Atami

Today we are in Atami. It is not the greatest place to go, if you are planning your own trip to Japan. It is more like a local tourist destination for summer. Imagine....a New Jersey beach town in December. Empty. Closed down. A little seedy. That is Atami.

We arrived in town about three hours before our hotel would let us check in so we had time to kill. We wandered down to the ocean, through the `fancy` shopping area, and noticed a big cool building up on a hill. Then we noticed a cable car tram going from the beach up to the big building. Since we had nothing better to do, and hadn`t found a decent restaurant yet to stop at, we headed for the tram building. We discovered we were heading toward Atami Castle, which seemed like an interesting attraction. It is also the same location as the Adult Museum, and by adult, I mean pornography. Yeah, that should have tipped us off. But we forged ahead, walking along scary roads and seedy alleyways. We eventually reached our desintation, paid the 1000￥、And headed up the tram. The casle was....crappy. Full of pictures of art, and replicas of foreign buildings (like the Parthenon and Taj MAhol foreign buildings (like the Parthenon and Taj MAhol】。Seriously not worth the additional 1800￥。Lunch was also a bust. As we headed back to the tram, we passed the adult museum, which we passed on, thank you very much,

Atami is not the best, but it is an experience. Even typing is an experience, since the keyboard is in roman letters, kanji, and something else. The buttons are not where you expect them to be, and sometimes the letters switch from Romanji to Kanji without warning. Fun!

Today we travel to Miyajima. We may not have internet connections for a while. I;m hoping there aren:t a lot of stairs since I hurt my knee on day two (squatting over a hole-in-the-ground toilet) and haven`t been able to go down stairs ever since. Its fun.

Now off to breakfast!