Day 3 – Whale!

On day three we went out to Asakusa. While we were there we met up with some of Josh’s friends who where also visiting Japan at the same time, and we all went out for another famous Japanese food, ‘Monjyayaki’. We then went to Shinjuku for some shopping and a great night view of the city from one of my favorite places, the Tokyo Government buildings. This night was really special for me too as we went out to eat a food that I have never tried either. We ate whale. Again, we got the expensive course menu, but we got to eat many kinds and many parts of the whale. Whale is actually not very tasty but the experience alone was well worth it. When we were leaving the whale shop an unknown woman ran up to us with her music player and, since we were foreigners, asked us to identify the English song that was playing. Unable to do, so we all went out for Karaoke and good times.

Day 2 – Horse and Raw Chicken

Day two we went back to familiar places to see them again. Being a Sunday we had to go to Harajuku to check out the gothic people again. We also went to Mejijingu shrine as well and saw what seemed to be a Japanese story performance with a dragon thing. After a walk though Ometesando it was off to Akihabara. Once we got there we searched around for one of the famous Maid Cafes. Unfortunately they are all very popular and crowded, so we just did some shopping instead. We also went to the biggest electronics store in the world. In the evening, we decided that although we gave up on the Maid Cafes we were not going to give up on the Maid Massage place. It was a great chance practice Japanese speaking. At the massage place we met a Japanese guy who was actually a writer for a magazine, anyway we asked him to join us for dinner. We went to an ‘izakaya’ and our new friend introduced us to many a interesting Japanese foods and customs. Including the eating of raw horse and even raw chicken.

My friend Josh, whom I first came to Japan with 3 years ago, came back to visit this wonderful country once again. He decided to travel and see an insane amount of Japan while he was here. So even before he came to visit me in Tokyo he took a train all the way up to Hokkaido to see the Snow Festival, and after Tokyo took a train all the way down to Kyushu. While he was in Tokyo we had 3 days to find things to do that we maybe didn’t do last time we visited, which was hard to think of so we concentrated on eating unusual Japanese foods instead.

Day 1 – Blowfish (Fugu)

As there was a small festival going on we headed down to Yokohama. We checked out China Town, the festival, a street performer, and other parts as well. The street performer was really interesting and a great entertainer so we sat and watched his entire show. Then back to Tokyo and Shinjuku for Blowfish! The restaurant I wanted to go to was pretty famous and we had to put our name on a list, but it was a great opportunity to walk around Kabukicho while we were waiting. Blowfish, by the way, is the fish with the incredibly extremely toxic poison in it, and among one of the most expensive in Japan. At the restaurant we got the blowfish course menu, which is blowfish served to us in many many courses and in different ways. The price was also quite expensive but well worth the experience.

This year has been exceptionally cold, and because of this I decided to visit one of the 100 most famous waterfalls in Japan. The waterfall is special because the water actually freezes on the way down to produce a beautiful frozen waterfall.

I went with my friend a while ago to the Hazard Prevention Safety Museum.
At the museum, which was actually free, I got to:
1) See a cool IMAX earthquake video complete with vibrating chairs.
2) Experience a large earthquake on a simulator. The whole room was on hydraulics and shook violently.
3) Go though a smoke filled maze. There were locked doors, zero light, and I had to stay low to the ground to avoid the smoke above.
4) Learn CPR, and practice it on a dummy.
5) Finally be able to use a fire extinguisher to put out a fire on a large screen.
6) Practice calling the emergency number, which in Japan is ‘119′.

I am 2 weeks behind on my postings…

I’ll try to get caught up.

I must decide… Now!

"Should I stay or should I go now?”
"If I go there will be trouble”
"An’ if I stay it will be double”
- The Clash

Lunar New Year

For Lunar New Year I went with some friends to Yokohama China Town. We ate really good Chinese food and stood in a huge crowd of Japanese people to see the parade. Fun times were had by all…

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