Tune in Tokyo

In February, a couple of my foreign friends announced they had a school sponsored holiday in April and that they were planning on a long weekend in Japan. The sheer fact that they had three days off in a row is considered a minor miracle because they get the dogshit worked out of them though my definition of "having the dogshit worked out of you" and most people's version vary significantly. With that said, it was much to my surprise that I didn't have this special holiday off from my public school gig. Like any individual not wanting to be excluded from the fun, I did what every cheeseburger eating, labor union touting, flag waving, red-blooded American would do. I asked for the day off.

I saw this exact sign at the gates of Dachau concentration camp.

Somewhat surprise when I posed the question, Jin Sun said that we'd, well she'd, have to wait and ask the principal the next time we saw him. Since this was during my second vacation towards the end of February, I'd have to wait until school was in session. I even had a chuckle about the situation thinking that while I was on vacation, I was asking for more time off down the road. Having a good feeling about getting the green light on the day off from my beloved country school, and being continually pressured by my foreign friends, I booked a partially refundable ticket for April 10th.

Two weeks later, Jin Sun said that I indeed had permission to go to Tokyo. I told her that I was really grateful for the time off because I'd already booked the ticket a couple weeks previous. Don't worry folks. I'm doing my best to make sure that us American are, and always will be, regarded in the highest esteem.

We also made our way up Tokyo Tower to take in the monstrosity that is Tokyo from 150 meters.

It was going to be a quick Friday to Sunday trip though the trip was made even more terse by a flight malfunction. In between sitting on the ground for an hour, and NWA's inability to find us another flight, our original departure of 11:30 a.m Friday was shifted to 4:40 p.m with a reroute to Seoul and then Tokyo. By the time we made it into Tokyo after the 1.5 hour Subway ride from the airport, it was midnight.

Saturday saw a full day of sight seeing in which we travelled into the center of Tokyo (we were staying in Korea-town, go figure). If you go to Tokyo, you better have a pocket full of Yen. It's quite expensive. In Shinjuku, 4 bottles of Sake, a round of fish heads, and 3 plates of sushi came out to be 12,000 Yen (120 USD). I know I'm going to become a lightening rod for ridicule on this but I found the sushi in Hawaii to be much tastier than the stuff we had Saturday at about a fifth of the price.

From the baseball game - Bent over, Asian and wearing a backpack. Does this photo remind you of anything? All I could think of was this clip (check out 2:05)

Patrick and I really, really wanted to take in a sumo match but we caught sumo during a non-tournament time. At least the baseball team was in town though misfortune would rear her ugly, busted, head once more. Because a) baseball is really popular in Japan and b) the Hanshin Tigers, Yomuiri's nemesis, was in town. Having an actual seat was out of the question but they were selling standing room seats for 1,000 Yen (10 USD). People were atleast five people deep, and at some places it was closer to 10.

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* giggles *