Helloooooooo! Anybody out there?!!?

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!  For today anyway.  :)

So, how's everybody doing?  Life is good here.  Andre and I are both working too much so there's not been a lot of exciting stuff to blog about.

I did participate in a client event in January that involved hiking for 90 minutes up a mountain in the snow to eat cheese and drink wine.  On the bright side, I was not required to walk back down.  Instead, I sledded/sled/slid down the mountain on a stool attached to a ski.  Total insanity.  And you read the beginning correctly.  This was done with a client.

In other news, I had a total American moment this week.  One of my clients gave out banners to everyone that are in the Swiss colors and are shaped like jerseys.  I opened mine and said "hey, cool, now I'm ready for Swiss National Day".  My colleague looked at me and says "annnnnnd the World Cup".  Riiiiiiiiiight.

Let's see.  What else.  I was reminded that even after 2 year and 4 months, I still can't properly mail a letter here.  I was feeling all proud of myself because I finally bought myself some stamps and had successfully mailed a few letters all by myself like a big girl.  On Monday, with a great sense of accomplishment, I dropped off my mothers day card for mom in the postbox on the way to work all stamped and ready to go.  On Wednesday, I opened a letter from the Post Office reminding me that international mail costs more than domestic mail.  Sigh.  The letter was very cool though.  The Post Office went ahead and added the additional postage to my letter and sent it on.  All I had to do was affix the missing postage to the bottom of the letter and mail it back.  The Swiss are very trusting.

And of course, no blog is complete without a picture of Sophie so to appease the masses, I give you...

Sophie playing on the beach!

I thought about promising to update more regularly but I think we all know that's an empty promise so you know, I'll do my best duuudes.

Come visit!!!!  We have a guest room that hasn't been used in ages!

Temples and Fishies and Cats! Oh My!

At the rate I'm going, it'll be Christmas again before I get all trip properly blogged.  Eh well whatdya gonna do?!

first - a quick photo of the city - imagine this in all directions

Tokyo is huuuuuuge (pop 13mil+)

we got lucky with the clear day and got to see Mount Fuji

and now onto the good stuff!

Temples

Woooo boy!  If you wanna see some temples, then Japan is the place for you!  I think we saw, somewhere around 8 bajillion. 

Here we have the Sensō-ji temple

this guy represents Nio, the guardian deity of the Buddha

A few other random pics taken while visiting various temples:

Tiny Buddha!

Bonzaiiiii!

Gotta stay warm

some delicious street food available to help curb your appetite while visiting your favorite local temple

That's it for now.  Many more temples to come when I get around to posting about Kyoto!  Including a gold one.  Oooooooooooo!

Now, onto to the...

Fishies!

In Tokyo, if one is interested, one can find the world's biggest wholesale fish and seafood market.  It's called the Tsukuji Market and it's the largest seafood and fish wholesale market in the WORLD.  Crazy right.  This is where they sold a Bluefin Tuna for $1.8mil last year.  They have a tuna market auction at 6am which is open to visitors at certain times of the year.  The number of people who can watch the auction is limited and you have to show up at something like 4:30 AM to get in.  Unfortunately (thankfully), the auction is closed in December because it's a busy time of year.  Whew.  But the good news is, tourists are allowed into the market after 9am so we can wander around and see all kinds of crazy seafood and giant Tunas.  What a totally weird thing to have become a tourist destination.  And here are some resulting totally weird photos:

The market is huge.  This is one of many many aisles

Giant Tuna!  being carved up!

yum?

Man at work.  mmmm Tuna

Boo!

and now....the grand finale...we paid to see...wait for it...

Cats!

No lie.  We totally paid 500 Yen to go into a closed off room and pet some cats.  When in Rome....  Apparently, a lot of Japanese folks live in tiny apartments and do not have rooms for pets.  Therefore, you have these places around Tokyo where you can pay a few bucks and go inside for some quality petting time with some cats!

yea - i was totally excited

i was taller than the normal Japanese person so I got to pet all the kitties trying to hide up high!

they go all out in decorating for their cats

awwwwww

ever wondered what a cat looked like underneath?

even Andre couldn't resist playing with the cats

That's it for Tokyo.  Hong Kong and Kyoto to come soon(ish...)

So this one time, on Christmas, I almost got attacked by a monkey

Luckily for you guys, Andre had the camera and was more than happy to take pictures and laugh and encourage me to get closer. 

I blame it on the Japanese. They are far too trusting. They seem to think that if they print it on a sign, people will read it and obey it. Clearly, they aren't accustomed to Americans...

Today we went to the Monkey Park. It was awesome. You can actually walk up to within inches of wild monkeys. So, naturally, I did. 

My first attempt was a success. I said hello. The monkey looked at me and then just moved away. 

The second time, I thought, well hey the first time went well, why don't I try to play with one. So I picked up some snow. 

I waved the snow at the monkey and that's when things started to go south. 

As you can see, the monkey was clearly not pleased. Apparently I didn't back away fast enough and so the monkey decided to follow up his menacing stare with a hiss at which point, I jumped away quite quickly...

I'm surprised Andre was able to take a picture given how hard he was laughing. 

Today's lessons:  #1 Don't try to play with wild monkeys. #2 Obey the friendly informational signs in Japan. They aren't kidding. 

Here are some more pictures from our day:

Ummmm...excuse me, Mr Nice Monkey, I need to get buy...

That's it for now. We're about to have our first dinner at our hotel run by local Japanese folks. I have no idea what I'll be eating tonight. Eeek. 

Merry Christmas!!!!!!

Tokyo - Day 2

Tokyo - Day 2:

We didn't escape the jet lag quite like we hoped and so we didn't wake up until after 11!  But have no fear, we still managed to see the Meiji-Jingu shrine, visit Harajuka and Shibuya and play some video games!

The Meiji-Jingu shrine is A Shinto shrine built in honor of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken.

You pass through three of these torri on the way to the shrine

Here's a shot of the back of the entrance to the shrine. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside (people come here to pray) 

They also hold weddings here and we got lucky and got to see a couple in full traditional Japanese clothing

After getting our culture for the day, we headed over to Harajuka which is just madness

I am loving the Christmas decorations!

We joined in the shopping madness and even found an entire store devoted to small dogs. Guess who got two new outfits to wear in Zurich?!?!?  While exploring, we found an arcade so, of course, we went inside to play!  Look closely at the picture to see if you recognize anyone...

After that, we headed to Shibuya to see the famous Shibuya crossing. They stop traffic from all directions and then just masses of people cross in every direction imaginable. 

On the way home, we stopped at the 7-11 for a snack. 

We bought Pringles and popcorn instead!

Tomorrow, our goal is to get up and out around 9. We can DO it!

Tokyo - Day 1

I tried to think of a clever title but clearly failed.

I'll get to Tokyo in a minute but first a public service message:  beeeeeeeeeeeeep - for the next 30 seconds, this blog will provide you with useful life information.  Dear Americans, airlines in America are unbelievably bad. Whenever you fly, choose a European or Asian airline.  This test will end immediately following the picture of my gluten free lunch provided by Turkish Airlines. Thank you for your attention. 

That's right. Those are lamb chops. And a hot gluten free roll. Oh right AND as much free red wine as I can drink. 

Tokyo - Day 1:

Soooo...moving on...Tokyo is awesome!

I think we made a good decision and booked ourselves on a Tokyo After 5 Tour the day we got here. The jet lag is pretty intense so after landing and navigating our way via train to the hotel, we took some power naps and then headed out to meet our tour at 5pm. There were a total of four of us plus our awesome guide, Meg. Our first stop was a Yakitori restaurant. We got there by walking through some pretty narrow alleys crammed with restaurants. 

Before:

After:

After the Yakitori, we headed to Tsukishima to try out Monj-yayaki. We cooked it ourselves while sitting around a very low table. 

They bring you the fresh ingredients in a bowl. 

Chef Andre at work:  Step 1 -  grill the meat and veggies

Step 2 - make a circle from the grilled stuff and then pour the batter into the middle 

It looked pretty gross but everyone swore it was delicious. Unfortunately, the batter had flour in it so I couldn't eat any. 

Andre got me this instead:

I'm going to starve here

We also tried a traditional dessert called tai-yaki.  It's a cake shaped like a fish and filled with different flavored creams like chocolate, strawberry, etc

Andre enjoying his fish

Check out what we saw in front of the Mikimoto store on the way home