Dave @ Pintglass

So it seems that summer is gearing up. It was really hot today and here I am complaining when this isn’t even the peak of the hot weather! Brandon will be heading here on Wednesday and we’ll be heading to Kyoto on Friday night. I looked at a forecast and on one of the days that we’ll be there it predicts that the temp will be around 87 degrees. Site also said the 87 would “Feel Like” 98 degrees!! Gonna need to keep hydrated.

I’ll be paying my first set of Japanese taxes here tomorrow. There are no tax forms to fill out every year. Instead, the city just sends you a bill of what you owe and gives you a deadline to pay by. Luckily, they also give you the option to split the tax into four monthly payments.

Hey all, well I finally got a new blog installed as you can see, but I’ll be changing the look of it soon.

If you haven’t already, checkout recently uploaded pictures from Kyoto and Hakone. There’s quite a few there, so come back often to check them all out OR get something to drink and plan on sitting down for a while.

BTW, June 21st marks one year for me in Japan! Can you believe that it’s already been a year? I can’t. It flew by so quickly…

Last weekend (3/27-29), was able to go to Hakone. Hakone is the entire area that surrounds Mt. Hakone which is in the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It is southwest from Tokyo, about an hour and a half train ride away. Again we lucked out on the weather (as you can see in the left column). Fuji-san was out in full; snow-capped and without her usual veil of clouds.

We were able to get a pass that gave us a RT ride from Shinjuku to Hakone and unlimited usage on the many types of transportation in the park (buses, train, cablecar, ropeway and boats). We pretty much used them all and the pass was well worth the money spent considering that each individual fare totalled well over the amount we paid for the ticket.

Pretty much all along the way, we caught glimpses of Fuji-san while we trekked through many of the tourist sites in the area. Check out pics in my photo albums.

Two Sundays ago (March 21), I went to Kamakura - about an hour train ride south of Tokyo - with some friends from work. Kamakura has approximately 65 temples and 19 shrines in Kamakura - many founded eight centuries ago when it was once the military and political center of Japan (beginning in 1192). After only about 150 years, this power moved back to Kyoto in 1333.

We set out early to try to take in as much as we could. However, we only managed to visit three temples, the Daibutsu (large bronze buddha statue) and one shrine!

We lucked out on the weather and had a clear and warm day. Previous to that Sunday, it had been raining quite a bit so thankfully we were able to trek around this seaside town keeping dry and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Stumbled across an interesting website tonight while dreaming about travel in Asia. It’s called PassPlanet and has some pretty good details for travel in Asia and Central America - content is from other backpackers. Have a look.