Okidokifenokee. Today was the second day of JUMP(!). The first day, we hiked Mt. Takao, something I have done once before with Mr. Jon and Mr. Josh of the Sophia crew. But no matter. We actually took a completely different route. So much so that I couldn't figure out what the difference was. I'm thinking that we might have come from a different station and therefore a different side of the mountain.

Day 1 Pictures
1) A view of Mt. Fuji from Mt. Takao
2) A monkey riding the cable car
3) The girls chomping down on a giant rice cracker

The second, today, as was mentioned before, was spent in and around Yokohama. We first went to the Shinyokohama Ra[u]men Museum, where the two basement floors are made up to look like a 1958 shitamachi setting. There are nine different ramen serving stores. I grouped up with Matthew and Ben and we started with some Hokkaido miso ramen and planned our route. From there, we went to the lower floor, had some fish-stock ramen (stinky), miso and shellfish-stock ramen (not so stinky), and pork and garlic stock ramen. While we bought only "mini" ramen bowls, they were fairly substantial, and by the end, we were regularly using the competitive eating, organ shifting wiggle.

Once we finished and met everyone else in the upstairs gift shop, the group continued on to Yokohama China Town, where we were again set free for an hour. We spent most of the time discussing how tacky the entire place was... and ate some more. After we met once again, there was some general confusion about everyone getting home, but in the end, things turned out alright and everyone (I assume) got home safely.

Day 2 Pictures
1) Shinyokohama Raumen Museum exterior
2) The group
3) Ticket and guide book
4) Shinyokohama Raumen Museum interior
5) China town gate
6) Lobster and parsley pyramid
7) Temple topper

When I got home, I continued working on my new knitting project (TOP SECRET!! Sort of...) and went to my shamisen lesson at a time slightly earlier than normal. The reason? We were suddenly invited to replace two distant relatives' places at the New York Philharmonic concert at Tokyo Opera City. It was overwhelmingly beautiful. My butt hurt at the end. I didn't stand up during the intermission and the Japanese audience almost naggingly applauded at the end. We ended up getting two encores.

Argh. I'm sleepy from all this eating and hiking. G'night.