It's been an interesting week... things are progressing slowly in the office but at least I'm no longer twiddling my thumbs all the time! Hooray...!
I also had two visitors from home so there were two familiar faces in the office. It's a welcome change but personally, I think I prefer it when I'm there doing my own thing. I feel responsible to entertain them and low and behold, spent my whole weekend with them. I didn't mind so much but a day and a half with the same company can be a bit stressful and challenging - especially when I get the feeling they don't completely embrace the culture or the customs. I am liking wandering around on my own and it's a lot harder to 'fit in' with the locals when I have two Caucasians with me who are absolutely fascinated by well - everything.
Lady colleague and I had a wonderful day in Hakone visiting the Open Air Musuem and doing the loop around Hakone by rail, ropeway, cable car, boat and bus. It was mightly fresh though! Very glad to hop on the Romancecar back to Shinjuku in the evening. And it gave me ideas of what to do when my parents arrived. Hopefully the volcanic activity will cease and we will be able to visit the stop where they do the funny black (sulfur) eggs!
Today was going around town - Shibuya and Harajuku because that's what people think of when they think of Tokyo. We did Takeshita St, Daiso and then we were at Yoyogi Park waiting for almost an hour for a few Elvis impersonators to dance. Interesting but doesn't really catch my attention. Then we had kaizen sushi in Ometesando which I thought was average (and a bit of a tourist trap really) before they went back to their hotel. I dropped by the Farmer's Markets to pick up some groceries and got these tri-coloured carrots. They were so crispy when I cut them up for my soup this evening and delicious.
A Japanese colleague told me to go outlet shopping (apparently it's the right time) and it sounds like a great idea. Some of the streets are paved with those funny cobblestones and I have worn through my pair of black wedges... so sad because they were Nine West and relatively new. :( So I need to find a replacement pair.
