HK and Tokyo!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay in posts but we hope you enjoyed the Japan pictures!

Here's the rundown of our vacation:

It started off with a great weekend in Hong Kong with my parents. First of all, they brought us about 90 pounds of American stuff, including food (my Mom's homemade apple pie mmmmm), toiletries, and magazines. Needless to say, we were very grateful for all of the wonderful goodies that we have been munching on for the last 3 weeks. :)

My parents arrived around 8 pm on Friday night, so Daniel and I met them for a late dinner in HK. We went to Outback for a delicious non-Chinese food meal, complete with bread, butter, chips, spinach artichoke dip, steak, and cheeseburgers-- all of the yummy things that we rarely, if ever, eat on our own in China. In fact, the rest of the time with my parents mainly revolved around hanging out and eating lots and lots of tasty food! On Saturday, we went to dimsum for brunch, then we saw the National Day parade (a lot of school children marching through the streets). For dinner, we went to a nice Chinese restaurant and got some Beijing duck. On Sunday, we got TGIF's for lunch, including chicken nachos with salsa and guacamole... yum yum yum. Then for dinner, we went to the top of Victoria's Peak and had a wonderful dinner at Cafe Deco, including pasta and pizza. Earlier that day, we had ran into our friend Nathan that we were in Shanghai with last summer randomly in the middle of the street. Believe it or not, he ate dinner at the same restaurant as us that night too! Sometimes it really is small world.

The next morning (Monday), my parents and Daniel and I, all had to go to the airport to catch flights at 10:30 AM. They were headed back to NJ while Daniel and I were off to Japan! After 2 great, delicious, relaxing days, it was sad to say goodbye to my parents, but it was such a nice treat to see them even if only for a few days.

The trip to Japan was really fun! It started off on a really smooth and easy, albeit 4 hour long, flight to Narita Airport on Cathay Pacific, which is actually a really nice airline that stil gives meals, drinks and blankets (but you can't control your own air temperature above your seat-- weird.) Once we got to Tokyo, it was drizzling and we had forgotten to bring a map of how to walk to our first hotel, so we ended up taking a taxi. The taxi started it's meter at about $7 USD!! Tokyo was already living up to its reputation as being expensive. The taxi driver also couldn't find our hotel, so we still ended up wandering around a little bit, but eventually we checked into the Hotel Rose Shinjuku. The room was TINY; it kind of reminded me of a cruise ship cabin. Daniel thinks that the whole room was on a tilt, but I guess you get what you pay for! It was in a really good location though, right next to a subway stop, which, after that first expensive (but short) cab ride, was essential since all we took was subways to get around the city.

We had originally planned to leave Tokyo and go to Hakone for a short side trip to see Mt. Fuji and go in some hot springs, but our plans were thwarted by a typhoon (if the typhoon had hit hard like it was predicted to, we could have been stranded in Hakone and been unable to make it back for our flight on Friday). We ended up staying in Tokyo the whole time we were there, which was from Monday to Friday. All in all, it worked out for the best, because we got to see pretty much everything we wanted to in Tokyo without having to rush anything. The days when the typhoon was supposed hit the worst ended up being the nicest days that we had in Japan-- beautiful sunny skies and no rain at all.

Here's a quick overview of our trip, since I don't want to bore you with all of the gory details:

Tuesday:
   - Went to the Tsukiji Fish Market but were too late to see the tuna auction.
   - Ate our first sushi meal just outside of the market.
   - Stopped in a McDonald's that was 90% individual cubicles... weird.
   - Visited the Meiji Shrine and gardens
   - Walked around Harajuku and had a delicious and cheap tempura lunch at Tenya
   - Had some sake, yakitori, tuna tartar, gyoza, etc at Hakkaku

Wednesday:
   - Realized we couldn't go to Hakone because of the typhoon. Daniel's parents rebooked us at the Hilton in Tokyo instead (which was so nice!!)
   - Had Indian food for lunch, trying a total of 6 different kinds of curries between the two of us. It was DELICIOUS (and cheap!)
   - Went to Gonpachi for dinner, where we sat at the bar, where the chefs were cooking dinner.
   - Walked around Roppongi, and stumbled upon a movie theater where we saw The Ugly Truth (which was actually very funny!!)

Thursday:
   - Had the breakfast buffet at the Hilton (lots and lots of American breakfast items, mmm)
   - Walked around the Imperial Gardens (it ended up being a gorgeous day!)
   - Went to the Sensoji Temple
   - Had a late lunch in Asakusa at a restaurant with a revolving sushi bar
   - Went to Ginza and walked around a bit(which is like 5th Ave in NY)
   - Took a ride on the Yurikamome train, which is a fully automated monorail, that has a 280 degree turn in it so that you can see all of Tokyo
   - Headed back to Asakusa for dinner at Sometaro, which is a place where you sit on the floor and you make (or in our case, the waiters helped us make) Japanese pancakes on the griddle in front of us (okonomiyaki)

Friday:
   - Woke up at 4:15 AM, and we still managed to miss the first train out to the Tsukiji Fish Market by 1 minute.
   - Made it to the fish market by 5:45 AM, just in time to see some of the action at the giant tuna market and auction.
   - Went to a sushi breakfast at 6:05 AM. The place was called Sushi Dai, and it was definitely worth the 1.5 HOUR wait (the restaurant only holds about 14 people, and it's the most famous sushi restaurant inside the market). It was by far our most expensive meal ($43ish USD per person for a set sushi meal), but it included 10 pieces of the freshest sushi we'll probably ever eat, a roll, and miso soup. We tried 9 different kinds of fish, with fatty tuna being our absolute favorite. Daniel almost threw up the sea urchin (uni), but he managed to keep it down, and I'm very proud of him for trying so many crazy types of fish! We also loved the sea bass, yellowtail, soy marinated tuna, and giant clam. The sushi chef was really nice and told us how to enjoy the sushi (with or without soy). They don't use plates or anything, they just put the sushi right on the sushi bar, course by course. It was AWESOME. We left stuffed!
   - Went to the Edo Tokyo Museum
   - Saw the National Sumo Stadium (Kokugikan)
   - Headed to the airport to go home!

We had a great trip and are already planning our next long vacation to southeast Asia!!

Daniel will fill you in on what's been going on since the trip in the next entry!

-Zoie