30 Seconds: Ueno Station

Japanniversary!

My one year Japanniversary was on Saturday, so I have been trying to have a super Japanese weekend. On Saturday night after work we went out for giant tuna head. I found the prospect of eating a giant tuna head a little worrying, and when they brought out a giant grilled tuna head, I was very worried because it looked scary, but eating it was fine! There were some really delicious bits. I even ate some eyeball jelly! It wasn't gross! I would rather eat tuna eye jelly than natto! After giant tuna, three of us went to karaoke for a couple hours.

Yesterday was massively Japanese. It started with a visit to the Nerima Animation Carnival. We went to the Toei Animation Studio gallery and then took a bus to another part of the festival where we watched people make mochi and then got to eat some mochi while it was still warm! Fresh mochi! Sugoi! And we got free amazake, yum. Then another bus to another venue where we watched an amaaaaazing live action Fresh PreCure show. It was life changing.

After the anime thing, we switched to traditional Japanese activities. We went to a garden/cultural center near my place for tea ceremony and lacquerware. The tea ceremony was really lovely and interesting, but it was so uncomfortable to kneel for so long! My legs were just painfully asleep. But I really enjoyed it anyway! I looooooved the lacquer. We decorated some sake cups; it took a long time, but I had fun!

Three of us went to an izakaya after because we wanted to have Japanese food for dinner. It was nice. And after that I met up with my friend and his co-worker in Shinjuku at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Office observation tower - amazing view of Tokyo! - and after a lot of wandering around in underground passageways, we ended up doing some karaoke for an hour.

Today I plan to go to Omotesando and maybe Meiji Jingu before meeting up with friends in Shinjuku later. Will be maybe slightly less Intense Japanese Experience Explosion than the rest of the weekend has been, but it should still be good for the Japanniversary!

Enjoy some pictures of me eating fresh mochi, the place where we did tea and lacquer things, three of our cups (mine is the flowered one), some lovely cupcakes that were made for us, and a delicious salad that was part of our dinner. And enjoy 30 seconds of mochi-making (you can hear us talking, sorry).

apologies, apologies

Sorry! I haven't updated in a long time! It's just that so many things happened I didn't know where to start! Valentine's Day! Epic karaoke! A rainbow restaurant!

I'll try to make some kind of epic post of epicness this weekend: Saturday is my one year Japanniversary, so I should definitely commemorate it here somehow!

For now, please enjoy this random commercial with Ichiro in. He's in loads of ads here, mostly encouraging me to drink Kirin beer, but sometimes for other things too. I just started seeing this one on TV recently, and I kind of love it.

Tsukiji Fish Market

When I found out I would be moving to Tokyo, one of the things I was most excited about was to visit the fish market. Tsukijishijo is the largest wholesale seafood market in the world! I heard it was very exciting! And then I found out that I would be living on the same subway line as the market, so it would be super easy to get there!

But then I got to Tokyo and realized that in order to visit the market at its most interesting, you have to wake up freaking early in the morning and get the first train because it's busiest before, like, 6:30. I am not into getting up for the first train so, although I still wanted to go, I failed to motivate myself to do so until last Monday.

It was very exciting! I was glad for the opportunity to visit, but I honestly don't understand why they allow tourists to just wander around there! IT IS EXTREMELY SCARY. People are rushing about doing their jobs and driving around on these terrifying cart things and the paths are sometimes too small and tourists are just wandering about being in the way and I thought I was going to die a lot of the time. Oh, and I had a really horrible moment where there was a chunk of fish on the ground and I stepped on it and it was the worst squishy feeling ever. But the market was very interesting! And it didn't even smell that bad! I mean, it smelled like seafood, but maybe because it was fresh or maybe because there was lots of fresh air, the seafood smell didn't make me gag! And there was lots to see! There were lots of giant tuna! At one point, we got kind of stuck because of a cart in the way, and then a man came along and was, like, "Gomen ne!" and threw a giant frozen tuna at our feet, blocking our way even more! It was exciting! And there were tons of other delicious kinds of seafood! There were loads of things I could not identify!

We spent a lot of time wandering around and exploring and then headed to the outer part of the market where there are sushi shops that sometimes have very long lines. We had to wait for a bit, but it wasn't too bad. I got two pieces of sushi, ika (squid) and toro (tuna belly), and they were super expensive! Seriously, two bites of food for ¥1200 (¥400 for the ika, ¥800 for the toro)! It was worth it though! Freshest sushi I've ever had! The ika was fantastic, and the toro was pretty much one of the best pieces of food I've ever eaten. DELICIOUS. I would have had more, but I didn't have a chance to go to the ATM before we went to the market, so I couldn't afford it. Maybe someday I will return!

Enjoy a bunch of pictures of seafood and a video of my walk from one end of one of the many paths in the market to the other.

30 Seconds: Tsukiji Fish Market

Last Monday, I went to the Tsukiji fish market. It was terrifying and exciting. I'll have more in-depth commentary on it in a day or two, but for now, enjoy (more than) 30 seconds of how-will-I-ever-cross-this-path-without-dying.

30 Seconds: Shinjuku Station

Last night I went to Shinjuku ni-chome for dancing times! It was fantastic. Shinjuku ni-chome is the gayest place in the world. Seriously! It has the highest concentration of gay bars of anywhere in the world!

My life lately is work during the week and then food, drinks, and karaoke with friends on the weekends. It's been rather fun, but not really much to post about. Although speaking of karaoke, karaoke song suggestions would be welcome. Sometimes I sing something new, but sometimes I can't think of anything or can't find what I want, so I just end up singing the same things every time.

Anyway, in lieu of having anything interesting to talk about, I thought I'd start a new thing that maybe I will continue to do every once in a while in future. Enjoy 30 (okay, actually 40) seconds of random Japanness. Last Monday night, outside Shinjuku station. I think the guy in the chef's hat is amaaaaazing.

Nagano: Day Two

When the trains started again in the morning, we again headed to Yudanaka. Unfortunately, the nice limited express train didn't start until later in the morning, so we ended up on the local. It was horrible again. When we got there, we had to wait around for a while for a bus that took us closer to the Jigokudani Monkey Park. Then we had to walk for at least 2 km, mostly on a very snowy path through the forest, until we actually got to where the monkeys are.

There were so many monkeys! They were hanging out in the forest and digging around in the snow and cuddling together by the river. And lots of them were hanging out in the hot springs! It was super fantastic; like, I've always seen things about Japanese monkeys who hang out in hot springs, and I actually got to see them! すごい！ It was very exciting, although occasionally a little scary if you accidentally looked at a monkey in the eye or if the monkeys fought with each other or if this big scary monkey who was protecting all the other monkeys walked past you.

Hiked back to the bus stop where we found that there was only, like, one bus per hour, so we had to wait for quite a while. Were luckily able to get the limited express train back to Nagano City (I slept most of the way) and then were able to get a shinkansen back home without too much waiting (I slept for most of that trip too). It was a faster shinkansen than the one we took to get there; the first one made a few stops, but on our way home, we only stopped once between Nagano and Omiya. Nice.

It was really fun to see somewhere new in Japan and a really fantastic way to finish up my holiday, but I was happy to get back home to where it was not freaking cold and snowy.