~INDEX~
I'm still trying to catch up what I can, but here's a list of the few entries I have so far.
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Wednesday, 1 February 2012
Me and my Mask.
"Japanese people really like to wear the mask. Because it's fun for us to wear it."
So to make my six-month anniversary in Japan, I think it's about time I made the "Japanese people and their masks are so crazy" post. The truth is, I don't think it's such a bad idea in principle. But then again, I do have a tendency to duck and cover every time someone lets out a particularly explosive sneeze. Strangely enough, it's not sneezing that's a big deal in this country - or coughing, really. But when it's flu season? Everybody wears a mask and everybody is paranoid. So, as I say, this practise actually makes a lot of sense to me. Most masks are antibacterial, so they act as a barrier for germs coming in and kill germs coming out.
I am, however, not without my issues. I tell a lie when I say it's my first time wearing a mask - technically, it's not. I used one back in October when I'd caught a cold but was testing out my bunkasai recipes at Nishi. Once again, that's standard practise - ill or not, people usually wear a mask and head covering when handling food - not that this fully eliminates germ transfer... hands and all... (this said, I encouraged bad practise among some of my third years when I wore neither for our baking event - not even an apron, gasp!). Anyway, at that time... I was in a pretty bad way. I was huffing and puffing and practically suffocating in that mask while I was ill. And that was only for a few hours. Today I actually wore it from arrival at school to departure. It wasn't so bad this time, but it still gets particularly stuffy in there :/
Second... it makes it very, very difficult to do my job. I pull a lot of faces and, teaching English and all, how the mouth moves is very important. Case in point... it's very difficult for students to tell the difference between "mouth" and "mouse" without me really exaggerating the 'th' and even then, they're always like "sssssssthhhhhhhsssssss" :/
Third... have you ever had a cup of something hot and comforting on your desk that you like to take small sips from every now and again as you work? I lost count of the amount of times I lifted my coffee to my lips only to realise the mask was in the way...
But I suppose however stuffy and uncomfortable and make-up-smearing and inconvenient the masks may be, as long as they (along with rigorous hand-washing regimen and copious amounts of hand sanitiser) prevent me from catching the flu from my high school students and passing it from place to place, it should be all right.
If only it was that easy with my elementary school kids.
Why did I choose to wear a mask today? Probably all down to this conversation...
Sensei 1: Helena! Long time no see! How are you?
Me: I'm fine!
Sensei 1: You know, we all have flu right now. Actually, I'm fine. But Japanese people like to wear the mask. Because it's fun for us to wear it. But when there's influenza, it's very important to wear it!
Me: ...oh.
Sensei 1: Yes! And Sensei 2 was off with the flu the past couple of days, but he's back now.
Sensei 2: I still have a fever! So I have to wear a mask! ^______^
Sensei 1: There's a box of masks over there if you don't have one!
After looking around and seeing all the other teachers were wearing a mask... I figured it might be a good idea to fit in :/
Friday, 6 January 2012
New Year's Post #3 - Tokyo Encounters.
**Videos within. Apologies for the loud music and the shouting. You have been warned.**
So in my first New Year's post, I mentioned this gentleman:
As I said, he was probably coming out of an enkai and ended up joining us in a bar. To this day, we don't know whether his name was Rob (which is what Melania and I heard), Nob (which is what Steve heard), or Nobu (which is what Melania and I deduced from what Steve heard). For the time being, though, let's just call him Rob.
An epic bromance developed between Rob and Steve. One of them taught a secret handshake to the other. Rob taught us how to roar at the ceiling, and his special tai-chi/para-para style of dancing.
Between the four of us, we managed to get people on the street dancing as well. It was a pretty awesome evening XD
So in my first New Year's post, I mentioned this gentleman:
As I said, he was probably coming out of an enkai and ended up joining us in a bar. To this day, we don't know whether his name was Rob (which is what Melania and I heard), Nob (which is what Steve heard), or Nobu (which is what Melania and I deduced from what Steve heard). For the time being, though, let's just call him Rob.
An epic bromance developed between Rob and Steve. One of them taught a secret handshake to the other. Rob taught us how to roar at the ceiling, and his special tai-chi/para-para style of dancing.
Between the four of us, we managed to get people on the street dancing as well. It was a pretty awesome evening XD
Thursday, 5 January 2012
New Years Post #2 - December 31st
Okay, let’s talk Tokyo Day Two!
Melania and I had a practically comatose night’s sleep and woke up around nine thirty the next morning. This had been our plan all along, of course ;) We were going to try to get a “water bus” from Tsukiji to Asakusa to look at the shrine there, and then sort out plans for the evening. We hung around in the hotel room until pretty late – maybe about twelve? – watching Korean dramas (Beethoven Virus) and making fun of them (“Why are you doing this?” “Why? I’ll tell you for why. Because I’m a bastard.”), and drinking green tea. I didn’t get the chance to eat breakfast, though, so our first detour was to Doutor for a matcha latte and a corned beef sandwich, which was nothing like regular corned beef.
It was awesome.
So we started walking and I managed to dissuade everyone from heading east when we were trying to go to a waterside park that was south of us. Of course, we got there to find the part was shut and pretty much deserted. This sign at Tsukiji fish market should have given us a clue...
Unfortunately we didn’t pay attention. We decided to change our plan our plan to trying to visit Disney Land instead (something that had come up in our chat on the way to the coffee shop) or at least see if we could get night time tickets; and hopped onto the metro (when we managed to find the damn thing) to zip off to Maihama to see what we could see. Aside from the Disney monorail, there was a big shopping centre and way, way off in the distance... Disney Land!
I’m a total cynic but even I got a little bit excited.
The excitement was short-lived, however, because we couldn’t get night tickets, and found that day tickets were RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE considering we’d only be able to spend three hours there. Having tossed that plan out of the window with a resounding crash (...only not, because we were in the basement), we decided to explore the weird shopping centre we found ourselves in.
...and an hour and a half, maybe two hours after we’d eaten, Melania and Steve were hungry again.
And thirsty, too.
On the top level, we found a bunch of restaurants and bars, and ended up in one called Roti’s, which specialised in Harvest Moon Ales. Steven and Melania tried one of everything, and a sausage platter. I had an ale and a coffee. Separately, not together.Which Microsoft Word doesn’t seem to understand because it wants me to write “I had ale and coffee” instead
By the time we left the ale place it was about five o clock. We wandered a little while and eventually happened on a place to eat. Of all places, it was a tapas bar with extremely high stools and one comically short waitress.
(She was barely even eye height with our table...)
We ate delightful things such as paella and calamari (Japanese style) and not-so-delightful things like a squid ink medley (no thank you...) and ocellated octopus (made even less delightful by the circumstances of our next encounter, which I will discuss further on...).
Incidentally, we found that ocellated was not a strange spelling of oscillated (though the word did have us wondering in what manner the food would arrive at our table...) – apparently it means “eye-like” because of the way it lives in a shell. I’ve never seen an eye with tentacles coming out of if, but I can imagine that if I saw one, it would look like an ocellated octopus.
We went back outside into the main atrium to catch the end of some strange spectacle involving another short man and a keyboard, who was quickly packed off in favour of a giant choir who shuffled on while a recorded version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played in the back ground, whilst four soloists took their place on the stage behind. Once everyone was in place... the choir and accompanying orchestra launched into Ode to Joy again (surely they could have picked something else to come on to...?).In my opinion, Revo and his Seven Dead Princesses it better.
The soloists didn’t have much to do at all, but they probably got paid a lot for freezing their tits/cheeks off so I suppose they did pretty well out of it.
Once that was done, everyone pulled out glowsticks/torches and sang Auld Lang Syne in Japanese. At about eight thirty in the evening.
Thanks to the lyrics being on the screen in a reasonable size with some helpful furigana added, I was able to make my way through quite well. If they’d only do that for my school songs I’d be up there belting out “WE ARE NISHI JUNIOR HIGH” with the rest of the staff. I don’t even know the name of Yushin’s school song :/
We wandered next into Torredor cigar bar. The clue’s in the name – it served cigars and was also a bar. It was like an old fashioned library, only it had pictures of Che Guevara on the walls. We strongly suspect these pictures were of movie Che as most were copyrighted to a movie company....
The resemblance is striking.
We settled into some extremely comfortable leather armchairs and didn’t move for a few hours, perusing the drinks and cigar menus – the cigars were listed by fun facts such as length and girth, which led to a whole host of crude jokes. In our second round, we decided to order a cigar and share it between us (I believe this is where my troubles began...). Being a first time smoker I was a little worried (what if I got addicted on my first go? D8) but it was actually quite pleasant. There are no pictures of me because in most of them I’m either frowning at the cigar like it’s about to hurt me, or looking at it like, “WTF is this?!” So have a nice one I took of Melania and Steve instead.
And yes, the Dutchie was passed ‘pon the left hand side.
We left there about ten thirty and meandered back towards Maihama station where we were told the best view of the fireworks would be. And where we were told there was a HUGE Disney store shaped like a hat and suitcase. So we stopped there, bought omiyage (I think I got enough...) and I also got a cute Micky Mouse omamori (protective talisman). I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to protect me from, but I bought it anyway.
On the way out we grabbed coffee. I abstained (What? The drink we use to get us out of bed in the morning?!) and grabbed a pumpkin soup, which was heavenly, and we trooped away from the crowds onto a walkway (which was deserted before we went there, people only started coming AFTER) to watch the fireworks...
...which lasted probably less than five minutes, after which everyone started to leave. Luckily for us, most of them were going back into the park to drink, and not getting on the train, so we managed to get back into Tokyo unmolested.
Melania and I watched a bit of New Years TV in the hotel, the delights of which included:
- Two men dressed only in boxer shorts with tissue boxes strapped to their heads. The object of the game? Pull tissues out of the other fighter’s box whilst guarding your own. As a warning you have to call, “Tish, Tish, TISSUE!”. I think my friends ought to play this one some day.
- A strange talent show, hosted by an okama.
- (In said talent show) A guy who could use his ass to do a variety of things, including honk a horn and peel a banana.
- (Also in said talent show) A guy in extremely tight spandex shorts with a wind problem. His party piece was to lie on his back, bring his legs close to his head (thus exposing his ass. In spandex, this leaves very little to the imagination. I can tell you for certain that he was wearing a thong) and propel a bean using only a clear tube and fart power.
- The previous pair did a double act. Fart Boy propelled a bean to his a bell held between Ass Man’s clenched buttocks.
I showered, went to bed, and was up about an hour later :/ Lucky me, I managed to get sick on New Years. Which is where my second encounter with the ocellated octopus comes in. It, ah... jumped up my throat.
So, there was that. Luckily by the following morning the worst was over, though I still didn’t feel up to getting around, so I figured the best idea was for me to be left at Steve’s. One of my main reasons for staying in Japan over Christmas and New Year was that I wanted to do a New Year’s day shrine visit and just like that I got relegated to sleeping it off on the sofa! We had planned to take public transport to Shinjuku, but after almost collapsing walking a hundred metres to the conbini on the corner to get something hydrating (and freaking out because the ATM there wouldn’t let me do ANYTHING, not even enter my PIN), I was pretty adamant that travelling on the metro wasn’t going to end well.
...all right, I think I was probably more bitchy and petulant than that but in any case we wound up in a taxi back to Shinjuku. I can’t remember much of the cab ride beyond getting in, to be honest, only that he kept hitting bumps in the road, and hitting them HARD.
And that’s how my New Year’s day was spent. Sleeping, mostly – be it passed out on Steve’s sofa, or unconscious on the bus home. January 2nd was spent similarly, too. It certainly wasn’t what I planned, but at least I got a couple of days in before I succumbed to the ew. In a comedic turn of events, Melania and Steve (not romantically connected) went off to visit a temple (with my blessing). They found a nice one, gave their money and made their prayer. Afterwards they looked it up... they had just prayed in “The Temple of the Falling Child” – a fertility temple where couples go when they’re trying to conceive. Shortly after that, Melania was “adopted” by a child on the street who just wandered over and held her hand. Probably by mistake.
Although I now have a year to make up for, I’m already planning next year’s festivities to be considerably closer to home. No way am I missing out on Christmas two years running. I reckon I’ll leave Matsuyama directly after the second year closing ceremony is over (or the morning following the school’s enkai, whichever I end up at...) and stay home comfy and safe until the new term begins ^__^
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γγΎγ
Incidentally, this is never a good thing to put beside a lever you don’t want pulling. It only makes people want to pull it even more.
Melania and I had a practically comatose night’s sleep and woke up around nine thirty the next morning. This had been our plan all along, of course ;) We were going to try to get a “water bus” from Tsukiji to Asakusa to look at the shrine there, and then sort out plans for the evening. We hung around in the hotel room until pretty late – maybe about twelve? – watching Korean dramas (Beethoven Virus) and making fun of them (“Why are you doing this?” “Why? I’ll tell you for why. Because I’m a bastard.”), and drinking green tea. I didn’t get the chance to eat breakfast, though, so our first detour was to Doutor for a matcha latte and a corned beef sandwich, which was nothing like regular corned beef.
It was awesome.
So we started walking and I managed to dissuade everyone from heading east when we were trying to go to a waterside park that was south of us. Of course, we got there to find the part was shut and pretty much deserted. This sign at Tsukiji fish market should have given us a clue...
Unfortunately we didn’t pay attention. We decided to change our plan our plan to trying to visit Disney Land instead (something that had come up in our chat on the way to the coffee shop) or at least see if we could get night time tickets; and hopped onto the metro (when we managed to find the damn thing) to zip off to Maihama to see what we could see. Aside from the Disney monorail, there was a big shopping centre and way, way off in the distance... Disney Land!
I’m a total cynic but even I got a little bit excited.
The excitement was short-lived, however, because we couldn’t get night tickets, and found that day tickets were RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE considering we’d only be able to spend three hours there. Having tossed that plan out of the window with a resounding crash (...only not, because we were in the basement), we decided to explore the weird shopping centre we found ourselves in.
...and an hour and a half, maybe two hours after we’d eaten, Melania and Steve were hungry again.
And thirsty, too.
On the top level, we found a bunch of restaurants and bars, and ended up in one called Roti’s, which specialised in Harvest Moon Ales. Steven and Melania tried one of everything, and a sausage platter. I had an ale and a coffee. Separately, not together.
By the time we left the ale place it was about five o clock. We wandered a little while and eventually happened on a place to eat. Of all places, it was a tapas bar with extremely high stools and one comically short waitress.
(She was barely even eye height with our table...)
We ate delightful things such as paella and calamari (Japanese style) and not-so-delightful things like a squid ink medley (no thank you...) and ocellated octopus (made even less delightful by the circumstances of our next encounter, which I will discuss further on...).
Incidentally, we found that ocellated was not a strange spelling of oscillated (though the word did have us wondering in what manner the food would arrive at our table...) – apparently it means “eye-like” because of the way it lives in a shell. I’ve never seen an eye with tentacles coming out of if, but I can imagine that if I saw one, it would look like an ocellated octopus.
We went back outside into the main atrium to catch the end of some strange spectacle involving another short man and a keyboard, who was quickly packed off in favour of a giant choir who shuffled on while a recorded version of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy played in the back ground, whilst four soloists took their place on the stage behind. Once everyone was in place... the choir and accompanying orchestra launched into Ode to Joy again (surely they could have picked something else to come on to...?).
The soloists didn’t have much to do at all, but they probably got paid a lot for freezing their tits/cheeks off so I suppose they did pretty well out of it.
Once that was done, everyone pulled out glowsticks/torches and sang Auld Lang Syne in Japanese. At about eight thirty in the evening.
Thanks to the lyrics being on the screen in a reasonable size with some helpful furigana added, I was able to make my way through quite well. If they’d only do that for my school songs I’d be up there belting out “WE ARE NISHI JUNIOR HIGH” with the rest of the staff. I don’t even know the name of Yushin’s school song :/
We wandered next into Torredor cigar bar. The clue’s in the name – it served cigars and was also a bar. It was like an old fashioned library, only it had pictures of Che Guevara on the walls. We strongly suspect these pictures were of movie Che as most were copyrighted to a movie company....
The resemblance is striking.
We settled into some extremely comfortable leather armchairs and didn’t move for a few hours, perusing the drinks and cigar menus – the cigars were listed by fun facts such as length and girth, which led to a whole host of crude jokes. In our second round, we decided to order a cigar and share it between us (I believe this is where my troubles began...). Being a first time smoker I was a little worried (what if I got addicted on my first go? D8) but it was actually quite pleasant. There are no pictures of me because in most of them I’m either frowning at the cigar like it’s about to hurt me, or looking at it like, “WTF is this?!” So have a nice one I took of Melania and Steve instead.
And yes, the Dutchie was passed ‘pon the left hand side.
We left there about ten thirty and meandered back towards Maihama station where we were told the best view of the fireworks would be. And where we were told there was a HUGE Disney store shaped like a hat and suitcase. So we stopped there, bought omiyage (I think I got enough...) and I also got a cute Micky Mouse omamori (protective talisman). I’ve no idea what it’s supposed to protect me from, but I bought it anyway.
On the way out we grabbed coffee. I abstained (What? The drink we use to get us out of bed in the morning?!) and grabbed a pumpkin soup, which was heavenly, and we trooped away from the crowds onto a walkway (which was deserted before we went there, people only started coming AFTER) to watch the fireworks...
...which lasted probably less than five minutes, after which everyone started to leave. Luckily for us, most of them were going back into the park to drink, and not getting on the train, so we managed to get back into Tokyo unmolested.
Melania and I watched a bit of New Years TV in the hotel, the delights of which included:
- Two men dressed only in boxer shorts with tissue boxes strapped to their heads. The object of the game? Pull tissues out of the other fighter’s box whilst guarding your own. As a warning you have to call, “Tish, Tish, TISSUE!”. I think my friends ought to play this one some day.
- A strange talent show, hosted by an okama.
- (In said talent show) A guy who could use his ass to do a variety of things, including honk a horn and peel a banana.
- (Also in said talent show) A guy in extremely tight spandex shorts with a wind problem. His party piece was to lie on his back, bring his legs close to his head (thus exposing his ass. In spandex, this leaves very little to the imagination. I can tell you for certain that he was wearing a thong) and propel a bean using only a clear tube and fart power.
- The previous pair did a double act. Fart Boy propelled a bean to his a bell held between Ass Man’s clenched buttocks.
I showered, went to bed, and was up about an hour later :/ Lucky me, I managed to get sick on New Years. Which is where my second encounter with the ocellated octopus comes in. It, ah... jumped up my throat.
So, there was that. Luckily by the following morning the worst was over, though I still didn’t feel up to getting around, so I figured the best idea was for me to be left at Steve’s. One of my main reasons for staying in Japan over Christmas and New Year was that I wanted to do a New Year’s day shrine visit and just like that I got relegated to sleeping it off on the sofa! We had planned to take public transport to Shinjuku, but after almost collapsing walking a hundred metres to the conbini on the corner to get something hydrating (and freaking out because the ATM there wouldn’t let me do ANYTHING, not even enter my PIN), I was pretty adamant that travelling on the metro wasn’t going to end well.
...all right, I think I was probably more bitchy and petulant than that but in any case we wound up in a taxi back to Shinjuku. I can’t remember much of the cab ride beyond getting in, to be honest, only that he kept hitting bumps in the road, and hitting them HARD.
And that’s how my New Year’s day was spent. Sleeping, mostly – be it passed out on Steve’s sofa, or unconscious on the bus home. January 2nd was spent similarly, too. It certainly wasn’t what I planned, but at least I got a couple of days in before I succumbed to the ew. In a comedic turn of events, Melania and Steve (not romantically connected) went off to visit a temple (with my blessing). They found a nice one, gave their money and made their prayer. Afterwards they looked it up... they had just prayed in “The Temple of the Falling Child” – a fertility temple where couples go when they’re trying to conceive. Shortly after that, Melania was “adopted” by a child on the street who just wandered over and held her hand. Probably by mistake.
Although I now have a year to make up for, I’m already planning next year’s festivities to be considerably closer to home. No way am I missing out on Christmas two years running. I reckon I’ll leave Matsuyama directly after the second year closing ceremony is over (or the morning following the school’s enkai, whichever I end up at...) and stay home comfy and safe until the new term begins ^__^
γγΎγ
Incidentally, this is never a good thing to put beside a lever you don’t want pulling. It only makes people want to pull it even more.
Wednesday, 4 January 2012
New Years Post #1 - December 30th
My New Years resolution is to update this more, so here we go! I'm gonna start with New Year, and hopefully I might be able to work my way back though Beppu, Kobe and Okayama. Let's do this!!!
I spent my New Year in Tokyo with Melania and her friend Steve – who lives in Shinjuku. We took the bus from Matsuyama and had a lovely twelve hour journey to get there... though I’m not so good at sleeping on public transport and got maybe two hours sleep scattered though the entire bus ride. We stopped every couple of hours so it wasn’t exactly conducive to a good night’s sleep in the first place!
Luckily for us, Steve’s flat was about a five minute walk from where our bus stopped, so when we pulled in at about seven he was able to pick us up. At least that was the plan... he ended up getting lost trying to find the Starbucks we were camped in. In the meantime, of all things to happen, we bumped into another ALT from Ehime, who had also just got off the bus (she’s been in Kobe). After we found Steve, we hung out in his flat and freshened up before getting a taxi to our hotel and leaving our luggage there.
We were just up from a fish market that Melania wanted to visit, so we walked down and... it was insane. Seriously, it was just PEOPLE everywhere and once you got stuck in the crowd you were pretty much carried along by it. By this time, Melania and I realised we were hungry so we diverted to a sushi restaurant (Sushi Zanmai) and... well, that’s where we had breakfast.
Shishamo Karaage – my favourite, but not to everyone’s tastes (deep fried, whole pregnant fish)
Ikura (fish eggs), Uni (Sea urchin), Tamago (egg), Ama-ebi (“sweet” raw prawn), I-I can’t remember, Ootoro (fatty tuna), Hamachi, Maguro (tuna), Ika (squid), Salmon, and I think it’s Mackerel on the end.
Heaven. Miso soup with clams.
Buri? MURI! (impossible!!!)
Incidentally, we tried the buri. It was awesome. And we washed it all down with a bottle of warm sake between the three of us.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was amazing. It was a bar-style restaurant, ridiculously busy, and the seating staff always announced when there are new customers, to which the chefs would respond with a booming “HOOOOI!”. We couldn’t help but cheer along too ;) They seemed to be amused by us more than anything (Steve and I are white as white can be, and Melania’s Indonesian but raised in America, so she’s a bit of an oddity because they assume she can speak Japanese) and did their best to speak to us in English, which was very nice. Though we had one waiter who kept popping over every now and then to offer us the following fragments.
“I am Japanese. I am samurai.”
“I am Last Samurai.”
“Also, I am ninja.”
“...and geisha.”
From our sushi adventure, we blundered our way through the crowds, onto the metro, past signs that basically said, “If you friend falls into the tracks like an idiot, don’t rescue him, just leave him to splatter”, and ended up in Yokohama. This was our plan all along, of course, but it took a bit of trouble to get there – we realised that all the places we wanted to go were actually a transfer and a few stops away! We went to a ramen (or as they spelt it, Raumen) museum, which was set up like a city street/square that had the cutest little balloon modeller…
…the oldest cola machine…
…and had loads of little shops where you could eat... unfortunately we were still full from lunch. But that didn’t stop us popping in to a little bar they had and getting ice cream.
Because there’s always room for ice cream. After that, we headed back to the station and I don’t know how we got there/decided to go, but we ended up at a small fairground in Yokohama where we rode a ferris wheel with a clock on it (all the while watching a guy trying to make a move on his girlfriend in the next carriage on while an elementary school boy was waving at us from the carriage behind), took a bunch of Purikura in a booth that said it would make us naked but didn’t, bought tickets for a roller coaster that got shut down (but started up again later) and went on one of those spinning, whirly rides whilst screaming the whole time. We also looked at a haunted house but were too scared to go in. The outside was scary enough.
Melania and I later reached the consensus that this must be at least second base in Japan, though have formulated a theory that transfer of genetic material occurs simply when young couples hold hands. We spent a lot of time watching Asian dramas :/
(We tried to go for a totem-pole look. We failed.)
...so that happened! By the time we left it was dark.
We trekked bravely through an almost-deserted station (seriously, it was terrifying. This was TOKYO) and it was time for dinner... so we headed for China-Town for one of the WORST CONS IN HISTORY.
We ended up in this restaurant which looked amazing from the outside but inside... it was kind of a letdown. To begin with, it wasn’t even that well heated. We’d gone to China Town with the plan of eating the most delicious Peking Duck the world ever created, and I knew something was amiss when the waitress was saying something along the lines of “four sheets” – for rolls for ¥2400 – about £20. May I say that I tried to be the voice of reason, thinking that it sounded a bit fishy, but we decided to ditch our misgivings and go for it. Thank goodness we didn’t get two servings! What we got was four pancakes, mostly stuffed with cucumber and the tiniest, thinnest bit of tough duck skin.
…oh, and four prawn crackers, just to make sure we got our money’s worth.
The rest of the meal wasn’t so bad – the char siu was amazing both on its own and in steamed buns... but that was about it. We left the restaurant a little bit disappointed and found a real duck restaurant right around the corner >_< We were chilly in China Town, so after hunting for omiyage – travel gifts, usually food, that you take back to work to show you were thinking of everyone (we didn’t get any today), we headed back to central Tokyo for one of the most bizarre experience in my life.
Our train took us back to Shibuya and we decided to find a bar. Bearing in mind it was about nine pm and for all intents and purposes, I’d been up since the previous day, I was thinking a little wine, gentle conversation, and bed. What we found was Scramble, a little bar tucked underneath one of the station bridges on the other side of That Crossing. You know, the one that epitomises Japan.
Scramble, as it turned out, was an absolutely packed bar with extortionate drink prices and the cheesiest music selection I’ve ever come across. It happened while I was lunging down from my barstool to get some cash for Steve for the next round. Granted, my face was practically in his lap so I didn’t anything until I was upright…
…and this guy was looming down on us.
Now, he’s come back from an enkai (office drinking party) so he was pretty drunk. And he just started dancing in the street and making “I love you” signs through the window. Later, we realised he was making them at Steve XD
…but what was funniest was that between us, we actually managed to get some other people dancing, too. If I can upload a video one day I will, but words cannot describe the spectacle of five grown Japanese guys dancing in the street at your will.
I spent my New Year in Tokyo with Melania and her friend Steve – who lives in Shinjuku. We took the bus from Matsuyama and had a lovely twelve hour journey to get there... though I’m not so good at sleeping on public transport and got maybe two hours sleep scattered though the entire bus ride. We stopped every couple of hours so it wasn’t exactly conducive to a good night’s sleep in the first place!
Luckily for us, Steve’s flat was about a five minute walk from where our bus stopped, so when we pulled in at about seven he was able to pick us up. At least that was the plan... he ended up getting lost trying to find the Starbucks we were camped in. In the meantime, of all things to happen, we bumped into another ALT from Ehime, who had also just got off the bus (she’s been in Kobe). After we found Steve, we hung out in his flat and freshened up before getting a taxi to our hotel and leaving our luggage there.
We were just up from a fish market that Melania wanted to visit, so we walked down and... it was insane. Seriously, it was just PEOPLE everywhere and once you got stuck in the crowd you were pretty much carried along by it. By this time, Melania and I realised we were hungry so we diverted to a sushi restaurant (Sushi Zanmai) and... well, that’s where we had breakfast.
Shishamo Karaage – my favourite, but not to everyone’s tastes (deep fried, whole pregnant fish)
Ikura (fish eggs), Uni (Sea urchin), Tamago (egg), Ama-ebi (“sweet” raw prawn), I-I can’t remember, Ootoro (fatty tuna), Hamachi, Maguro (tuna), Ika (squid), Salmon, and I think it’s Mackerel on the end.
Heaven. Miso soup with clams.
Buri? MURI! (impossible!!!)
Incidentally, we tried the buri. It was awesome. And we washed it all down with a bottle of warm sake between the three of us.
The atmosphere in the restaurant was amazing. It was a bar-style restaurant, ridiculously busy, and the seating staff always announced when there are new customers, to which the chefs would respond with a booming “HOOOOI!”. We couldn’t help but cheer along too ;) They seemed to be amused by us more than anything (Steve and I are white as white can be, and Melania’s Indonesian but raised in America, so she’s a bit of an oddity because they assume she can speak Japanese) and did their best to speak to us in English, which was very nice. Though we had one waiter who kept popping over every now and then to offer us the following fragments.
“I am Japanese. I am samurai.”
“I am Last Samurai.”
“Also, I am ninja.”
“...and geisha.”
From our sushi adventure, we blundered our way through the crowds, onto the metro, past signs that basically said, “If you friend falls into the tracks like an idiot, don’t rescue him, just leave him to splatter”, and ended up in Yokohama. This was our plan all along, of course, but it took a bit of trouble to get there – we realised that all the places we wanted to go were actually a transfer and a few stops away! We went to a ramen (or as they spelt it, Raumen) museum, which was set up like a city street/square that had the cutest little balloon modeller…
…the oldest cola machine…
…and had loads of little shops where you could eat... unfortunately we were still full from lunch. But that didn’t stop us popping in to a little bar they had and getting ice cream.
Because there’s always room for ice cream. After that, we headed back to the station and I don’t know how we got there/decided to go, but we ended up at a small fairground in Yokohama where we rode a ferris wheel with a clock on it (all the while watching a guy trying to make a move on his girlfriend in the next carriage on while an elementary school boy was waving at us from the carriage behind), took a bunch of Purikura in a booth that said it would make us naked but didn’t, bought tickets for a roller coaster that got shut down (but started up again later) and went on one of those spinning, whirly rides whilst screaming the whole time. We also looked at a haunted house but were too scared to go in. The outside was scary enough.
Melania and I later reached the consensus that this must be at least second base in Japan, though have formulated a theory that transfer of genetic material occurs simply when young couples hold hands. We spent a lot of time watching Asian dramas :/
(We tried to go for a totem-pole look. We failed.)
...so that happened! By the time we left it was dark.
We trekked bravely through an almost-deserted station (seriously, it was terrifying. This was TOKYO) and it was time for dinner... so we headed for China-Town for one of the WORST CONS IN HISTORY.
We ended up in this restaurant which looked amazing from the outside but inside... it was kind of a letdown. To begin with, it wasn’t even that well heated. We’d gone to China Town with the plan of eating the most delicious Peking Duck the world ever created, and I knew something was amiss when the waitress was saying something along the lines of “four sheets” – for rolls for ¥2400 – about £20. May I say that I tried to be the voice of reason, thinking that it sounded a bit fishy, but we decided to ditch our misgivings and go for it. Thank goodness we didn’t get two servings! What we got was four pancakes, mostly stuffed with cucumber and the tiniest, thinnest bit of tough duck skin.
…oh, and four prawn crackers, just to make sure we got our money’s worth.
The rest of the meal wasn’t so bad – the char siu was amazing both on its own and in steamed buns... but that was about it. We left the restaurant a little bit disappointed and found a real duck restaurant right around the corner >_< We were chilly in China Town, so after hunting for omiyage – travel gifts, usually food, that you take back to work to show you were thinking of everyone (we didn’t get any today), we headed back to central Tokyo for one of the most bizarre experience in my life.
Our train took us back to Shibuya and we decided to find a bar. Bearing in mind it was about nine pm and for all intents and purposes, I’d been up since the previous day, I was thinking a little wine, gentle conversation, and bed. What we found was Scramble, a little bar tucked underneath one of the station bridges on the other side of That Crossing. You know, the one that epitomises Japan.
Scramble, as it turned out, was an absolutely packed bar with extortionate drink prices and the cheesiest music selection I’ve ever come across. It happened while I was lunging down from my barstool to get some cash for Steve for the next round. Granted, my face was practically in his lap so I didn’t anything until I was upright…
…and this guy was looming down on us.
Now, he’s come back from an enkai (office drinking party) so he was pretty drunk. And he just started dancing in the street and making “I love you” signs through the window. Later, we realised he was making them at Steve XD
…but what was funniest was that between us, we actually managed to get some other people dancing, too. If I can upload a video one day I will, but words cannot describe the spectacle of five grown Japanese guys dancing in the street at your will.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Day 14
Good afternoon from sunny Japan! I've been here for two weeks now, and finally have my own internet connection through a nice little portable wireless device! Most of the internet here is wired and it would have taken a long time to hook my up, so this seemed to be the most expedient alternative!
I'm fully aware I have two weeks worth of events to catch up with on the blog, plus I wanted to do a few write-ups with handy information for prospective (UK) JETs. Most of these I've already started, but some fine-tuning on this is needed; so I'll try to do the blog stuff first before moving onto JET-related entries. I have tomorrow off, and have a lovely long lie-in to look forward to, so hopefully I'll be able to get some updates done then!
Today, I will be going to a shodo (Japanese calligraphy) demonstration at Matsuyama Castle Park with a number of other JETs. Matsuyama's "most eminent calligraphy expert" will also be in attendance, or so I've heard! Hopefully I'll return with some gorgeous works of art/hideous abominations of Japan's great tradition to show you!
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