to change shoes
- out to don quixote (massive shop) and bought a thing to carry things in. a thing carrier.
- to hotel to look at tokyo from above.
-will expand on dot points tomorrow. TSUKARERU.

February 6th!

Today we woke up in Anjo city (same place we went to sleep) and there was snow everywhere! So much for Emi telling us that it will never snow in Anjo! It wasn't as much as Takayama, but still! Smow!

After breakfast the three of us went to a shopping centre in Anjo called Apita. It was a small mall, but there were some lovely shops and we could happily spend time there. Charles bought some magazines, for a change! We had lunch there at a bakery/cafe as usual!

One funny thing we noticed about some shopping centres: lots of shops sell both grown-up clothes and kids' clothes, and the kids' clothes are exactly the same as the adults' clothes. A mother and daughter could wear matching sensible skirts, blouses and blazers. In Isetan in Kyoto, there was a whole floor of brands for kids - like Comme Ca Kids, Burberry for Children, etc. The same brands as the grown-ups! We find this totally weird, but when we talked to Emi about it, she said it was normal for kids to wear those kids of clothes to graduations from kindergarten.

After the mall, we went straight to Emi's brother's house to visit her niece and nephew and sister-in-law. We brought them some presents and they were happy. We had fun playing jenga together, and then we played some games on the Nintendo Wii. It was really nice and we made friends with the kids again.

Back at Emi's place we had an early tea and have been relaxing with the TV all evening. Right now we're watching a movie called "Hula Girls" which is the exact same plot as Billy Elliott, except instead of a small Irish boy doing ballet, it's a group of poverty-stricken Japanese women doing Hawaiian dancing. Same coal-mining town and intolerence and abusive fathers etc. It's really touching even though we can't understand the words.

5th of February!

We got up today and had breakfast with Emi and then went out so that Christina could get her hair cut. Chrissy wanted to go to the same hairdresser she went to last time we were in Japan. While she was getting her hair done I got to read some men's fashion magazines in detail as well as a book about cafes. I love the way Japanese people examine themselves - there are lots of magazines about local travel, and people seem to like knowing about the "interesting thing" about each town and "local specialties". The book was something like "Interesting Cafes of Aichi Prefecture" and had some nice places that we might visit if we have a chance tomorrow.

After the haircut which looks lovely, we caught a train to Nagoya and looked around for a place to have lunch. Eventually we found a nice cafe and had a lunch set each consisting of a sandwich, half-croissant, extra piece of bread, small salad and drink. It was delicious. I had found a map of Nagoya and looked for interesting places to go / art galleries. We decided to go to a shopping area and work our way towards "Nagoya City Art Gallery".

It was a short train ride to this area and we were immediately presented with "Nagoya TV Tower" outside the station. Nagoya tower is a smaller version of Tokyo Tower which is smaller than the Eiffel tower. So it's a bit weird, but pretty in it's own weird way.

We wandered around the area for a while and worked our way towards the art gallery. Around this time, we started to notice that it was extremely cold and we couldn't wait to find a place to go inside.

Finally, we reached the art gallery, but, as usual, they were in between exhibitions and we only got to see their permanent gallery. The permanent gallery was a bit small, but had a few nice pieces. I was more interested in their guides to other galleries in the foyer where I found out that there are a lot of very interesting contemporary art shows in Aichi prefecture all starting.... next week. :-(

After the gallery we went back outside to look at some shops including one that sells ONLY Porter bags yay. I want another Porter bag to go with my wallet!

We saw a few interesting things, but as it got darker it was too cold to stay out so we took the train back to Anjo city and arrived back at Emi's house.

In the evening we chatted with the family and played with Riku, Emi's nephew, who likes us now. Dinner was prepared by Emi and her grandmother and was delicious.

4/2 - Thursday

We woke up in our lovely comfy tatami room in Takayama and I opened the window and looked out on the snowy road. Yay!

I have another story: When we decided to come to Takayama for one night I wanted to stay at "Spa Hotel Alpina". The last time we were in Takayama I wasn't very happy with our hotel and to rub it in they had ads for "Spa Hotel Alpina" in our room. Unfortunately SHA was booked out and we got a room in a fun hostel instead. HOWEVER, to rub things in, SHA was right next to the J-Hoppers Hostel. Everytime I opened a window, I saw Spa Hotel Alpina. I'll get you Spa Hotel Alpina! If it's the last thing I dooooooo!!!!!

We woke up and had mandarins for breakfast since it was all we had with us. After packing up and checking out we walked around Takayama, looking at the morning market and having a delicious second breakfast at a little cafe. We didn't do anything in particular, but we had a nice morning wandering around looking at the snowy town.

At 11:30 we got on our train back to Nagoya. Both of us were sleepy and relaxed on the train, watching the mountains above and rocky river below.

At 14:40 we arrived at MikawaAnjo station and Emi was waiting for us at the gates with her sister in the car. For the rest of the afternoon we hung around the house talking with everybody and playing with Emi's little nephew. We all went for a walk together, and Emi and us two ended up at the enormous 100 yen shop down the road.  We had a nice time there as it's the BEST 100 yen shop in all of Japan.  We assisted with dinner and learned from Emi's grandmother how to make chicken/egg rice which is one of our favourite Japanese foods. We're both very tired from all of our activities and appreciated the quiet afternoon.

February 3rd - Setsubun in Takayama!

Today we got up reasonably early, checked out and took the train to Takayama at about 10:56. The train was booked out so we had to use the non-reserved car, where we easily found seats. It became pretty crowded after a while, it seems everyone was going to Takayama. I slept for about an hour while Charles ate some strange sandwiches with tasty mystery foodstuffs. When I woke up, the scenery was starting to be really beautiful. The train goes along a river up into the mountains, and the water is an amazing colour green. The higher we went, the snowier it became outside, until the whole landscape was covered in snow. It was super lovely!! We took a bajillion photos.

At Takayama, where it was much colder than inside the train, it was actually snowing! There were snowflakes that stayed on my nose and eyelashes! It was a very short fun walk to our hotel, where we hung around and had a cup of tea. We were both feeling a bit sniffly, probably because of the weather.

We head out to look at a nearby shrine, because today was Setsubun. Setsubun is the festival where people usher out devils (Oni) and welcome in good luck. There were a bunch of men all dressed up as devils and gods at the shrine, freaking out babies. It must be good luck to hand your screaming baby to a devil for a photo. It was like photos with Santa! One Oni saw us and posed with me because I was a foreigner.

We followed the group down the street. The Oni went into every shop, and was "chased" (followed) out by the gods, who handed out dried beans. They were chanting the whole way "Devils outside! Luck inside!". I thought people were supposed to throw the beans at the devil, but we only saw some kids throwing them at each other.

We popped into a coffee shop/glassware shop where we had a delicious cake and coffee set each. It was right next to the river, and we could see the bridge and ducks. We saw the Oni go by on the bridge.

We walked along the bridge and came to the "old private houses" of Takayama. These wooden houses are shops that sell all manner of touristy stuff, as well as sake and food. When we wound our way back to our hotel, we ran into the Oni again and he shook my hand because he recognised me. They're a riot!

After a little rest, we headed out to a restaurant where Charles' parents went while they were here, and where we went last time too. I had sukiyaki, and Charles had something like sukiyaki, but with miso paste. It was all very delicious. The waitress told us that her son was in the Setsubun procession today as a god. Then who should show up but the Oni and his party of gods, scattering beans everywhere. He spotted us and said something like "YOU AGAIN!!!" but in Japanese. The waitress' son was with the party and she caught him and told the restaurant "THIS IS MY SON!!" and we all waved at him. She was really proud. It was the best. They made a big mess with beans everywhere.

Back at the hotel we watched T.V. for a while in the common room. Nobody came to join us but there were a bunch of annoying "travelling type" people in the kitchen talking about eating live fish and stuff. Gross.

Our room here is quite nice and we have really nice futon to sleep on, but we don't have our own bathroom or even our own hot water machine. Also we have to walk up stairs to the fourth floor which is REALLY HARD. Charles had to carry both bags (one by one).

In conclusion, snow is pretty.

February 2nd - Kyoto!

Today started out cold and cloudy but not rainy, so we caught the subway to Nanzen-ji temple to look around and follow the Philosopher's Walk between Eikan-do and Ginkaku-ji temples. FIRST, we visited the Turtle and Crane garden as recommended by Charles' parents. It was lovely! Some of the garden's we've visited have been a bit sad because it's the middle of winter, but this garden was full of evergreen plants and moss and was beautiful. We wandered through the grounds and spent a long time contemplating the rock garden.

Our next stop was Nanzen-ji temple which has a huge wooden gate. The grounds of Nanzen-ji are fun to look around and we explored and took photos and sound recorded etc. We followed the aqueduct as far as we could in both directions. One way led to a tunnel and we had to stop, the other way went around the mountain on a perilous path to a big, cool, strange, pumping station. Awesome. Very "Wonder Japan".



We wandered along the path of philosophy looking at cats and shops, but it was quiet and cold so we didn't stop anywhere for too long. Before Ginkaku-ji temple we stopped at a Japanese restaurant for lunch. The menu seemed to be in hiragana so we turned down extra help, but it turned out to be mostly in kanji. We ended up ordering the first two items. "Nishisoba" and "Tororosoba". We knew that "soba" means soba buckwheat noodles, but we weren't sure what Nishi and Tororo were. Nishi turned out to be the black dried strong fish that we had tried a few days before and Tororo was a kind of broth with semi-raw egg on top. Both were O.K, maybe a combination of difficult food and a sort of lame restaurant. Our menu reading skills are improving a lot over this trip. We can read kanji for lots of meats and can read words for noodles etc. We can also identify the kanji for "teishoku" which means "set meal". That's a good one to know.

After the restaurant we walked up to Ginkaku-ji temple for the second ever time. We had a nice walk around and it started to rain so we didn't linger. It was nice, but after the amazing Crane and Turtle garden we weren't as impressed. We did get a nice rainy view of Kyoto though!

After temple exploring we caught a bus into town to do some more city exploring. We got off the bus near the bridge over the "duck river" Kamokawa and walked across looking at the nice view. School was just out and we got to observe some classic Japanese teenager nonsense involving two girls, a bicycle, two policeman and a convenience store. It was all very interesting. Apparently the girls gave Charles a threatening/horrified look in the convenience store.

We walked from the bridge to the centre of fashionable Sanjo-dori and wandered around little shops and had coffee. It got very cold and started to rain a little bit so we took refuge in one of Kyoto's museums and looked at a free exhibition of japanese classical style artworks (kimonos, vases, dolls, prints etc). The lady gave us an inpenetrable pamphlet so we gave it back.

After the museum we zig-zagged through the streets finding interesting new places. We found a Uniqlo and Christina bought Charles some pants. They have three sorts of pockets on the front on each side, a regular jeans-style pocket, a zip pocket AND a button flap pocket. Flexibility plus!

We also went to a Loft so that Christina could look at BB cream (makeup) for ages. She *finally* found the one she wanted and bought a proper sized packet. Charles got to look at more Porter bags.

By this time we had gotten *ridiculously* tired from all of our exploring, so we walked back to our restaurant near home and had a nice teishoku each and then went back to the hotel. After relaxing for a bit we went out to the sento to warm up. We've mostly got the hang of public baths in Japan now. Christina says that the women all giggle and chat in bath. Charles says that groups of men sit down seriously with their elbows on their knees and growl things to each other.

Now we're all warmed up we're going to sleep in preparation for our trip to Takayama tomorrow. Yay!

Monday 1st February!

Today is rainy and cold. We ignored that fact and went to the Inari shrine, which has a really long walk through a tunnel of Toris. We took an umbrella from our hotel, and bought a small one at the 7-11. We had to take the JR Nara line from Kyoto station.

Everyone got off at our station, and there was this huge hoarde of people with umbrellas going to the same shrine as us. It was bedlam! A sea of umbrellas! We kept getting caught on other people's umbrellas because apparently the Japanese don't look where they're going.

We stood around and watched people for a while. Everyone was ringing the bells at the shrines and clapping, so Charles made a recording while Christina stood in the rain and was pointed at by two little girls. She made a face at them.

Next we did the tori walk up the hill. It was dotted with lots of smaller shrines and wound through rainforest. Some way up the hill was a lake with duckies swimming around. We got really cold and wet so we came back down again. We bought what we thought was nice hot dango (a delicious sweet) which was actually konnyaku balls (rubbery salty stuff). Weird.

We took the train back to Kyoto station and got a coffee and croissant. It was only about 2pm and we had planned to do the Philosopher's Walk, but it was just horrible outside. So instead we went to Isetan, the Kyoto station department store, just to browse. It was very posh, but Charles bought some pens.

We walked back to our hotel, buying some lunch food at the 7-11 on the way. We stayed in the foyer, eating and watching a T.V. show. Christina's shoes were completely soaked through, despite all the waterproofing she did before she left. We hung out all our wet things.

We booked our hotel in Takayama for Wednesday night - we'll be staying at a J-Hoppers hostel. Yay! We called them up and the receptionist said it's snowing right now! Yay!

We went to the sento (public bath house) around the corner. This time there were no embarrassing events, but Christina did go in a weird bath where she got electric shocks. She did not stay in long. If only we could read!!

Now we're considering dinner but aren't very hungry or motivated to go and get something. It's still really awful outside.