My first Sunday in Japan

Konnichi wa.

Here it is Sunday afternoon and to be honest I can not believe it is ONLY 3:40!  Feels like about midnight - guess I am on Mid Pacific time - halfway between L.A. and Tokyo.

Got a lot accomplished today.  Found the Herbette Cafe for breakfast - had a ham omelette and coffee but I think tomorrow I might try the buffet and something more Japanese.  "When in Japan do as the Japanese do," to paraphrase an old saying.  We sat by the window and had a view of a very pretty concrete "stepped" waterfall -- I didn't get a picture of it but will try to get the one Karen took.

Then Karen and I did a dry run on the train to the office.  But first of course we found out the hard way (machine kept rejecting)  that we could not use our credit card and had to use our yen -- 480 jpy  (around $5.15) round trip to go 4 stops.  We will need to see about either getting a pass or getting more yen!  There are NO people at this train line so have only the little machines to deal with.

So we got to our station

And then had to walk to the office building.  The directions just said "take unknown road to TOC building" -- no clue which way to go.  But between the two of us we were actually able to find it on the map (even though it was written in English it still took us a few minutes to see it!).  Then it was a matter of looking "touristy" and looking up at all the tall buildings until we saw it.

We then went inside and found wihch the west tower and went up to the 13th floor to find Beckman Coulter -- happily the sign looked amazingly familiar..

We then walked around a bit and took some pictures of buildings and yes MORE ferris wheels were seen but no pics -- they are on almost every street corner!

This building looked like the things in Tron but had a church almost under it!

Thought this was interesting -- both the building and the mast-y looking thing  (that I guess you can't really see that well - but take my word it was there)

We also saw cherry blossom trees

and I can't even imagine what this next thing is for  .  Yes those ARE buildings next to it!

Karen and I then ventured to one of the Japanese restaurants in the hotel - Oshima - and had the "big" lunch.  Multicourse and things I have no idea what they were.  The waitress was in traditional kimono and obi.  The meal was a mix of cooked (tempura and other meat , tofu and fish) and raw (sushi -tuna I think but ???) food as well as miso soup.  There was also an egg custard dish that was savory not sweet and for dessert we had some sort of sherbert (possibly orange rind???).  There was also a very strong tea and a berry juice that was sweet and had an almost diluted jello like quality to it - but in a good way.  And YES we did use our chopsticks (even though the waiter brought us a fork and spoon) and for the egg custard they had the cutest little wooden spoon. Oh yeah, we also split a "bottle" of warm sake.  This was my first time drinking sake and I must say it was very good!   And truthfully by the end of the meal I was full! 

I am back in my room now and for the first time turned on the tv... watched some variety show with a whole bunch of different people and song styles including one very bishounen (pretty) boy who seemed to be totally enjoying himself.  Now there is volleyball on, also saw a bit of  the Masters golf - interesting with Japanese commentary (ok not really),  Don't see much American or English language tv here - Karen saw a dubbed NCIS and I saw an old subtitled western.  Also there were at least 4 channels with baseball (yakyuu) on.

Well that is it for now.  Wish me luck assimilating into the office tomorrow.

oyasami nasei (good night/bye)

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