Archived entries for
An Imperial Walk
The theme of today is “closed”. As we lazed around, wasting the morning away, all the sights we closing at the imperial palace.
Okay. But enough of that. Since the Imperial Gardens were closed, we decided to walk around the palace. It was a long, beautiful walk. Here are some of the things we saw:
Old and new Japan:
A hungry, hungry koi:
The Imperial Moat:
Two things. 1) Doesn’t this look reminiscent of the art deco metro signs from paris? 2) there were runners EVERYwhere. Laps around the palace must be a really big thing for locals on the weekends.
But stay tuned. The day’s not over yet…
Dinner and Drinks
After the palace we headed to dinner.
We’ve finally figured out (reluctantly) that most good places to eat exist in a mall, possibly attached to a train station. Mall food isn’t …. “good” where we come from, so we were very reluctant to relearn this. Anyhow. We found the mall, checked out our options and decided on a place that we thought looked pretty good.
One of the craziest things about eating in japan is that we really just never know what we’re getting. Rarely are we disappointed, but sometimes… we’re pleasantly surprised. After a long day of walking, we sat down to a very well prepared small-plate style meal.
Pork and leek yakitori:
Maguro Kama (tuna collar w/ cheek):
Really awesome sake flask:
Afterward we went to find a brewery in Shinjuku. It was pretty cool – tasty beer and a nice ambiance.
Not to mention that this was the first place we saw with a sampler tray! No crazy trying-to-explain-in-the-wrong-language.
And then the coolest thing happened. I looked up how to say “can i buy a glass” in the dictionary (to see if we could buy a pint glass) and then i said it to the waiter. and then… he looked around and came back with the manager who said “We don’t have any new ones, but you can have one of the bar glasses!” and then he GAVE us a pint glass. How cool is that! I kind of spoke japanese and kind of got something in return. It was rad. And magical.
Odds and Ends
Jon and I have been living very quietly lately. Good for our santity, not good for your reading pleasure! Today we were talking about going to the Imperial Palace, which is right in the center of Tokyo, and poking around some of the gardens there. Perhaps a city-dinner is in our future? I’ll be sure to take photos for you.
Looking through some photos today, I have a couple of random photos that I haven’t shared yet.
More Yokohama pictures. You can see our house from here (the one with the blue top, on the right)
This place had a cafe (not shown) that looked really cute. Live jazz and whatnot. I think we’ll have to go back and check it out!
oookay. That leads me to the trash cans. There are NO TRASH CANS on the street. I’ve heard it’s because people here don’t eat/drink on the go, but as someone who can’t really kick the habit, it drives me crazy that I have to walk around with my trash until I get home. It takes a very disciplined society to not just throw the trash on the streets. The city is so clean (even Tokyo)… I just can’t figure it out. How do you make an entire country that is well-behaved?
I got Seoul but I’m not a Soldier.
Mini crisis averted. Jon and I have bought plane tickets for our international trip.
If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll remember that I’m here on a 90-visa, but am staying 120 days. This means I need to leave and reenter the country before April.
No sweat, right? Except that travel within Asian is ridiculously expensive. Tremendously expensive. Crazy…. long, expensive flights. Apparently, Japan is quite a ways away from the mainland as it is.
So we’ve decided on South Korea. The closest by far (about a 7 hour travel day rather than a 13 hour one), it also happens to be the most affordable airfare option. Seoul. Seoul.
Now the question is, “what’s there to do in seoul?”.