I have much to thank Kats and Sarah and Bill Bockman for being such awesome gracious hosts during my stay there.
Thanks to the Japan Rail Pass I travelled all over Japan, and I got to see many things. I have lots of pictures posted on Facebook, and I'll put a few on here.
I First went to Tokushima on the island of Shikoku to visit my High School friend Bill, and I came just in time for the Awa Odori Dance festival, which I got to dance in.
We also visited a Sea Turtle Museum while I was there.
The Awa Odori Dance Festival is held every summer in Tokushima and is the city's biggest claim to fame. Many tourists from all over Japan and the World flood the small coastal city for the festival every year, and university, local business and social groups prepare dance groups for weeks to showcase in the festival. Festivals are prime locations for fair food - Octopus balls or Takoyaki - are a festival favorite, and a favorite of mine as well...so delicious.
I was able to dance in the Festival with the Tokushima International Association thanks to my friend Bill, and it was great fun - we even had our photo in the local newspaper!
The Sea Turtle Museum was awesome, unfortunately almost all the information was only in Japanese, but there were lots of tanks of sea Turtles which you don't really need translation for. The Museum is situated right on a beach that the Loggerneck Turtles use for nesting, unfortunately every year fewer and fewer turtles show up, and this is a phenomenon that is going on worldwide at large sea turtle nesting sites.
Then I went to Hokkaido, where I visited Shiretoko National Park and Sapporo briefly. Hokkaido is Beautiful and if you get a chance to go to Japan, Hokkaido is a must.
The Photos here are of the Old Government Building in Sapporo, Hokkaido was one of the areas that Japan opened up for Western Trade after it's period of isolation. This building reflects the Western Influence in its design and function.
Shiretoko National Park is on the far Northeastern Peninsula of Hokkaido, and borders the Sea of Okhotsk, it is mostly wild untamed forest and mountains, with breathtaking views and diverse wildlife.
During the winter months the Sea of Okhotsk is home to many times of seals, and the local populace on both sides of the sea (Russian and Japanese) have traditions of hunting the seals, however due to climate change and species endangerment the hunting has been curtailed.
While I was in Shiretoko, I saw a great many deer, and foxes. I was repeatedly warned against bears, but I didn't see any, even though I went hiking on animal trails. I did see a rare stag which I have a photo of posted on facebook, I hiked a great deal and it was really nice to be out in nature, away from the stench, pollution and noise of the city.
As you can see the wilderness in Shiretoko is relatively untouched, not many people go hiking here because it is so far removed from not just Hokkaido, but all of Japan. Shiretoko-go-ko is a spot with 5 lakes all really close together up on a high valley that gives great vistas of the park and the Sea of Okhotsk, it is well travelled by tour busses, and for the enthusiastic hiker, the trails are easy and congested with tour groups with inappropriate footwear, but it is beautiful.
Next I hit the Japanese Alps, Narai and Matsumoto.
Narai is a small former post town on a road that connected Edo era Tokyo and Kyoto. It is a cultural heritage site and has been preserved well.
In Narai, there were many Temples for the travelers of the old road to rest their tired souls, the main street also still has many inns and guesthouses, the town is busier in the fall season when the leaves change color, then it is a romantic destination for the city folk of nearby Nagoya and Kyoto. But there were relatively few tourists on the hot summer day that I was there, I was the only one staying in the Minshuku(guesthouse) that night, and it looked like I was the only one for quite sometime.
There was a statue of the Virgin Mary in the town that had it's head forcibly removed and the statue was renamed after the god Jizo, protector of children, a ghostly relic of the lives that secret Christians led in Japan for many centuries. 
I was planning on staying in Narai two nights, but you can experience it all in one day pretty much. So I left early in the morning for Matsumoto.
Matsumoto was in the midst of their summer festival, most Japanese towns or cities of decent size have a festival of some sort in the summer. Matsumoto's is a music festival, there was a lot of activity in and around the castle grounds while I was there, in fact there was a High School Band festival taking place on the Castle grounds while I was touring the Castle. It is a strange sensation to be in a 400yr old Japanese Castle, and all of a sudden being treated to Stars and Stripes Forever by John Phillips Sousa. I missed 4th of July in America and I guess this was my reward!
The Castle was really interesting and scary to traverse, the stairs were really steep and there a great deal of people crowding them. At risk of sounding non-PC larger people should not go on this tour. The stairs are at a steep 63 degree incline and narrow already, but made narrower, being divided in half for two way traffic.
But the Castle had a great collection of armaments and a museum just outside the castle grounds that elaborated on the history of the area. Much of the water in the area was brought in through a wooden piping system from the nearby mountain streams, diverted to supply the fields and orchards. The Japanese Alps region is known for its vineyards and orchards. The fruit from there is delicious and I'm told the wine exceptional. After my Matsumoto trip I head back to Tokyo, and spend a day lying about, then cook dinner for my lovely friends Kats and Sarah.
On the last day I can use my Japan Rail Pass I go to Kyoto, for one last Shinkansen ride.
I went to Kyoto and soon tired of the Temples and went shopping.
After Kyoto, I kept to Tokyo, and I went to the Parasitological Museum and the Pokemon Center. I really wanted to go to the Ghibli Museum but it was all sold out, and this was a huge disappointment to my trip. The Parasitological Museum was pretty cool, small but cool. I wish that more information was in English, but a lot of it was self-explanatory given the explicit photos that were frequently on display.
After the Parasite Museum I hit Shibuya(Shibuya is the big shopping area and has the famous pedestrian zone that everyone has seen photos and footage of when Tokyo is involved) for some tourism and window shopping.
Only I ended up buying some shoes...and a skirt...
The next day I went to the Pokemon center, and there were a few too many Pikachu dolls for comfort, but it was a fun experience and unfortunately photographing is not allowed there, so I only took a couple clandestine photos.
Then I hit one last Temple, and next to it was this large Eiffelesque Tower...but in the Temple Gardens were all these Shrines that were well adorned with crochet-bonnets and arrayed with plastic flower windmills, hundreds of them. It was really interesting, I don't know what they were for, but they were an appropriate ending to my trip in Japan, the stoic Shrines adorned with colorfully lush plastic accouterments, it really just summed up Japan to me, stubbornly in the past, while giddy in the in future.
I finished off my trip by seeing The Karate Kid with Kats and Sarah, that movie should really be called The Kung Fu Kid, but whatever.
If you want to see more photos of the trip in Japan, please check them out on facebook!
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