Fishies!!

Photos:

• Top left: one of my co-workers mentioned that he was going to set his goldfish free in the local river because he'd rather have some pet shrimp. Naturally, there was no way I was going to let him do that, so Eugene and I convinced him to bring it to work. Now we have a fishie at our school!!
• Top right: Take a look at the chopsticks I picked up last month.
• Bottom left: this is a picture of me making the scary face with my branch manager. After viewing it on playback she said, "Sorry, I'm just not good at making that face."
• Bottom right: the one single benefit of all the smog in Tokyo is that it reflects the sunset beautifully. I took this picture just a couple hours ago at the train station by my school.

You say tomato, I say dessert

I know I haven't posted in a while...sorry about that. I'm hoping to have more to share soon, but in the meanwhile I'm leaving you with this image of my dessert at a restaurant in Yamato: tomato ice cream with plain yogurt and aloe jelly. And also raisins, just in case there weren't enough other weird things already in the dish. For those of you who were wondering, yes, it does taste distinctly like a tomato and is a little less sweet than regular ice cream. The sweet part was the aloe jelly and the raisins, which I didn't even know were there until the ice cream was almost gone. I recommend that everyone who has the opportunity give it a try. But I don't recommend ordering it if you've got a real craving for something sweet.

Chinatown, Round 2

In an (unfortunately unsuccessful) effort to see some Chinese New Year festivities this week, I spent Tuesday afternoon in Chinatown in Yokohama. (Please refer to my post from Oct. 1 to see pics of my last visit.) Didn't get to see anything extra-special like I'd hoped for, but I DID get a 5% off coupon for a pastry shop. Would have been nicer if I'd found something to use it on. But it was a nice afternoon all the same. Happy *early* Chinese New Year to everyone!!

Photos:

• Top left: this is the same street with lanterns pictured in my Oct. 1 post, only I took this one standing a little farther back.
• Top right: entrance to one of the two temples I saw on this visit. Last time I came, Kim and I didn't even realize that this was here. Chinese temples are much more colorful than Japanese ones. The temple itself is actually at the top of the cement stairs you see in the background.
• Middle left: This is a view inside the temple. The wooden slats you see in the foreground are part of the offering box (saisenbako) where everyone tosses their coins before "sanpai sahou", which is what a person does to worship the god: bow twice, clap twice (to wake him up if he's sleeping, my students tell me), then bow once more. Compare this interior with my picture of a Japanese temple interior on my post from Dec. 28.
• Middle right: view down the main street of Chinatown.
• Bottom left: another view of Tokyo Bay, about a 5 min walk from Chinatown. The ferris wheel you can see in the distance is the one in Minato Mirai. See my other picture of it here.
• Bottom right: Taken at Tameike-sanno this week. I couldn't have said it better myself, unless English was my native language...

Futako-Tamagawa

In a desperate effort to procrastinate working on my Japanese homework, I thought I'd take a moment and post some pictures from this afternoon. Kim worked a late shift and I had the day off, so we decided to go to a place on our train line that we'd always talked about going to but had never actually done. As you'll probabaly see from the pictures, the Tama River isn't very exciting in and of itself. But we did manage to find a Mexican restaurant for lunch and some other cute little shops to look in, so it was definitely worth the trip. As for coming back anytime soon...I think I'll wait until the weather's a little warmer.

















Photos:

• Top left: a view of the train tracks from a bridge over the river. This is the train I take every day. Towards the right side of the picture you can also see a man fishing in the dirtiest two feet of water ever. I hope he doesn't plan on eating what he catches...
• Top right: though the rocks looked cool. The grass in the distance is where I sometimes see local baseball teams playing games on weekends.
• Bottom left: A view in the opposite direction of the train tracks: the freeway.
• Bottom right: I took this photo in a magazine I found at a Japanese bookstore yesterday. Look at the way they spelled his name.

Yasukuni Shrine and Kitanomaru Park

Photos:

• Top left: Torii at the entrance to the Yasukuni Shrine.
• Top right: the controversial Yasukuni Shrine. (See here for a BBC article about the shrine that was published last August.)
• Middle left: Praying outside the shrine.
• Middle right: a chain of 1000 paper cranes at Yasukuni Shrine. In 1955, a 12 year old girl from Hiroshima died of Leukemia, brought on by exposure to the atomic bomb 10 years earlier. Before she died her friends had told her the Japanese legend that if she folded 1000 paper cranes the gods would grant her wish to be healthy again. She died before 1000 were completed, but now the paper cranes are symbolic as a memorial of all the children who died as a result of the war and also as a wish for peace.
• Bottom left: some of the painted cards on display near the shrine. 2007 is the Year of the Boar, hence the many depictions of the animal.
• Bottom right: across the street from the shrine was Kitanomaru Park. I stopped by and found it to be pretty uneventful, but I thought this picture was nice. Mostly because it gives no indication of how dirty the water was or how much bird poop there was all over the walking paths.
  

Dinner in Shinjuku

This Thursday I met up with Kim and Mac for dinner in Shinjuku. Mac took us to this spectacular restaurant that serves all types of Asian food--we had a little of everything: curry, pad thai, and various other Indonesian foods. Pretty affordable, too. It only cost me a little less than $15 USD for dinner. To top it off, the view was one of the most incredible I've seen so far in Tokyo. Take a look for yourself:

















Photos:

• Top left: view of Tokyo from the observation area of the 51st floor of the building the restaurant was in.
• Top right: view from our table in the restaurant, on the 49th floor. (The red, yellow and blue lights at the top of the picture are a reflection in the window of the lights hanging from the ceiling in the restaurant.)
• Bottom left: Me and Kim after a wonderful dinner.
• Bottom right: not a picture taken at dinner, but another one found outside a restaurant in Akihabara. Mmmm, sounds delicious.

New Year's dinner

Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope you are all well. I must admit that though I had a nice holiday from work and was able to do a few things around the Tokyo area, I have terribly missed being away from friends and family at this time of year. The best way of putting it would probably be to say that being alone in a foreign country on both Christmas and New Years is an experience I hope I never have to endure again in my life, but is also one that I am strangely glad to have gone through because it has made me infinitely more grateful for the time I get with the people I love most.

That said, I am also grateful to the people who were so welcoming to me here in Japan, knowing that I was away from home during the holidays. My very gracious Japanese instructor invited me and my two classmates over to her home on January 2nd to see how a typical Japanese family celebrates the New Year. She cooked an incredible traditional meal for us and even warned her family to "use small words" with us so that we wouldn't feel too uncomfortable or confused. :) It was my very first time in the home of a Japanese family and definitely an afternoon well spent!

















Photos:

• Top left: Our meal. My Japanese teacher is the woman in the foreground and behind her you can see her husband. On the left side of the picture you can see my classmates, Yildiz from Turkey (background) and Hero from Iran.
• Top right: Hero sitting with two of my teacher's children, Yuuka (L) and Hiro (R).
• Bottom left: My teacher's dog, Milk. (Pronounced like MEE-ru-ku in Japanese). Yuuka just walked up to me and plopped the dog in my arms and then, without saying a word just picked up my camera and started taking pictures. Yes, even the dog has to wear special slippers in the house.
  
• Bottom right: this is not a picture from New Year's dinner, obviously, but another one I couldn't resist posting. All I have to say in response is, "I think I know what you mean, if you know what I mean..." (Buckles, this one's particularly for your enjoyment.) I found it outside an electronics store in Akihabara a couple days after Christmas.