Yumi and I are continuing the "post-Ph.D. celebratory tour" of Japan, i.e. she keeps dragging me out to do stuff since I can't use the Ph.D. as an excuse to stay home anymore. The last two trips were to Odaiba (an area of Tokyo), and Ibaraki (a location well north of Tokyo).Odaiba is a nice, waterfront area in the south of Tokyo which offers nice views of the Tokyo metropolis as well as the interesting architecture of the Fuji TV building and the cheesy Statue of Liberty replica. We mostly just wandered around all day and watched the ubiquitous dance performances which I was not sure were a regular feature or just happened to be going on the day we were there.
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The Ibaraki trip was last Saturday and I wasn't too pleased when my lovely wife informed me that out that our bus tour left Yokohama station at 7:00 am necessitating a 6:00 am departure from our apartment and a 5:30 am wake up. We boarded the bus with about forty 60- and 70-somethings and headed north. We arrived at the first of 3 destinations around 11:00 am (4 hours after we left Yokohama!). The first stop was the picturesque Fukuroda no Taki waterfall, followed by the Ryujin pedestrian suspension bridge (Japan's longest at 375 meters) and then a nearby park. We got back to Yokohama around 8:00 pm and home around 9:00 pm. Thankfully we got some sleep on the bus. In addition to the sights, the other attractions were the local delicacies from natto (fermented soy beans - yum!) to apple pastry to dango (cooked rice flour in a sweet sauce).
Yay natto! The food that looks like chunky peanut butter, smells & tastes like blue cheese & has a texture that should be limited to what comes out of my children's noses.
ReplyDeleteYeah - so far I've kept my distance. I'm intimidated by what other foreigners tell me about their Natto experiences.
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