japanWell I haven't posted anything in a while beacuse Mike and I have been in Japan for the past week. We spent the first 5 days in Tokyo and today we travelled by the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. The first day we were in Tokyo Mike really wanted to go to Disneyland, so we took the train there. They also have a park called DisneySea right next door to Tokyo Disney; which is similar to California Adventure at Disneyland.
Disneyland was okay (I still think the Disneyland in California is the best - I've also been to Disneyland Paris). DisneySea was actually pretty interesting, as they had rides that were different from Disneyland. It was interesting to listen to all the rides narratives - which were all in Japanese. Even the songs during the parade were in Japanese, which makes sense. Mike and I had lunch at a Japanese restaurant inside the park. We ordered cold udon noodles, which you are suppossed to dip into a cold sauce and eat. Well, the waitress was horrified when Mike dipped his noodles into the bonito flavored hot broth (which is served on the side as 'soup') instead of the correct broth. She literally ran over to the table and took his soup and replaced it with new soup. I'm sure she had a laugh after work though.
The next few days we wandered around Tokyo and visited the Ginza shopping district (similar to NYC's 5th Ave.), Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ueno (we saw the Ueno park and Tokyo National Museum), Asakusa (visited the Sensoji Temple completed in 645 A.D. - making it Tokyo's oldest temple). We also went to Tawaramachi (to see all the plastic food shops - all restaurants use plastic food in display cases outside the restaurant to show a sampling of what they serve); Tsukiji Fish Market, which is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world.
The Tsukiji Fish Market opens at 03:00 and most of the action occurs between 05:00-08:00. We were there at 06:00 and walked through the rows, and rows of seafood. After we were done looking through the market, we ate at one of the many tiny fish 'restaurants' (more like closet-sized restaurants) and had some fresh sushi. Oishi desu!
We also managed to make it to Akihabara - the electronics district, but what we found was that it was mostly gadgets you couldn't use in the U.S., such as cell phones.
The food here is very good - I've been eating a lot of Udon (white wheat noodles served either hot or cold) and Chirashizushi ('scattered sushi' - raw fish served atop rice in a bowl).
Our hotel in Tokyo was in Yebisu, which is home to the Sapporo Beer Museum. We went straight to the tasting room and had some fresh Yebisu beer (Sapporo produces Yebisu beer). Beer, or "Bi-ru" is the number one alcoholic drink in Japan - Sake is the second most popular.
