Thursday, March 8, 2001
Today's mystery side item with breakfast was an apple. Okay,
not so mysterious, but it was peeled and sliced, and you never
know, it could have been a big giant radish. They like those
here.
We checked out of our ryokan and went outside. It was snowing!
It was time to say goodbye to Nagasaki, and that was too bad.
Nagasaki rules!
We took the local express to Hakata and caught the shinkansen
for Yokohama. We didn't have reserved seats this time, but it ended
up not being a problem getting an unreserved seat. There weren't
that many people riding at that end of the line, and by the time it
got more crowded, we already had our places staked out.
Rural Japan
Most of the day was pretty hazy and overcast, which we thought
was unfortunate since this would be the fourth and last time for us
to pass Mt. Fuji and we'd yet to get a decent photo. But then by
the time we got to Fuji-san, it had cleared up! We snapped a bunch
of pics, hard to do while riding by in a rocket, but a few of them
turned out pretty good.
Fuji-san!
We ate at McDonald's for the third and final time of the trip
outside of Shin-Yokohama station, and we headed back to Traci's.
Mark had to go to England a few days before, so he wasn't there. We
took the subway and got back about 7:00 p.m.
Silly cars
After resting and recovering a bit from the journey, we took a
walk down the street to a place Traci and Amanda said had good
views of the city. We passed the Foreigners' Cemetery, which was
pretty spooky in the dark, then we got sidetracked and ended up in
Chinatown. We goofed around and then went in a liquor store and
bought an airplane-bottle of Japanese whiskey. One little airplane
bottle between the two of us may not sound like much, but believe
me, it was plenty. Japanese whiskey is nasty!
Tom and Pikachu pal
We walked back up the steepest hill in the world and then found
our way to where we were supposed to be in the first place, Harbour
View Park. There were indeed good views of the city. But it was
cold and we were afraid Traci would think we were hopelessly lost
since we'd been gone so long, so we went back. It took me about two
hours to defrost. Fortunately, Mark and Traci have heated toilet
seats, so that helpled.
Yokohama from the Foreigners' Cemetery
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