Blogs from Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 233

Hello again, live from Tokyo. We left Shizuoka early this morning. It has been raining for most of the day with some pretty darn blustery winds too. My umbrella I brought with me couldn't hack it and broke within 5 minutes of stepping our of our hotel. We managed to get a pair of good sturdy umbrellas though, for only 200 yen a piece!! Taking full advantage of our Rail Pass,we got back on the bullet train and headed to Tokyo to drop our bags off. Then we headed to Shin-Yokohama, back to the darn Ramen Museum so Robert could get one last bowl of juicy ramen at the museum. We were going to buy some and bring it back but since the noodles are considered raw goods (they're not freeze-dried like cup-o-noodles) we'd have to ... read more

Well I am back in Tokyo and getting ready for Malaysia. I will be leaving in two days. This will be my last post from Japan. All I can say is that I had a great time here. Risa's parents were so nice the whole time. It was also funny to find out that they were as nervous about meeting me as I was about meeting them. We are all no longer nervous. We got along great the whole time. They think I have very good parents because I am so polite and always saying please and thank you (I guess you are lucky they didn't meet Jon) They were so generous with me the whole time. The hotels her dad put us up in were so nice. I never felt rich before until I stayed ... read more

--- Written Tuesday Evening, May 30th 2006 --- Classes Yesterday morning we started our three weeks of classes. We ended up on the 7:41 train to Ookayama after quite a bit of pressing from the Powers That Be, so we ended up at Tokodai (Tokyo Tech = Tokyo Koga Daigaku) well before the 8:30 start time for classes. We started with Japanese Language. The teacher (Matsuda-sensei) was incredibly cool and was quite a good teacher even though we were only doing review. She happens to be big into books and music and was marvelled that I had read Murakami Haruki and listened to Takemitsu Toru. Matsuda-sensei freaked out when she found out I'm Turkish because apparently she's studying Turkish (which is something I didn't know people actually did). Hearing a Japanese woman with a heavy Japanese ... read more

Hi everyone! Well we’ve landed safely now and our first evening in Tokyo has been somewhat of an adventure. The plane ride was actually very nice and went by quicker than I thought. There was more legroom than we knew what to do with and the flight attendants actually knew our names and try to cater to our every needs. I love first class! The food was the best plane food I have ever had. Once boarding we had our choice of champagne or an orange juice cocktail, we both chose the orange juice. Then came hot and cold canapés, I’m not really sure what a canapé is, but we were served one gyoza and shumai and a couple pieces of sushi. From there we had our choice of lunch, I chose the Japanese lunch which ... read more

Today was a bit more of a chilled out day and with no guide to show us the way this time, we jumped on the train and headed for Electric Street. This is another vibrant, busy quarter of Tokyo where the people crowd the streets, touts invite you into the many, many pachinko parlours and you gaze in awe at the sheer number of neon signs that you can't understand. We mooched around various shops, trying not to buy anything as we don't have the budget for it and, more importantly, don't have any room in our packs! Once of the highlights of ambling around Electric Street was coming across a shop called Airs, a DVD shop speiclaising in concert recordings which apparently is famous enough to have been visited by countless rock stars such as ... read more