Blogs from Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 237

We spent the weekend of May 5-7 in Tokyo. Jim had business travel in Japan that week so on Friday the boys and I hopped on a plane and met him there. It was SO cold compared to Thailand....probably in the 50's and we have definitely acclimated to the tropical heat. It also rained most of the weekend. Brrrr. We saw some of the major sites: Sony Center (which did NOT have any video games to play with BTW), Pokemon Museum (much to the boys' delight), Ginza (the high end shopping district), the HUGE electronics stores, the Asakusa shrines (a must see and definitely my favorite part of the trip), and we spent lots of time on the subway getting from here to there. Here are some pics: ... read more

We woke up at about 7.30am the next day. We took the subway and stopped at Ginza and walked to Tsukiji. Past the Kabuki Theatre. We thought that we went the wrong way as the pedestrian traffic towards was minimal. So, anyway, it was one straight road (Harumi-dori) from Ginza to Tsukiji. Then came a centre, bustling with activities. It was a row of eateries at the External Market. We saw many people queuing up to order at a what seemed to be a very popular ramen stall. It was crowded with people standing and slurping down their noodles. There was another tempura soba/udon a few stalls away, it was also crowded with people. We made turned left and walked further in, along the perimeter Tsukiji External Market. There were shops selling dried nuts and all ... read more

About a month ago I went to the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo with two guys from Sweden. It was quite pleasant, lots of trees and grass. The Swedes are heavily addicted to an online game called World of Warcraft that I was unfortunate enough to have a past addicition to, so we swapped some war stories. I escaped long ago; they spent most of their time in Japan reading about the game and lamenting over their missed guild event opportunities. I plan to leave Tokyo near the end of May, and travel around Japan before heading to Australia. I don't know for how long, because it's starting to get very hot and humid, and the prospect of lugging around a heavy backpack while sweating profusely is not appealing. I took more pictures of food. Enjoy.... read more

Mosshi Mosshi! Wow what a place. Bright neon lights and 2 aussies beckoned me to visit this circus and its made an impression... Tokyo Culture I believe it now. In Toyko, u really can be: a) a male b) a foreigner c) look like road kill / fat/ be an offense 2 the eye yet still have an amazing Japanese female goddess by your side. I emphasise the word foreign though because if it was a choice between a very handsome japanese man versus an ugly foreigner...well no guesses who wins. The foreigner means chance of a life abroad, money, status and oh, sometimes it might also be a thing called love. It is true the world over, but it happens even in a modern developed and educated country. Local women fighting over westerners, a ... read more

This next entry is from "Golden Week," a week-long holiday celebrated here in Japan around the first week of May. This period is a conglomeration of separate national holidays. Greenery Day (April 29th), Memorial Day (May 3rd), and Children's Day (May 5th) are the 3 holidays that are honored during this time. We're not really sure why the Japanese celebrate all of them so closely together, but it seems like everyone has the week off from work (well, except for Disney performers and Nova teachers) to relax and enjoy the nice weather - maybe it is comparable to Memorial Day weekend in the U.S.? Either way, these are some of the things we did this week... KAMAKURA: On one of our days off this week, we decided to hop on the train in search of the ... read more