Blogs from Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 262

After our mishaps at Mt Fuji, we all slept in pretty late the next day. We decided to use the train to get out and see some sites before taking off the next day for home. We walked around in the Shinjuku area in the morning because they have a street fair that happens on Sundays. It was really cool. The crowd would go from being people in business suits to girls with pink hair and platform shoes to ladies in kimono. We watched some people doing brazilian street dancing, then some other guys doing robot hiphop dancing and finally a little magic show. We decided to get some food at a local shop that lets you cook yakisoba at your table. It was really good. After we finished eating, we headed to the station so ... read more

We booked our flight and hotel for our 4 day trip to Tokyo through HIS. We were traveling with a friend. All three of us were getting ready to move away from the area and wanted to get at least a small trip to Tokyo in. Our flight from southern Japan was rather quick and we arrived in Tokyo at Haneda around midday. We decided to take the train from the airport to the station nearest our hotel which was the Shinjuku Washington Hotel in the Shinjuku district. The train was actually pretty easy to figure out. We had downloaded an English version of the map before leaving home, and being that we already lived in southern Japan, we had plenty of yen handy. While we were in the station, we laid on the arrangements for ... read more

Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 12:04:50 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric Bram" nardobram@yahoo.com Subject: forward to anyone who may want to read Hello all, Feel free to delete this message if you don't want to here about my travels because this is all there is in here. I can't get personal with each email so welcome to Generic email #1. With that out of the way... We're in Tokyo and it really is a magnificent city. Much like New York but at the same time, not. The Japanese people are one of two ways, either very friendly or want nothing to do with foreigners. In America, you see an Asian person, and you assume that they are Americans. Here you see a Caucasian and you assume they are a foreigner. They also don't accept tips here, so ... read more

Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 12:00:13 -0700 (PDT) From: "Eric Bram" nardobram@yahoo.com Subject: Interesting Japanese info to impress your friends *I noticed that they didn't have any clunker cars like my 1996 Honda del sol on the road. It turns out that in Japan, car registration actually goes up the older the car gets. This makes sense because older cars are more likely to break down on the road, get worse mileage,etc. It also stimulates the economy because people are buying new cars all the time and they export their three year old "junkers" to places like eastern europe. Scooters are obviously huge here because the prices are constricting to some. *Never stick your chopsticks in your rice. It's a symbol of death *Never pass food from chopstick to chopstick. Yes, another symbol of death. ... read more

After last nights entertainment, I was doubting Yoshi was going to be up for going to Ueno  Park… heck, I was doubting I could do anything today.  But I finally fell out of bed, hung around in the lounge for a little while, then Ryan asked if I wanted to go to view of Tokyo in Roppongi.  I needed to get some good pictures, so I figured this would be the opportune time to take care of business.  We find the place, wait in line, and once we get to the front find out the observation deck is closed.  Aha… that probably explains the people all turning around and leaving the line.  Darn language barriers!  People were still there for some strange art exhibit though,  so we didn’t know any better.  So now our only other ... read more