japan '10

i've been to japan several times in my life, but this is the first time, i think, that i really opened my eyes to look at it. and what a strange, wonderful and surreal place it is! pictures are on facebook, but here's a brief "highlights" for the sake of my very unreliable memory cache.

in mostly chronological order:

1. sleeping on tatami
2. getting woken up by the the old women in our Zao lodge to have breakfast, every day
3. teaching a brave girl how to snowboard
4. snowboarding through hundreds of metres of dense fog
5. family marto
6. gorging on family marto snacks while watching a documentary about japanese girls who ate too much and became grotesquely obese (one girl had a 57kg piece of fat removed, which had been hanging down almost to her knees, like an extra leg. it was horrifying, but strangely undeterring)
7. frightening ourselves with horror stories about being alone in the public bathroom...and then having to venture alone into the public bathrooms (for 3 days)
8. making giant snowboots with a pretty girl
9. taogeh mountain ramen in takadanobaba (we didn't have the taogeh mountain bowl but whatever we had would be forever etched in my memory and has effectively rendered me unable to consume singapore-made japanese food for the rest of eternity)
10. almost not being able to visit the studio ghibli museum, if not for the awesome girl with me who refused to be defeated by their "reserved tickets only" policy, and sweet-talked her way into getting our tickets.
11. the studio ghibli museum. oh my.
12. ueno cherry blossoms that blossom on demand
13. sleazy anime stores in akihabara (entire buildings and buildings of them)
14. living/zombie mannequins roaming through shinjuku 109. i swear they come with batteries.
15. tokyu hands
16. band-sawed frozen tuna in tsukiji
17. eating awesome sushi in tsukiji
18. sweets forest in jiyugaoka. not just any foodcourt. a DESSERT ONLY foodcourt. where we killed a sugar cow that tried its best to run away.
19. japanese furniture stores in meguro-dori (getting yelled at to stop taking photos)
20. harajuku girls (and boys)
21. speedwalking out of meiji shrine
22. shabu-shabu at takadanobaba (more pork please...more beef.... one more plate of pork...and beef.... more beef...one more plate of vegetables....more beef... pork and beef...)
23. leaving my faithful backpack behind in taogeh mountain restaurant (but it always comes back)
24. burning my faithful backpack on the train heater (flesh wound only! it's not so bad right...?)
25. joel, jasmin, wenwen and me!

but i don't know, maybe it isn't really japan that's amazing. maybe it's just that when you go somewhere with the right people, everything becomes just wonderful :)