Culture shock

We are not in Kansas anymore. 

This place is crazy town and I'm not 25.  

Had my first little freak out last night and needed to reach out to my brother Brian for a pep talk which he gave me, and it's helped. That said I haven't gone outside yet today to do it all over again. I keep reminding myself that I've done this before, AND my 72 year old father did this last year with ease. The biggest issue is the sweltering heat and humidity as it makes everyone (me) more irritable and less able to go with the flow. I'm sure it's worse in the cities and was bad in Hong king but we had more frequent areas of air conditioning and there were actually predictable traffic rules!

We are staying on backpacker row amongst many travellers in their twenties and a few older ones too. Have not seen any other kids yet. Hotel is nice, clean and the family room is spacious. Great area if you can actually cross the street...

Freak out part two came when we were supposed to cross the street...of course I remember my brother and Dad describing this, but until you are faced with actually having to make it to the other side, it doesn't seem real. Being a Mom now with my kids in tow is a very different experience. Craig crossed and then had to come back to get us as we had been too scared to follow him. You are supposed to just walk slowly and confidently but I wasn't confident that the kids wouldn't make any sudden movements! Anyway, we made it and did a few more street crossings and I think we're starting to get the hang of it. Abby asked at one point, "don't they have lights and lines on the streets?"  Nope. Appears they do not. 

The monsoon didn't help things in terms of stress, BUT it did take a number of degrees off the heat and allowed us to have some relief even if we were wearing plastic bags. 

It's culture shock. Japan and Hong Kong were fancy and easy. This is the real start of the adventure portion of this backpacking trip. 

The positive was that Abby picked up a little mirror at the night market for a fraction of the Hong Kong market prices and she was happy. Robin has already bought her first pair of elephant baggy backpacker pants and noted that those, a tank top and Birkenstocks are really trendy! Trendy in SE Asia I might add, not sure you'd wear that in Etobicoke!

Today is a new day and after a good sleep and an email from my pro traveller brother, I am ready to face the heat. I mean day. 

Day 20: Welcome to Hanoi!

We had a great morning today... Woke up and got packed just in time to skype into a Norseman clan party - it was great to see everybody!  We strolled around between our hotel and Causeway Bay and grabbed some breakfast - we learned that we could spend a lot less on good food after our Foodie tour yesterday (though grabbing Starbucks after kind of made that a moot point!).

We cabbed it to Hong Kong airport - the place is amazing.  After a short 2 hour flight, we were landing in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.  I felt like our real Southeast Asia trip was about to begin.   We won't see another big modern 1st world city until Singapore in a month.  We met our driver (prearranged with the hotel) and puttered off to the City.   I say puttered because (you were right Papa) they drive extremely slowly, even on the highway (about 50 km/h).  As we got closer to the capital, we noticed the mopeds and scooters and bikes beginning to mass.  It's a very cool organized chaos that I will have to capture on video to to it justice.

Our hotel is in backpacker alley - it seems like a good area and the room is huge and clean.   Our receptionist, Bella, gave us a warm introduction and gave us all a welcome drink... Kind of nice!  Things seemed pretty cheap off the bat when we gave her our laundry which she weighed and pronounced that it would be $6 to clean.   We headed out for Pho on her recommendation and landed at a spot where we all had vegetarian pho - quite good.

Sunday is the day for the night market in Hanoi.   Getting there was..... Interesting.   You really have to trust the local way of crossing the road - just start walking, slowly, in a direct line and make sure you don't make unpredictable moves - kind of like riding in a peloton!  Beth and Abby were pretty unnerved at first, but they seemed to get the hang of it.

The night market was actually fantastic - something for everyone and way more interesting than the markets in Hong Kong.  Unfortunately the reason we suddenly started getting cooler breezes to relieve the heat on the streets was that a short monsoon storm was blowing in.  Within 20 minutes of getting to the market, we were huddled under a tarp trying to figure out what to do.   Beth saw a woman selling rain ponchos so we paid the outrageous price of 40,000 Vietnamese Dong for 4, quite a ripoff but we were desperate... Wait... No.... That's only $2.40 Canadian.... Total!

We made it back to the hotel (the streets were almost dry by that time), and now we are all catching up on our iPads!  My initial impressions of Hanoi: chaotic scooter craziness, beautiful night scene around the lake, super friendly people, backpackers aplenty, memories of SE Asia circa 1997!

VLOG: Hanoi

HK Airport

One of the nicest airports I've seen... complete with another cheesy photo op!

Market time

:-)Today we went to the markets in Hong Kong, China. At first we went to some of the other markets on the street, but we had no official success after all. Then after that we went to the the gold fish market and again absolute no success.  But after that we went through the ladies market and after a long time of walking through most of the shops we finally found some success and so I went into a sunglasses shop and found a pair of really fancy sunglasses and at first they were 129 Hong Kong dollars but then I negotiated for 50 HK dollars and after arguing she finally said yes. Thanks Steve and Lori for the extra money to buy the amazing pairs of good sunglasses. 

Thanks a lot :-)

Day 19: Foodie Tour and Causeway Bay

When we were in Tokyo earlier this week, we stumbled upon Foodie Tours on trip advisor.   It sounded like a great opportunity to get into the nitty gritty of the local food culture of Hong Kong.  We booked the breakfast/lunch four hour tour of Sham Shui Po, which is a real working class neighbourhood of Kowloon.

The tours were max 12 people, but we lucked out and were grouped with just 3 other people - an elderly Kiwi couple, and a solo Kiwi middle aged woman (I mean the older middle aged... Certainly not near our age!).  Our tour leader, a mid twenties woman named Fiona was fantastic - full of information, enthusiasm and passion about the area.

You can take a look at the girls VLOG for a lowdown on the food, but here are some of broad strokes as far as the food goes...

Stop 1 - Sweet, freshly baked "pineapple buns" that were so named for their shape rather than their flavouring.   Delicious!  Served with "milk tea" which is kind of a mix between real Indian (ie served in India) Chai and English tea.  Hong Kong people are not big coffee drinkers (too strong) and this tea is a morning staple.

Stop 2 - Steamed rice rolls, served on a plate then topped with sweet or sour sauces and sesame seeds, eaten with long tooth picks.  Ironically, Fiona had lectured us before we got in that in a Chinese diner, it's common to sit with strangers (and not interact) - no big deal.   So we get to this "hole in the wall" diner and there's one local man at a table (picture below) and our group of 8 surround him and stare while he continues to eat breakfast.   It was hilarious.  And yes, I give the rice rolls a thumbs up!

Stop 3 - Soy!  We had the option here for cold, freshly made soy milk or a warm soy/tofu curd type of dessert dish that you would top with sugar.  We shared both dishes, and again I was pleasantly surprised.   It's something I would never order having not tried it, and I was really loving how each shop was highly specialized (and extremely small!).  Ironically all of the soy beans at this shop were organic soy beans from Canada (the Foodie tour carefully sources the best quality places in the area).

Stop 4 - Goose and Pork Knuckles!  Again, would we usually (ever) order pork knuckles, let alone eat them? Nope.  But I look down my table and my 10 and 12 year olds are gobbling the cold, ham-like meat down, as was my wife!  Wow.   Not too bad, though the outer part is pretty fatty but I avoided that part.   The goose was more like Turkey and again not too bad.

Stop 5 - Cookies!   Three different kinds of Chinese cookies (walnut and ??) - all very good, but what mesmerized us was watching them make some pork/cookie thing in the back... Fascinating, and how they work in such a small space in the heat of Hong Kong combined with the heat of the ovens just boggles my mind.

Stop 6 - Last stop, noodles!   The noodles were served with shrimp roe (very small red shrimp eggs) on top, and I think most of the group thought there was too much of the topping on the noodles.   Pretty good, but as a noodle lover, not my favourite.

Enough of the food, the interaction with Fiona was amazing.  She really gave us insights into the Chinese culture - how pushing and bumping into each other is no big deal (it's a small place with lots of people! :-); sitting with strangers in restaurants, no problem; insight into pawn shops and how they work for and against "saving face"; the ins and outs of the wet markets, dried seafood shops and even bead shops! - it was great.   I would often see one of the girls off to one corner talking with Fiona, and that interaction was priceless.

One of the cool things that Fiona would do is relate the neighbourhood history to the current ststus of life on Kowloon.  She pointed out some of the older apartment buildings and showed us pictures of the "condo cages" where multiple people basically live in cages sharing one small flat.  It is pretty sad and there is clearly a widening economic divide that seems to be happening more and more all over the world.

So...another great experience for us!

After some chill time (another two hour spa using up Beth's precious few makeup supplies), we walked down to Causeway Bay.  This place has been compared to Shibuya in Tokyo, but it's really a poor comparison.   It's busy for sure, but a relatively small area that lacks the hipness and energy of Shibuya.  Beth and I have been very surprised at the Japanese influence on the current culture and retail space of Hong Kong.  I was picturing Hong Kong to be hip/chic compared to Japan (well, Tokyo) but the opposite is true by far.

Last few hours in Hong Kong tomorrow, then we are off to Hanoi.

World food tour

Since we noticed all of the amazing restaurants along the central/mid-level restaurants, we decided to do a restaurant crawl for dinner on Friday night. We had high hopes of making it to 4, 5 or even 6 restaurants by the end of the evening. Our chief food critic, Abby, writes...

Today, my family and I went out for a "cultural experience dinner" in the Central part of Hong Kong. We tried samples of different kinds of food from 4 different restaurants. I'm going to tell you a bit about each restaurant and explain the different kinds of food we tasted there.

Restaurant #1: Taco Loco (a family-style Mexican restaurant)

I have to admit, I was expecting better.

I was expecting fresh and homemade food, but my assumptions were wrong. We ordered "freshly baked" tortilla chips (not "fresh" and possibly from a bag of Tostitos chips), with a side of "homemade" salsa and guacamole. I am not (as you know) from Mexico, but I do know that these tortilla chips were not fresh (and rather dry, but had a little bit of a kick to it), and as much as the salsa was good, the guacamole was not homemade or fresh. I could tell that it had been sitting there for a while, and I like fresh food. The guacamole was also smooth, however I like it chunky with LOTS of fresh cilantro in it (like Uncle Brian's guac).

It might sound like I hate this place, but that's not true. I liked the chips and salsa, but the ambiance beats the food. It was very colourful, and many plants, such as cactuses, were placed nicely around this small restaurant. The service was okay (refills for salsa and guacamole were self serve, as the waitresses were on their phones behind the counter), but overall the place was pretty good, but far from my favourite.

Rating 3/5

Restaurant #2: Le Souk (a fancy Moroccan cuisine)

This restaurant was defiantly my favourite out of the 4.

I'll have to start off with saying the ambiance was just spectacular! It felt like I was in Morocco, as there were many colourful pots and beautiful flowers, and the table setting was presented amazingly. I have to say, that if the restaurant has good ambiance, it makes your meal THAT much more enjoyable. The service was excellent as well. Good service is also a must in a busy restaurant like this one. The waiter let us sit down at the table, even though it was reserved for 8:00 (it was 7:15 then)! Now for my favourite part: the food. As we sat down, the waiter got us 3 ice waters and, of course, a beer for my dad, (he quite enjoyed that!). We were then served warm pita bread with olive oil, garlic, and basil hummus. That was so good and very filling! Next, we ordered falafels with a white dipping sauce. Now I'm not a huge fan of falafels myself, but I loved this dish! It was so light and the dipping sauce just made it so delicious! Overall, I absolutely recommend this restaurant to you, if you ever find yourself wandering about in the Central part of Hong Kong.

Rating: 5/5

Restaurant #3: Nepal (a Nepalese restaurant)

This cuisine was a close second to the Moroccan restaurant (above).

This was also on the fancier side, and again, the ambiance was outstanding. The waitresses and waiters were very friendly, and the food was amazing. We feasted on a light chicken salad tossed with sweet herb dressing, and papadam (a Nepalese/Indian style thin crispy bread with some spices) accompanied by 2 sauces: a spicy red one, and a very salty, but spicy, green one. I loved the chicken salad, and I loved how it was a really light dish, and gently tossed in the devine dressing, not soaked in it. The chicken was really well cooked, but not overdone or underdone (I would hope not), which is JUST how I like it. The lettuce and vegetables from the salad were very fresh and crisp. The papadam was quite nice, although a touch soggy because of the freshly washed chopped vegetables on top, but the sauces were very flavourful and spicy. I would also highly reccomend this place, although don't just order the salad (I was very jealous of the table beside us, because that curry looked amazing), try other local Nepalese foods as well. Overall, I really enjoyed this restaurant.

Rating: 5/5

Restaurant #4: Santorini (a Greek cafe)

Although this restaurant was excellent, 2 desserts were more expensive than the other restaurants.

This cafe makes you feel like you're in the ocean in Greece, because the walls are blue tiles and the floors and tables are a sandy looking concrete with sand dollars pressed into them. It sounds a bit odd, but it looks wonderful! Now, this restaurant is a bit on more of the pricy side, so if you don't want to spend a ton on food, this is not the restaurant for you. Although it's expensive, some items are reasonably priced. We ordered 2 delicious Greek desserts. One was a creamy cinnamon rice pudding, and the other (my absolute favourite), a creamy rich melt-in-your-mouth chocolate lava cake. It was delightful! Although the desserts were spectacular, one waitress did mess up my moms coffee order (cream instead of milk the first time, and then forgot to bring the milk for the coffee the second time), but I'll give her a break because she seemed like a newbie. Overall, I would reccomend this restaurant, but not that much because it is pricy.

Rating: 4/5

Well, I hope you enjoyed my review (it might be a bit long though...), and if you're looking for some great restaurants if you ever find yourself in Central Hong Kong, then feel free to try them because I really enjoyed them.

 

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VLOG: Foodie Tour

Starbucks Review: Victoria Peak, Hong Kong

Here are our ratings for Hong Kong:

Service: 4/5

Cleanliness: 4/5

Selection: 3/5

Food/Drink Quality: 4.5/5

Ambiance: 4.5/5

Overall Rating: 4/5

Day 18: Aberdeen and Markets

We had a great night's sleep!  The early bird woke everyone up at 9:30.  NINE THIRTY!  The horror!   The bird being Beth this time - Robin was also still slumbering.   We grabbed a public bus and went through the island over to Aberdeen for breakfast.  

A little old lady accosted us on our way near the harbour and a quick search on the internet confirmed she offered us something we wanted to do - a thirty minute Sampan tour of the harbour.   Turns out we were to ride her husband's boat which, as it turns out, was great.   The harbour is pretty cool - hundreds of medium sized fishing boats, giant floating restaurants, pleasure boats and more.   It was another hot day (Robin suffering the most) and when we saw all of the tourist-specific Sampans filled with 15-20 tourists, we were happy our old lady tout had found us.

Bussing around town is fairly easy - as usual the drivers will usually tell you if you're on the right bus and the busses frequently have English place names for the stops.   For the afternoon, we headed over to the Mong Kok area that is know for its markets.

The markets were pretty much the same as last night's markets, though we did manage to pick up some things - we found a nice painting for one.   We last a couple of hours before we grabbed a taxi back to our hotel.   The metro would have been better I think - the taxis are cheap but to cross the harbour tunnel you basically crawl through traffic for 30 minutes.   The metro next time!

We have a fun idea for dinner so we will post something about that later I'm sure!

VLOG: Escalators and Temple Street

Day 17: Hong Kong and Kowloon

We rolled out of bed and worked our way downstairs.   The hotel (Cosmopolitan near Happy Valley race track) is great - modern, clean, cool!   The same can't be said for outside - not cool.   It feels like before the rainy season in Japan.   The humidity level must be close to 100%, but what can I say - deal with it :-).

We walked over to Wai Shan market and grabbed a quick bite before heading towards Central.  We marvelled at all of the pedestrian walkways - elevated, covered, out of the way of traffic.  Very cool.  The Hong Kong island we saw today was the multi cultural, ultra modern, beautiful version of Hong Kong.  It is still intermixed with the occasional decrepit building, but those just add to the charm.  

We saw signs for the Victoria Peak Tram, and since it was on our list we walked up to the station.   The tram took us up the steep mountain that looms over Hong Kong and gives a great view of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the harbour.  Beautiful.  After looking around at the top and finding our Starbucks (!), we took the tram down and when we got to the bottom, realized how lucky we were to have gone early.... The crowds were swelling and the temperature was sweltering!

We walked and walked, making our way over to Central.   We found the Central - Mid Level escalator system that is essentially an 800 meter pathway of moving sidewalks, walkways and escalators (all covered) that works it's way up the slope of the mountain.  Every escalator or walkway you get off, there is a barrage of restaurants of different ethnicities, bars, bistros and more.  Our friend Kim said this was one of her favourite areas of Hong Kong, and I see way.  We grabbed lunch at a little Vietnamese place which was great, and continued our way up.   When we got to the top, though full, our mouths were watering at all of the gastronomical choices - we vowed to come back tomorrow night!

We needed to cool off so we made our way down to the metro and across the bay to Kowloon Station.   The station sits in another of the amazingly modern shopping complexes that seem to be everywhere you turn in Hong Kong.  We headed to the movie theater - Pitch Perfect 2 for the 3 girls and Mad Max for me - I have to say I got the better deal here but they disagree so.... Win-win.

After the chill of the movie theater, we walked over in the heat to Nathan street, passing through the cheesy Jade market - I have to say most of the low end shopping we've seen today is a bunch of junk. We stopped into a Chinese Restaurant on Nathan Street and ate family style.  We gambled on that place, and won!  It was delicious.  We walked back towards Hong Kong, passing through the Temple Street Night Market - which was again, mostly kitschy stuff.

Kowloon is more like I pictured the older Hong Kong to be - a bit of hot mess, in a good way.  Lights, traffic, people, noise, activity, good and bad smells - all in a melting pot boiling in the hot afternoon sun and the muggy nights.

After another click of walking, we ended up at the harbour in time to see the nightly 8pm light show - basically a symphony of lights coordinated by a dozen or so buildings across the way in Hong Kong.  I have to say, the Hong Kong skyline beats Manhattan in my opinion - it is beautiful.

I continue to be amazed at the girls - they have really adapted to this travel thing.  Sometimes there is some trepidation about sitting down at a restaurant without really knowing what you're going to eat, but these girls are brave, relaxed and amazing.  They still bicker, which is pretty normal, but that tends to be before meal time - most of the time it's been really great.  Beth has also transformed right back from the hard working Deloitte Executive to the backpacker companion I had 20 years ago :-)

Hello humidity

First thing I thought of this morning was Sue Graham Wheat and then how much she would hate this humidity and what it would do to her hair. Happy birthday friend!

Had a great, full day in Hong Kong with a needed break from walking and the heat. Saw the epic movie Pitch Perfect 2. Quite the Oscar potential...if the Oscars were run by the tween-set. 

The kids are super adaptable...they were very positive and excited to be here. Robin looked at me today during one of the many escalator rides and told me how much she appreciated us taking this trip and that she knew she was really lucky. Then later tonight while looking at the skyline and watching the beautiful lights on Hong Kong from Kowloon, she said "guys, take it all in because you'll never see anything like this again. Breathe in the moment!"  Too cute. 

Lots of shopping opportunities here but need to determine whether we will make the time to figure out how to ship things home. The humidity definitely slows us down and I can't help but think I'd be more ambitious if I were shopping in an air conditioned mall!

Welcome to Hong Kong!

Day 16: Hong Kong via Azamino

The kids were dead to the world this morning.  We stayed out a little late last night in Shibuya, and the kids added a one hour spa setup in our apartment when they got home... Cute.

Once we were packed and ready for later, the kids indulged us by not complaining too loudly as we went to Azamino, where Beth and I used to live from 1994 to 1997.   The place had changed, but it hadn't - it still looks like a pretty nice place to live.  I was surprised at how many questions the kids asked and just how interested they were.  It seems like a very long time ago that we scrounged together every penny we had (and then some thanks to Hara-sama) and moved to this little suburb.

We booted down the Denen Toshi line to Futakotamagawa where we used to hang out and eat Indian food with other expats.  This play and changed - big time.   It was a huge built up, modern playground for adults!  Our little Indian restaurant "Moti" was still there (now 7 floors above ground, but still the same place!) and we all had some awesome butter chicken.  Japan truly has some of the best Indian food in the world.

Late afternoon, we were all sitting at the airport catching up with emails, YouTube videos, minecraft and more.  I am really pleasantly surprised how the team has been to far - very relaxed, almost over comfortable with this undertaking, and with just over 2 weeks under our belts.   I'm going to miss Japan but I know I will be back sooner than 20 years from now....  I will miss the trains, the activity, the peacefulness, the efficiency, the food and pretty much everything else (except the smoking, right Robin!).   See you in Hong Kong in 5 hours!!

Airport: Off to Hong Kong!!

It's very sad to leave Japan, and we have had so many amazing memories here, but it's unfortunately time to say goodbye. Right now, I'm in the Narita Airport waiting for our 6:15 pm flight, eating my delicious Fuji apple. We will be arriving in Hong Kong at about 10:00 pm, so about a 4 hour flight. My favourite experiences about Japan were, the Robot Restaurant with Uncle Steve and Auntie Kris (soon to be!!!), Shinjuku, staying with Koda-San, Karo-San and their daughter, riding the Shinkansen (fastest train in the world), our apartment in Kyoto with Uncle Steve and Auntie Kris, the Hiroshima Carp baseball game, sumo, playing in the park with Robin on the zip line, shopping in Harajuku, and those are only SOME of the incredible experiences I've had in Japan (and this is only 2 weeks into the trip!!) 

Well, it's been fun in Japan, and I defiantly hope to come back someday! Well, I'm soon going to be off to our next destination: HONG KONG!!!!!!

Day 15: Tsukiji Fish Market

Our last full day in Japan, and we didn't have much of a plan, other than visiting Tsukiji fish market.  the girls did a nice VLOG that pretty much shows what it's like.  The visit was shockingly my first (it's always on the "top" lists of things to do) so I was pretty pumped.

We elected not to go to the tuna auctions (wake up at 2am, queue up at 3am, enter at around 5:15am and watch the auction for 15 minutes - not with two kids!!), so,we started at the outer market (more of a standard food market) at around 7:30am and I quickly hunted down a sushi breakfast for myself (the 3 girls foraged elsewhere!).

The sushi was predictably amazing, but it was extra nice to have an experienced sushi chefpatient with my Japanese explain the levels of Toro (Tuna).   Basically, the fattier and larger the animal, the more expensive it is. For example, the sushi in the pic below had 4 pieces of tuna on the left.  The one  on the left is twice as expensive as the next one, which is twice then twice then twice.... On down the row of tuna.  They were all amazing- I was thinking of my friends who appreciate sushi the most (Probir, Adam) knowing they'd have a blast here.

The inner market (which opened at 9am to the public) was better than my expectations - I loved the energy and having to watch wherever you went not to interfere with the real work going on.  Sometimes it's annoying knowing you're just like every other tourist snapping pictures of dead fish, but I get over it quickly!

After the market we tooled around, eventually making it to Hibiya park, located in the heart of Tokyo and next to the imperial palace.   Another great park - the city is literally full of them.  We had a picnic lunch and the girls played in the park like they were 6 and 8 - too cute.   We had the ice breaker (frisbee) with us and sure enough the kids attracted a couple of 3 year olds that they began to teach.  I fear our status as leaders in ultimate frisbee may end in 20 years....sorry Toronto Rush!

For dinner we treated the kids to a nice Teppanyaki dinner.  It was great once again to be back in Shibuya - the busy/calm bundle of energy/zen place that feels like a second home.

Tsukiji Fish Market

Today was quite the sight, let me just say that.

Today we went to the worlds biggest fish market- Tsukiji Fish Market. We saw lots of different fish, shellfish and crustations. The fisherman start their job at about 11:00 at night. They would then bring it to the market and the tuna auctions would start at around 5:00 am, but the lineup to see this famous auction would start at 3:00 am! This market is definitely NOT a market for tourists. It's a really busy market and lots of workers with small shunt trucks zoom around the market, so it can be pretty dangerous! As we were walking around this ginourmas place, we saw tons of buckets with water- where they keep the live fish. Sometimes, they would take the fish out and butcher it right there on the spot. But usually, to keep the fish as fresh as can be, they would let the fish live as long as possible, and then it would die on its own. It was quite amusing (but kind of gross, especially to watch the particularly bloody and gutty fish get butchered), to see the fish being chopped up. Unlike North America, the Japanese use almost every single part of the fish, (including the head, the stomach, the eyes...). 

We saw many interesting fish, such as eel (not electric eel though!), octopi, huge oysters, black sea urchins, HUGE tuna (the size of the height of my dad, or longer!), red fish with gigantic eyes, weird looking yellow eggplant type things, really tiny shrimp, and much, much more! At around 10:00 am, the workers would start closing up their shops and packaging up the fish to send it off to restaurants or warehouses. 

It was really interesting to see all the different species of fish and the workers hard at work. I loved the Tsukiji Fish Market! 

Our Fish Market Vlog: Part 1

Our Fish Market Vlog: Part 2

Convenience store meals!

We are just back in the Apartment after an awesome day out. Morning spent at the fish market followed by a picnic lunch and some R&R in the park. I'm well into my second book of the trip and can't recall getting lost in time as I did this afternoon...back now for some math, blog posting and a rest before our last dinner in Japan. 

Had posted earlier that the food here is really reasonable. Of course you can go for the high end experiences too, but it does really amaze me that you can basically eat 3 reasonably healthy meals right out of a "conbeni" or convenience store. They have one every 300m or so - 7-11, Lawson, Daily 24 etc. This morning while Craig was enjoying a sushi breakfast, the girls and I had a conbeni breakfast of bananas, croissants, pancake things, almonds. For lunch, we had salads, rice balls, sandwiches, pineapple and rice crackers. Delish and doesn't break the bank. The stores are well stocked with bento meals and you can microwave them too. Pretty cool. Can't imagine eating my dinner at a 7-11 at home. 

Last night in Japan. It's been amazing. 10/10 for sure. Have to admit that I am a bit nervous for what is in front of us but suppose that is part of the fun!

Hibiya park

Today we went to Hibiya park.

 We took the train to he park and then got some lunch at Starbucks and seven eleven. Actually the lunch was quite good, And healthy. After we had some lunch we ( Abby and I ) found a zipline that was about 25m long. Abby and I went on it about 80 times. It was so much fun.

 After we played frisbee on the green grass beside the zipline. During our frisbee tossing with Abby and daddy, these really cute brothers thay were about 2 in a half years old, and they wanted to play frisbee with us and play with us.

 After an hour of playing with those really cute Japanese kids, we went to a popcical place and got oranged and calpis popcical, calpis for me and orange for Abby and daddy, and for mommy, nothing. Then we went to the imperial palace (it's were the empieor Iives). Well bye. 

VLOG: Shibuya crossing piggy back

VLOG: Our street, Takeshita

Sushi girls!

We went for sushi for lunch - I'm so proud of the girls for pushing their comfort zones.   We had to split up in twos.  So Robin and I set in one area and Abby and Beth in another.   I was so impressed with Robin - she tried raw tuna, cooked eel, steamed crab, fish egg sushi and shrimp tempura.   Then Abby comes over and reported that she had tried a half piece of raw tuna sushi - wow!

Day 14: Iroiro

It was another beautiful morning in Tokyo.  Beth and I woke up with the early bird while the preteen was mashed to her futon dead to the world.  Robin went into the e-zone (iPad) while Beth and I walked randomly through the back neighborhoods of Harajuku.  I'm always amazed at how quiet Tokyo can be.  One street is busy, then you duck into a cross street and you're in a quiet neighbourhood.

The girls wanted to do some shopping so I took a couple of hours to walk around and soak in more of Shibuya and the surrounding areas.   I could really live here again!

I found this cool banana vending machine...

No cars!  This is one of the busier high end streets in Tokyo... But where are all the cars?  My guess is this city with a population of around 38 million people has half the cars that we have in the GTA.  There's simply no need to have a car to get from one place to the next and they've made the cost of keeping a car prohibitively expensive and used the revenues to invest in transit.  I know, blah blah blah.   But even Abby and Robin, when looking at a highway today both said "where are all the cars".

Weird cart of cats that we have seen a few times...

In the afternoon we went to the new Roppongi Hills area.  Very cool and very modern.   There was a modern art Star Wars exhibit that was awesome..

At night we went to Shibuya for some Turkish cuisine and I piggy backed Abby on the way home....

Sumo day in Japan

The kids loved the sumo action today.   I've posted three videos showing different aspects of the last day of the tournament today.   It was a great finish today!

First up, introductions.   Each division, East and West does a group entrance:

Next up, the Yokozuna (current Grand Champions) each do a special ceremonial entrance:

Lastly, we took different snippets of video on the last match of the day, which ended in an upset - that's why you see everyone throwing their mats in the air!

Harajuku Greasers

One of our more bizarre "charished" memories of Tokyo are Sundays in Harajuku.   Harajuku is the center of all the youth and funky trends in Tokyo, and that comes out in full force here on Sunday.   One of the strangest things are the "greasers" - basically Japanese dancing Elvis dudes.  We went by the spot three or four times and I finally spotted them setting up at around 2pm.  I took a short video... It speaks for itself.   Enjoy

Day 13: Harajuku and Sumo!!!

Sundays in Harajuku (and Tokyo) for that matter are always interesting.  We are near Meiji Jingu, the most important Shinto shrine in Japan.  It is certainly the nicest in my opinion, but Meiji on Sundays is all about weddings, and we were lucky enough to see a couple of wedding parties.

We headed over to Yoyogi park for some much needed frisbee time.  I heard some loud music after a while so Beth went to check out what was going on and it turned out to be a huge Laotian festival packed with food trucks and the famous "Beer Lao" (which did not disappoint, the Steve and Brian!).  It was nice to see the girls chowing down on all sorts of fare - as they had better get used to that stuff over the next couple of months in Indochina!

Next up, a stroll down Omotesando, which I mentioned is known as the Champs Elysees of Tokyo.  I used to work there but I hardly recognize the place.  It's full of all the high end shops you'd expect to see on any of the high end shopping streets in the world.  I did see my little Kaitenzushi (rotating sushi) bar that I used to frequent for lunch.

At around  2pm, we grabbed the train to Ryogoku - the area that is home to Sumo in Japan.  I had arranged tickets through an online service and we were pretty happy with the results.  The kids had fun trying to pick the winners of each match - it's a very easy sport to get into.  We had a nailbiter match - the last of the day decided the whole tournament and it was quite the upset.  

All in all another great day on Tokyo!  I will post some videos of the Harajuku greasers and some sumo in separate posts.