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On this day we returned home with many great memories. Sayonara!

Photo of woman in curlers on the plane ride back.

Since I don't have many photos of this last day, here are some photos I like that tell the story of my husband, the blonde giant among the little people in asialand.

View all pictures from our trip to Japan.

Today we went to Harajuku and pretended we were Gwen Stefani spying on Japanese’s fashionable teens. A word about Japanese and fashion. Everybody dresses up in Japan. There’s no such thing as casual there, so tourists like us are easy to spot.

Then we went to Kabukiza in the Ginza district to watch one act of the kabuki play Kumagai Jinya (Kumagai’s Camp). It is about a general named Kumagai who must kill the son of a friend to whom he owes a great debt. It was wartime and the son, Atsumori, was on the enemy’s side. Atsumori is also the bastard child of the emperor. This puts Kumagai in a position because it would be wrong to spill blood from royal lineage and it would be dishonorable to kill the son of his friend. So, Kumagai’s commander suggests an alternative to him. Read about the entire play. Paul and I enjoyed it and would recommend Kabukiza to anyone visiting Tokyo. The one-act shows are inexpensive and short. The only thing is that you have to get in line early if you want to catch a seat.

Picture of the outside of Kabukiza

Next we went to Ikebukuro, which has some of the world’s largest department stores. We didn’t stay long because we were afraid of getting lost. We ended the day in Akiba since the day we took the tour there didn’t leave us much time to really shop or take a closer look at things.

Today we did a tour of Tokyo. First, we went to Tokyo Tower, which is an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, except it’s bright orange and it’s taller. I know. The Japanese are crazy. We saw lots of replicas of famous landmarks from other countries.

Next we visited the Asakusa Kannon Temple, a huge temple located in the center of the city. It’s next to Nakamise Street, which is like a huge flea market.

We had lunch there at a kaiten sushi restaurant, where the plates of sushi goes around on a conveyor belt. That was quite cool.

Later in the day we enjoyed a three-hour tour of Akihabara by Goku from Dragonball Z. I don’t watch that show, but our guide was awesome.

Akiba is the famous electronic district where you can find all the latest anime and electronic goods.

We also visited one of the exclusive Maid Cafes where girls dress up in maid costumes and serve drinks and play Japanese versions of “rock, paper, scissors” games with you.

Everyone hears about Japanese vending machines and what you can find in them. We saw vending machines everywhere. In Japan, drinks are cheaper in vending machines than in grocery stores, which is opposite of the market setup in the States. This is an example of a machine with canned udon noodles, which are popular in Akiba.

This is a photo of a very pissed off nurse or nun (I can't tell which). These girls hand out flyers for the maid cafes, enticing people to come and spend their money. You're not allowed to take their photos, but I was sneaky and took this one. Afterwards she glared and turned away from me.

We took the shinkansen back to Tokyo and purchased a bento box for lunch.

When we made it back to Tokyo we checked back in to the Tokyo Hotel East 21. The hotel is nice, but I didn’t particularly like some of the staff or the restaurants. Also, the hotel is way on the outside of Tokyo, not particularly close to a subway station, and almost unbearably far from the airport.

We had one of those cool washlet toilets, which are a combination of a toilet and a bidet. These are the controls for the washlet. More sophisticated ones include a seat warmer.

Later in the evening we visited Shibuya and ate dinner at Lock Up. The Japanese are big into themes and this restaurant had a jailhouse theme. The hostesses were dressed as wardens and each table was enclosed in its own jail cell. This was an incredibly fun place, especially when all the lights went out. They started playing Thriller music and the staff wore monster masks and "attacked" people in the cells.

Here's a picture of downtown Shibuya. It looks a lot like Times Square.

This is the group eating a peaceful dinner at Lock Up, totally unaware.

Ahhhhhhhhh! Do not want!

Technically, day two was spent on the plane because we crossed the international dateline, so while we left the U.S. on a Sunday, this day is now Tuesday.

Today we took the shinkansen bullet train to Osaka. The trip took about three hours. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. I had in my mind that a bullet train would actually travel like a bullet and I would see the countryside whirr past the windows. It went a little faster than a train, but the ride was super smooth.

During this time we got to know the other people in our tour group. After speaking with the other people I came to realize that I am way behind on my anime. Unfortunately, I haven’t had time to keep up with some of my favorite hobbies such as anime and comic books. The trip was nice because Paul and I still had jet lag, so it allowed for recovery.

In Japan, everything is my size!

We checked into the Osaka Hotel Granvia. Like all Japanese hotels, small room, with small beds and bathroom.

View from hotel room of Osaka.