Jeff

Only in Japan

I posted the pictures I have taken so far…

We went to Akihabara two days ago, its basically Electrics Town, its a mecca of electronics stores in Tokyo, google it if you want a more in depth description. I browsed around and drooled over some things, but don’t have the wallet to buy whatever I want. The cell phones here in Japan are extra nice, too bad I cannot use them in the U.S. We then met up with Kim’s mom, brother, and his girlfriend to walk down the shopping stall street. Its just a street full of street stalls selling different things at good prices. I saw some stuff, but nothing worth buying… We then went and had sushi at this restaurant nearby. It was nothing like U.S. sushi places I have been to. It served Nigiri (sp?) sushi, which is basically a piece of sashimi (raw fish) on top of a ball of rice. Nothing fancy, just plain fish on plain rice with some wasabi to hold them together. There are pictures of the english menu and the belt in the album… Then we went to a dining court to get something for Kim’s brother’s girlfriend because she only ate some sushi, she doesn’t like raw fish. I had two beers with Kim’s mom and tried some Japanese ice cream. I wasn’t too adventurous and only tried Rich Milk with Strawberry and Walnut, the walnut was AMAZING!

Yesterday, we went to the Ramen Museum in Yokohama, it basically shows off some of the top ramen restaurants in different distinctive styles of ramen and tells the history of Japanese ramen (in Japanese). I tried two types of actual ramen (not instant), the first was this garlicy ramen with some pork in pork broth, it was amazing. I think it may be one of the best meals I have had, just excellent. The other was this flavorful soy based broth with lots of pork and a slice of fish paste roll (I think that is what they said it was) which was also very nice. We then went to Tokyo Tower, thats the Eiffel tower replica they have in Tokyo which gives a good view of the city. I posted the skyline photos I took from the obervation deck. Then we headed to the station where Kim and I headed to Minato Mirai to have our 6th month anniversary dinner. There were fireworks going on, so the city was all going to it, most of the girls around my age were coming in their summer Kimono’s and there were stalls, they really make it a giant event, I was surprised. We finally headed back because Kim’s foot was hurting badly and I didn’t want to see her in pain. It was a nice day.

They have been very nice to me and very hospitable and gratious…

Around Yoko

I arrived fine, it was a long flight, too long. 14 hours is kind of horrendous, I don’t think it can get much longer on a single plane, I would think they would need at least one refuel to get to any other place. I got to watch 21 and Be Kind Rewind on the plane, they had this neat touch screen that let you pick from a number of different movies to watch on the flight and listen to with headphones. It was pretty pleasant and hospitable. I got to Narita around 3:30 and was on the bus to Yokohama by 4. Arrived at the Y-Cat station at around 5:30 and saw my wonderful girlfriend and was back to her apartment (where I am at the moment) around 6. A very none exciting but eventful day. I got to meet her family. They are very nice, warm, and welcome.

Then yesterday I was shown around Yokohama by Kim. She showed me Motomachi, its a long shopping street. We had tempura for lunch, to order we just took the entirely Japanese menu and pointed at random entries. She got a bowl of rice with deep fried shrimp (tempura is deep fried foods) and I ended up with some vegetarian version with seaweed, potato (which was amazingly good, like a tasty french fry slice), squash, some fish, and green beans. Then they brought me eggplant with some beans stuffed in it and that was kind of ick. We then went and saw her high school, but it was locked. It is pretty small yet fairly large. Lots of small class rooms and a number of buildings for all the grades. It looked like a fun place to go through school at. We couldn’t walk through the buildings since they gated the entire place up, but we got a good view from a small walkway that went near the campus. We then walked through Chinatown. It has a LOT of Chinese shops. I guess since Yokohama is not tourist central they don’t have a ton of shops catering to tourists. So it is pretty different from like the Chinatown in San Fransisco. We ended up going back to the apartment because it is so hot and humid here. I think its about 90 with some ridiculous humidity, I could look it up on like Yahoo but that would take effort =P. After sitting around the apartment for a bit (its a nice apartment, very spacious and welcoming) we left to go see Yokohama station. It is a giant (and I mean GIANT) set of shopping malls. A number of complexes each a number of stories tall (say around 7) each filled with all kinds of shops. Many of them are international or common shops such as Dolce or Gucci. And I am not Captain shopping, so it was not extra appealing for me. But it is fun to see the Japanese society in action. All the people traveling to and from the train. We then got to go and visit Yodobashi Camera, it is a 9 story electronics superstore. They have all kinds of things, each broken down to different floors. I could get lost in places like that sometimes. It puts Fry’s to shame. Today we are going to go to Akihabara, which is like the Tokyo electric town. It will be interesting to see what some of the things that Japan has in electronics that the U.S. doesn’t have. I looked at the cells that Japan can have and wish I could get one just to take it back to the U.S. and use with our carrier, they are nice and most aren’t geared towards just TXTers. sigh We had Italian (with a huge Japanese influence) for dinner and I got to meet one of her good friends. I got back and tried to Skype with my sister for a bit, but she had to leave for work before we could get it working. I should have set it up for her before I left. Well, back to Japan! I’ll probably add pictures either tonight or tomorrow.

Leaving in a bit

Gosh, I leave for the airport in like 3 hours. Then I get to travel for around 20 hours until I finally arrive. sigh I wish it were a lot shorter, but the time is expected when I am going to travel halfway around the world. I shall be journaling my trip through this and hopefully be adding pictures I take to the gallery. I shall see how it turns out. I haven’t tested a lot of the things since I moved everything over to the new domain. Hopefully if anything is awry I will be able to fix it over in asian country. I still need to pack my carry on and a few other things.

Oh and this is the new design. I have added all the stuff that I planned on adding for the trip. I put in a kind of jankety modal image viewer, its that thing that zooms the image real close when you click on it. I plan on putting a better custom fitted one in at some point, but that will have to do for now. If you are ever curious, I put my partial to-do list in the footer since I felt weird having a footer that was empty, I figure I will build stuff into that in the near future. I tried to keep this design expandable and capable of being modified for things. Alright, I’m going to get out of bed now to try and get this list of things I shouldn’t forget together.