The fireworks dispay at Universal Studios was cancelled because of problems with gunpowder. To make up for this unfortunate event all soft drinks were free in the park after 5.00 pm.

Universal Studios has implemented a system called “Universal Express” that allows you to get a ticket in advance for a popular attraction. It’s a good idea as there can be a two hour wait for some of the rides. We only managed to get an Express ticket for the Jurassic Park ride. The park was so busy that the tickets we got at 11 o’clock in the morning were for going on the ride sometime between 18:10 and 19:10!

War is the work of man. War is destruction of human life. War is death. To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future. To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war. To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace.

Pope John Paul II, Feb 25th, 1981

Today we arrived at Osaka. We are staying in a business hotel. I’m quite glad that this is the only one we will be staying in during this trip. I have never been in one before and I wasn’t really impressed. The western style rooms are dowdy and small. Small I was expecting – this is Japan after all – but dowdy isn’t good.

One strange thing the room did have was a TV with a coin slot. If you wanted to watch the TV it cost 100 Yen for 60 minutes. If you wanted to watch the porn channel it cost 600 Yen for 60 minutes. Quite an ingenious way to ensure that your viewing habits never appear on a hotel receipt.

He who climbs Mt. Fuji once is a wise man: he who climbs it twice is a fool

Marty climbed Mt. Fuji last night for the second time.

We spent all day today at Disney’s new resort in Japan: Tokyo Disney Sea. I can’t begin to imagine how much works goes into building a resort like this. Every piece of furniture, every plant, every stone was skillfully crafted to blend in with each distinct park theme. I didn’t think that the park had as strong a Disney feel as some of the others but it still had loads of shops selling more Disney paraphernalia than anyone could ever need, a Mermaid Lagoon section based on The Little Mermaid, and an Arabian section themed around Aladdin. I suppose what I’m trying to say is that there were not so many Disney characters present in the park (I think in the 10 hours or so that we were there I only say one Mickey Mouse and one Donald Duck) and sections of the park with themes like “American Waterfront” and “Mediterranean Harbour” didn’t have any obvious disney connection.

One thing that made the day stand out was the excitable and almost child like wonder of the Japenese who found fun in everything.

We were walking through Yanaka last night and I realised that I could hear Hawaiian music. I found this a bit strange, since I’m in Japan, but I thought it was probably one of the smalls vendors getting into the summer mood. I was wrong. The music was’t connected to one store, rather it was being played a series of outdoor speakers throughout the whole area!

Welcome to Annex Katsutaro Ryokan,full of history and culture amid unsurpassed natural scenery.

The ryokan is great. The futon is much more comfortable than then bed in the hotel in Vienna and the room is really clean. We have air conditioning, a fridge, television, hair dryer, a private western style bathroon and (the reason Marty booked the place) an internet connection in the room.

However, I wouldn’t go so far as to describe convenience stores and food outlets as “unsurpassed natuarl scenery”.

Marty and I have arrived in Japan! Narita airport is clean and quite easy to navigate – the ladies who work at the airport waving their arms and pointing in the correct direction helped. It was even easy to find the correct train to take us to our ryokan. The train journey took about an hour. When we bought tickets for the train we were given allocated seats! Now maybe this is common in other countries but I’ve never come across this at home. There is even a correct place to queue for each train car. The train was air conditioned, clean and each seat had a table (airplane style where this is attached to the chair in front) and a foot rest. There was also an area in each train car where soft drinks could be purchased from vending machines.

I’ve been in Japan before but I had forgotten that it was a place of contrasts. When we left the airport the landscape was dotted with wooden houses and elderly people working in the fields. It looked like we where in the countryside apart from the low hanging cables that dominated the view from the train. Soon we were travelling through areas were evey available space seemed to contain either a house or a vending machine and as we got closer to our destination the buildings got taller and more solid looking. When we arrived in the city, a place of high rise buildings and hanging lights, I noticed a group of woman walking slowly down the street wearing pastel coloured dresses and carrying a lace parasol in one hand and paper fan in the other – looking as if they should have been about to attend a Victorian summer picnic when in reality they were probably walking to the train station.

I don’t think that the the business lounge in Vienna is as good as the ones in Heathrow but it does provide computers with Internet access – which has to be a plus point. I have never used a German style keyboard before and I’m finding it quite awkward. I was expecting the punctuation to be in different places and I was expecting there to be additional characters such as “