Greetings from Tokyo

I hope you guys like the pics. So its another rainy day in Tokyo. Unfortunately, its the rainy season. And apparenlty, a typhoon is on the way and is expected to hit around Monday. Yeah for typhoons, eh? Im headed into the mountains today for 2 days so hopefully it wont be too bad.

Japan is a very interesting place to say the least. Fairly homogenous population makes for a fairly insulated culture.

Tokyo isnt as crazy as I imagined it to be. In fact, Id say that Hong Kong is more bustling just because its more dense as a city than Tokyo is. Dont get me wrong, Tokyo is a massive city with what 20 million people in the Greater Tokyo area compared to Hong Kongs 7-8 million, but its more spread out. The buildings arent as high as I thought theyd be either.

Its still been great though so far. A few highlights.

Going to Puroland!!!! Sanrio - the creators of Hello Kitty have a kids amusement park about 1 hour outside of the city. I had casually mentioned my interest going to a Danish backpacker here at the hostel and hed said that hed be up for going. So Daniel and I headed to Puroland yesterday. We were the only Westerners there except for two white kids. The rest were all Chinese and Japanese tourists. I was never a serious fan of Hello Kitty, but hey, when in Japan, eh? It was pretty amazing. Its all indoors. It is cutesy as heck. I went on a boat ride which was a Sanrio equivalent of Its a small world. I got a picture with Hello Kitty, and Bad Badtz Baru, etc. We caught a couple of shows including an amazing parade which had acrobatics in it as well. Hello Kitty was feature prominently in every show of course. And we also got to visit Hello Kittys house. I got to lie in her bed. Sit in her living room... I have more pics and even videos that Ill be happy to show to people later. www.puroland.co.jp for those of you interested in learning more about Puroland.

Then I went to the Park Hyatt hotel, which is where Lost in Translation was filmed. I went up to the New York Bar on the 52nd floor. AMAZING views of Tokyo. I got there about 530pm and left just after 8pm until it was all dark and you could see all the lights of Tokyo. It was just like the movie... I could imagine the red head singing, Bill Murray sitting at the long table... I was invitedover to the table of an American businessman, we were the only ones there at 6pm. Apparently his wife knows Scarlet Johansson (sp?) Anyway, he invited me to share a bottle of wine with him. I sneaked a peak at his bill afterwards - it was a $170CND bottle of red wine... holy crap... anyway, he was really nice and we just chatted and compared travel notes as hes travelled all over the world for work.

Then I went to Shibuya which is the way that I imagined Tokyo. They have one of the craziest intersections ever with heaps of people crossing every few minutes. ALso in the area is Love HOtel HIll, which is where couples go to have discreet encounters. You can rent rooms to rest (for 3 hours... not much resting happens Im sure) or to stay (which is after midnight). I walked into one because the Lonely Planet says you can. They have pics of the room and the ones available are lit up. The cars out front have their license plates covered up. Sketchy, eh?

Anyway I have a train to catch so I better get going. More later...

Japan rox!