Alive and well

Hey, sorry I haven't posted in a while. Being lazy is only part of the reason. I do have lots of pictures that I will post up very soon from my trip to Kyoto and Osaka last month. It was amazing!! Who knew I would enjoy autumn leaves changing scenery so much. I've also recently been sick so I've been a bit tired and run down lately. From what I could tell, the doctor told me in broken english that I had bronchitis. Last week, I had completely lost my voice and could only make weird squeaking noises. I felt really sorry for my students as I had to whisper to them the days previous to that. I finally was able to see a doctor, but all the nurses kept laughing at me as I had to have a notepad with some really crappily written Japanese on it to express what I needed and when I tried to talk, they would smile and go 'I can't hear you!'. I had to get 4 types of pills and take about 14 pills a day. Japanese drugs are either extremely ineffective or I was really sick but I have a feeling that it was the former rather than the latter. I'm almost all better now except that my voice is still unusually deep and I cough every now and then but I even had one student comment how clear my voice was compared to the how manly/deep/raspy/smoker-like it was before.

Randomness

These are just some rather random pictures that I've taken and don't fit in w/ anywhere else...


Not to flash everyone, but this is when I got bitten by something in September. Previously something bit my hand and it swelled into a mutant hand and i was a little ashamed for it to be seen by my students so I had to non chalantly hide my hand away. After that recovered, about a week... I got bitten on the leg... like the hand, at first it was nothing but then it started swelling until you see it like the above picture. You can actually see a bullseye like pattern where there are different layers of swelling : I think I'm allergic to bug bites :SMy cell phone. Apparently, this model is called Slimia since its the size of a credit card. It took me a long time to get since the new soft bank system was down and i had to wait a couple of hours. Had to get this in Shibuya as that's one of the only places that had english staff. I could've gone to any store, but I prefer to know in English what I'm getting myself into since I had to sign a contract.The first vending machine I saw that wasn't beverage related. The drink ones are cool, they sell both hot and cold drinks and the one at work even sells Corn Soup! This vending machine is a rice vending machine. Its quite interesting as the rice comes out the bottom in bags. You can choose how big a bag you want and there are different grades of rice. A bunch of cake pieces that I bought in the supermarket beside my work place. This whole box costs 650 yen!! (That's right $6.50). They were pretty good for the price :)Dango that Roberta bought for us at the store. They're made of that mochi stuff and inside there's definitley a red kind of paste of what i suspect to be azuki beans (red beans) ...

Asakusa

Last week, Roberta and I decided to goto Asakusa, which is a very traditional part of Tokyo. There's one main temple and a huge gate called Thunder Gate. When you enter that, there are hundred of little shops selling Japanese knick knacks and stuff. Most of it was quite traditional. It was pretty cool.
Me, infront of Kaminarimon Gate "Thunder Gate" from across the street. There's lot of people on the street as well as lots of rickshaw drivers trying to get tourists to ride w/ them. Here is a closer shot of the gate. The funny thing is, there are alot of tour guides that are standing outside it dressed in traditional looking costumes. They approached us and started speaking to us in Japanese, but clearly we had these confused looks on our face. Usually when these things happen, we sort of look the other way, and the person gets discouraged by the fact that they can't communicate w/ us. NOT HERE!! Theydefinitely switched to perfect English and kept talking to us... so hard to avoid them and we didn't know how to politely leave cause one of them started giving us a mini history lesson about the gate and the temple inside. At the end he's like "Do you know what I am?"and we're like ".........a tour guide...." haha and then walked away. :A picture of Roberta and I together. Definitely had to ask some Japanese ladies to help us.. but all I knew was how to say picture, excuse me and please. After alot of pointing, it worked out quite well and we helped them take pictures too :) The key is to find people who are together taking pictures and taking pics of each other seperately, then you know that they will also like to have a group picture :D and its mutually beneficial for all. Although sometimes this method doesn't work :(Sensoji Temple, which is past Kaminarimon Gate and Nakamise shopping street. Its really elaborate and you can buy lots of charms and stuff like at Meiji temple, except they're even more expensive here :(Here is a thing that has giant incense sticks like the Chinese kind. It smells pretty much the same, but people stand infront of it and try to make the fumes go towards them... its like they want to soak up the small or something, I wonder if it has some signicance since alot of poeple seemed to be doing it. Not really sure what this is since its seperate from the main temple building but it does look quite impressive.A really nice looking pond with a bridge and brightly coloured koi (karp) swimming in it.

October 17

I just wanted to thank everyone for all the birthday wishes. I know this post is a little late but I just wanted to show my appreciation :)

For my birthday, Roberta and Nicky took me to Kaiten Sushi (Conveyor Belt Sushi) in Ikebukuro for dinner. It was very good, apparently Nicky's friend told her that place was on television as one of the best kaiten places. Afterwards, I thought we were going to go home but they told me to buy a ticket on the JR line (which is not the line we use for going home). Something was not right but what clenched it was when Roberta started talking to some "random" business man who spoke to her really in quickly in Japanese (she doesn't understand) and asked "Doko iku yo?"... Fast man-style Japanese "Where are you going?"... it was sketch but it turned out to be staff from her branch and she said "I can't tell you!! It's a SECRET" which I thought was super funny. The confused look on his face was so great which mirrored the confused look on her face when he was speaking to her really quickly. We then got our tickets and went to the subway... we ended up at Tokyo Tower!! but this time it was at night and the sky was SUPER clear, so we went up :) The view was amazing! but my pictures from the top didn't turn out very well because there is a glass window...

When you look out, you can see red lights flashing at the tops of the building, I guess to stop planes from crashing into them. Apparently on a nice day from the highest observation deck at Tokyo Tower, you can see Mount Fuji, but since it was night, we didn't see it. We did see the world's third largest ferris wheel/world's largest digital clock which is in Yokohama from the Tokyo Tower. We also got a chance to see the Rainbow bridge, which is pretty neat.

The night view of Tokyo Tower. It ooks quite nice and is actually alot brighter orange than my camera could pick up. The night view of it is alot nicer than the daytime view. It looks alot more impressive this way :) Apparently the lights will change colour depending on which season it is. White or blue for the winter.. I don't really know though. A strange angle shot of Tokyo Tower. Its quite interesting, the only parts you can be on are the bottom, the elevator and the observation decks. Its actually a giant antenna for TV and radio station signals.A billboard picture that we saw of Tokyo tower and decided to start pretending to climb. The strange thing about this is that we saw these two people taking a picture near it that were Asian looking. Roberta and I knew that they weren't speaking in English but at the same time we could perfectly understand everything they were saying. This didn't make sense as neither of use perfectly understand Japanese and it did take us quite a while until we pointed and looked at each other w/ an OHHH expression. They were speaking cantonese! hahaha... so we asked them to take a picture for us. Nicky didn't understand how Roberta and I could fluently converse w/ these Asian people as she thought they were Japanese :P

All in all, Tokyo Tower was a great birthday experience that I don't think I'll forget. It was quite memorably to see Tokyo at night from such a high place :D

This has nothing to do w/ Tokyo Tower but on our way home, it floored me to see how they laid out lights and pilons for people in a path to walk in while they were doing construction on the road. I mean, that's so considerate!! and someone stands at the end of the path and bows too. It was really cool. Usually when there's construction on the road in Canada, i never know which way I should walk so this amazed me!

Flower Arrangement at Ginza

Sometime in October, I went to Ginza with Roberta since some lady gave my housemate free tickets to a flower arrangement show. Since she couldn't go, she gave them to us. Ginza is the really rich/ post part of Tokyo where they are LV stores, Bulgari, etc. Just really high class and everyone looks pimped out. Before we went, we went to Japanese class where our teachers told us that dressing in jeans and tshirt was fine but when we got there, we definitely felt like a few bums on the street as everyone was really classy looking. Ever since I got here, I feel like my lazy style of dressing is just not upto par... hahaha ..and that feeling is magnified in Ginza where EVERYONE (and their mother) dresses like they havea million bucks :S

I don't know much about flower arranging, but I thought these pics were really cute. You're going to have to excuse the lack of comments :) The white things are interesting, it was floating from the ceiling. For some reason it reminds me of lotus root... These are obachans (old ladies) that were at the flowering arrangement place. They looked really cool and cute in their kimono so I thought I should take a picture of them. :)

The way I take pictures of random people is kinda sketchy I guess, I mean who wants their photo taken randomly by some stranger. But thise picture is of two girls dressed like maids in Akihabara (Electric town where all the nerds hang) and they're handing out fliers...this one's for Edgar! :P

Speaking of Akihabara, as I was walking buy, I saw this one sketchy looking man pull out a few stuffed toys from his back pack and proceed to arrange and pose them in front of a tree on top of a metal railing type of thing. He then took out a really hard core looking camera...the pro kind and started taking pictures of his posed stuffed dolls... it was really strange and a little creepy if I do say so myself :

Kawagoe Festival October 15

Last month there was a festival in Kawagoe. No one really knows what its about, believe me, I tried to ask many of my students but most people couldn't really give me a detailed answer. The gist of it is that different areas from the city each have a float or dashi (portable shrine) and basically they celebrate and there's a strange type of musical celebration. Its SO busy, there are crazy amounts of people and you can only walk up the main street one step at a time. The street sides are lined w/ booths where youcan buy candy and festival food, which is awesome. There was takoyaki (balls w/ squid in it), Okonomiyaki (savory type pancakes), Yaki Soba (fried noodles), meats on sticks, corn on the cob, Japanese style baked potato and chocolate covered bananas. These people really take their fesivals seriously... The atmostphere was very fun ... alcohol was also sold quite freely from a giant truck.

Delicious GIANT Takoyaki. It was so good, and watching them back it was even more delicious. It was 5 for 500 Yen but eating 2 or 3 was totally filling. Roberta and I split a pack. Takoyaki is essentially balls of dough that have lots of seasoning and a piece of tako or octopus in the middle. Then, sauce is poured on top w/ bonito (fish) flakes. Quite tasty. My coworker describes them as delicious pockets ofr burning lava for your mouth as they can be quite hot. Once I tried to shove one into my mouth and it was burning ...especially when it exploded in my mouth...The dashi (portable shrines that I mentioned) ... There were about 3 or 4 and people play music from on top of these and they're wearing costumes. They are even people standing at the very top. Each dashi is moved by a hoard of people at the bottom. I can imagine that they're quite heavy. Roberta, Nicky (my third housemate) and a lady all dressed up and helping out at the festival. The start of the music competition that I previously mentioned. There are two giant dashi that each have their seperate sets of people w/ costumes playing instruments. Each float has its own main person that plays the flute. They are both supposed to play different melodies but the side that messes up and starts copying their opponents melody loses. That's what I gathered from students, but due to the language barrier.... possibly I might be totally mistaken :D It was quite interesting though :) Had a very old school type of feel.Some man in traditional matsuri (festival wear) directing traffic so that no one really goes near the floats as it is read to move to another area.

Two dudes making mochi, which is a sticky kind of ball. Basically, its rice that they throw into the wooden thing and they pound on it until it becomes a sticky kind of goopy consistency and form balls and put it on sticks. Looks like it takes alot of effort and there's alot of grunting and screaming involved. The weird thing is that while I was taking this picture there were some other gaijin (foreigners) watching with a bunch of Japanese people... and they kept screaming MATSURI and the Japanse people seemed like they enjoyed this crazy gaijin making a fool of himself. Quite weird....

Neglected...

I guess I've neglected this blog for too long. I've finally decided to get off my lazy ass and post some pictures of my random exploring...

The kamakuzuri in Kawagoe which is about 5 stops away. The funny thing with this is that everytime I goto Kawagoe, I go by myself and anyone who knows me at all knows that I'm horrible with directions. So obviously, I get lost. The signs aren't that great either. The signs that are in English are few and far between and you have to randomly walk in the direction it points you in for a bout 10 mins and hope that you see another sign so that you know you're going in the right direction. Of course when you get to the place it doesn't tell you where you are in English so you're not really sure what landmark you're at. I got lost so many times its not even funny :( I kept looking for the kamikuzuri which are these houses that surround kawagoe that used to be used as defense or something from a hundred years ago. I walk around and ask people in broken Japanese where they are...but becuase its MY Japanese I can ask the question but don't understand what they're saying in return :S .... The thing is I went to this place and was searching for the kamakuzuri for the WHOLE day, walking by these old school looking houses. I only found out that the old school houses were what I was looking for when I went home and saw a news program on TV about Kawagoe :S

Tokyo Tower the first time we went to see it. It was raining that day so it looks kind of bleak and unimpressive. We chose not to go up on that day because it was so rainy and probably couldn't see much of a view. Its not as high as I thought it would be...but i know it is taller than the Eifeel Tower. My students have told me that there's a completely different feeling from the Eiffel Tower thought. We decided to goto the Aquarium underneath instead.

I have no clue what this is but it looks kind of like a spotted/leopard kind of eel... It looks quite interesting.

The whole time I was walking around in here, it looked kind of cramped and that the fish were in tanks that were quite small for them. It reminded me of a Chinese Restaurant. You know, when they have those fish tanks in the fron and you can decide what kind of seafood you can get and then they will cook it for you FRESH. So the whole time, I kept thinking of how my parents would enjoy eating these first -_-*

Here's a picture of a few lazy turtles lounging around in the pond. I think they were snapping turtles too since there was a sign near the pond that I couldn't read that clearly showed a picture of a finger and the turtles trying to bite at it w/ the Japanese sound effect for chomp chomp near it. It was quite funny. That one big one is just sprawled out and lazing away while the other one is trying to climb up on it :)

As promised...

Here are some pictures that I've taken since the beginning of my adventure abroad. I still have more recent ones though I haven't loaded them up onto my hard drive yet.

The multinational beauty that is Kentucky Fried Chicken. This is some kind of sandwich combo with bright green radioactive looking melon soda as the beverage. The sandwich was quite good but the mayo had some kind of mustardy wasabi flavour thrown it. Strange but delicious. More recently I had the fall KFC combo which there is no picture of. It had a bowl of very asian tasting soup with a sticky rice ball and a piece of fried chicken coated in Furikake, a seaweed seasoning of sorts.

The entrance to the Gyeon National Gardens in Shinjiku. Whats interesting about this place is that this garden is situated right in the heart of Shinjiku, filled w/ skyscrapers and people: An extremely busy place.

I just like this picture because of the black butterfly among the white patch of flowers. This butterfly was quite the bastard though as it kept flying away every few seconds before I could take the shot properly.

I have no clue what type of flower this it, but quite beautiful, ne?

Its amazing how a place so beautiful and serence can be in the heart of a major bustling area like Shinjuku.
One of the most famous areas the of the park, its a Japanese style garden (There were also English and French Gardens but obviously not impressive enough for me to post a picture on my blog) and the sea of green that you see is actually giant lily pads that are floating on a pond.

Meiji Jingu, Harajuku. This is a cleansing area before you enter the actual shrine part. There is a thing of water where you can dip those ladle like things in. You wash one hand first, than the other as well as rinse your mouth. After you tilt the ladle upright so the remaining water pours back over it thereby cleaning it. How did I figure this out? This is one of the only places that had english signs fully posted beside the Japanese ones. :)

The entrance to Meiji Jingu. Quite impressive as the pillars are perfectly rounded and smooth. There are more of these as your walk in towards the shrine but this one was by far the biggest.

Buying charms from the Miko (priestess). Like in anime and drama, the priestesses really wear those long flowing robes that are white on top and red on the bottom (Think Sailor Mars while in normal clothes at her shrine). You can buy charms from them for various things like doing well at school, victory, love, health and even safe driving.

A crepe store in Harajuku. The crepes were quite delicious as they were made fresh. They make it into a cone shape, and give it to you so you can eat it on the go. Its strange but in Japan, its not really that acceptable to eat or drink on the street, but I guess some people don't care. Mine had banana and whipped cream, although the whipped cream was not so good to me due to my lactose intolerance but at the time of eating, it was quite good. Roberta had one w/ strawberries, chocolate and strawberry icecream.

Ah, another picture from Meiji Jingu, this is near the actual shrine after having done the purification thing. There's a priest-type guy in full attire.

A picture taken in Harajuku while walking down Takeshidori (Idol street as Roberta and I call it since the street is lined w/ places where you can buy Japanese Idol goods and even dress like them :S ) On this street, you can buy costumes and accesories for all your dress up needs.
As seen here, Maid outfits can be purchased among other things. Apparently its a trend fro girls to dress up as Lolitas or something. I saw quite a few and couldn't help staring at them but I guess if you dress like that, you are attention starved. We went on a weekday so there weren't that many but I heard that if you go on Sundays, there's an insane amount of dressed up people. Unfortunately, I have to work on Sundays :(

Natto Sushi. The FOULEST thing I have tasted in my 22 years of life. I thought I would throw up right after eating it. It has this weird sticky texture and the taste is quite disgusting not to mention the smell. Some people told me that natto is an acquired taste and you know me, I will try anything once. But if acquiring the taste for natto means I have to eat it again I rather not acquire said taste. I asked my students about it and they all LOVE the stuff, the Japanese people who hate it out of the multiple people I've asked... I can count them on one hand only. Apparently people eat it for breakfast here, and LOVE it.. They will try to convince me that its healthy and nutritious etc... : I've nvr been so disgusted w/ a type of food before... and if you know me, that's rare.

Kaiten Sushi!! Sushi that comes to you on a conveyor belt. This is totally awesome, whatever you want, just pick it up and eat it. Each dish costs about 100 Yen which is equivalent to $1 Cdn and there are 2 pieces of sushi on it. Its at Kaiten sushi that we picked up the Natto by accident and almost died from it :S But they have all sort of other delicious things like tuna, salmon and even fruit. Quite a great experience although at first we were really confused due to the lack of Japanese skills but had help from the staff (kind of) and by watching other people. After you're done, there's a slot on the side of the table where you slide your dishes one by one into. That's how they count how many plates you've had and the you press a button on a touch screen and someone comes to hand you your bill. Ingenious.

Akihabara, a.k.a Nerd Town as I like to call it. Hang out of the infamous otaku with maid cafes, loads of electronic stores and anything a nerd could dream of. The first thing I saw when I left the station was a girl dressed up in a maid outfit handing out advertisements... Tried to take a picture but some man got in the way and I felt quite dirty taking a picture of her as I believe she -noticed after the first time (Sorry, I'll try again next time) *Creepy Story - Roberta and I enter this anime store and start walking around only to notice that all the anime and games are of cute little anime girls and some..maybe slutty ones. There's also an over 18 section that we DIDN'T go into. We quickly relized that maybe we were in a niche store that catered to a specific type of customers. After looking around we see that we are the only females in the ENTIRE store (and there are like 5 floors) and all the other customers are greasy looking nerd men one associates w/ strange habits.... We were so creeped out! *

Me at Denny's eating an OMURICE, which is a bastardized version of the beloved omlette. There's tomato flavored chicken fried rice under a giant sheet of egg smother in cheese and demi glass sauce. Quite delicious but not has good as the Hamburg which is my current obsession.