Aizuwakamatsu with Family.

About a month ago my family was able to visit me in Japan. During this time we traveled to some different cities, and were able to do many things together.

For the first part of the trip my mother came before my father and sister, so I took her for sightseeing in the town that I live in, Aizuwakamatsu.

The picture above is from the Aizuwakamatsu train station and on the left is a big red cow. This cow, Akabeko, is a symbol of the Aizu area taken from legend.

In Aizu we were able to see my university as well as an old samurai school. The weather was very nice during the trip, and the very first cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom.

My favorite part of traveling with my mother in Aizu was sharing my favorite foods with her. I have similar tastes to her, and during my time in Aizu I have found many restaurants that I like. Pictured above is my favorite spicy miso ramen. Below are pictures of me and my mother eating Katsudon, a kind of fried pork.

Cherry Blossoms in the Wind

This past weekend was close to the end of the cherry blossom season in Aizuwakamatsu city. Here are two videos of cherry blossoms blowing off of trees in the wind. The video above is from a trip to Tsuruga Castle, and the video below is from my university's campus.

This post is a little out of order. I took these videos this weekend, but there's been a lot of fun things I've done in the last month that I haven't posted about yet. My next post will continue where the last one left off.

An Afternoon Biking in Tokyo

One afternoon I had some free time in Tokyo, so I rented a bike and went to a garden and biked around the city.

In the picture above there is a cat sleeping to the right of the pillar, and in the two pictures below there are many birds.

In another part of the garden many people came to appreciate and photograph a few early blooming trees.

Later in the afternoon I biked by some train tracks for a ways. In the photos above and below you can see two layer highways.

In the picture above there is a view down a grass strip between a narrow street on the right, and train tracks on the left. I walked down the road for some ways and took the two pictures below.

This last picture was taken in the evening as I biked back to my hotel.

Food in Shanghai

At the end of my trip to China, I spent a week in Shanghai. While I was there, I had a wide variety of foods.

Above is a picture of a closed Chicago Pizza restaurant I walked by. Below are two pictures of different large meals I had.

Below is a picture of a single person hot pot in China. At this restaurant you get a seat and a hot pot of broth, as well as any number of different vegetables and raw meats. The pot is kept at a boil, and you cook your food as you eat it.

One interesting restaurant I saw in Shanghai is the one pictured below. Me and my girlfriend walked down the street and saw this unmarked doorway to a bamboo path.

When we walked down the path we found a peaceful Japanese restaurant. It wasn't open at the time, but someone working there let us inside to look around.

Two additional foods I had in China were the Beijing roll from KFC pictured above, as well as some peanuts with hot peppers pictured below. The peanuts were very spicy. The red peppers inside were traditional spicy peppers, while the green ones are Sichuan peppers. These peppers have a very different flavor and make your mouth numb.

Finally, I had another fried squid. Above is a picture from last summer when I did a school project in China, and below is a picture from this trip.