Green Tea

"Better to be deprived of food for three days, than tea for one." (Ancient Chinese Proverb)

Kenn and I are addicted to green tea. Hot and Cold. I'm still drinking about a liter of cold bottled green tea a day. They're unsweetened bottles like this (this is a small one):

We've also been drinking hot green tea. We switched from tea bags to infusing. I felt like for awhile if I didn't drink it, I would start to get headaches but I don't think there's that much caffeine, not as much as coffee (there are approximately thirty to sixty mg. of caffeine in six - eight ounces of tea, compared to over one-hundred mg. in eight ounces of coffee ). But I guess if you drink as many cups as we do, it adds up.

I'm sure most have heard the research by now, green tea is supposed to be good for you:

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Today, scientific research in both Asia and the west is providing hard evidence for the health benefits long associated with drinking green tea. For example, in 1994 the Journal of the National Cancer Institute published the results of an epidemiological study indicating that drinking green tea reduced the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by nearly sixty percent. University of Purdue researchers recently concluded that a compound in green tea inhibits the growth of cancer cells. There is also research indicating that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good (HDL) cholesterol to bad (LDL) cholesterol. To sum up, here are just a few medical conditions in which drinking green tea is reputed to be helpful:
cancer
rheumatoid arthritis
high cholesterol levels
cariovascular disease
infection
impaired immune function

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Uh huh, gonna keep drinking it....

Party weekend

Kenn and I will be heading to Cancun this week for my company's annual strategy meeting. Yes, what a nice free trip! It's a long way for a short time but it will be worth it! So this weekend, we decided not to go snowboarding or anything and stay in town. We went out for pizza on Friday night and then tested out a few local bars. One place Kenn wanted to try out near our apt cause it had a sign saying it was like a hip hop bar rejected us. We're not exactly sure what happened, it was early and there was absolutely no one in there. The bartender or owner or whoever said some stuff in Japanese when we went in, then turned away and ignored us. So we just left.

We also checked out a random place on the 5th floor of a building that had a sign outside saying it had happy hour until midnight. It was a really small bar and we couldn't figure out exactly what the deal was - if it was a front for something else or what. Seemed like there were these 2 women in there who might have been escorts but it was hard to tell. Anyway, other than that the bar was normal so we stayed for a couple cheap drinks.

Then we tried some reggae bar but it was pretty dead. Stayed for a few drinks there too before deciding to get some more pizza. But at this place we tried for pizza, we saw roaches so ran out of there without eating our slices. Gross!

Saturday was spent on the couch. We watched the first disc of Arrested Development. I gave the show another try and found I actually do like it. It's subtle dry humor but really a funny show. Saturday night we were invited to Lauren and Sara's friend's birthday dinner. One of their coworkers who turned just 24! Ouch, I feel old. Dinner was great though - we went to this Portugese Restaurant. There's a pic on the site of these cheese ball things- boy, were those good!

Kenn really wanted to try this club where a famous house dj, Kevin Yost, was spinning. The club is called Yellow, one of the popular house clubs in Tokyo. Here's a description/review I found of it:
Club Yellow is simply the club where all the biggest pure house djs in the world and in Japan dream to play. It is a symbol of the Tokyo nightlife and a place devoted to music and just music. The club itself is not big with a capacity of 800 people and honestly its not gorgeous on the decoration side or on the lighting side but what make Club Yellow so unique its the at-home feeling and the amazing sound system. Anyway all the biggest house djs are playing or have played there and if you are into house music, well nothing cant beat yellow in Japan; thats simply the place to be.

We convinced most of the group to go with us and had a great time. It's been a long time since I've been to a club that was so fun. The music was great, the vibe was amazing. I don't know if you can find a vibe like that in NYC anymore. We had a couple of drinks but I was completely sober and we stayed out super late (or early depending on how you look at it). One of the best parts for me was standing up by the dj booth watching the DJ watch the crowd go wild. It must be fun to be a dj at a Tokyo club. We of course went for ramen afterwards. They have some seriously good ramen here!

Needless to say, Sunday was more couchtime with more Arrested Development. It was nice not having a hangover though. We also tried to watch 40 Year Old Virgin but the DVD player didn't allow it (burned copy). I watched that latest episode of Grey's Anatomy - wow the ending - what a surprise!

Perhaps this was a boring post, but it was a fun weekend! :)

Photo blog is ready!

Check out the PHOTO BLOG that Kenn put together. It will include all the pics we take from Tokyo and anywhere else we visit while we are out here. It's separated by location/categories and it looks great! Check back for updates. I'll keep linking to new sections in my blog when we add new photos :)

So here are some more of my recent observations in Tokyo - some funny, some interesting, and some ever-so-slightly irritating...

- I may have said this before but they play the most random music in the most random places. For example you can be sitting at a cafe or a bagel shop having breakfast and they're playing gangsta rap. It's hilarious. I've heard the explicit version of Akon's I Wanna Love You at the entrance of the snow resort and in the grocery store. If only they understood the lyrics... it ain't just swear words that these Japanese families are listening to...

- Japanese people seem to like to cover their books. On the subway, I noticed that almost everyone reading a book has put a cover on it. Are they embarrassed to let people see what they are reading??

- I observed a mother and her 2 young children on the subway last weekend. The 2 kids were fighting over a handheld video game. The mother saw this and told them to stop and hand it over to her. She didn't yell, just quietly whipsered and held out her hand. The older sister immediately stopped but the little boy took the game. He was probably around 4 years old, he looked like he was going to throw a fit. The mother continued to ask him calmly and quietly for the game over and over until he finally handed it over. The whole situation was fastinating to me. How the mother was stern but never screamed. How the kids were being kids but were so obedient as if they knew better not to have a tantrum in public. If this scenario took place in the States, I bet there would have most likely been plenty of screaming, yelling, and tears.

- On the people-mover walkways that I take to get from the subway to my office, I've been noticing a lot of people in a rush these days. Maybe it has something to do with the time, I'm usually on them close to 10am nowadays and maybe people are rushing to punch in by 10? Anyway, people kind of do this light jog as if that's any better than just walking quickly. Sometimes you get a whole bunch of people sort of running together in a pack. Even women in their ultra high heels and short skirts. I find it irritating to have groups of people running by you on moving walkways.

Happy Friday and Happy Weekend!

When a Stranger Calls (& links to more pics)

Ok, yes I've been on a photo kick lately. It's probably nice to take a look at pictures of what I've been up to, no? Anyway, now that Kenn is here I have an official photographer and he takes good pics too. I sometimes get lazy at snapping pics and I certainly don't have as good of an eye. Kenn will be making a photo blog actually so I'll be able to link to that once it's done.

So here is the link to all the snowboarding pics in case I didn't personally send it to you: Snowboarding in Japan

Here is a link to all the pics I took during the first few months I was in Asia: First few months

I have not been doing so well with my new year's resolution and am extremely disappointed. I realized today I have been here for 5 months!! I don't know any Japanese - that is just horrible. Well, I should give myself some credit, I do recognize a lot of words and phrases but I can't really speak any real meaningful sentences. I need to work on this. On the flip side, I have been working out pretty much everyday. Combined with eating meals here, I feel pretty good and healthy these days. :)

Kenn and I have completed watching Season 1 of Lost plus the bonus disc. Man, that show is good. So well thought out and executed. Everything is amazing, the acting, writing, editing... I can't wait for the new episodes to come out, just a couple more weeks. Thank goodness for itunes downloads. We watched one of the many movies we have on DVD. This one was a real B movie. We bought it at Kmart from the $4.99 bin or something before we left. "When a Stranger Calls" - you may remember the commercial where they say "the call is coming from inside the house!" I mean that pretty much gave away the whole movie. On top of the fact that it was pretty typical "scary" movie making and just plain awful. But I did invent a great drinking game to play along with it. Take a sip of your drink whenever someone says "Hello or Hi". You can get drunk pretty easily considering the killer guy calls like every two minutes and the girl answers the phone with "hello" every time! - HA

Sumo and link to pics

So Sumo was also a real treat and a fun Japan event. The professional wrestlers, the top ranked ones, don't have matches until around 2:30-3pm. Kenn and I arrived a little earlier to walk around and check out the Sumo museum. It wasn't really a museum so much as a room, but it had some cool pics and stuff. Some of the lower ranked Sumo wrestlers were walking around the stadium. Man, Sumo wrestlers sure are big guys. Not just fat but tall too.

We settled into our second floor seats which run about $45 a pop. Lower level box seating is at least a hundred dollars or more. We were able to see perfectly fine, the stadium is not that big.



It was all pretty interesting. Most of the time is spent with rituals. The wrestlers come out. They stomp their feet (stomp out the bad spirits), slap themselves, throw salt in the ring (purify it), and drink water (purify themselves). The matches take less than one minute each. Though these guys may look fat, they are pretty flexible, have great balance, and many different wrestling techniques. It's pretty cool to watch.



The pic below is one of the ceremonies where they introduce all the wrestlers at that level. There are a few white guys in the professional level - 2 brothers from Russia and a Bulgarian guy who rose up the ranks pretty quickly. But there has bascially been one winner, the same winner in the past like 12 years or something. The only time he didn't win was when he had an injury that prevented him from continuing the tournament. No one really knows if he is just really awesome or everyone else is just so-so... Anyways, he won again this tournament.



Here is the link to all the Tsukuji market pics, a few from Omotosando/Harajuku shopping, and Sumo. If fish guts and the like gross you out, you might want to skip over those and straight to the others ;) I added titles/comments on some so you know what you're lookin at. Enjoy!
Tsukuji and Sumo pics

Tsukiji Fish Market

Description: Tsukiji Central Wholesale Market is a large wholesale market for fish, fruit and vegetables in central Tokyo. Tsukiji Market is best known as one of the world's largest fish markets, handling over 2,000 tons of marine products per day. The sight of the many kinds of fresh fish, shellfish and other seafood and the busy atmosphere of scooters, trucks, sellers and buyers hurrying around, make Tsukiji Market one of Tokyo's major tourist attractions.


Kenn and I woke up early on Saturday morning and made it to the fish market around 7:15am. It was after the fish auctions are over although auctions have been closed to the public since 2005 anyway from the sheer number of and interference by misbehaving tourists (visitors touching tuna, obstructing people at work and causing distraction by flash photography). But 7:15 is still the heat of the action at the fish market and there were just tons of workers bustling around. Many of them were on these scooter-truck things hauling around fish, ice, etc. I could swear they were out to hit tourists, I kept jumping out of the way to escape them.



We walked through the market with all the water and fish gunk all over the groud - ick. I have to say it was one of the coolest things I've seen in Tokyo... actually probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen at all. There were tons of fish and tons of huge tuna - check it out:



Workers were cutting, packing and moving fish all over. Kenn took tons of pics of the fish and all sorts of gross things from the sea. Many of them not for the faint of heart but I'll send them around so you can peruse at your leisure.

We also walked through lanes and lanes of fish and seafood being sold at wholesale.



And on the perimeters of the market were fruits and veggies sold at wholesale as well as small shops selling assorted related goods like sushi knives:


We bought some t-shirts at one shop and then chose a little restaurant for a nice sushi breakfast. Freshest fish we'll ever eat probably! There were huge lines for some of the places (many people come early and wait on line or come right after clubbing) but Kenn and I couldn't figure out why some restaurants had lines and others didn't. All the fish must be fresh, how could they differ? Best we could figure is that they had famous chefs or some specialty dish. We chose one with no line and pointed to one of the many many pictures of tuna sashimi they had up on the wall which to us all looked identical. At any rate, it was absolutely delicious:



After our breakfast, we walked around a bit more and discovered that the local neighborhood also had all these shops selling cheap produce and packaged goods. It kind of reminded me of Taiwan and Hong Kong night markets because there were tons of food stands as well. We bought lots of snacks and stopped for fried crab on a stick which was really yummy! :) As we walked around, one of those scooter-cart thingies passed us and it was carrying a group of Japanese women who were laughing and screaming. It totally made me laugh:



Tsukuji was a great experience that in my opinion no one visiting Tokyo should miss.

We went home for a nap and later walked around Omotesando and Harajuku at all the high end and boutique shops (think Soho) and young & trendy shops (think Village). We stopped to check out the Prada store which was really cool inside. I "accidently" purchased a wallet. For the record, I really needed a new wallet. ;)

A day of walking around was exhausting so we rested up for Sunday's Sumo. More on that in my next post.

Sumo

This Sunday we have tickets to the final day of Sumo in the January tournament. Six tournaments are held every year, each one lasting 15 days. Three of the tournaments are held in Tokyo (January, May, September). I didn't get to go to September's so this will be Kenn and my first Sumo experience. Should be fun!

The basic rules of sumo are simple: The wrestler who either first touches the floor with something else than his sole or leaves the ring before his opponent, loses. The fights themselves usually last only a few seconds and in rare cases up to one minute or longer.

If we can get wake up early enough tomorrow, we plan to try to go to the famous fish market for a look around and the freshest sushi breakfast imaginable. :) Tonight we're staying in for a Lost Season 1 marathon. We're already through the first disc.

I LOVE SUSHI

***NOTE: Because I had it saved to my drafts before posting, there is a new post under the snowboarding one with pics from my visit home. Scroll down to check it out - Don't miss it!***

So for my birthday (yes, if you are reading this and forgot you suck- haha j/k) Kenn took me out to an awesome sushi dinner. A place in our neighborhood written up in a guidebook we have - called Roppongi Fukuzushi. We had lots of sake and did the set course menu which included salad, sashimi, steamed egg pudding, soup, soft shell crab & grilled steak, sushi, dessert and coffee. It was quite the feast and I barely made it to the end but it was sooo delicious. Check out the pics:









Did you know? -- Sushi is very high in vitamins and low in saturated fats. Even fatty fish have fewer calories per gram than chicken,and may actually help reduce cholesterol,so the traditional Japanese diet is associated with very low rates of heart disease.

We decided our favorite local bar is this one called Propaganda. Sophia introduced me to the place. Lots of ex-pats but decent music and very chill. Inside you would never know you were in Tokyo. Could just be any old dive bar in NYC. We were messing around with the settings on my camera and taking funky pics. I also remembered I can send emails from my mobile phone so sent some of you emails and pics from my phone. It was like you were there at the bar with us. Ok, not so much.... I missed you all but I have to say I had a blast for my birthday in Tokyo with Kenn! :)

Snowboarding pics

I have sent a Kodak Gallery link to all our snowboarding pics to many of you reading this blog. If you don't get it and wanna see the pics, let me know :)
As I wrote about in the last post, our first snowboarding trip of the season and in Japan was awesome. I can't believe what good snow and good riding there is so close to Tokyo. It's possible to day trip to Naeba/Kagura as well and many people do that. There is also some messenger service that someone told us about that delivers your snowboard for you. We might try to do that next time. We did manage ok with our bags. Kenn carried the big snowboard bag with both our snowboards and boots. I hauled the rolly bag with the rest of our clothes and gear. It wasn't bad but as you can imagine the last leg on the subway home was tiring.

So this first pic is of our room in the Ryokan-type Japanese accomodation. It wasn't really a full Ryokan (no food or Onsen), just a cheap room. We named it the "Ice Box" - enough said. Minimal, which is totally fine by us, but it was just too darn cold.



Connecting Mt. Naeba and Mt. Kagura (for same all access lift ticket price) is the longest Gondola in the world they call the "Dragondola". It was pretty long, maybe 15 minutes? It went up and down through the mountains, valleys, trees. We even saw monkeys!



This next pic is night skiing/riding at Mt Naeba Asagai Snowboard Park. This was situated about a 10 minute walk from the main mountain and where the Snodeck bar is. We were planning to ride here on Sunday but didn't this time because we were too exhausted. Trying to hit some jumps, rails or boxes at that point would have been a bad idea. (Not that I do jumps and rails but I wanted to try some easy ones).



Breakfast of Champions! We had steamed pork buns, croquettes, and coffee at the base of the snowboard park. Typical Japanese style, you pay at the vending machine which dishes out food tickets that you hand to the people behind the counter. The second morning, we had a bowl of rice and salmon! Mmmmm mmmmm..... :)



As you can see, lots of powdery snow and mountains. We had a great time and look forward to our next trip!

Tons of new pics!

I forgot to mention yesterday that Kenn and I were woken up around 3:30am by an Earthquake! Kenn's first in Tokyo. Just the usual little rumble but very noticable when lying still. Still think they are totally freaky....

First pics taken from my brand new camera that Kenn got me for Christmas! Enjoy!

Here is the fruit centerpiece I bought for Christmas dessert for my family. It was a big hit!


My parents, my brother Greg, and my grandmother (dad's mom):


The Suhu's: My aunt Helen, cousin Kristen, grandparents (mom's dad and stepmom), my uncle Ging (my mom's bro), cousin Matt's fiancee Grace, cousin Matt, and my other uncle Lewis (my mom's youngest bro / Helen's husband):


Livia and her boyfriend (hehe):


My good friends Christina and John (they live in London and are tons of fun!):


New Year's 2007:



Catching up with good friends:






Since my friend John didn't make any of the pics, I'm adding a random one of him from Aruba:)

Mt. Naeba and Kagura

Kenn and I had a fun time on Thursday night at Departure Lounge. Music was pretty good and of course Kenn danced the night away. We were pretty slow on Friday but got all packed up for or snowboarding trip and went to get some Udon. Kenn looks like he's going to fall into the bowl :)


We took the high speed train to the Mt Naeba & Kagura resort area a little up north. High speed train takes 77 minutes. We were staying at the Mt. Naeba area so had to take the bus from the train station about 40 mins. All in all literally door to door was about 3 hours. Such great snowbarding so close to Tokyo!! It snowed the days we were there. We rode on powder and it was really great riding. The mountains are huge, there are tons of trails and tons of lifts. A ridiculous amount of lifts actually. I don't know if it was a slow weekend but there was virtualy no waiting. We rode almost a different trail every single time! We took the longest Gondola ride in the world (they call it the 'Dragonola') to the Kagura mountain side on Saturday. It was so powdery that it was almost too difficult to ride in the flat areas and I kept getting stuck. The temperature wasn't too cold either. They even sell 2 hour or 4 hour lift tickets so we rode on Sunday for a few hours too. Prices are so much cheaper than lift tickets in the Northeast US - equivalent to $45 for all access to all mountains. And the conditions were so much better, it really was a fantastic trip!



We stayed on the Naeba side because we wanted to go to this bar called Snodeck. A very international bar at the base of the snowboard park. Cool people, good pizza and fun, chill place. The rest of the town is pretty dead and that was pretty much the only happening place in town, some weekends they have live djs. The owner/manager also runs a small ryokan-type accomodation. Dirt cheap but it really was the just basics if that. It's about $25 per person per night and you get a room with futons


a space heater


on tatami mats


(I'll post actual pics soon)

There was a small tv (all japanese channels), clean sheets and towels but shared bathrooms. Let's just say we roughed it for a few nights. It was convenient because it's right across the street from the Snodeck bar. But it was absolutely freezing in the room, the only heat is from the space heaters so needless to say we will not be staying there again. We went traditional this one time but it's not like we can't afford a regular hotel so think we will treat ourselves from now on. ;)

It was a great weekend and now that we've learned a lot about how to get there, the mountain, accomodations and everything, we wonder if we should go back or try a whole new mountain... Guess we'll see, there's plenty of snow in Japan to explore!

Lost

Kenn and I are now starting on the first season of Lost. Just a few more weeks until the new episodes start up again. And tonight the new episodes of Grey's start.

Tonight we might go to this lounge that one of Kenn's DJ friend's friend is spinning at. He got us on the guestlist. Yay, I have a buddy to go out with in Tokyo!

I think I might work from home tomorrow. Steven is out and we have no projects we're really working on at the moment. Once he has more free time we can start to get back in touch with clients again. I would do it myself but it requires emailing in Japanese. In the meantime I will keep busy with updates and a new training deck I'm working on. No reason why that can't be accomplished from home now is there?

Land of the Rising Sun

Days are short in Tokyo this time of year. Sun rises just before 7am and sets around 5pm. In the summer I could swear it was bright at like 5am. From the view from our apt the sun rises behind the Tokyo tower, it's nice. It is super bright in Tokyo in the winter. It's sunny most of the time nowadays. Views of Mt Fuji from tall buildings including our office here are clear, it's a gorgeous mountain.

Kenn and I are planning to try to do a snowboarding trip this weekend. Either a day trip or spend one night. The closest mountains are only like an hour to an hour and a half away. We're just trying to figure out the details of how to get there and all that now. Excited for some snowbarding in Japan!


We have been cooking and eating in. It's so simple to make easy meals like stir frys. The rice comes out perfect a a little sticky, yummy. They have lots of sauce packets that you can choose from for different flavored seasonings. Add veggies and chicken or tofu and whip up a delicious healthy meal.

Work has been dull. Only the second day back though. I've been catching up on all my industry news and reading so much about advertising, marketing and the internet has gotten me bored. Just seems so unimportant to anything that really matters in life. I wish I had a fun craft or cool skill that I can apply to a useful job or at least something I was really passionate about. Don't get me wrong, I am passionate about my job and I am really interested in all this internet crap but when it comes down to it, I don't really believe I am really contributing much that's meaningful to society... I think I need to get back to doing some volunteer work. It's been a few years since I was last really involved in something.

Kenn and I have completed watching Seasons 1 and 2 of Entourage that my brother gave us for Christmas. We also watched one of the movies Kenn's brother gave us - Nacho Libre. TV in English has been uninteresting lately so I imageine we are going to burn through the plethora of DVDs we have.

Blog-Ng in 2007

Back in Tokyo!

Kenn and I arrived safely to Tokyo and managed to get all our bags back to the apartment without a tremendous amount of hassle. We unpacked and organized and are having an absolutely wonderful time so far living together. :) It's only been a few days of this honeymoon phase and I've been joking that only one of us is going to make it back to NY alive. hahaha...

We've had jet lag all weekend but managed to get out Monday (I had off for a Japanese holiday) and walked all the way to Shibuya. Weather is hovering around 50F and it's pretty sunny all the time here in the winter. We've been hitting the gym and trying to get back in shape. Personally, the last 2 weeks being home I've indulged in all the food I wanted and missed and noticably gained at least 5 pounds. Back to the Japanese diet, small portions, and exercise.

It was really nice to be home in NY and I did manage to see most people I wanted to catch up with. It was such a busy 2 weeks though running around. Some highlights: Christmas with family, I got to spend some time chatting with coworkers in NY, I had a great afternoon hanging with my mom, nice lunch with my parents, caught up with some friends I knew from church in HS and all their kids (5 kids between 2 couples that are all 31 and under!), rang in the new year with Livia and her cousin, a wonderful dinner with old friends from elementary school, watching the Michigan game with my brother & Caroline & Livia, lunch with an old coworker, and fun dinners/drinks with all my closest friends. I'll miss everyone, especially those I won't see again until next summer!

Kenn got me a great new digital camera for Christmas so now I don't have to be embarrassed of my camera in Japan anymore. hehe. I will post pics soon.

John, if you are reading, stay tuned for the Ode to John blog post. ;)

Happy New Year everyone!! May you have a healthy and prosperous one!