My slice of Tokyo

Photos:

• Top: this is my 'hood: Haneda 2-chome. My house is somewhere in the vicinity of that arrow...
• Bottom: ahhh, the elusive Fuji-san. We have a love-hate relationship; I would love to see it and it hates to be seen by me. I've tried so many times to see it and my two greatest successes are really only glimpses of it's silhouette. Here is one of those examples. The photo was taken on one of the bridges that crosses the Tama River, which is the border between Kanagawa and Tokyo prefectures. It's about a 7 minute walk from my house. Amazing how that mountain can be 100km away and still look so big. (I recommend clicking on the photo to see the larger version. I've put a red circle around the mountain.)

The Uber-parfait

This is my coworker Char. She and I went to dinner in Shibuya last week and she told them that it was my birthday so that we could order the special parfait that they make. It wasn't my real birthday, but it was Feb. 21st so at least it was my 5-month birthday. Totally worth the 840 yen we spent on it; there were raspberries, bananas, sliced mango, pineapple, strawberries, cake, vanilla and chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup and my new favorite ice cream topping: corn flakes! (Seriously, try it.)

My socks!

In university, I had a very wise professor who once said: "Think about it...a glove is like a shoe for your hand!!" So true, so true. And since that is the case, then I like to think of Japanese socks as "mittens for your feet." If you know what I mean.

Happy Kyu-Shogatsu to everyone!

Today was Chinese New Year (known as Kyu-Shogatsu, or "old New Year" in Japanese). In celebration of the occasion, my coworker Char and I went to Japan's largest Chinatown to see the sights. Here's how we passed our time:




Photos:

• Top left: the main street of Chinatown. I love how colorful it is.
  
• Top right: We found a souvenir shop with some pretty awesome masks, and then decided to make fools of ourselves by documenting the experience with photos. (I'm the one on the left.)
  
• Bottom left: the inside of one of the temples in Chinatown where people were coming to say their New Year's prayers.
  
• Bottom right: One of the dragon costumes they use for some of the traditional activities as part of the New Year's celebration.

Snow, and a few other things

Photos:

• Top left: I've wanted snow all winter (not to mention all LAST winter, too) and the weather reporters have been toying with my emotions for the last six weeks or so. This was at least the 4th or 5th time that snow had been forecasted, but up until now it had never actually happened. Then, I woke up Sunday morning to this sight. It's the first real snow I've seen in Tokyo and it was also quite a lovely surprise. Fortunately, the school where I work has floor-to-ceiling windows instead of actual walls, so I got to watch it snow all afternoon while I taught my lessons.
  
• Top right: the only snowman I've seen in Japan, and it was just a couple of doors down from where I live.
  
• Bottom left: This is Eugene's new shirt. I looooove Japanese fashion. :) I also think that this is probably the only place in the world where people take a giant photo of one of the cutest things imaginable, then add a little bit of pink and turn it into a t-shirt for a man...
  
• Bottom right: There's a television studio in Shibuya with windows so people outside can take a peek at what they're filming. Japanese television is crazy! (Understatement.) And for the record, this guy looks pretty typical of what you'll see.