Sunday, April 5, 2009

Yakatabune
















This weekend we went with a group of 38 others to Central Tokyo for a Yakatabune river cruise. The boats are essentially a floating doubledecker restaurant/karaoke bar that cruises the Sumida river in Tokyo. 2.5 hours of all you can eat and drink, and really good service. The sightseeing was pretty cool as you basically cruise the rivers around central Tokyo. This weekend happened to be the tail end of Tokyo's Hanami so there were lots of folks partying under the trees and in the parks along the river. Unfortunately since our camera is pretty much a piece of shit so the photos of the sights outside the boat were pretty weak. Anyhow if you ever have a large group party and are looking for something different to do I would definitely recommend taking one of these cruises. All of the photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157616276753451/

Posted by Heather at 1:32 PM 0 comments

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Sunday, March 29, 2009

Tokyo Motorcycle Show 2009


Today Heather and i went to the Tokyo Motorcyle Show. It was held at the Tokyo Big Sight. It was very crowded but pretty nice as we got to shop a bit and throw a leg over a few potential candidtate street bikes for a new ride after we return home. Not so many off road machines on display but I must say that sitting on the the Husky TE250 felt about as good and as comfortable as it gets.

Posted by Heather at 10:38 PM 0 comments

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Golf outing at UI Golf Club









I was invited to golf last Tuesday with some friends at UI Golf Club. I have not touched my clubs in almost 3 years so I was a little nervous, I didn't play to great but did manage to have a really nice time. Afterwards the group i played with headed to a couple local izakayas for dinner, drinks and darts. Kev and I will both be playing with them next month.

Posted by Heather at 9:08 PM 0 comments

Friday, March 13, 2009

Nasu Darts Tourney








Last weekend Heather and I joined some friends and traveled to Nasushiobara to play in a organized dart tournament. A first for us. It was actually a large event with about 450 participants.
Heather and I got spanked out in 6 games of 501 and cricket. The other members of our group fared a little better at least making it to the round-robin event before being put out. As this is a beer drinking event we still had a great time and met a lot of interesting individuals. We plan to hit another event before we depart Japan, and hopefully our dart game will actually show up along with us.

Posted by Heather at 4:50 PM 2 comments

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Saturday, February 21, 2009

Eric Clapton concert at the Budokan


We were fortunate to get tickets to see Eric Clapton and his band Thursday night at the Budokan in Tokyo.
We must say Slowhand can still lay it down. They played about 20 songs including,I shot the Sheriff, Cocaine, Crossroads, Why does love, Wonderful tonight, of course Layla(heavy version) and several of his longer bluesy songs that I cant name.
The Budokan has been the host to many famous groups over the years and is a cool place to see a show. It is located in Kudanshita which is a really nice area of central Tokyo. It is actually a Judo arena, and only holds about 10,000, people, so all of the seats are close to the stage.
The Japanese fans can be pretty strange to experience a concert with though. The place was packed, but like everything else here in Japan with the exception of baseball and soccer they are a very very subdued crowd, almost afraid to clap between songs, let alone, dance around, scream, party excessively, or any of the other crazy shit you may see at concerts in the states. As soon as the show starts the beer and food stands close down for the night. At times it seemed like what I would guess an opera crowd would be like, with the crowd only becoming remotely excited at a few of the bands more popular tunes. We had the same experience with The Who concert a couple of months back at Saitama Super Arena. But, i guess if the arenas are full the bands don't mind, and they give them what they came for. Clapton is very popular in Japan and he does like 8 shows between Tokyo and Osaka.
Anyhow sorry that we only have the one lame dark photo of the entrance to the Budokan as we were getting our drink on before the show and arrived at the arena just in time for the first song.

Posted by Heather at 10:28 AM 0 comments

Monday, February 9, 2009

Saipan Final









After lounging at the pool a bit more on Sunday, yesterday evening we departed Saipan and returned to the cold of Central Japan. We were greeted not only by the cold but severe winds which made it seem even colder. The high winds had the Shinkansen shut down allowing us time to really enjoy the cold in Tokyo station and delaying our arrival to home til around 11pm.
Anyhow our final days in Saipan were much like the first, just relaxing and enjoying the awesome weather and scenery. We did get a bit of rain Saturday night which moved our visit to the resorts cultural show/BBQ indoors. It was still enjoyable as we were seated with a couple from nearby Saitama area with whom were were able to communicate fairly well with and enjoy the show. Heather and myself along with a Russian family were the only westerners(maybe Russians arent westerners?) at the show out of about 200 people. In fact i would say in a resort with over 400 rooms, I believe we were the only Americans in the place all week.
If your looking for a good place to relax we would recommend Saipan as a place to go.
Outside of diving, a couple of golf courses, and a bit of sight seeing, there is not a lot else to do. There are a few western restaurants/bars, and a bit of shopping but it is pretty minimal. The Island is small and definitely caters mainly to tourists from Japan, Korea, and China. So if you need lots of shopping and interaction with other westerners, you may be better off with Guam, but given the choice I would go back to Saipan for its simplicity and Heather would choose Guam for the shopping and restaurants. For families Guam would definitely be the better choice.
The rest of our trip photos can be found here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8953511@N05/sets/72157613495604409/

Posted by Heather at 9:12 AM 0 comments

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