Being a Tourist

I'm flying!!!! Why don't we have beer vending in the USA???

The Gondola. In Japan. Hm.....

In the Japanese robe with Allison

Tower of TERROR!!!

When you live in another country, doing tourist stuff can be quite strange because it's like you haven't gone anywhere, but you are somewhere different. That really does not make sense at all but hey, I am running on coffee, beer, and like 3 hours of sleep last night. Anyway this was quite an eventful week. On Thursday I went to Disney Sea (which is like the more adult version of Disney Land, and on the bay. It is much better than Disney Land, or so I am told). I met my friend Saori there, and her friends as well. I was actually quite impressed by the whole thing. This was not some rinky-dink theme park; it was quite large and grand. We went on a ton of rides, but Tower of Terror was by far the best. The 3 story drop almost made me pee my pants the first time. There were also some shows. We saw all the characters come out on boats and of course there was singing and dancing and fireworks at night. The weirdest part was hearing all the characters speaking Japanese, but in the same kind of voice you would attribute to Micky, Chip n' Dale, etc. Normally I am not a theme park person, but I was totally impressed by this one and the rides were great. Oh yeah, and did you know Indiana Jones also speaks Japanese? Who knew! Now I love him even more.

The following morning I went to my University's festival and saw one of my students dance the flamenco with her dancing club. Surprisingly professional performance. There was a girl singing in Spanish, 2 guys playing the guitar and one on drums, and the rest of the girls dancing their hearts out. They were well rehearsed and very much in character.

Immediately after that I headed out for Hakone, a very natural area in the mountains with great scenery. It took 2 transfers on the train and a bus to get there, and since I was meeting people I was traveling alone, but I didn't get lost! My friend Allison, 3 guys she works with, and myself all stayed in a guesthouse in the middle of nowhere. We took a cable car through the mountains, took a gondola (yes I said gondola) on the sea and went hiking around the hot springs. They had these special eggs that had been hard boiled in the hot springs that they were selling along the trail. The shell was turned black from the sulfur (as you know there are hot spring because Mt.Fuji is a volcano) and they were delicious! Not to mention the fact if you eat one it's supposed to "increase your longevity by 7 years". 2 eggs = 14 years but I decided one was enough. People were just going nuts over these things! Everyone was eating them.

On the home front, the big news this week is that my sister is engaged. So, I was really excited and happy to hear that all the way over here. Congrats sis!

Enjoy the videos!

Cheers!