Japan

Greetings from Japan


We are on our 4th day in Japan and we have absolutely fallen in love with everything. The food, the people, the scenery...just everything. It is cherry blossom season and the scenery is just breathtaking. In some places it appears as if it snowing from the cherry blossom leaves.

Day 1: We arrived in Japan late in the night but were able to find our way to our hotel with the assistance of a young man at around 11:30pm at night. The generosity started right away. Our hotel was also a nice change from the hostels and hotels in Australia. Small and cozy with all the amenities you could ask for. The hubby has fallen in love with the Bidet and I myself have wondered what I have done all these years without one. We will be adding one when we get back home.

Day 2: We started Japan by doing what else ....walk around the city and explore. This city reminds us of NYC times 3. We ate traditional authentic Ramen noodles from breakfast and again we were helped with the generosity of the restaurant employee who knew little English but nonetheless helped us out with what he could. After warming ourselves up we went to explore the city which was a little overwhelming because there are shops EVERYWHERE and restaurants EVERYWHERE. It is just crazy where you find stores around here. Every little nook and cranny has something to explore. The mall catered mostly to the women with 6 floors of heaven including 1 floor all shoes, 1 floor all makeup, 1 floor for purses, and the rest for clothes. Unfortunately, the hubby had less luck because of his size. Back home he wears large and x-large. Over here the x-large fit him like a medium or small would at home. Which brings us to our next point....everyone is skinny. You hardly see anyone overweight here. Maybe because of the small portions from the food or the huge amounts of green tea that we see everywhere. We are still hungry after most meals but tell ourselves not to eat much more because of the portions are what we are suppose to eat. This night we also went to eat Sushi. Which again is nothing like back home. It is simply raw fish with rice or what we would call Sashimi. No sauces other than soy sauce, no cream cheese, no avocado, no nothing except for the fish. We have completely westernized the sushi back home. We had to go and eat another meal at a different restaurant after trying the sushi here.

Day 3: This day we explored Ueno park and Yoyogi park. We enriched ourselves with the Japanese culture. We were able to see many temples, shrines, cemeteries, and museums. To name a few things we explored; Tokyo National Museum, Yushimi Tenmangu Shrine, Shitamachi Museum, Toshogu Shrine, Kaneiji Temple cemetery and of course the Ueno park itself. Wait till you see the pics..it was amazing. This park is famous for its cherry blossoms during this season. We also were able to try the famous octopus balls which made Bobby gag. You really have to like octopus raw to enjoy the taste because it has the consistency of a mushy oyster. We finished the day taking the subway line back to our hotel, had an amazing foot care massage and then ended it with having a fulfilling meal in an underground Izakaya(think that is what it is called).

Day 4: Today we spent half the day looking for the one tattoo shop in Shinjuku which was closed when we got there. The hubby just HAS to get a tattoo in on this trip. For most of the day we relaxed and had a down day.

A few things to note:

1. Friendly country
2. English is really the universal language.
3. You have to take off your shoes when entering a fitting room.
4. It is appropriate to bow when someone greets you.
5. The ducks have Mohawks here...lol



P.S. We will upload pics once we get to a computer where we can read where we are saving them to.