Back At It

Apologies, it’s been a while!  It’s made even worse by the fact that we returned from our trip a week ago and I’m just getting around to writing this post.  Confession: I was taking a vacation from my vacation, something I (and probably few people) ever have the luxury of doing.  This was immensely helpful in dealing with jet lag and catching up on season 3 of Breaking Bad. This was not so helpful in securing our new apartment.

Around Wednesday I started to feel a bit guilty about my lack of productivity, and began getting things back on track.   I’m always amazed at how hard it is to adjust after a vacation.  This one was the longest I’ve taken in years, so that likely had something to do with it.  The whole trip was 19 days in total!  Since I shared little about my trip before I left, I thought I’d begin with that.  Here’s the breakdown: Tokyo to Singapore to Vietnam and back to Singapore.  Four days in Tokyo, 8 days in Vietnam, and 5 days total in Singapore.  It was quite a trip- far to much to cover in one post, so I’ll begin with a snap shot of just our time in Tokyo.  

Thanks to jet lag, on our first day we made it to the Tsukiji Central Fish Market for the 5 am tour.  Millions of dollars worth of fish is sold at the market each day.  We got to watch as buyers examined, bid on, and purchased pounds of fish.

Following the tour, we poked around the rest of the market.

Later that day we visited the electronics district, a maze of tiny shops selling materials to actually build electronics.  Not very useful to me personally, but very cool.

We had a killer dumpling lunch one day.   Fried and filled with meat- pretty representative of our diet for the entire trip.

My chopstick skills dramatically improved across the course of the trip.  I can actually eat a meal with chopsticks now- success.

A visit to the Meiji Shrine, the grandest Shinto shrine in Tokyo (or so the guide book says).

This image is actually the wall inside the Tokyo subway.  Underground transportation oversees always seems so much more aesthetically pleasing than what we have in the US.

One afternoon we stopped in a rotating sushi bar for a snack.  Suffice it to say, Japanese sushi is quite different than the Americanized version.

An intersection in Tokyo where literally 2500 people cross the streets at one time!

I loved the way all these bicycles were lined on up the street.

A rainy visit to Sensoji, the Buddhist temple in Asakusa, a district of the city which has maintained the atmosphere of the old Tokyo.

This food is fake, yet considered an ART in Japan.  We stopped in this shop in the restaurant supply district to check out all the fake dishes.  They had everything from pizza to sushi to beer.  It was hysterical! Apparently not a joke to everyone though, this stuff is not cheap.

Wandering the streets.

On our last night we took some pictures from the rooftop of our friend’s apartment.  I can’t get over the sky in these images.  Definitely on our list to print and frame.

Much more to come on the vacation front, but considering the hundreds of photos to sort through, this will involve many posts.  I’ll break that up with some recipes and food related posts since I’m sorely overdue.  Hopefully the hurricane will force us indoors but not leave us without power, so all time can be spent in the kitchen!