Jeff In Japan

Ok – I apologize for being so far behind… I know – I never really “finished” the blog. But don’t worry – there’s more to come – and this is the really fun stuff. So stay with me to the end – I mean, after all, you’ve come this far, right? Here’s a little taste of the U.S.A. in Tokyo – they’ve got the idea down, they just need to work on the size & scope a bit.

We were lucky enough to go inside the Buddha… the steps were very steep and it was dark. These pictures don’t totally convey the situation, but hopefully give you some sort of idea of what it was like:

As I said earlier, there are Buddhist temples at Kamakura. One of them is the home to the 2nd largest Buddha statue in Japan. (I would have loved to have seen the largest statue, but it was a bit far from Tokyo)…

Would you eat here? I’m not so sure I’d eat in this place in America… in Japan it’s just a bit out of place… just a bit.

Some Japanese people surfing (near Kamakura). Being from the east coast, surfing is something of a novelty for me. I suppose if you’re from Florida, Hawaii or California this is not a big deal.

Kamakura is a location that is known for religious ceremony – especially for children…

Kamakura was the capital of Japan during the feudal shogun era. There are a number of Shinto temples and Buddhist shrines located here. You can see one of the Shinto temples in the pictures below. And don’t worry, the steps weren’t that steep. (I have to be honest, after a while the Shinto temples started to look very similar. I suppose it’s like visiting chapel after chapel in Europe… there are differences, but you either have to be told about them or be looking for them).

Hello everyone. Wanted to let you all know that I am back in the U.S.A. Ahhh – it’s quite nice to be home again. Thanks for continuing to check out my blog. Even though I have returned, please keep checking back here – I still have stuff to post… so until I say “LAST POST,” the blog is not done…

This is a picture of an elephant. It was on the TV in my host family’s home. I asked them why they had it (as it is a tradition here in the U.S. to give an elephant as a house-warming gift because, supposedly, they bring good luck)… Mrs. Tanaka told me that it was a gift, but she did not know that elephants were supposed to be lucky… whoever gave it to her must have known…

Here you can see some fake food on display. I thought it was hysterical that they sell the fake food the exact same way a store would sell real food… Still, it does look good enough to eat.

In Japan, when you go to a restaurant, many of them have extremely realistic plastic versions of the meals & foods they are serving placed in the window. Apparently this serves 2 purposes – 1.) It lets you see what you’re going to be getting and 2.) The fancier & more expensive the fake food, the better the real food you’ll be eating (or so they say). Here you can see some pictures of the store that sells the fake food… and no matter how good this stuff looks – you can’t eat it. It’s plastic. (My favorite was the whole rotisserie chicken).

If you remember WAY back to one of my early food posts, I talked about going out for sushi in Tokyo. Here you can see the actual conveyer belt on which the sushi was paraded. No one here spoke any English. I was able to order 3 things in the restaurant – eel (unagi), water (mizu) and Coke (no translation necessary)… I have to say the sushi available in NYC (at better Japanese restaurants) is as good as what they have in Tokyo. We have closed the gap…