December 20th in Tokyo too

The original plan was for me to stay 2 nights in Tokyo, but we had a doctor's appointment for Ritsy early Monday morning, so I had to head back to Hamamatsu Sunday. DP, Steve and I headed over to Harajuku to check out the grand spectacle.
This picture doesn't do justice to the array of unusual people we encountered on the walk through, but I didn't want to start taking pictures of people, so this was the only one.

DP was looking a bit tuckered out after the morning (and late night the night before), so we let him take a bit of a lie down while Steve and I wondered around Shinjuku. The atmosphere on Sunday nights is amazing there. They close the streets off to traffic and there are people walking everywhere. We even saw two walking Corona bottles, which I didn't photograph, but I was impressed with the live jazz in the middle of the street as shown above. After a great walk about and exploration, I said my goodbyes and headed home.

Back in Hamamtsu, I could see the 'tree' that is known as Fuyu no hotaru (winter firefly). I believe this tree is getting torn down now. Every year, the tree is illuminated with a new light pattern and some different music shows are played. Now this area is cordoned off and it looks like it will no longer be. Too bad, it was a nice atmosphere for the walk near the station.

Steve hits Tokyo

Another flashback, this time to December 19th of last year. My friend Steve had plans for an epic journey to Japan, spanning 3 months. So days after his initial arrival, I headed out to Tokyo and met Steve and Keiko, a girl who had spent some time in Vancouver.
Our friend DP also came out for the beginning of the trip, to enjoy some R&R after recently leaving the employ of the Vancouver Canucks.
We enjoyed a few beverages, Steve was fond of the lemon sours.
Beer is always preferential to me.
Also out with us this evening was Rieko, Keiko's friend who also did time in Canada. The two were great hosts for us and took us around the Korean food area of Shinjuku .

The journey home

The next morning, Setsuko and group picked us up and we started heading home. We decided to check out this fisherman's market in... forgetting city name. Next to the market was an amusement park called Europe town which looked mildly popular.
We headed into the market which reminded me of Granville Island a bit. The difference was that the fresh seafood we bought was meant for eating right away.
In the DIY barbecues that were situated in the eating area. We had a good feed, but Ken still didn't seem to have much of an appetite.
By time we were leaving he looked pretty tired out. Or so we thought. As we got buckled into the car and we were just about to go, Ken puked all over himself, and quite a bit. We had to rush over to a convenience store and change his clothes and clean him down a bit. It was a long drive home and he puked one more time at a Rest Stop. After the second time, though, he cheered up and seemed normal by time we got home. It was the end of a long weekend though and the highway was busy, so we got home at 1 am and poor Ritsy had to work the next morning.

A little more Wakayama

After checking out the pandas we had lunch and watched a dolphin show. Hmm, after seeing all the stuff on the Cove, I am not sure how I feel about all that... Well, we went through a safari, and saw Santa.
And this site reminded me of Whistler where we came pretty close to (less dangerous) Black Bears a handful of times.
Finally we retired to the hotel we had chosen (can't remember the name- Green something Shirahama or something like that?), where Ken was suddenly reanimated. He even enjoyed a hot spring with his mom. I was pretty tired from carrying him and braved the public hot spring on my own too, it was actually pretty good. Except for all the naked men, of course.
The view from the hotel was great.
A good time was had by all.

Adventure World in Wakayama pt. 3(ketchup)

Well I need to catch up a bit from the few months I took off blogging. Last year I started talking about Adventure world in Wakayama. Continuing with the day, there were some animals to check out at the park, including this cranky (or comedic) gorilla, who enjoyed giving the finger to everyone.
Or was he asking for food?
Ken really enjoyed it.
The main attraction at the park are the Pandas they have- these guys were sleeping as we were herded quickly through the viewing area.
Luckily we could see some more active ones outside in a more natural setting. Ken was looking wiped, you may remember he was a bit sick on the trip. He was enjoying it all though.