Holiday in Japan - Shizuoka

Back in September I went on holiday in Japan. I was only there for 16 days, but I saw and did so much that it felt like longer. Chihiro met me at Narita airport, and it was wonderful to see her again. We caught the shinkansen (bullet-train) straight to her hometown of Shizuoka, and were picked up at the station by her parents (Toshiro and Michiyo). I had been a bit apprehensive about what it would be like to meet them, but it turned out they were very friendly and welcoming.

There was a bit of a language barrier because I'd only been studying Japanese for a few months, and Chihiro's family doesn't know a lot of English. Chihiro had to translate quite a bit, and did a great job. She could definitely make a career out of it! It was a lot of fun trying out my Japanese though, and I think they appreciated my effort, even though I know I mispronounced a few words and used a few quaint phrases. Saying things like "It's nice electricity isn't it?" instead of "Nice weather eh?" certainly produced a few laughs.

This is part of the amazing welcome dinner Michiyo prepared. The mains were roll-your-own sushi, with heaps of different ingredients to choose from. It was a lot of fun trying out all the different food, especially natto (fermented soybeans). It's very healthy, and while it doesn't taste too bad, the pungent smell is a bit off-putting at first.

I spent about half my holidays staying with Chihiro's family in Shizuoka City, which is quite a nice city. It's a bit smaller than Brisbane, but it's also more densely populated. There are some interesting areas to visit in the city, like the central park, Sunpu castle, Sengen shrine, the universities, and all sorts of great restaurants and shops. I also think it has quite bit of greenery for a Japanese city. Bicycles were everywhere. Train stations and shopping centres had hundreds and hundreds of them parked outside, and all roads have bike paths along the side. Chihiro and I used bicycles a lot to get into the city. Nobody seemed to wear helmets (unlike in Australia where it's the law), but the roads and careful drivers made it feel a lot safer.

The food in Japan is just awesome! Seafood is extremely common and much cheaper than in Australia, and there's so many different things to try. My favourite was fried sakura ebi (cherry blossom shrimp). They are very small red shrimp that are one of the main produce of Shizuoka, and when fried they become a taste sensation that starts out crisp, and then melts in your mouth! Some of the other foods I found interesting were wasabi-flavoured ice-cream, nikuman (steamed bun with meat), onigiri (rice ball), omanjyuu (steamed bean cream cake), takoyaki(octopus ball), and curry-filled doughnuts. You can also get almost anything in green tea flavour, including sweets, ice-cream, biscuits and chocolate. Chilled green tea was also available everywhere from vending machines. Beer could also be found in vending machines and 24 hour convenience stores. Now that's civilised! Kirin Ichiban was my favourite brew.