Japan Tour 2009

Shopping in Shibuya and Electric City

nat spook — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:18:12 +0000

So Shibuya is like young shopper hangout central. With thousands of shops including a building called 109 which is basically a 8 level building with about 5 clothes shops on each, that plays extremely loud J-Pop and Trance music, otherwise knows as “Guys Hell on Earth”. Electric City is a knickname for the suburb Akihabara because basically the whole place is entirely dedicated to electronics and manga. Just buildings with level upon level of this stuff. Awesome!

Some sweet Shibuya purchases.

Universal Studios Osaka

nat spook — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:38:27 +0000

So if Disneyland is the happiest place on earth Universal Studios I’d say is in the top 5 if not for just one reason: walking in. I put up a youtube of the music that plays when you walk in because it would be too hard to describe, the best I can describe it, it makes you feel like you just made it haha. I swear they do it just to bring out your inner 10 year old and it works. Its pretty much amazing. This vid is just of the front outside the main gate where theres a big revolving Universal sign (I didn’t make it), but you get a chance to hear the music and see what I mean about the 10 year old thing.

Universal Studios entry.

Peanuts!

The amazing Universal Studios store.

Pirate ships and Wigwams for the set of the Peter Pan Musical they play on a lake every day.

Fairy dome and sets for Peter Pan show.

Entire shop dedicated to Hello Kitty. At certain times of the day here she even hosts weddings!

Outside of the Jaws ride shark eats famiy of four.

Jaws ride. It takes you on a loop around as a guided tour of the "town" (we couldn't understand what was happening or being said of course). The shark attacks your tour boat and your "guide" eventually blows it away with a shot gun haha, fire was also involved (obviously).

The town of Amity, the set around the Jaws ride.

Ah the memories come flooding back.

"Oh my God. Do you know what this is? This is a dinosaur egg. The dinosaurs are breeding"

Oh the ride....second ride of the day. It takes on a tour through the dinosaur park, before you take a wrong turn into a private research buding were of course, the raptors have escaped. Next thing you know theres a 20ft + t-rex standing in front of you. Then this happens.....

Spewin.

Domestic.

Hahaha awwww.

Back to the Future!

The Delorian the number plate says "outatime".

The Hollywood Dream ride. The last ride of the day. You sit in these couches and get to pick one of 5 songs to listen to while it takes you around and over the top of the whole park. We listened to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem haha.

Osaka

nat spook — Wed, 13 May 2009 09:10:58 +0000

More coming soon!

Ou room in Osaka. In an area called Shin-Osaka, it was pretty much the tiniest room in the world. Where the picture ends on the left is where the wall was so this is pretty much it.

Osaka night shots. The city is not nearly as big as Tokyo, but we just got in this night so I think we were amazed by any bright lights.

Disorientated.

Everyone here rides bikes everywhere. Theres probably millions. Plus they park them just about everywhere. Near stations you could easily see thousands or more parked in bike parking lots.

Mos Burger!

Leading up to Osaka-Jo Castle.

‘

Couldn’t resist.

Scored a watch.

These are like cupcake batter cooked in these moulds to make it extra fun. Awesome.

Happy food!

Time Capsule next to Osaka Castle to be opened in 5000 years!

Update: Day 3

nat spook — Mon, 11 May 2009 15:54:17 +0000

Hey guys!

Well its our 3rd day in Japan, its nearly 1AM and we just got to our hostel in Tokyo. We’ve had a crazy few days and we’ve taken heaps of pics only to find out we don’t have the right adaptor for my laptop! So I’ll have to upload our pictures asap. Transport here is surprisingly easy, its really complicated but if you know where you want to go its pretty easy to figure it out, plus Japanese people are so nice and helpful.

Osaka was such a nice city, not nearly as big as Tokyo but that makes it so much easier to get around. Oh man plus we’ve already been to UNIVERSAL STUDIOS! Oh Kat I can’t wait till you go, they play this like music so when you walk in you just feel like you’ve made it in life haha. I can’t really explain it and pictures dont really capture it, it was like a soundtrack to just coming into this awesome place. We went on so many rides. Jaws, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Spiderman and more. I’ll upload pics asap.

Anyways its a bit late here so I’m gonna try and sort out the adaptor dilemma tommorrow and show you more stuff. It’ll be easier then trying to explain it all. Oh and thanks for the comments Dad and Kat.

More updates coming soon!

Love Nat xo

Hello world!

nat spook — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:36:18 +0000

Haha I didn’t come up with that title but I guess it is appropriate to what this blog is about, which is keeping people updated on my overseas travels, namely Japan as lets face it I got not much outside that going on. I figure its easier then emailing people individually, or sending postcards. But I’m almost as bad as keeping in contact with people as I am at keeping a blog up to date so we’ll see how this goes I guess. But its good to actually have something to blog about, as opposed to updating you on what I’m eating for lunch or what I think about everything ever invented by man.

Anyways stay tuned as I’m leaving on the 9th (Sat) early so I’ll try to do my best to post my photos etc up here.

So till then I leave you with a picture of something I can only hope will become a regular fixture on this trip which is a Japanese bento box (or lunch box). The bento has become a bit of an artform, these particular ones are based on the Studio Ghibli animations My Neighbour Totoro. They are not mine but they are pretty much amazing xox