lingqi's Journal: September 1st, 2003

September 1st, 2003 (8:34pm)

Nothing particularly exciting, especially since I worked this saturday until 3am.

Anyhow, by about 10pm finally the floor was empty (yes, this is SATURDAY, now). Some security guards came around and we talked ever so briefly. I am not quite sure what exactly he was trying to say besides musing about how tough work must be, and all that.

The weird thing was probably he went on to something like "yes yes work hard, for japan, and for the world" (I am not kidding). In romaji it would be "... shigoto wo ganbatte ne, nihon no tame, sekai no tame ..." I for the life of me could not tell if he was serious (which would be really werid) or sarcastic (which would also be really weird, though a bit less). To be honest, at this point I don't really want to know.

I also dropped by Costco on Sunday. They started to carry Martinelli's apple juice - which I must confess I have a sweet tooth for. I was drooling so much that I didn't even look at the price, which was probably a bad idea. I think it came out to be like about a dollar for each 10 oz little bottle.

I think it's more than BEER.

Christian over the weekend was more productive - I won't go into details because I don't know any, but I know at least he drove off to Ikaraki prefecture somewhere (probably somewhere near hitachi for the beaches) and stayed at a japanese style inn (ryokan). The price was 16,000 yen / person - which translated to nearly 50,000 yen for one evening.

As much as this includes the food and whatever, I still cannot get over the fact that you'd spend THAT MUCH for lodging. I mean, come on - the Drake Hotel in Chicago is only like what, 1,500 dollars per night in comparison? (or at least I hear that's how much princess Diana paid for her suite for her last stay at that particular location)

And then we have the japanese co-worker(s) who (btw, Christian is with them on this) was trying to convince me that it is a reasonable price because breakfast and dinner was included, and how it's actually pretty average price (16,000 yen) because during peak season the price may double.

Ouch.

I will stick with business hotels.

Heck, maybe capsule hotels - though for anybody thinking about these things (for during, say, days where every hotel in Tokyo is booked (and yes I have seen this happen)), they often don't allow women to go in so beware.

Breakfast and Dinner at Ryokans

[EggDye]

I don't know if this is because my travels in Japan have always been with large groups, but I found Ryokan food to be horrible.

You would get things like cold eggs, cold slice of ham, miso soup and rice for breakfast. It seemed like the Ryokan employees had set out breakfast before going home for the evening.

I wasn't too crazy about Dinner either. The quality may have been very good, but I have never been too keen on "exotic" Japanese foods (which seem to typify dinner at Ryokans).

I'd be curious to hear w

Re:Breakfast and Dinner at Ryokans

[lingqi]

he loved it. really. Sufficiently enthused about it, at least, to make me wonder "wow what exactly can they serve you to justify such an insane price"

Ganbatte...

[Sam the Nemesis]

I think because the economic condition in Japan is not so good, everyone is worried. Japanese people still long for those happy days. And to make that happen, everyone works hard, or at least encourages who does.