Daley-sensei's Adventures in Himeji, Japan.

Now that I'm back in Himeji, I of course had to show my brother the almost-fully-finished Himeji Castle and the Koko-en. With Typhoon Halong coming in tonight, the weather has been pretty icky here; but fortunately, it stopped raining during the afternoon, so we were able to enjoy ourselves in the nice, cool weather. And even luckier for us, due to the bad weather the cranes were kept folded down, so they didn't interrupt our view of the castle! A lot of people have been commenting around Japan about how white the roof of the recently renovated main castle is compared with the roofs of the other buildings. There is a logical explanation, however: this is what the roof originally looked like when the castle was first built, with its white clean lines. However, after repeated buildup of soot from air pollution, it will eventually turn as dark as the roofs on the other buildings. For now, I will enjoy the clean, unpolluted roof! So, some of my favorite photos from today of t

Just got back to Himeji after a few days in Tokyo with my brother, and it was pretty fun! We stayed in a hotel that was about a 10 minute walk from the main street of Akihabara , which is pretty much nerd heaven. Yes, I did have--inadvertently--dinner at a maid cafe/barbecue place, and yes, we ate lunch at the Gundam Cafe; you didn't hear it from me, but the bathrooms are super awesome there... although, according to my brother, the mens' toilet was quite a bit different from the ladies'. I definitely don't recall any smoke machines in the girl's room, which now makes me a little bit disappointed. But yeah, if you go to Akihabara, you have to go to the Gundam Cafe, and you have to use the bathroom. It's that amazing!  Anyways, if you've ever heard anything about Tokyo, you've probably heard about how there are people on the train platforms whose job it is to help cram everyone onto the train. It's true. Rush hour traffic on the trains was pret