Chiizuyoubi

Last night we had station beers outside Yokohama station as usual.

What added a humorous (or maybe sadistic) twist, was watching people doing the "shimmy" on a seemingly innocent slippery part of the walkway. Although it was mostly Japanese people, even one of us almost fell down in the same place.

It gave me a good laugh that's for sure. By the way, did you realise it was Pocky Day yesterday (11/11)?

Today I planned to wake up earlier for two reasons. In the morning I wanted to see if that blue guitar that was "on hold" was still there in Ochanomizu, and while close by a quick look around Akiba for good measure.

From 1 o'clock we were all geared up to go celebrate "Cheese Day" at Cheese Festa 2009. If you look back here you can see we went there two years ago quite satisfied. I wanted to go last year but it slipped my mind and we missed out.

This year it was held at Bellesalle in Harajuku. It's not all that far from Aoyama, that it was held at last time I went.

It was much the same. They used the sample ticket system as before and there were again, a heap of almost all, Japanese people. I'm surprised more foreigners weren't there.

A nice touch was a Japanese troubadour playing Italian songs like "The Godfather theme" and "Volare". He sounded pretty good and was nice background music to the consumption of cheese and wine (500 yen a glass).

There was much more lighting in this place which made it much easier for me to take photos.

There were quite a few demonstrations which gave us more opportunities to eat. I didn't understand much of what they said though. I was only thinking, "Hurry up, bring out the cheese!"

This guy reminds me of Mr Miyagi from the Karate Kid. He's part of the Japanese Pizza Association (Yes, there is such a thing apparently). He told a really emotion-charged story about the origin of the Margherita pizza. Sure had a lot of "flair" with all them pins. He's sure to get promoted at TGI Fridays.

The German smoked cheese was my favourite this year. They had a constant cheese song playing in the background reminiscent of the Ponyo song, but I didn't mind it too much.Like last time, people were a little pushy (and hungry I guess) to get their samples, but I still really enjoyed it. If you're here next year, I strongly recommend it.

Just to give everyone a little advance notification, it's pizza day on the 20th. See here (Japanese flash site, damn!) for details. Good eating everyone!