Sushi: January 2008

This past weekend we went snowboarding up at Biwako Valley. It's a ski resort up about 30 minutes north of Kyoto in the mountains along Lake Biwa. On a clear day, you can see down the slopes to the big lake, but we unfortunately were not there on a clear day. The advantage of that was that the snow was fresh and good. I haven't been snowboarding since the first time I tried it about seven years ago on a Saturday at Breckenridge. It was super crowded and I just had to keep falling down to stay out of other people's way. This time I had a much better experience. After the first couple runs I was getting the hang of it and seemingly staying in control. I only bit it real hard once. Anyway- here are some pictures of us at Biwako Valley.

This is at a train station along the way. We don't really know what's going on here.

This is a self-pic on the lift. We didn't notice the person in the background at the time, but it looks pretty funny in the picture.

These little people were so cute.

Here I am shredding it up.

Here is Dan on the gondola.

This holiday break was great. After skiing in Hakuba, we went to Tokyo to meet our friends, Liz and Phil, who were flying in from the states. We hadn't seen anyone from home in over four months, so this was very exciting for us. So- we went to Narita airport to meet them, headed back into the city to our hotel, and spent three nights there. We stayed in an older district on the northeast side of the city. It was cool because there was still shopping and city life, but it was a little calmer than some of the more famous neighborhoods. The subways in Tokyo were possibly the best I have ever seen. They were on time, clean, super easy to use, and we found these cheap two-day passes, so for what was like 10$, you could use the subways for 2 days with unlimited use. I was highly impressed.
Another bonus to our trip was that New Years is kind of a chilled out time in Japan. Dan and I had been a little nervous to visit Tokyo after hearing horror stories such as "people-jams" and people who's job it is to shove you into subways to make more room for more people to then be shoved in. I typically like my good old American personal space. So, when we discovered that the city was unusually calm and we would never be without a seat on the subway, we were more than pleased. In addition to the overall calmness, Japan doesn't have the same kind of "bar scene" we are used to surrounding this holiday. People here spend time with family and go to temples to pray for good luck in the new year.
Liz and Phil arrived on Saturday December 29th. They were understandably tired that night, so we went out to dinner and had an early evening. The next day, we went out to start our touristy sight seeing. In the three days, we saw Sensoji temple, the Imperial Palace grounds(the actual palace was closed for the holiday), Harajuku, Shibuya, Akihabara, Roponggi, the Mori Art Museum, and Ginza street. It was great. The districts were all like different little cities all attached to each other. Shibuya was very fun. It was really lively and had lots of shops and restaurants. It looked like what you think Tokyo should look like. Another cool place was the Mori Art Museum. It was in Roponggi Hills(a huge trendy shopping area) and was on the top of a high rise building. In addition to a cool modern art exhibit, your ticket is good for the Tokyo City View. It is just above the museum and there are huge windows that go all the way around the floor. The views were amazing.