The day before I left Takeshi and I went to ‘Sankeien’ gardens. It’s a really Japanese style gardens with old style houses, a pagoda, a pond and so on. Luckily as well, we went at the very beginning of the Ume blossom season.
The pond
Some Ume blossoms already in bloom.
Before I went to Okinawa, there was a small gap before my plane left and I had to check out of my building. So I was able to stay with my friend Takeshi and his family in Yokohama again. It was really nice of them to let me stay and feed me and so on. I even got to climb up the same hill as 2 years before.
A friend of mine from school came back from Switzerland and brought a bunch of Swiss cheese with him. What better to do with cheese then with a fondue party. I even think this was my first time to have real fondue…
KrispyKreme has made its way to Japan.
There are huge lines and people buying dozens of donuts but at twice the price of the US. Why go to the inferior KrispyKreme and pay about $1.50 for a tiny donut when there is the great Mr Donuts.
This months mountain was Shidangoyama(シダンゴ山). Surprisingly, it was not raining this time. Since it is winter the air was cold but also very clean, which made for a great view when we got to the top.
Old bug turned into a bamboo forest.
The bushes seen are tea plants.
Getting a drink. It was a bit salty- whatever that means.
Praying at the top.
On The 3rd day of the New Year holiday some friends wanted to go to Odaiba to see the Toyota showroom, but to get there they wanted to walk across Rainbow Bridge. Although I’ve taken the monorail across and a boat to Odaiba, this was the first time to walk across the 1km or so bridge. As you can see in the 3th picture, Odaiba was originally built as a cannon emplacement to protect Tokyo again foreign ships.
I went with a friend to Ueno’s Korea Town, to eat yakiniku at a shop where another friend (in the green shirt) works. The food was good, but it was really interesting to see all the fresh kinds of meat and animal parts, as well as the huge buckets they use to make kimchi in. They then take the kimchi out of the huge buckets, put it into small containers and sell it at high prices. One shop even had a store kitty! Since it was also close to New Years, the famous Ameyokocho Street was packed.
This year due to a lack of money I stayed in Japan for New Years. I tried to do all the customs that Japanese people do for the holiday. I did ‘mochi-tsuki’. I Ate ‘osechi ryori’, ‘toshi-koshi soba’, and ‘ozoni’, and I went to a temple to pray for the new year - ’hatsumode’. One of the best and most popular places in Tokyo to do hatsumode is at Mt. Takao, a mountain I am very familiar with.
I went with two of my friends. This is Sebastian.
There was a small magic show we stopped to watch a bit before climbing.
At the top!
Most Japanese people go to pray during the New Years holiday.
We also had to get our fortunes.
