Touring and Treating your Taste Buds in Tokyo

Our first trip together to Tokyo was part of our around the world in 58 hours adventure in February 2013. We were only in the country for 8 hours so we didn’t get a chance to experience all that Tokyo had to offer. While we were able to conquer the train, hit the Tsukiji Fish Market and Senjoji/Asakusa Kannon Temple on that trip, it was just the tip of the iceberg.

For this trip to Tokyo the flight was a little shorter than last time, only 7 hours from Singapore. Once I landed I took the Narita Express train into Tokyo Station. One of Tokyo’s airports, Narita, is about an hour or so by train from the center of the city. You can buy your train ticket at the airport and it is around $45 for the green car or $31 for the ordinary car. In the green car you receive assigned seating, bigger and nicer seats and more legroom. Then you sit back and relax until you get to Tokyo Station.

If you’ve ever been to Tokyo Station (or to many of the city’s train stations for that matter) you know it tends to be a bit of a madhouse with people everywhere. During rush hour at some stations they actually have train workers who stand on the outside of the train with white gloves on and push people into the train cars so the doors can close. (Video courtesy of  TheFat Finger and youtube.com) Luckily for me it was about 4 pm so it wasn’t as frightening as it could be. So there’s your education for the blog post- a little insight into using the train in Tokyo….very efficient, reasonably cheap and effective.

Now to the really important part…the food! Everywhere we went, whether the meal was $1.50 or not, the food was outstanding. We'll highlights 3 diverse dining delights from this trip. One of our favorite places is the Tsukiji Fish Market. The Fish Market is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world. For those of us who don’t need to buy a whole tuna, there are little restaurants set up everywhere with counter only seating where they serve the most amazing fish and seafood for cheap. (Contrary to the appearance in the photo, it is actually very clean.) The market has a variety of other vendors as well. After a delicious lunch of fresh ahi, we visited our favorite ceramic/housewares shop and Raegen also picked up two knives for the kitchen. (Japan is known for high quality knives.)

The other two great dining experiences we had were in the Omotesando/Harajuku area. A recommendation led us to a stellar place called Gyoza Lou’s where we enjoyed their gyoza, bean sprouts with meat sauce and miso paste cucumbers. Raegen said this place ranked high on his “restaurants that changed his life” list. (Did we mention it was also cheap?) Another night we happened upon a barbeque place. Now this may not sound that exciting to you all, but remember we live in Asia and barbeque is not readily available, let alone good barbeque. Urban BBQ Smokehouse had great craft beer, excellent espresso rubbed beef brisket, homemade barbeque sauce and one of the best burgers we’ve had in Asia.

To work off all that food we walked a lot. So does everyone else. The intersection at Shibuya, which you might akin to Times Square, is one of the busiest intersections I have ever seen for pedestrian traffic. I am going to go out on the limb and say it’s one of the busiest pedestrian crossings in the world. Watch this video of the pedestrians crossing that we took. Mind you this was on a Saturday afternoon when it wasn’t very busy.

Lastly, the most unique experiences we had in Tokyo was visiting a Pachinko parlour. Since gambling for cash is illegal in Japan, these parlours/casinos are set up to ‘gamble’ but you can’t win money, only prizes. The parlour can best be described as a giant arcade, full of plinko/pinball machines with hospital bright lighting. There is only one type of machine, all in Japanese, and it uses little pinballs as currency. You flip around the pinballs and apparently there’s a strategy to it and you win. I forgot to mention it’s really loud (rock concert loud) so you have to shout at each other to talk. After about three minutes, I was shouting, “let’s get out of here…this place is nuts and overwhelming.” Luckily we only lost $5 each.

Photo courtesy of Electric City Akihabara Pachinko 

Thanks for bearing with us…this post is a long one but there was a lot to report. Stay tuned for next week’s post about the adventure that was hiking Mount Fuji in Japan. Trust us, you won’t be disappointed!

Happy Trails,

Amy & Raegen

PS- Did you know you can click on the bold words in our posts to link directly a website on that subject? Try it- it’s fun!

The Elefantes in the Room

When we first moved to Singapore we had to start from the beginning when it came to putting together a house. (See Ode to temporary housing & Your life in a box.) We wanted our Singapore home  to contain a few items that we shipped over from the U.S. but to also find items during our travel to reflect the adventures we've experienced while living abroad.

One of the items we happened upon during our first month here was the Elephant Parade elephants. These painted elephants are perfect additions to our home although they are more than that as they support a good cause. The sales of the Elephant Parade elephants benefit The Asian Elephants Foundation (TAEF). The mission of the TAEF is to distribute funds to various projects that are dedicated to the conservation of the Asian Elephant. 

Our newest additions

About three months later Raegen happened upon a documentary called “Eyes of Thailand” while planning our anniversary trip to Thailand. (See Don't worry...go Krabi.) The documentary chronicled the story of a Friends of the Asian Elephant in Lampang Thailand, which operates the world’s first hospital for elephants. The documentary highlighted Mosha, the inspiration of Elephant Parade.  At the age of 7 months, Mosha lost her leg from a landmine explosion on the Myanmar-Thai border and was the first elephant to be fitted with a prosthetic leg. The hospital has treated over 3,900 cases of sick and injured elephants since 1993. It was an eye opening story that not only raised awareness of the mistreatment of elephants (they’re used in the logging industry) but emphasized the dangers and real threat posed throughout the region and the world by landmines. Friends of the Asian Elephant is one of eleven projects in eight elephant range countries that The Elephant Parade/TAEF supports by providing financial, material and technical assistance.

These cheerful additions to our home a great reminder of our adventures in Singapore and while our purchase from the Elephant Parade won’t save the world, it’s a step in the right direction. 

Happy Trails,

Amy & Raegen

PS- It was wonderful to hear from so many of you while we were in the States about how you enjoy the blog. If there’s something you want to hear about, send us a note! We’re always looking for topics you might find interesting. 

Homeward Bound

It seems like just yesterday we were on our flight to Singapore together for the big move and that our home leave trip in July was so far away. Apparently time flies and the next thing you know we were ordering a GoPro and necessities from Amazon.com to bring back from the U.S. (See this post and this one about shopping and prices in Singapore.) 

A trip back to the states brought us back to a familiar world. We were able to visit all the places we call home for business and/or to visit family and friends. It felt good and a little odd to be in our home in Phoenix which is really no longer our everyday house, but yet a familiar spot to lay our heads. We used our time wisely by stocking up on items for one of our next adventures in Mt. Fuji, made sure to get haircuts, eat Mexican food, drink Napa Valley wine and spend lots of time with friends.

Since friends and family being the most important part of our trip, we headed to Las Vegas to celebrate Papa B’s 60^th birthday. I had family coming in from Ohio, Florida and California and of course Mama and Papa S were there.

Since we had out of town guests we spent a few days playing tourist in Vegas. Nothing like a visit to the Neon Museum, Peppermill and the Mob Museum to showcase ‘Old Vegas.” If you haven’t been to any of these places, I highly suggest you add them to your itinerary for your next Vegas visit.

Neon Museum

There were multiple dinners with the biggest party happening on Saturday night at Aureole in Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino. We had an amazing meal with 25 people who have and continue to have an impact on Papa B’s life.

 

We couldn't have asked for a better trip (maybe with a little more sleep.) Regardless we were very blessed to be in the country to celebrate birthdays, engagements, new homes and more. See you all in December when it’s nice and cold in the states (although it’ll still be hot and humid in Singapore!)

Happy Trails,

Amy & Raegen

G'day WA

The remarkable thing about living is Singapore is how close you are to some amazing places.  This ends up being a double edged sword. On the one hand there are amazing places with all sorts of unique and different experiences but you have to have some time (and money) to enjoy them!  The nice part is being so centrally located some can be done in a quick weekend, like a trip to Perth, Australia.  

Australia is a country about the size of the lower 48 States, AKA HUGE, but there are only about 23 million people in the whole country (about 10 million less people than the state of California).  Now compare that to the 75 million sheep that reside in the country as of 2013.  When most people think of Australia the first thing that comes to mind is the Sydney Opera house, the Harbour Bridge, a kangaroo, koala bear, and maybe even a bottle of wine.  Some of our more refined readers might have images of blooming onions, Outback steakhouse, throwing shrimp on the Barbie and Fosters beer.  

Before I tell you the story of our trip to Perth, let's talk about the booming metropolis of Perth. Unless you are in the mining industry or a sailing historian and remember the 1983 America's Cup you probably have never heard of Perth until recently.  Perth has been the home base of the reporters following the search effort for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 as well as the point of embarkation for all of the search vessels and aircraft.  If that is not interesting enough for you then Perth is one of the most remote cities in the entire world!  While it is still in Australia, it is actually closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney.  This meant that we could hop down for the weekend and see some old friends who I studied with down under for a semester during college.

Beau and BoBo Riverton* were born in a small Australian town named Kalgoorlie but decided to move to the big city in search of love and opportunity.  They have been married for 5 years and have 2 wonderful daughters,  little Darth Vader* and little Ewok.* Over the years Beau and I have kept in touch and if I was in Singapore on business I would try to take the 4.5 hour flight directly south to see him and his family.

As we have gotten older and gained additional responsibilities,  the trips have moved away from late night outings, sports and video games to more family friendly activities. This is proof that yours truly can and is growing up!  During this trip we were able to get a great tour of Notre Dame Australia (where I spent a semester abroad), stop by for a pint at Little Creatures Brewery (I attended many “classes” there), as well as see the sites of Kings Park and a soggy Cottesloe Beach.  Saturday night we had a grown up outing and went to a charity event, Artitude, benefiting Telethon Speech & Hearing Centre for Children is a charitable organisation that teaches children with speech and language or hearing impairments to listen and speak.  The event forced me to dress up which is something that I am not keen on, but man did our dates look beautiful.

We hope that before our assignment ends we can head down south to Margaret River to try some of the best Western Australian wines.  For those people who are looking forward to some cooler weather Perth is a great place to pull that jacket out of its bin and remember what it like to be cold.

In closing, Amy and I want to thank the Riverton Family for an amazing trip to see a piece of the left side of Australia. We are so grateful for your wonderful hospitality- it was like being with family.  

Trips like these help to reinforce the fact that with technology and some effort one can have lifetime friendships with people on the other side of the world.  Amy and I are so appreciative of technology so that we can know what is going on with everyone’s lives, can FaceTime with people no matter where they are (minus in Wilson as the internet is too slow) and use Slingbox to get FoxNews and ESPN.  The best part is that we're getting to (or will see) many of you during our first home visit. While we have hit the ground running in the U.S. and we are both excited for time with family and friends! 

Until then,

Raegen & Amy

*All names have been changed to protect the innocent.