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On Monday I ordered $6 toast from room service, the blandest thing I could find on the menu. I started feeling better and ventured out to the Shibuya area, which looks exactly like Tokyo should. I got to see Hachiko The Dog Statue. Apparently the story is that there was a dog that would follow his master to work at the university and would wait for him every day at that location until work was over. The master died at work one day, but the dog kept it up, arriving at the same location every day... for nine years. He was fed by the station master the whole time. Eventually, when the dog passed away, they built a statue to commemorate his loyalty, which for a dog is so second nature that it's a bit like commemorating a human for breathing.

Their crosswalks across major Tokyo intersections are interesting: when the lights go red, they stop all traffic through the intersection, and people use diagonal crosswalks to travel kittycorner as well as the conventional crosswalks that go to adjacent corners. Walking across it was sort of like being in that scene from the Matrix where Neo and Morpheus are wandering through the crowds. I must be one with the Matrix because nobody bumped into me. If my knee didn't hurt so much I'd test that theory by jumping 30 feet in the air, running along walls, and trying to catch bullets in my teeth.

Some of Tokyo's ubiquitous
vending machines

Now, this place is near Takadanobaba station, which--in addition to having an hilarious-sounding name--is also apparently the place to be for high school girls who, as best I can tell, are doubling as sex workers.

Krista: I thought Japanese fashion was supposed to be avant garde.
Alaina: I guess you could call it that.

Japanese urban fashion is... damn. It's the kind of stuff that looks interesting in magazines but, when you see it on a person in real life, you want to take them by the hand and say "no, no, bad girl". They teeter on spike-heeled, thigh-high boots with tiny little denim microskirts barely covering their asses and fake-fur-collared vests over babydoll t-shirts with English slogans. I'm all for adventurous fashion, but girls, come on.

Wildheart's sign.
I tried!

Lights off, nobody home. Ahhh crap!! Since I'm leaving today and wouldn't have a chance to try again, I made the decision to drop off the gifts I had been given to take to them.

I put all your clothes away: shirts, pants, shoes. I had a little trouble with the sports jacket, so I threw it out. - Real Genius

I managed to shove everything except the maple cookies into the mail slot in the hope that someone will be able to retrieve them today, or whenever they're open next.

I returned again to the hotel and went to bed.

It's now 4:30 in the morning on Tuesday. In about 14 hours I'm leaving Japan. I've had a great trip. Kyoto is now definitely my favourite city on earth, and the outdoorsy stuff and Chalet La Neige in Minakami were the highlights of this vacation.

Every time I go away on holidays I end up with an upset tummy. I think I'm just going to stop eating when I travel. That seems like a reasonable solution.

I'm outta here! Sayonara, Japan, and helloooooo, Toronto!

I'm now at the airport a full three hours before my plane departs. This may sound ridiculous, but I would rather be sitting in a departure lounge for three hours than taking the risk that I might be late for a flight, like I almost was when Greck had to drive like a maniac to get me to RDU in the middle of a snowstorm many years ago.

I am benefiting from the Japanese fascination with technology. They have escalators everywhere, but the escalators do at least function, which is good because I've been carrying a bunch of luggage with a screwed up knee. Their air hand dryer in the washroom--a technology I usually abhor--is fantastically effective, not unlike standing in a wind tunnel. And now, Internet access!

Ok, my 100 yen ten minutes is up. Actually, the exact message from the public Internet terminal is: "those who want to use more need to put in the coin of 100 yen".

I'm home again after another almost 24 hours in transit. I fell asleep on the airplane about an hour after leaving Tokyo and didn't wake up until, according to the flight map, we were about 40,000 feet over Kitiara.

I AM SO HAPPY TO BE HOME.

I tried to convey to you how nutty the canyoners were when I was in Japan. Totally hardcore Kiwis and Aussies, more than a bit nuts.

I've been corresponding with them over email. Last week Bryan, the guy who was my guide on my trip and the one who I've been talking to, stopped responding. Today I got an email from Mike, the owner, which said:

"Bryan has been in hospital for the past week after falling into a river when he was drunk."

I am not at all surprised.

BTW, stationery folks, I tried and failed to find some. I was going to buy some non-offensive stationery ("Queen's garden behind the castle") and make it somewhat offensive with punctuation ("Queen's garden behind. The castle!"). But I thought that was cheating.

I love coming back to Toronto. Right now I don't want to leave again, so I'm planning on spending my December holiday here, enjoying trips to the spa. We'll see if the travel bug bites by late November, though.

Japan rocked. You should go. Seriously.

FIN.

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