Home ·· News Room ·· Prints ·· Licensing ·· Gallery ·· About Us ·· Contact Us ·· Articles ·· Services Japan stock photography trip, November 13-22, 2005 Updated April 18, 2007 Page 1 of 5 Next page
	Japan: The Return Tokyo, Nagano, Yudanaka November 13-22, 2005 (Exchange rate: 110Y per dollar) © 2007 Aaron Linsdau Click here to see the Japan gallery Click here to download the whole Japan November 2005 report in Acrobat PDF   Click here to read the Japan April 2005 trip report. Sunday, November 13, 2005 Tried a different approach on jet lag this time to Japan. Bought Memoirs of a Geisha to fill the complete flight with reading so I didn't sleep at all. I didn't want to get to Japan and not be able to sleep at night. Monday, November 14, 2005 By the time I arrived, I was toast so sleeping was not a problem. Bed time equaled hard sleep. It was much nicer because I didn't want to wake up wasted. The ride into Tokyo was the same train ride and met my friend Wendy at Tokyo station, went out to dinner and went back to her place to crash out. One of the shorter days of my life - seven hours long. Met up with Wendy at Tokyo train station and then headed to Musashino city where we went to her apartment, had curry rice for dinner and crashed, 4:30am California time. Tuesday, November 15, 2005 Woke up, enjoyed a yogurt and cereal breakfast and we headed off to do some gift shopping in Asakusabashi for the family. After muddling around in local craft stores for a while, we headed over to Koishakawa-Korakuen garden to begin the purpose of my trip - ponder life, consider my place and find myself. Sounds good to me, though it's pretty hokey from the outside perspective. Sent Wendy on her way to work while I returned to the garden to continue the self-search. Found a nice wooden bench and proceeded to stare at the sky for half an hour, listening to the environment and taking in the smells. Around 4:30pm, I headed out to follow the train line from Suidobashi to Kojimachi, went the wrong way, hit the Imperial Palace and then back to Yotsuya, almost getting seriously lost. Heading toward Yotsuya, the rain started and I was without an umbrella. That terminated my plan to walk all the way (2.5 miles) to Shinjuku. Hopped on the train, got into the station and then tried to cat nap at Takashimaya Times Square until Wendy left work at 9pm. Once I caught up with Wendy, we headed back to her place and had dinner at the Japanese equivalent of Denny's. Today was a day of calming myself and not tearing around the city - totally out of character for me. Must change the approach to take a different perspective. Hope this works! Wednesday, November 16, 2005 Began at the open-air Tokyo Architecture Museum to begin the exploration of Japanese history in architecture and form. The docents allowed entrance to the house portion of the flower shop - very nice of them. The stairs to the top were steep enough that I banged my knee on the next step, basically a ladder with boards. Everything is made of wood and even the nails holding the beams together are covered in wood plugs to hide what Japanese consider impure building materials. Everything is a facade of one sort or another. After the museum stroll through transplanted buildings, we caught the bus back to the Mitaka station and went to Shinjuku for a huge sashimi lunch and then walked Wendy to work. She gave me directions to a park but I immediately forgot them - need to memorize faster - and ended up at the Shinjuku-Tokyo Central Park. Ambled around for a few hours, watching skateboarders, artists and homeless ponder their day's activities just as I was pondering my life. Next page
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