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Tokyo sports

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We've been in Tokyo for just shy of a week, and one of the things we had to do was take in a Japanese baseball game. Japanese fans are absolutely mental - yet very polite. Much like a premier league soccer game, the fans are divided, with a few sections dedicated to the visiting team. We were in that section, which fit well with our blue Leafs and Jays jerseys, because the visiting Yokohama Baystars were in blue. Interestingly, the Japanese league uses a smaller ball, a smaller field, and a smaller strike zone. This didn't change the intensity at all. The crowd cheering was constant, with each side taking turns when their team was up to bat. Supporters sections included flags, drums, and trumpets - with a dedicated song for each team, and even each player. Keep in mind, that video is for the  visiting  team. One of the other fun aspects of Japanese baseball are the beer girls. They don't carry coolers filled with cans around like they do in Canada. They...
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Pi-pikachu pika pikAAAAHHHHHHHH

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I've got three (and a half) words for you: Street legal go-karts. Tonight was our MariCar tour around Shinjuku. We drove on the crowded streets of Tokyo in go karts that went up to 70kph. No helmets, seatbelts optional, in costumes with hoods that you could pull over your eyes. It's easily the highlight of the tour so far.
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So, we've arrived in Tokyo, however not without some drama along the way. Our ryokan was out in the middle of absolute nowhere in the mountains of rural Japan. As a traditional hotel, they had responsibility of providing us dinner, which was also traditional Japanese cuisine. Japanese cuisine being mostly fish based, and Joe has an allergy to raw fish. If you know what the title of this blog post references, you'll know where this is going... We don't exactly know what caused it, but Joe had an allergic reaction to something. What's interesting, is that his is not instant - generally taking a few hours to come to its full effects. This is quite a different story coated to my father's,which is instant. Around 11pm, he was swollen, red, and itchy. Sadly, no staff of the ryokan spoke any English at all, leading to a fun call to the Japanese version of 911 (which is 119 if anyone is planning to visit Japan). Thank goodness they had access to English interpreters,...
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Staying old school

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We're staying in a traditional Japanese ryokan tonight. It's very traditional..
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Lanes and Lanterns

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We've spent the last 3 days in Kyoto, home of every Shinto shrine known to man. If anyone's been to Europe and gotten sick of all the churches, you'll know how I feel about Shinto shrines. That said they are all ancient, and absolutely incredible works. Kyoto was the former capital of Japan ~150 years ago, and stayed that way for at least a few hundred years. As such, everybody wanted to have their shrine built there. You can't walk too many blocks without bumping into something that's centuries old. Some of the highlights of the city are the fushini-inari shrine, arashiyama bamboo forest, nijo-ji castle, and the golden pagoda. Like all things, none of the photos I have really do them justice, but hey, here's a few of them anyway.
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August 6, 1945

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We all thought it was necessary to take a trip down to Hiroshima to pay our respects to the victims of the first atomic bombing. We visited the Peace park, and the A-bomb dome - the exact location where 200m above the bomb exploded. Teens of thousands were killed instantly, with over 200,000 more succumbing to burns and radiation in the weeks, months, and years afterwards. To say the museum was a sobering eye opener would be an understatement. The horror that a single atomic bomb wrought is second only to the fact that 3 days later, they dropped another one on Nagasaki. I have no photos of the museum. The images are burned into my brain. The A-bomb dome itself was one of the government buildings for the prefecture, and was mostly spared since it was directly under the blast. It now stands exactly as it did in that day, as a reminder to the total destruction these weapons cause.
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The Shinkansen

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"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Shinkansen. Sakura 549 hyper express service to Hiroshima." I've been a huge technology nerd for pretty much my whole life, and there's nothing more high tech than the shinkansen - the Japanese bullet train. Today was our first trip aboard one on the 300km-ish trip to Hiroshima. Making 6 stops along the way, the train completed the journey in 90 minutes. I was curious enough about our actual speed that I downloaded a GPS speed app on my phone to get an idea of just how fast we were traveling. Don't let the "unsafe" indicator fool you, there have been 0 accidents, and 0 fatalities since the inception of the Shinkansen. They even have earthquake detectors that automatically shut the trains down. When I was a kid, I thought the trains were magnetic levitation. I was actually surprised to learn they were regular rails, and electric trains. Also, because it's 2019, they also carried this warning: ...
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