O Crooked! my Crooked!

Dear Crooked Head,

You had a damn good run. What was it, 14 years? Something like that. A long time.

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We learned to compromise with each other about some things and constantly battled about others. A little too often you were too smart for your own good.

To be perfectly frank, we put up with a lot of crap from you. Knocking over water glasses, throwing pens to the ground, destroying homework, stealing food, shredding paper...



...not to mention declaring your triumph over your Nemesis (small green toy) in the wee hours of the morning, not unlike this:

You were also in the way enough that we started referring to that situation as "helpful like a Crooked" and have since applied the term to people.

To be fair, you put up with a lot of crap from us, too. Being puppeted, helmeted, worn as a hat, intentionally confused, dressed up...

Plus that one time Husband and Roommate decided to throw a
birthday party for the cats as an excuse to get a cake.
The cats did not have any cake.

...put in snow...

I'm not the only one with stories. Other people could tell them, too. You've touched a lot of lives, shed on a lot of clothes.

There was that time when I was in college and woke up in the middle of the night to find you doing battle with a remote control that had fallen into the water dish. You probably knocked off the night stand.

Or the time you nearly gave that guy a stroke because he was terribly afraid of cats and you settled into his lap like he was an old friend.

Or when you ran away for a month, and when you got tired of eating sunshine and butterflies, sauntered up to some girls in a townhouse to demand food and affection.

Or when we were eating Thanksgiving dinner and heard a rustling noise in the kitchen that turned out to be you on the counter with your head in the ham.

You were a bright spot in my most difficult days, and you saw me through to the best part of my life. I knew that even if nobody else ever loved me with all their heart, you did.

Rest in peace, buddy. I'll see you on the other side.

Love,
Kim

すし パーティー！ (Sushi Party!)

This is completely unrelated to the rest of this post, but it's worth mentioning because it was really good! The label says apple, milk, and lemon, but I could swear I tasted honey too.

Aaaaand on with the show!


We tried something new: hosting a sushi party. I wasn't sure what to get or what to expect, but I had help from some Japanese friends. Husband and I went to the store and guessed at a variety of fish and vegetables.

Shown here are avocado, tako (octopus), maguro (tuna), asparagus, and rice mixed with sushi vinegar.


On the stove were two types we weren't sure were okay to eat raw, so our awesome friends cooked and seasoned them while I chopped vegetables. The sticks on the left are some sort of mystery fish, but it had a great buttery flavor. The salmon sticks on the right were labeled "sashimi quality" but we weren't sure if it was meant to be eaten raw or just as good as the stuff that's meant to be eaten raw. It probably would have been fine, but we cooked it just to be safe. The yellow thing at the bottom is tamagoyaki, the rolled omelet often served as sushi. I'm so excited that I know how to make this now that it's a little silly. But I need to get a rectangular frying pan to properly cook and roll it.

Cucumber, carrot, avocado, and (cracked pepper) cream cheese.

Pickled ginger! It looks pretty gross, but it has a great zingy flavor.

I have these awesome rice molds for making maki (the cylindrical sushi) and on the right is for the tiny lumps of rice raw fish sits on. Have I mentioned how much I love the 100-yen store?

I'm no expert, but the molds worked moderately well for me.

Most people had a plate of ingredients:

Then folded those ingredients into a small square of nori. I converted to this method pretty quickly, it was much less of a pain in the neck to put everything together.

After sushi, we introduced our friends to the Kinect and the dance game we've been playing. Crooked helped.

I thought it would be fun to get some video of people playing the game, then Crooked decided I should pay attention to him instead.

The Land of Ugly Sweaters and the Japanese Leisure Suit Larry

I discovered that there is an entire shopping neighborhood in Harajuku that is best described as the Land of Ugly Sweaters.

There are lots of boutiques and trendy clothing stores, but there are also used clothing stores and 700 yen stores, which might be my new favorite things. The largest used clothing store is called Chicago, and I tagged it in my phone as "Ugly Sweaters R Us." It's like everybody's grandmother's knitting supplies were picked out by a drunk hobo. Not many things were gasp-out-loud hideous, but nearly every sweater was just ugly enough that there was a cumulative effect. But it wasn't just sweaters. They also had a respectable selection of other clothes and coats spanning the entire aesthetic spectrum from "that's super cute and I wish they had it in my size" to "sweet mother of fraggles, why would anybody need an electric purple fur vest?"

For the record, if that purple fur vest had been just a smidge bigger (chafed armpits = too small) Husband would have insisted we get it and that I wear it out in public. Bullet dodged!

Overall, the prices were fairly reasonable, too. I tried on a couple trench coats in really good condition that were a little too big to fit properly, but would have only cost about $25.

One of the 700 yen stores we visited had a brontosaurus neck and head wearing a vintage army helmet over the entryway inside the store. I took that as a good sign. They had a smaller selection of ugly sweaters and used clothing, but everything was 700 yen (with the conversion, about $8.50 USD). We came away from that store with two suitably ugly sweaters and an awesome scarf.

We'd been halfway looking for ugly sweaters ever since we were invited to an ugly sweater party circa 2008 and couldn't find a single one in any department or thrift store. As of yesterday, crisis averted! Now we are prepared if we are ever invited to an ugly sweater party again. I debated between the too-large sweater with polar bears and snow-covered pine trees or the slightly snug brown sweater with reindeer and fur-trimmed hood (fake fur, animal-lover friends, don't worry). I opted for the reindeer.

I should get extra points for color coordination with the cat.

I'm not crazy about the hood, though. The fur seems to be attracted to my eyeballs like a magnet.

Husband's sweater, the color of canned peas, has the added benefit of being too loose in every dimension and making him look like a serial killer. Especially when he wears his Army-issue square plastic glasses. Seriously. It's chopped-up-women-in-the-freezer creepy.

Also worth noting: this sweater actually clashes with jeans. You wouldn't think so, but someone else made the observation when he first put it on and I agreed.

My new kickass scarf: seven feet long and purple (murasaki!) stripes.


In a small men's clothing boutique, we found what might be the most awesome shoes in the world.
You know you want a pair.


In a train station we passed by a doughnut table. Buying a doughnut is unremarkable, but they're just so prettily packaged! It makes the experience just a little bit more special, y'know?

The US needs more illuminated tractor trailers with cartoon fish. How can you have road rage if you see a happy cartoon fish driving along next to you?

We went to a bar for dinner that was themed around Antonio Inoki, a Japanese professional wrestler.
The bar itself is in a boxing ring and all the televisions were playing an old video of him in a drama-filled match against some cave man with crazy hair and a full beard. In case you were wondering, professional wrestling is just as painfully fake in Japan as it is in the States.


They encouraged group photos with the statue of Inoki, and had the requisite your-face-here wooden cutouts by the elevator door. Who could resist?
Unfortunately, the food wasn't particularly good. At least the pasta dish I ordered wasn't, the fried cheese appetizer and complimentary seasoned popcorn were tasty.


We moved on to a different bar called Tokyo Loose for some drinks and met up with some friends. It's a gaijin bar (sorry, "international bar") that caters to foreigners and is pretty chill. The owner is Nigerian and the Japanese bartender spoke perfect English, and they had excellent sheesha.

After 10pm or so, it started to get a little more crowded. That's when we met the Japanese Leisure Suit Larry. He couldn't have been any taller than four foot ten and was very interested in dancing with the gaijin's womenfolk (but not the men...Husband tried). I think he goes there to dance with gigantic women. (Before anyone goes on a "you're not fat!" tirade, yes, yes, I'm a tiny svelte thing. But I was eight inches taller and could have lifted him with one arm. It's all relative.)

There are a couple photos of my attempts to follow his lead in some form of ballroom dance, but I do not have them. He alternated between a waltz-like box step, spinning himself under my arm, and miming either cartoonish infatuation or a heart attack, I couldn't tell.


My memory of the time after the bar is a bit hazy, but we made a stop at Burger King so the guys could get an obscene number of chicken nuggets. And a paper crown. Did you know there are rules printed on the inside? There are! Whomever dons the crown must proclaim in a loud voice, "I am the King!" and then he (or she) is King. Unless there is a coup and the crown is taken by someone else for more than three seconds, in which case there is a new King. There is also a handy warning that the crown is in fact made of paper and therefore the current reign may come to a premature end if exposed to water or flame. There are some more rules for "Advanced Play" like the King must speak in a cool accent, but I'll leave that set un-described so I don't ruin the surprise for the next time you get yourself a Burger King crown.

We were so busy dancing with Leisure Suit Larry and getting chicken nuggets that we missed the last train. Lucky for us, our friends are not only super cool people, but they have an extra room and let us sleep in it.


The next day we went to the New Sanno for brunch. On the cab ride over from the friends' apartment, I saw this helpful illustration about pedestrian awareness.

And on the way back I picked up a new drink:

It feels anticlimactic to end on a ginger ale, even if it is red, so here's a video of Crooked Head disemboweling a bag of catnip.

Feeling Adventurous? Order a Japanese Pizza!

It was bound to happen sooner or later. We felt adventurous and opted to try a snow crab and lobster pizza. I mean, we had some crazy choices, but most of them don't fit into a pescatarian diet.

I had mixed feelings. These feelings are kind of summed up in my reaction to the disclaimer at the end of the description: Beware of some shells and soft bones when you eat this pizza.

I find it both amusing and horrifying.




My other half said the crab was quality, but I can't tell. Neither of us were particularly thrilled about the pizza/shellfish combination, to be honest, but we both decided it had been worth trying.

Crooked Head, on the other hand, was all about it.

Okay, so that was his reaction to the chicken wings the husband got as an appetizer, but he was just as thrilled to eat crab meat.

We might order it again, but only if we have visitors that want the seafood pizza experience.

That said, we might try a different kind next time. Something with a basil sauce, perhaps.

Operation: CAT, the Thrilling Conclusion!

Last night, we called the USDA office in Richmond and spoke to a very helpful woman. We made some arrangements and after all scanning/sending/stamping/returning/printing processes were done (the same vet re-signed and re-endorsed every page), and they carbon-something-ed the seal so the raised edges were apparent in the scan, we printed the end result and brought them to the vet along with the cats.

The vet was kind enough to say that he would release them from quarantine after their checkup tomorrow, but we will need to get the originals sent over ASAP. We can deal with that.

Huge sigh of relief!

Thank you everyone for your concern and sympathy. I'll share something more amusing next time, I promise. Like the aquarium in Tokyo or Nekobukuro, the cat petting zoo.

Unaccompanied Cat Shipping: A Cluster$@%& of Epic Proportions

Okay, so the morning the cats arrived, I spoke to a very helpful guy at the Pet Desk of the airline that shipped the cats. I'd spoken to him at least three times in trying to make arrangements and checking statuses, we're almost friends now.

He gave me the information he had: go to JAL building 228 for paperwork, then to cargo building 4 for the airline's cargo warehouse and pick them up.

Step 1: driving to the airport.
This drive has strengthened my resolve not to drive in Japan. Local highways and driving a few cities over is one thing, but expressways are complex and expensive, not to mention not labeled by numbers and cardinal directions like they are here. Not all signs are in English, even the ones that do have destinations I don't know, and some look like this:
They show traffic jams up ahead, but I have no idea how to interpret them. So driving to the airport was a white-knuckled adventure that strengthened my resolve not to drive here.

We stopped at a rest area right before the airport for a drink and snacks and found a place to check flight information.

By the vending machines and fried food kiosk, I saw this in the roof:

Aww, baby birds! But what drew my attention was this, directly below:


Snacks, nowhere near the bird territory:

This is kind of a fishy, potato-ey thing. Not bad.


He said this was like a fish stick...on a stick. He approved, I didn't try it.


Step 2: actually getting cats.
We get to the cargo area and park, only to discover that every building has the JAL (Japan Air Lines, I think) logo, none of them have numbers except cargo 4, nobody knew what Building 228 was or where our airline's cargo facility was, and nobody spoke English. We tried calling the cargo desk at the airport, but the number didn't work. I called the Pet Desk in the US and spoke with a less-than-helpful woman whose advice was "find someone that speaks English."

We eventually got in touch with a friend who could speak enough Japanese and hand the phone to communicate enough of what we were trying to do to have someone else in a uniform lead us to a different building which turned out to be Customs. We never would have found it on our own. Some guy there asked for paperwork, and we couldn't tell him in Japanese that we didn't have the right paperwork for them and we didn't know where to go and that was our problem, but he came to that conclusion after we handed over the most relevant piece of information that we had and it wasn't what they needed.

One of those guys led us through more anonymous corridors and buildings until we found the Animal Quarantine Service (AQS) room. Also not labeled, also not something we could have ever found on our own. Someone there spoke English, but told us we needed to find our airline to actually get the cats. When we were able to get across to her that we were trying to do just that and failing miserably because we didn't know where to go or who to call, she brought out an English map of the cargo area and somehow found out that the cargo through our scheduled airline was handled by a different airline (also not something we could have accomplished on our own). Out the door, down the street, around the corner, we saw a cargo area full of crates and forklifts. Here, all Husband had to say was "ni neko" (grammatically incorrect, but literally "two cats") and they nodded and pointed to the two carriers. Then we went with the cats back to the previous building and into a scary windowless cement room to leave them for a few minutes. Back to AQS to verify paperwork, back to the inspection room so they could scan the microchips, back to the AQS office for more paperwork verification...

Here's where we discovered that the USDA vet in Richmond, the one that we had to overnight the health certificate to, didn't stamp everything. She stamped the date on all the pages, but neglected to give the embossed seal to a form and a half for each cat. This means the paperwork is incomplete and the cats are therefore subject to 180 days of quarantine.

We went from two hours of quarantine to six months in the space of six unstamped pages. We will be having words with this vet soon.

Their quarantine will be considered over as soon as we can get the stamp, but it's still a royal pain.

So we told them the cats would be quarantined on base, went to Customs, went back to the airline that handled the cargo to pay the man for whatever shipping fees were incurred, and got the cats to Midori Tori for the drive home.

Our radio gets very few stations that play music and the cassette player kept rejecting the iPod adapter (yes, it has a cassette player), so this was our soundtrack for the two and a half hour drive back home from the airport.




But, once home, Aria settled in pretty quickly.


Crooked is sulky and a little annoying, but he was dehydrated and uncomfortable, so I can cut him some slack. This picture may look like abuse, but he's not being squished at all.

So what happens now?
We bring the cats to the base vet at 8am tomorrow to examine them, check them in, and begin their quarantine. Then we see if we can work something out in-country or FedEx the papers to the USDA office in Richmond again to get all the right stamps.

Eurgh.

This was a stressful event, and it's not quite over. But I'm exceedingly grateful to all of the employees of the cargo area that were kind enough not to just give directions, but to actually send someone to show us the next place we needed to go. Every place we went we couldn't have found on our own and I don't know if I could find them again.

So, since I just figured out how to type in hirigana/katakana on my computer, to the employees of Narita's cargo area: どもありがとうございます。Couldn't have done it without you.

Operation: CAT (Crooked and Aria to Tokyo)

Shipping cats overseas is complicated. And not your run-of-the-mill complicated, I mean Tokyo Public Transportation system complicated. Afghanistan counterinsurgency chart complicated. This poo is no joke.

For starters, it's a seven month process involving microchipping, two rabies vaccinations, a blood test, a six-month waiting period, a final vet checkup by a USDA-certified vet, and a 6-page health certificate stamped by a USDA office. That last vet checkup is only good for 10 days, too. They prefer 2 days, but there was no way we could do that without ripping the fabric of space and time.

Not all airlines will allow pets, not all airlines will allow unaccompanied pets, most airlines have temperature restrictions - if the temperature at the departing/connecting/arriving airports at any point during the animals' journey is above 85°F, they will refuse the animal. It's for the critters' safety, so I can't be mad at that, but it definitely makes it difficult to plan ahead, especially in the summer months.

Plan A was to have the cats chaperoned from DC to Tokyo by someone who was flying in this direction. Got all paperwork in order, last-minute vet visit, overnight forms to Richmond for USDA stamping and get them overnighted back, good to go. Until it hit 103°F at the airport and the cats were refused.

Plan B (1.0) needed to happen in the next 2-3 days so the health cert would still be good, so arrangements were made through a different airline (with temperature-controlled facilities at each stop, so the outside temperature is irrelevant). A modification of cat importation form was sent to the Tokyo airport, approval for the change was received (the approval needs to be presented at check in, so getting approval for changes needs to be lickety-split in this kind of situation). Good to go.

This plan was derailed when Aria pulled out the 5th degree black belt in Hiding. Three people looked for her for two hours, and as soon as there wasn't enough time to get to the airport, she strolls out like nothing happened.

Plan C gets formulated: change my flight from DC to Tokyo in August to one that allows pets and hope it's not too hot to fly, also reserving an unaccompanied cargo shipment through the temperature-controlled company as a backup. I was in the middle of that when CFM (Cat Foster Mom) called to say she was able to get them booked on the first flight out the next day. Back to Plan B, now 2.0.

New project: Get another modification form submitted, approved, and sent to CFM for printing before she needs to leave for the airport in approximately 6 hours.

The confirmation she forwarded me from the airline was missing some crucial information, like the flight number for the second leg and what day they would ultimately arrive in Tokyo, so I called to double check. Then I called the vet on base to see if, for this second addendum, if I needed to use the information from the original notice or the information from the last modification. Then the scanner stopped cooperating for a while. I finally got the form off to the right person, 5 hours to go.

Three hours later we asked a friend who speaks Japanese to call the airport and ask them about the approval. He was nice enough to do so and they were gracious enough to find our form and push it through almost immediately, and I forwarded it to CFM.

CFM got the forms, the cats got to the airport. Labeled, fooded and watered, absorbent-padded, and bewildered, but OK to travel.


Crooked Head


Aria


At time of writing, they've completed the first leg of their trip, they'll fly the rest of the way in a few hours.

We are Going to be Very Busy Mews for a While

Housing
Konban, (this evening) we sign contracts and drain our bank accounts to cover the up-front cost of renting a house off base. No wonder Japanese people typically live with their parents until they start their own family - renting is no joke! We're lucky because the Mew gets a cost-of-living allowance that alleviates a lot of the pressure, but the up-front cost is about 6 months rent. Security deposit, pet deposit, first month rent, key money, agent's fee, and renter's insurance.

Ashita no gozen, (tomorrow morning) we have a meeting with the realtor and the housing department on base to make sure everybody has originals of everything signed and work out any details. Then we pick out what furniture and appliances we're going to borrow from base housing. We'll definitely need a refrigerator and washing machine (houses typically don't come with either of these), hopefully a convection/microwave oven (houses will have a fish griller, but not an actual over as we think of them), bed, dresser, something soft to sit on, and anything we can find to put between our desks and the nice unscratched hardwood floor.

Rokugatsu tsuitachi, (June 1st) the guy from the housing office will do the home inspection before we move in. The next day, furniture/appliances and our express baggage will arrive, and it will start to look like a place where someone lives. Pictures to follow.

Cats
The cat import process is long and annoying. They've already gone through the microchipping, first rabies vaccine, second rabies vaccine, blood test to make sure the rabies vaccines worked, six month waiting period, and 40-day advance notification to the airport. Now they need three forms filled out (two health certification forms and an import application), which we should be able to do soon.

Someone who is here that will be taking a trip back to DC has graciously offered to escort the cats back. I'm not sure exactly how one can say "thank you" for something as great as this. I feel worlds better knowing that someone who has done this before will be able to keep track of them and make sure we can get them through the airport without pissing anyone off.

Speaking of the cats, apparently Crooked has adopted his foster mom's mom. Foster Grandma moved in while he was missing, so she's a new friend, and she doesn't particularly care for cats, but Crooked doesn't mind. I understand he's recently been banished from the upstairs while they're sleeping because he has that habit of sleeping on her head and kneading her hair into tangles.

Mona is the indigenous cat. Aria, my sweet little girl, turns into a raving b*tch around other cats for no good reason as far as I can tell, and has Mona cornered in the master bedroom. Hang in there, Mona, 39 more days.

Grab Some Popcorn, This is a Long One

First Things First
Crooked Head has been found! He meowed up to some girls in the neighborhood, presumably saying, "Helloooo, ladies! Come over here and pet me. Now FEED ME." They called Tiff, who collected him and brought him for a vet checkup and gave us a call to let us know he's okay. He was gone two days shy of a month and has lost some weight, but otherwise he's doing well.

Sigh of relief!


Saturday:
In Japan, there are things called love hotels. They offer rates for a few hours or overnight; it sounds very seedy and un-classy, but consider that young people don't typically get their own place after school (high school OR university), they live with their parents until they get married. The intent behind this style of lodging is for couples to enjoy some privacy that they aren't able to get at home (in their 800-square-foot 4-bedroom house that they share with their siblings, parents, and grandparents). Most offer hot tubs, big screen televisions with gaming systems, and room service. Some have crazy themes but most are geared toward being a quiet place to hang out.

My understanding is that it's not completely uncommon for tourists and traveling students also frequent these places because they are often less expensive than a hotel chain with better amenities and you don't necessarily need to speak the language to make a reservation. This site has a pretty good overview.

We decided this would be an interesting Japanese experience and went to check out the area where most of them can be found. This was almost a complete waste of time - most of the places we found, when anything was available, looked a lot like the hotel room we're already staying in. In addition, we were asked to leave from a few places because we aren't Japanese. It was hard not to take that personally. The Mew had "be discriminated against" on his To Do list, but I just got my feelings hurt. We gave up and got some mojitos at an outdoor cafe and the day improved from there. This is when I discovered that some restaurants will offer blankets to their patrons if it's getting chilly.

We also saw our first vending machine featuring a TV screen, showing an endless loop of Coca-Cola commercials.

Not to disappoint, I found some bizarre new drinks to try. This brand, Calpis, was changed to Calpico for sale in the States (Say it out loud to find out why. If you don't get it, say it to someone else and ask them to repeat what you said slowly or post a comment and I'll explain.)

This particular beverage...I have no idea what it is. It could be coffee, it could be tea, it could be tea made from coffee beans, I haven't the foggiest.

THIS drink, on the other hand, is strange but in a pleasant way. It's aloe and white grape flavored, and it's near the top of my list of Interesting Drinks that I Will Definitely Get Again. It has chunks of aloe floating in it, which are not as disturbing as you'd expect.



Sunday
New and interesting soda flavor found on the way to Yokohama. It's labeled "Sakura" which means "Cherry Blossom" and my best characterization is that it tastes like pink Runts. You know, the candy that has bananas, oranges, strawberries and unidentified round pink blobs.

My favorite part of this could be that I can actually read "sakura" on the label. Progress!

Yokohama is a happy place. We started with the theme park. It's small by American standards, but they have a lot of things, well designed use of space, and it's an all-around good time. One of the most intriguing things we did was go through the cheesy haunted house and the "scary" track ride and note the differences between American and Japanese versions of the same concepts. There was also a mirror maze that was kind of cool.

We took a ride on the ferris wheel, which is a pretty big local landmark.


This pink roller coaster is called something like "Vanishing Coaster." This is why. (More photos of this later.)

You'd think that such an enormous wheel would feel unstable because of the winds at this height. It's not. It's so stable you could put a wine glass on the floor and it would still be full at the end of the ride. It never stops, it just moves slowly enough for people to get on and off, so there's no jerking to a halt every ten feet. The car is spacious and completely enclosed by glass (and air conditioned).

Check it out - mini golf on the roof of the next building over!

Looking down at the roller coasters and the flume ride.

Here you can see some of the office buildings and some other rides.


The top view of the Vanishing Coaster. The pool is also the end point for the flume ride.






Looking down at the other cars on the Wheel.

Me playing something like the drum set from Rock Band in the arcade. I couldn't read any of the screens, so I accidentally went from Ultra Easy to Not Quite as Easy as I Would Have Liked with a couple errant drum taps, but it was still fun.

We crossed the street and found a wine event with street vendors, and got some Sakura ice cream, which in this case, is vanilla ice cream with bits of cherry mixed in.

Then we found Chinatown!

The official name for this type of food, fluffy dough around filling, usually purchased fresh out of the oven or steamer or whatever they use to cook with, is anpanman (filled with sweetened bean paste) or nikuman (filled with meat), depending on what is inside. I refer to this in particular as Sad Panda Food. It was the bean stuff inside, and in the name of all that is good and pure, it has no right to be that delicious. Something that has THAT expression on its FACE (it has a face for Pete's sake) shouldn't make me so happy.

Amusing billboard just above the booth selling Sad Panda Food. I have no idea what it says.

If there's one thing I took away from Chinatown, it's that they're obsessed with pandas. Seriously. We saw a store literally named Panda-ya (panda store) and in the window was, among other things, a stuffed panda wearing a panda hat.

If there are two things I took away from Chinatown, it's panda obsession and cheongsams. I ended up ordering a short sleeved dress in black with subdued-hue chrysanthemums for a great deal. The woman spoke excellent English and even taught me how to pin up my hair with a single hair pin. I'm no good at it yet, but I get the concept. I'll go back next weekend to pick up the dress after tailoring, photos to follow.

Then it was off to the other major landmark, Yokohama Tower.

The viewing rooms were on the 29th and 30th floor.


They provided a map showing what you can see from wherever you're looking from the tower, which I thought was a pretty neat way to make a map.



They also have the scary window in the floor. Gives me the willies.


After dinner, we walked along the waterfront back to the train station, and at dusk everything starts to light up.
This is the last picture my camera took before the battery died.


We stopped at the Ox again for half price sushi (have I mentioned yet how much I love late-night half-price sushi?), and an apple.

For scale, (after I changed the camera battery) I put it next to our hotel coffee pot, but it's both a small coffee pot and a big apple, so it's comical but not terribly helpful.


Conclusion: Yokohama is one of my new favorite spots.

I've babbled enough for now, next installation will likely be an update on our living situation. Stay tuned!