Blogs from Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 251

The night started out like the one before. By about 9pm, the kitchen had seen most come and go with their dinner cooking and there was a rumble of- 'well, what to do tonight?'. Despite Kathrin's invitation to go out with some Japanese friends in Shibuya, as the day had been a particularly cold one, the easy option of going up the road to Shinjuku was too appealing. Nothing worse than not being drunk enough, it being less than zero degrees and no way of getting home for over 3 hours. So the decision had to be made from the start as to what kind of night we were going to have.. :) So Andrea, the bright photographer from Italy, Kathrin, the sweet smiley German lawyer, Christof, the quiet, but sharp, Swiss architect and myself set ... read more

The Japanese curling team were practicing early & everyone seemed to out brushing the ice not really getting rid of it but making it extra slippy for those trying to walk down then road. We headed south west to the Yebisu Beer Museum in the headquarters of Sapporo Breweries Co. It was a free museum that promised cheap beer tastings at the end (probably why lots of people were running past us to the tasting room). A 3D Magic Vision Theatre presented an allegorical tale of the mysteries of the good taste of beer. It involved Gambrinus, the king of beer, engaging in a desperate contest of wits over the good taste of beer with The Evil One of the forest. To the victor went the heart of the beautiful Beer Fairy. Now we know why ... read more

Hey Everyone, (from Larry) I think I may have deleted my first entry by accident. That’s alright, because I wanted this blog to be for me and Melanie anyway. So I will be repeating myself a bit so that I have some documentation of my first few days in Japan. After my 5 hour delay in Detroit I had a pretty easy flight across the Pacific Ocean. There was plenty of food to eat and movies to watch. I also chose a spacious seat and no one sat next too me, so I was able to spread out, which is very important for the 14hour flight. After finally arriving in Japan I was met by Dan, a Nova rep., who helped me exchange my $$, set the delivery of my luggage to my new apartment and ... read more

This morning as I was working out in the gym I just joined, listening to some futuristic music over the speakers, I had this moment: I can't believe I am living here in Japan! I have been here for a week and a half now (hard to believe!) and I love it already. So much has happened that I don't even know where to begin... It's weird; Singapore and Malaysia sort of felt like Asia, but Tokyo is definitely Asia "full-on", as my Australian friends would say... I arrived in the morning on Tuesday, the 10th. Like I had figured, the 2 degree C weather was quite a shock to my system after spending a month in the southern hemisphere. Everything went smoothly as far as meeting my family was concerned. My host mom, Yuko, and ... read more

Greetings from Japan! We've had an interesting second week here spent mostly in Tokyo, though we also ventured a few hours north to the spiritual center of Nikko. Japan has lowered its aesthetic distance to us. We fell in love with sushi all over again, devouring a delicious meal the other night. We visited amazing galleries in Ginza, and walked among the buddhas in Nikko. The man who befriended us in Asakusa (mentioned in our last blog) turned out to be a charlatan. Long story short, we ran into him on our way to Nikko and he chased us around the train station. No worries, we're okay. We went 52 stories up to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi, the highest exhibition space in the world. We saw a really cool retrospective exhibition about Vivienne Westwood ... read more