Tim’s Ramblings

…so…tired…

Aaaanyway.

At work, as a joke, they made a Snuggie with our company logo embroidered on it. Awesome. Too bad it’s not openly available. I’m not really a corporate logo wearing kind of guy…but I’ll take a branded sunngie for sure!

My sister engrossed by the Kamakura guidebook I dropped off at her desk :)

:D

The one thing cool about Japan is they will take the best part of many different cultures and make it available to anyone. Like this baumkuchen cake from Germany. Popular in Europe. Barely heard of in the US. One of the most popular pastries in Japan. It…is…AWESOME!

Travel day on Saturday so not much photos. I spent most of it at the airport or on a plane with even a detour in Anchorage where we had to land due to a medical emergency on the plane. Got to Atlanta late, missed my connection, and got on another one and got home at 9pm and then couldn’t sleep. Good times…good times…

So…the organized chaos that is Narita Airport.

The same organized chaos many hours later at the Atlanta Airport.

A few days late but better late than never right?? Maybe?

Dinner with the parents at an Izakaya (a restaurant specializing in many types of drinks and drink friendly foods…not really a bar in the western sense but close). Some edamame appetizers to start.

A spicy Korean pancake with seafood filling whose name totally escapes my jet lagged mind at the moment…

The shoe lockers where you store your shoes whlle you eat since you’re not allowed to wear shoes inside the restaurant. Relatively common still in Japan.

:)

Thanksgiving Day here in Japan. Which means nothing so I went to work. Full day too. Very tired. Ended the day at a partner event and didn’t even get to eat any of the food afterwards at the networking event since…well…I was busy bowing, trading business cards, and…well…networking. So I stopped by a sushi place for dinner.

Tomorrow I work until about 3 or so and head to my parent’s place to spend the night before flying home on Saturday.

Anyway, took this photo while I was waiting for the woman behind the counter at the front desk of the hotel to credit me back one day since I’m checking out a day earlier than planned. They had this little X-mas display that was cute so I took a shot. Yup. Hard to believe it’s less than a month away… Yow…

Went to Ibaraki prefecture today for a business meeting with a potential customer and on the way back to the station in the taxi we got the drive to stop by the “Ushiku Daibutsu”. It’s one of the tallest statues in the world. At a ridiculous 394′ tall it weights 4003 tons and plated in bronze. Just…plain…HUGE. But we didn’t have time to go up in it or anything sooo this is all you get!

On the way back to the office I stopped by a local stand to buy some “tai yaki”. Basically fish shaped vaguely pancake type batter baked in a steel mold with either custard or azuki red beans inside (anko). It’s really really good. Chewy. Sweet. Yum.

And a rare…very very rare self portrait. This is what I look like taking a conference call from my hotel room at 8pm wishing I was home staring off at the Japan Rail train line towards Shinagawa. Yup. Oh, that’s my new camera and lens off to the side :) :)

Oh, and my apologies if the people I was on the phone with happens to see this photo. But please believe me when I say that I was listening and followed everything you were saying. I swear! It was just a quick snap shot!

:)

I was wondering just what to do today for my photo(s) since all I did today was work…

But as I was walking to the bakery by the station I realized I never really posted much about the bakeries here so once again, it’s more foods. Eeeeyup… Sorry. But you all got Kamakura tourist photos so it’s back to the grind again.

Love Japanese bakeries. So many different types of breads. Unlike the US where bakeries may focus on hand made old world breads, here they go for different single serve snack-type breads. Not cheap…some are close to $2. But real good. Like these honey croissant rolls where they took croissant dough and layered honey into it before baking. Mmmmmmmm…

Some strange combination too like these asparagus rolls.

The flat ones are edamame and cheese while the ones in the foreground has fried croquettes.

A closeup of one of the rolls I bought for dinner. It’s bacon (well…more like Canadian Bacon) and sasame seeds (both white and black) with some herbs. It’s awesome.

And a closeup of the honey croissant roll. I need someone to make me this back in the US. Seriously.

There aren’t many graffiti in this part of town but there’s this little sticker on a cross beam by the downward escalators at Tamachi station that’s been there a while. I can’t tell if it’s a name, Japanese characters, or just funky designs.

See? Not ALL food! :)

Today was a national holiday in Japan (our version of Labor Day) so I went back to my parent’s place to see them, give them stuff I brought with me, and do laundry.

There’s 10 photos in this one so make sure to click on the link to see shots from a local shrine and dinner too!

While at my parent’s I had lunch and dinner. So unlike the usual, here is some home cooking as opposed to ones from a restaurant. :) Starting off, rice with other whole grains mixed in. Tasty and adds a bit of texture too.

Fish was “sanma” or saury, sometimes called a mackerel pike. It was originally known as a cheap and oily fish but it’s actually quite tasty. Mom cleaned it and grilled it. Yum.

And a quick preview of what’s behind the link. A small local shrine that mom and I stopped by on the way back to their place after shopping called Negami Jinja.

It was a gorgeous fall day. :)

Click to see the rest!

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Went to the shrine in Tokyo as well as the New National Art Museum to see the exhibit, The Treasures of the Habsburg Monarchy. But with this being a 3 day weekend and the weather crappy so everyone wanted to be indoors, the place was PACKED. I’m talking people 3 or 4 deep to see one painting. Crazy. I’ve been to the Met in NYC on Memorial Day weekend and it was nothing like this.

The crowd was varied too. You see the typical art museum crowd but you also saw dates, kids, and even HS and college age girls giggling at naked models but still going through and looking at each and every painting. They all paid over US$15 too. Somehow I don’t think you’ll see too many HS girls going to an art exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art…especially when it’s more expensive than a movie.

Either way, it was a great exhibit. Many of the pieces have never left Europe and it was a rare treat to see so many paintings that I’ve only ever seen in books and prints. I held my anxiety due to my general dislikes of crowds in check and tried to focus on the pieces. At least I got my money’s worth for sure if not more! Alas though, no photos were allowed so the 3 photos for today comes from the Meiji Jingu shrine in Tokyo where I went to return some charms and buy some new ones for various people.

Today they had a whole bunch of local produce many in the form of treasure ships to be blessed by the shrine and to bring about good harvest. Some are incredibly elaborate!

There were more kids here like in Kamakura yesterday in full kimono dress. And finally figured out what this was for. It was for “Shichigosan” which literally means “7, 5, 3″ where kids aged 7, 5, and 3 come to the shrine to be blessed to get rid of anything bad and for a long and healthy life.

They were also doing a chrysanthimum festival. More photos coming soon in a separate post. Needless to say the ones on display here were some of the best specimens from the area.

:)

Final post. Foods this time :)

Unfortunately I didn’t get as many pictures of these as I originally wanted to. Oh well. It’s not a major attraction like some other places anyway. About 8 photos in this set.

Tiny little shrimp. Goes great with rice. Yummy!

Manju dumplings. Steamed to perfection!

Dango. Basically mochi. This one is mixed with herbs and grilled. Yuuuummy.

Click to see the rest!

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