This morning, we got up mad early to check out a few temples and/or castles in the area before checking out from our hostel and managed to get inside and walk in and around Nijo castle, which turned out to be a good choice. It was really interesting and quite beautiful, even if the weather wasn’t really in our favor. In the end, however, it all worked out pretty well, and after checking out from the hostel, we made our way back to Kyoto Station, where we proceeded to board our last shinkansen bound for Tokyo, from where I’m writing this part of the entry.

After getting off where we needed to from the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line, we made our way over to the next hostel on the trip, where we’ll be spending the next 4 nights. On the way, however, we passed a small restuarant that bore the Yagyu family crest and Jubei’s name, which I thought was a bit weird. Putting it in the back of our heads for a bit, we proceeded to check in and settle in to our new accomodations. After getting comfortable, we decided to make our way back to the shop we saw before and ask what was going on. I’d never heard anything about it, but we figured it’d be worth looking into.

I walked in and asked the kind woman up front about the crest and Jubei’s name, and showed her my necklace and explained who I was and where I was from. She called in her (husband? maybe?) to show him. He came out, very excited, and showed me pictures from the Yagyu village, not too far off from the ones we have. I tried to hold a conversation as best I could, but my Japanese is limited in these sorts of things, so I couldn’t get very far. I did, however, confirm that he has trained in the Edo branch, and he explained that just like I’m allowed to bear the crest, he is for the same reasons. Makes sense enough. I was stupid enough to forget to ask him who he trained under and what his name was, but we will certainly be going back to confirm.

After relaxing at the hostel for a bit, we hopped a train to the Shibuya district. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a really hip, fun area that a lot of younger people like us would like to hang out. It’s also probably the biggest musically-oriented district in Tokyo and therefore Japan. As you might have guessed, that means that I’ve been seeing this place in my dreams. We hit up a few music stores, and I got myself an old L’Arc album (True, for anyone who might have been curious) and an old Off Course live DVD from their Summer show in 1982 at Budokan. I am watching it as we (or at least I) speak. It’s fantastic. After the AJIKAN show the other day, Talone’s been looking for a good album of theirs to pick up, and a used CD shop in the area led him (on my recommendation) to ソルファ (Sol-fa), which is an excellent album.

After we finished up in Shibuya, we made our way back to the hostel, where we turned in for a (relatively) early night, with preparations in place to meet up with two of our new friends from our last hostel in Tokyo and make our way to the L’Arc~en~Ciel show tomorrow! Stay tuned folks; this is gonna be worth waiting for. See you all tomorrow, so peace out and rock on.