Jimmy's Cooking Show

Another mellow day at Kamioka.

I went to look for the music shop at the Keikyu department store. It was just a small section of the larger store and didn't really have much to offer.

After work I made some rice with onion and chopped up carrots. While writing this post, I managed to burn the onion but you couldn't really taste it. I added seaweed, pepper, garlic powder, salt and the pièce de résistance some tuna.

To my surprise it actually taste nice despite when Jesse came home he noticed the misty haze of smoke I created.

It's a Sony!

Today we went to Asakusa and Ginza. 

 Gf asked me on leaving her apartment whether we should take an umbrella. Stupid me said no and guess what, it rained.. a lot! 

 After exiting Asakusa station we could see to the left a building with a strange shape on top. 

 To me I thought it looked like a gold sperm, but gf called it a "golden sh*t". Apparently it's called the flame d'or (Golden flame). 

 

I bought a 500 yen umbrella from the local Family Mart and made our way to the temple. First stop was the Kaminarimon Gate. It is the gate that faces the road leading up to the temple. 

We then went through a tourist trap souvenir arcade called Nakamise. Get your red lantern keyrings here!

During this time, we went into a favourite sweets shop of gf's. There we had some red bean sweets. Mine was a hot red bean paste with a rice paste and she had a cold one with candied fruit. I'm addicted to red bean now.

After that we moved through the next Hanzonmon gate.

Finally we arrived at the Sensoji temple. There were many young girls dressed as anime characters with elaborate costumes and make-up. This was much better than the "punk" Harajuku girls. 

After Asakusa we caught a train to Ginza. I was interested there to go to the Sony Building where there are floors of sony products and demos which was a lot of fun to play with as you can see.

   

I videotaped myself on a television using a sony camcorder. This was a nice toy. I also did extreme closeups of my eye, nose and unshaven chin that I'm sure the sony staff were pleased about.

 

From there we went to the Kabukiza building. This is a rather ornate building where they do Kabuki theatre. I wouldn't mind watching a show. I hear they do english headsets explaining the japanese dialog. 

 

The rain was coming down quite heavily and the wind was strong. I only had my slides on my feet which were very slippery from lack of traction. At one stage the wind blew the umbrella inside out and blew the plastic cover completely off leaving me only with the skeleton frame. So much for a 500 yen umbrella.

Sumidagawa Fireworks

I made my way into Tokyo. 

 Tonight, there would be the biggest fireworks show in Tokyo. Gf was initially skeptical about going, but I did my best ten year old impersonation and said, "Can weee?". With that persuasion she couldn't relent to say no. 

 Soon after I arrived we left for Ryoguku, the opposite side of the river to Asakusa. It was decided that this would be the best vantage point to see the fireworks. 

 There were many girls wearing the yukata (a summer style kimono). I don't know what it is but it looks real sexy on these japanese girls. I asked gf if she had one but she said it was back at her mother's house (along with her school uniform). hmm.. 

 While there were crowds there, it was less busy than I had expected. 

 Many people were covering the streets with tarps to sit on. At one point I had to make my way across the sea of tarps. I accidently stepped on one and a japanese man slapped my leg because I put my foot on his dirty tarpaulin. 

 This is the first sign of a japanese man being upset (with me). I must make more of an effort to do it more often. 

 These people were so far away from where the fireworks were. Gf explained that they don't have to strain their necks to look up. Me, I like to have the fireworks exploding overhead just narrowly missing the falling debris on its way down.

  

The fireworks were really good. Sometimes it looked like the sky was getting set on fire, they set off so many at once. If you listen carefully you can hear the oft said phrase when something is truly good, "Sugoi!!" Ahem, yes, that was me.

The Green Shochu

I was meaning to come back home after work but the Green Shochu changed all that. 

 Derek and Thomas wanted to go to an Izakaya. At first I said I wanted to go home, but somehow I decided to go along with them. 

 I was only going to have a few drinks of the green shochu, a liquor similar to sake, but potato instead of rice. It turned into two bottles of 20% green and quite a bit of food. I had to go to the bathroom, so the waitress showed me the way but I had a little trouble getting back to our table. 

 I forgot what the kanji was for ladies and mens bathroom was, so I just took the bathroom that had the toliet seat up. When I had to get back, it was like a labyrinth, as the place was kind of dark, and every cubicle looked exactly the same. 

 The gf messenged me that she left her charger at my place. I told her where I was and said I was a little drunk. 

 After speaking for a lengthy time about God, Yes, I know it's an engrossing topic when you are drunk, we stumbled back to Yokohama station and caught the train back to Tomioka. It was crowded as usual. 

 On arriving home, Jesse, Derek and myself had a big D & M about women and God and I bailed out for a while, going to the bathroom and then going to bed. It's 2:43am, and somehow I have to get over this impending hangover that I'm sure to have.

A Day off about Nothing

Another day off, another lazy day doing just about nothing.

Gf wasn't feeling great so she stayed in bed most of the day. I wanted to see if it was worth walking to Shin-sugita like Jesse had said.

We got there in about 40 minutes. I think we went the right way. If I'm feeling energetic I might go there instead of catching the train.

After Shin-sugita we took the train to Yokohama. The original plan was to go to the chinatown area but by this time we were both tired and only managed to buy some cheap blank CDs.

On arrived back we made some rice curry like before which was just as delicious as the last time. I played a little guitar tonight and gf quietly went to sleep.

Back To The Yak

I finished work at around 5pm, but I had to wait until 730pm before gf was to meet me at Yokohama. Tonight we went again to the Korean BBQ. I went to with Derek and Thomas. 

 We did an "all you can eat in 70 minutes" for 2600 yen each, which we did our best to get our money's worth. It was real tasty as before with lots and lots of meat. Just what a growing boy needs.

 

After we had a stroll around and ended up in the Don Quijote store once more. I couldn't resist to take this photo. I hope that in my time here in Japan that classic, bad english that I see here will be immortalised here forever in my blog. 

 We arrived back at Tomioka not long after that. Gf turned on the television to watch the Japan vs Saudi Arabia game on television. She is going nuts in Japanese yelling at the TV. I had no idea she was THIS into soccer.

Tuesday is good?

A Tuesday being good can only mean one thing, no kids class. As we had the Marine Day holiday on monday the kids classes take a break for the rest of the week to keep all the classes on the same lesson each week.

This is the 10 minute I do every time I walk between Sugita station on the Keikyu line to Shin-sugita train station on the JR line. I heard that Tomioka is a 30 minute walk so I might end up omitting this part of my train travels.

On the sign here it says "Guts". If this was a butcher I might understand, but this is a fruit and vegetable shop. Huh?! There was a cheap 5kg bags of rice for 1100 yen (AU $11) last week. Not there this week though. Like I want to carry a big bag of rice to my school and back home. As if..

I still got there a little earlier out of habit so when I got there I went into the Bic Camera store just for a bit of a look to kill a bit of time. I saw some mobile phone charms that you hang off your phone. This is really a japanese thing as I don't think anyone does it back home.

I have something hanging off mine now. Just a part of the process of me becoming one of THEM. I was thinking to put my Gachapin on the chain. It would be hilarious. It would take up half of my pocket.

Today was quite dull. The staff at Fujisawa got me to cut out flash cards from paper which was as exciting as it sounds. The rest of the classes were pretty much same as always. There is a schoolgirl in one class who looked tired and bored out of her mind.

As I caught the train back I decided to get some more orange juice at the Suzukiya.