teamEggers

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.

Big plans for the day

Continuing on the “It’s Spring!” theme, it’s lovely today. It’s an utter shame that jon has to work.

So. I decided that I’ll arm myself with a good book and an insatiable appetite for coffee, and explore yet-unseen parts of the city. I’m excited! Hopefully I’ll come back with lots of pictures and insightful things to say.

Well. At the least, I’ll come back with pictures.

The Magical World of Disney.

Jon and I are planning a day at Disney Sea tomorrow – you know how the Epcot Center has little areas highlighting different countries? Well… this is a similar idea except that it’s focusing on different port-towns. It’s sea-themed. Kitchy as it may be, we had such a good time at Disneyland last summer, I’m looking forward to it!

In other news, I have a killer toothache and I’m kicking myself for not going to the dentist before we left the country. While I see dentists ALL OVER here in japan, I’m not exactly thrilled about going to someone that doesn’t speak my language and asking them (with hand signs and broken Japanese) to drill in my mouth. Yuck. Anyone in Seattle have a good one that the recommend for when I get back?

Ugh, I just realized that means I’ll have to live with said toothache for *two months* before I can get it fixed.

Off to Korea

Well, we’re off to Korea. Back on Sunday with lots of pictures and stories to tell.

Take a look up at the top of the screen. I’ve started adding photo galleries of the highlights in any given area. (See the location tabs next to “home”). I’ll do my best to keep them updated.

Have a good weekend!