Mie Day 2

breakfast at the Sugimoto house. no meat, grilled eggplant, rice, steamed or boiled pumpkin, miso soup with the works, fish eggs. delicious.

woman who looked like the witch of the waste from howl's moving castle.

Ise Jingu is the holiest shinto shrine in all of japan and it is near Mie. it says that this is where all shinto believers should make a pilgrimage to once in their life. and then there was me there dirtying the place up.

according to shinto belief this bridge has to be rebuilt every 20 yrs to renew the spirits within. don't know if that applies to the other structures also.

maybe this is the foundation for the next bridge?

this forrest has tons of amazing koke (mossy stuff).

there is no photography allowed at the holiest shrine in japan, which is ok cuz all you do is go and throw money in the thing and clap twice and pray and get outta there cuz its so crowded. the buildings in this place had roofs that look like they are made out of a billion sticks like in this picture of mini shrines you can buy.

huge koi

chickens in a tree

this gum thing comes with mini post it notes like paper inside to put your gum in when you're done. what an idea

red bean soup with some kind of ricecake

akafuku, the famous food of the area. well one of the famous foods. its basically the opposite of a red bean mochi. this one has the red beans on the outside and the mochi rice cake on the inside. delish

the rice cakes were the first level of the local food pagoda. this street was just filled with food and we tried a lot.

sampled sake at this place

bought this mini barrel

ate Ise Udon at this place. another famous food of the area

ise udon

tofu icecream. surprisingly/not so surprisingly it was delicious.

tofu donuts. surprisingly/not so surprisingly it was delicious.

a small fish. you eat everythign including the bones

one stick of this Matsusaka beef from the Matsusaka region of Mie is $8.90! it is superb wagyu beef and was of course delicious. it is also one of the big famous foods.

ise shrimp croquette. ise shrimp (spiny lobsters) are also famous food

genmai cha, i bought some, its awesome. its roasted brown rice with green tea. the white things are popped rice as in popped corn.

politicians.

i feel asleep on the train

i got my revenge the next day

i saw this light up truck in tokyo advertising this service where you pay money to send and recieve happy emails from girls like this. Only im sure that most of them are just dudes in their underwear eating ramen at home making side money.

met fumikas friend yuko

sorry about the drawing yuko

they drew me

these curtains are apparently common in japan to show the men's and women's bathrooms but this is the first time i've seen them, pretty cool though.

i found this pack of tissues in the bathroom. the first 2o minutes only costs $20. i think its a place where you pay money to drink with girls.