Weekend of June 11

Well it had been awhile since the last post. Basically the end of last week was so crammed with work that I slept in about 3 hour sprints between 14 hour work cycles from Thursday morning till Saturday morning. That's done, mission accomplished, life back to the normal dual timezone paced life.

On Friday (6/11) we had a friend of Sae's come over, Yukie. Yukie and Yukie's sister were friends of Sae and Kiwa (Sae's sister) during Jr. High and High School. It was very nice for them to catch up. Yukie brought us some very tasty cheesecake pieces, so we hung out for awhile in our apartment chatting and snacking on those. Later we went to eat near our house. We wandered for a bit as there are so many restaurants to chose from. We settled on a very cool place which served okonomiyaki (type of filled pancake) and modernyaki (noodles). We had some really delicious entrees and the ambiance of the restaurant was very warm and relaxed (deep colored wood furniture, low lighting, etc.)

We also went grocery shopping on this day, our second round. This time we went to the smaller grocery store we had come across the first time. We found out this time that right next store was an amazing meat shop (thank God) right next door owned by the same folks as the grocery store. Pretty sure this is where quite a few local restaurants go to, so they have a wide variety and decent prices (relatively speaking). We picked up some thinly sliced pork. Generally cuts of meet are quite a bit different here; they normally are cut extremely thin and are cooked by searing them quickly in a pan.

On Saturday AM Sae and I packed a bag and hopped on the subway to Tokyo station. At Tokyo station we purchased two tickets on the Shinkansen - the bullet trains that connect the major population hubs in Japan. We went ahead and purchased the slightly more expensive tickets for the faster train - the 700 series. This train travels at a max speed of about 280 kph (170+ mph) and gets us from Tokyo to Osaka in about 2 hours and 20 minutes. The trip was an excellent experience. Everything you hear about the bullet trains is true. Clean, sleak, smooth, fast, and always on time.

Hitomi, Sae's mom picked us up from the train station. She picked up some snacks while there: wagashi (traditional Japanese snacks) and takoyaki ((octopus pastry puff). From there we drove to their home in the town of Takarazuka. This is about a 45-60 min drive from the train station. This is primarily because of the Japanese road system, I think in America this drive may take 20 minutes. Driving however is for another post, it's out of this world.

Sae's parents live on a mountain side in a condo building. Their view is amazing. On a clear day you can see the city of Osaka, the large bay that Osaka sits on, the encircling mountains, etc. When we got home, just about everyone was there; Sae's dad - Taka, Sae's sister - Kiwa, and our new nephew who is 7 months (Kiwa's son) - Huma. It was great to see everyone again, and we hung out for the day and played with Huma.

For dinner we went to a great restaurant - another first for me. The trip there was another driving "experience". This was a tempura restaurant in the town of Takarazuka. There was a nice garden entrance to the restaurant. Upon entering we took our shoes off and we were led upstairs to a private room with a very low table and cushions on the floor for sitting/kneeling. This worked out excellent, because we brought Huma and it made the dinner very easy and relaxed to be in a private room. The dinner started with a boiled fish appetizer where they intricately cut each bone from the fish with a tiny incision, but never touch the skin of the fish. From there we moved into about 8 different courses consisting of a wide variety of different tempura items. Of the more interesting/tasty items was shrimp - complete with head and eyes, baby corn, fish, sticky potato, mashed lotus, eggplant, ginger root (not shaved, an actual deep red root - another first). I ate every item, towards the end I didn't finish each item though because I was literally stuffed to the brim. I asked Sae and her family, "How are you guys so small, and eat so much!?!" After dinner, we went home, relaxed a bit, and watched a world cup game. Gotta love sports, no language needed.

On Sunday, I slept. I slept a lot. I think I probably slept about 18 hours in a 24 hour period. I believe I missed two meals. This was because of the prior work week, and also because I was run down and semi-sick from putting in all the hours. The rest was outstanding. I did however ensure that I was up for lunch, where we took a trip to one of my personal favorites - a sushi station. These are sushi shops where everything is made fresh, the restaurant seating is configured all around a small conveyor system that traverses the restaurant. The sushi items are placed on the conveyor and as they come around you nab them and enjoy. The plates that the item sits on symbolizes the price of the item. At the end of the meal all the plates are tallied, and that's the damages.

On Sunday evening I slept some more, played with Huma, and did a bit of work. Sae and I also went for a walk around the area. I love the area around the Tokushige's home. It is extremely peaceful. There are different parks, it's quiet; you hear birds, see other people walking, children playing, etc. It's different here - children go to and from school, travel, and play unsupervised with no concern of the laundry list of things that would make any American parent quiver in fear. This speaks volumes for the mentality and culture in general of Japan. Sometimes I think perhaps people in the west/US are just wired wrong - something is out of balance. Watching children walk to school, sing, and skip along the sidewalk, unsupervised, without a care in the world is liberating.

On Monday AM, after about 4 hours of skype work calls, we headed home to Tokyo. I had to be on another call while on the train so we had the great idea of purchasing the first class train tickets which we understood came with internet connection. So, we purchased our tickets, sat down on our luxurious first class seats, and I had laptop and iphone in hand ready for an extremely productive 2.5 hours. WRONG. No internet - only hot spot access which required you to already have a hot spot account with a major provider. Sae did her absolute best (she's amazing) to get me squared away, but no luck.  So... I enjoyed the ride. When my call started I did my best using Skype's new service which enables you to actually place a data VOIP call over a mobile device's 3G connection. Honestly, 280 kph, Skype over 3G - it worked pretty darn well - even through the tunnels. Nearing the end of the trip the mountains became more intense and i threw in the towel, but I was able to attend about 90% of my call. to repeat... over 3G at 170+ mph... AMAZING.

This basically wrapped up one heck of a weekend, which was much needed after a work week that only a semi-psychotic workaholic would contemplate. Supposedly our air shipment finally arrives tomorrow, so we'll have the rest of our stuff, and this week will be the start of my transition to primarily working local business hours and traveling into the office at Nihonbashi each day. Here we go!