Topic: BigMike's 2013 Japanese Vacation [many pics!]

[Wainiha]

What's Poke?  Hehe.

[BigMike [OP]]

What's Poke?  Hehe.

Like you have to ask this

You know I had never had Poke until last summer in Hawaii and WOW I've been missing out. I've always liked tuna, but I'm more of a white fish guy and don't each much tuna. But poke has forced me to reconsider my religion!


BigMike

[BigMike [OP]]

December 12, 2013: Day three

Took another picture from the hotel room while we were getting ready. Check out how small this place was. Our suit cases had to be laid on the ground in the entry way, and our jackets were hanging up blocking the door. I didn't mind this and thought it was fun, but it makes me wonder about their fire and evacuation laws.

Here is Misato getting ready in the morning. She had to lean over our suitcases just to use the lone wall mirror.


Here is our "continental" breakfast. Mountain vegetables amongst other things. I can't think of a better way to start a new day.


We stopped at a Lawson to get some drinks, found some American energy drinks


Outside I found this Dahatsu kei car parked...


...but what is this? Is this a sort of "no overnight parking" deterrent where your car is essentially "locked" until a tow truck comes? Or is this a feature where you can park your car and enable a sort of security device? First time seeing this in Japan...

[BigMike [OP]]

At the train station, this is a かいさつぐち　"Kaisatsuguchi" where you enter your train ticket. Kaisatsuguchi is comprised of Kai + satsu + guchi, which is "to check" + "paper" + "mouth/entrance". So just by knowing the root words you'd know that this is the entrance where your tickets are to be checked.


Always some nice vending machines nearby


It was early and none was around. It was a peaceful moment in the Tokyo prefecture. Pretty nice.


Here comes our でんしゃ "Densha" train. "Den" means electricity and "sha" means vehicle, so you know right away that this is not a steam powered train, which would be きしゃ kisha, "ki" + "sha", where "ki" means pressure, ie, steam power. Japanese language is really cool-


The typical experience on a busy Japanese train

[BigMike [OP]]

We are heading to the Narita airport, which is Tokyo's international airport, located many miles away from the city. We had I think 4 hrs to kill so we stopped off there to check in our luggage and then headed to Odaiba to kill some time...

Here we are switching trains...


Finally made it to Odaiba! It's been about 5 yrs since I've been here, and it was very refreshing coming back.


When you know you are getting close to a tourist trap


Wow check out all the highway cameras


This is the current Fuji TV headquarters building, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuji_Television. If California's Hollywood was comprised of just one building, this would be the Japanese version of that.

[BigMike [OP]]

If you are in to megatropolis areas, then Odaiba is a really neat place. The entire area is a man-made land fill off the coast of Tokyo bay.

Here is a panorama of the area we were at


Here is a shot of the "Rainbow Bridge" that connects the Odaiba landfill with the mainland. Don't ask me why our statue of liberty is there. I sort-of find it offensive in a way (ie. why does America have to be "everywhere" in the world?)


But never mind my craziness, instead let's discuss the bridge real quick. The Rainbow Bridge is pretty famous and many photographers come from far and wide to capture its nighttime elegance. I remember taking pictures of it in the dark 5(?) years ago, but to quickly check Google images, here come a few... enjoy:







So as you can see this is a pretty cool area of Tokyo Bay and as such it attracts many people.

[BigMike [OP]]

Here we are looking at a restaurant map deciding where to go for foooooood


Ha ha even my wife couldn't explain this one


Our lunch destination was inside of what I suppose would be a mall, for a lack of a better word, where the bottom floor is an おたく otaku's paradise (nerds), the middle floor is a shopper's paradise, and the top floor is a foodie's paradise.

Here is the entrance to nerd heaven on the bottom floor. It's even too nerdy for me


Random stores on the 2nd floor

[BigMike [OP]]

And ahhhhhhhhh the food of Japan Even if its commercialized I still can't get enough of it

More cool plastic food displays, great for a がいじん "gaijin" foreigner like myself



This is actually why we came here, an All-You-Can-Eat sushi place that I've eaten at before and really enjoyed it. Even though it is all you can eat, don't be too fooled thinking you've found the "typical fat American person's buffet line." The rice in sushi expands quickly in your stomach and at least for me I become full pretty fast with Sushi. But, because Sushi is just so dang expensive, even if I can't eat much, it still is a better deal than ordering them one-by-one.


The prices are listed as 3,980 yen (~$40 USD) for men, 3,280 yen (~$33 USD) for women, and 1,980 yen (~$20 for kids). To me $40 for unlimited sushi is a reasonable price (not a great deal but not too pricey either), I just wish I had a larger gas tank

Well, unfortunately, when we got here, we found out that they were closed, so we had to move on..

[BigMike [OP]]

We quickly found another menu and found a place to go on the same floor.

Before we left the menu, I noticed there was a Mexican eatery!! WOW first time I've ever seen this in Japan also -- but then again this is a touristy place so...


Here is our lunch!


I went with one of my favorites which also happens to be a pretty boring, staple Japanese meal called おやこどんぶり "oyakodonburi" which is "oya" + "ko" + "donburi" which means "mother" + "child" + "served over rice / in a rice bowl". It's a pretty messed up name right? The dish is scrambled eggs mixed with boiled (and sometimes grilled) chicken atop rice. Mother + child, Chicken meat + Eggs. But seriously, for me, this is pretty much my Japanese "comfort-food." It's probably one of the first dishes my then-girlfriend ever cooked for me and happens to be one of my favorite of all my wife's meals -- which to no surprise offends her since she claims its the most basic and boring Japanese dish she could possibly prepare for me

She had seafood てんぷら "tenpura" which just means "deep fried ....something". You can have lobster tenpura, mushroom tenpura, broccoli tenpura, etc.

The noodle dishes you see are known as ざるそば "zarusoba" which is "zaru" + "soba" meaning "served over bamboo" + "noodles". Since its served over bamboo, zarusoba is I believe always served cold (as they are not in any sort of warm soup broth as you'd find with うどん "udon"), and the noodles are 100% buckwheat. Very delicious and nutritious!

Side note: If you've ever heard of やきそば yakisoba, you can see it has the same "soba" as zarusoba, but it has "yaki" instead which means "grilled". This is why yakisoba is a noodle dish you'd prepare over an iron skillet. Maybe you've heard of やきとり yakitori, which is "yaki" + "tori" meaning "grilled" + "bird [chicken]". I'm sure you've heard of てりやき Teriyaki (grilled with a sweet soy sauce) or てっぱんやき Teppanyaki (grilled mixture of food)... Again, same "yaki" as found in "yakisoba" which has the same "soba" as "zarusoba". Most of the Japanese language have this sort of word conjugate structure using old Chinese characters that the Japanese have adopted in an alphabet they call Kanji. I'm not using any Kanji here because I hardly know two dozen Kanji myself (the typical Japanese person knows over 3,000 characters!!) and I'm just casually discussing words in case anyone is curious.

But still, its really neat how by knowing the root of each part of a word, even if you didn't know what something means, you could "guess" its meaning by reading into each word.

To show a Kanji example, which is how any Japanese person of grade school or higher education would read & write, the word for Airplane is written as "飛行機" which we'd write as "hikouki" where you have "飛 = hi" + "行 = kou" + "機 = ki" = "hi" "kou" "ki" = hikouki, where "hi" = to fly, "kou" = to travel, and "ki" = machine. Fly+Travel+Machine: Airplane! Pretty neat stuff!

[BigMike [OP]]

That's enough for now. Got a lot more to post! Stay tuned

[Wainiha]

 :ha_ha:Empty deck at the train track in Japan?  I think your pictures are fake.