Japan: Part Two -- Turning Japanese, I really think so.

Disneyland -- Luckily for us, the Happiest Place on Earth exists in more than one place, with one located just east of Tokyo. Tokyo Disney Resort contains the classic Disneyland portion -- which is an almost exact replica of the original Anaheim, California; along with the newly opened DisneySea, the most expensive theme park ever built. It contains a goddamn man-made volcano equipped with a lava dodging roller coaster. How cool is that? The park is comprised of several 'Ports of Call,' which are themed on different parts of the world (both real and fictional), including the Mediterranean, "USA," Aladdin's "Agraba," and more. Disneyland itself was fantastic. We spent a good chunk of our daylight hours in the magic kingdom, and more than satisfied our quarter-life-crises. I got to relive my wondrous journey to Disneyland in 1994, and Colleen got to buy the Minnie Mouse ears that her rich childhood friend would bring back every year from Florida. We feared massive line-ups (this is Tokyo) and blazing sunburns, but we made it through the day largely unscathed. The line-ups were not terrible and we were able to go on the vast majority of the rides which we wanted, and for some reason the Japanese sun doesn't burn skin. As the sun started to set, we made our way over to DisneySea, taking advantage of the 'after 6pm' discount. Lucky for us, this was about the same time that everybody went home. There was absolutely no wait time for any of the fantastic, more intense rides at DisneySea. Unlike the long line-ups for feel-good easy rides like It's a Small World in Disneyland, we were able to run through the queues and hope on intense roller-coaster rides like Journey to the Center of the Earth. Disney left us with the intangible magic that everyone seems to experience, regardless of age. They are so damn good at what they do. Right down the finest detail, Mickey and the gang spare no expense to make a trip to Disneyland something truly unique (not counting the 4 or 5 replicas throughout the world).

(the rest of) Tokyo - Our plans for the day after Disney weren't really solid. We had a room booked in Kyoto (a three hour bullet train ride away) that night, but we felt like we weren't quite finished with the big city. We could hop the train at any point -- one leaves about every 20-40 minutes (and the Japanese are very punctual). We decided to shove our bags in a locker at the Tokyo train station and take our time exploring a bit more, until we were satisfied. Our mission: Find the INTERSECTION. That's right, our goal was to find an intersection. Not just any intersection, no, we wanted the intersection, otherwise known as Shibuya Crossing. If you've seen any film (such as Lost in Translation) or tv show set in Tokyo, you've seen the Shibuya Crossing. Featured in the stolen, unauthorized photo to the right, it's supposedly one of the busiest intersections in the world. All traffic stops while swarms of pedestrians move every which-way as they try to cross. The Crossing itself, well, it was busy, but a tad underwhelming. Maybe we had built it up too much, but the crowd outside of Piper's Pub at around 2am on a Saturday night in Antigonish could have given Shibuya Crossing a run for it's money. That said, it was satisfying to reach the "Times Square" of Tokyo as several giant video screens played Ads above us, and we even managed to catch a glimpse of the world's busiest Starbucks. Below is a video of our 30 second journey across the 'the world's busiest.' That's a few small steps for Jake and Colleen, and a giant leap for .. ah, I don't know. (we've been experiencing technical difficulties with this one, folks... just click my YouTube link at the bottom of this post if you can't view the video here)

Kyoto -- We effin' loved this city. I'm not sure if we were simply biased due to our left-winged fondness for the environmental protocol signed there, or if its pure old-world beauty charmed us off our feet. I suspect it's a larger chunk of the latter. Kyoto was the former imperial capital of Japan before the feds packed up for Toyko, and contains a wealth of fascinating architecture and civil design to match. We arrived around 10:30pm, and made our way to our first Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese inn similar to a Bed and Breakfast. We opened the door to find two large guys from the Southern United States playing Magic Cards in the ryokan kitchen/lobby. We unpacked our bags and checked the internet to investigate a supposed Typhoon which was heading toward our departure port, Fukuoka/Hakata, the next day. Mr. Internet told us that 120 domestic flights had been canceled in Fukuoka. We could find any direct info about our hydrofoil ferry, but we had a phone number. Unfortunately, we were well past office hours. Secretly, we hoped the Typhoon would blast Fukuoka, postponing our ferry, and allowing us extra time in the city we so desperately wanted to explore. With the office hours forcing us to play the waiting game until the morning, we did the only thing any self respecting maritimer or maritime-graduated 21 year old would do -- we cracked open my duty-free litre of Jack Daniels and then hit the town. In very broken Japanese, we asked a cab driver to take us to the Kyoto hotspots. He seemed confused, then responded, "Drink Street?" We hopped in the cab and he dropped us off in a curiously quiet neighbourhood, and told us to climb the stairs to the second floor of a boring looking building. We reached the top floor to find... (drumroll)... a Japanese restaurant. We were a tad bummed, until a waitress came up to us and asked us if we spoke French. Suddenly the night became more exciting. We crapped our way through about an hour and a half of drunken highschool French with our Japanese host, who studied French in high school. We also took a number of ridiculous videos, which we're currently debating whether or not to upload to YouTube. To the right is a picture of yours truly readying his chopsticks for an assorted grab bag of raw fish, complete with a shrimps head for garnish. Jack Daniels and Kyoto are not a great mix.
The next morning, I struggled toward the phone to see if we had to hop a bullet train and sail across the rough Sea of Japan. To our shock, despite the fact that the sea would no doubt "be angry that day," our ferry company said we were good to go. Suddenly, the ghost of Jack Daniels himself possessed me and I asked if we could change our reservations. Thankfully, we were able to push them back two days, which would allow us to both see more of Japan, and recover from the previous night. So, after shaking the cobwebs and finding another Ryokan for that night, we rented some bikes and cycled across Kyoto. It turned out to be a great idea. We were able to cover a lot of ground that day and check out some very interesting buildings and streets. Also, I bought a ninja death star. I hope I can get that puppy through customs on my way back to Canada. We finished our day with a great Italian meal (a little taste of home), made it back to the Ryokan before our 11pm lock-up/curfew time (the old lady who owned that place ran a tight ship). We decided to draw up some plans for our extra day in Kyoto. Half way between Kyoto and our ferry in Fukuoka was Hiroshima, and we thought we should check it out before we departed the land of the rising sun.

Hiroshima -- The city name seems to resonates within our collective conscience as one of those "we really shouldn't have done that" things, right up there near the Holocaust and other nasty things throughout mankind's history. We knew our stop in Hiroshima wouldn't be exactly a chipper way to end our Japan trip, but I think we both felt we needed to see their monuments and reflect on the destruction and devastation of the A-Bomb that dropped to end WWII. We hadn't realized it, but we arrived in Hiroshima a day or two before they were to commemorate and mourn the anniversary of the bomb, which dropped on August 6th, 1945. The city was bustling as people came from all over the world to attend the ceremony. Activists and important figures from all over the world were descending upon Hiroshima, which has now become a beacon of peace and tolerance. We were very lucky to get the last hotel room available, and after checking in, we set about trying to find the monument grounds. Perhaps the main monument in the Peace Park is the A-Bomb Dome, a government building relic which survived the blast. The bomb actually detonated about 600 meters above it, and due to the way the bomb exploded (outwardly, slightly), it didn't totally destroy the building. The city has preserved it as a constant reminder. We also viewed the Children's monument, which is based on the young girl, dying from A-bomb radiation induced cancer, who attempted to fold 1,000 paper cranes. The grounds contained a vast amount of breathtaking monuments, and the whole message truly struck home. It put the stats and time lines from history class into perspective, and it's not something that either of us will soon forget.

Back to Korea -- The next morning we woke up, and hopped on the train back to Fukuoka. It was by far the easiest train ride we took -- after a week of struggling, we actually understood how to properly and efficiently use the Japan Rail. Dems da breaks. The hydrofoil back wasn't so bad, a tad rocky, but we were glad to have avoided the typhoon. We hope you've enjoyed our 2 part trilogy on our trip to Japan.

Hope everyone back home is doing well. Our birthdays are coming up (Colleen -- Aug 23 / Jake -- Aug 29), we'll try and have a drink for each and every one of you.

Be sure to check out our photo albums of Japan:

**[Jake's: 1 ,2, 3]**

***[Colleen's millions of photos and videos]. ***

I'm also slowly uploading videos to my YouTube account.



Cheers!