Blogs from Gifu, Japan, Asia - page 8

Hi Everybody! We had a smooth flight to Nagoya, Japan. At the airport, we caught a fast train to Gifu, a fairly large city north of Nagoya. I enjoyed seeing the country from the train. We saw a few rice fields but most of the land was occupied with industry or homes built close together. As we passed train stations, you would see hundreds of parked bikes. Often Japanese could be seen working in their small plots of gardens tending greenery or vegetables. The shrubs and trees were all pruned in beautiful geometric shapes. People drive on the left here as they did in Hong Kong. One sad note is the number of individuals that we have seen with deformities. Many are bow legged, extremely pigeon toed, crossed eyes, and other problems. I suddenly realized how ... read more

Tuesday 8/1/06 Ok here it is…the Tokyo entry!! *cheers* Well Tokyo was…ok. I mean it was cool, don’t get me wrong, there were some awesome things to see, things you could never find anywhere else in the world, but honestly, I prefer Gifu. I know I know, you can all look at me quizzically now, but in Gifu the air is cleaner, the trains are less crowded, the people are WAY nicer, and stuff is a hell of a lot cheaper. You want sticker shock, go to Tokyo, where you will pay $20 for a burger and fries. No joke. Ok, now that I have that out of my system, let me tell you about some of the fun stuff we did! When I first arrived in Tokyo I was, to put it mildly, in awe. ... read more

Friday 7/28/06 Ok I’m going to write these posts each day as much as I can to avoid writing a book all in one sitting, though I may post these entries in one or two lump sections. Yesterday after work Ko-san was kept in late in a meeting with some important Taiwanese clients so I ended up taking the bus to Gifu station to meet everyone. When I arrived I had about an hour to kill, so I grabbed a snack and headed to the bookstore for my all time favorite hobby of book browsing : ) I really lucked out while I was there and managed to find a grammar exercise book for level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT). I don’t remember if I spoke about this before, so forgive me if ... read more

Wednesday 7/26/06 This is just a little update to tell everyone about our dinner party last night. After work Ko-san and I went to Apita (the grocery store) to get what we needed for dinner. I bought the ingredients for Israeli salad and mac and cheese (of course!). When we got to Shou-chan’s house, only Shou-chan was there because her dad had to work late. Shou-chan lives together with her father. Her sister recently married and her mother died when she was in elementary school, so it’s just the two of them in the house. Anyway, when we arrived, Shou-chan had already made potato salad and the rice so I set to work on the salad and mac and cheese, which, as you know, are 2 very simple dishes. I have never seen 2 people more ... read more

Friday 7/21/06 So last night was way fun! After work Ko-san and I stopped by the book store to pick up what I thought was the last chapter of Fruits Basket, but to my surprise, I think there will be one more!!! Yay!!! Ahh, this chapter was so good though, I had chills at the end. I also ordered the first “Genki” book, which is the #1 Japanese Language book for English speakers, and, although it’s $30 in the US, it’s less than 10 here!! So I may just order the new edition of the second volume as well because it’s so cheap. Then after we got home, I got a call from Shou-chan and we decided to get together because she lives so close to Ko-san’s house. It was so much fun! We all ate ... read more