My first post from this side of the Pacific

After much nagging from Alaina and Karen, I've finally gotten my act together and decided to post an entry to the blog. I hope those that are following are enjoying the photos and commentaries from our trip.

First, my take on Tokyo, then a little on Taipei, and finally I'll talk about where we're headed next.

Tokyo was great! I loved all of the sushi (well shashimi, it was actually very hard to find a traditional sushi roll...). I also loved going to the hot springs in the middle of the city. That was a great way to spend our first day in Japan (it was rainy and we were all sore and tired from the long journey). One of my goals with Tokyo was to get a pair of Japan made jeans. Some of the best denim in the world is made in Japan. If your a jeans connoisseur like I am then this was the place to add to the collection. I ended up deciding on getting a pair of Pure Blue Japan jeans, they fit great, although they need to be washed. They are "raw" denim so they are a little stiffer than I would like...

Aside from my denim adventure in Tokyo my other top experience was going to Odiaba Island. I was able to get a fantastic cheese-burger and also go to the Toyota showroom.

After our four days in Tokyo it was off to Taipei on EVA Airlines...flying from NRT-TPE made me wonder why Delta (or any other US domestic carrier) doesn't step up its game. This 3 hr flight had personal TVs at each seat, a full meal (with free wine and beer!), and friendly flight attendants. Flying in the US is pathetic compared to this experience...

Taipei is an interesting city, it is much more representative of Asia that Tokyo. Its a little dirtier, the people are a little more genuine, and well there is a lot more to buy off of the street! Taipei 101 provided excellent views of the city, and was just an overall cool experience. Being the 2nd highest building in the world, made it a must do on our Taipei list. Another highlight of our
Taipei experience are the night markets. This city comes alive late at night! At any one of the nightly, night markets one can find a variety of food, cheap goods, and just a great atmosphere that is uniquely Taiwanese. I can't exactly tell you what I ate, but I can say that it was excellent and thus far I my stomach is fine...

Tomorrow/ later today we may be either visiting a tea plantation or relaxing in the hot springs close to the city center.

Monday we're off to Malaysia!

Taiwan - taipei 101, paper museum, night market

First day in Taipei! Our hostel is close to Taipei 101, 2nd highest building in the world, so we went there first...well first to a 'NY Bagel Cafe' for breakfast, then the tower. It's very pretty:
My shots from the observation deck at the top didn't come out so great because of fog or smog or something, but inside you could look at the tuned mass damper - cool! It's not open to the public in most buildings.


After that we walked over to a memorial building built for Sun Yat-sen, the 'father of the Republic of China'


There are scooters everywhere in Taipei. There must be millions of them. I shot this on the way to the paper museum, which I don't have pics of, but we learned about paper-making and got to make our own! Then we ate the most amazing steamed buns filled with leeks and onion from a lady on the street (about 50 cents for a bun the size of your fist) and I also got a container of extremely ripe papaya (below) mmmmm.







At this point we were going to visit the science museum but it was closing (thanks a lot Lonely Planet). We were right next to the night market so we decided to just walk over a little early. Found all the vendors setting up, and a little temple.


First food of the evening - candied strawberries (and grape tomato)

This is the part of the market that is actually a covered entity - Shilin Market. The streets next to this building were also crammed with stores, food carts, and vendors of clothing & various crap that rolled their carts and displays out onto the sidewalks.
When we got there things were just getting started...

What we saw the most of: fruit juice/fruit stalls, things on skewers, lots of soup and noodle dishes, fried things, sausages, etc etc. Anyone know what this bumpy fruit is?


Things I tried: chicken on a stick, some bites of Evan's sausage, steamed dumplings, milk tea with boba, and (below) half a chicken that was pounded flat, fried, and covered in seasoning. Really really good. Oh and later a big cup of cut mango (for digestion!). Overall the selection of food wasn't that shocking. Delicious, yes.



-K

Leaving Tokyo

We are now at the Tokyo airport waiting to board our flight to Taipei. Yesterday afternoon Evan and I went to Odaiba Island which is an artificial island that was created for defensive purposes which now has fancy hotels, shopping malls, museums, an amusement park, and and a Toyota exposition center. It took us about an hour to get there from where we were with Karen in Ueno. We were feeling a little sick of Japanese food so we ended up getting lunch at Kua'Aina, a hawaiian burger chain. We then tried to go to the Museum of Science and Innovation but it was already closed so we ended up going to the Toyota Megaweb. They had all the different Toyota models on display, most of which are very different from the models available in the US. We also signed up to test drive cars but they wouldn't let us because we didn't have international driver's licenses. Instead we went around a track in an automatic car that drives itself by following sensors on the track. We also looked around and saw some concept cars. It was getting late so we decided to head back to the hotel to meet up with Karen. After getting some rest, we went out for some sushi for dinner. We were standing outside in the rain trying to figure out where to go for some post dinner entertainment. I asked a random guys walking down the street for directions to a bar that was in one of our guidebooks but he had not heard of it. It looked like he had just finished a long day of work but he ended up taking us over to a club that he had been to before and ended up hanging out with us. It was ladies night so Karen and I got in for only 1000 yen which included unlimited drinks. We got back pretty late (or pretty early in the morning depending on how you put it). This morning was a slight struggle to pull ourselves out of bed and get packed and checked out of the hotel but we somehow managed to do it. We got lunch at a Korean restaurant across the street from our hotel and then got on the bus to the airport.

Overall I've really enjoyed being in Tokyo. Everyone that we've met has been extremely nice. Not everyone speaks English but luckily most restaurants have photos of each dish on the menu so we could usually just point at what we wanted if they didn't have a menu in English. Below are some more photos of things we've done since we got here. We're going to get in to Taipei late tonight so look for a post tomorrow about our first day in Taipei.


Panda bear car that we rode on in the indoor amusement park

toyota harrier- basically the Lexus RX 450 with fewer features inside. why don't we have this in the US?

concept car at the toyota expo center


cute school children in the park in ueno

mask on display at the Tokyo National musem


vitamin water vending machine in the subway


rock band like video game with traditional drums

karen is sad that she couldn't get a prize on the claw game




arcade full of claw games

picture in front of the bridge at the imperial palace grounds

entrance gate to imperial palace

entrance of the day spa we went to

lunch at the korean restaurant on our first day



trying out the tea in our hotel room

getting ready to go on the tokyo metro for the first time

Ueno

We took the metro to Ueno this morning to find Evan some jeans and to visit the national museum. For breakfast/brunch we found a big department store with a food hall in the basement. It was an extremely impressive place - comparable to the Harrods or Le Bon Marche food halls - with anything you could possibly want: pastry, sushi, soba, tempura, yakitori, tonkatsu, all kinds of dumplings including siu mai and gyoza, and a market full of ingredients including any seafood product you could think of. I refrained from taking pictures but I couldn't resist one of the most gigantic pile of seaweed known to man.




Evan and Alaina had some gyoza and sushi rolls.
I went up to a yakitori stall and somehow got across to the lady that I wanted her to pick some out for me. They are all different cuts of chicken, but they weren't labeled. The large balls were a bit intimidating... I translated the word later to 'meatball.' They had a pate-like taste, so definitely some type of internal organ in there. It was all good though, particularly with the sweet sauce poured over. I also bought an onigiri with some type of roe in it...pretty good too. (Onigiri is just a triangle of rice stuffed with something and wrapped in seaweed)


Evan took off by himself to find some jeans at some stores he knew about nearby, so Alaina and I walked through the park on the way to the National Museum


We stumbled upon a display of bonsai trees - so pretty.


(Charlie Brown bonsai)



Then came the museum. I didn't take pictures inside. It was nice, if a bit small. They had all sorts of things, like pottery, tapestries, paintings, sculpture, clothing. The most impressive were the laquerware objects inlaid with mother of pearl. You've all seen examples of this before - it's very typically associated with Japan (and was once referred to as 'Japan'), just as porcelain is associated with China.

After that I split up with the others. They went to the island of Odaiba, and I went off to look around Ueno by myself and make a stop in Ginza on my way back to the hotel. In Ueno there is an area that is like a permanent street fair with tons of little stalls with clothing, food, souvenirs, housewares, etc. It was packed with people - mostly locals including kids in their school uniforms. In Ginza I stopped into a few huge toy stores to see if I could find any super-unusual and cool toys or little gifts. The stores were fun, but there wasn't much I haven't seen at home in Japanese specialty shops. Of course I stopped to hug the massive Totoros.

-K

p.s. comment! no, really.

Harajuku, Shibuya, Akibahara

..continued

So after the imperial gardens this morning, we took the metro over to Harajuku to see the Meiji Shrine, a famous Shinto shrine. It has beautiful wooden gates leading up to it, the largest of their kind...



Before going into the shrine you should perform a ritual hand washing

Outside, many people leave prayers on wooden tokens

the entrance gate
the shrine (no pics allowed inside)
Beautiful!


We were already in harajuku, which is famous for trendy young fashion, so we decided to start shopping. I thought these shirts were great
...particularly this one
This is the entrance to Takeshita street, with lots of cheap clothes and accessories stalls, and crepe stands. Almost bought one of those giant hair bows, but didn't. Picked up a tshirt nearby.

um, wha?
We then walked to Shibuya and shopped a bit more, and saw Shibuya intersection (from Lost in Translation, if you've seen it) and the bustling Shibuya station.

I insisted we take a trip up to Akihabara (Electric Town) before dinner, which is the home of electronic and otako (geek) culture. An interesting novelty of this area is the 'maid cafe' - a cafe where you are served by girls in maid outfits. They try to recruit you on the street.
An arcade just like Lost in Translation :0D

For dinner we stopped into a sushi bar. I had some delicious tuna, salmon, and yellowtail sushi and miso soup. I could not believe when my bill came and was only $8. Whattttttt? I would eat this every day.

-K