=== April 30th: Departure ===
-TODO
+==== My father's photos ====
-==== Productive flight ====
+Throughout our journey, my father also took [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto|plenty of shots]]
+with his video camera.
-**UPDATE**: On the flight back to Europe, I spent some time to add lots of new goodies to [[GeekiGeeki]],
-including a nice grid view for photos, the possibility to specify css style for links and inline objects,
-and automatic generation of human-readable link tags from wiki URLs, which should make the wiki markup
-much cleaner. As usual, these additions resulted in simplification of the codebase and (almost) zero code bloat.
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto/Tokyo/Ueno_Zoo/00214.jpg|Traditional wind socks for the children's day|maxwidth=640}}
+
+==== How to spend 8 hours in Paris ====
+
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto/Paris/00216.jpg|The Louvre gallery as seen from across the Seine|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright}}
+
+Our flight from Narita arrived at Charles de Gaulle at 4AM, and the connecting
+flight to Florence was at 1PM. Could we spend all this time sitting in the terminal?
+
+No way! My camera's battery was gone, but my father took some photos of [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/From_Alberto/Paris]].
+
+For the first time in my life, I had a really bad impression of Paris. Coming from Tokyo,
+any place would seem very dirty, but in this case the garbage was real, abundant,
+and smelled intensely of alcohol, urine and vomit. Perhaps April 30th was a special "drunk men day"?
+
+==== GEEK UPDATE: A productive flight ====
+
+On the flight back to Europe, I spent some time hacking on [[GeekiGeeki]] to add little goodies such as
+
+ * a grid view for photos;
+ * automatic generation of human-readable link tags from wiki URLs;
+ * a common parser for argument lists such as "foo|bar=1|baz=3";
+ * the ability to specify css style for links and inline objects, which I'm using to produce
+ floating thumbnails on the side of pages without resorting to HTML
+
+These new features will make my wiki markup even lighter than before.
+Moreover, these additions actually resulted in further //simplification//
+of the codebase rather than code bloat. Way to go!
{{{
git diff --stat v3.0..HEAD geekigeeki.py
1 files changed, 352 insertions(+), 357 deletions(-)
}}}
-If you see any regressions in the output, please report them to me. If things seem stable, I think
-I'll release v4.0 soon.
+If you notice any regressions in the output, please report them to me.
+I'm hoping to release 4.0 soon.
+
+Tags: [[tags/stuff_that_matters]] [[tags/!bloat]] [[tags/as_simple_as_possible]] [[tags/but_no_simpler]]
+
+
+==== One last day in Tokyo ====
+
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Edo_Museum/00007.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright|The huge pavilion of the Edo Museum}}
+
+We gathered all our left energies for a //tour de force// of a bunch of touristic
+locations highly recommended in our guide:
+
+ * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Edo_Museum]], along with a wonderful
+ temporary special exhibition of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osamu_Tezuka]].
+ * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Ameyoko]] markets
+ * The [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Ueno_Zoo]]
+ * The Narita airport :-(
=== April 29th: Back to Tokyo ===
-TODO
+==== Hostel ====
+
+After one last tour of the [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/town]], we left from Nikko in
+with a low-cost private line (2h40, but only 1100 Yen all the way to Asakusa).
+
+We had just one evening and half of the next day to spend in Tokyo, so we quickly dropped
+our luggage to the [[http://www.tokyo-ih.jp/en/index.html|Tokyo International Youth Hostel]],
+a sort of nazi camp with a great view on the 18th floor of a high-rise building in Iidabashi.
+
+==== Akihabara ====
+
+Because there was a strict curfew at 11PM, we had to take the metro during the rush
+hour ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/metro|photos and videos]]) to reach
+the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara|Electric Town]] ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Tokyo_Again/Akihabara|photos]]).
=== April 28th ===
==== Guided tour ====
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour/00038.jpg|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright|The Yutaki Waterfalls}}
+
Pictures of our day-long [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour]] are now online.
Our friendly guide, the Buddhist monk whose name I forgot, answered many of our pending questions
about Japanese traditions and religion. Hiking through these sacred mountains and woods was an
enjoyable experience.
-{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/waterfalls_tour/00038.jpg|maxwidth=800|The Yutaki Waterfalls}}
-
TODO: assemble a good video from all the scenes I took along the way
==== Nikko Temple Area ====
all over Japan, but visiting the Nikko temple area was once again an extraordinary experience.
And I could finally spot a few [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miko]]s too!
-{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/world_heritage_site/00096.jpg|maxwidth=800}}
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/world_heritage_site/00096.jpg|maxwidth=640}}
=== April 27th ===
==== Afternoon: travel to Nikko ====
Nikko is in an adjacent valley east of Nagano on the Japanese alps. Unfortunately, no train lines
-and busses connect them directly, so we had to take an expensive -- yet very fast -- Shinkansen
-detour all the way down to Saitama and then up again.
+and buses connect them directly, so we had to take an expensive -- yet very fast -- Shinkansen
+detour all the way down to Saitama and then northbound again.
Once at the station, we immediately realized it was a good deal, after all.
This mountain town overflows with temples, world heritage sites and statues of Buddah
**UPDATE**: ouch!
-{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/00026.jpg|Ouch!|maxwidth=640}}
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/Nikko_Park_Lodge/00026.jpg|Ouch!|maxwidth=640}}
==== Morning: Zenko-ji ====
=== April 24th -- over 1 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megametre|megameter]] by train ====
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Hiroshima/00085.jpg|The A-Bomb peace memorial near the epicenter|maxwidth=640|class=thumbright}}
+
**UPDATE**: the report for [[blog/2009/April#kyoto-higashiyama|April 21st]] is now available!
We left our comfortable hostel in Kyoto early in the morning for a second Shinkansen
ride of 360Km, this time on the faster [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nozomi_%28train%29|Nozomi]].
The one-way ticket was "just" 10,250円, equivalent to $105 or €80.
-{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Hiroshima/00085.jpg|The A-Bomb peace memorial near the epicenter|maxwidth=480}}
-
Unlike Kyoto, there aren't many sites of historic interest in Hiroshima because, quite
unsurprisingly, every building in the city center is at most 64 years old.
With [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial|one notable exception]].