V-Day

Happy Valentines Day, everyone.

Jon and I have big plans for the day that include champagne in the morning and end with a Michelin Starred Restaurant and a hotel in tokyo.  (The main event for the weekend is the tuna auction at the Tsukiji Fish Market, but it starts earlier than the first trains, so we’ll have to stay over night in the city for the evening. Boy, that stinks <sarcasm>). I’m so excited I could pee myself.

We’ve been on this new Ramen kick, probably spurred on by that NY Times article about ramen in Tokyo a few weeks ago.  It linked us to a few ramen-lovin blogs that we are ready disciples of.

More on all of that later of course.

A few nights ago we had some friends over for dinner.  While the food I made didn’t turn out as well as I wanted, it was great to have friends over. I kind of love dinner parties.  Also, I love having friends that are forgiving when my sauce doesn’t turn out like I expected it to.  I’m sad that I didn’t take any pictures.

life, in boxes.

Hi Team! Michelle here, livin the hobo’s life – sleeping on a mattress in the middle of the floor, living out of boxes. Eating expired food.

What?

It turns out that a lot of our food is expired. Nearly everything that jon brought to the relationship, actually.
See, when we moved in to the house in Seattle together, he had a pantry full of things. Things, I am finding out this week, that expired two (sometimes three) years ago.

oh-seven? really jon? does that box really say “best before oh seven?!”. Jon, as nonchalant as ever just shrugs it off. “It’s a guideline, you see. I’m sure it’s still fine.“.

And THAT friends, is why we have stomachs of steel and can eat whatever we want in Japan. I’ve been in training since jon started going to the supermarket in college.

Meanwhile, I’ve got 7 short days left until I join jon in j-town. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to plan social-fun-things on 4 of those night. There are still people I want to see once more before we head out! There’s not enough time in the day! (Enter in Michelle’s addiction to Coffee and her opinion that we would certainly have saved the world by now if more people were as caffeinated as she is.)

Well kids, the Windex calls.

boring girl stuff

Buyer beware. Boring girl stuff past this point.

My hair is longer than it’s been in years. Which is nice because it’s kind of different than usual, but I’d like something a little spunkier, you know? You think I can rock this shorty-style? Or would I look just absurd?

/end girly rant.

Ms. Dawson

Elizabeth got in town last night! How exciting, right?

After finding her at Narita (sounds like she had a great flight) we hopped on the train home. I love that we live in a city that has a direct train to the airport. It makes life so much easier. While on the 2 hour train ride home, I overheard someone say that they were from Seattle! Randomly enough, we happened to make eye contact on our way out of the train and so I said hello.

You know, it’s not every day that you meet someone from your city, on the other side of the world. His name was John, he works for Expedia, and happens to be in Yokohama for the next 10 days. We exchanged email addresses and invited him out to dinner. Nice guy.

Anyways, back to Elizabeth. She came on the perfect week. The cherry blossoms are all still out and it’s *beautiful* outside (67 today!). Perfect weather for a glass of sake in a cafe. Hopefully we can find her zen, which seems to have been misplaced lately.

Later tonight the Baystars (baseball) are playing the Giants (who are like the japanese version of the Yankees). It should be an awesome game. They encourage you to bring in your own food and drink (which is so un-american and i love it). I can’t express how stoked I am to not have 9$ miller lite in my immediate future.

So, I’m sure many pictures will ensue. We’re planning to hang out in yoyogi park this weekend for some more hanami and on Sunday we’re going to check out the large buddha in Kamakura. Stay tuned for more adventures, etc.

Kyoto

Jon recently found out he’s “on call” this weekend and not working in the office!  This may not be that exciting to you, but it means that we get to take a long-awaited weekend trip to Kyoto!

Kyoto is the former capitol of Japan, about 2.5 hours away by bullet train.  Not only will it be exciting to see the city, which is supposed to ooze with history (it is one of the only majour cities in Japan that was not burned to the ground during warfare.  Most japanese buildings have been rebuilt.), but it’s cherry blossom season and we get to take the bullet train!

This is so awesome, for so many reasons.  Kyoto is one of the best places in the country to stay in a ryokan, or traditional Japanese style lodging.  They’re tremendously expensive but are supposed to be one of the best ways to “splurge” on your Japanese vacation. Everything is good, right? Because it’s cherry blossom season, we’re going on what will potentially be the most beautiful weekend of the year.

Good. Well.  We apparently are not the only ones with such high thoughts of Kyoto. Nearly every ryokan, hotel, and hostel is completely booked.  We can’t even find one of those cheap “back up plan” hotels.

For all that, we MAY have to sleep in the train station.