Today, it was over to the north-west, a three hour walk down the river, which was awesome. The scenery is absolutely gorgeous, and there is hardly anyone around. I did pass a few people, but they are all at least 50. It makes sense though - without tacky souvenir shops, purikura (sticker photo) booths and familiresuto (nasty but cheap family restaurants, think Sizzlers with even less class), there really isn't much for Japanese young people to appreciate. I think the complete absence of kitsch would make them very uncomfortable.
Speaking of the youngsters, next weekend (consisting of just sunday, since saturday is a full day of work to compensate for the long weekend this week) is taken up with a Traineeship/Reception Planning Workshop, which I hope will give these guys some idea of how (and how not!) to go about these things in future. It's difficult to know where to start, since this traineeship has been just about as different from my expectations as it possibly could have been. I've put a few games and plenty of audience participation into the schedule, so hopefully i will only be doing the talking for about half of the event. Anyway, since that will probably be in Youkaichi, this may be the last opportunity i get to use the internet. This would be my last entry until i return. Oh well, no fancy signoffs - I hope you found these entries a half-decent read.
Cheers.
Nick
P.S. I am now adding some other miscellaneous writings/reflections on the whole experience, so they may be worth a look.