But the weekend wasn't all pain and near-death experiences... we started off on an overnight bus to Tokyo. The idea behind the overnight bus is that you can sleep on it; you get on at 10 in Kyoto, and wake up at 6 in Tokyo. So why does the freakin' bus stop every two hours? Do you really need a rest stop if you're asleep? Of course, since I woke up each time they turned on the lights and stopped the bus I actually got off once, but still...

When we finally woke up after not much sleep and headed for the Tsukiji Fish Market. The novelty lasted about ten minutes. We saw some biig fish and almost got run over by carts. But we had some awesome maguro don (tuna with rice) with the freshest tuna I've ever had... (mmm... tuna)... for breakfast.

Eventually we made our way to a samba festival. Which was...amusing. Tons of people showed up for this thing, as if there were nothing better to do in Tokyo. The cops were out in full force doing crowd control, which is how we ended up standing on a crosswalk packed in with a bunch of Japanese people, including an old lady who spent the hour virtually straddling Crystal.

The parade consisted of a few kids' marching bands (yawn), some half-naked dancers dancing nothing that even remotely resembled salsa, and...pirates? Volleyball players? Judo students? So it was that, unimpressed, we conga-lined out of there. (Seriously, it got people to get out of our way...)