JUNE

So the first weekend of June we went to Yokohama. We had a four day long weekend and we found a super cheap hotel, only 4000 yen per night (for both of us) and it included breakfast. It was a brand new hotel so everything was nice and clean and there was a roof top patio you could hang out on and eat your free pancake breakfast. Yokohama was great. We went to see Landmark Tower, the tallest building in Yokohama and Japan! But it was cloudy the whole time we were there so we didn't pay to go up since there wouldn't be much of a view. The first night there we just walked around and checked things out, watched the river boats and the world's largest ferris wheel, there was a street performer with a pretty cool show, although we couldn't understand what he was saying he was pretty good.

The next day we went to Hakkejima, a huge aquarium, it was really cool there was every kind of sea animal you could imagine there. Also, that night in Yokohama there was the Port Opening ceremony was being held (although the port was already open, this seemed like a yearly celebration) and there was an amazing fireworks show that lasted over two hours and included music and an amazing laser lights show, they were by far the best fireworks we have ever seen.

The next day we walked more than we have ever walked...first we stumbled upon the Yokohama dragon boat festival, which was funny. Lots of people were dressed up, I don't think most people took it very seriously, and one boat dumped and that was pretty exciting. Then we walked up the stairs to Habour View park, nice view, big trees, lots of people. We continued to Foreigners Cemetary and walked around there for awhile. Then we walked to Chinatown - Yokohama has one of the best Chinatowns in the world. It was huge and packed with people. We walked around there for hours, until we were so tired we couldn't walk anymore and then we walked back to our hotel and fell asleep.

On our way home, we had to switch trains in Tokyo and decided to go to Ueno zoo, we had heard that it was a nice zoo and it was cheap, and what the hell, we were used to walking now...but the zoo was sad. All the animals were in small cages or in enclosed rooms and they all looked in such bad condition, it was more depressing than anything. But there were some animals that we had never seen before and that was neat. We also spent some time in the Ueno park, which is like Central Park I guess. A huge park in the center of Tokyo. There is a large homeless population that lives here and there are lots of street performers, we also saw a sumo wrestler, but we were too scared to take his picture.

The next weekend our friends took us to this sweet little swimming place. The water was freezing cold, raining, and we were the only people there, but we swam and jumped off the cliffs and had a barbecue and it was a lot of fun. These are some of our friends...

The last weekend in June we made an impulsive trip to Sadogajima, an island off the coast of Niigata in the Japan Sea. We took a ferry over with our car, and the ferry was very interesting. Unlike ferries at home, they don't have chairs, just large open spaces on the floor where you can lie down or sit and eat we spent most of our time on top outside to watch the seagulls that followed the ferry and took food right from peoples hands for over an hour. The water was sooo blue in that ocean behind the ferry, we'd never seen anything like it. Sado is known for being the island that many intellectuals were exiled to in medieval times, and in 1601 gold was discovered here. The island is very small, we could have driven around the whole thing in less than a day, but we took two. The first day we drove around the north half. We stopped at some huge rocks that are in the ocean that look like two turtles backs, and walked to a shrine for children who have died, it is believed that their spirit stops here on the way to heaven. We went to an onsen and then tried to find the campsite that was on all the maps but was no where to be found, and we were so exhausted that we decided to sleep in our cars, which is common in Japan, so we found a parking lot where lots of cars were parked, some people sleeping, some people setting off fireworks and went to sleep. But around 1 am we were awakened by a police officer knocking on our window. He asked for our identification and asked how long we would be on the island and then proceeded to give us tourist information, it was bizarre and I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. The next day we got up very early as the sun comes up around 4:30 am, and drove to see more jutting rocks that represent something, these rocks were called husband and wife rock. It was realy cool, that day they were having a taiko drumming performance, which Sado is also famous for. So we watched that for a while before we continued to Ogi to ride in a wooden tub boat. Traditionally women used these boats to fish for near the shore, they have a glass square in the bottom so you can see underneath you and they are extremely difficult to steer or even make move. Then we drove up to Chokoku Shrine, built in 807 AD and looked around. The shrine looks very old and there are huge, old pine trees shrouding it. Before we went home, we found a pottery place, Sado is also famous for its pottery - there are special minerals in the clay found in Sado that give it a very strong, metallic quality, and it has medicinal purposes. We found a place that lets you make your own piece, so I got my hands dirty and it was hilarious as we don't speak Japanese and the master there doesn't speak any English, but we got through it. We got the cup back and it is beautiful, I am very proud. And off we were back home.