Tokyo: Day 1

Visited the Imperial Palace Gardens right away (after a slight detour in the wrong direction).

Mia grabbed a much-needed bite of udon with shrimp tempura after a long time walking.

Rode the very clean, very smooth, very precise, very quiet, relatively cheap (on time and stops at a precise spot so that the doors of the train line up with marks on the platform) subway at rush hour... but its Sunday so its not so bad. Variable pricing based on how many stops you travel.

Staying at a capsule hotel tonight because the hostel we reserved messed up and didn't have a suitable room for us. (It's a long story.) My "room" is the bottom right in the picture.

Odds and ends:
- experienced a mild earthquake while bathing at the hotel... alone, on the top floor (9), with a bunch of windows, public bath-style!!!
- checked out the sights in Asakusa (a Tokyo neighborhood) :)
- forgot where our locker was in Tokyo station... spent some time retracing our steps.

had a good day

(sent from my docomo phone)

...and we're off

Today we take a series of high-speed trains to get to Tokyo (roughly 7 hours total travel time).

The second photo is a shot of a very localized rain squall I drove through on my way to class (taken after I got there, since you're not allowed to use your cellphone while driving...)

In fact, you`re not allowed to drive while tired or after even one alcoholic drink as well, but Yamaguchi makes this relatively painless by having many places to pull over on the road, plus cell phones have a "drive mode" button which notifies callers that you are temporarily unavailable.

swimming caps required

Swimming pool at Yamaguchi Refresh Park during a 10-minute break. No sunbathing chairs, no diving boards, everyone wears swim caps, nearly all Japanese people sit in the shade. They were mostly parents with young children. In the background you can see the main building and tennis courts. (Picture taken with my cell phone, sorry about the poor quality)

Mia and Amy (Mia's friend from America) after our swim. Amy's visiting us for two weeks!

We decided to go for a swim before classes today, our last day of classes before summer break! Tonight we go to Karaoke!

Fruit fetishes

"Peach Pineapple" about $19

Watermelon (from Hokkaido)... about $31

Mango... about $52 (that's not a typo...)

Grapes... about $52

Melon... about $84

As you can see here, there exists a bizarre expensive fruit culture in Japan. These ones here are meant to be gifts, and can be purchased (in cash, of course, this is Japan) from our local Izutsuya departments store, which has more expensive things than most stores. The bigger, fancier, weird-shaped the fruit, the more ridiculous the price. Apparently, some fruits can run into the hundreds or thousands of dollars.

(pictures posted from my Japanese cell phone)

The Colors!

A bee posing as a butterfly in Akiyoshidai, Japan



Recent international potluck. Clockwise from bottom: multi-grain bread, Ethiopian cabbage, Pakistani rice, mini-quiche, fried salmon with Israeli salad.


My favorite cat ever, Mac, attended the potluck, but didn't exactly participate. A couple months ago he could fit in your hand, couldn't see, and was saved from certain death-by-abandonment by the Sondas. Now he can be found attacking string, ties, the air, your foot, etc. This picture is super uncharacteristic of him.