Well, I got back from Tokyo. And I had a pretty good time. Man, the travel is so crazy though. People wonder why I dont travel more, and thats the reason why. Let me explain.
To get to Tokyo (Haneda), I had to drive to the closest train station, take a local train, take an express train for 2 hours, switch to the subway, then check in and fly from Fukuoka. Then, I get to Tokyo, but then it's still two more trains before I get my my hotel stop, and once I got there, I still had to carry my bags to the hotel. Oh yeah, and there was a typhoon that brushed up against the coast that Saturday, so it was cold, windy, and rainy. I bought an umbrella only to have it break on me 15 minutes later. Oh, and to go back home I had to repeat the whole process again. At least the weather was good this time.
On top of all that, I made a mistake in my online reservation and accidentaly clicked on the ticket rate for handicapped passengers. I wasn't paying enough attention and just selected the cheapest rate. Anyway, that little mistake cost me an extra 10,000 yen at the airport. Maybe I'll be a little bit more careful next time.
So yeah, all of that traveling just in the space of three days (Saturday through Monday). Well, what interesting stuff did I get to do. Probably the biggest thing was going to see the Tokyo Motor Show way out in Makuhari Messe. All of the world's biggest car companies were there, and of course the Japanese makers were really putting on a show for the home crowd. This year's big theme seemed to be friendly, easy to use cars with a big emphasis on hybrid and other energy-saving technologies. That's good, but of course you had Ferrari, Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, Bentley, Lotus, Maserati, and all of the other exclusive car makers were there as well just in case you forgot what a monster car looks like.
The undisputed star of the show was Nissan's new GTR sports car, making its world premier at the event. It was something like a rock concert, there were so many people crowded around taking pictures. Just insane. One car that stood out for me was Honda's CR-Z concept sports car. I really liked the styling, and the car promised high performance out of a hybird engine, which makes it even more interesting. Again though, just a concept, don't expect to see it in showrooms anytime soon.
I'll put some pictures on my flickr page here- http://www.flickr.com/photos/87219385@N00/
OK, so what else was there? I also got to eat dinner at Yokohama's famous Chinatown, take pictures at Minato Mirai, do some shopping at Yodobashi Camera, have dinner with Ayana in Yokohama, and free ice cream at Shingo's work (don't tell anyone). So I stayed pretty busy the whole time.
Cold update: So, yes I did get better from my cold. I think I found out what the cause was. Another teacher at Ono also got sick at the same time. Thing this, that was the same teacher I went with to watch the basketball game. Based on that, it seems more and more likely that we both picked up some bug at the basketball game. Oita Heat Devils Basketball- catch it!