Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category
Google Street View Japan
The long-awaited Google Street View has finally come to Japan! I could have used this a couple months ago when I was planning my trip to Tokyo. I always do a ton of research to prepare for my trips abroad, but being able to virtually travel along my routes and find all the stores and landmarks in advance is so helpful.
It’s fun to check out familiar places.
Being a Bathing Ape aficionado, I thought it was hilarious that the Bape store in Aoyama had a crowd lining up waiting for the store to open. Something must have dropped that day.
The service is available in Tokyo/Yokohama, Osaka/Kobe/Kyoto, Sendai, Hakodate, Otaru, and Sapporo. Now I’m waiting for Street View in Taiwan!
Asia Trip 08 – Taiwan
Three years ago, my family went on a trip that my dad said was “once in a lifetime”: a drive around the entire island of Taiwan. He called it that not because the feat is difficult (obviously, Taiwan is a small country), but we all knew that this was a two week journey we would never repeat. We visited all the major attractions of this beautiful island and essentially was finished with Taiwan as a tourist destination.
Even so, I’ve been to Taiwan twice since then, mostly to visit family, but also to relish in the amazing food and shopping. Following the break is a photo dump of some of the places I visited.
Typical street in Tainan, Taiwan
Park Hyatt Tokyo – New York Grill
Park Hyatt Tokyo is the hotel featured in the movie “Lost in Translation”, with the New York Bar as a prominent setting in several scenes. Watching the movie was my introduction to the hotel. At over $500 U.S. a night for the most basic room, staying at Park Hyatt Tokyo is pretty much limited to international businessmen and the elite.
Whole lotta luck
I got back from East Asia last week after a great two-week vacation. Despite this being the rainy season in Taiwan and Japan, we somehow avoided rain the entire trip. Rain started pouring the day we left Taipei for Tokyo, but we were already safely in the airport. It also rained in Taichung the night we returned from Tokyo, but other than that, the 3 (!) umbrellas packed in the suitcases were not used. So we certainly experienced a lot of luck.
All throughout the trip, my family marveled at another kind of good fortune. We ate at a ton of excellent restaurants and generally lived it up in spite of the weak dollar. Five years ago, even 2-3 years ago, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to splurge like this. I’m not going to call it luck because it’s not, but we’ve definitely had a lot of fortune in the past few years. Though I won’t talk about all the restaurants in detail, I certainly will write about New York Grill at Park Hyatt Tokyo. Eating there has been a personal dream and it didn’t disappoint.
As this will probably be my last vacation in the foreseeable future (people joke that the summer after Med 1 will be the last stress-free summer of my life), I made the most of it and completely unwound. What better place than Tokyo, my favorite city in the world. I took about a thousand photos of the trip and will post a few of the more interesting ones soon!
Year 1: Done!
Just finished my last test as a 1st year medical student! You know, before I started school last August, I thought I would be frequently writing about what life in medical school is like. As it turns out, it’s a lot like college, except with more tedious studying. I’ll probably have more interesting stories in 3rd year and beyond once I start training in the hospital for real and working with patients daily.
I’m flying home to Los Angeles in a couple hours, then I’m leaving Sunday for Taiwan/Tokyo! I’ll be back in a couple weeks with lots of cool photos hopefully.
Shibuya Stormtrooper
The awesome Danny Choo posted the latest edition to his Tokyo Stormtrooper series yesterday. He went around the trendy district of Shibuya and showed off his slick moves. Definitely worth watching. I miss all the lights, I love Tokyo! Can’t wait until I can visit again.
melody. – Ready To Go!
I bought melody.’s newest album “Ready To Go!” a couple months ago, but I haven’t had the time to really listen to it until recently. I’m loving the album and have it on constant replay. I don’t have anything profound to say about it because it’s pretty standard J-pop fare, but I like her voice and it’s easy listening.
Instead, I’ll share some photos I snapped while in Shibuya, Tokyo. I started listening to melody. when she first collaborated with m-flo in the “Miss you” single. She was a virtual unknown back then and I still find it amazing to see how far she has come in her career. The heavy promotion for her album (well, in Shibuya at least) was very surprising to me.
Big poster pasted outside the window of the Shibuya HMV.
Posters just outside the entrance to Shibuya 109, the trendy shopping complex for teenage girls.
melody. on the giant Q-Front video screen facing one of the most famous intersections in the world! (By the way, I took this photo from Shibuya Excel Hotel Tokyu and didn’t do a good job of blocking out reflecting light, which is why you can see hotel lamps in the background)
