Happy Thanksgiving!

May your day be filled with lots of food, family, and fun...

In Japan, Thanksgiving is about to end but I am going to bed happily stuffed with my mom's ham (as well as turkey on the side).

In a year filled with blessings, I'm thankful that Andrew and I were able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents this year.

Wednesday Means Mongolian BBQ

I feel a little guilty with this post, since I know how much my Uncle Rich and cousin Andrew love Mongolian BBQ but there you have it. It was Wednesday night, which means Mongolian BBQ night on Zama.

Quick recap on Mongolian BBQ, it's the same concept that you see in the Fire and Ice chain of restaurants in Boston. You pick your own combinations and amounts of vegetables, proteins and sauces and it's cooked stir fry style and served with rice.

As you can see in the picture, there were tons of vegetables to choose from, including some of my favorites such as bean sprouts, green peppers and green beans:


For proteins, there was shrimp, chicken, beef, pork and turkey. I tend to stick with pork since I've come to realize that it's my favorite type of meat, especially in Asian-style cooking:


Continuing the trend of misspelling names, my name picked up an extra "u" from last year and Andrew's name somehow got interpreted as Angela. In case you're wondering, somehow my dad ended up with the most at the table (18 ounces) but in his defense, he did pile on a lot of vegetables. I'm always eager to see the ounces just as a competition amongst the family, but it's also important because you get charged by ounce to determine how much you pay ($.75 per ounce).



Andrew enjoying the free Chinese vegetable soup that comes with the meal:


And, Andrew getting his first taste of Mongolian BBQ:



I caught my dad mid-chew with his monster bowl, when cooked, doesn't seem like much after all:


My own meal - colorful and delicious! You can't go wrong with soy sauce, teriyaki sauce and sesame oil for flavors:

Meiji Jingu - Emperor's Shrine

I'm still feeling proud about this accomplishment. Andrew and I could see Meiji Shrine from the observation deck (thus fulfilling the "old" part of that post) so we decided to forgo the trains and walk directly to it.

It immediately reminded me of Central Park in NY - while it's not the only park in Tokyo, it went from being completely urban on the outside to being a quiet forest on the inside. It was originally built in 1920 in memory of Emperor Meiji (great grandfather of Japan's current emperor) and Empress Shoken. The original was destroyed during WWII but was rebuilt in 1958. Of course, the entry way was marked with a Torii gate:

We took our time walking down a long path lined with trees - according to our guidebook,

the evergreen forest consists of 120,000 trees of 365 different species that were donated from people all around the world:

Once we arrived at the inner sanctum of the shrine, we followed the typical cleansing ritual before entering:

This is the main gate of Meiji shrine that leads into a large inner courtyard:

From reading the shrine's brochure, you got a strong sense of the love and respect that the Japanese had for the emperor and empress, which extended into the public's efforts to build and rebuild the shrine. I could literally see the love in the ornate work that decorated the shrine's front entrance:


Once inside Meiji Shrine's inner courtyard, I took Andrew's picture outside of the shrine, as no photography is allowed inside it:

I also managed to capture a quick photo of Japanese visitors wearing traditional kimonos:

And the best thing ever, soon after we arrived, a procession made its way through the temple.

After watching them for a few seconds, we realized it was a wedding procession! Although the guidebook said that the temple was popular for weddings, they typically take place on weekends or holidays so we were incredibly lucky to witness this first hand.

It was heartwarming to hear the crowd gently clap (with happiness while quietly with respect to their surroundings) for the couple and they looked so happy while posing for pictures:

We left Shinjuku thinking that we had experienced a lot in a few hours, and although our feet were sore, we happily trudged back to the train station to catch our ride home.

Old and New at Shinjuku

I took Andrew deep into the heart of Tokyo today, by visiting the section with the busiest train station. As one of our guidebooks puts it, Tokyo's population (around 34 million) is the size of California's population squished into an area the size of Hawaii. Walking around Tokyo's streets definitely confirms this description.

Upon leaving the Shinjuku train station, Andrew and I took Rich's advice and headed for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. It is a must see for anyone that visits the area because it is literally right outside the train station (a quick five minute walk), it's free to use their observation deck and simply, the building just looks cool (its exterior was apparently was designed to look like a microchip):

I don't know if you can get a sense of how tall the building is but...

...maybe this perspective will help. This is from the observation deck on the 45th floor looking down at the spot where we took the first picture:

The observation deck gave us 360 degree views of Tokyo, including one of Andrew's favorites, the Tokyo Dome (where the Red Sox played a series):


What was equal parts interesting and reassuring was the information on how the building was designed to withstand earthquakes:

Another stunning view of Tokyo to give you a sense for how densely populated it is. If the day had been clearer, we would've been able to see mountains and perhaps even Mount Fuji in the distance:

Although the lighting was horrible, we did manage to grab one kind Japanese woman to take a picture of us together to commemorate the experience:


As we were leaving, I couldn't resist snapping a shot of the lobby's ceiling - notice how the microchip theme is reflected in the interior?

Breakfast at the Golf Club

My apologies to my readers - this is going to be another one of those posts that are boring unless you've lived on Zama!

This morning, we gave Andrew his first taste of the golf club by having breakfast there. It sounds fancier than it really is, you don't even have to be a member to eat there. In fact, we used to eat lunch at the golf club when we were in high school.



The interior pretty much looks the same as it did ten years ago when I was in high school and at 10 am, we were the only ones in the whole joint for most of our meal:



Here's the handsome guy that treated us to breakfast:



Andrew went with the Eagles Nest with eggs over easy, french toast, sausage and bacon:



My dad stayed fairly healthy with an omelet, toast and hash browns:


I satisfied my sweet tooth and my salty tooth with a waffle with bananas and hash browns, no lemonade for me this time:

For Camie

Milk tea (in a bottle). For the record, Andrew wasn't a fan, and switched back to coffee. And yes, that's Souboudai-mae in the background.

Andrew's First Hamburg Set

As Enoshima (the island) was mobbed with tourists - and to be honest, filled with scary seafood - we crossed the bridge back over to the mainland to grab a quick lunch at a city convenience restaurant (aka fast food) place that my dad had eaten at with Amy and Rich on a previous visit.


I don't ever remember seeing these restaurants when I lived in Japan, but I'm beginning to notice them everywhere, especially since there's now one in Machida. They're apparently known for their flavored potato fries, which was a little annoying when we were ordering. All we wanted was plain fries, and we couldn't explain that to the cashier with our limited language skills, so Andrew and my dad went with BBQ fries since that was the only recognizable flavor. I chose consumme, thinking the fries looked plain in the picture and I was pretty sure it was a type of French potato soup - in case you were wondering, the other flavors were hot chili, jagabata (apparently their most popular flavor but what the heck is it?), mental (?) butter and cheese. Unfortunately, everything was written in Japanese inside the restaurant, and we didn't see this sign with all the flavors until after we had ordered, otherwise I definitely would've gone for another flavor!


I was able to order one of my favorite sodas, C.C. Lemon, Andrew went with a Pepsi and my dad's beer somehow didn't make the order (they kept telling us it wasn't a part of the package meal and I kept trying to explain to them that we wanted to order a beer a la carte):

At first, Andrew looked horrified at what Japanese put on their hamburgers (just kidding, I just happened to catch him with an odd expression):

But after biting into the burger that was topped with cheese, bacon, an egg, tartar sauce and ketchup, he decided that it was edible:

All sets of the fries came in a bag doused with flavored powder that you were supposed to shake around. They were OK, but there was a little too much powder, and consumme kind of tasted like the chicken flavoring that comes with ramen.

Andrew had definitely noticed that there were a ton of Japanese restaurants offering "hamburgs" but now he truly had an understanding that these were not your typical American burger, especially in terms of toppings!

Visiting Enoshima - Japanese Beach Town

After a pleasant train ride along the sea coast, we arrived at the Enoshima train stop and walked over the causeway to Enoshima Island. Like Kamakura, it was crawling with tourists but that didn't stop us from pushing through to see the sights:

Enoshima consists upon levels upon levels of stairs, with Torii gates, shrines and restaurants scattered along the way:

It was refreshing to stop climbing at scenic points, take a breath of salt air and take in the scenery:

The stairs and paths, while narrow, were lined with tourist shops and restaurants

pushing all sorts of odd sea creature-related junk. You could even purchase your very own blowfish:

If you were hungry, you could grab squid on a stick or a steamed clam...

Even big chunks of juicy grilled octopus tentacle:

It being Japan, there were vending machines everywhere and Andrew stopped to try another brand of coffee (with the Enoshima light house behind him):

The only disturbing sight on the island were the frighteningly large and colorfully marked spiders - ewwwwww!


One of my favorite sights of the day, the turtle dispensing cleansing water at one of the shrines (there was also a dragon statue releasing a constant flow of water in the women's bathroom, as opposed to a traditional sink):

It was very cool to round a corner and see a shrine built into a cave, complete with its own dragon guardian:

This picture is an attempt to show the many levels on the island - just picture many flights of stone steps leading from the top level down, all of which we climbed up:

While most of the climb was more mountainous in nature, as we approached the western end of the island, the stairs suddenly lead to the sea. The birds you can see in the picture are the peregrine falcons that flock around the island, there were literally dozens of them flying all over. I think we only saw two seagulls the whole time we were at Enoshima:

One of the more amusing signs on the island, perhaps not so much for the inhabitants as I don't even want to imagine a tidal wave hitting:

As we were blessed with another warm, clear and sunny day of weather, we decided to take a closer look at the rocks and the shoreline:


Between huffing and puffing on the flights of stairs and the warm weather, we shed our coats at some point - and they stayed off for the rest of the day!


Dad was the only one that was smart enough to bring sunglasses with him:

On our descent, we passed this random sign with a rather charming message:

To top it off, at around the same place, there was a musician in a clearing that started playing Pachelbel's Canon in D as we walked through. As this is the song that Andrew and I will be getting married to, I couldn't believe our luck to be walking through at the right moment to hear it playing. It was a perfect end to a great day.

RazzleBerry

Only in Japan would you find "beautiful" frozen yogurt.

While walking to Enoshima, I almost walked past this storefront until Andrew brought it to my attention. I stopped dead in my tracks and then insisted that we had to go in, to the amusement of my dad:

Inside, the decor was very girly - hot pink and black - complete with a pink and black chandelier. Even more amusing was how the menu was set up - the frozen yogurt portion of the menu was called the "Fitting Room" and the portion sizes came in cute, sexy and glamorous - take that Starbucks!

Toppings were called "Jewelery" and as you may be able to make out on the mirror-shaped menu below, each fruit was assigned a different jewel name - for example, I believe raspberries were called rubies:

Putting all the kitschy trappings aside, how was the frozen yogurt? Considering that we're in Japan, the portion and topping sizes were accordingly small. Andrew is still complaining about the fact that he only got three blueberries. The flavor was OK, a bit washed out compared to what we have access to in the states. Not that these two minded.

Land of the Great Buddha

After a fairly restful day on Sunday, Andrew, my dad and I were ready to head out on the Japanese trains for another day trip to Kamakura and Enoshima.

Andrew caught on quickly to the Japanese ticket and turnstile system and readily complied with my request to capture his first Japanese train ride:


With the help of my dad's memory and a map, we successfully made it to Kamakura. As Monday was a national holiday for Japanese, the streets were flooded with people heading towards the same temple that we were going to:

As Kamakura served as one of Japan's capital cities in the past, it is filled with tons of historic shrines and temples. By far, the most famous is Kotokuin Temple, which features a giant Buddha which measures 11.312 meters in height (my rough calculations are putting that at around 34 feet high):

The pictures don't do it justice - I can't tell you how impressive it is to stand there in person and gaze upon the Buddha. It sounds a bit corny but even with the holiday masses swarming around us, you do get a sense of peace from the Buddha:

One section that's not so peaceful is a little exhibit hidden at the back of the temple featuring a Korean Kannon statue in the back that was (my words) stolen during Japan's occupation of Korea in the early 20th century. It remains locked behind a wooden door so you can barely see it, but the picture was clear enough to make my mom and Korean aunt angry when they visited the same exhibit earlier this year.


The structure behind us is what houses the Kannon statue - as you can see, my dad and I were calmer about the whole situation and it was tough to get too angry in what is truly a tranquil environment:

Back to the Great Buddha, Andrew and I couldn't miss the chance to go inside:


For a mere 20 yen each, we were able to squeeze ourselves on a narrow stairway that lead to the interior of the Buddha - the cavity you see in the wall leads to the Buddha's head:


Andrew was a good sport about visiting the interior, despite getting squished on the stairwell by hordes of tourists:

Finally, no visit to a temple or shrine is complete without visiting their souvenir stand at the end. One of my favorite gifts is to give a charm that has been blessed for a particular purpose, which is why Andrew got one for safe traffic (no car accidents) on one of my last trips to Japan when he had just bought a new car. On this visit, Andrew ended up buying the strong legs charm (which is funny if you know him) on the upper right hand corner as well as for healing up for his grandfather:

Korean Japchae for Breakfast

One of the things I always enjoy most about being home is having access to my Mom's Korean cooking for every meal of the day!



Monday morning was no exception - on top of everything she already made for us (lumpia, kimchi, my favorite miso soup), my Mom whipped up a large amount of japchae, a Korean noodle, vegetable and beef dish.

When I say large amount, I mean a massive tub of it:

This means Andrew had his first taste of japchae for breakfast:

Finally, a shot of japchae plated for my Mom to bring into work for a Thanksgiving potluck meal:


You would think Andrew would be tired of all the Asian food he's eating (Korean for breakfast and dinner, Japanese for lunch) but he seems to be surviving admirably. :)

Japanese Grocery Store

On Sunday, Andrew and I took a day of rest. Which means we slept in until 7 am (which is late for jet lag, considering we woke up at 4 am this morning) and stuck with our vow to avoid anything with a lengthy amount of travel. Instead, Andrew got the five minute tour of Zama, which was the full tour considering how big the base is. We ventured off base for a quick trip to one of my favorite restuarants, Bamiyan, for lunch and then we walked through the Odakyu OX grocery store that is connected to the Sobudaimae train station.

It reminded me of Whole Foods in terms of how attractively the fruit was displayed (notice that each peace of fruit is in its own separate protective wrapping) and the prices!

Here's a shot of my Uncle Rich's favorite section, the beer. My Dad and Andrew stocked up on a few choices to enjoy with a pizza dinner later on in the day:

One of my personal favorites, the ice cream section which extended down both sides of an aisle:

More desserts in the prepared foods section:


And finally, similar again to Whole Foods, an impressive prepared meals section which I would love to have in the US:

Andrew's Coffee Tour of Japan

One of the things that Andrew has really enjoyed so far on his first trip to Japan is trying Japanese coffee out of vending machines.

While this doesn't sound too appetizing, you have to realize that vending machines in Japan are far superior to anything you see in the US - I'm not quite sure why American beverage companies haven't caught onto the same technology, but I digress. So vending machines here vend both hot and cold drinks, which are indicated by a blue- or red-colored price. Behind Andrew in this picture, you can see the cold rows of drinks.


There are a wide variety of tasty drinks (and even corn pottage soup, which has a corn chowder consistency) that come out of vending machines and Andrew's gotten a kick of trying a new flavor each time. The first picture captured Andrew's first purchase in Japan, which was in the parking lot of Narita Airport.

Below, Andrew took his own pictures of the coffee choices he made on our Hakone bus trip.

As we were leaving the shrine, Andrew made two more selections. He told me that they can make excellent hand warmers (as they come out of the vending machine toasty warm and the perfect temperature to drink), which is something all we Zama people discovered when we were high schoolers. There was many a cold day when I would buy a drink from a vending machine to use solely as a hand warmer, and then pop open to drink once it had become lukewarm.


Day two in Japan, Andrew sticks with just one coffee since we brewed some at home that morning:

I know Andrew will definitely miss the vending machines once we leave Japan!

Part Four: Hakone Shrine

Our last stop of the tour was Hakone Shrine, whose Torii gate we had seen on the water during our boat cruise across Lake Ashi. The presence of a Torii gate indicates that you are passing a gateway into a spiritual world, which is definitely what it felt like at the Hakone Shrine:

I don't know if you can get the feeling from the pictures, but it was incredible to be walking up to the shrine surrounded by these incredibly tall and ancient trees, which exuded a sense of peace:


Before entering the shrine, visitors traditionally wash their hands and mouths with spring water. In this time of swine flu, we skipped touching our mouths but made sure to show respect for old traditions by rinsing our hands:

For a lack of better words, this was definitely one of the coolest springs that I have ever seen at a shrine - can you see the water coming out of the dragon's mouth?

Andrew standing under a Torii gate for one of the smaller shrines along the path to Hakone shrine:

When we made it to the top, one of the first things we could see was a wall lined with people's prayers and wishes:

This was Hakone Shrine itself, located in a clearing amongst the tall trees and facing Lake Ashi - it was a pretty impressive sight:

Andrew and I posing by the front gates - I love how the light is illuminating the front entrance:

Also on display at the bottom of the path for the shrine was a piece of fossilized tree - I wish I could tell you more about its significance, but the sign was all in Japanese:


Peering through the tree, my wise guy's head popped up on the other side:

After this, we were exhausted. We hauled our butts on the bus and promptly fell asleep on the two hour ride home. After being stuck on the Narita bus for over three hours the night before, we decided to take a break on Monday from anything that would require us to travel long distances!

Part Three: Japanese Lunch

Part of the adventure of traveling in Japan is finding a restaurant with food that you want to eat and if you're lucky, a menu with pictures or even better, with English on it. We found a promising restaurant to try in Hakone and both Dad and Andrew were relieved to see that they offered beer:

My drink of choice was a lemon soda, as in lemon juice mixed with soda water - it was pretty and refreshing:

Andrew went with minced pork cutlets as his main meal, accompanied by miso soup, white rice and some dishes that I didn't recognize (they looked a bit unappetizing so he left them untouched):

My Dad had tempura seafood and vegetables over rice with a side of miso soup:


I went with a Japanese classic - tonkatsu (breaded pork cutlet) with curry, served over rice:


I'm happy to report that Andrew enjoyed his first Japanese meal in a restaurant, and that we were able to follow it up with some excellent soft serve ice cream afterwards.

I had never seen such a wide variety of exotic flavors, there was sweet melon, black sesame, custard pudding, edamame, purple sweet potato, tofu and your more typical flavors such as strawberry, chocolate and vanilla, cookies and cream, etc.

Andrew went with blueberry (listed as bluebelly), I chose one of my Asian favorites - chestnut, and my Dad chose caramel. I have to admit that I love ice cream no matter what country I eat it in, but I do have a soft spot for Japanese soft serve - yummy!

Part Two: Ropeway and Lake Ashi

After leaving the hot springs, it was time to make our way down into Owakudani Valley. We had driven through it but didn't get a chance to appreciate how beautiful it was until we could see it from above!

Our tour group split into two trams on the "ropeway" aka cable cars for Americans:

We had stunning views of Fuji again, as seen over Andrew's left shoulder:

Here's a view of the valley and Lake Ashi, which would be our last stop. I don't think I realized how high up we were until we starting going down, if that makes sense. If you squint, you can see the ship we would be riding across the lake:

After arriving at the bottom, the pirate (?) ship greeted us in its full glory. Although my Dad endlessly mocked it for historical accuracy (the Japanese weren't exactly known for their pirating history), I have to admit that it was a majestic sight each time it sailed across the lake:

We crossed from one end of the lake to the far end, and you guessed it, could still see Fuji in the distance although it was beginning to get obscured by clouds:

On our way to the historical checkpoint, we happened to see a Japanese bride and groom - dressed in traditional garb - headed to their wedding ceremony! I was super excited by this and even yelled out congratulations, hoping that they would understand the well wishes behind the comment even if they didn't understand the word:

Our final stop before lunch was a historical checkpoint from the Edo period - as the name states, it was a checkpoint that all travelers needed to go through in order to travel to Tokyo. The brochure said its main purpose was to keep arms out and women in - we couldn't figure out if that meant that women were being kidnapped or if they wanted to flee!

Admittedly, this exhibit was kind of boring since it just featured statues of people performing traditional tasks. I'll spare you from that and instead, bring you another picture of Andrew and I from within the checkpoint:

Although the checkpoint itself was boring, the lake views it offered from its lookout tower exhibit were wonderful (after climbing a bunch of stairs):

As we headed out to find a place to eat lunch, Andrew stopped to show us what his inner samurai looked like - ready for battle (or a large meal!):

Part One: Hot Springs in Hakone

After arriving at Zama late Friday night, we had to wake up bright and early on Saturday morning to catch a tour bus for our trip to Hakone.

It was so worth it, and I'm sure everyone on our tour would agree, since there was a moment on the bus when everyone opened up their blurry eyes and exclaimed when we caught our first close up look of Mount Fuji.

At the first rest stop, Andrew and I took the opportunity to get a picture with Fuji behind us:


This was the stunning view of Fuji that awaited us once we arrived at the Hakone hot springs - I will never get tired of looking at this sight!

Another shot with Fuji behind us (and my Dad's finger!):

It's a holiday weekend for the Japanese as well, so the hot springs were crowded with tons of foreign and domestic tourists - as you can imagine, the air was filled with the scent of sulfur, which was pungent to say the least!

At the top of the short hike was a shop selling just kurotamago - you're about to find out what these are!

Here's a shot of the pools where they dip trays of kurotamago to cook them:

We bought a package of five eggs for 500 yen:

Kurotamago are fresh eggs that are boiled in the sulfur springs, which causes their shells to turn black:

The tables around the kurotamago shop were littered with pieces of egg shell, as everyone was busy cracking their eggs open:

Andrew demonstrates the proper technique for opening the egg:

As my Dad shows, the eggs were delicious (and a normal white on the inside) - fresh and very good with a sprinkle of salt on top. I can't remember the last time I had a boiled egg but I know it didn't taste as good as these:

Finally, the sign explaining why people flock to the Hakone hot springs to try kurotamago - eating one egg is supposed to add seven years to your life!

This was just our first stop on the trip, next came the ropeway and the pirate ship!

We've Arrived!

After a 25 hour journey from door (Boston) to door (Camp Zama, Japan), we've finally arrived.

I know I'm truly home when my Mom starts pushing massive amounts of delicious food towards us.

Tired from our trip and tired of airline food, Andrew and I were glad to be greeted with my Mom's cooking:


This includes lumpia (Filipino egg rolls) with sweet chili dipping sauce, tons of white rice, Korean spinach and bean sprouts, mu (radish) kimchi and Korean kalbi (marinated beef short eye ribs):


We may be jetlagged but our stomachs are happy!

See You On The Flip Side...

I'm so excited!

First off, I have a wedding dress!! I spent the day visiting two bridal salons with Amy, Charlotte and the rest of the fam and I found "THE DRESS"! I never thought I would be a two dress bride but now I've got to offload the dress I bought at Running of the Brides.

Secondly, Andrew and I are heading to Zama, Japan tomorrow.


I can't wait to show him my "hometown."