From the Big City to the Big Mountains

The Boonstras Do Japan

12.02.2009 12 °C

This month my parents came to Japan for their second visit, taking with them my cousin Jesse from B.C. They arrived on Friday and I went out with my friend Shane to meet them in Tokyo.

I always love going to Tokyo. The hustle and bustle of the city is such a stark contrast to the lazy life of the Okayaman countryside. It is exciting and there is always something bizarre and interesting to take in. It is also where my good friend Masami lives, so it is the perfect chance to have a little giggly girl time with her.

We love to sit in front of her computer and look up funny videos of our favorite Japanese TV stars.

So we did the typical touristy things in Tokyo: checked out the dancing greasers over in Harajuku,

got our fortunes for the year at Sensoji temple in Asakusa,

went to the Tokyo fish market to try out some melt-in-your-mouth sashimi (raw fish),

and ate some great okonomiyaki.

After spending some time in Tokyo, the five of us headed out to Nagano for some skiing in the Japanese Alps. I heard they were beautiful but I had no idea.

It is absolutely lovely out there, and the pictures don’t even do it justice. The skiing was pretty good too.

They were saying that this is one of the worst years for skiing out there but it actually wasn’t that bad at all, save for a few slushy patches near the bottom. But, the hill is so long that you really don’t even need to ski the bottom area until you want to come in for the day, so it wasn’t a problem at all.

Then we headed off to Osaka but stopped in Matsumoto to check out the oldest castle in Japan. The town of Matsumoto is also very quaint and friendly so it was a lovely stop off on the way to the hubbub of Osaka.

Unfortunately, that is where the story ends for me. I came down with a killer cold and headed home to recover. I left my family in Osaka to do their thing and they will come here Okayama in a few days to meet up again to do it up Okayama style, so stay tuned for the next installment of THE BOONSTRA’S DO JAPAN.

Also, as a side note, I have entered the GREATEST JOB IN THE WORLD contest, which I am sure you have all heard about by now. The job entails going to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef for 6 months and enjoying the Australian hospitality, and spending a lot of time swimming with the fish. They also ask you to take a lot of pictures and keep up a blog on your adventures. Sounds like the job for me. Out of the thousands of applications they will be narrowing it down to 50 on March 2nd and then a few weeks later they will make a short list of 11 people who will go to Australia for interviews. A 12th wild-card person will also be chosen by viewer response. That is where you come in. After March 2nd you will be able to place your votes for the best video so check out my video at this site and if you like it please give me your vote.

http://www.islandreefjob.com/applicants/watch/J17wSZm04eU

I hope you enjoy it!