== Bernie's brain dump as of April 2009 ==
+=== April 30th: Departure ===
+
+TODO
+
+==== Productive flight ====
+
+**GEEKY 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 rather than code bloat :-)
+
+{{{
+git diff --stat v3.0..HEAD geekigeeki.py
+geekigeeki.py | 709 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------------
+1 files changed, 352 insertions(+), 357 deletions(-)
+}}}
+
+If you see any regressions in the output, please report them to me. I'm hoping to release
+4.0 soon.
+
+=== April 29th: Back to Tokyo ===
+
+TODO
+
+=== April 28th ===
+
+==== Guided tour ====
+
+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 ====
+In the afternoon, we went to visit the [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/world_heritage_site]].
+One would expect to grow bored of Shinto and Buddhist temples after seeing many of them
+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}}
+
=== April 27th ===
==== Afternoon: travel to Nikko ====
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.
-Once at the station, we immediately realized that our was a good investment, after all.
+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
spread in an extremely beautiful natural environment with many great falls, ancient woods
and hot springs where even wild monkeys take an onsen.
Tomorrow, of course after our morning yoga and vegan breakfast, we're going on a day long
guided hiking tour with the monks, which sounds really cool.
+**UPDATE**: ouch!
+
+{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nikko/00026.jpg|Ouch!|maxwidth=640}}
==== Morning: Zenko-ji ====
-In the morning, we tried again to visit the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenk%C5%8D-ji]].
+In the morning, we tried again to visit the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenk%C5%8D-ji|Zenko-ji]].
Even on a Monday, the queue was not much shorter. A nice volunteer guide advised us that
the pilgrims where queuing just to touch a wooden pole with an inscription on it that was
right in front of the temple, and we could skip aside if we weren't interested. So we did.
ryokan, but we spotted a really long queue of pilgrims at the entrance, so we went back to the
station to visit the [[http://localhost/wiki/Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Castle|Matsumoto Castle]],
one of Japan's top 3 castles ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Castle|photos]]). The adjacent
-museum was also great ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Museum|photos]]). On our way back, we did see
-a [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nagano/dancing_kids|dancing show]] with cute little girls and their teachers.
+museum was also great ([[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Museum|photos]]). On our way back, we've found
+a peculiar [[Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nagano/dancing_kids|dancing show]] with cute little girls and their
+teachers.
Apparently, by leaving Nagano we missed some kind of prayer or event held by Tibetan monks at the
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenk%C5%8D-ji|Zenko-ji]]. Too bad, it might have been a good chance
-to show some support for the Tibetan cause. Go, Tibet, Go!
+to show some support for the Tibetan cause. Go, Tibet, Go!!
{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Castle/00147.jpg|Soooo conventiinal!|maxwidth=640}}
{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Matsumoto/Castle/00108.jpg|Scary, uh?|maxwidth=640}}
{{Pictures/vacation/japan_2009/Nagano/Shimizuya_Ryokan/00053.jpg|All sorts of accommodations come with good wi-fi, including traditional ryokans|maxwidth=800}}
-**UPDATE**: the report for [[blog/2009/April#kyoto-higashiyama|April 21st]] is now available!
-
=== April 24th -- over 1 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megametre|megameter]] by train ====
+**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.
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