This post is going to be a little different, as you will need to keep clicking ‘continue on’ to continue. It’s meant to be a little more artistic, or as much as I can be.

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It’s snowing now… Actuall snow falling from the sky. I missed the first snow fall since I was in Hong Kong, so this is amazing to me. Unfortunatly, it’s not a very heavy snow so I doubt there will be any left in the morning. If there is, expect pictures.

I know I have to post stories about my Hong Kong trip, which I will do, but first I must post about my Sunday.

I got up at 9:30 and headed out to a Shinto shrine with my friend Ryoichi. He had to go pray for some dead guy, and I wanted to go with him.

As you can tell from the picture, it was raining. I was actually very disappointed as the weather report said it would snow! Anyway, after taking a while to get to the shrine we threw in some money and prayed for about 5 seconds and then left. I was very surprised at how quickly my friend was finished praying. He was telling me that he never met the guy who died, but had to go and pray for his family and for a promise, which I think is still pretty cool. The shrine also had a flock of albino pigeons. Afterward, we went to a little museum that was right next to shrine. We saw a cool plane, some other stuff, and some awesome samurai swords.
(Can anyone identify this famous plane?)

We then went to Soshigaya, so I could also fulfill a promise. After getting lost multiple times and getting completely wet, we finally found the house I was looking for. The house belonged to my father’s friend’s mother’s friend’s wife… or something along those lines. It’s somewhat complicated. Unfortunately, nobody was home which means I will have to try to find the place again.
My friend and I then ate some very good tempura in Shinjuku. When finished I stuck around Shinjuku and played Tekken 5 and the UFO catcher games until I had to meet up with some other friends in the evening. Those UFO games are so frustrating but the payout is worth it. Pooh only took me 2 tries to get while whatever that other thing is took me about 4 tries. I met up with my other friends and we went out. My friend Dan made a cool animal out of the tableware. Hopefully you can figure out what it is.

I know this is a bad picture… no need to comment on it.

I have put up the gallery of my pictures from Hong Kong. There are really not that many pictures, or at least not that many good pictures this time. Anyway, have a look now if you wish, and in the future I will try to post some of the pictures along with an interesting story.

Hong Kong Gallery

I have gloriously returned from Hong Kong. While I was there Tokyo had its first snowfall. I was not very happy I missed it, but thankfully one of my friends sent me some pictures of what it looked like..

After planning to go to China for the last 3-4 days of my trip, here I am in HK still for a few reasons. The main reason is because I’m an American! Also, because as usual I did not plan ahead. Unlike most countries, to get into China you need to apply for a visa a few days in advance. On Saturday I went to the China border, once there I was told I need a visa in advance. So I went to the visa application office at the border to get a fast visa which supposedly just costs more. At the visa application office, I filled out the form and handed it to the guy with my passport. He looked at my passport and then pointed to a sign that stated from a few months ago ‘Americans’ can no longer get a fast visa at the border, and he gave me the address of the visa office in HK. Finally making all way back to HK, I finally found the office only to realize that since it was Saturday they were closed and won’t open until Monday. I then went to the HK travel breau to get more information, I asked the nice lady there how to get a visa. She said it was easy, all I had to do was go to some specific HK travel agency. I then handed her my passport, after taking one look at it there was an audible sigh followed by an "oh your American”, at wich point she explained that it would be a little more difficult. At that point I gave up, and talked with her about other interesting things to do with the rest of my time in HK.