Day 2 - Japan

I met with Sherry at Mister Donuts to catch up and so that she could show me around a bit.  Well I was supposed to, at least.  I walked right past the building and got a block further before I happened to run into her in the street.  That was a close one.  We went back to the shop which was only two doors down and across the street from my hotel ( I had walked right next to it the previous night).  The door said push, but it was clearly a sliding door, so I tried to slide it open, to which Sherry freaked out. Turns out it really did mean push: what I thought was a handle was actually a button... whoops!  After realizing the store wasn't even open, Sherry took me around Hachioji to show me the two stations, Keio and JR, as well as some of the local shops.  It was definitely interesting to see what was the same and what was different, although I didn't get anything.  Sherry bought a pair of boots, and it was entertaining watching her try to communicate with the staff.  Lots of awkward laughter.  It turned out that Sherry hadn't slept at all because of a screwed up circadian rhythm, so after we went back and got those donuts before she went home.

I went back to my hotel for a bit to figure out my internet situation, and then set out to explore Hachioji.  I only went South, and stuck to one main street, since I really didn't want to get lost.  After a while, I took a detour through a park. It was pretty. (awkward segue for pictures woo!)

 It led me to a path along the Asa riverbed which looks somewhat like the Santa Ana riverbed and connected trail in California, except that the writing on the trail was in Japanese.

Two things that stood out: under one of the bridges, there was a ton of koi fish, one of which was white, so it actually showed up in pictures.

And, there was a guy playing an instrument under a bridge, but he was on the side away from the trail, so he obviously wasn't soliciting money.  You can hear a little in this video

After finishing my little adventure, I met back up with Sherry for New Years.  We met with three of her friends: Yoko, Wesley and Geoffrey.  While waiting for Wes and Geoff, the other three of us went to burger king and an arcade.  We played a taiko game and got a burger king crown which we passed around all night.

After a long train ride to Yokohama, we met up with a bunch of other people and went to Ayani's house for dinner before going to Yokohama square for the count down.  Afterwards we wandered around Yokohama for a few hours before going back to Ayani's house and playing games.  We were out all night, and by the time I got back, breakfast was being served at the hotel!