Sorry, it seems I forgot a few pictures.
This is another meal, this could be the one that got me sick.
Koganei Park, the park in Daiki's town. There was another closer to his house where I went running.
Daiki at the park.
Daiki again, but behind him is a sledging hill. Not snow sledding, artificial grass sledging. Unfortunately we couldn't go because it was raining.
At a shrine.

Daiki is praying for money. The god of money is a fox.
A typical firetruck. Very small compared to firetrucks back home. This Shrine is said to have over 84,000 spirits, each depicted by a stone statue. You can see that there are quite a few.

There it is, the "big" mac.
View from the Main Observatory Deck.
View down from the Main Observatory Deck.
View of Roppongi Hills from the Special Observatory Deck.
Tokyo Tower from the bottom.

Not the same without Cameron.

See You Tokyo

Beijing: The guy on the left has his shirt pulled halfway up. A common style for men in Beijing, a method of cooling oneself.
The Water Cube on Saturday night. After we watched Diving.

The National Stadium at night.

Inside the Water Cube.
The Water Cube with different colors. Taken by some two Chinese girls who spoke Japanese as well. Very cool.
Our upgraded room, we did the math wrong and ended up booking for one less night than we needed so we had to stay in this one for the last night. REALLY NICE
Japan: Daiki in his room. I stayed in his bed, he slept on the floor on a futon.

An average Japanese meal. I think this could be the one that got me sick actually.
There is Daiki finishing second! Men's 800 Meter.
We got stuck in the rain on a night out. Luckily there was a small shrine for the gods whose purpose was to help those in need, funny because we were in need of shelter and that's what they served us for. Coincidence?
Another average meal, actually this is a nicer meal than most. Yes that is an entire fish. Yes I did eat it.
At the Tukiji Market, those are frozen Tuna.
This is also at the Tsukiji Fish Market, that guy is driving a little vehicle that almost killed me at least thirty times. Watch out for those if you ever come!

I am heading out of Tokyo tonight on a night bus to Osaka. I'll hopefully only be staying in Osaka for a few days because it is, unfortunately, very expensive. My plan is to spend at least one night in a capsule hotel and then the rest in a cheaper hotel. Hostels in Osaka are very few, and those that do exist often cost more than the cheap hotels.

I have been sick for about a week now, my stomach seems to be battling the different foods and I may have ingested food that should not have been eaten. But a little sickness won't stop me!

So for the past few days, despite sickness, I have been able to make a few jaunts into Tokyo. So let me fill you in. First off, we arrived late Sunday night in Narita Airport just outside of Tokyo. Jen left with her friend Ellie who lives in Roppongi and Daiki and I took a bus to Tokyo, then the train to Koganei, the city he lives in, and then walked from the station to his house. Daiki has one older brother, Naoki, he is 20 years old.

On the first few trips we went to Shinjuku and Ginza. Most notably we went to Tsukiji for the Tsukiji Fish Market, the largest in the world. Although we were not able to see the auctioning part of the market, what we did see was amazing. Busy, dangerous(there were hundreds of the carts shown in the last picture of this post driving around with little care for pedestrians), and full of variety; big fish, small fish, dead fish, live fish, poisonous fish, fish eggs, cheap fish, expensive fish, and so on. After the fish market we went to the Tsukiji Hongwanji Temple, a true Japanese temple with a mix of Shintoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Which reminds me, I read a report that mentioned the number of Japanese who consider themselves religious. Something like 110 million consider themselves to belong to Shintoism and another 92 million to belong to Buddhism, which comes to a grand total of more than 200 million Japanese who consider themselves religious. Not bad for a country with a population of less than 130 million!

While in Ginza we visited the Sony Building. We saw the impressive digital aquarium and 3D aquarium and, of course, the Sony show room full of not-yet-released electronics. It was very cool and I was most impressed with the printers, which, by the way, were open for anyone to use. We also went to Kabuki! We saw two stories, the first was about a father lion and cub lion. The father lion would throw the cub lion off a cliff over and over and the cub would climb back up, so as to make the cub stronger. One time the cub didn't come up for a long time, the climax of the story, quite a climax.. Eventually the cub makes it back, sorry to ruin the end for anyone interested in seeing it for themselves. If you do see it the real draw for this show is the swinging of the mane, which apparently is extremely difficult to do and requires every muscle in the body to do correctly. The second, and much more interesting story, was about a gang member whose boss dies in front of him and feels he must bury him. Unfortunately for the gang member, he has no money. To make a long story short the gang member takes the body of the boss and makes him dance until people give him money/sake for the funeral. A very funny show.

Two days ago we made a trip to Yanaka, an old fashioned town within Tokyo. It was an interesting change in pace from the constant rush that exists within the great majority of Tokyo. While there we saw some small shops selling various things from simple children's toys to gross tasting 'treats' that the Japanese find to be quite tasty somehow.

Yesterday we went to see Tokyo Tower. It is modeled after the Eiffel Tower, but it is slightly taller and weighs almost half as much. When we arrived we got MacDonald's Japanese style, aka, very small. I got a big mac, which was just as gross as it is in the States but more expensive. After MacDonald's we went up to the Main Observatory Deck, 150 meters high, which was nice, not too spectacular, but observatories like those don't often excite me. So then we went to the Special Observatory Deck, 250 meters, from which we could see the top of Roppongi Hills. Outside the tower we got Crepes, delicious, and watched a monkey perform for money. It was impressive but we didn't donate, I can't imagine many people did because, from what I know, it is really not part of Japanese culture. In fact it was the first time I had seen a street performer in Asia. I had thought I'd seen one in Beijing but it turned out to be a crowd surrounding an Olympian who was being interviewed.

Lastly, my iPod broke and I will have to erase all of the data I have in order to fix it. Very sad.

This is the picture NBC showed of Jen and me eating starfish. The picture is available thanks to my brother Tom. You can follow Tom's blog and see pictures of his new baby at oreilly.dk

Too Many People, Not Enough Jobs

Now that I am out of China and in Japan where I have some more time to relax I have been able to reflect on the overall experience in China. My one week trip definitely was not enough and I hope to go back again soon. Beijing alone is larger than any city I have been to to my knowledge. Perhaps this is due to the impressive subway system that opens the city up to everyone, or maybe the size of the city blocks(one block is equivalent to about 10-15 American blocks). I'm sure the city of Beijing is not a good representation of the country as a whole, but even still my desire to visit the rest of the country has been even more increased through this trip. The parks we visited were both beautiful and relaxing. I especially enjoyed Summer Palace. There were many small intricacies that made the palace such a good experience. Alongside the beautiful views of the lake and city were small buildings with every inch carved into designs, a job that would take years to do. On the walkway along the shore each post was adorned with a unique painting ranging from landscape to flowers and birds.
These features go along with Jen and my saying of the week, "too many people, not enough jobs." The artistic features show an example of people with too much time on their hands. The saying also is confirmed through the vendors along the streets, although the convenience stores are necessary, the drink vendors could easily be replaced with vending machines. We think that China may have banned vending machines in effort to create jobs for the massive amounts of unemployed in China.
I keep losing what I have typed so I will post this and then write again later.

In Japan

Hello, I am now in Japan. I am staying in Tokyo at the moment. Daiki, a student at Kaijo High School, has been kind enough to offer me his house. I arrived last night and spent the day today in Tokyo looking through the electronics stores. The prices in Japan are very similar to the USA, quite an increase from China. Today the weather was hot, but clear for most of the day. I got up at 5:30am and went for a walk with my host parents at 6:00am. It has been a long day, but not too much to write about. My host mother, like all of the Japanese host mothers I have had, has made every meal with multiple dishes. The average meal is rice, miso soup, tofu, a vegetable or two of some sort, a chicken dish, and another vegetable dish. All followed by fruit for dessert. Delicious!
Now let me give a comment to each of the pictures. Starting from the bottom of the first set.
A Brazilian I met on the streets of Beijing, he was about to eat a seahorse so I asked if I could take a picture, he didn't like the seahorse.
In the red jacket is the oldest Olympian in the 2008 Olympics. In the blue shirt is a very famous Spanish news anchor.
The next two pictures are of Tian'an men Square fully decorated for the Olympics.
The next is a garden outside of the Forbidden Palace, I'm sure it is easier to keep the flowers in the pots, but it looks a bit funny.
One of the multiple buildings in the Forbidden Palace.
The China National Children's Theater, a tad bigger than the Vermont Children's Theater.
The next four are in the Forbidden Palace.
Here we have our buddy Mao in the back, a view from Tian'an men Square.
The view from our hostel's street.
More decorations for the Olympics, in this one there is an archer.
The next three are the Forbidden Palace again, the last is of a set of stairs, all of the sets of stairs had at least one of these, very beautiful, each step has its own design too, unfortunately it is not visible in this picture.
The last two are of two Chinese models modeling traditional clothing by our hostel. ]


Next set:
On our way up the mountain to the Great Wall!
Still going up, very high!
On the three hour bus ride to the Great Wall.
After seeing Indoor Volleyball with Chip.
Chip, on the phone lining up our clubbing route.
The next five are the Great Wall.
We had to cross a bridge, it was scary for Jen (probably because I was jumping up and down).
The next four are also the Great Wall, in some parts it is very dilapidated.
These are really out of order, but oh well. Here I go about to eat a silk worm!
The next four are of the Great Wall again, we went down a zip line across the river.
We thought this was snake, but it was eel.
Eel.
Eel.
Silkworm.
Silkworm.
Slalom Kayaking and Canoeing.
Beihai Park.
A very balanced and flexible man showed me up at this game of balancing the ball on the racket, he could go upside down with it and the ball stayed on, I couldn't come close.
Seahorse, yeah, I ate one.
Dog!
Outside the National Stadium, aka the Bird's Nest.
Inside National Stadium.
Another.
Beach Volleyball, go Misty May! That is her in the middle on the far end, we won too!
Either an Olympian or a really tall guy everyone wanted an autograph from.
Peking Duck.
The next three were taken at Summer Palace. We sat on that bridge to enjoy the view and a photographer started snapping pictures towards us, so we though we would move to give him a clear shot but it turned out he wanted pictures of us. Three more cameramen came over and took pictures for almost five minutes.
National Stadium.
Basketball Stadium.
Chinglish.