New Mobile

Here's a pic of my swish new Japanese mobile phone! It can send emails, play mp3s, take and send photos, and even video (though I'm not sure how to do it yet!) It has a smaller LCD screen on the other side so you can check it without opening it, and even has an SD memory card slot for storing hundreds of mp3s or thousands of photos on! The best part about it though was that it only cost $12 with a 1-year contract. Luckily it has an English language mode, though I still use japanese characters quite often in my mails. If I know the japanese words I want to use, it's faster to write them than english text!

Sunday ride

I'm slowly catching my diary up with things! A few weeks ago we went for a bike ride to a park near where Chihiro lived when she was little. It was nice to spend the day relaxing in such beautiful surroundings! I bought a loaf of rice-flour bread from a little bakery nearby and then we had coffee at the San Marc restaurant which has it's own bakery downstairs. The good smell as you walk past it is unbelievable! On the way back it was getting dark and cold, but the sky turned an amazing colour to cheer us up!

Apartment Warming

A few weeks ago I had a little house-warming dinner for my apartment. Japanese don't usually have housewarmings, but it was a good enough excuse to eat lots of nice food and have a few drinks! We had great fun making the lasagne with layered chicken and bolognaise sauce, and breadcrusts in between. Unbelievably delicious! My harem from left to right is: Chie, Kaori, Chihiro, Tomoko(Hitler), and Hiromi.

The Golden Turd

I saw this strangely shaped object atop one of Tokyo's buildings back in early January when I was visiting the Asakusa Temple. It was built for Asahi Breweries who also own the gold building on the left, which is meant to look like a glass of beer with a white head of foam. The sculpture is actually called "Flame D'Or", and symbolises the vigor and spirit of Asahi employees. I found out it was designed by Philippe Starck, who also designed this funky juicer. If I was working at Asahi, I think I'd prefer to have the juicer on my building.

Karaoke!

A couple of weeks back I experienced a this very Japanese form of entertainment. For Chihiro's youngest sister's birthday, her family took us to a very nice karaoke restaurant. Actually, it was kind of a cross between a bar, a hotel, and a restaurant. The lobby looked like a very expensive hotel, and after checking in we went to a private room with seating for about 6, a phone to order food and drinks, a state-of-the-art karaoke jukebox, and VERY good soundproofing. We had two hours there, and everybody got a chance to sing a few different songs ranging from classic Japanese songs to the latest superstar pop. Everyone except me had surprisingly good voices (maybe not so surprising since karaoke is quite common here). There was a massive range of songs to choose from (including western songs) and they even had a handheld touch-screen to search for songs on. It was difficult to decide on a good song to with which to display the full range of vocal incapabilities, but eventually I chose to impress everyone with a hearty rendition of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. I had a great time, and although several members of the audience burst out laughing, at least I was entertaining!

Supermarkets

Yes, it's another food article, but I've been shopping at Japanese supermarkets for a while now and I'm still finding the experience interesting. The variety of seafood is amazing, and I've been finding all sorts of surprises inside opaque packages labelled only in cryptic Kanji characters. The picture above shows a few things I picked up in town (yes I managed to find a place that imported vegemite). The packet on the left is labelled "wasabeef", which means that it's wasabi and beef flavoured. You might be forgiven for thinking packet on the right is calamari and bee flavoured. It's actually consome flavoured, once you read the Japanese. I'm not sure what's in the can above, although Chihiro did tell me when I got it. It's good to have her come shopping with me so I know which bottle is actually sesame oil, and which is soy sauce! One good thing about the language barrier is that there's no way to read any nutritional information, so I don't have to worry anything containing too much sugar or hydrogenated vegetable oil. It's amazing how ignorance can sometimes set you free.