Today is the first day of spring.  The raging storm passed through and it is a beautiful sunny fresh day.  It is a national holiday.  My hotel is next to a TV station which pumps out canned music Every. Single. Morning.  It’s 6:30am and the music (which is more appropriate for Romper Room in my humble opinion) has been playing for an hour.  oy vey.   

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

 

The sink at the studio -- so fancy! I need glasses to read the control panels in the toilets. This sink has a spout for water on the right, a spout for soap on the left and then if you put your hands just inside the close rim of the sink hot air blows to dry your hands. Whoa..

The famous Sunday Tokyo Flea Market.

I always heard these flea markets were so great but since I work every day, including Sundays, I never could go to one…until yesterday.  This flea market, the biggest one in Tokyo, was just down the street from our studio so I went with Mayumi, Anu and Chigusa on our lunch break.  With their help — bargaining power and also helping me see what is special — I bought a Japanese cheerleader t-shirt that says Shark Girl on the back and Cheer on the front for 50 cents; and for $5 I bought a Kokeshi, a traditional Japanese doll.  It has big eyes and a teeny tiny mouth.

A ladies drumming team practicing in the park.

Back to Restorative Yoga. Here is Yukiko watching over her partner in Supta Virasana. Today they learned how to meditate so that they can pay close attention to their students. The students are their dots of awareness and the teachers won't try to "fix" things before seeing what is actually happening first.

Here is RedPants doing a great job placing Chigusa in a variation of Setu Bandhasana at the wall.

 

Then, it was time for dinner...and yes! yes! yes!....

Ramen! This is salt ramen, which Chama says is from Hokkaido. Oishi!

This is how it works.  You go into the ramen shop which is quite small and only has counter seating.  You make your selection at a vending machine which has many pictures.  Put in your coins, push the buttons for what you want and out comes a little ticket.  You give the ticket to the waiter and have a seat at the counter.  In a few minutes, piping hot ramen!  The nori in the bowl tells what is in your personal ramen that day.  And, of course, then you stir that nori in and eat it.  I got Salt Ramen without the pork and even though it was very unusual, Chama talked them into giving me some bok choy instead. 

Kazumi making TKG.

Kazumi had a different kind of ramen which they said is very trendy right now.  The noodles and the broth come in separately and you mix them together.  But after she ate that she also ordered TKG.  It is a bowl of rice, a raw egg and a package of seasoning.  You crack the egg over the rice, pour in the seasoning and mix it all up.  That is what she is doing here.  TKG stands for Egg Over Rice.

She loves it!

Our ramen chef -- Arrigato, gazimasta!

posted on Sunday, March 21st, 2010 at 3:19 pm.