Japan photos slideshow

For the last week, whenever I haven't been sleeping or working, I've been going through the hundreds and hundreds of pictures from the trip. I've finally managed to whittle it down to about 100. If you can stand to sit through all of them, here they are:
http://www.scredco.com/japan/

Back in RI

We're home. Only one snag on the return trip - an unplanned overnight stay in Philadelphia last night because of a delay in one connecting flight that caused us to miss our final connecting flight to Providence. But, we're here now, and still trying to figure out what day it is and what time it is and how weird it is that we lived 2 Fridays and that today is Saturday and not Sunday, even though it is Sunday in Japan. This is a picture of a gift from Rui. He reproduced the Providence Journal illustration of the baseball world showing the distance from Boston to Japan, signed by Rui and his friends Junco and Sumumu.

In Narita Airport

We're in Narita airport, about to board our 12 hour flight to Toronto. Not sure if there'll be time for posting again in Toronto. It was such a great trip. Rui was the best!!!!

Karaoke!!

After dinner at a Yakatori restaurant (yes, we branched out once again. This time we sampled sake and shochu as well as food!) with Rui and 2 of his friends, we went to a Karoke parlor. It was like in "Lost in Translation", kinda. We had our own private room. It was fun! I'll say no more - this picture should say it all. They're singing, what else but "Sweet Caroline."

Asakusa

We checked out of our hotel in Akasaka and checked into a Japanese Ryokan in another part of the city called Asakusa. The hotel in Akasaka felt a little generic - like we could have been in any city. Asakusa feels much more like being in another country. There were loads of tourists on the streets, but locals go there too. There's a long shopping street (picture on right) with store after store, jam packed with local food and souvenirs. The street leads to Sensoji (Asakusa Kannon Temple. picture on left). We did a little shopping there. Its a great people -watching place too. We kinda wished we had been there all week.

Food update

You'll be happy to know we finally branched out of Indian food and went for lunch at a Soba noodle restaurant. It was delicious! I got veggie tempura with mine. Greg had his with chicken. Not too far of a stretch, but delicious!

Cherry Blossoms!

Yesterday we went to Chidori ga fuchi Park and saw the cherry blossoms! They're not quite in full bloom, but probably 70% and their pink speckles blanketing the park was really something to see!

We're getting ready to check out of the hotel today and we're checking into a ryokan for our stay tonight, our last night in Tokyo. Here's where we're staying http://shigetsu.com/

Today we're meeting Rui at 10 a.m. to go see the cherry blossoms at Yasukuni shrine. http://www.yasukuni.or.jp/english/index.html

We'll walk around Asakusa, and then go for dinner and drinks with Rui and his friends.

With such a busy day planned, and a night at a new place, I'm not sure how much more we'll be able to post. The posts will be fewer and less regular from now on. Providing we aren't suffering from sake hangovers in the morning, I'll try to post next then.

Red Sox vs Oakland

Well, you've probably heard by now that the Red Sox lost tonight. Bummer, but its all good. Oakland traveled all the way to Japan to play baseball;they should go home with a win too.

Hilights from Wednesday

Its very late after the game, so I won't post much tonight. We went Tokyo Tower today, to get a great overall bird's eye view of this HUGE city. It was a good day for it - clear and warm.













We also walked around in Akihabara (where all the electronic stores are.) and Ochanomizu, where Greg went guitar browsing at one of the many, many guitar shops. He didn't buy anything.
We tried to be adventurous with food today because we were with Rui, but it was after 2pm and many of the restaurants were closed. They close at 2pm and open again at 5pm. We ended up in a sort of American place, but it wasn't McDonald's and it wasn't fast food. Maybe we'll have better luck tomorrow.

A couple of things...

• So, as soon as I posted the blog last night, I was all set to watch the rest of the game. It was tied in the 10th and went to a commercial AND NEVER CAME BACK!!! This happened before when I was trying to watch the Oakland/Giants game the other day. So, I had to go to bed without knowing the final result of the game. Very frustrating, but I was so happy to hear that Manny Being Japan-Y (I'm still laughing at that one. Am I the only one?) saved the day!!
• I was told by my pals at projo.com that the link to Rui's Q&A has been changed. Incase any of you haven't seen it or would like to see it again, here it is (Thanks, Maria & Sheila): http://www.projo.com/redsox/flash/2008_season/japanquestions
• Also, Maria asked about the time on the blog. The posting times are in Japan time.
  
• Regarding the food situation in Japan, I originally said that "When you've been walking around all day and you're starving, you just don't feel too experimental." I'd like to change it to this: When you've been walking around all day and you're starving, AND YOU CAN'T READ JAPANESE you just don't feel too experimental. Forgot to mention that little detail.
• Weyermannsan asked for more info about the temples and shrines. I want to post more about that too. And I've got more pictures. I'll try to do that later.
• We're on our way to meet Rui for more Tokyo sightseeing. First, we're going to venture out to the area around our hotel to get a good, American breakfast at McDonald's. We've eaten there twice in 3 days and that's more than I've eaten at McDonald's in 2 years!
  

Kamakura Tour

First, I should say we look forward to reading the comments on our blog, so thank you for leaving them.

Sheila asked what was for breakfast. Well, today breakfast was whatever we could identify at the little grocery store down the street from our hotel: Choco Pie, Yogurt, and pineapple chunks. We were smart enough last night to think ahead and buy something to have for the morning since we were meeting up with the tour at 7:45 a.m. Greg is a big fan of choco pie! Yesterday, we slept so late we skipped breakfast and went straight for lunch at McDonald's. The day before that we had an expensive buffet Western-style breakfast at the hotel. From what I've heard about a traditional Japanese breakfast, I doubt we'll be trying that: raw egg over rice, fish, and I don't need to know what else!
Today was the Kamakura tour. Kamakura is about a 45 minute train ride south of Tokyo.
There were 2 stops on the tour.first stop was to the Hase-dera Buddhist temple in Hase (pronounced Ha-say). From there we walked to Kotokuin Temple (otherwise known as the Giant Buddha). After that, we had a traditional Japanese lunch, which included some kind of broth soup with lots of vegetables and some other unidentifiable things floating it, rice, and a few little bowls of various other unidentifiable, but tasty things. I asked for a vegetarian version, and I think that's what I got. Greg had what he thinks was chicken, but it was slathered in onions, so he didn't eat it. He later got ice cream. I hate to sound like such an idiot about the food here, but it really is something to see. When you've been walking around all day and you're starving, you just don't feel too experimental.

The next stop on the tour was to Kamakura, where we saw the Tsurugaoka Hachiman-gu Shinto Shrine and walked along the Wakamiya-oji Street, which was lined with cherry blossom trees that were a week or 2 away from blooming.

There was lots of walking today and we're exhausted. We tried to end the day at a nice, relaxing Onsen (hot spring bath) but the place was closed. We ate Indian food again for dinner because it was the only restaurant we could find where we understood the menu besides Wendy's.

So, now we're back at the hotel, pooped. I'm trying to write this and watch the game at the same time. Greg is studying the back of his eyelids. I was out cold 2 seconds after we got back to the room, but somehow I managed to wake up and see how Dice-K was doing during his return to the Tokyo Dome. I'll post a few more pictures and I've got to go watch the rest of the game. Its tied 4-4 in the 9th right now.

Tomorrow we're supposed to meet Rui at the Tokyo Tower. He's supposed to show us around and then we'll go to game 2 at the Tokyo Dome.

The pictures:
Fish, our tour guide, shows us the entrance to Hase-dera Temple.
The Buddha inside the Hase-dera Temple.
One cherry blossom tree at the temple was almost in full bloom.
Lunch.
The Giant Buddha really is giant!
Us with the Giant Buddha.







































Now the game is tied in the 10th inning. I know in Japan they play until 12 innings and they stop if its a tie. I dont' think that'll fly for an MLB game. Geez, I hope I can stay awake long enough to see what happens!

Odd Food & Other Scenes from Monday

We were originally planning to go to Nikko today. Its 2 hours north of Tokyo, in the mountains. Its a good place for viewing shrines. Apparently we had more sleep adjusting to do because we didn't even wake up until 10 a.m. And it was raining. So, we changed our plans to do indoor things. We went to the Kabuki-za theater. http://www.shochiku.co.jp/play/kabukiza/theater/ They allow you to buy a ticket to one act. It was standing room only, but it was neat to see. We have no idea what they were talking about, but the costumes were colorful and the music was interesting. They're dressed like women, but those are all men in those costumes, and they speak in high, sing-songy voices. I wish they allowed photos in the theater, but no such luck.While we were there in Ginza, we checked out the basement floor of Matsuya, one of the department stores Ginza is known for. The basement floor is where all the food vendors are. It wasn't a cafeteria or a restaurant or a grocery store, just row after row, aisle after aisle of food, food, food. Most of it was unfamiliar, but I did recognize bread, chocolate, fruits, vegetables, and teas.

The tour books and anyone who has traveled to Japan will tell you: make sure you write down the address of a place you're trying to go to because finding addresses can be very confusing. They're not kidding! I wanted to find a store that was recommended in a tour book. I had my head buried in a map while Greg looked around for a street name. I must have looked pretty desperate because I was approached by 4 young women all dressed up in colorful kimonos, with white socks and wooden sandals and flowers in their hair. They asked me where I was trying to go, and proceeded to walk us around Ginza, making phone calls and asking shop vendors to help us find the place. It was their graduation from university day and they were on their way to dinner when they found me. They must have had some time to kill because they must have spent a good half hour with us. Even they couldn't figure it out! Eventually, they did find, and escort us to the place. (Very typical of our experience with the Japanese people we've met. Very nice, very helpful, and very polite.) It was this cool, little one of a kind shop, called Hashi Ginza Natsuno, (http://e-ohashi.com/cgi-bin/onlineshop.cgi/index.html) specializing in chopsticks. I had to buy something since we had such an experience finding the place. I'm still getting this yen thing straight: I thought I was spending $7.50 on 3 pairs of chopsticks, but it was more like $75.00. Oops.
After that, we went to Shibuya, the busiest, craziest intersection I've ever seen. The light changes at Shibuya station, and suddenly the street is flooded with people. This picture doesn't even come close to what its really like.Here's a sampling of some of the odd food thing we saw in our travels today:
Plastic food at restaurants make it for non Japanese-speaking people to point to the plate they want to order:Here's a vending machine type of thing we used to order Indian food in Shibuya. You put your money in and press the button for the type of meal you want. It spits out tickets, which the waiter gives to the chef and next thing you know, you've got a meal!
Tomorrow we're going on a tour to Kamakura. Gotta be up early, so its good night for us, and have a good day to you!

Yoyogi Park Bands Video

Greg made a video of the bands in Yoyogi Park.

Time warp

I posted a picture of us with Bob Breidenbach last night, and I meant to add this link to projo.com so you can see his pictures (and game reports from Sean McAdam)
http://www.projo.com/redsox/?tn
Its about 11:30 on Monday morning here. I logged on this morning to look for Bob's slideshow of pictures from last night's game and they're not up yet, because its still yesterday at home. This time difference is hard to get used to - its still late Sunday night at home and the slideshow is probably just being assembled. There are some on the blog, though:
http://www.beloblog.com/ProJo_Blogs/SoxBlog/

Day 1

Its 12:30 a.m. here at the hotel in Tokyo after the game. We just saw Big Papi and Jonathan Papelbon in the lobby in our way back to our room! The Red Sox beat the Yomiuri Giants 9-2. J.D. Drew hit a grand slam, and Jed Lowrie had a homer, too. Its great that they won, but they could have lost and it would have been just as fun. Its so cool to be here in Tokyo watching baseball!
We were cheering for the Giants, too. They have good pitching. One pitcher, Utsumi, struck out 5 Red Sox players in a row. Rui bought us "megaphones", which are baseball-shaped, hollowed plastic with orange Giants logos all over them. You bang them together and make some noise!!! We were trying to bang them to the tunes of the Giant's cheering section's tunes. The cheering section was in right field. They were wearing orange and playing music and cheering loud for their team. They have a unique tune for each player.
Hideki Okajima made his return to the Tokyo Dome, where he played with the Giants before coming to the Red Sox. The fans went WILD! Cameras were flashing with every pitch. We met up with Bob Breidenbach, the Providence Journal photographer, and got our picture taken with him.



There were Japanese Red Sox fans and American Giants fans. I even met a Red Sox fan from Newport, of all places in the WORLD!
As far as ballpark food goes, there was a variety available, American and Japanese. Greg had a burger and some weird-looking french fries (more like potato balls), and I ate a salad that I bought at a grocery store outside of the park. They actually let you bring food in!
Greg thought the guys at home would appreciate the beer girls. Girls were literally walking around with kegs strapped on their backs.
Rui took us to a Noodle place for lunch. Between the noodles on the plane ride yesterday and the vat-o-noodles I had for lunch, I've had my fill.
Earlier in the day, we went to Yoyogi Park, where all the cool kids hang out. We saw 50's greaser-type guys with big hair just hanging out, looking like a cool blast from the past. And we saw a bunch of bands all set up around the park, playing their rock music through equipment powered by generators. It was a crazy scene. Very fun!

We're Finally in Tokyo!

Its 10 p.m. here, and 9:00 a.m. at home. We're at the hotel and our minds are mush. But I did manage to check the scores and I see that the Red Sox beat the Tigers and the A's beat the Giants today. It was a long, long day, but not bad. All flights were fine. We landed at Narita at 5:30 p.m. Tokyo time. It just took a while to get to the hotel - lots of traffic. But we're here, and it is time to sleep!!!!

FUNNY!

I probably shouldn't plug the Herald, but this headline cracks me up!

What Goes Down Must Come Up

That's true for planes and breakfast! I won't say who the bag belongs to, but most of you can probably guess! This plane is the one that got us from Philadelphia to Toronto.The bag happened during a turbulent landing in Philadelphia. We're sitting in the airport in Toronto waiting for the flight to Tokyo at 3:25 p.m.

Rui's Famous!

The Providence Journal posted a cool interactive Q&A I did with Rui.
http://www.projo.com/redsox/?tn
Click on the caption below our photo to get to the Q&A. I didn't see his credit on there, but Tom Murphy did a great job on that baseball/world graphic!

Game Plan

We are leaving Friday morning and we're due to arrive in Japan around 4 p.m. Saturday afternoon. It'll be 3 a.m. here.

The original deal with Rui was that he got tickets to both games against Oakland in Japan. He would go with his friends to whichever game Daisuke Matsuzaka was pitching and we would go with him to the other game. Now that Dice-K has been officially announced as the opening day starter, we now know that we are going to the Wednesday game (Jon Lester is starting). If I've got this straight, the game will be happening in Boston at 6 a.m. Wed., but in Tokyo it will already be 7 p.m. Wed. night.

We are also going to the Red Sox/Yomiuri Giants game on Sunday 3/23 (Easter). That game also will happen here at 6 a.m. while in Tokyo it will be 7 p.m. that same night.

Here's a link to the 3/16/08 Providence Journal story explaining all the details:
http://www.projo.com/redsox/content/sp_bb_soxjapan16_03-16-08_PO9D75K_v20.38e6041.html

9/15/07. Rui, Greg and me after the game.

The Red Sox beat the Yankees 10 - 1.
Check out the box score:
http://boston.redsox.mlb.com/news/wrap.jsp?ymd=20070915&content_id=2210435&vkey=wrapup2005&fext=.jsp&team=home&c_id=bos