Akihabara is really only fun on weekends. The crowds make the streets lively, and there are tons of weekend-only events and sales. I needed to pick up some parts, so I popped out during the day for a quick loo…
Nikko is a tourist town, so there isn’t really much good food to be had. There’s yuba cuisine, but however you look at it, I can’t call it tasty for the price. It was a spur-of-the-moment tri…
To celebrate my move to Tokyo, I went on a trip around the Tokyo area with friends. I looked into a few options, and the easiest pick turned out to be Nikko in Tochigi Prefecture, north of Tokyo. It’s ab…
There’s a place that had been on my mind for a long time, and I finally got the chance to go. It’s the one Zagat Survey rated as the best value for money (and honestly, given the price, there can&#…
So this is my last post about Okinawa. This is the goya champuru set meal from a 24-hour diner in town. It’s on a big main road, kind of like the drivers’ diners you find in Korea, and it’s r…
About halfway up Okinawa’s main island there’s a fishing port called Awase that tourists hardly ever stop at. It has a small seafood market called the Payao Direct Store. I went on a tip from someo…
Okinawa soba is probably the most famous thing to eat in Okinawa. It’s cheap and tasty, so I stopped by a few places on this trip. Miyarabi, a Miyako soba shop we stopped at on the first day. It’s…
This is the place that got recommended to me as a good izakaya for an evening out in Okinawa. It’s near the hotel I stayed at, and if you show your hotel key card they knock half off the food right there…
Maybe it’s the influence of the US military, but Okinawa has steak houses all over town. The famous ones are probably Jack’s, Sam’s, and 88. I went to Jack’s Steak House, the one with t…
Maybe because there are so many US military bases in Okinawa, there are also lots of American-style restaurants. Charlie’s Tacos is one of them. I dropped by the main shop on a shopping street called Par…
Some street photos of Okinawa I took as a keepsake. Almost all of them were shot from inside the monorail. A riverside park From Shuri Station The Prefectural Office Kokusai-dori is right in front of it…
Naha Airport The airport is just five minutes from the city. There’s a monorail linking it to town, but in Okinawa renting a car is handier in all sorts of ways. Public transport isn’t all that we…