Christmas in Tokyo, Japan

Every time I visit a new country/place, I get caught up in the excitement of being somewhere new and somehow while soaking in the culture, food, experience, architecture and other random things, I find it hard to capture those moments/feelings in writing on time. For example, Tokyo - Dec 2010, China - Mar 2010, Brazil - Mar 2009 have yet to make it to my blog. I have decided that this is bound to change as 2011 is a new year :). Before I make any promises, I feel like part of the reason that writing about a travel experience is hard is because some times words, I find, do not always capture what I feel.

On another note, I also struggle with how much to say and to what level of detial I should say these things. I figured an easy way to complete this is bullet points. Hopefully, the pictures captured will fill in the blank :)

Travel Locations - Narita Airport, Tokyo, Hitachi, Tokyo, Narita

Travel Dates: 12/23 - 12/29 (if you think in terms of U.S Eastern time.
- Experienced the lay flat beds in business class - totally loved it
- 14 hour flight. Correction, according to the pilot 13 hours 55 mins :)
- Arrived Narita on Friday at 3:30PM
- Experience a local Japanes fast food restaurant (rice bowls and meat)
- I'm glad that I still remember how to use chopsticks
- Pretty much showered and crashed
- Stayed at Ginza Marriott Courtyard
- instead of a bathroom robe, we had kimonos... I liked :)

My thoughts on Tokyo
- The sun truly rises in the East... at like 4AM and sets at about 4PM. It's confusing walking out at 8 am and it feels like its noon time and even more confusing when it starts to get dark at 4PM.
- ladies barely wear jeans in Tokyo. Even though it was cold, it would still be mini skirts and a shirt. In some cases, no panty hose...
- Very laid back and respectful culture. I witnessed 2 men greeting each other and they probably bowed their heads about 12 times to "respect" each other
- Men carry purses and no these are not gay men and yes in some cases these are purses I would crave for myself

Places Visited
- Asakusa - a souvenier type street market. fun and lively
- Akhihabara - a major electronic shopping area. We went to a mega electronic store (about 6 floors or so). It kind of reminded me of what I remember about Tejuoso market in Lagos. Different sections for different sales people.
- Tokyo metropolitan government building in Shinjuku - you can pretty much see all of Japan from the observation deck... all the way to Mt. Fuji
- A flea market
- Roppongi - Around here you see the Tokyo tower and more international people
- Sensoji - I captured an awesome (if I say so myself) night time picture of the pagoda of sensoji. I was told its called the 5 Steps
- Shibuya - Hosts a major pedestrian corssing intersection. It criss crosses at all angles and corners including diagonal and its common to cross that intersection as you break into the new year. The area also hosts high end stores.
- Takeshita Street - Another major shopping street
- Yoyogi Park - Saw some dancers performing, some drummers beating the drums for the fun of it, a few people dressed as Santa playing santa and reindeers version of catch, and a comedian
- Omotesanda street - fancy shopping area
- Ueno park
- Swan lake - popular for break ups

Different types of food tried
- Rice and chicken - haha.. yes I did try this hot delicacy.. It's different because I used chopsticks :)
- On a more serious note, sabu sabu - like a hot pot cooking. you get your meats and vegetables and boil it to your liking and eat it. Appetizers included fries, a sardine mix, tuna fish. Thanks to 2 McCombs buddies from Japan who took us out to this fancy dinner at a place called Six
- McDonald, Krispy Kreme and Starbucks were not too far off.

My overall travel thoughts
- People are people are people - we may all look different, and our cultures may require us to behave in different ways but at the end of the day we all go through the same cycle and for the most part go through the same rat race.
- Billboards always lay emphasis to what's important to the people in a region. Every billboard had "pretty" girls on there and by pretty girls you mean a girl with bigger eyes.
- I learned that the Japanese lay emphais on looking pretty, gambling and drinking. For the most part the guys dont even dress up nearly as much as the women do. The women's definition of casual is so much more dressed up than mine :)

Thanks to an awesome awesome host for showing us around and getting us to exercise while we were at it. Much appreciated