東京と美穂 // Tokyo and Miho

Well, I have not died. Sorry to everyone for the extensively long break between updates. After returning from Tokyo I really hit the books at school and got a little lazy about the blog but I will make a long-overdue post on it now.

Anyways, I had an absolutely great time in Tokyo. I suppose I should introduce Miho, my girlfriend.
I met Miho the first time I was in Tokyo towards the beginning of this trip, and we have kept in close touch since. In Japan it is really common for couples to spend Christmas together, Christmas here is almost like Valentines in western countries. Unfortunately both of us had professional/academic obligations around Christmas so we got together for New Years instead (as I said before, probably the MOST important holiday here is New Years, so it worked out well).

I had a great time! We stayed at the very nice Shinagawa Prince Hotel.
I also had make-it-yourself Yakiniku for the first time, which is a meat-lovers dream come true.

We visited the so-romantic Tokyo Tower (which is a replica of the Eiffle tower, but is actually a little taller than the real Eiffle tower), and visited the man made islands of Odaiba, which features a smaller replica of the statue of liberty (its bigger than it looks in the picture, its hard to tell the scale from the picture but its about 3 stories tall), and the FujiTV building.

We also visited Ebisu Garden Place, and I got enough video to put together a nice little clip of that particular adventure..


I love Inoue Mao so I had to get my picture taken with her.. er.. sort of, when we visited FujiTV. By the way, the FujiTV building is really cool!
At the fujiTV building, there was a display set-up all about Mao's new TV mini series about a Japanese princess a few hundred years ago. Hence the Kimono.
Miho has finally come to accept my obsession with Inoue Mao, and has even started to embrace it I think as she took the picture for me.

Aside from that, we went to batting cages, bowling, game-centers, and pretty much everywhere in Tokyo. I have a few videos of some of these places, see below:

Miho and Tim visit Sensoji Temple in Asakusa - Asakusa is a historical area of Tokyo, and the hostel I first stayed at when I arrived in Japan was literally a block behind these temple-grounds. I love Tokyo!


Shibuya Crossing - I returned to shibuya crossing with Miho where we shopped and ate..


Some bar in Harajuku - After settling in at our hotel we grabbed a subway over to Harajuku (known for its hordes of young people with very off-the-wall fassion sense, it is a very artsy area of Tokyo, and one of my favorites!).


Tokyo Tower - Either shortly before or after new years day, we went to Tokyo Tower. It's a very romantic place and I really recommend it! Great view too! The tower is pretty tall, but it's also on a hill which really adds to its height and viewpoint.


Well, it took a while to really get this post put together and I apologize about the delay. I have extended my stay at GenkiJACS Japanese School for 4 more weeks, so I am really hitting the books.

Oh, in other news I have landed a job.. But that will have to wait until another blog post. (Oh the suspense hehehe).