Japan Retrospective 1

Well, I'm a slacker. Here's an update continuing my trip to Japan & China... more to come.

UTSUNOMIYA

My 2nd day in Japan, Mondo drove us up to Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo about 100km (about 3 hours - yes, that only averages out to 33.3km/h or 20mph). It was long, but worth it. Along the way, there were many trucks on the road & stoplights. There also were rice patties almost everyplace where road or buildings weren't.

When we arrived, Rob was just finishing up his last class for the afternoon. They were playing one of Rob's favorite card games, Frank's Zoo... nice "work", huh? Just kiddin' Rob! We met a few more people from the church, including Eriya, Rob's roommate & Shinya, a guy who lived in Portland for 6 years before returning. Both knew very good English.

After Rob was done, we got a tour of the church & walked around the neighborhood to a few stores. NOBODY takes credit or debit cards from the US, INCLUDING most ATM's. At every chance, we tried ATM's around the city and I couldn't get money out from any of them. This was very odd, yet frustrating. Below is a picture of a temple very near the school.

One of my tasks was to get a "Gundam" robot for Jack. We stopped at a toy store. It was huge and there was about 10,000 Gundam robots in it of many shapes & sizes. On one hand, it's good because you can buy almost any kind you want. On the other hand, it might take you an hour to find it. We also went to a wonderful "dollar" store called Daiso. I bought many gifts from there.

Later, we went to sushi for dinner. I tried many things, most of which I had before. Then Mondo made me eat natto... it was yucky from both a texture and taste point of view. I had to wash it down with green tea just to not gag... then I ran out of tea. DOH!

We rounded out the night with a 2-hour round of Karaoke... Listening to Mondo & Rob sing "Last Christmas" by George Michael was classic. Note the tamborines played during this song... don't quite remember that from the original...