Sushi anyone?

I will have to say that my first experience eating Sushi was an interesting one to say the least. Lorin, the other American guy that I'm here with took me to this Sushi Bar down the street. Basically you sit down at a bar and a conveyer belt moves in front of you with plates of all different kinds of sushi and you just grab whatever you want. The first plate I tried was some raw tuna. Very interesting texture and taste. I like tuna cooked much better than raw. I did try some cooked eel and shrimp, but the most interesting plate of all was the last one. The picture says it all. These squid were very chewy at first and then they just started to get slimy in my mouth. The only option was to just swallow them whole, which, given the slipery texture they slid down very nicely. I even got one of the legs stuck in my tooth. Luckily there was a Wendy's just two shops down. Nothing like a nice Frosty to take away the after taste of raw squid!

Public Toilet

I don't think I need to explain this one. The pictures say it all. Granted not all public toilets are this way. It was worthy of a picture.

Sunday - walking day

I went to church on Sunday and then walked my tail off trying to go out and see everything that I could. My first stop after church was a very cool little park just across the street from the temple. Very calm, but very noisy (the bugs here make an incredibly annoying sound. I've been told that if you've ever lived back east, these bugs are pretty common. Much louder than crickets). I happened to catch some men fishing in this small pond although the only fish in the pond were carp. They seemed to be enyoying themselves though.

From there it was off to the Imperial Palace. The inner place grounds themselves are off limits to the public, but there are several gardens and places where the public is admitted. The palace is considered the center of Tokyo and everything revolves around it (including the train system). The whole palace is surrounded by a large moat that was used in older times. There used to be a huge castle built here until it was pretty much demolished during World War II bombing raids. Only the walls, moat and some buildings are original. I grabbed a pre-made ice cream cone while walking around the grounds. The cone itself was a little rubbery as you can see in the picture. I tried to eat the cone, but just couldn't. I had to squeeze the ice cream out of the cone just like you would an Otter Pop.


This is one of my favorite shots of the bridges that lead to the inner palace grounds. This bridge is a very famous bridge.


To see more pictures of the palace grounds, check out my posted pictures HERE. From the palace grounds it was off to Shinjuku, which is considered the sky scraper district of Tokyo. The Tokyo Municipal Government Building is there, which is pretty impressive. The towers themselves are about 800 feet tall and each tower has an observation deck on the 45th floor that gives you a pretty good view of Tokyo. I happened to go up there at night to see the lights. Quite an awesome view.

Tokyo is definitely a beautiful city at night. All the lights and fun of Las Vegas, but much cleaner. I was dead by the end of the day. Fun day though.

A-OK with Moroni

I thought this was pretty funny. The chapel where I've gone to church is right next to the temple in Tokyo. About a month ago there was a pretty strong earthquake that hit Tokyo (7 something on the scale) and the earthquake actually knocked the trumpet out of Moroni's hand. They still haven't put it back up yet. Oh well. At least Moroni making an "A-OK" sign is just as good.

Shakey's and shakers

Saturday was a busy day. It all started with a very good lunch at Shakey's Pizza in Shibuya. It was all you can eat and boy did it hit the spot. From there I went to a place called Asakusa, which is the souvenier capital of Tokyo. There was a ton of shops here. Anything and everything you would ever want dealing with Japan is sold along a very long corridor as seen below.

At the end of this corridor was a huge shrine. Definitely the largest shrine I've seen so far.

Right on the other side of this shrine a mother and her young son stopped me and asked where I was from. I told them I was from the United States. The boy asked if I he could take a picture with me. His mother took the picture and as a thankyou he gave me a folded origami bird. It was kind of neat. If I was thinking, I would have asked his mom to take a picture with my camera too. This is another shrine next to the one above which is a famous one. I've seen this in pictures in books before.

The icing on the cake was a huge festival that was going on at the same time I was there. The parade reminded me of the dancers I saw at Carnival in Sao Paulo. Not as many scantily clad women, but there were some. The band seen in the picture marched right by me. They were "shaking" and grooving to the drum rhythm.

Something else that I found strange was this interesting fountain also near the shrines in the pictures above. People came up to the fountain, picked up one of the ladles and would either pour the water into their hand and drink it or they would actually sip right from the ladle itself. Some after they drank the water would immediately spit it out too, but most swallowed. Not very sanitary if you ask me, but I think it has some sort of ritual significance.


I also happened to see these two little boys playing with pidgeons and snapped a quick picture. It made me miss Brooklyn and Isaac. They would have loved playing with the pidgeons.

Good Friday everyone!

The Typhoon has passed and skies are clearing. But boy is it muggy today. It was a good Friday though. After a delicious pancake meal at McDonalds this morning and a pretty boring day at work, I decided to walk home to the hotel instead of take the train. It is only about a mile walk. I did enjoy a night out on the town though. It started with some very interesting music in the patio area below my 12th floor balcony. It was pretty hilarious to listen to a Japanese woman trying to sing "Route 66" in English of course.


It was then off to TGI Fridays (appropriate enough) for dinner where I sat close enough to the bar to watch this Japanese bartender put on an incredible show of making drinks. With bottles flying through the air and cups and glasses spinning in his hands, it was enought to keep me entranced. I then ventured out on a quest to find some more intersting English'isms and found a few funny ones:

This first one caught my eye. I think that this phrase sounds much better than "psychiatrist." This was a walk up little store with booths that reminded me of those you see in nail salons.


While walking through a bowling alley I came across a very interesting video game in the arcade that intrigued me. I had seen this series of game in the States but never with this twist.

I had to try it. The only problem was that all of the words were in Japanese. Granted they were not the Japanese characters. They were normal letters, but it sure was hard. I did fairly well though, furiously typing, trying to keep the evil zombies from getting me. Every correct letter would shoot off a hand or an arm or something.

The last thing that caught my eye was a sign at one of the local movie theaters. I couldn't help but laugh. All other movie titles in English were correct except for this one:

Movie tickets are pretty pricy here. To see a standard movie, the pricetag is about $25. Needless to say I'll wait until I get back to the states to go to the movies.

And now I'm sitting back in my hotel room getting ready for bed while everyone back home is just getting up for the day. CNN is getting old really fast. I did get a load of laundry done though. Too bad that washing 5 pairs of garments and 5 pairs of socks came to about $40. Oh well. Not my bill fortunately.

Typhoon Mawar

So, what is a trip to Japan without the excitement of a typhoon? This is my first typhoon. From what I've been able to pick up on tv, it is the 11th typhoon of the season. It isn't a very large one however it is causing some mud slides due to the earthquake they had here last month. I found this article that explains a little about it: http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/25/japan.typhoon.reut/

My hotel room is on the 12th floor and there are quite a few trees below me that are whipping around pretty ferociously. The rain is pretty heavy. But it looks like the brunt of it will hit while I sleep. We'll see how it is in the morning.

More on bidets

So, Mike sent a very interesting link from a friend who has had some experience with bidets in South America. He sums it up much better than I could. If you want the true bidet analysis, please click HERE.

The only difference with the bidets here (remember that I'm in a technologically advanced society) is that the bidets are built right into the toilet seat. Makes things very convenient.


Basically you do your thing, push the button and a little telescoping arm shoots out from just underneath the back of the toilet seat. There are two setting, the bidet button and then the shower button. Not sure about the difference. I guess you use the bidet to clean and then the other button rinses. You can also turn on the seat warmer if you want to.

There must be some sort of sensor in the seat because whenever you sit down, water starts to trickle into the bowl. Kind of strange because you feel like somethingn is leaking out of you. I really worried that I had the runs or something the first time I sat down. Sorry. Didn't mean to paint that picture.

Good ol' American Food

Nothing like a nice meal at the Outback Steakhouse to bring you back home. This restaurant is literaly about 100 yards from my hotel. Ate here for dinner tonight. Very good food. I had a nice medium steak, cole slaw and french fries. They had the normal hot bread that they bring out to you before your meal along with a Caesar salad. To top it off, a nice slice of New York style cheescake with strawberry syrup. Nice restaurants here are a little pricy. Just my meal alone came to about $40.

Misc. thoughts of Japan thus far

So I thought I'd put down some interesting things I've noticed since I've been here.

1. Tokyo is the most expensive place to live in the world. A standard haircut for a male here is about $40. I've seen several Ferrari's, a few Lamborghini's and countless BMW's and Mercedes here.

2. All women wear some sort of heeled shoes, some very high heels. They are usually the slip on open-toed type. As you walk down the street all you hear is "clip clop clip clop".

3. I was skeptical at first, but bidets are actually kind of cool. They really should get these in the States. It would definitely save on toilet paper.

4. People dress very plainly here. Lots of white and black and grey clothing. Almost all men wear white shirts and ties or dark suits to work in the morning. They do spice it up a little more on the weekends.

5. A lot of things are in English and Japanese. On the subways, all automated announcements are done in Japanese first and then in English. Makes it nice.

6. The Japanese drink an absurd amount of tea. Probably as much as Americans drink soda pop. The popular soft drinks here are Coke and Fanta Grape. No Pepsi.

Stack 'em high

When you have no room to move horizontally, I guess your only option is vertically. Kind of a cool system if you ask me. Probably cuts down on car break-ins.

Do you speak English?

I had to take a picture of this hair salon. I'm still trying to figure it out. I guess they want you to keep coming back or something. If anyone has any insights, please comment.

You know you're in Japan when . . .

You know you're in Japan when you walk into a 7 Eleven and are blown away by a severe odor of fish. The kind of smell that sticks on your clothes for a half hour after you leave the store.

Sorry. No slurpies here in Japan. Rats!

The Japanese Food Staple

Thank goodness there's one of these just around the corner from my hotel. Although to order, you have to just point to the picture of what you want. Prices are comparable to those in the states. McDonald's are just as populous here as they are in the states and possibly even more so. On my way to the office this morning I stoped and had breakfast here. Japanese aren't that big into breakfast from what I've been told. However, my egg McMuffin hash brown and large Minute Maid (very watered down) were pretty tasty. And with a soft, instrumental rendition of "I Swear" and "Someday My Prince Will Come" playing over the speakers, I felt right at home.

Safely in Japan

Well, It's 4 am in the morning Japan time and of course I'm wide awake. Hopefully I'll adjust to this timezone quickly enough. The plane ride over was actually not as bad as I had imagined. The strangest part was the sunlight. The scripture in 3rd Nephi about a day and a night and a day that all seemed like one day best describes it. I never saw the sun go down for Friday night. I had almost 21 hours of straight sunlight. I sat next to a guy from China studying Biology at UC Santa Cruz. Movies on demand in the plane were also a plus to pass the time.

After landing in Tokyo, I took about a hour and a half bus ride to the hotel. The hotel is not too bad: (HOTEL). I get CNN in English but that's about it. High speed Internet in the hotel might even be faster than at home, which is nice. I haven't really been outside much yet, but I can tell you that it is hot. High in Tokyo is supposed to be 90 today, but add the humidity and it makes for a sticky day. I have a great view from my hotel balcony. (Click HERE to see or download the original)



Going to try to catch church hopefully today. There are several English wards in the area. Also will be setting up my training. Hopefully I'll have more interesting things to talk about next time. Crazy to think I'm on the other side of the world. Gotta love modern transporation.

Time to move on

So, it's official. Tami and I have decided to move away from our first home and invest in a new one. It's been something we've talked about ever since we flooded last year. It's been quite the experience looking at new homes and trying to decide whether to buy used or build again. We met with a realtor today and are going to "move" on this pretty quickly. We are hoping to stay in Spanish Fork though.

Tile Time

So I've been at it again this past week. We decided to tile the bedroom downstairs that received the brunt of the water damage during our flooding. So since I am the tile master of the home we figured we'd tile it. It is by far the largest area I've ever tiled, but I will have to say I'm getting pretty good at it. I used some 12" tiles we got on a screaming clearance deal at Home Depot. I also happened to buy a wet tile saw on sale at Home Depot for only $88. It has worked like a champ thus far.

I have layed all of the tile down and am just about ready to grout it, which is the messy part. Tami wants me to get the floor all done before I leave for Japan so that she can work on the beadboard while I'm away. I've also mastered the art of what tile professionals call "back buttering". Basically when you put the thinset adhesive on the back of the tile instead of on the floor first. Usually for area where the notched trowel is to large to fit. I felt like I was smearing peanut butter on tile all afternoon. I should go into business!

Here's the before picture:

Me working on the tile:

And finally the finished tile without the grout. I'll post another picture when it's all done. Notice that we painted the room yellow too.

Mt. Timpanogos - #8

So, on Thursday I decided to take a day off work (even though we were extremely short staffed) and hike Mt. Timpanogos with Brian (my brother-in-law) and a few of his friends. I didn't get much sleep the night before (about 3 hours) because the Bishopric was invited up to Girl's Camp for dinner and the testimony meeting at a cabin out near Mt. Pleasant (about an hour away from Spanish Fork). I will have to say that girls will be girls. It's interesting to think that someday my daughter will be going through all of that. Anyway, got to bed around 1:00 am and woke up at 4:00 am. Left the house by 4:30 and met up with Brian and his friends in time to start hiking at 5:30 from the Timpanooke trailhead.

The morning was beautiful and due to some avalanches that has done some damage to the trail, there was hardly anyone on the mountain. We lost the trail and bushwhacked up through this ravine but found the trail again only because I had my GPS with me and had programmed in a geocache that I knew was near the trail. Once we found the trail again, we turned a corner and practically ran into a huge moose grazing in the grass literally about 20 feet from us. I've heard stories about moose in Yellowstone and wasn't about to stick around much longer than needed to snap a quick picture.

We took our time up the mountain running into several large patches of snow along the way. Strange to see that much snow in the middle of August. We reached the saddle and were expecting the wind to be whipping through the pass like it usually does, but there was only a gentle breeze. Didn't even need the windbreaker I had packed in my backpack.

It only took about 4 1/2 hours to get to the top. We were surprised to find only 2 other people up there. I think it's the least crowded I've ever seen it. We took our time coming back down and even had some fun sliding down some of the ice fields. Besided some pretty wet pants and cold hands, no one was hurt.

This makes my 8th time to the top of Mt. Timpanogos. My goal is to hike it at least once a year as long as I live in Utah. So far I've only missed 1 year since my arrival after my mission in '96. Last year, Tami and I attempted the acsent up the Alpine side, but due to a wrong turn in the trail, only made it up about 3/5 of the way. If anyone is looking for a relatively moderate day hike (14 miles round trip with 4,400 feet elevation gain) I highly recommend this hike.

Isaac's favorite passtime

Night with the kids

It was another fun filled night with the kids tonight. Tami's new calling in the ward is the Enrichment Night Assistant Coordinator, so one Wednesday night a month, it's Daddy's night out with the kids. Granted our Daddy's night out consisted of watching Brother Bear (with surround sound of course) and then catching the results show for Rockstar INXS (yes, I am a fan of the show). And so now Brooklyn and I are sitting at the table enjoying our bowls of ice cream together. Ah the tough life!

8.7 miles

Went on a bike ride this evening. Tami is training for a half marathon in about 5 weeks and we needed to go on a long run. However, I'm not as into running as she is, so I rode the bike with the kids in the bike stroller and Tami ran. Last night we drove an 8.7 mile route, tracking it on my GPS so that when I went out this evening, we knew exactly what streets to turn on. She's quite the runner.

The infamous "trash can hider"

Tami saw one of these at a craft fair and it was selling for around $80. I thought I could build it cheaper. So thanks to some Internet searching (http://www.greatplans.com/c176874p16336459.2.html), I was able to purchase some plans that looked relatively simple for about $20. I decided to surprise her with the plans for her birthday, contingent of course on me actually building it for her. Well, amidst all of the other projects going on, I finally finished it this weekend (almost 5 months later). it turned out very nicely. Granted if I ever build another one, I'm going to improvise and make it bigger. If I just had about 2 inches more in each direction, I could have gotten a lot larger trashcan to fit inside. By the way, it is made of oak as well. The drawer at the bottom is great for storing extra trashbags. The only problem is that Isaac has found that it is fun to open and close it. We're just waiting for the moment when he opens it and gets a lap full of trash spilled all over him.

Bugs in the woodwork

So I've been dabbling in woodworking off and on over the last several years and finally have finished a few projects that I am very proud of. The first project was a simple "refinish" job of an end table. Little did I know how far from "simple" it was going to be. I tried typical chemical paint strippers you can buy at your local Home Depot, but found they didn't work too well. The best solution was good old hand sanding. I also decided to not do the legs. More out of frustration than anything.

The end result turned out much better than expected. Tami loves it and I'm very proud of it too. I think I'll stay away from refinishing for awhile.

Just getting started

So, here's my attempt to jump on this bandwagon that the world has so kindly nicknamed "blogging" thanks to my Novell buddy, Brett Berger (bergerbr.blogspot.com).