morning in akhibara...

this morning we went to sky's favorite part of tokyo.....akhibara!  this part of the city is stuffed full of everything that goes with anime and manga and is kind of seedy!  big breasted, animated women stare back from the comic book covers at you and there seems to be some perverts lurking about!!!!   but it is a fun place to sit on the street and watch the world go by!  and since i can't keep up with sky's excited pace while she is in these shops.....i usually just hold the bags and sit on the streets waiting for her to exit!!!  ever since sky could hold a pencil, she has drawn this japanese style of art.....many people have told me that she must have been japanese in her last life.

the weather here has been sunny and gorgeous.  yesterday we went out to shinjuku and shopped around.  but near to the subway station was a beautiful park full of leafy trees and we sat there for a while and enjoyed the sun.  the air was so fresh and warm and slowly the leaves were falling from the trees around us....it felt like a perfect canadian fall day!

tomorrow is our last full day here and i feel a little sad.....so happy to get home, but sad because it won't be long before i find myself sitting at my computer telling myself that i'm going to travel less, but slowly finding myself googling different parts of the world and getting excited. this is the life of a gypsy i guess.......

i am going to miss tokyo a lot!  today i found a food hall that had so many different kinds of seaweed salads that i almost fainted with excitement!  and some man gave me a cup of saki to try and it reminded me so much of sitting around in bhutan and drinking ara with my bhutanese family........and then i really started missing them!  this trip has been an incredible experience.

let's see this journey started off in bhutan.....and spending time with some of my most favorite people in the world and going to the king's coronation and witnessing a wonderful king who takes the time to greet his people and express his sincerity to them. and seeing the monasteries, the monks and those incredible himalayas always looming in the background. then my mom and i moved onto india ......and riding an indian train for 24 hours is an experience onto itself!!

spending those days in varanasi....even though the indian people can drive me a little insane sometimes!!.......was just such an incredible experience.  just to sit there and watch the people bathing themselves in such a holy river and feeling the spirituality of the place.  watching my mom experience the burning ghats and seeing the look on her face as she tried to understand that process.  varanasi is a place where people come to die, but it takes awhile to sink in.  and watching how much celebrating the indian people do!!  there is dancing and parades daily and nightly.  celebrating life and celebrating death.......

then moving onto thailand and doing a very good cleanse and watching your health and the health of others repair in front of your eyes......getting massages, colonics, detox wraps, doing yoga, drinking wheatgrass and ginger teas!  just feeling your body get stronger and letting go of all those stresses and toxins and sharing your experiences with like minded people.....and always surrounded by the gentle and sweet thai people.

and then getting caught in a country on the verge of a civil war that is over-throwing it's government.  this has happened to me so many times while i've travelled to various places now that i barely even bat an eye!!!  i respect their understanding of democracy.....we canadians could really take lessons from them!!  all we do is sit around a bitch and complain about our crappy governments!  in bangkok, hundreds of women in their 50's with bad perms and big sunnys on packed up their bed rolls and occupied the airports.....effectively shutting down the tourist season for a week, freaking foreigners out and in the end....causing their government to dissolve parliament and call for a new election!   i say bravo....when i get home, i'm going to occupy the calgary airport and see if they'll remove steven harper!!!!!

and tokyo is like the icing on the cake at the end of this trip.  a country steeped in tradition but more modern and fast paced than anywhere else i've been.  tokyo is full of wonderful and very respectful, decent people......and getting to be here with sky in her favorite place.  what a treat this whole time has been.  i'm one lucky girl!

wayne sent an email last night saying that canmore is going to be -20 c on saturday.....perhaps i'm not quite ready to put back on my winter skin??????