Shibuya and Tsukiji Fish Market

Brad and I have been to Shibuya before, but haven't spent too much time there before this past trip. Shibuya is such an interesting place since it is so different than any other place that I've been to. It really is the busiest, brightest, noisiest and most diverse place I've ever been. It is impossible to get bored. One of my favorite things to do is to sit in the 2nd floor window of Starbucks across from the busiest intersection in the world with my coffee (or my new favorite drink: Lavender Earl Grey tea latte--delicious!) and watch people. Every time we've visited the Starbucks we've noticed a group of 2-3 guys who hang out on the corner and look for attractive girls. You can just see them spot a girl from a ways away and make a bee line for them. Its really funny to see how the girls react. Brad and I like to try and spot who they're going to try to talk to next and also see how long and how far the guys will walk with the girls before giving up and coming back to their meeting point. It really is terrible and Brad and I are still trying to decide if this is something they do for fun or if it for their work, but either way its entertaining to watch.

Shibuya when it rains. You really have to watch the umbrellas!

Brad and I have also had fun going to different arcade and claw game places. They are all over Shibuya! Chris showed us some of his favorites and we ended up winning some Kit Kat's (I still need to try the melon flavored one!), some Chupa Chups suckers (about $1 for 10 of them!), Chris won some potato chips, and a Rilakumma pancake griddle. On a side note: some of the flavors of the suckers are quite unconventional including milk, and banana milk flavored. We also tried cappuccino and custard flavored. I still think fruit flavored is the best though.

Chris with a huge bag of potato chips that he won out of a claw game. Jagaimo! (that means potato in Japanese)

After visiting the claw game place we went to a bar where everything was 315 yen (about $3.15) and then headed off for an awesome session of karaoke. We were going to try and stay up the entire night before heading off to the fish market at 5 in the morning but we were surprised to see everything shut down right after midnight. (The trains stop running right before midnight so most of the crowd leaves right around then-thus most places shut down.) We were able to stay at Chris' friend's place for the night and made the mistake falling asleep for an hour after and quick trip to a 24 hour McDonald's.

You can tell we had fun at karaoke that night. We're probably singing a Disney song. :)

Look what we found at McDonalds! We asked to take a picture with him and his immediate response was "500 yen", we talked him down to 300 yen though. haha :)

Brad and I still ended up waking up at 4:30 after about an hour of sleep to make it to the fish market. It was a really fun experience however no sleep+ drinking+ fish smell+ cigarette smoke= puking in the gutter for me :). At least Brad can laugh at me now after I laughed at him for vomiting on a boat in Mexico! I think the next time we go to the market we will need to sleep at someone's house close by (to make it to the auction in time) or stay up all night and NOT fall asleep after going out the night before.

The market was so cramped and crowded and there was fish everywhere! It was so funny to see the workers rushing around and then the group of tourists getting in their way while snapping their pictures. Its not everyday we landlocked people get to see a few hundred pound tuna's head cut off by a band saw!

Imagine this separated by tiny aisle's multiplied a couple of times the size of the biggest Walmart/Super Target etc. that you've ever been to. Its huge!

Octopus!

Tuna getting cut up with a band saw. Sorry its kind of blurry...

Job Update

We still don't know anything for sure but it looks like Brad will be teaching in Fukaya and I will be teaching in Higashimatsuyama starting in April. We are, however, flying back to the US tomorrow for a short trip to see family and friends, grab some clothes, and take care of a few last minute things before coming back to Japan at the end of March. We will update you all once we know more details!

Showa Kinen Park

a.k.a. the best park I've ever been to.

This park is about a 15 minute train ride from Chris' apartment in Tachikawa. Since our JR passes ran out :( we have been trying to do things closer to home. The park has frisbee golf, bike rental (including tandems and unicycles), mini-golf, soccer courts, croquet, lawn bowling (bocce ball), horseshoe etc. They also have a giant children's park with a huge trampoline area (think giant blown up castle's the size of a football field), a huge area of nets for kids to climb and jump on, classes including bonsai care, woodworking, grass seedling class etc. There is also a Japanese garden, a tea ceremony place and a museum. Anyway, you get the idea. Its huge!

Brad and I rented a tandem bike to explore the park and are still finding fun things to do!

Brad beat me at frisbee golf

Pretty stream that intersected one of the frisbee golf holes

Gaudi inspired architecture...no we are not in Barcelona

Pretty water feature

The cherry trees are starting to bloom!

Me at the Japanese style garden with the cherry trees

Brad reenacting one of his favorite video games: Shadow of the Colossus 

These are 2 of the 4 very cool mosaic dragons at the park.

No idea what this is supposed to be but it looks cool!

A huge Mayan-esque temple you could climb up

A huge area for jumping thats open in the summer.

We can't wait to go back in the summer to take advantage of the waterpark and some of the things that weren't open when we visited!

Niigata Skiing

Chris' student Yuuta took Brad and I, Chris and his girlfriend Yoko, Orchid, Chris' American coworker and Noriyuki, another student skiing last weekend. We had to get up super early and drove 2-3 hours to get to Niigata from Akishima. It was raining the whole way and then we went through the longest road tunnel in Japan called Kanetsu tunnel which is about 6 miles long. Before we went into the tunnel it was rainy and green, on the other side there was 10 feet of snow on either side of us and it was snowing. Also, instead of watch out for deer crossing signs, there were watch out for monkey crossing signs. Crazy! We didn't see any monkeys though.  Brad and I didn't bring any ski clothes with us so we made due with what we had and were able to rent some ski pants along with our ski's at the mountain. 

This was the morning after the big earthquake in Chile when Japan was on tsunami alert. We didn't experience any ramifications from the earthquake besides there being A LOT of traffic on the way home (it took us about 5 hours to get home). Yuuta said that was the worst traffic he ever experienced. We looked online and Japan only had about a 4 inch tsunami from the earthquake but they did evacuate some coastal areas. And just in case anybody is worried, we are not near the ocean at all so hopefully nothing like that will effect us. 

To end the day we went to a great hot springs place before our long ride home. Brad and I thought we weren't going to ski this year since we are in Japan, but we are very glad we got to go!

The main lodge. First we had to take a ski lift from the rental place to this lodge, then you had to go down the bunny slopes before taking the ski lifts up the mountain to better skiing. 

A view from the ski lodge to the main mountain. 

Towards the top of the mountain. White out!

haha! Not the best picture, but we had fun!

There was a running waterfall/creek next to the ski lift! The snow was so wet, you could go really fast but it was hard to turn.

I feel like I'm in Colorado again!