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When I travel to Japan I really enjoy all of the food. Since my vacation is only for a few days, I like to eat really great food, even if it is a little expensive. Here are some pictures of my favorite restaurant meals from the trip (of course the best meals were the meals prepared by Keizo's wife, but I didn't take any pictures).


A very delicious tonkatsu set that included sake and ice cream for dessert!


Hot soba with duck. I ate this with Keizo and his family after visiting a temple in the mountains. This was a great day, and very good soba!


All you can eat shabu shabu / sukiyaki. Since I cannot read or speak Japanese, I did not know this was "all you can eat" until they offered to bring me more food. After that I ate a lot!!! I drank 2 large beers and had a total of 14 plates of meat (9 beef and 5 pork). This day I walked almost 17 miles (27.35 km), so I had a very large appetite that night for dinner!


Deluxe tuna set. This included tuna, fatty tuna, extra fatty tuna, broiled fatty tuna, and 2 different types of tuna rolls. Excellent!


Premium beef lunch. This was a sampler platter of all the different cuts of beef that the restaurant offers. This meat melts in your mouth, it is very good!


Another premium beef meal... this was on my last night in Kyoto. Another excellent dinner!


I also stopped at a tea room in Jui and had some great tea. It was very cold and raining that entire day, so this was a nice way to get out of the cold for awhile.


I ate some junk food as well on my trip. I think my favorite junk food in Japan is available at the convenience stores. The sandwiches they have available are pretty good, and the hot food is very good too, especially very late at night after lots of beer! In the USA convenience store food is not good, not fresh, and you only eat it if you have no other options.


I ate a hot dog and a soft pretzel while at the baseball game. These items look very similar to the American versions, but are very different.

The hot dog looks identical to a hot dog in the US, but the taste of the sausage is completely different. The spices are not the same. The bread is also a little different in taste and in shape. The Japanese hot dog sits on top of the bun, but the US hot dog is nested inside the bun (makes it much easier to eat). The Japanese hot dog was very good, just different.


The pretzel looked different as soon as I got it. There is a different topping on it, and the outside texture is different (very soft). The US version has a slightly firmer outside texture, and is usually only topped with large salt. The other big difference was that there was a cream filling in the Japanese version. The US version does not have this. Instead you dip the pretzel in mustard or a hot cheese sauce. Again, the Japanese version was good... just a little different.


Finally, I had a Mc Donalds Apple Pie. In Japan the pie is still fried, and is very hot and crispy. This is the same way Mc Donalds in the US would make their pies when I was a child. However they changed to baking their pies many years ago (which doesn't taste as good), so it is a nice treat to have a pie made the original way.

At the end of March I received an email from my work saying that I would be traveling to Japan sometime very soon. The next day, they sent another email saying I would be traveling on 4/5! This was a very last minute and unexpected trip to Japan! I would travel from 4/5 and arrive in Japan on 4/6. I would be traveling for work (to take pictures at Nissan Zama Operation Facility) until 4/9, and then would be free to enjoy a short vacation until my return home on 4/15. All of the arrangements were made, and my flight and all hotel reservations were booked - my trip was less than 1 week away, and I was excited to travel to Japan again!


My good friend Keizo and his family live in Kanagawa, and every time I visit Japan I really enjoy visiting them. His family is always very welcoming and hospitable, and I always feel like I am part of their family when I visit. Of course I informed him that I would be traveling to Japan very soon and hoped that I could see him. I also asked if he could possibly travel with me to the Nissan Facility to help with translation... I also thought it would be a good trip for him to experience since entry to the DNA Garage is very restricted. Fortunately he was able to arrange it with his job so he could travel with me, and I also got to visit and stay with his family for 2 nights!

I would fly into Narita and then travel to Yokohama where I would stay at the Pacifico Yokohama Hotel until the work part of my trip was over. This was a very nice hotel, and my room had a very good view of the Cosmo World Amusement Park. While in Yokohama I would travel to the Nissan Zama Operation Center to visit the DNA Garage and take pictures - this was a great experience!

Once I get approval from work, I will share some photos with Keizo for him to post on his blog, and I will post them on my blog as well. I also visited the Nissan HQ, where I was able to take pictures of the 2015 Nismo GT-R - very cool car!


Yokohama was a very successful trip! From there I traveled to Tokyo, and stayed at the Tokyo Dome Hotel for 1 night. While I was here I hoped to watch a baseball game, but the game was sold out on the night I arrived. Luckily I got a ticket for a game the next afternoon. So for the first night I ate a good dinner and then walked around and drank at a few different bars. After a lot of drinking I found myself at a professional wrestling match. This was a fun event, and the crowd was very loud compared to a normal Japanese crowd... very fun!


The next day I watched a baseball game. It was Tokyo Swallows vs. Tokyo Giants! The Giants were the home team, so I purchased a hat and rally towel so I could properly support the crowd favorite. I wanted to sit in the outfield since I had read that it was the most fun area to sit, but it was all sold out. I have been to many MLB games, and Japanese baseball is very similar. The biggest difference was the crowd. The outfield area was very loud, they would cheer, wave flags, stand up and chant... but the rest of the audience watched very politely and did not ever get very loud or even stand up and cheer. The crowd here is much louder and there's lots more cheering and yelling from everyone at the game. Otherwise, it's very similar and besides the game, there is a lot of "junk food" to eat.







After my trip to Tokyo, I visited Keizo and his family. Keizo took me to a famous ramen shop where I ate some spicy soup. It was the spiciest version of soup they had, and included a very strong warning to consult a doctor before attempting to eat it. Back home I eat lots of very spicy food... some of my favorite foods are Mexican and Korean, which can both be very spicy. I was a little bit worried about the warning, but I tried the hottest version of the ramen, and it was very delicious... not too hot at all! Unfortunately I did not take a picture of it, I wish I had because it looked very spicy! The following day we visited a very beautiful temple in the mountains and then had a lunch of soba. I was sad to leave, but after lunch I had to travel on to Kyoto.

These pictures are from the mountain temple we visited -






After lunch I said goodbye and took the Shinkansen to Kyoto. I will have another blog entry soon with more details about the rest of my trip!


Keizo, thank you again for everything this past trip! It was a pleasure to see you and your family again, and I hope some day soon you will all be able to visit me and Cheryl at our house.