There are lots of them. Everywhere. Literally. As they’re tame, they approach people and aren’t really scared (save for the younger ones). You’ll see some photos of them in the gallery. After that, I got to see the Daibutsu (BIG BUDDHA, for NRK). It’s a huge statue of the Buddha, in bronze and gold. Along with that, we paid a visit to the Nara Museum (1200 yen - ick) to see an exhibition on the thirty-three shrine pilgrimage in Japan. Nice exhibits, just a little short for the price.

The afternoon was spent looking for electronics at the BIC CAMERA store near the Kyoto station. Tomorrow we’re back to Tokyo - last two days of shopping before going back to Italy. The gallery has been updated, as usual.

After that we stopped for lunch in the Kyoto Station, a rather controversial piece of architecture built in the ninieties of the last century. I can say it’s huge, and filled with stores and even a hotel(!).

In the afternoon, we went gain for shopping, targeting the local Animate, Gamers, and Melon Books stores. My brother snatched up a non-H, FFXI-related dojinshi from Melonbooks, and I grabbed a limited edition of Aquaplus’s latest PS3 title, Tears to Tiara (photos coming up tomorrow). Tomorrow, we’ll be (weather permitting) heading for Nara to view the Todaiji Temple. That will be our last day in the Kansai region, as the day after that we’ll return to Tokyo via shinkansen. New photos have been uploaded to the gallery, of course.

By the way, I managed to view Slayers Revolution last night on TV Tokyo, and here is the obligatory photo:

Today instead we transferred by Shinkansen to Kyoto (very fast trip) and settled in the new hotel here (definitely larger, although I have to access the net from a lobby). Tomorrow we’ll go for some sightseeing in the morning and shopping in the afternoon (Gamers and Melon Books have branches here, near the hotel even).

New photos have been put up in the gallery.

After that we moved to the Toshogu Shrine in Ueno Park, a shrine that was dedicated to the shogun Ieyasu Tokugawa. It’s not an “active” shrine anymore, but you can visit it for 200 yen. As the heat was killling us, we went back to Tokyo Station for lunch.

The afternoon was spent in Akihabara, the famous “Electric Town” district in Tokyo. It’s a real chaos, in my point of view, as there are so many stores it’s overwhelming. I went to Gamers and Melon Books, and got a hold of some stuff (which you’ll see in the image at the end), although I could not find a keyboard cover for my Eee. I’ll be back later this week to get other things.

Tomorrow we’re going out of town, in Nikko, to see the Toshogu shrine, the mausoleum of Ieyasu Tokugawa and the famous nemuri-neko (sleeping cat). The train leaves at 9.30 and I stilll have to claim my ticket, so it’ll be an early morning.

Now it’s time to get some sleep. The gallery has been updated with new photos, by the way.

Once that was settled, we boarded the Japan Rail (JR) Narita Express and arrived in Tokyo. From there it was a matter of finding the right subway line to get to our  hotel. Said hotel is pretty clean but rooms are quite small, and for two of us even a double room is small (not mentioning we have large luggages!). After some good sleep (we arrived at around 21.00), we spent the next day going to the East Gardens of the Imperial Palace.

It would have been a faster visit had it not been for the weather. There are about 33-34 C coupled with very high humidity, making walks under the sun a daunting task. Nevertheless, the place was quite nice, with also some remains of the older Edo Castle before the Meiji era. In the afternoon, we checked the Roppongi Hills shopping centre and took a lift to the Tokyo Sky Deck, 235 mt above the ground. A good view on the large city that Tokyo is, also the largest city I’ve been in.

For tomorrow, we plan on going first to Ueno, then to Akihabara and Asakusa. Stay tuned. In the mean time, there are some photos.

If you can, please spread the link to the video. We need more correct information out there.

So, if you want to help KDE, please spread the word on the Plasma FAQ! If people have questions on Plasma, just direct them to

http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/FAQ

so that the developers can at least save their (precious) time by avoiding to answer to the same questions over and over. This will also hopefully limit the spread of disinformation, or even FUD.

If you want to help KDE, at least a little, this is a good place to start!