12 June 2007

Hamarikyu and Odaiba


Since being back to Japan, and having a few days before returning to work (which was much needed due to a seemingly unending jetlag), I went with a friend to national park called Hamarikyu which is along the Northern part of Tokyo bay. It's a very big park, and although apparently funding has decreased, still very clean. There are some cool things like a 300 year-old pine and a tea house where you can have some maccha (foamy, somewhat bitter green tea for ceremonies - very good!) and enjoy the view of the lake.



Since it is so close to this park, we also went to Odaiba, which is an entertainment island built in the 90s. Odaiba had amusement parks, exhibits, and has a general feel of a sea-side resort area. They also built some large offices there in hopes that it would become an economic catalyst (you can see the Fuji TV building in the pics below, the one with the 'orb' thing), however its feels more like a ghost town today. Also in the images below you can see the Rainbow Bridge (which is about 1,870 feet (570 m) long) and also a mini-replica of the Statue of Liberty (why I don't know). My favorite part was the Sony Emerging Technologies exhibit where all the cutting edge and future technologies developed by Sony are accessible in an interactive environment. There was some pretty cool stuff to play with over there if you like science.


11 June 2007

Home for a visit


Hey y'all..just got back from a trip back home to visit with family and relax a bit. Was a really nice time. Although it was two weeks, I still didn't get to see all my friends I wanted to, but it was really great to spend time with those I did. I got to see my sister, Lois, and her family plus my Mom and Dad and some friends. The weather was just awesome, blue clear skies everyday (as you can see in some pics of Philadelphia above).

During Memorial Day, went down to the beach to spend the holdiay with my family. I was great to see everyone and I even got to man the BBQ for a while..hah. I wish I could have stayed longer, but duty calls. I did miss Japanese everyday foods (conbini, origin..) although I didn't miss work one bit! aha. I can't complain at all though..as far as Japanese vacations go, 2 weeks is an eternity, so ....