Konichiwa, Japan

Ahh, the vacation was in full swing with the parents and little sis in Korea, and after a few days that meant it was time to hit up Japan, noted rival and sometimes hated enemy of Korea. Japan: the land of the rising sun, bullet trains, tasty sushi, giant sumo wrestlers, and pokemon (unfortunately). Here's a song to get you in the right mood while reading this post:

We had an early afternoon flight, and with Japan being Korea's neighbor, we were in Japan by mid afternoon. My sister and her husband were on a plane just a few hours behind us so we decided to kick it around the airport until they got there. Unfortunately, Tokyo Narita airport is vulnerable to some ridiculous bottlenecks (my trip back!) and we spent a great deal of time at the aiport. This did leave me a generous time period to stare at my newly acquired yen:

It's pretty cool money actually. The center oval is a solid creme color, until you hold it up to the light and then another image of face to the right of the oval appears. The money is, however really wide so it doesn't fit right into western wallets.

After Amber and Dave finally arrived, we were on our way to the series of train rides that would take us to our hotel. Here's a picture of the family together at last at the train stop. Kelsey's checking out the strange Japanese candy she bought. I bought some orange flavored M&Ms at the same shop.

After a switch to Japan rail from the airport line, we arrived in the district which contained our hotel, called Shinjuku. It's home to a nice electronics and shopping district, plenty of bright lights, and the busiest subway stop in the world. This is one of the first pictures I took of the scenery in Japan:

Luckily for us, Amber married a man with a great interest in all things Japanese. Dave did some careful studying of various maps, including Google maps to find our hotel. He served as somewhat of a navigator for our entire trip. Thanks Dave!

He lead us almost directly to our Hotel, the fabulous hotel NUTS. This picture was not taken the first night but rather on a different day.

Why is it called hotel NUTS, you ask? The place IS NUTS. Or maybe the rooms are so tiny that you feel like a squirrel storing nuts in a small tree. There are many schools of thought on this top....oh wait:

Of course! The hotel is a new urban time and space. It was definitely something. It turns out it was converted from a love motel, meaning the type that was once rented by the hour. I liked it actually, it had a soda fountain where you can bath in the luxury of three complimentary beverages each day. The rooms are tiny, but the bathrooms are huge. And bonus, the toilets are sanitarized:

So nothing to worry about there. The TV was huge, and so was the remote:

Yep, thats got all of the buttons I'm used to. A 1, a 7.....wait....um, a 10, 11, and a 12? I've never seen that one before.

Once settled in, we ventured out into Shinjuku to find a restaurant for our first Japanese dinner. We settle on a place that had nice pictures on the menu. We each ordered a good looking meal. The meals were for the most part OK, but my little sister ended up ordering a dish with chicken gizzards, and my mom was served a dish which included the parts of the chicken that are a little chewy/crunchy. This was somehow the main part of her dish. It was literally that part of the chicken that is crunchy and chewy which was breaded, deep fried, and served with peanuts. She hated it. I somehow got myself to like it. This part of the chicken usually makes me gag/lose my appetite, but when I was expecting it I thought it was actually kind of good. The other dishes were at least edible, so there was one Japanese meal down.

Next was another small Christmas in which a few holiday cookies were eaten which Amber had managed to smuggle overseas, and gifts were exchanged between Amber, Kelsey, Dave, and I. It was a cozy Christmas to say the least. Amber and Dave did get me one of the best possible gifts for a Brewers Fan, this Bratwurst racing sausage bobblehead doll. Thanks Amber and Dave.

See you tomorrow for more Japan fun!