Dave Blog

So it seems that summer is gearing up. It was really hot today and here I am complaining when this isn’t even the peak of the hot weather! Brandon will be heading here on Wednesday and we’ll be heading to Kyoto on Friday night. I looked at a forecast and on one of the days that we’ll be there it predicts that the temp will be around 87 degrees. Site also said the 87 would “Feel Like” 98 degrees!! Gonna need to keep hydrated.

I’ll be paying my first set of Japanese taxes here tomorrow. There are no tax forms to fill out every year. Instead, the city just sends you a bill of what you owe and gives you a deadline to pay by. Luckily, they also give you the option to split the tax into four monthly payments.

Hey all, well I finally got a new blog installed as you can see, but I’ll be changing the look of it soon.

If you haven’t already, checkout recently uploaded pictures from Kyoto and Hakone. There’s quite a few there, so come back often to check them all out OR get something to drink and plan on sitting down for a while.

BTW, June 21st marks one year for me in Japan! Can you believe that it’s already been a year? I can’t. It flew by so quickly…

Last weekend (3/27-29), was able to go to Hakone. Hakone is the entire area that surrounds Mt. Hakone which is in the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. It is southwest from Tokyo, about an hour and a half train ride away. Again we lucked out on the weather (as you can see in the left column). Fuji-san was out in full; snow-capped and without her usual veil of clouds.

We were able to get a pass that gave us a RT ride from Shinjuku to Hakone and unlimited usage on the many types of transportation in the park (buses, train, cablecar, ropeway and boats). We pretty much used them all and the pass was well worth the money spent considering that each individual fare totalled well over the amount we paid for the ticket.

Pretty much all along the way, we caught glimpses of Fuji-san while we trekked through many of the tourist sites in the area. Check out pics in my photo albums.

Two Sundays ago (March 21), I went to Kamakura – about an hour train ride south of Tokyo – with some friends from work. Kamakura has approximately 65 temples and 19 shrines in Kamakura – many founded eight centuries ago when it was once the military and political center of Japan (beginning in 1192). After only about 150 years, this power moved back to Kyoto in 1333.

We set out early to try to take in as much as we could. However, we only managed to visit three temples, the Daibutsu (large bronze buddha statue) and one shrine!

We lucked out on the weather and had a clear and warm day. Previous to that Sunday, it had been raining quite a bit so thankfully we were able to trek around this seaside town keeping dry and enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Stumbled across an interesting website tonight while dreaming about travel in Asia. It’s called PassPlanet and has some pretty good details for travel in Asia and Central America – content is from other backpackers. Have a look.

Well, I could’ve sworn that it was getting warmer and that spring was almost here. However, yesterday morning I woke up to find it snowing outside! Why was it so surprising? Just the day before (Sunday) it was around 16c / 60f!

The Japanese have a proverb (adopted from China) called san kan shi on, which literally means “three cold, four warm”. The time between winter and spring is a mix of cold days and warm days and as the proverb states it is usually consecutive days of cold followed by consecutive days of warm. I thought that the cold days were getting warmer, but these last few have proved that assumption wrong (today the low was 5c / 41f).

Happy early Valentine’s day. I’ve been talking about it all week with my students and thought I’d share a bit about how the day is celebrated in Japan. Very different here – on Valentine’s day, women do all the giving – they give mainly chocolate to their male co-workers or friends as well as their significant other. Chocolate for friends and co-workers is called giri-choco (or obilgatory chocolate) whrereas chocolate for their valentine is called honmei-choco (‘true love’ chocolate). Giri-choco is simply given in appreciation of their friendship or working relationship – no emotional ties there.

For the past four weeks or so, special chocolates have been on sale in almost every grocery or dept store and they can be fairly expensive – the smallest boxes usually start at &yen500 (about $5) – individual truffles at department stores can go for almost &yen500 per piece! However, no cards and many times no other gift is given (the exception being to the boyfirend/husband).

You may think that men are lucky here, but the Japanese have seen around that one too. Out of guilt, White day was created a month later on March 14 (it’s only about 20 years old). On this day, the men return the favor of each giri-choco (some say at at least twice the value) plus give a gift of some kind to their girlfriend/wife! Again no cards are given.

Been a little strange (but nice) to receive chocolate from female students for Valentine’s, but with no significance except to say that I am appreciated. But even that seems a bit strong of a generalization, considering it is almost an “obligatory” gift.

For more about Valentine’s in Japan visit About.com or this Nichibei Times article. Also, here is an interesting Japan-Guide.com survey done a few years ago.

Added a lot of new pictures tonight from the last two weeks. It’s been pretty busy here. Celebrated my birthday with friends by going out to eat, then karaoke. Met up with friends in Tokyo for a concert, with a little karaoke. Then this past weekend, sent off Jamison with bowling and more karaoke.

We’ve been on a karaoke kick for the last three weekends now – been really working up my stash of songs that I know I can pretty much sing. If you ever come to visit, a night of karaoke will definitely be in the plan. I find it is much more fun here since you rent a room to sing in, drinks or food can be ordered and delivered to the room and you don’t have to sing in front of a whole bar of strangers. Of course, the prices and specials, choice of songs and atmosphere differ for each place you go to.

Today I had one of the best cups of coffee since I came to Japan. Actually had an americano! which is pretty much a special order thing at the other cafes I’ve visited. Went into Tokyo today and traipsed around Harajuku and stumbled upon a coffee shop that serves Caffe Vita coffee! I couldn’t believe it – here in Tokyo. The owners, Pear and Coconut (their nicknames – didn’t tell me their true identity), are from Tokyo, but have friends in Seattle from Caffe Fiore and Caffe Ladro. They were even at Coffee Fest last year when I was there. I’ll definitely be visiting them whenever I go to Harajuku.

More about the coffee scene: it is pretty abundant here and there are a number of coffee shops besides Starbucks and Tullys. But nothing compares to a good cup at The Grinder or RBCC! Although the coffee shops do tend to be busy, when I ask most adult students about liking/drinking coffee 99% of them say tea is still king here.

Similar to Seattle, coffee is on almost every street corner. The only difference is that it is in vending machines and is typically in a can. There are all types of canned iced coffee drinks available: Boss, Georgia, Fire (by Kirin). Now that it is colder out, many of the vending machines convert some products to a hot offering – the can literally comes out hot – almost too hot to hold sometimes, but super enjoyable when it is cold and crisp out.

The cup and can are not the only containers that coffee is sold in. In the grocery or convenience store you can find it in quart or pint cartons, juice-boxes (you know, the ones with the little, pointed plastic straw on the back) and a plastic container that looks like the typical to-go coffee cup and lid. Again all types of varieties and flavors. Black, cafe au’lait, mocha, milk coffee, sweetened, strong. I’ll have to snap off some photos and post them…..

“So wait a minute,” you say. “Didn’t you just go back to work after your vacation yesterday? And you were in Tokyo today?” Yeah, today (Thurs) was one of my regular days off! Back to the grind tomorrow.

First, Happy New Year to you all. I hope that this next year has a ton of good in store for you. May it be blessed and rich with family, friends and memories.

So…I decided to redo my site altogether. partially because the menu for my album folders were not viewable to all and partially because I wanted the change. I hope you like it. Making the changes were kind of scary – I was totally afraid that I would blow up my site altogether and not know how to piece it back together. But luckily, I was smart enough to pull it off. I hope you like it.

NEW GALLERY: I added some way over due photos to a new gallery. Use this link or click on Dave’s Photos under Albums (to the left). After looking at the pics there, you’ll have to use your back button to get back to my main site.

OLD PICTURES ETC: I didn’t delete the older albums, blogs and trip sites. They are all still around and you can find them by following the link labelled Previously on Dave@Pintglass under The Old Dave (also to the left).