Thanksgiving in Tokyo-Part II

Happy New Year!!

It's New Years Day and I'm finally catching up on these blog posts...sorry I'm a little late!

Tokyo has so much to see and do...and eat. :)  We had a long laundry list of places we wanted to visit, but you can not possibly do it all in 4 days, so we just wandered the different neighborhoods soaking up the entire experience.

One of the first areas of town we explored was Shinjuku.  Most streets are flooded with restaurants, shops and lots of people!

{Jeff loves it here!}

We found this place to stop and eat!  All the menus have pictures which makes it much easier.

{this place looks good}

{you order from a machine}

After ordering from the machine you hand your ticket to the waitress and she brings you your food.  It's so efficient!



Then we were off for more exploring!!

{Called the Cocoon Bldg-we have no idea what goes on here}

I had read that from the observatory of the government building you could see all of Tokyo.  We had to go and see for ourselves.

We spent most of the day in Shinjuku and then went to Ginza at night.  Everything was decorated with Christmas lights and the vibe there was unlike anything I've experienced.
Like NYC on crack.

{dept store window}

{largest UniQlo I've ever seen!}

{Yamaha is fancy}

{famous for their waffle cookies} 

{they were delicious!}

 Thanks for reading!

Alice in a Labyrinth

Tokyo has a few themed restaurants that are very popular among both locals and foreigners.  Everything from the food and drink to the decor and costumes fit the particular theme.

There is Ninja Akasaka where you have a ninja who pops out of the ceiling as your waiter and serves you food shaped like ninja starts, Alcatraz E.R where you are a medical patient in a prison and eat in a jail cell and also, 5 Alice in Wonderland themed restaurants scattered around the city.  We chose Alice in a Labyrinth located in the popular neighborhood of Ginza.

After walking up and down the same street for 40 minutes we finally found it. 

Our waitress, dressed as Alice, hands us a pop-up menu to start our experience.

We chose sushi, spicy shrimp and the cheese plate to start off.  As you can see the theme continues with the food. :)

We also ate yellowtail pizza shaped like the Chesire Cat's tail, but the lighting was bad and I couldn't get a good pic.

The ambiance was cool and decor was even better.  I really wanted to sit in the tea cup!

Thanksgiving in Tokyo-Part I

Konnichiwa!
One of the best parts of living overseas is the ability to travel to so many great places.  Before we even moved here, we made a long list of destinations and Tokyo was up at the top.

Since Jeff had a 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving, we decided to take the bullet train into Tokyo and enjoy the city.

And it's.
Amazing.

We took the earliest local train out of Misawa on Thanksgiving morning.  The train was full of high school kids in uniform, a few people making their morning commute, and the two of us.  It was only about a 15 minute train ride to meet the Shinkansen (bullet train) in Hachinoe.  We had heard good things about the bullet train and it did not disappoint.  The seats were roomy (much bigger than on an airplane) and it was a smooth 3 hour ride.

Once in Tokyo Station, we needed to catch the subway to get to our hotel in Roppongi.  Thank goodness we met a sweet, old Japanese guy who spoke excellent English to help us find our way out or we would have spent the entire weekend in there.
Tokyo Station is GIANT.

Inside Tokyo Station:
Shinkansen
JR trains (local)
Subway station
department store
boutique shopping
hotel
Starbucks

Ok, so maybe a weekend in there wouldn't be too terrible. ;)

{Tokyo Station}

We made it to Roppongi and to our hotel.  This area of town has a lot of restaurants, bars, shopping areas and was a block away from the subway so it made getting around the city very easy.  We checked in, dropped off our bags and began our adventure!

{on an overpass}

First stop...food.
Tokyo has every type of food you could want.  Since we can have good Japanese any day, we wanted anything but noodles and sushi.   Right around the corner from our hotel was this small Turkish sandwich stand.  It was awesome!!

{Happy Thanksgiving!}

After lunch we spent the rest of the day exploring....
Tokyo Midtown in Roppongi is a large shopping area connected to the Four Seasons hotel and other businesses with most of the stores underground.  Outside they had 10-15 different Santa statues that you could take pictures with...they were so cute!!  I wanted to take a picture with all of them!

I chose this one.....

{Hey there Santa}

We walked around Roppongi for the next couple of hours checking out the neighborhood until going up to settle into our room and get ready for dinner.....

Alice in Wonderland awaits!!!

You'll see.. ;)

Oriase Gorge

Fall is here!

But almost over.

Last weekend we drove over an hour out to Lake Towada with our friends Brent & Allyson.  We knew we had to go before all the leaves were gone!  

The weather was amazing and the area was absolutely beautiful.

{this guy is so talented!}

{this was what he was painting}

{we made it}

{don't fall in!}

{Allyson & I were hungry after our hike}

{Lake Towada}

Painted!!!!!

The desk is finally painted!!
Since we don't have a backyard or patio, I had to set up shop in the kitchen.  Not ideal, but it worked.

The painting was the easy part, 2 coats and I was done.  But then I used polyurethane to seal the top and it turned yellow!  I did some research and figured out the issue most likely was because I used a light paint color, so I sanded it all off, repainted and used a spray protector instead.  I would feel better if I could find a piece of plexiglass to put over the top to protect it, but Kashi said it's really expensive here.  And Kashi would know!

I'm really happy with the way the entire project turned out.  I'm still looking for desk accessories and drawer pulls.  Good thing Target ships to APO! :)

{started underneath to make sure the paint was okay}

{lookin' good}