After spending a nice day walking (and hobbling) around Tokyo we took the Shinkantsen (bullet train) up to Hamamatsu where we stayed with Andi & Kenn. As it had been over a week since we’ve played Guitar Hero, we promptly hobbled and walked over to the arcade, where we played the Japanese version of the game.

The next day we headed to Nagoya on the Shinkantsen to see the Robot Museum. At the station an extremely drunk Japanese man with copious slobber emanating from his face asked us several times, “where you?”. We didn’t feel threatened by him as there was a menacing cop watching over the scene from atop a box holding a large stick. Anyway eventually we discovered that he wanted to help us find our subway and he was indeed helpful. He bought our tickets and led us all the way to the turnstile. Most other places this would be cause for suspicion or he’d have expected a tip, but nope, he was just being helpful.

At the museum, we were drawn by a robot , learned about some of the history of robots, and got to play with robots - some plastic, some fuzzy, all cute.

Oh and by the way, robots in japan love to dance (dancebot dogbot).

Afterwards we rode a ferris wheel and got to watch rooftop tv, ate at an Italian restaurant that didn’t serve bread or salad with the meal, and had a drink at a very swanky bar that did “on the rocks” with one giant ice cube that had to be shaved down to fit into the glass.

Then we got home and sang karaoke. Really really badly. There is documentation, but I have to take some time to make the decision about whether or not to upload it. The decision isn’t around how embarrassing it will be, but around sparing anyone who might come across it.

We’ve been hanging out in Hamamatsu with Andi and Kenn since Sunday night. Hamamatsu is a small city for Japan, about 800,000 people. Andi and Kenn live there and teach english. The main reason we are here is to visit them.

So, we’ve been doing a lot of hanging out, went to the arcade, the electronics store, karaoke, etc. Kenn is an excellent cook and has made us several wonderful meals.

Yesterday Mike and I took the train up to Nagoya to visit the Robot Museum. The museum itself is pretty small, but fun. We got to play with some consumer robots. Afterwards we went for a ride on a big ferris wheel and ate dinner at an italian restaurant, then visited a swanky bar before heading back to Hamamatsu. Last night was Karaoke. We got home at four or five in the morning and are completely wiped out today.