Opposite food

Went to eat Vietnamese food last night. There was a great deal, at least at the time where it was a 30 dollar course dinner set. I read the menu items and it looked like a great bargain for dinner for two. The food was honestly quite good, and one of the best Vietnamese food that I have tried in Tokyo thus far. Even though I had a great deal, I didn't go overboard in ordering drinks, actually I only ordered Vietnamese ice coffee (which was more like Cafe au lait) and tea. Come time to paying the bill, I had my 30 something dollars at hand but the cash register had other plans. It flashed out a gentle green colored 71 dollars equivalent on the screen. I was shocked. It turns out the dinner set was 30 dollars PER PERSON. We questioned the clerk about the price and even though the price did not say 30 dollars per group, it didn't say per person either. The whole time I was expecting something almost half that price, so my fingers felt ashamed when it had to go fetch ichiman yen (100 dollar equivalent) bill for Vietnamese food. Coming from the D.C. area, Vietnamese food was always known as "cheap eats" while Japanese food was known as the most expensive out of the Asian cuisines. It really feels weird that it is now opposite here in Japan.

Izu Recap and work sucks

I apologize in being late to post about the trip to Izu, but man, its been a wild and hectic week for me. Basically work is going downhill for me. The company is struggling and I will find myself in the open market very soon. Currently, I am frantically trying to polish my overall skills and am networking as much as I can and pray that my efforts will get me some leads to some decent opportunities here in Tokyo or any part of Japan. Its a tough time, but as people have been telling me, try to stay positive and everything will work itself out.

Speaking of positivity, my trip to Izu was very fun and relaxing. The best part about it was being able to hang out with Jim and Akiko again. Overall, the food was great, experienced clean and fresh air, lots of greenery, nice onsen, and oddly enough went to a teddy bear museum. The only negative thing I would say about the trip was that it ended too soon. I don't have too much time left to go into detail of my trip so please enjoy the pics below.

How "Izu" doing?

Short post. Going to Izu today and hang out there for the weekend. Its going to be refreshing especially with the crap that is going on at work. Situation remains the same, sketchy and unclear. All I know is that there are a lot of disgruntled employees now. I'll be meeting the VP on Monday, so that may give me some clues on what "really" is going on at the company. Anyways.. I'm going to head out to the "romance train" bound for Izu!

Confusion

Everything is changing. News expires every 12 hours. Today rather late tonight was suppose to be the meeting where top management would clear some some of the confusion they created, but atlas it got postponed to next week. At this moment in time, I do see some lighted routes which is a drastic change on what I was seeing a week ago. However, as the past few days of shown those fragile beams of hope could easily turn out to be dark dead ends at the end of the day. I've got to be honest though, I've stressed about this situation for almost a week now and its even gotten me physically sick. I'm trying my best to keep myself optimistic which is difficult for me because I'm the type who plans everything out and likes to set out short and long term road maps for myself. In this situation though, to keep my sanity I have to learn just to take it a day at a time.

Let the race begin!

Well, it seems my luck in the past 8 - 9 months of me out running the evil demon seems to be in serious jeopardy. I've done my best to place myself in the best position possible, which had been working and it looked like I would be ahead of the game for another couple of years or so but from recent events beyond my control, I am starting to see the evil demon's head from behind and he is slowly catching up with me. I must admit that I was not 100% naive about the situation and have been preparing myself for such an event but never thought it would come this soon. There is still a possibility, small or large no visibility on that yet, that I may completely dodge the demon for another year or two. Regardless, the only way I will have any security is if I enter the undesirable rat race now before the demon completely demoralizes me. I have to finish polishing my running shoes and stretch out all the little muscles that may cramp up. This is going to be an interesting couple of months, good and bad for me. I pray that me entering this race now will avoid me in making this from a sprint to a long marathon. Please wish me luck.

Hanami Part Deux

As the cherry blossoms started to fade from the bitter cold and unexpected rain showers, this past weekend had beautiful weather so it was our goal to attempt final effort to have a decent hanami. From the crowds I saw, it appeared that half the population of Tokyo felt the same way.

The park we went to, Kinuta Park in Setagaya-ku was crowded but bearable. It also had street stands selling okonomiyaki, soft ice cream cones, and other food you would find at a typical matsuri. Like most places I write about, this was my first time at this place. A lot of people think of Tokyo as a place full of concrete and not enough greenery but there are plenty of beautiful parks that one can get away from the city life and enjoy nature. This park was no exception. I saw many cherry trees. The blossoms were no longer in full bloom, but they were beautiful nonetheless.



Usually at a hanami lots of alcohol is involved. When I arrived to the picnic area, which was around 2ish I would say 80% of the people were already drunk.



The atmosphere though was more family oriented than other places like a hanami at Yoyogi park, so I didn't see anything out of control.



The hanami season is over, but the next event I'm looking forward to is visiting Jim and Akiko in Shizuoka in 2 weeks. We also plan to visit Izu and stay at a ryokan type place. I hope the weather will cooperate.

Cruisin'

The mobile team at work set up a hanami cruise party last night. Its been a while since I was on a boat. The night was a bit chilly but cruisin' Tokyo bay on a yacht with an all you can eat and drink menu is always exciting. I apologize for the quality of the pics as if some of you know I take all my pictures through my mobile phone and the superior quality of my pics are magnified with low lighting and moving targets =P.



Our vessel awaiting at 天王洲アイル (Tennōzu Isle).




The bright neon signs of beer companies... a sure sign that you are in Japan.




Fuji Television station in Odaiba.




Can't really see it too well, but the sign was shimmering like a crescent moon.




The main purpose of this cruise/enkai was to view the Sakura trees from a new perspective.