Since I live kind of out there I rented a car in preparation. I managed to find a place they had a really good deal on, the only thing being that the car was a beast of a van. It seems no matter where I go I can't escape driving a van. The three cars I owned/had access to in Canada were all vans. Granted, I did use my grandmother's normal sized car occasionally, but for the most part all of my driving experience has been with vans. This turned out to be a really good thing though because Japan's roads are really tiny in comparison. Driving through Tokyo I almost lot it, but somehow managed to escape in tact. We even drove one road that has cement blocks placed on it with a 2 meter gap between them so anything bigger can not pass. The rental van squeaked through measuring a svelte 1.9 meters across. If I had never driven a van before I can only imagine how terrified I would have been driving this thing through the streets of Japan.
We toured a decent part of the country, covering ground from Kobe to Tokyo. In Kobe we enjoyed the sights food, and met some skateboarders who Andrew and both Justin's had a little fun with. The next day my buddy Yoshi had invited us to a party at my buddy Aaron's bar. Turns out it was a 1 year anniversary party for his childhood friend. I knew none of the other people aside from Yoshi, and I'm sure they were all wondering who the hell we were, but we had a decent time drinking, eating and chatting amongst ourselves.
Sunday, we stayed local taking in some of the local sights like Eigenji Temple and Tarobo Shrine. On the top of Tarobo Shrine there is a path that leads further up to the top of the mountain and on a whim we decided to climb it because as Peter put it, "It was in our way." On the way down we visited the LSD Music Consert House, which lies at the bottom of the mountain Tarobo is on. It was built and is run by my good friend and co-worker Mano-san. Staying local we visited the ruins of Nobunaga Oda's Azuchi Castle, and the still standing (in it's original form) Hikone Castle.
The next couple of days were spent at my school, going around the different classrooms and having the students talk to (well try to at least) the guys. The kids were really shy at the start, but by the end of the two days the kids had cooled down and were a bit more forthcoming.
That weekend we headed to Tokyo. It was a hell of a trip and driving that beast van in Tokyo was wild. Luckily, our hotel offered free parking. Actually, I chose that because of that reason alone since driving and/or paying for parking in Tokyo is death. Saturday we classed things up and all wore suits, except for my bro, who forgot his pants at my place. Instead, he looked like a jackass in jeans and a polo shirt. We visited all the big areas of the city and met up with my friend Asumi who recently moved to Tokyo for work for lunch. The night, Andrew, Peter and J-Mac got crazy drunk and we walked idly through the city taking in the sights.
The highlight of the night was J-Mac's drunk reading(?) of a Japanese sign. He said he couldn't see anything, but managed to transcribe the thing perfectly from 40 feet. We got it all on video too.
Well, that's enough for now I think as Tokyo was the exact halfway point of the trip. Look forward to part 2 when I get some free time to write it up.
