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| Since nobody is online at this hour (it's 8am PST you lazy bastards, midnight in Taipei), I will update my withering subscription base on my recent--and still ongoing--visit to Asia.
First, a message from our [not] sponsor:
 
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Anyway, on to Japan! Hope everyone had a good Christmas, by the way.
Brief recap:
I depart lovely LAX at 1pm on Saturday, the 23rd, and arrive in Narita in the evening on the 24th. Go on a tour for 5 days and 3 nights in a big red bus, and experience much of what Japan has to offer, though my brief encounter has led me to want more, more, more. What follows will be a glimpse into my short but sweet stay in this nifty little country. Warning: this entry will make you hungry, because while others eat to live, it seems I live to eat. Sadly.
We set off bright and early Christmas morning to the temple in Odawaru, where we walk around and eat soba at the Soba House. I've never really eaten soba before but oman oman this stuff was good.
Soba House is a tiny restaurant on one of the smaller shopping streets
in the Odawaru area. One thing I noticed was that regardless of the
size of the shop or how amateur the offerings, they are almost always
in top notch condition--clean, well-decorated and well-designed, and
treated with an overall sense of pride and respect by their owners.
Not the case for some of the places I've been to in Taiwan (though in
Japan we went on a tour that most likely only showcased its more
tourist-friendly spots).
Beef sukiyaki with soba noodles, the first of many amazing Japanese meals to come. Breakfast at the Narita Hilton was good, but it was pretty standard American fare. Nonetheless, it was one of the best breakfasts I've had. Dinner the first night was good as well but the service was terrible. Christmas eve night, go figure. I especially like the many dishes served with your food. Here you have some mayo-covered string beans, a tiny plate of the yellow pickled stuff, a salad, miso soup, soba noodles, and beef sukiyaki on rice. After 12 or so meals in Japan, arriving in Taiwan and receiving one huge bowl of ramen was kind of a letdown. The ramen was good, though, and the bowl was appropriately sized. Japanese portions are on the... leaner side.
A squirrel outside the Odawara temple. I think Berkeley squirrels are cuter, although this one had a neat fencepost-hopping stride.
We also hung out with a 50 foot Buddha. 50 feet is my approximation, I don't remember much from this part of the tour because the statue was not edible.
The highlight of a trip filled with highlights was the New Akao Hotel. Hot diggity damn this place was old school, from the tatami rooms to the mandatory yukata attire to the public bath houses (more on this later, if I decide to post my account of bathing with 50 other guys). Here you see our futons laid out nice and neat on the tatami mats. Housekeeping snuck into our room while we were away at dinner and made our beds for us. If they could cook, I'd marry them for sure. The whole housekeeping staff, that is. All of them. No guys, though.
The most amazing feature of the New Akao had to be its location and thus, the views. This is what I saw from my bedroom window. The hotel is literally right on the water. Amazing! Not as amazing as the dining room where we had breakfast, however:
  
In terms of views while dining, this one may very well top them all. Top floor views of Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and New York can't really compare to the sight and sound of waves crashing a few feet from your table. The third picture in this set is from the very edge of the window; you can see how close the window is to the water. I could've eaten breakfast forever there (the food was pretty good too).
After wandering around in the mountains and sailing past Mt. Fuji (the camera stayed pocketed due to the rain), we go from a rainy bus to a small, plainly decorated restaurant with rows of tables lined up with the same setup you see here: stone pots filled with oil, and tempura just waiting to be fried. It was a good meal on a rainy and overcast day. Sho' hit the spot! But not as much as...
The best ramen I have had. Ever. I don't know what they did with the pork but it was perfect in every way, and so were the noodles. This was in some shopping building in the Shinjuku district. I got soaked up to my knees walking in the rain to get there. Thanks to the suggestion and subsequent prodding of my buddy, currently located in Korea, I decided to check out the sky bar at the Park Hyatt Hotel later on that night. This place offers a great top-floor view of Tokyo, and was where they filmed parts of Lost in Translation. I got soaked up to my ass walking there. Literally. My jacket was all wet, and my jeans were drenched up to my boxers. And what did I get for my troubles? A foggy view of Tokyo at night from 54 floors up--air traffic lights and maybe the building directly next to the hotel. Thanks, Drew.
Five star hotel, where we stayed our third night. All class, all the time. The restaurants on the 2nd floor all look extremely baller. We had breakfast at one the next morning:
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM TASTY. It was a little surreal, walking into a restaurant, eating, and then walking out. Which was what we did for most of the restaurants in Japan, as they were part of the tour. Some required meal tickets, but that was a negligible detail--I will now be forever under the impression that dining in Japan is free. Oh, what a sad sad reality I'm going to face when I return and I'm not on a tour.
Afterwards we went to some Imperial temple place where we could pray and write our prayers on little wooden placards, which we hung up on a wall along with hundreds of other wooden placards. I wrote a prayer and hope hope hope that it is answered. We'll see. That's my brother, by the way. No, I did not lose 60 pounds in the last 5 days.
Asakusa shopping area. A street filled with shops that either sold: little dangly keychain/cell phone trinkets; Japanase swords, fans and umbrellas; red-bean filled snacks. Yeah, that's pretty much it.
Ginza shopping area. Between this and the Harajuku district, they could easily consume a week of my life, shopping, eating, and hopelessy trying to approach women with my slick mix of idiot-paced English and wild, wavy hand motions. I was impressed at how classy the ladies were here. I also noticed, not just here but everywhere else in Tokyo, that the ONLY suitable business attire is a black or dark, dark navy suit with a white shirt and a bland tie. Pinstripes are acceptable, but barely, like navy suits. And business casual does not exist here.
Ok well that's all the pictures I have uploaded so far and I'm too lazy to add more. Currently I am in Taiwan, and have been for only about 6 hours. We're staying at the Royal Biz Hotel in Taipei which is pretty nice in itself (I dig the free internet) and we're a few blocks away from my dad's momma, and in the opposite direction, a few blocks away from my mom's parents. Noice!
Taipei 101 building tomorrow, will take lots of pictures and spend lots of money that I don't have. Adios.
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| RIP Steve Irwin
what a crappy ass weekend
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| Eh.
I feel that feeling of failure in the pit of my stomach again.
Don't think it's going away this time...
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