My visit with Hikari and her parents...

As most of you know, we had Hikari, a Japanese exchange student, stay with us for a month or so in Jan/Feb of this year. It was such a great experience, the kids really bonded with her and we all learned a great deal from each other.

I was fortunate enough to have dinner with her family during my time here in Japan. It was great to see her again and her parents were very warm and conversational. Here are a few pictures from our visit.

Hikari


Hikari, her parents and me at dinner.

This picture was inspired by the picture of the kids on their blog. She thought it was so funny.

Tokyo's Ice Bar...one of the "coolest" places I've ever been!

The bar is kept at -5 degrees Celsius.


The walls, bar, tables, chairs and glasses are ALL made of ice!


The bartender behind a stack of new glasses for incoming customers.

All of the ice for this establishment is flown in from Sweden.
The ice is not made, it is harvested.

Before they could open this bar in Tokyo, they had to prove that using ice glasses would not be a heath risk. After running tests on a melted glass, the Japananese Health Department determined the water in these glasses was cleaner than the water they had in they're own water system. (Which is very good, in of itself)

The glasses did melt a little after drinking from them, as you can see in this picture.

Tokyo's Electronic District...

This post is for all those "techies" out there, or anyone who has enough testosterone running through their veins to truly appreciate it.

So I have a huge love of Fry's Electronics, but its status has officially been demoted after my visit to Tokyo's Electronic District. Here they have an ENTIRE DISTRICT (several city blocks) dedicated to electronics stuff.

There were several large stores that we went into and they were all very similar to Fry's, except they were 6-8 stories tall with each floor having it's own theme.

I was blown away with the selection. This only one of SIX rows of mice!


If you are looking for anything iPOD, this place has it.
This was what I could get into the picture, but it is only part of overall iPOD set.


I think my favorite "find" was the different USB drives.
In Japan, the Sushi is not only delicious, but functional, too.


And of course, they had thumb drives.