(Her)●Ramen (noodle) museum. You can experience different bowls of ramen from famous restaurants in a showa period environment. You can get in the museum for only 300 yen (like $3.80) and enjoy various bowls at your own expense. They offer mini ramen bowls for those who want to get a taste of many bowls only for 500 - 600 yen. Yum! We ended up getting quite full with one mini bowl but forced a second mini bowl - because you just can't resist it! Those with an appetite (the boys in our group) could have probably had another mini bowl though. Yum! You can also get a yearly pass so you can enjoy the museum for lunch if you work nearby. Nice idea!
The typical soups that Japanese ramen stores usually offer are tonkotsu (pig bone) soup, shoyu (soy sauce) soup, shio (salt) soup, and miso soup! Different regions in Japan have different specialities when it comes to ramen. For example, Hokkaido is known for their miso ramen. It will be fun to go around various cities in Japan to taste the differences! By the way, my favorite soup is miso. I love thick and fatty soups! Popular ramen shops usually have queues lasting for hours every lunch or dinner. I've personally never lined up to eat ramen because I hate queues but I bet it's worth it! I wonder where the best place to eat ramen is in Yokohama... Will investigate and update you all later!
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(Him)●I have noticed how much Japanese food and entertainment places use the term "all you can...." eat, drink or anything for their businesses. Whether it is at a restaurant, karaoke, izakaya or any place you could think of. It is especially great when you are going out with a group of friends as you don't have to worry about piling up the tab! At least for the amount of time you purchased the all you can eat or drink plan.
All you can drink or eat = a good time out! Why do you think they don't have these types of all you can drink plans in the US? I would say people go ballistic and aggressive when they drink in the US so they would end up fighting or destroying the place. Japanese people in general are very peaceful and happy when they drink, I am sure there are exceptions, but for the most part this is the case. Or maybe it is a lot easier and cheaper to get a business liquor license in Japan. Make sure you subscribe to our RSS Feed on the right column. Stay tuned! (Him)●Today we went to Sea Paradise. I have only been to a few aquariums before, but this one was way better than the others. More than just an aquarium, a big one at that, Sea Paradise also sports a few interesting rides which unfortunately we did not go on but I had the chance to capture one on film, below see Blue Fall. Just watching it gave me a feeling of vertigo :/ The ride seems to keep accelerating to the last moment then it breaks. The ride is advertised as the tallest free fall tower in Japan, that claim might not still be true as the place has a few years under it's belt. Talking about deadly rides. I read about a new ride in Fuji-Q, an amusement park near Mt.Fuji. We haven't gone there yet...Check out this video from the ride...it goes more than 90 degrees straight down, in my terms, it goes negative. Once I figure things out with Flickr I will upload some images in our new Images page from our trip to Sea Paradise.
Watching "NEWS ZERO" - a news show on NTV( http://www.ntv.co.jp/zero/ ). News channels still show the effects of the tsunami which hit back in March. Parents in the severely affected areas of Japan worry about their children as they seem to have been traumatized by the tsunami. Children play "Tsunami" with their small cars as they vividly remember the time when the tsunami devastated their entire town. Most children also have lost the opportunity to go to school as their school was destroyed. Many of those who stayed in the severely affected areas have lost their closest friends as most families chose to move to different prefectures in Japan. Preschools seem to be working hard to get those children back together as going to school seems help give children hope. According to NEWS ZERO, even parents in Tokyo are still worried about the radioactivity in the air, in the soil, and in the water. One of the parents being interviewed said that when she calls the radiation information center all they say is that there is no need to worry. Who knows if that is 100% true? They set up a group for parents in Tokyo who have the same concerns and decided to act upon the radioactivity that still remain in the city. They have been trying to get rid of the radiation by washing it away with water (for radiation that remains on the concrete). They have also tried to replace the surface soil (which contains high radiation) with the soil that lies underneath to prevent children from getting affected. Overall, they have seen great improvement with the levels of radioactivity - in Fukushima prefecture they saw the radioactivity levels decreased by 75%. They really are trying hard to get back the comfortable lifestyle they had. On a happier note, Japan has very reasonably priced and great quality makeup everywhere! I usually go to a pharmacy or Don Quijote which is a discount chain store. From the left, lip gloss/stick, eye shadow, eye liner, mirror, and top coat for nails - All of this for only 6,500 yen! ($80 with today's rate) First off - the liquid eyeliner. The line comes out black as charcoal. I usually use Clinique's cream eye liner since it never comes off (even when I was snorkeling and swimming in Okinawa), but this eye liner made me change my mind. To be honest, I get lazy sometimes with the brush that comes with the cream eye liner. I forget to wipe it as I am in a hurry, it hardens up and it gets harder to use. This eyeliner comes out black-BLACK the moment it touches my skin, and it just does not come off! You may think then it must be hard to remove? No! hot water that is hotter than 40 celsius will remove this eye liner easily. You don't even need eye make up remover...and it only costs 1,500 yen ($19 at rate now). Lastly, the top coat for nails. Gel nails are very popular here in Japan right now (I think they call it Shellac in the US?). The shiny plumpness is just adorable to have on your nails (The photo shows an example of gel nail here in Japan). It makes your nail art look brand new for weeks on, and most of all, it doesn't wear off like normal manicure! Getting your nails done could become pricy here in Japan. I remember paying more than $150 once just for gel nails + design once. So what if I feel like getting simple gel nails myself at home? For only 900 yen ($11 at today's rate), you can get a gel nail top coat which really turns your nails beautiful! All you have to do is colour your nails yourself, and use this as a top coat. It dries very fast! In a few seconds after applying the top coat, you will be able to touch your nail and feel the plump gel. I always fail doing my nails at home since I start touching things while my nails are not completely dry. This top coat has changed my life! I took a shower few minutes after application and my nails came out completely fine :) (check out the pic for the result) By the way, did you know Groupon doesn't have a good reputation here in Japan anymore? (Him)●I had never envisioned TV being so entertaining and informative, especially during commercials. I don't think it's worth paying for the trash that airs in the US so like many of our close friends, we don't have cable TV back in Boston. Here in Japan, I would pay just to see the commercials! Even though I do not understand what they are saying in the commercials, at any given time I would say that the majority of the commercials here are at par or even better than any Super Bowl commercial. Here are some of the things I have had to put up with... :D The first video is a commercial from a company called Kewpie which sells food products. The creepy baby is their logo. The second video is from SoftBank a cellphone carrier company equivalent to Verizon or ATT in the US. In the commercial they are promoting a family plan, they have multiple episodes in the series of commercials. The dog is the father of the family but somehow he got turned into a dog in an earlier episode. In this episode he mixes up families because the lights were off due to the energy conservation in Japan. They are both HILARIOUS! ●When he and I first landed here in Japan at Narita airport, the first thing we realized was the great effort in conserving energy. At terminal one of Narita airport they closed off one of the two exit gates resulting in half of the arriving section of the airport to be dark and closed off. It seemed odd looking at those efforts for me since I had never in my life seen Narita airport dark as I saw.
My mother was warning me how hot Japan is - even in stores and malls due to the energy conservation efforts (they are trying to set the AC temperature to 27 Celsius or 28 celsius when normally they set it to 23 celsius to 24 Celsius or even colder!). I was afraid that he was going to have go experience a hot summer wherever he went in Japan, but the stores and malls are not deadly hot, it is still nice and cool, thank god. large malls are just setting the temperature higher in large public areas in the mall. In addition, Yokohama and Tokyo are every cool right now due to the typhoon that is passing by :) Other than that, whenever we go to stations, malls, parks, etc, we see that every other light in large hall ways are turned off, big signs that usually are lit very brightly are off, which results in everything in Yokohama and Tokyo to be slightly darker. I personally like it this way, I always thought that the busy areas if Tokyo (e.g. Ginza, Shibuya) and Yokohama (Yokohama station area) are always just too BRIGHT!!!! So what are the negatives of these energy conservation efforts? People are given warnings that they really have to be careful of heat strokes since the number of deaths resulting from heat strokes is going up, and crime seems to be going up (specifically mugging) around residential areas which are now darker than usual in the night. What are the benefits of these efforts? First off, obviously the fact that we are able to avoid blackouts due to the lack of energy from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Other than that, I think there are many business opportunities that open up. I see many products being sold which focus on cooling people down. For example, large pads which contain cooling gel inside which you lay on and help you keep cool throughout the night (it also comes with a pillow version), neck towels which are made out of special material that soaks water and in turn makes it ice cold. People wrap these around their necks. We have also seen clothing which keeps you cool and dry (specifically from UNIQLO). On TV, they constantly show us how we can conserve energy and other tricks on how to stay cool with a higher AC temperature setting.(Japanese TV is extremely informative on EVERY channel, we will expand more on this later) Ive never seen people in Japan so conscious about conserving and I feel like people and large businesses are starting to realize how important energy is for us. Large businesses are also promoting the fact that they are conserving as much energy as they can through TV commercials and the Internet. I guess it is a great chance for them to improve their image!:) So how would you conserve energy? Few days ago it was announced that 6 cows which were radioactive were sent out to restaurants and supermarkets (4 times more than average). Now they think that it was 400+ cows. The reason why these cows were more radioactive than usual is because the farmers fed them grass that had been contaminated with radiation. Workers from Fukushima who work to supply the meat are saying on TV that they are trying their best to check for meat with high radiation, but of course this is hard since they need the equipment which is very expensive. BBQ restaurant owners were crying as they felt guilty for supplying meat to their customers which was contaminated (they were also angry because they did not know that it was radioactive meat until now).
We will be careful when eating domestic meat now, though in Japan it is typical to avoid American meat (due to the mad cow disease) and domestic beef is considered to be delicious and high quality. As I hear news about radiation, I began to worry about the radiation in the air. The amount of radiation in the air seems to be stabalizing (not Fukushima area but the other areas). I checked this website : http://atmc.jp/. It seems like the average in Kanagawa prefecture is usually between 0.035μSv/h to 0.069μSv/h. In Tokyo, the numbers are similar. Now, you can see the radiation levels around the world if we go here. When the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was having trouble back in March, Tokyo/Kanagawa recorded radiation levels that were as high as New York's normal radiation level (like 1.0 to 2.0) and people were panicking. Should I be worried about natural US radiation levels in the air? ●Shortly after investing in the Sony Alpha DSLR system by purchasing the Sony A55 camera, I decided I wanted more, something was certainly missing. Based on the heavy bias of Kai in DigitalrevTV about expensive equipment and the great images I have been seeing in various online sources, I felt the Sony camera was just not enough for me. After experiencing the solid built and what the more beefy and expensive cameras had to offer in the local Best Buy I had to upgrade to a better system. A few eBay transactions later, countless visits to my PayPal account and a visit to B&H Photo Video online store, I had gotten rid of my old system and decided to invest in a Canon EOS system with the purchase of a Canon 7D.
This purchase was not as easy as I just made it sound. Selling all of the accessories I had for my Sony system and upgrading to a different system was quite hard and time consuming. Looking back on the amount of research I made, I have seen not less than ALL of Marc Wallace's seventy something "Digital Photography 1 on 1," episodes on YouTube's AdoramaTV channel which I'm absolutely addicted to. As an amateur photographer I also found myself in the front line of the Nikon VS Canon wars which ultimately led me to understand that a photographer is not defined by his or her gear, but by his or her work and no matter what brand of gear I choose the gear is only a tool to aid me reach my goals which in most cases, both systems are excellent at. What gear you choose also depends on your style of photography, and what feels best for you. After watching "Nikon d300s vs Canon 7d," one of Kai's more serous product reviews on DigitalRevTV I was able to understand this rather obvious concept a bit better. Since I had no experience with either system I had to try them out in person. What hit home for me, was able to see and feel the cameras in person. When I did, Canon just felt much better in my hands. After that, off I went to the B&H Photo Video website, those guys are awesome, I highly recommend doing business with them. All of the equipment I will be taking to Japan is depicted below.
●With every passing day we get closer to our trip day (July 6, 2011), and with nightly injections of Miyazaki masterpieces such as My Neighbor Totoro or Howl’s Moving Castle our bottled excitement becomes overwhelming, but how to liberate this excitement? Lately I have been selling a lot of my higher priced possessions such as my Yamaha Keyboard, or M-Audio 25 Key MIDI controller on eBay to save up for the trip and also to feed my beginner DSLR kit. Another way of venting this excitement is to improve our website. You might have noticed our enhanced pages and improved design, our new Q & A page, Resources page, our guava colored links, and ginormous navigation links. Our Q & A, will be a helpful and hopefully comic way to display some of the differences from Japanese culture and a way for our readers (you) to ask questions about Japan and us.
We have also added something that distinguishes when she and I write. A blue dot ● will represent when I write something and a pink dot ● when she writes. We are hoping to provide different thoughts and experiences from a gaijin and from a Japanese native. On a separate note, thanks Weebly for providing users like us a chance to sharpen up our HTML/CSS skills in a n00b and controlled environment; that is for me at least, she is a seasoned Computer Science major. Has anybody tried out Wordpress? Any suggestions on our website design or pages that you would find useful? ●Ohayo Gozaimasu! For people who do not know, in Japanese offices, people say “Ohayo Gozaimasu” (Good Morning) no matter what time of the day it is, yes even in the night. I remember the first time I worked at McDonalds in Japan I got in trouble for saying “Konbanwa” (Good evening), since it may not be evening for those people who work night shifts. At the time, having worked at McDonalds as a high schooler was something most people would be proud of, I am not sure if that has changed. McDonalds is known to be a very strict employer in Japan - For example I had to dye my hair back to black before I started working, I got in trouble numerous times for being slow (we had to basically jog behind the cashier to show the customers we are being as fast as we can), for leaning against the cashier, wearing too much make up (that day I wore a little bit of blush and a little bit of mascara :( ). So future employers like to see McDonalds listed as your past employer. Anyway, while he is going crazy selling on eBay, I just keep on day-dreaming about where I want to take him, what I want to show him and what I forgot to show him during our last two week trip to Japan. I can day-dream any time, but what I am having trouble with is actually visiting Japanese travel websites and finding good travel packages. Especially for the two of us to visit Okinawa. So far, I have used H.I.S (his-j.com), JTB travel (jtb.co.jp), and Travel.jp (travel.co.jp/domtour). These sites are in Japanese and I’m pretty sure they don’t have English translations, but they offer great prices for travel packages which usually include everything and they offer diverse choices. We are still looking for a good package, so hopefully we can give you more information on Okinawa soon. As for our flight, last time we used All Nippon Airways (ANA, ana.co.jp). We both loved it. The food on the airplane was delicious and service was outstanding. This time, we are going to try out Japan Air Lines (JAL, jal.co.jp) - just because I have a lot of mileage accumulated and after one more flight I will have enough mileage to bump up a class. I personally have not had good experiences with JAL at the airport but during the flight they are an amazing airline with great service. I do have to give them credit as when snow storms hit Boston last winter, my flight from Boston to NYC was delayed a couple of hours, then the JAL crew waited for the all of us who were on the delayed flights and picked us up at our respective gate. What a relief! Other than that, their “Sakura Lounge” (only for classes above Economy) is amazing. All you can drink + all you can eat + wi-fi + shower, etc. Perfecto! What do you recommend for research on travel packages and tours within Japan? Also, would you add or take out anything from our Journey plan? Enjoy, and thanks for joining us! ●Hello search engine crawlers (Google, is that you?),
We recently noticed the first hits to our site but unfortunately they are not human, or the folks from japanbloglist.com, but web crawlers indexing the site or sniffing for something interesting. If you are human, we hope you had the chance to read the About Us section to get an idea of who we are and what this blog is about. To summarize, my girlfriend and I are currently college students and are traveling to Japan this summer for the second time together. We are going to document our adventures through this blog. She is a Japanese local and I am a gaijin (foreigner). We have done some research on where to visit (highly recommend japan-guide.com) and will display the course of our journey on our Journey page. During our stay in Japan, feel free to send us a text message by simply going to our Blog page and sending the text message form. We will get this message instantly as in Japan every cell phone or keitai, has a unique email address. Please send us any questions, your experiences, or even challenges during our journey and we will be more than happy to answer or take on any challenge, document it and post it on our blog. We will be equipped with a camera, a Japanese cell phone to receive your messages and nothing else. We will not only write about our experiences, but take pictures and possibly videos. ●よろしくお願いします! (Yoroshiku!) |