ninja food

I like food. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who's known me for longer than five minutes. I also like ninjas, which shouldn't come as a surprise either, since... c'mon, who doesn't like ninjas? So, after hearing about the ninja-themed restaurant in Tokyo, I had to go.

Turns out, a  ninja-themed restaurant is probably one of the few themes that actually translates well into a food thing. I mean, I like pirates, but a pirate restaurant definitely doesn't have the same ring to it.

After going there, I can say that I definitely was disappointed... except maybe for the start, when the ninja maître d' (yes, not all ninjas are stealthy and deadly, you know) was telling us that our ninja waiter was hidden somewhere in the room,a dn would reveal themselves. So, after that I was kinda hoping for our ninja to appear in a puff of smoke, or jump down from the ceiling. Unfortunately, after being summoned by a ninja call, our ninja just came through a small door in the wall, which would've been cooler I guess, but we kinda got our hopes up for a more ninja-like entrance.

anyway, I don't want to give the whole ninja experience away and ruin all the surprises, so instead, I'll just post some pictures of food...

 

Ninja Star Grissini

  

Turban Shell à la escargot... 

  

... lit by a fuse!

  

Ninja soup, heated with a 400˚ rock

  

Veal and foie gras à la creme brulée

  

 Frog Cheesecake

marimokkori, the algae ball man

Okay, I'll admit it; I have a phone strap hanging off my phone.... but Japan made me do it! Everyone in Japan has one, from the Harajuku girls to the middle-aged salarymen - it's not just for little girls and those guys with anime hair. I just wanted to fit in, and do what everyone else was doing, be cool... And before you even ask, yes, if Japan walked off a cliff, I would too, okay?

Besides, I was looking for something cool to collect from all the places I visited in Japan. And while all touristy places here seem to sell random cookies and stuff, I decided I wanted something that would last a while.

Unfortunately, unlike my Hello Kitty-obsessed friends, I had less choices in terms of what phone straps I wanted to collect. For a while I was trying to go for a superhero strap theme, but soon enough, I found my Hiroshima Power Ranger (armed with Rice scooper spoons, which Hiroshima is famous for) and my Kobe  Beef Ranger losing their limbs and in a couple of days... For superheroes, not as sturdy or resiliant as you'd expect them to be, which was kinda disappointing. Plus, the superhero straps weren't as easy to find in some of the less touristy places.

Then, I stumbled upon marimokkori, or algae ball man. it's supposed to be a pun on marimo, which are these green round algae ball clusters, found in Sapporo, and mokkori, which essentially means crotch. While only Sapporo is known for marimo, it seems like the rest of Japan is getting on the bandwagon.

 

Hachiko (Tokyo)

  

Takoyaki, Octopus Balls (Osaka)

  

Chinatown (Yokohama)

  

Giant Buddha (Kamakura)

  

Maple leaf-holding Deer (Hiroshima)

  

Lobster (Kanazawa) 

It is kinda weird how each region has released their own region-specific marimokkori, even if they don't have marimo in their area.

But meh, who am I to complain? I've found something to waste my money on when I travel! Yay!

*Update* I've had a few people checking out this page to see my marimokkori collection, so, I figured I might as well add a new "marimokkori" label to my blog, to make it easier to keep track of my (hopefully) ever-growing collection of giant crotch phone straps!

pachinkoing

Yay! I'm in Japan... Still, I guess. But it feels like I'm in a
different Japan since I'm travelling around in places outside of Gifu.
I feel Gifu doesn't really count since the whole mysteriousness and
strangeness of it has already disappeared, which kinds sucks. But
getting out of the prefecture certainly feels like it's injecting new
life into a country I've now been in for over a year.

After meeting up with my brother in Osaka on Thursday night, we spent
the next few days getting lost in the city. I've decided that getting
lost in a city is probably one of my favourite things to do on a new
place, mainly because it seems to mainly consist of walking around
aimlessly, shopping and stopping to eat food. The only downside of
this was realizing how much cooler Osaka is than Gifu for shopping,
but not being able to buy anything, since I lack the money and also
don't want to lug around a bunch of crap as I travel around Japan.

One of the highlights of Osaka: pachinko-ing! Sure, it's essentially
Japanese pokies, and just involves you insetong money and twisting a
knob and holding of on position as balls fly out and drop onto random
holes, but still way more fun and entertaining than playing pokies and
just pulling a handle. We also played this variant pokies, which
involved exchanging money for tokens, and inserting the tokens in a
machine and watching them randomly fall into certain holes on a board.
We did find we were awesome at it too, and were winning quite a bit.
Until we realized we didn't know what we were suppsed to do to
exchange the tokens back into money, or exchange them for prizes. So
instead, we just kept playing until all the coins were gone.

Ah well, I guess that's not how the games supposed to work. Bit hey,
of took a year before I even touched a pachinko machine. I've got the
whole year to work out the 'how to actually win money' thing. One step
at a time!

how to take a crap properly

So, I got a letter the other day from my city hall, saying that I need to go to my local health centre again and do more health tests, so that I'm eligible for the Japanese Health Insurance here. I wasn't too keen to submit myself to more health checks in Japan, seeing how my last medical testing involved me in the reception of a medical center, with a doctor yelling at me "You! Pee in this cup! Toilet! Now! Go!" Apparently, not understanding Japanese is kind of the same as being deaf. And that was also the day I found out that doctor-patient confidentiality isn't quite the same in Japan as it is back in Australia.

So, the next day at school, the office lady at school hands me an envelope, filled with page upon page of medical surveys. Most of which are just "tick this box if you've ever had this disease", which doesn't sound too hard. That is, until you realise you don't know what "tuberculosis", "anemia", and "urinary tract stones" are in Japanese. But meh, it's summer holidays, I've got nothing else to do at school. At least translating  the "symptoms" page and the "medical history" page will give me something to do.

Also, in the packet, I found a smaller bag two small tubes and what appeared to be to small  needles of something. Were they expecting me to do my own blood samples? Because, c'mon, I know Japan's different to home, but even that seems a little weird. So, I decided asking the librarian. (Not because librarians would be well-versed about DIY blood tests, but just because she was around, and seems friendly).

"Excuse me, what's this?"

"Oh. It's poop."

"Um.... poop?"

"Yes, when you go to the toilet, you poop. And you use this."

I opened the bag, and found a brochure giving me directions on how to do something that actually sounds quite disgusting.  Well, it would've been REALLY disgusting, if it wasn't for the cute little turd mascots showing people how to take a crap.

So apparently, before this medical test, I need to take two fecal samples. TWO. So, one two samples, two days apart. The first one, to be stored in a cool, dry place. And, seeing how this testing is in the middle of a 36-degree summer, the only cool dry place in my place has all my food and chocolate in it.

I don't think I'll be eating chocolate for a while.

do you have lunch?

"Do you have lunch?" My favourite science teacher asks. I know it's weird that I call people who are supposed to be my co-workers my teachers, but I feel like I'm in this semi void, where i'm not a student, but not quite a teacher. Plus, when teachers talk to each other, here, they refer to each other as "teacher" when they're around the students, to sound professional and stuff.

I really need to get out of school. It's summer holidays, yet again, but being Japan, all the teachers still have to go to school during summer holidays, even if they have nothing to do, and just sit at their desks all day. Apparently, it's because teachers here are considered public servants, and so, like other public servants, have the same holidays as everyone else. This apparently is a fairly recent thing, which happened after Japan stopped having school on Saturdays. But anyways, because I've been "working" these Summer holidays, I've been bored out of my brain for the last 3 or 4 hours, emailing people, studying Japanese, and finding things to do to prevent my brain from becoming a huge gelatinous lump. So, the thought of an invitation to lunch with one of my nice teachers, sounds like a great way to get away from my desk.

"No, I don't have lunch." I reply.

"Oh." My science teacher says, in a semi disappointed tone. Without saying anything else, he grabs his keys from his desk, and heads to the door with the super happy vice principal.

Minutes later, I realised what just happened. They teach "what do you have for breakfast?" as meaning "What do you eat for breakfast?" So, my science teacher thought that he was actually asking if I was going to eat lunch (and thereby eating lunch with him). Me saying that I didn't have lunch, meant that I wasn't going to eat.

Damn this whole English being ambiguous thing! It causes tons of communication problems. And leaves heaps of people sitting at their desk hungry, while their atrophied brains turn to jelly. mmmm. Jelly.

the end of an era...

Okay, so maybe i'm being a little overdramatic, given that I counted the end of blueberry gingerbread ice-cream at Baskin Robbins as the end of an era, but this time it feels different. More era-y.
Just yesterday, while sitting at my desk, I hear someone shout "Mr Narin-san" and turn to find the principal of my junior high school presenting me with my new contract for my second year. It has now officially been one year since I had my last Gloria Jeans coffee at the airport, and said goodbye to everything in Melbourne.

It's the weirdest feeling, since this year has gone so fast, and yet, at the same time, it feels like a lot has changed as well. It still feels like just last week I was introduced to Motosu in Gifu, and was counting down the days to see my first week pass in Japan. And at the same time, I've forgotten that sense of wonderment at everything Japan. I can't even remember when I stopped thinking it was weird that our local mall employs uniformed guys to direct traffic in the parking lots, which most of the time just involves them bowing and telling you to go straight down a one-way street.

But now, after receiving my new contract, and saying goodbye to my friends who are heading back home, it's kinda hard to be in denial of this year being over. What's this new era going to be like? the distinction between years seems so noticeable, as opposed to being back home, since there's such obvious changes in people and stuff between one year and the next. It's kinda like a TV show, and it's the end of season one, and season two sees the departure of some main characters, and the introduction of new ones as well. Will this season be better than the first? Or will the departure of some of the characters mean the show has jumped the shark? Eeeshk. This must totally count as an end of an era.

edamame

Eeeeshk! Almost one year has passed since I left my life in Melbourne for new and mysterious place that was once Gifu. It's scary thinking how quickly time has passed, and how everything that was once weird seems totally normal. I don't even take a second glance at the traffic-directing man at the shopping mall, whose sole job is to direct people down a straight one way street anymore, or even think twice about the Motosu theme song that plays through the city-wide speakers in a North Korean-propogandalike fashion. sigh.

But, there are tiny moments and tiny discoveries like this that make me happy about my decision to stay in Japan for another year.


Sure, this looks like just another, ordinary plastic-looking keychain resembling edamame, a common Japanese beer accompaniment or snack, right?

That is, until, when you squish the soybean pod (as you would normally when eating it to get the beans into your mouth) and three little bean pop out, before going back in as soon as you stop squeezing it. What's even cooler, is that the middle bean has one of 27 different random faces on it, so even if you get more than two the odds are you won't get the same face.

Is it necessary?
Not really.

Is it kind pointless?
A little.

It is the best 630 yen I've spent?
Hell yeah!

yellow hair girl

I kinda have to admit, that one reason I was semi pumped about coming to Japan was the prospect of being famous... Not like actual famous, or even "It's that dude who was in that KFC ad" famous, but like, being a local celebrity and token foreigner in whatever town I was placed in Japan. The token foreigner that all the kids know, that gets asked to join in local festivals or be the guest of honour at parties, or gets pumpkins and stuff from random locals just for being the token foreigner.

Unfortunately, my previous perceptions of Japan failed to actualise, and while I do get a few random waves from students at my local mall, and some nods of recognition from Smiley and the crew and Starbucks, that's pretty much it. Despite my town being relatively small, it's definitely not small enough for everyone to know everyone else's name in town.

That certainly isn't the case for my friend though. She lives in a village called Neo, which, while technically is a part of my town (due to a recent 4-town merger), it's still an hours drive away from my place and still very much its own self contained village. To get an idea of how small it is, there are apparently just two restaurants in the town, which close on alternating days so not to compete with each other. And, with my friend being the only one in town with blonde hair and blue eyes, she kinda sticks out, so almost anyone in the town who has kids in Neo knows her as the English teacher at the only two schools there. Apparently, she's gotten used to the special treatment she gets, and isn't phased by the obligatory greetings and small talk that seem to hound her anywhere she goes in her town. Even a trip to pay a bill at the local city hall results in drinking some tea and a half an hour talk with the people who work there.

So, during one alcohol-fuelled night, we decided to put this to the test.

Yep, we addressed a letter to "Yellow Hair Girl" of Neo, without actually writing down her address, other than her village name, prefecture, and postcode.

I soon forgot about the letter until a couple days later, and while it did seem like a pretty stupid idea in hindsight, still wanted to see how famous she was in her town.

Turns out later, that yes, she really is that well known in her village. The postman delivered the letter to her school (Something the postman does regularly when she isn't at home to receive packages) and gave it to the other English teacher to give to her.

It also turns out that writing a letter in block letters, without a return address, and without being specifically addressed to anyone also can sometimes be interpreted as potential hate mail or harassment. Who knew?

never trusting kind old ladies ever again...

"Oh, if you're going to visit the gardens up north with your friends, you should also visit this temple as well, since it's on the way back..."

Yeah, I'm not falling for that again.

Last weekend, me and a couple other friends decided to make a weekend trip to Shirakawa, an old little village 3 hours north of our city, which also happens to house a friend with a fancy new apartment. Currently, we've got this whole "let's try to fit in as much as we possibly can" vibe going, since one of our 'Fu Crew (yes, that's our official name, I'm still working on badges though) will unfortunately be leaving us soon for Canada. So, rather than another bumming weekend at everybody's favourite shopping centre, or even bumming at a different apartment, we decided to go Prefecture hopping to Ishikawa, and head to Kenrokuen Gardens, apparently one of the best gardens in all of Japan.

While we were in Shirakawa, we visited a cool coffeeshop owned by one of the nicest ladies I've met in Japan. Being a coffeeshop in a tiny-arse village, it didn't have the frappucinos I was accustomed to, but instead it was a communal large-table like thing that us and other coffeeshop customers sat around, talking to to everyone and helping ourselves to the free Zenzai (red bean pastey soup) in the middle. While chatting with the other randoms, and the coffeeshop lady, who also happened to work at my friend's board of education on weekdays, the topic of our plans for the Sunday came up. And that's when we made our mistake of telling her about our plans to visit the gardens.

So, after recommending us to visit this other temple, which apparently is better than temples in Kyoto (like, THE temple capital of Japan), kindly drawing us a map, and making us rice balls for lunch our next day, we decided to heed her advice and make it to the temple as well. Sure, it seemed a little weird that it was supposed to take longer and be more expensive to go straight south to home, rather than than taking the short cut of going in a round circle, but hey, why would this nice lady lie to us?

We found out 2 hours later after leaving the gardens, that yes, our instincts were right about this short cut not being as short as we thought it would be. We're a little slow, so it took us 2 hours, and not the fact that we went through 3 prefectures to get to this temple. It was a pretty cool temple though, from the 30 minutes I saw of it - we got there when it was closed, and since we all had work the next day, we were worried about how long it would take to get home.

But I'll definitely make my way back to that temple again. Someday. When I'm ever in the area again. And actually have the time. And after I rebuild my trust of kind old ladies.

the joys of teaching 1st year kids

Okay, so this may be a month or two late, but I thought I might as well keep people updated  with what I'm doing in this new school year. I was really looking forward to teaching the brand new first year kids at Junior High, since it means It'll be the first time I'll have been at school longer than the kids have, and as 1st years, they'll be more impressionable than the other kids, which'd be more fun and exciting. 

So, after 1 month, what kind of fun and exciting things am I doing?

• We just finished the alphabet. It took two lessons to get up to capital M. Only after finishing capitals did we move on to small letters. 
• I've learnt "Good morning everyone" is too complicated and confuses 1st year kids, who have just learnt "Good morning" up until this point. 
• "I am Narin. Are you Kouhei?" We're also a little too early to be answering "no" to questions, and so I've just been asking people their actual names. 
• For dialogue and example purposes, I'm Canadian. It's too hard for kids to say "Australia" at the moment. 

Riveting stuff, huh? And that's why I haven't blogged for a while. 

i'm narin, and i'm a coffeeholic.

I'm taking the first step in admitting I have a wee bit of a problem when it comes to coffee. But it's not my fault, it's just that I live in Motosu, and other than having a firefly park, and a big ass, really old tree, there's not much else to see or do, other than hang at the recently built shopping centre. And the choice there is to hang with my school students and be a fully fledged mallrat hanging in Macca's, or to avoid them while sipping coffee while hanging out in Starbucks. Plus, when I have a Japanese lesson with my friends on Tuesdays, or my English conversation class on Thursdays, where else can we meet to have a lesson?

But I just realised today (during my aforementioned English class) when I was about to order that I think I'm there a little more often than anybody else...

Me: (in Japanese, so just pretend these are subtitles) Hi.
Starbucks Lady: Hi! The usual? One tall vanilla Starbucks latte?
Me: Ye...
Starbucks Lady: Hot? in a mug?
Me: Yes.
Starbucks: As usual, thats ¥410. Thanks again!
Me: Uh... Thanks...

things learnt while spring cleaning

I always wondered what this stupid piece of metal did on my stove. I always figured when I moved in, the stove was clean, and everything was the colour it was supposed to be, i.e. The parts that were black were supposed to be black, not blackened from smoke and not being cleaned for months and stuff. Boy, how wrong I was.

where's the beef?

I know, I know. For someone who has what some may say a slight obsession with food, I somehow managed to travel 3 hours by train to Kobe for the weekend, and not eat the famed Kobe beef once. After just buying a car this month that cost more than I expected (i.e. more than the amount in my Japanese bank account) I was a little weary of spending $80 on a single meal, when they say the lesser-known Hida Beef in my prefecture is about the same, if not better, and also since this whole month I'm trying to survive on just $5 a meal until my next pay cheque arrives.

But still, as it inevitably happens, the highlight of my trip this weekend away, was the side-trip to another city outside the city I was visiting. Kobe was good, but the most touristy thing we saw were the ijinkan, or "barbarian houses", built by the small foreign population in around the 1900s. I can see how they would be a popular tourist spot for Japanese tourists, but it was really hard to convince ourselves to pay $10 just to see what an old English house looked like.

But our side trip took our crew to Himeiji, a lesser known city known for having one of the top three castles in Japan. Our trip coincided with cherry blossom season, which made for an excessive amount of pictures involving the castle, cherry blossoms, or both.

Unfortunately, it seems that all of Japan kinda knew about the picturesqueness of Himeiji and the spring time, and conspired against us to make sure it was ridiculously packed when we got there. Which mean facing the crowds while walking through the maze-like grounds of Himeiji castle, and spending what seemed like an hour of lining up and waiting just to reach the top of Himeiji castle (there are like 5 floors). We kinda gave up on the 3rd floor, when we noticed we weren't even looking at any artifiacts, and heading straight to the line just to keep going up.

Still, despite the lack of Kobe beef consumption and the crazy packedness that was Himeiji castle, it still was a pretty cool weekend. We decided to stay at a capsule hotel (again), which actually turned out to be way better than our previous experience - I think we just happened to luck out and find a luxury capsule hotel, as opposed to your standard, run-of-the-mill capsule hotel that's usually meant for people who have missed their last train. It still wasn't roomier than the other one, but I the word "dank" didn't really come to mind this time. It was like, clean, and fancy, with its attached onsen and like 4 or 5 different types of baths to try out - my highlight was the green tea bath.

Also, in lieu of our expensive Kobe dinner, we went to an all-you-can eat/drink place instead. We were kinda expecting like a buffet type thing, but turned out to be way cooler.

Plus, at the all you can eat place, I they also had heaps of cool steaky foods on the menu. So, technically, I did eat beef in Kobe... so does that count?

i walked 18 kilometres and all i got was this lousy, business card-sized certificate.

That's right.


I figured I had to finish at least one seemingly unnecessary school walk. The last one I did was when I was an exchange student in Sapporo, and that 33km walk ended once I found out that anyone who wanted to give up would have a taxi called for them and be taken to chill and relax while the other suckers continued walking in the summer heat.

And while I did enjoy relaxing at the end while my ill-informed friends battled through the 30 degree heat, I always wished I made it through the end to get my own certificate.

That being said, I also did expect the certificate to be bigger than a business card. And would have my name at least written on it before it was given to me and stuff...

k-fighters 7

I sometimes have really weird conversations with my students. Sometimes, it's because their English isn't that good, so they don't know how to say what they want to say. Or, they don't understand my questions, so answer with something totally random, like answering "yes" to a "What did you do yesterday?". So I'm kinda used to having really stilted conversations and going along with a conversation as if everything's fine, even though it's not making much sense.

On the other hand, sometimes, I just get a feeling that some of my kids are freaks. Like a conversation I had last week with a 2nd year Junior high school (Year 8) boy.

Me: Hey! How are you?
K-fighter: I'm a stranger here. K fighters 7!
Me: um... okay.
K-fighter: Do you K fighters 7?
Me: No. Do you?
K-fighter: Yes. Why don't you try?
Me: Um... okay...
K fighter giggles and runs off.

oh japan!

When we're completely stumped by something that seems absurd, über-practical, or something not found in any other country, there's nothing much we can really do but just collectively sigh and think, "Oh Japan!"

This is one of those moments.

japan in one word

I was trying to find a Japanese word that best encapsulates my time in Japan. One that's slightly pretentious, in that it can't be directly translated to a single word in English, and a word that is closely associated with good times, and a sense of contentment or satisfaction.

That word is houdai (放題).

It pretty much means "all you can", as in "all you can eat", "all you can drink". Last week, we did 3 hours of all you can play at Sega World, which was pretty cool, and I'm hoping to go to an all you can eat crab restaurant once I save up some money, or find a really good one to go to. I've certainly experienced my fair share of all you can drink thanks to our frequent visits to our regular Karaoke place (yes, I have a regular karaoke place, I realise that's a little sad) but this weekend I got to experience "all you can pick", which has to be one of my top 5 "all you can" things to do in Japan.

Me and my friends went on a bus tour to neighbouring Aichi prefecture on Saturday. We didn't read the itinerary completely, so we overlooked the fact that the tour would involve a visit to a shrine that took up almost a whole island, and that there'd be a visit to a Miso factory (which would have been a highlight for me had there been a huge Miso sign that would open up endless possibilties of puns, but I digress). We signed up for the all you can pick strawberries at the strawberry farm.


Armed with our plastic picking container with a compartment of condensed milk, we made our way through row upon row of strawberry plants in the greenhouse, and picked strawberries till our hands became bloody (or soaked red with strawberry juice, who's to know?) While the amateur Japanese tourists took their time in picking the most perfect strawberries and savouring the sweet, ambrosia-like flavour of the freshest strawberries imaginable, we wolfed down as many as we could in 45 minutes.

The result: Jess - 40something, Narin, 82, and Julie 101.

kagaya

I so have to go to this bar next time in Tokyo. It's called Kagaya, and it involves a weird dude dressing up in costumes serving drinks, and introducing the drinks menu with a puppet show. I figure there's not much point trying to explain it in detail, since I only read about it here, but the youtube videos look so random that I have to go there next time.

urgh. i did it again.

I went snowboarding again, and being a little more realistic this time, decided to take my camera instead of my iPod on the slopes, seeing how my dreams of being a born snowboarder were kinda dashed by my inability to get off the chair lift last time without ducking and covering.

Unfortunately, in all the excitement of trying to find snowboarding shoes that fit properly (I didn't by the way, stupid small Japanese shoes!), I put all my stuff in a coin locker. Including my camera. So, again, a lack of pictures to prove to anyone at home that I actually did some voluntarily physical exertion. So all I have now to show of it is this picture of the mountain we went to, and my ridiculously sore muscles. I still can't believe that getting up from falling down a lot can still count as actual exercise.



Well, if falling down counts as exercise, then playing the Taiko drum game must totally count as exercise as well, which if it does, means I exercised on Friday and Sunday too! Seriously, it's totally exhausting whacking huge-arse Japanese drums to the beat of the Rocky theme and Super Mario Bros.

But Sunday we visited Sega World, which if they had when I was a kid in Australia, would have made the best party place ever - like made the obligatory party at McDonald's look extremely lame. There's like pool tables, table tennis bowling, mini bowling, air hockey, darts, and BB gun shooting target ranges, karaoke rooms, PS2s, arcade games (all on free play, mind you) in addition to like a tennis game where you have to return balls and hit all the targets, a basketball game, a baseball batting range, mini tennis and volleyball courts, and even massage chairs and a exercise horse-riding machine. You know, cos if cheap karaoke, pool, sport and video games weren't enough to entice you, sitting on a toned-down mechanical bull for 15 minutes is like icing on the cake!

i'm lovin' it

I think if I hadn't seen Supersize Me, and Starbucks wasn't in our local shopping centre, I would probably live in our Macca's. Why? Well, anyone who knows me, knows how excited I get about trying new foods and new specials, so on top of the whole "yay it's some novel Japanese McDonald's" thing, they have new specials every single month. It reminds me of when Macca's used to have "Flavour of the Month" when I was in primary school, and it was tradition to go get Macca's every Tuesday after tennis practice. And yes, I was a little heavier back then.

Anyway, at the moment the specials are all chocolate involved:





(By the way, the chocolate sundae actually counts as a special here because normally they've only got mango or strawberry sundaes)

So yeah, I was a little vocal about expressing my excitement about new specials, but what really made me want to visit Macca's more was the reaction of the store people to seeing three foreigners entering a Macca's in the middle of nowhere. Like, the shopping centre was built where rice paddies used to be, middle of nowhere. Anyways, I loved how despite not understanding every single word of what they were saying, I totally got what they were talking about.

Clerk 1: Uh oh.
Clerk 2: Are you going to be okay, or do you want me to help you serve them?
Clerk 1: Um.... I've got it, I should be fine. There's an English menu somewhere, right?
Clerk 2: Uh, maybe, check the back side of the menu.

As we approach the counter after discussing loudly what we want to eat, the clerks smile at us, forgoing the usual Irasshaimase, thinking that we'll have no idea what they're talking about in Japanese. That is, until my Japanese-fluent friend (Like, ordering food on the phone and having the other person have no idea that she's not Japanese) starts ordering and asking them questions about today's menu, and the store people burst out laughing.

Clerk 1: Oh Thank God! I was so nervous! Your Japanese is so good!
Friend: Oh, I'm not that good yet, I just know how to order McDonald's in Japanese.
Clerk 1: Well, that's good enough for us!

If I wasn't so loyal to our friends at Starbucks (i.e. Smiley girl, guy who works at multiple Starbucks, The Newbies, and Glen) I so would start hanging out at Macca's more.

peace parks, omiyage and forts

I think I've just had two weekends in a row which pretty much represent the kinds of weekends I have here in Japan.

Two weeks ago, which was a long weekend here in Japan, me and a couple of other JETs went to Hiroshima - it felt like it had been ages since we had done some hardcore travelling outside our prefecture, so we were all excited - to top the whole experience off, we found our favourite hotel chain - Super Hotel had a hotel in Hiroshima as well, and best of all, it only opened just the week before we arrived! Yay Brand new hotels!


I should take this moment while you're probably scratching your head to explain our obsession with what seems like a regular hotel chain. After spending a fair number of nights in Japanese style cheap-ass accomodation, which has a shared bathroom for everyone, shared showers, and a room literally the size of a single bed (I could actually touch all four walls with my head, toes, and hands), Super Hotel is like a Godesend - for what works out to be around $35 per person per night (if there's 3 or 4 of you) you can get a double sized bed, bunk bed, and an extra single bed with your own bathroom and free all you can eat breakfast, all for the same price as a claustrophobic bathroomless room in Tokyo. So that's why the thought of a cheap hotel caused everyone to strike weird, random poses in front of it.

So Hiroshima, was really awesome, and really intense - On Saturday, we went to the Peace Museum with a couple hours before closing time to go, thinking that 2 hours were enough to see everything. After the 30 minutes before closing chime went, I got to the end of the first building, which had explained the history of Hiroshima before the bomb, and the history of bombs in the world.

I was a little disappointed when I hit the gift shop that It only focused on the history of the bomb rather than what happened in the blasts, until I actually got to the Main Building, which confronts you straight away with photos of the bomb blast, and a section with mannequins depicting what people would have looked like right after the bomb blast - with the charred skin hanging of people's arms and little kids crying and everything. Like, seriously, intense. It has bits of clothing, skin and hair of people and heaps of personal accounts about the bomb. We ended up revisiting the museum the day before we left so we could take our time in the Main building and see everything we wanted too, and then took another couple of hours to recover from seeing all that stuff.

But the weekend again concluded how it normally does with our trips - Firstly, our need to conform to Japanese traditions as much as we can, as well as our need to be liked by our other teachers means we spend around $35 on souvenirs/food to give to our teachers when we get back. It's something that we always buy, but always forget to factor into our budgets. Then, after buying our omiyage, we make our way back to Gifu, always thinking we've planned enough time to get back, but still finding ourselves arrive at home sometime in the evening, buggered, tired, and not wanting to travel for a while.

And so, it leads us to the other side of the weekend spectrum, such as this weekend. It involves a near-daily visit to Starbucks - not because we're obsessed (because seriously, we're not, we just happen to be at Starbucks on the days they change their seasonal menu) but mainly because there's not much else to do around here, other than buy other unnecessary stuff in the shopping centre. That is, other than building a fort.

It's not a fort per se, mainly, just a sheet that's draped down over the door frame, so that the sliding door can stay open for us to watch TV, but at the same time, minimising the amount of heat that escapes my poorly-insulated bedroom. Seeing how it's probably only 9 or 10 degrees in my house at the moment, I'm sure you can understand how extreme circumstances call for extreme fort-building.

Just for the record, we're not complete losers - fort-building only takes up so much of the weekend, the rest of it's filled with eating crap, thinking about coffee, and if we're really feeling ambituous, making scones and practising our British accents.

umm... mmm?

You know what this is?

It's fugu, which any old-school Simpsons fan will tell you is blowfish, the same kind that is poisonous if not prepared correctly, and forces a poorly-animated Homer to do everything he wants to do in life in what he believes to be the last 24 hours of his life.

While I have a penchant for trying many weird foods, I would've thought I'd need to psych myself up for my first fugu experience. I was expected of making it a huge event eating fugu, planning it for weeks to find the perfect restaurant that specialises in fugu and spending an exorbitant amount on trying this weird food.

But I didn't expect it to be served in a set course meal I was having with my dad in Tokyo. It was kinda anti-climactic actually, considering it was just plonked right in front of us and told it was fugu. But hey, I shouldn't really complain considering I got to try fugu!

So was it everything I ever dreamed of and more? Well, it was kinda meh, actually. The fish was cut really thinly, and doesn't have much of a flavour or unique texture to it. Plus, it's served with citrusy-yuzu soy sauce that you're supposed to dip it in, which pretty much is the only thing you tasted when you eat it.

And, I had heard that when fugu's done right, the licensed fugu chefs leave the tiniest trace of venom on the fish you're eating, so it makes your mouth tingle a little bit. Which, if that actually happened to me, would've been cool, but I'm still unsure if it was a placebo effect and I just thought it felt a little tingly. Meh Ah well, at least I've got another food I can say that I've eaten...

wooo! snowboarding! and nothing to show of it!

I had a fairly specific picture in mind when I thought about what my very first snowboarding experience would be like. It involved me, sitting atop a slope, looking down, with my snowboard firmly attached to my feet. As I start going down the slopes, carving like a pro, there'd be music playing in the background - more specifically, N*E*R*D's Rockstar (Jason Nevin's Remix), slowly building up in volume as I gain speed down the slope.

And yes, my perception of snowboarding may have been somewhat influenced by years of playing SSX, but not completely - It's not like I was expecting to do a 540 backside tailgrab over a huge gap or anything, I just has the more realistic expectation of being able to go down a slope with some music in the background. And yes, it may have raised the bar a little too high, considering it was my first time seeing actual snow, let alone first time snowboarding.

So that's why, when I was packing stuff to take to the ski place, I put my iPod in my pocket rather than my trusty digital camera. I was kinda afraid to take too much stuff to the snow in case I lost stuff or broke stuff while tumbing down the slopes in a huge, comically-sized snowball, picking up speed and other unwary snowboarders/skiiers that couldn't move out of the snowball's way. Again, why I took my fancy new iPod instead of my older and less expensive digital camera that can also be easily replaced in Japan, is beyond me.

So, while I wait for my friends to post some photos of me on the slopes onto facebook, I've only got this one photo of me in "action" (I use that term liberally).




*UPDATE*
Thanks to the beauty of facebook (and a friend who was actually smart enough to take a camera), I now have another photo of me snowboarding! that's right! TWO photos!

top or bottom?

Before going to Tokyo, all I thought about Tokyo was of Harajuku girls, the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, and people being crammed into trains. But now, it's of raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens. Yes, those were a few of my favourite things, which one night at a Capsule hotel has branded in my brain. Stupid Julie Andrews.

So yeah, what else could top off an already Japanese quotient-filled day at DisneySea other than with a stay at a capsule hotel? Well, turns out a lot of stuff, like place with an actual bed, and less snoring people, and stuff. We checked in after buying the "one-night stay" ticket from the vending machine near the front door, and then moving 50 centimetres to the right to give to the man waiting at the desk (I'm still trying to work out why it's not just easier to tell and pay the guy who's standing right there rather than buy the ticket.) After taking our requests for the type of bed we want (top or bottom) , and giving us a key to our lockers (the capsules are too small for bring any bags other than belongings) we're then showed to our floor, which looks like rows upon rows of capsules... It's kinda like a spacious morgue, only in the less morbid kinda way...



So, after taking a shower in the shared Japanese style baths, and putting on my capsule hotel Pjs, there wasn't really much to do in my capsule - I alreadyplayed with the side control a bit but all it does is control the TV and have a built in alarm clock... So, what else could I do but watch TV?


So apparently, The Sound of Music in Japan, is still the sound of music - just with Japanese subtitles - I was kinda hoping to hear the Japanese version of Do-Re-Mi. And, they even leave in the original intermission section of the movie that would've only been shown in cinemas. And the songs are still kinda corny and hard to get out of your head.

mmm...

Meh. I could blog about what I got up to during my 8 day trip to Tokyo and stuff, like about Disneysea, and my capsule hotel experience and stuff, but I just got back today, and decided that would require more effort than can be bothered doing at the moment. So, instead, I thought I'd just post photos of more food I've eaten...


Winter Koalas: Roast Almond Latte Flavoured



Random Bento on a Bullet train - including the fake wooden box made of polystyrene.

Passionfruit flavoured Coffee.


Black Peppercorn KFC... I swear it tastes better here than in Australia.


A Harajuku-crepe! While I'm still on the search for my own Harajuku girl possé like Gwen Stefani, I may just settle for my own Harajuku crepe-dispensing girl instead.


Homard Lobster and Blue Crab Bisque



Scrambled Tofu on Rice



Strawberry KitKats, complete with Japanese-style unnecessary layers of packaging

Oden (Fish cakes stewed for a few hours in a seaweed-based broth) in a can in a vending machine...


Mango Frozen Yoghurt with Aloe Vera pieces



Iron Chef Chinese's Restaurant in Yokoyama



Nikuman/ Meat Bun in Yokohama's famous Chinatown District



Fancy Hamburger in Tokyo


Flower Sushi Bento