Museums

The British Museum

The main hall of the British Museum

Interesting Egyptian cat

The magna carta 

HMS Bismarck

Tower Bridge from the Bismarck

The Imperial War Museum

A white helmet from Syria 

An example of the barrel bombs used in Syria

Royal Carriages

This carriage is just for the crown itself

This is the one the Queen takes

Her diamond jubilee carriage

She takes this when she wants something more modern

The golden carriage which is over 200 years old

A couple of her horses

Crown Jewels

These are the coronation swords

Sorry the picture quality is not great, the lighting in the room is very dim and pictures are not allowed so I had to be stealthy. I was only fussed at once.

London

Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben)

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

Hey everyone, sorry it took me a little while to post. I don't have very reliable wifi in my apartment and I don't want to use up all of my data on my sim card, so this is my second attempt with the wifi.

It has been very nice in London, topping out in the high 70's low 80's. Coming from Atlanta, it's great, but all the Brits are complaining of the intolerable heat.

 About 20 minutes before my flight took off I got a news alert of the terrorist attack here. There has been a very big police presence and tight security at all of the sights. This morning we had tickets to tour Parliament, and when we arrived we found out that all tours for this week have been cancelled.

This is from the top of Tower bridge.

Fred, Julie, and I have been going to all sorts of different pubs that I had found recommendations to and it's been great. Anyone looking for advise on London should take a look at Love and London on YouTube.

Goodbye Japan

Thank you for following me on my Japan trip, I'm back in Atlanta. Had a really good time, and hope everyone enjoyed the pictures.

Here are a few random pics I hadn't posted yet

The high speed bullet train going through Tokyo.

My own coffee shop.

Godzilla looking over the building.

Bought a knife

As most of you know, I'm a huge fan of global knives. They only have one store, and it's in Tokyo, so of course I had to go buy one. They have a new line that is only available here. The sales lady thought it was pretty funny that I was taking selfies in the store.

The bento box

This is my bento box. There are many types depending on use and occasion. This is the more formal type. The rice in bottom left has cherry blossoms in it and garnished with blossoms and Japanese omlet. The fish to the right is the fish we marinated in miso on Monday. The green beans on top left are blanched then in a toasted black sesame paste. And on the top right are stuffed shiitake mushrooms. 

My view of Mt. Fuji

So I took a tour of the NHK studio, it was mostly for kids and people who speak Japanese, but it was still interesting.

A prop from one of their shows, thought it was funny. Rare, old, super whiskey.

Veg meal

Today we did a multi plate vegetarian meal. We did a lot with fresh bamboo, which is so much better than the canned stuff we have in the states.

I'm not as good as my classmates at playing, but it doesn't look too bad.

Traditional way of squeezing out water from tofu block, it works better than my paper towel method.

We also learned about the different types of rice vinegar​.

After class we went out to dinner at this amazing tempura restaurant.

First day of class

I just finished my first day of class. It's been a long day, it's 6 now and we started at 10 but I figured I would get lost on my way so I left very early and of course had no problems finding the location. We cooked a nice lunch with miso soup, mackerel with daikon, rice bran pickles, pink pickled daikon, spicy stir fried daikon peel, and of course rice.

We also started a dish for Thursday. It's a miso marinated mackerel.

After the class was over we took a walk to the neighborhood grocery store and she showed us around. I took a couple pictures of things I thought looked good. 

The price of all this sashimi is just under $13, yum.

Weird Drink

So everyone knows about Japanese vending machines, the problem is that I have no idea what the different drinks are. Earlier today I had a good grapefruit Sprite type drink, but my luck just ran out. I grabbed this thinking it was like the blue ramune I've had before. Well it's not, it tastes like liquid cotton candy and it has little jelly bits in it. Where do they come up with this stuff?

This is the website for it.

I tried giving it another chance after I wrote this, but I just can't. It reminds me of when milk goes sour and gets clumpy. So down the drain it goes.

Hiroshima

Here is the atomic bomb dome. The reason it stood despite all the surrounding buildings collapsing/vaporizing was that the bomb went off directly above it and so the force of the blast went straight down so the side walls did not take the hit. 

Here is a picture of the building in the 1920's

This is the childrens peace memorial, dedicated to all the children who lost their lives.

Here are some of the thousands of cranes sent in from schools around the world every year.

Here are some of the cranes that Sadako Sasaki made when she was in the hospital with leukemia. They are so small compared to the ones made today. They are less than half an inch long, and she made over a thousand of these while in the hospital. I knew her story before coming here, but I did not know she died on October 25, my birthday. But in 1955.