Out On The Weekend

Hoboin' Tip #17:

Overnight Jumbo Ferries are a great place to sleep while drifting. But watch out, they don't like stowaways.

America has Mickey Mouse and Japan has their beloved Totoro. Just like classic Disney, all of Hayao Miyazaki's films have become canonized in this country. I am not too big of a fan, but everyone else is bananas about them. Here is that cuddable feline (type thing) in bread form. With this dessert you could choose regular or cream filled. We went with the cream. It was fantastic!

Upon seeing the name of this restaurant and the three story fish statue next to it, Peter couldn't stop laughing hysterically. Maybe it was because we were only going off of three hours of sleep, but all of us cracked up at the lack of creativity in the name and the enigmatic asterisk next to the word "cafe". It makes it sound like this place didn't know whether or not it wanted to actually serve there fish (exclamation point) or provide a place for people to relax. We couldn't figure it out. You decide. Maybe they just thought the little star looking thing brought some needed pizazz to the otherwise boring name? In that case, we must agree. It certainly caught our attention.

Don't need money. Don't need fame. Don't need no credit card to ride this futuristic Japanese ship. After waiting around for Marty, "Doc" Brown, and the flux capacitor to emerge from this space machine, we were sad to find out that this watercraft wouldn't actually take us back to the future. Although, I must admit that the maritime museum had an excellent selection of nautical crafts that kept our attention for at least an hour. We really enjoyed walking around the sea port.

This picture is a perfect representation of how excited Peter gets when we eat really good food. On this particular occasion it was the world famous kobe beef. We ate at this place called "Steakland" that was poorly named, but actually provided us with a fantastic high-end dinning experience. We ate it for lunch, so we didn't have to pay the outrageous dinner prices. All around, it was an amazing meal.

Peter really thought this statue looked like a Japanese replica of Al McCoy (of Phoenix Suns fame), so he had to get a picture in front of it. And although you can't really tell, he was saying "Shazam" while I took the picture. In true Japanese fashion, there was a figurine you could buy, but we couldn't justify spending the five hundred yen they were asking for it. Peter really wanted to get one for all of his fellow Suns fans back home. You know who you are.

We spent most of the day walking in some wicked Japanese rain. Here is a picture of Peter trying to weather the storm. He is using my umbrella because the rain had quickly defeated his. It snapped like a twig. The reason he got the umbrella was because we foolishly brought our computer in his backpack in order to watch movies on the Jumbo Ferry. We later regretted the decision. By the way, directly after this photo was taken the rain made mincemeat out of my umbrella as well. It was seriously poring on us. But, although it was miserable at the time, it has made for an endearing memory.

Costco in Japan anyone? I know it sounds lame, but just being in this store made us all feel like we were home. It was just as big and just as awesome as we remembered.

Costco even came through with providing their fantastic food court. The hot dogs and pizza were all at their usual low low prices and we couldn't have been happier. Although, in this picture I've captured the look that Peter has on his face every time he is in a large crowd. He really hates them. Nobody bothered to tell us that Costco is a madhouse on holidays. No joke, there were at least 3,000 people in that store. It was driving us all bananas. But honestly, even if we would have known it was going to be crazy, we still would have gone. Peter and I scored some refried beans, good American cheese, Nature's Valley granola bars, and a big bag of chocolate covered pretzels for Peter's birthday present (their his favorite).

Even though it was raining really hard and he had just had a Costco hot dog and churro, Peter had to get a slice of pizza for the road. I know it sounds gross, but desperate times call for desperate measures. We were never going to be back at Costco in Japan again, so he had to go for all the marbles. Sure we all looked like absurdly strange foreigners running through the rain, Peter with his pizza and our friend Heath with a box of a dozen glazed donuts, but that is what you have to put up with in order to feel normal in this country every once in awhile.

At the end of the day, we all sat down to an all you can eat dessert buffet. This place was truly amazing. There had to have been at least thirty things you could choose from. Needless to say, it was a really nice way to finish our trip. We thought an idea like this would be great in the States, but then we realized that the US wrote the book on all you can eat buffets and probably already has something like this or better. If you ever find one, we would suggest jumping on the fan wagon.

PS - This is a Peter blog and was not actually written by Lacy. Peter likes to do that.

-Lacy