#every day's like ''read 2 books and went to 5 museums. met [person i don't know i will come to love till i die yet] they seem nice :)''

[lesamis]

is there an opposite of nostalgia where you remember sth as worse than it actually was in order to stop yourself from missing it so much it dissolves you like a wet straw wrapper

[nel-4]

The last blog of the trip: it's a long one I'm afraid (don't feel obliged to read it)... It's Nagano with snow monkeys, deep fried locusts, fish saké, "karaoke" and a stop at the lake to clear our heads; Tokyo with the Shibuya crossing, cherry blossom trees galore, the Kamen Joshi girl group and Asimo the Honda Robot; and Hong Kong with accommodation in little India, Sofar Sounds, a rooftop pool, the peak, soho with escalators and an anticlimactic symphony of lights show.

We went to Nagano after Kanazawa/Shirakawa-go. Our main purpose here was to fulfil Zee's dream of seeing the legendary snow monkeys that bathe in the hot spring saunas up in the mountains. His wish came true! We did a day trip to the snow monkey park and mingled with them for the afternoon as they bathed and huddled together to keep warm. There were lots of baby monkeys too and we witnessed a few adults thieving from visiting customers. Back in Nagano town we thought it about time for another night out as Zee, the machine, wanted to get "aaat on the laaash"...it started orderly but ended with Zee pushing me over on the pavement (accidentally), resulting in a hole in my trouser knee, us all raiding the 24hr family mart for snacks at 3am and then Zee vomiting on return to the hostel whilst laura and I broke the 'lights out in communal areas after 11' rule. Zee had made it his mission to not be outdrunk by me - he matched me consumption wise but not in handling terms, ha! The evening was a cracker though - we went to a great restaurant where we had deep fried locusts as a side dish and a bowl of Saké that is brewed for a while with a fish soaking in it. We devoured the saké and the fish! Then went in search for a Karaoke bar, only to find it was way too expensive, but luckily found a lounge bar that had the instruments of a band all set up but no band. Well, nedless to say we belted out a few numbers - Taylor Swift, The Beatles and Oasis made appearances, and the only two other people in the bar were obliged to politely clap at the end of our set. Not done yet, we headed to a sports bar and muscled in on some locals' night's out, joining them for matches of table tennis and pool before playing clocks on the dart board. So so tired by home time which I expect contributed to the falling down and ripped knee! (I'm so so sorry Mrs Ralph 😜 - soon you won't have to read of my drinking habits)! Hangovers ever present, the next day we took the train up to stay at a lake side lodge hostel called LAMP hostel. It was a great place with comfy beds, log cabin stylings and an onsen style bath which I unfortunately only had a few private minutes in, before 2 slight Japanese ladies arrived, stripped off and got in together (I vacated the bath on their arrival in the changing area as didn't think they'd appreciate a large, bobbing (you float in them) westerner disturbing their chill time). Anyway, we took naps, went for walks in the snow around the lake and ate many a carbohydrate to recover from the night before. It worked well and by the next day we felt ready to take on Tokyo city after our few days in the snowy countryside. Laura's brother and sister in law (Shaun and Becky) were on holiday in Japan and we'd managed to coincide our Tokyo time. We met them for dinner on the first night there and spent the next couple days together. We visited the scramble Shibuya crossing where the volume of people crossing reaches thousands sometimes. Was 'quiet' when we went unfortunately but still had a go at taking some arty slow shutter speed shots like Jack had taught me in HoiAn 🙂. We explored around here some, and tried to plough our way through the hoards of people on Takeashita (lol) street to get to our sushi restaurant we fancied. This was really fun - you ordered on a personal tablet in front of you, then a siren would go off to let you know that your food was about to zoom towards you on a conveyor belt and stop right in front of you. Much fun!! We ended the night at a saké market, sampling a few different ones and made friends with some young people from TaiWan called SunnySu, Celine, Pierre and Paul (see selfie of us all on Facebook)!! Next day was spent in Ueno park under the cherry blossom. There's soooo many blossom trees all over, it looks great! I'd been to Ueno park under two weeks before and it wasn't out very much then but it was now near full bloom 😀. We then went round the Ginza area which was full of pretty posh designer shops so couldn't really purchase anything but we had a nice wander around and a last meal with Shaun and Becky with a few beers to follow. Penultimate Tokyo/Japan day was spent at the Senso-ji temple and doing some souvenir shopping in the Asakusa and Kapabashi areas. One of our favourite nights was then upon us...we'd seen Joanna Lumley (in Japan) go to watch an all girl singing dancing troop where all the audience members (99% male) know all the dance moves and get obsessed with all the girls - we had to see it for ourselves and it definitely didn't disappoint! They are a 30ish strong group called Kamen Joshi and perform twice every night (5 and 8pm). The ticket's a bargain at £12 which gets you entry and two drinks or some tucker! They perform in smaller groups and all the men are so so involved in chanting and doing dance routines to the songs. The girls have different coloured outfits on and the men race forward waving their affiliated coloured glow stick each time their favourite girl took a solo. Afterwards, you can meet and greet all the girls (they all look very young (15-20) and the men's average age was probably 45) - it was fascinating to see the men being so shy then talking to the girls after being so confident on the dance floor. However, the overriding feeling was creepiness, and the men would pay for photos with them or pay for the girls to pose together for photos! Whacky Japan! Final day in Japan was a late start followed by a trip to the national museum of emerging science and innovation, called Miraikan. Had a cool trip down to it on the hybrid train over the docks and estuary - real flashy buildings around here. When there we saw a demonstration by the Honda Robot, Asimo, who ran out of his home giving us a wave. He did some hopping, backwards walking and sang a song whilst doing Japanese sign language along to it! He was so cool, glad we saw him. We also had a go on some Honda "uni cab" prototypes and went on a tour around he museum on them - they're like a sit down Segway that you control with your weight distribution sitting down. The lady was quite strict with us though as I think she could tell all we wanted to do was zoom around on them rather than listen to her tour. She didn't let us go very fast 🙁. Headed back to central Tokyo after and had a great last meal of tender raw steak that you cook on a little grill box on your table yourself - I made the mistake of using my metal chopsticks to turn my meat on the grill and then to feed myself, burning my upper and lower lip on one side in the process (injury no. 547??!!) 😩 Friday was our travel day to Hong Kong with an early start, arriving in HK late afternoon. Initially impressed with the transport into the city our good moods were cut short on arrival to our hostel. The building was called ChingKung Mansions and housed loooooads of hostels on 15 floors. The whole of the ground floor was just like the markets we'd seen in India and as soon as we arrived the hassling started, offering us places to stay and things to buy. Luckily the China based Indian people were less pushy than some of the India based Indian people had been, so there was no bother, was just unexpected as one street over was all the designer shops and posh hotels whereas this building was really run down. The hostel we were staying in had messed up too and were asking us to move rooms to a different hostel after the first night - we said we would at first but then changed our minds so we stayed put. May have been a mistake as in this block only one lift was working so there was a big queue for it or it was walk 15 flights in muggy heat. Queue was so long one night we did take the stairs but to instantly regret it - on the first floor we found a rave and loads of people hotboxing in the corridor, then the staircase smelled so strongly of wee and poo it made you gag - I've never walked so quickly up 15 flights of stairs but was so worried that I'd get sick from it all again, I pelted up them!! All good though. Anyway, our first night in HK we'd booked onto the city's first Sofar Sounds gig which was really good. Last artist was the best but the other two were good too. Met a few people and got some recommendations for things to do in the city. Polished the day of with a second McDonald's in 10hours, oops! Spent Saturday at the Sheraton hotel rooftop pool and spa (bought a day pass) for a well earned rest and to enjoy the warm weather again. Had an interesting dinner at a cooky restaurant where they gave you a free half a roasted pigeon with every meal. It tastes a bit like duck! Strolled the waterfront after dinner and went for a cocktail in a skybar called 'eyebar'. Had a cocktail called 'Susie wrong' which was advertised as HK's version of the Singapore sling - wasn't quite the same I don't think!! Last day in HK was spent with Sian and Dan and their friend Jenna. Dan was working in HK for a few days and Sian had joined him for a holiday. We went up to the top of the peak (getting a really cheap taxi compared to the expensive tram that had an hour long queue) but only got an overcast view of the city as was pretty cloudy and smoggy that day. Then explored the soho area that had escalators running up and down the streets with happy hours galore at bars on every level! Headed over the water then to the Kowloon side to watch the symphony of lights show from the harbour side (all the buildings emit laser beams from their roofs and the building facades light up with loads of different patterns). Unfortunately we were expecting much more than we got. It may have been the cloudy skies that prevented the full effect from coming across but to us it didn't look that different to the lights that are always going day and night on the buildings. Nice to see though and didn't last long :) Afterwards we headed up town to a street food area where we came across a street artist performing our classic hits that we'd performed earlier in the week - we happily obliged his request to sing along to Hey Jude and Yesterday 😁. After tucker we bid farewell to Sian and Dan and headed back for our last sleep of the big fat holiday and left early in the morning with much heavier rucksacks (mine was 18.5kg, started at 14.5) for our journey home. Had two flights with Aeroflot, with a short stop at Moscow airport en route. Unfortunately it was too short of a stop for them to manage to put my back on the flight to Heathrow....my 19th flight and I lost my luggage. Best it happened on this flight though and luckily he was found the next day and is now safely returned to me. Can't believe it's all over, it went by so quickly, but it's lovely to be home. If you've read down this far, I salute you, and fanks!!