A Day at the Zoo

Today was a great day. Lots of nice weather to enjoy and some fun surprises along the way. Two of my coworkers, Dave and Nao, and myself went up to Tokyo to visit the Ueno Zoo. It is the oldest zoo in Tokyo. Sadly, there is no giant panda here, but plenty of red pandas to see. These ones were pretty active and seemed to almost put on a show, or were just really enjoying the bamboo they were eating. Of course there were lions, gorillas, and elephants, the kinds of animals you would expect to see in the zoo. But they also had some fun ones like pigmy hippos and a Galapagos tortoise. I have all the photos up online showing the zoo and a few cherry blossom photos I snuck in.

After the zoo we wandered around an open air market area in Tokyo looking for lunch. We ended up at this sushi place. It wasn't sushi like the rolls you might be thinking of. This was more a bowl of rice with the raw stuff on top of it. I had a bowl with crab (the real stuff not fake), salmon and ground tuna. Nao informed me that the ground tuna had tuna stomach ground into it. If you are wondering yes I ate the whole bowl, raw fish, crab, tuna stomach and all. It was really really good. And as of almost 8 hours later I am not exhibiting any sickness from the raw meat. I have to figure out how they properly prepare the fish and other raw meat to make sure it is all okay to eat and not get sick from it. This might cut down on my cooking time at home....

After lunch we all went back to our respective residences to rest. Around 6pm we met back up again and went to this Korean BBQ place. Really neat restaurant, I wish we had one like it back in the states. You order a 'set' which is rice, salad, soup of your choice and then a platter of mixed seasoned raw meat. No it wasn't a whole day of raw food. The reason the meat comes raw is that you have a little BBQ in the center of your table to cook your own meat on to your liking. The meat is sliced really thin so it takes only a small time to cook and afterwards you dip it in some sauces and then eat it over rice. Really good and for the 1500 yen it was way worth it.

Now I am back in my room and ready for bed. Strange to think this is my last weekend here. I did have a taste of home today. I was informed of a Krispy Kreme in the Yokohama train station so when I had to switch trains today I stopped in and grabbed two. One for my mid day snack and another for tomorrow morning. Assuming that it will last that long tempting me with its sugary goodness....