Japan '09 - Misc Part 1

I had my first exciting Japanese adventure all by myself today. Donna was fixing lunch but found out we won't have enough so I got tasked into going to Liquor Port, the corner store to get a can of corned beef.


So of course I asked Manami what to do. She told me to ask, "Corned beef ari masuka?" which means "Do you have corned beef?" And I'm proud to say I know how to say "Excuse me" (Sumima sen which gets shortened to Sima sen).

The first clerk I asked "Sima sen corned beef ari masuka?" gave me a reply, "Corn beefu?". Suffice it to say that my trip was a success!

Manami has been complaining to Reggie that since we arrived, her stomach is always full and she feels stuffed all the time. Reg told her she doesn't have to eat everytime we eat but I guess she likes to see us eat so she always eats with us. Like tonight, we went back to the ramen shop, Tajima Ya, for dinner and we came out of there with our bellies full of yummy noodles.


Reg's DSL is pretty fast that's why I've been hogging his laptop whenever we're home and it's given me plenty of time to update my blog and surf the Web. I've been a fan of YouTube.com for a couple of years now and I've watched Arnel Pineda playing with his band The Zoo, before he got recruited by Neal Schon. During my YouTube surfing, I've encountered quite a bit of videos that have since become my favorites.

1. fargenbastich - here's a guy who plays strictly by ear and he has a fairly decent singing voice. He sings a slew of Beatles songs, and a bunch of songs by classic rockers from Boston to Rush to Eagles, among others.

2. Jerry C - he's a young Chinese guy who created a rock arrangement of Pachelbel 's classical composition of Canon in D Major sometimes used as a wedding march. There's now possibly hundreds of other guys who plays his arrangement and modified it a bit to fit their own style.

3. Sungha Jung - there's all kinds of guitar protege on YouTube but I think this Korean teenager stands out with his solo guitar playing.

And speaking of YouTube, I've been bragging to people on how fluent Reggie is now at Japanese, it's unbelievable, and here is a sample of what I'm talking about.

He started working again since Thursday so we haven't been doing much. Donna and I have gone out a couple of mornings and walked towards the beach and dropped by Livin a couple of times.


We didn't walk this morning because: a) it was raining and, b) for some reason we're able to watch a live broadcast of the first game between the Lakers and the Magic on cable wherein the former just smothered the latter with a whopping 100 over 75.

We've also been watching a lot of DVDs and movies on cable: Michael Moore's Sicko, The Prestige, Robin Hood, Juno, a two disc DVD Japanese movie called Always and a number of other movies some of which I've already seen before but are still cool to watch again.

Reggie and Manami have contacted a couple of movers for quotes and they've decided to go with one charging them $2100 to move their household and their car from Yokosuka to Sasebo. Their stuff will be picked up on June 18 and they'll fly to Sasebo around June 22. I think Reggie's last day at Chili's Yokosuka is June 21. The movers are delivering packing boxes to the apartment tomorrow or Sunday so we can start boxing some of their stuff up.

Along the same lines, we have been sleeping here in their apartment and it's a bit cramped. Nido sent me an eMail asking, "So are you sleeping in boxes?" The answer is no, we're not. We're sleeping on a couple of futons in the kitchen and they're sleeping on futons in the living room.

And talk about eMails, our travel agent Tita sent me an eMail and said she's received confirmation on our hotel reservation in Taipei for our flight layover on June 12. Come to think of it, we'll only be staying here for a week and then we'll be home.

Japan - Day Five, Enoshima Island

For some reason, jet lag this time wasn't too bad. I think we slept well enough during our first night and didn't wake up at dawn like usual probably due to the really long and turbulent flight from the US.

We woke up before lunch today to get ready for our trip to Enoshima Island. Around noon before we got to the island, we had lunch at Natural Table buffet by Kamakura Beach. I think Robert and Mary have taken us here during one of our previous visits.



ENOSHIMA ISLAND

We've been to several tourist spots when Robert and Mary lived here but somehow we've never been to Enoshima Island. It's connected by a bridge from Kamakura and the views are a photographer's mecca. Fortunately, the weather fully cooperated.


We climbed up three flights of stairs and an escalator to the top of the hill. We then rode the elevator towards the top of Enoshima (Temboudai) Observation lighthouse.


As per Japanese tradition, before going up to the shrine, devotees are made to wash their hands and rinse their mouths as a form of cleansing.


There are several shops selling food and souvenirs. We tried the tako sembei, which is basically octopus in batter pressed dry and cooked and turns out to taste like octopus flavored rice cracker.


We also took quite a few pictures in the island's gorgeous botanical gardens.


Towards the top of the hill, there's a huge tree which serves as a wishing well (wishing tree? ema in Japanese) where people hang up little boards with wishes written on them. So of course, I had to hang one of my own wishing the newlyweds a happy and prosperous life. Reggie put up one of theirs too.


There's also this huge ring (chi gaya) where we noticed people go through a few times over. Manami explained it as a way of atonement - one trip through for every offense.


For some reason, there are several cats all over the area.

Japan - Day Four, The Wedding

We woke up early to get ready for the big day. Reggie broke out the iron and the ironing board so our shirts can be ironed. When we arrived at the city hall, Manami was already there waiting. It took us over an hour for them to finish the whole thing, filling and straightening out all necessary paperwork.


We found out a Japanese civil wedding is way different from US or even Philippine civil weddings. There was no judge or mayor present. It's basically between the bride, the groom and any city hall clerk available.


Everyone's starved by the time they finished. The newly married couple took us to this sushi restaurant named Sushi Ro with three (or was it four?) conveyors always turning with plates of sushi. It was basically a sensory overload for me. I was in sushi (hog) heaven! When we were done, I had 14, count them FOURTEEN, empty plates in front of me!


I even had me a piece of whale bacon, can you believe it?


In the afternoon we took a train ride to meet Manami's parents who're treating us for dinner at Anzuno Hana restaurant with a seven course meal. When we got off the station, we found her parents already waiting for us. We walked a bit to get to the restaurant. It was one of those fancy Japanese restaurant complete with privacy walls and all. The food was great, for me anyway. Donna couldn't handle the sashimi so Reggie and I split her share.



Reggie and Manami put on the platinum wedding rings on each other after we finished dinner with toasts, best wishes and congratulations from the proud and happy parents.



We all rode on the same train back home but Manami's parents got off on the first stop.
Although we've had dessert, we had to do the inevitable stop at the neighborhood ice cream shop.