No traveling this weekend. My co and I both decided that we needed to just vegg out and get a lot of sleep. Funny thing is that, in an effort to save some money I had to drop over $1000 on a new laptop this weekend. I have had my thinkpad for 4 and a half years and I love it. It got me through college and didn't have any major problems....until this week. Recently my thinkpad has started freezing up for no reason. Then, when I try to turn it back on, it wouldn't do anything. Then when it does [View Full Entry]

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My weekend started bright and early on Sunday; which really means before the sun was up. My co had gotten the earliest tickets to Tazawako, so we were out of Sendai by 6:37am. Lake Tawazako is the deepest lake in Japan. Legend goes that Princess Tatsuko and a dragon god fell in love and their passionate love making is what keeps the lake from freezing over in the coldest of temperatures. The tourist information center had nothing but good things to say about this and were very helpful in getting the bus schedule and everything to us. My co and I [View Full Entry]

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So today was a fun eccentric day trip for the weekend. I got most of my house work done on Sunday so I searched through my LP to find a good day trip for today. As I was reading through Yamagata I found Tendo. According to the LP, Tendo makes 90% of all Japanese chess pieces, or Shoji. Since I had such fun at Ishinomaki I thought this Tendo and its shoji were just the place for a good day trip. Tendo is famous for having a 'ningen shoji', or human chess game in April I believe. I already looked to [View Full Entry]

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The famous haiku poet, Basho once penned this famous haiku in his breathless wonder of Matsushima: Matsushima ah! A-ah, Matsushima, ah! Matsushima, ah! Matsuhima is considered one of the 3 views of Japan and it very famous for its over 200 pine tree covered islands that dot the Matushima Bay. My two visitors and I decided to make a day of it and get out of Sendai for Labor-Thanks Day. Matsushima is 400 yen and 20 minutes outside of Sendai via the Tohoku Main, or a little longer on the Senseki Line. Matsushima Station is a little walk from the attractions [View Full Entry]

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I have always understood the logistics of there being snow somewhere in November but I never thought I would actually be in a place to see it. North Carolina is a pretty hot place and snow is few and far between. It snowed this weekend. Sendai didn't get all that much but I was still around when I got up on Monday morning for my little excursion to Hiraizumi. Hiraizumi is in Iwate Prefecture; which is directly north of Miyagi. There was at least 3 inches of snow on the ground when I got there and there was flurries on and [View Full Entry]

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Going to Tokyo has never been on my list of places to go in Japan. I have never been very enamored with the thought of Tokyo let alone what I had heard or seen in pictures. Yet there I was with my co-worker walking around with no idea what to actually do there. We left @ 8:40am and got into Tokyo Station around 11am. We had booked a hotel through our shinkansen tickets, so it only cost around $200 to stay the night and get round trip tickets. My co and I went about getting our packs locked in a coin [View Full Entry]

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My 3 day weekend has gone pretty well. I still have a day to recover from sore shoulders and get my stomach feeling a little better. The Chiba's are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met. They opened their home to me for only 1 night but I felt like I was apart of their family. 151 pictures taken in over 36 hours ain't bad at all. A little bit of fun information, Oya Kaigan is known for Mambo, or Head fish. Look it up on google and you will see the hugest fish. They have one in [View Full Entry]

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today has got to be one of the most interesting days i have had in a while. i decided to head out of historical japan and jump into some pop-culture and it was one of the smartest ideas i have ever had. it has lead to one of the best meetings i have ever had. yesterday it rained all day. so last night i checked the weather forecast and saw that it was going to be a beautiful day and kept with my semi-plans of heading to Ishinomaki for the day. i've read a lot of my LP and Ishinomaki was [View Full Entry]

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Well, today was the oh so awesome medical checkup. Rumi, my manager made sure to let me know, "don't be late da yo" and co and I found ourselves up @ 7am and walking to meet at Fuji Saki @ 8am this morning. The medical facility was right across the street from the arcade and on the 4th floor of an office building. Rumi, Kerin, Ryoko, Koji and I all got our lockers and changed into the shirt they gave us and went to take our urine sample. I made sure i got a bottle of water so I would actually [View Full Entry]

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Yamadera or Risshaku-ji is absolutely amazing and anybody who is in Sendai or Yamagata needs to go there and do the extended hike up. It makes the trip up to Yamadera so much more worth it. Especially if your around for the changing of the leaves. At 10:50am my co and I caught a rapid express train out to Yamadera. It takes about 50 minutes and around 820yen on the Senzan Line. Though, you could just pay the least amount and get away with it because there never seems to be anybody getting tickets at Omoshiro-yama. Though I am not sure [View Full Entry]

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