日本に私を連れて行きなさい

Babel Fish tells me that the string of Japanese characters upstairs translates to "take me back to Japan". I was sent off by my lonesome to our Japan office in mid-August this year for a 3-day business trip. The agenda was full... but who says that I still can't have fun (or worm my way out of work hahaha)??

Now, if you have travelled alone before, you know that the best part about it is -- you can go wherever you want. Unless, of course, you get lost and you can't understand a damn thing because the signs are not in English (or are in really bad English). But then again, that's how most adventures become memorable (granted that you get home in one piece, of course).

So, officially, I only put in 2 days of all business and the rest was a lot of sight-seeing. It could've been hard to squeeze some "me" time from the agenda, but thank God my Japanese colleagues were uber nice enough to schedule in "fun" time for me to go off by myself or with the gang. That's Asians for you. Gollee, I love Japan.
This is me standing in front of a giant concrete cube that displays the logos of the companies that are housed in the Shinjuku Maynds Towers. Guess which company I work for? ;-)
The first thing I discovered in Japan is, I can't believe we've been enjoying ebi tempura here in Manila the WRONG way. Tempura is actually only slightly crispy and mostly tender, and the sauce seems built into the batter. I'm in love.

Other things to love about Japan: Yoshinoya (it's all wrong in Manila too!!), Gyoza, noodle soup with the thin slice of pork and oodles of veggies (mmmmm), 24x7 convenience stores at every corner, Japanese pastry (Tokyo Banana!), Japanese green tea, Kirin, vending machines at practically every side street and corner, and fresh sushi. Case in point: Ika (squid) sushi, shown here on an icy bed with a sprig of something green. My Japanese colleagues also made me try some sort of Octopus delicacy, which was chopped up into bite-sized pieces and soaked for God-knows-how-long in wasabe and chili. They didn't have to twist my arm or get me drunk so I would try it. I was there, it was right in front of me, might as well go for it. And all I could say after trying a little tentacle was... WOW. As they would say...oishi!!! I almost finished it all off if not for the sticks of chicken yakitori that they kept coming.

Japanese food is so simple and so fresh. Why do we make it so complicated back home???

What I really didn't like, though, was my hotel room (pic on the right). Look at how unbelievably tiny it is.

This is just wrong, dude.

I think the entire room (including the bathroom) has the area size of a Beetle. It's friggin' tiny.

Too bad I didn't take a shot of the hallway; it immediately reminded me of 7-1/2 floor from the movie "Being John Malkovich". Sheesh.

Now here are some pictures from my wide-eyed wanderings around town...

Kimonos in Japan are like shorts on a summer day. Especially if it was the opening day for baseball season.

Haha. Just found this weird.

Me during my 2-hour getting-lost-and-loving-it solo urban adventure on my first night in downtown Shinjuku.

Lovely little souvenir shops near Asakusa temple, where I found these cute handcrafted dolls (below). I think they're just 2 inches tall.

I took 5 of them home; 1 for me and the other 4 for some of my teammates. We positioned them in a tableau-- Momotaro is jealous of Mr. Miyagi, who's got his mojo going on.

My favorite shot in the bunch: Tokyo Tower. I'm particularly happy with this shot because of the dramatic lighting and the fact that I took this a few minutes before it began raining cats and dogs.