just a list of things and moments I want to remember…considering I’ve already forgotten lots of them… will be adding any that pop to mind (fingers crossed).
- Qoo (pronounced “coo” like a dove), best juice drink ever.
- Morning set (preferably with Hotdog!)
- Green tea “milk” (latte)!
- incredible vending machine proliferation
- yes that gives you change for 100,000 yen ($100)
- Pocari Sweat!
- Calpis (swoon)
- “winning” the toy at the arcade (thanks to the arcade manager who apparently really really wanted me to win and moved the toy into an “impossible to lose” position)
- random shrine in the nishki market
- Japanese boy scouts spotting Americans: “Hi! Hi! Hello!” (my reply, of course: “Konnichiwa!!” which made them giggle like crazy)
- unbelievable proliferation of smoking. for a country obsessed with cleanliness…
- no glitzy postcards. plenty of other trinkets to buy, but…
- heated toilet seats
- noisemakers attached to toilet seats
- blue button = “for washing of the buttocks”
- pink button = “for Ladies only” (?!?!)
- the morning bowers/greeters at BIC camera in Kyoto
- cartoon characters hanging from phones, bags, jacket pockets, pants pockets…
- ancient hunched over grandmas & grandpas totally kicking our asses on the steps (both up and down) at Fushimi Inari
- duck ramen in Tokyo at the place Christoph found a “shortcut” to (ha ha ha)
- the japanese restaurant meal we had in Kyoto where Jackie made our reservation and pre-ordered all our food
- hmmm, I wonder what this is. fish? tofu? root vegetable?
- that is one LARGE piece o’ tentacle.
- “green pea soup”
- the first ramen restau we went to in Higayashima.
- teddy bears on benches
- rachel shutting the taxi door and the uproar it caused
- japanese set at the Hearton in the morning