Updated my pics! Yay! There's some of looking at cherry blossoms, called "sakura". The blossoms are called "sakura", the looking is called "hanami". You can look at plum blossoms too, but only lookin' at cherry blossoms is called "hanami". There's special verbs and stuff for it too. Blossoms don't fall, they disappear, for example. It's supposed to remind us of the transitive nature of our existence, and the beauty of it. Actually, it kinda does sometimes, if you can avoid the shouting, singing, stumbling drunken businessmen.

The other pictures are from Expoland! Is it a land of expository speaking? A land of expeditious adventure? A land of radiation exposure like what made Mr. Banner turn green? No! It's a beat up old park where the 1972 world exposition was held. Still, some good rides there.

Lastly is the trip to Ninjatown. Iga Ueno. A whole town full of ninjas! A six hour car trip! This excerpt is from a soon to be released account of our ill-fated journey entitled "Are We There Yet?: The Never Ending Journey"

An observer from the outside could see their blank and staring faces through the green car glass. Faces dead from exhaustion, boredom. Their eyes gaze off past the horizon to a place independent and lonely, but universally devoid of hope. For no matter how far their gazes may penetrate into this world or some other, more remote, no end to their journey could they see. And the car rolls slowly on...

Once there the place was a cool but crowded enclave of camp. Pink, red and blue ninjas guided us through a tour of their lovely home, (complete with hidden doors!) and then capped it off with a demonstration of Intense Ninja Fighting Action! With Sound Effects (Ping!)!