Tokyuu in Tokyo

These last couple weeks I have done little more than clean, watch movies and go to work.　However, I did have 5 additional vacation days called tokyuu that would disappear unless I used them. So, this last weekend I traveled to Tokyo!

Cole, Port, Catera and I left early Friday morning after a quick breakfast of biscuits, sausage and not this...

Surely that can’t be right, but if it is then I think that’s a good price.

First, we went to the Apple store in the very expensive Ginza district. At its center, one square meter can cost up to 10 million yen...

I don’t really know how to preface this, so here is Cole climbing a wall...

We went to the Edo Museum, which was very enlightening. It was fairly dark (in order to preserve artifacts) so I did not take many pictures. That night we went to the Vampire Café for dinner. It was very creepy but very fun...

This is the very elegant red blood cell floor that led you to the seating area...

This was my Caesar salad. I was most impressed by the rose made out of tomatoes...

The next day we split up and my first stop was Sensoji temple...

This is taken from the temple (built in 645 and the oldest in Tokyo) looking towards the gate...

Part of Nakamise (a 250 meter stretch of shops between the gate and temple)...If you are even the least bit claustrophobic you might consider an alternate route to the temple...

We spent the rest of the day on the subway and shopping...

We caught a night train back to Mito and I must say it feels good to be home...

More Peanuts!

Last week we had summer training. We did not take many pictures because most of them would have themes like ‘sitting in a chair’, ‘standing up’ and ‘participating in group discussion’. However, on Friday we spent the day at the Mito City International Center.

We made our own lunch with lots of help…

and it turned out quite well…

The next day we picked up a TV from the Martins and also purchased all of the cables (in no less than 2 trips to different stores) to connect our laptop to the TV. Should have done it years ago.

Saturday night we were given free tickets to a Kashima Antlers game…

Marquinos! Marquinos! He is one of their best players and his name sounded like “more peanuts” when the fans chanted.

The Kajiyamas came over yesterday and brought us a watermelon and fixed the remote. I don’t know what we would do without them.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Sun Beach in Oarai with some friends. We saw a group of blindfolded teenagers hitting a watermelon like a piñata which apparently is a Japanese pastime called 酸いカー割り(suika-wari). Then the waves, some of which carried fish, washed away Staci’s sunglasses. We’d like to think they’re being put to good use…

Last night we went to America-Ya, which is supposed to be an American-style steakhouse. It was good food and a lot of fun…

There were 5 flags hanging up (Oklahoma, Illinois, USA, Iowa and California). Very random…

We have a car now and I just got permission today to drive to school! Staci also got her driver’s license! よくできました！