Japan trip report - English

日本語は別のブログだ。
Japanese language version is a separate post.
http://peter-singlespeed.blogspot.com/2005/07/blog-post.html

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On Thursday I arrived in Tokyo. The flight was long, but Ok. I watched "Million Dollar Baby" on the flight. It was a good movie, but sad. I bought chocolate covered almonds at Narita Airport and ate them on the train to Tokyo - I fell in love with these when I was studying near Nagoya.


On Friday I interviewed all day. I won't hear the results until some time this week. It went Ok, but not great. I guess I was a little hesitant in how I responded to some questions they asked due to the big changes of moving to a new country, and that hesitancy may have shown to them. I went out for drinks with some of the guys from the office after the interview.

Saw the news about London on TV. I was able to understand the basics of what happened only, as I only get Japanese language channels on my TV. Very sad. And scary.

Saturday, I woke up at 5:30 due to jet-lag. Decided to go for a walk. My hotel is not far from Roppongi, so I walked to there. Interesting to see people still leaving bars and some people drinking on the street at 6:30 am.

Walked from there to Tokyo Tower. It was a bit cloudy, so hopefully I was able to capture some interesting photos.


I should have gone to Tsukiji fish market. I have never been there, as I usually don't wake up early enough to go there.

Had sushi for lunch in Roppongi with a sales guy from the Tokyo office of the company I used to work for. We also walked around Roppongi Hills area.

After my friend left, I walked some more. First I headed to the Imperial Palace. The Japanese Government offices are here, and there was a lot of security around. I am not sure if this is normal, or due to the London bombings, but it reminded me of all the security in Korea.

After that, I wandered my way over to Shinjuku. This is quite far and I got lost a few times. I passed the Geihin-kan State Guest House, a very large, western style building. From Shinjuku, I went back to my hotel. I timed it pretty well, as it just started to rain as I got back to the hotel.

Between my legs being tired, and the rain, I decided to have a quiet Evening. I went to a noodle shop across the street from the hotel for dinner, took a bath, watched some Japanese TV, and read.

On Sunday, I met with my Mixi friend, Moeko-san (http://mixi.jp/show_friend.pl?id=12713), for lunch. I had originally been introduced to her when I was studying Japanese in Aichi-ken - she had come to the school to visit a friend of hers who was studying there. It was good to catch up with her again on this trip.

Now I am home. I flew through Los Angeles, so it took some 17 hours from when I got on Narita Express at Tokyo Station to when I got home. There weren't any good movies playing on the airplane, so I read and napped a bit.