søndag 28. desember 2014

We have been in Japan for around a week now

and there is so much to see...
And to do. Getting up in the morning crossing the corner just to meet Anna and Ellen`s ninja teacher all ready to "fight"





Of course when visiting Japan you meet Geisha`s

There are lots of nice cars here, but some still prefer the old fashioned hard way....



Crossing the street, seeing Batmobil with Batman and Robin, Daniel could almost not believe his eyes.






Going to Odaiba, so beautiful.


                                          Visiting Legoland Discovery center

Among other things we could design our own blocks


                                         My weight is 20 000 lego bricks


Seeing Mt Fuji, unfortunately we could not get up to the mountain since the road was closed (slippery) but we got a great view of the mountain from the bus and the cable car..
Hot spring from where we took the cable car, smells like...rotten eggs




We took Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Tokyo
Tokyo station celebrates 100 year
The word "crowded" will not explain how many people who where there...and police



We tried local dishes, as well as bakeries, burgers, pizza and pasta...whatever you like it is all here...

(Burger king here have a speciality that is a black burger so it is not burned it is supposed to look like this. Taste? Like any other burger...

We been to the elegant Ginza with Prada, Gucci and all of that, and we visited the Sony building



We are taking the subway and train criss cross Tokyo
According to wikipedia more than 6 million people use these lines every day! And the punctuality is extreme with trains departing every 5 minutes...


And good for us, the stations are  switching displaying Japanese and English



We met Keiko and her great family again at Sony exploration center in Odaiba
And we tried generating power through "spinning a wheel" together, and this technology is exported to the Ivory coast


Inside it was many things we could touch and play with
We are having a great time, enjoying every minute, taking care of each other and happy we have more days to spend here.



And soon you too will see more pictures




torsdag 25. desember 2014

Nagomi Visit

December 23th we visited Keiko and Yoshihiko and their beautiful daughters Momo (peach) and An (apricot). We met through Nagomi visit, and if you ever go to Japan we highly recommend you to make reservation through them.

https://www.nagomivisit.com

Through their site, you tell if you like lunch or dinner, and at which date. Then they get back to you with a few suggestions and a presentation and you get to choose. Since we are seven people we were not sure if to find a match with space for all of us, but Nagomi visit got back to us we three options to choose from. Amazing.

We went to Meguro station, and were met by the family, and as agreed upon in advance a journalist and photographer from a magazine called Mom (A Japanese magazine aimed at mothers) were joining us. You can check out their website here, and maybe you will find and article with us there one day as well.


https://www.aeon.co.jp/sp_aeoncard/service/mom/

Our first visit to a Japanese home, look at the beautiful set table and all the great food they have prepared. I can assure you it tasted great.


They really made us feel welcome, and had written the menu in both Japanese and English. The front says "velkommen" which means welcome, in Norwegian. We were so impressed.
Yoshihiko was showing us around in their nice house, and after that we all sat around the table for an excellent meal.



After the meal, the kids got time to play....
We were able to ask all the questions we had about Japan. On of the most interesting things was to see the girls school book. The language here is really complicated with so many signs/words/pictures they have to memorize.

After looking at the girls school book, Ellen stated that she will never complain about any Norwegian class ever again.....
To meet like this is about so much more than sharing a meal. Its an unique way to let cultures meet, to share stories, having a good time and an opportunity to build new friendships. 
We really had a great time, and have already decided to meet again in a few days.

Thank you.