Rejoice! It's garbage day!

I don't have any place in my apartment to store more than one binful of garbage, so I'm glad garbage day comes twice a week. In the morning I take my bin bag to a small concrete platform in my area and stack it up with all the other bags there, which are picked up together later on. The sound of classical music signals the garbage truck's approach. These beautiful melodies drown out the noise of the truck itself, and some trucks are also painted with murals. I think it's a great idea to try making them more aesthetically pleasing!

Happy Birthday Chihiro

Our birthdays are only 4 days apart so we've both been really spoilt in the last week or so. Chihiro's dad's birthday was also this week, so on Sunday we had a big feast at their place. On Tuesday I made a cake for Chihiro that turned out a little different to what I had planned but the taste wasn't too bad anyway! I gave her a useful book called "F*cking Eigo", (Eigo means English). It teaches all about swearing and slang in English, demonstrating it with funny cartoons. We went and saw "Kingdom of Heaven" which was pretty spectacular on the big screen. The plot was pretty contrived but I wasn't expecting much from such a hollywood movie. I really enjoyed the setting though, because I used to do medieval re-enactment of that time period and location. For dinner we went to a classy Italian restaurant - the type where your seat is pushed in for you as you sit down, and the entire cutlery drawer is laid out on the table in front of you. (Obviously I don't go to places like these very often or I wouldn't be writing about it!) The variety, presentation and taste of the food was incredible. Everything insisted on leaping down my throat, leaving me utterly satisfied. 10/10 Hehe, perhaps I should write for a food magazine!

Kendo!

I'm going to kendo lessons twice a week now and loving it! The gym I do kendo training at is at the end of the road in the photo on the right. I've invested in a shinai (bamboo sword), which the friendly shopkeeper gave me at a discount (perhaps because I'm a foreigner!) One day I was riding to Kendo with with my shinai slung over my back when I passed a group of schoolgirls who were staring at me and said loudly in Japanese: "Coooool!" I was a little embarrassed because that would never happen in Australia!

As well as the physical training, the lessons give my brain a real workout too, because of course they're entirely in Japanese and I can only understand a very small amount what my Sensei is saying. So I just copy what my fellow students do and it works out ok most of the time, though sometimes I end up doing something really stupid! It's good fun though, and it helps my Japanese too.

Happy birthday to me

Chihiro made me a fantastic birthday cake with nuts, lemon topping, and chocolate decorations. Delicious! She also gave me a few surprises - a delivery man arrived in the morning with a soft-toy cartoon character containing a hidden message inside, and she had also hidden my birthday present in my apartment a few days before (quite a feat given how small my place is, and how big the present was)! We had dinner at a really nice Japanese restaurant which had a great atmosphere and great food - takenoko tenpura (bamboo shoots fried in tempura)and ebi cheese harumaki with mochi (shrimp spring roll with cheese and rice paste inside) were my favourite. For some reason I automatically tend to do the 'peace' sign when my photo is taken nowdays...

Driving around the coast

We had another day out during Golden Week, this time a drive to Numazu, a city by the coast. We passed Fuji city on the way, and although the view of Mt Fuji is incredible, Fuji city has a LOT of factories which create horrible smell around the city. The beach at Numazu is not as nice as Australian beaches (I shouldn't compare!) but it was a beautiful day, and we had a great lunch on the beach watching the kite-surfer showing off!

Just behind the beach was a park of pine trees, which are common on the coast of Japan. In one isolated corner of the park we found a pine-cone circle with intricate patterns drawn in the sand around it... innocent child's play, or an attempt to summon a pine demon?!

Later that afternoon we went to an entertainment centre for "purikura" and coffee, but I was amazed at how packed the car park was on such a beautiful day. Inside this massive building (the photo shows less than half of it) there are entire floors full of pachinko gambling machines. It's the Japanese equivalent of Australian "pokies", which are just as bad. We didn't stay for long, as we were going to dinner at an Izakaya recently opened by a friend of Kaori's (the friend we were driving around with).

The Izakaya was at a place near the coast and it had an atmosphere a lot like the Gold Coast. Most of the people were wearing casual surf clothes, and were very friendly (and a little drunk!) The food was delicious, and the owner was very generous, giving us a huge discount! We gave him a cake to thank him, but then he then gave us a bag of frozen jellies in return!

Hiking

Golden Week in Japan has 4 national holidays in it, and like everyone else I wanted to make the most of them. Rather than go somewhere crowded with holiday-makers though, I went for a hike with Chihiro and a friend of hers in the mountains near where I live. On the way I saw workers picking tea leaves by hand (May is the start of the tea season). I thought it would all be done by machine, but I found out that hand-picked tea can be sold for a much higher price. I should try some and see what the difference is!

The forest was beautiful, and nice and cool inside even though the sun was shining brightly. It was the first time in Japan that I'd really gone somewhere completely natural, and it was really relaxing. The forest was very different to the eucalyptus or rain forests of Australia too. We saw some people gathering native herbs in the forest, but unfortunately we couldn't find any. On the way up there were 33 little stone shrines, and at the top a bigger one. Some had offerings of sake wine and money, and I could really feel a difference in culture to Australia, because I'm sure the money wouldn't last long there!

The view at the top was incredible... we could see all the way to the coast, and I was amazed at the extent of the city. (And this is just a tiny city compared to Tokyo!) After a delicious picnic lunch (and a short nap!) we made our way back down the mountain to the temple we started from.

Kunozan Toshogu

Tokugawa Ieyasu was the greatest Shogun in Japanese history, and amazingly enough his tomb and final resting place is right nearby the city where I'm living! It's near the coast on a hill that you can get to by climbing 1159 large stone steps, or by taking a scenic skyrail. Guess which way we went! The view was amazing, even though the sky was quite hazy. Along the coastline there are a lot of artificial bulwarks to protect towns from typhoons, and all the large white buildings are greenhouses for growing strawberries. They might not look so beautiful, but anyway the strawberries are delicious! Amongst a grove of bamboo we spied these "takenoko" shoots growing. Unfortunately, we didn't see any duelling samurai. The temple built in front of the tomb was very impressive. It was very well maintained, and even though the structures themselves are the originals from 1617, they have been completely restored and redecorated lavishly. The architecture is a combination of Shinto and Buddhist styles, though most Buddhist parts have been removed for political reasons after the end of the Shogunate period. After seeing this picture of me, I'm seriously thinking about spending a lot of time at the beach. The detail on the art all around the temple was incredible, but even more impressive was the actual tomb of Ieyasu itself. I don't think the little boy playing on the steps quite understood the significance though!