Tokyo: My First Trip, Part 3

John headed out to get very drunk and dance a lot on Saturday night, while I headed back to the hotel (but still managed to stay up until 2am chatting to our friend Chris). So we were both a little sleepy and lazy on Sunday. Luckily the weather had cheered up, so we spent our day in the vicinity of the alternate Universe that is Yoyogi Park, relaxing and people watching. (NB: Alternate both because it is full of strange people doing strange things, and also because it is so different to the skyscraper-ville that surrounds it!)

A rubbish photo of the Shibuya scramble crossing

Ridiculous dog outfit in a shop in Harajuku.

Entrance to Meiji Shrine Park

Relaxing in the spring sunshine (AKA making the most of Tokyo before the return to the frozen north)

The Tokyo Metropolitan Building

View from the top. Tokyo is big.

Hanami viewed from above.

Back to the Meiji Shrine Park.

Meiji Shrine

Barrels of sake (rice wine) outside the shrine

Ridiculous skipping outfits in Yoyogi Park.

It made a weird honking noise. Naturally.

Yoyogi Park at sunset.

Sampling traditional Japanese food...

It was a lovely long weekend in Tokyo. We'll be back soon! 

PS - WHAT'S WITH THE WEATHER CURRENTLY? Last night I was in desperate need of an Ark, and now I'm scared of getting blown to Kansas. A quick reminder, Japan, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE SPRING. 

Tokyo: My First Trip, Day 2

On our second day, we were planning to rent bikes and cycle around Tokyo, enjoying the sights and sounds. But, the weather had other plans. We had a couple of nice hours biking around Asakusa and Ueno, but then the wind and rain got too much for us and we returned our bikes and escaped to the shopping/nightlife districts of Shinjuku and Shibuya.

Park on the east side of the river near Asakusa.

See Rurousha, I told you you'd be impressed! I said hello from you. We enjoyed using your great blog post to learn about everything there :D Thank you! 

Everyone else, I won't just rewrite what I learnt about this shrine, it would feel like plagiarism or something anyway. Just follow the link above if you're interested.

Foxes on the roof

Kitsune (fox) shrine

We also visited Matsuchiyama, yet another thing I'd read about on Rurousha's blog. Who could resist visiting a temple dedicated to sex radishes? (The white things at the top are Daikon, a Japanese radish, and apparently in this pose they're having sex. Normal.)

We went to Kappabashi Street and looked at all the plastic food, from sushi to spaghetti to beer. We also looked at a lot of other awesome food related items (including the most incredible cookie cutters I've ever seen), but the prices of the things I wanted mean that I'll have to get saving!

We also went to Tokyu Hands, a 7 floor shop all dedicated to 'Creative Life'...craft items, cooking utensils, fabrics, DIY, stationary, and everything else awesome. A great place to waste a rainy afternoon. Although, for future information, it is not worth taking a boy with you. Even a tolerant one like mine. They will get bored. But they will also stop you buying too much. I escaped with just some pretty paper flowers and Pooh bear stamps (for my students benefit, obviously).

There's also a party/variety section. CREEPY.

Near Shinjuku Station at night. 

Interesting fact...on average, 3.5 MILLION people pass through Shinjuku station every day. That's the population of Los Angeles/double the population of Perth/half the population of Saigon (Ho Chi Min City) or Hong Kong/18 times the population of Norwich/257 times the population of Beccles and Worlingham. Delete as appropriate to make your head explode.

We met up with some friends and some friends of a friend for dinner and drinks. 

Tokyo: My First Trip, Day 1

An extra couple of days off meant that we had time to go to Tokyo for the weekend. We got an overnight bus down after work on Thursday night, and another one back on Sunday night. The bus was the cheapest way to get to Tokyo and back, but not the most comfortable!! Here are some photos of the first day we were there.

Our bus arriving before 7am meant it was the perfect time to go to Tsukiji Fish Market, and have sushi for breakfast.

John and I shared one bowl of mixed sushi, and this bowl of eel. It's currently my favourite sushi topping.

Fish eyes as big as my fist. Ewww.

Massive tuna.

Moat around the Emperor's Palace

We found an early flowering Cherry Tree :D

At a shrine in Ueno Park.

Lake in Ueno Park.

So cute!

Eating Green Tea Ice Cream at Senso-ji Temple.

Senso-ji Temple...once we were done eating ice-cream we actually managed to explore!

I found the statue of Rat Boy! Read all about him on Rurousha's fantastic blog.

Food Adventures: Supermarket Sushi

Some things make me love living in Japan. One of those things is shopping in the supermarket in the evening after work and buying lots of reduced food. Admittedly, you can do this in most countries, but in England it would mean soggy sausage rolls and squashed sandwiches. Here, it means sushi and sashimi.

Dinner for two...¥600 (£5). YUM.

PS - Today, I saw an actual real live flower. Growing outside. Spring might actually come to Sendai this year after all.

OK, so they're only buds. But we're getting closer!!

My week: A fortnight

I'm going to continue to title these posts 'My Week', even though I'm too lazy not enough exciting stuff happens for me to post every week. This really is a random collection! 

I had to make this scary and impossible craft, with 12 children, 1 roll of tape, no common language and about 15 minutes of the class to do it in. Fun times. 

A ridiculous amount of oyster shells aka My Dad's worst nightmare.

I had to go to Kesennuma to teach earlier this week. 4 hours each way with a hotel stay. But it was pretty and sunny....

...and I saw fish drying...

...and my hotel had a funny name. It was actually called the Pearl City Hotel, but an unfortunate Katakana issue means that the 'Ci' bit has to read 'Shi'. I'm 100% mature.

There is nothing like cute biscuits to cheer up a boring office day.

We started watching Series 1 a couple of weeks ago, and we've now almost finished series 3. It's awesome, addictive and annoying, in almost equal quantities.

We went skiing again. 

I made a big mess. I cut John's hair for him, as I was clearing up the cuttings, I knocked over a cup of rice that had been left on the fridge. And there was already a lot of other stuff on the floor because of moving it out of the way for said haircutting. Oh dear.

Proper tin openers cost ¥1000 (£10). So I improvised. Anyone who has ever read 'Three Men in a Boat' will understand why I was laughing hysterically as I did it. And anyone who hasn't read it, should.

Spring still isn't thinking about arriving in Sendai (we had more snow last night for goodness sake), so I brought spring to my nails instead...

...and to my table with a pot of flowers and a glass of summery smoothie in the afternoon sunshine.

And I made a Victoria Sandwich. In a rice cooker. And it works. Yum.

Food Adventures: Changing Menus

Over the last week or so, John and I have made a resolution to have bigger breakfasts and lunches and smaller dinners. Our work means that we usually don't get home until 10pm, so we eat really late, and so big filling dinners are going to make us fat, give us indigestion and stop us sleeping well. Perhaps we should have thought of this sooner, but old habits are hard to break!

So here are a few meals we've had recently...

An Arabic dish called Al Kabsa. This was SO GOOD. One of my favourite things we've made in ages. It was basically this recipe, with a few subsitutions/things missed out but nothing major. 

We served it with homemade pita breads, which I'm making pretty much daily at the moment! I can't get a pocket in them but I haven't given up trying, and they're delicious anyway. I think that this recipe is the easiest and tastiest I've found. It's easily adaptable to make naan breads (add a little yoghurt and raisins at the start, add a mixture of sugar and coconut into the middle near the end). I even made garlic bread tonight, by frying garlic in butter with a bit of basil and black pepper and stirring that into the mixture). Mmmm.

John cooked us a fish that either was kippers, or was very similar to them, for breakfast, with Miso Soup so we felt more Japanese! It was the first time I'd tried them and I wasn't a fan of eating the bones. Do you like the sneaky toast balancing so everything stays fairly hot?!

We treated ourself to lunch out the other day, and I had a かつ丼 (Fried meat, pork in this case, on rice with egg). Yummy. 

We've also had Drop Scones (with raisins in the mixture, served with sliced banana and yoghurt), Welsh Cakes (served with fruit smoothie) and Tamago Kake Gohan as breakfasts recently, and they're all delicious and filling, and fairly good for you if you serve them as I suggested! We're trying to trying out lots of different ideas with our breakfasts, so I'd love any suggestions!

Our lighter dinner have included pumpkin soup (fry onion with LOTS of ginger and a chilli or two, add pumpkin (or butternut squash) and enough stock to cover. Bring to boil, simmer until soft. Blend, add coconut milk/normal milk. Eat. Delicious and easy) , miso soup with soba noodles and fishcakes.

We're getting the hang of what we can cook here!

Music and Mums

I'm the last person to try and get new music ideas off...I'm too lazy to find new music and just wait till it finds me. Plus, as I've mentioned before, I most often listen to audiobooks or Musical soundtracks anyway.

But I've been listening to Owl City a lot recently, and I wanted to share this cute video I found to my favourite song. Owl City were a bit of a one hit wonder, their song Fireflies reached the top of the charts a couple of years ago but none of the rest of their music has done much. But I still love them and I hope you all enjoy this song. I just downloaded their 'All things bright and beautiful' album, which is just as good as Ocean Eyes (their older and more famous album). I can recommend it if you want a cheery album to bring in spring!

Also, today is Mother's Day in the UK, so HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my lovely Mummy! And what a good excuse to share some old photos...

Us at a Brownie Guide weekend

My family at my brother's graduation

Building dens with Brownies

Us in sewn form

On top of the World...well, of Britain anyway!

My brother loves his family...