Goodbye Chiba, hello Aomori!

We all agreed on waking up early and meeting at 8.. but that doesn't make it any easier. I have to pack all of my things back up, because I am leaving town later on..ugh.

I go for a walk, since I wake up before everyone. I choose no direction in particular, and stroll down the various avenues and take in the glorious vistas of Kashiwa. One thing I do notice, is all of the power lines constantly over my head.

Eventually, I end up grabbing some coffee, and making a visit the ATM

(Interesting side note: When I come back to my room and check on my computer's battery level, it is still very low. This leads me to wonder if my adapter, battery, or even the wall outlet is bad. I don't realize this until a little later, but the entire hotel room's electricity is linked with a switch near the door where you insert your key. It's kind of weird, but when you leave the room, and take your key with you, the circuit shuts off, and there is no power. I ended up just using a toothbrush as substitute to keep my power on. but I thought it was a clever, power-saving innovation as far as hotels go).

Once we are all assembled, we attempt to find a breakfast spot that agrees with everyone. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Jason and his wife grab some McDonald's. Amanda and I opt to starve.

Jason pulls out his trusty subway map. Today we plot our course for Harajuku; Tokyo's fashion headquarters.

We ascend from the tunnels below, and emerge above ground on a strip of road, dotted with trees. Fortunately, this is a familiar sight, and I lead the pack onward to our destination.

It doesn't take long time locate the main shopping area of Harajuku, and the Japanese definitely don't go out of their way to hide it.

The avenue is cramped, worsened by the presence of so many umbrellas. Amanda and I are still very much hungry, having not eaten anything earlier, and keep our eyes open as we shuffle through.

She spots a stand that makes crepes, and being that this is quite the novelty, we stop there get a couple.

I can pretty much say that the rest of our time there is just spent looking through (well, mostly just the women looking through) clothing shops and strolling around. We try to find more food later, but completely fail and just decide to remain hungry. Feeling satisfied we finish up our experience in Harajuku and go back to Kashiwa.

We collect our things from the hotel and then go our separate ways. I, to Ueno station to meet Kyle, and Jason plus his gang off to train once more. I am sad that I cannot accompany him, due to the fact that he was going to train with the Grand Master, Masaaki Hatsumi. Although, I plan to return next month and meet him then.

It's a short and sweet train ride to meet up with Kyle, and it is a station in Tokyo I have visited many times before. I have no trouble in locating our designated meeting spot.

He's not hard to spot; a crane standing in a flock of chickens. Shamisen case sticking up above his head and sandals.. not many people are equipped with such things.

I go into the Andersen bakery to get some tabemono (food), while Kyle watches all of the stuff.

Once loaded up with supplies, we buy our tickets to Misawa on the Shinkansen (bullet train) and head off.

Unfortunately, just as we reach the platform, our train (departing at 6:02pm) is leaving the platform... Now, imagine that; a train actually left exactly on time.. where are we? Japan?

We aren't exactly sure when the next train is about to leave, but we manage to form a jumbled hypothesis from the overhead marquees, and decide to bide our time. One issue though, is that the train we missed, had reserved seats for us, and as far as we could tell, the next had reserved seating only. This may be interesting..

As the train pulls in, we do our best to locate a car with as little people as possible to increase our chances of sitting together. We hop on, load our belongings onto the overhead racks, and wait.

The train is remarkably smooth in it's acceleration and deceleration, and at it's peak, goes somewhere around 150km/hr. Going this quickly, you would expect a lot of noise, but it is very quiet and peaceful. Also, periodically, a woman with a snack/drink cart rolls through the aisle, which only adds to the tranquility.

It's dark by the time we leave, so they isn't much to look at out from the window. I opt to sleep and read.

Miraculously, we only have to move once, and we just move back a row. Suckahs!

We arrive in Misawa. The contrast from Tokyo is immediately apparent; the air is crisp and cold. Misawa station is much smaller, and as we pass through the turnstile, there is no machine to run your ticket; just a man with a hole puncher.

Yup, we made it.

We wait for a few minutes at the front of the station, and then suddenly surprised to hear some yelling off to our left. And of course, the alarming sounds are coming from none other than the mouth of Kevin Kmetz.

It's been a long time; we all exchange greetings and give our salutations, but do not hesitate to get our bags inside and move along.

At this point, Kyle and I are almost completely exhausted. However, tomorrow morning, we must leave bright and early to perform a show. So, rather than getting some much needed rest, we break out our Shamisens and do a once-over of the material that we will play. This is particularly comical, due to the fact that we all haven't played together in 6 or 7 months. Talk about preperation...

After that, we both get settled into our rooms and pass out.