Japanese - Hold Me To It

I'll be photo-blogging here and documenting my successes and failures with learning Japanese, a language I should have mastered a decade ago.

I've been married to an incredible Japanese woman for 11 years, but have yet to gain basic literacy in her native language. Now, with two kids and a plan to live at least half time in Tokyo by 2020, it's time.

I love to blog, and this is public, so hopefully it will help provide the impetus for me to really learn. Hold me too it.

Tokyo Tower and Sky Tree

Tokyo Tower, originally uploaded by AdrielH.

Tokyo Tower is taller than the Eiffel, and stands just a few kilometers from Tokyo Station in the center of the prefecture. It is soon to be supplanted, however, by a much taller tower for digital TV, Tokyo Sky Tower.
From the 250-meter observation deck (the higher of two decks) in the Tokyo Tower, you can see Sky Tree under construction, built only up to its observation deck. It stands alone in the Sumida Ward, where a new town will surround its base.
Sky Tree opens in 2012.

Welcome to Hiroshima

Okonomiyaki on Miyajima Island

Dusk at Shinjuku Station

Hiroshima nightlife

Mmmmm! Refresh touching! (Good fruit, too)

T-shirt: It is very fine?

Aquarium-fresh tako

Inside Mori Tower in Roppongi Hills

Puttin' on the Ritz

The centerpiece of the new Tokyo Midtown is the Ritz Carlton hotel, quite an impressive site rising stark and steely from a bed of beautifully sculpted gardens.

Eggplant on a pizza? From Pizza Hut?

Hot dogs in the crust or on the top, shrimp and eggplant, this pizza is not for the faint of heart. Oishi!

Ika, Tako and Sazae on Enoshima Island

After a long walk on Enoshima Island (less than two hours out of Tokyo) stop at the mom-and-pop shops to a tasty treat - barbecue squid, octopus or sea snail. Or, opt for cob corn on a stick.

The new Tokyo Midtown ...

where swings are art

In Meguro, duck sushi ...

and horse meat, shark fin, whale