A walk around town

We went for a walk from the hotel to our apartment and then through the park near our apartment. Here are a couple of pictures you can see more at www.dumouchellesinjapan.smugmug.com The photos are under Misc Japan Photos from 4/2/08-4/17/08. We were able to see Cherry Blossoms before they died off. I had no idea that Cherry Blossom season was so short. Hopefully next year we can experience more of the season and festivals.

China Town

Yokohama Chinatown is the largest Chinatown not only in Japan but also in Asia (larger than Chinatowns in both Kobe and Nagasaki) and it is one of the largest in the world. There are over 200 restaurants alone (other shops are not included for this number).
We just did a quick walk through. We will need to go back once we are more settled in and have more time to explore!

You can see more pictures of china town at www.dumouchellesinjapan.smugmug.com under
Misc Japan Photos from 4/2/08-4/17/08.

Week 1

1st week in Japan

Everything is going okay here. We are having some trouble getting used to the time change this time. We have been going to sleep around 7pm and getting up around 3am. Its Saturday at 2pm, right now so we are going to try to stay up tonight so that Steve can get used to the time before work on Monday. Its kinda weird right now that we actually live here and we are not just coming home in a couple of days.

We bought a DVD player from a city called Akihabara, electric town about 45mins by train. We got it home and found out that you can not play American DVDs in it. So we are now going to have to try to return it and see if we can order one online. I guess there are region zones to help companies with sales tracking and you cannot mix the zones.

We applied for our alien registration cards and reentry permits and got a bank acct. (Kinda weird that we are now "aliens") So now Steve will be starting work on Monday and then we move into our apartment on Friday!

The hotel we are in is nice, the room is much bigger which is helpful. It still only had 2 twin beds but we were able to push them together. We have a view of Mt. Fuji. You can only see it during sunrise and sunset really and only if its clear out. Its pretty far away but its HUGE!! The Cherry Blossoms are really pretty as well. Not as many as I imagined. I am sure if you get out of the city there is probably more. Unfortunately Steve has alot of work to get done this weekend and week so I don’t think we will really be able to get out to see to many. We will have to go next year. We have done so much walking the last couple of days. The relocation lady took us to do what we needed but then also showed us around a little. I had no idea the first day we would be doing so much walking I had on these little black heeled shoes they were ok at first but then about 6 hours later I could tell I was getting blisters. We got back to the hotel and the bottoms of both shoes were worn down and rubbed off. Crazy. We walked I would say about 4 hours straight. All over China Town and Yokohama. It was awesome just I had the wrong shoes on. So the next day I wore sketchers!

I think we are going to set up the Wii tonight in our room so we have something to keep us awake. So far not too bad on food situation. There is a subway near us, we had lunch at a Chinese restaurant which was good and then lunch at a Japanese restaurant that had some western food and it was pretty good. We are also big fans of Tonkatsu We used the Ranch my sister Melissa gave me on our subway subs lol! I think that we will probably have to have someone send us Ranch every month. I think we are going for pasta tonight!

Well I think thats pretty much it! Feel free to write whenever. We are already starting to feel pretty home sick!