Nope, even though it's been over two weeks since I've posted, I haven't forgotten about my poor reading blog. I have been neglecting it in favour of my photo blog, though, and I'm sorry I haven't been able to post more frequently.Since I last posted, I've done many things. First was a trip to Osaka, to visit a few companies, though I also made time to do some sightseeing, like a visit to Osaka Castle, which you can see here to the left. I've posted a lot of photos since then, so these are no longer on the front page. If you want to see them, you'll need to look at the archives, here.
After Osaka, we headed on to Kyoto for 3 days to visit yet more companies.
Friday morning, though, we had a city tour, and though the time was short, we managed to pile quite a lot into it, including such wonderful places as the Golden Pavillion, Nijo Castle and the Imperial Palace.
That weekend most of the group returned to Tokyo, but three of us had been invited to stay at the home of the parents of a friend of one of my classmates (phew, I had to read that a couple of times to make sure it was right!), so instead of going to Tokyo we took a train to Fukui, in the Western Coast of Japan (see a map here.Our stay there was eventful, from kendo, judo and archery tournaments to a trip to the sea (where one of my friends was attacked by some kind of huge, eagle-looking bird), and from Eiheiji temple (which you can see on the left and which is, so far, the one I've liked the most, even more than anything in Kyoto) to a visit to some very nice hot springs.
Then, after a week visiting different institutions related to productivity (the subject of my training course) and SME support, we spent the weekend again in Tokyo. Saturday was Ueno Park (we ended up spending hours in one of the museums, much longer than we thought we would), some shopping and then the evening in Ginza (photo on the right), while Sunday was yet more shopping and an abortive attempt to attend a festival in Asakusabashi. We did manage to get there, but things were going to start much later than we'd calculated and it was raining horribly -not to mention the fact that we were loaded with shopping bags- so we just left.
And so here I am, still with a bit of a cold from all the standing around in the rain on Sunday, but ready to keep up my explorations next weekend! Bye for now!