I’ve been back, for two whole weeks. Christmas has been and gone. I can’t say I’ve missed Japan. Except, yesterday… I was walking back home from the bus stop, when I thought of the little McDonalds near Uguisudani station. How I’d pass it every evening on my way back from wherever. How I always knew [...]

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“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe…”
So here’s my 28 hours in transit.
12:12, Dec 15th: Random Tom Waits quote of the day: “Well I’m at the station, and I can’t get on the train.”
I hate airport security, it gives me the willies every time. There I am, just stepping off the train to Terminal 2, [...]

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And it’s like I never left.
Well, not quite, but I … simply cannot believe that two days ago I was actually in Tokyo. Me. This guy sitting here at this computer. (Incidentally, it’s so weird to have a full PC again. This 17″ monitor feels huge.) It’s … it’s really like I never left, like [...]

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Well, then, I guess this is the End. I’m not sure what to say. I’m at the hostel at the moment, about to leave any time soon.
Er…
I guess that’s it.
Listen to the girl
As she takes on half the world…

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So I packed my rucksack, which to be honest was the thing I was most dreading, but everything fits well and surprisingly I freed up some space in my laptop bag too.
I decided to go for a walk around Asakusa and Sensoji Temple, and it was most definitely a Japan moment. Big band Mario on [...]

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Today’s been uneventful for my last day here. Went down to Ginza. Bleh. If Akihabara is my personal shopping mecca (in an almost literal sense of the word) then Ginza is hell, full of shops selling ugly “fashion” items and stupidly expensive bags to shallow women (and men). Even the Apple Store is depressing.
Of course, [...]

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Photos from Kagoshima really are up now. No, really.

When I left you, I was… about to board a plane. Had a slight spot of bother with the electric razor in my baggage (anyone quoting Fight Club will be shot) but I sorted it out and bordered the 767 at 13:50ish. The flight took about an [...]

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Kagoshima pics are partly up.
Wow. My travel plans actually went off without a hitch, for once.
Got up at 8:00am, surprisingly for me. With some dilly-dallying, I was out the door of the hostel with a friendly goodbye from the owner and a free copy of the Daily Yomiuri by half-eight, and down at Kagoshima-chuo station [...]

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Today I visited THE END OF JAPAN!
 Well, nearly.
After an unenjoyable hour wasted getting lost on Kagoshima’s streetcar system, I finally caught a train for the 80 minute journey south to Yamakawa. Imagine a pincer of land with the tips pointing south: Kagoshima is roughly at the joint. Yamakawa is near the end of the left-hand claw, [...]

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In 1998 a man called Tim Schafer and his development team at Lucasarts created the last great adventure game, called Grim Fandango. I haven’t enough time to sing its praises: but suffice to say Grim is not only one of the finest games ever created, it is, in some ways, truly art.
Anyway, without going into too much detail about the story, [...]

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