I now officially have two jobs, which is nice, but I've been running since we got back from our trip, so this is the first chance I've had to blog.
Tokyo notes:
*There are VERY LARGE crows there who say "caw" as if taught to crow by humans. It's as if their hearts aren't really in it. "Caw, caw", it almost sounds sarcastic.
*Toyko-ans are a very well groomed lot, and they seem to be big on hats, which is cool with us because Mark enjoys it when I try on hats on our vacations. He thinks I look good in hats. For many of the vacations we've taken together you can find a picture of me trying on a hat
*We went to an interesting temple/cemetary, the Zojoji Temple, in which there where several rows of Jizobosatsu statues, which are the protectors of the souls of still born or otherwise aborted babies. Their parents write messages on tablets that hang near the Jizobosatsu statues; one of the messages was in English, it was a letter to an unborn child from berieved parents, very sad and touching. The statues themselves are dressed in little red bonnets and surrounded with little toy windmills. Some people might find the place very bizarre, personally I thought there was a really beautiful gesture in the whole idea.
*One of my favorite excursions was to Shimo-kitazawa, a really cute and funky neighborhood that took us away from some of the neon overkill of Shinjuku or Ginza (not that we didn't love that). The neighborhood seemed a bit like East Atlanta or Williamsburg, Brooklyn, a bit less expensive than other areas in Tokyo, but still cool and trendy.
*We purchased the new Rufus Wainwright Cd when we were there. I'm really enjoying it. Rufus rocks the house.
Overall, we both really enjoyed ourselves in Tokyo, and found the subway system much easier to negotiate then we expected it to be. Tokyo's well worth seeing if you have the chance. Hopefully we'll get to see more of Japan in the future.