Yokohama and ice world

Wow, I really haven't written in a long time! With only one week to go I am resuming blogging.

I'll start from where I left off.

After Shizuoka we went to Yokohama, a really nice place just outside of Tokyo.
We actually went to Yokohama twice, the second time was when we experienced our first earthquake! Well, Jamie could've slept straight through it if I wasn't shouting his name out of fear (I was petrified it would be the big Tokyo earthquake that's been overdue for 15 years). Well if I knew it wasn't 'the big one' I would've sat back and enjoyed it instead of lay rigid in my bed for the next hour and a half, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, wondering if I should get dressed just in case the big one does come and I don't want to be scrambling around trying to escape a crumbling building in just my pants. Not a dignified image.
Luckily this earthquake did not occur on the one night we stayed in the tallest building in Japan; the landmark tower (one of those buildings where your ears pop when you go up), if it did I probably would've been too frightened to even breathe.

We were in the top third of the building

view from the room (forgot to take a night one, oops)

There was a random amusement park in Yokohama scattered along the river. We went on a really fast rollercoaster and 'ice world'. Now we had NO idea what ice world was about, it was one of the most expensive attractions so coupled with that and my love of all things wintry and Christmassy we went in. Nothing prepared us for the wonders inside. It was basically a freezing cold room (apparantly minus 30?!) with cotton pastered on the walls, a polar bear, a tiny ice sculpture in the shape of a penguin behind a bar, and some fake christmas trees. It was simply amazing.

I think they spent all their money on the exterior. The building also looked deceivingly large.

sorry I couldn't rotate it

ice bar

us freezing our bottoms off (it was SO BLOODY COLD)

On our second visit we went to a big aquarium and we found this in the centre of it...

yes, year 2009 is dolphin Christmas.

Tokyo next...

Okinawa and Shizuoka

Sorry I haven't written in a while (I think it's been a week!).

I'll start where I left off. Here are some pictures of the beautiful 'beach' opposite our room in Okinawa.

Jamie enjoying the concrete blocks

I almost faint from the beauty of it all

a very big American (there were lots)

We did have a good time cycling around though. We went to 'America town' which was fun! (Like China town) It was really quite weird though and not really the kind of sightseeing we were planning on doing in Japan! We found some good Engrish though...

'sudden death' sauce. Number one cause of SADS.

There was also a 'shocking lady' toy which I took a video of (look on facebook).
Oh, and here is a typical American town...


So finally we left for Shizuoka on all hallows eve, (It couldn't have come sooner) and what do I see in the airport but the most awesome plane ever!! A Pokemon plane!! I was crossing my fingers that it would be our plane but I was not lucky this time.


Arriving in Shizuoka was like flying to Japan all over again with all the excitement! The area around the airport was beautiful and it was so quiet. It had become apparant very quickly that western tourists don't really visit Shizuoka very much, we got a lot of stares. Especially from little children. Some people also got quite excited and shouted 'Hello!' at us.
So our first dinner in Shizuoka was fun! We had our own barbeque thing and we tried cow tongue for the first time which is actually really tasty!

moo

Unfortunately we didn't get up to much in Shizuoka; it was raining quite hard most of the time, and we also took a disasterous trip to a park with a shrine in it (disasterous because the park was packed full of people there for a stunt festival which we were too hot, exhausted and hungry to see). We wanted to go to a boar theme park where they had boar shows and races and then a restaurant where you could sample boar!!! I don't think the Japanese have an issue with this kind of thing, I gathered this when one of my students back home said (about her trip to Wales) seeing all the sheep made her hungry!
Since we didn't do much, the last bunch of pictures will be food related. I should explain that because 99% of the population of Japan are Japanese people their attempts at western food are AWFUL, yet amusing. They also seem to have some kind of obsession with mayonaise. ERROR.

appetising plastic crepe display at the crepe stand. Note the crepes with slices of cheesecake in them. See next picture for real life version!!

crazy crazy pancake with a big chunk of banana, a slice of cheesecake, squirty cream and a pancake only cooked on one side. Regardless to say, the chef was not French.

It seems the only apples that exist in Japan are gigantic ones

The curry flavoured doughnuts :s

The local mini-mart. Apparantly dress shirts and ties are as essential as milk and bread!

upmarket packet soup called Gentry. Read the writing on them, it's hilarious. The one on the left is actually potato, and the one on the right is mushroom.

The famous and tasty 'beard papa' pastry with custard and chestnut filling. There's one in central London for people who would like to try.

'Creap' creamy powder!

We're in Yokohama now which I will write about tomorrow.
I'm now going to upload a crazy supermarket man video and a collection of videos from Shizuoka.
Now I'm going to sleep while Jamie goes out to a 'British pub' (the first we've heard of, and just around the corner). I'm too tired to join him but be assured I will join him tomorrow and take pictures for you. Goodnight!

Quick Okinawa update

We travelled for most of the day yesterday from Sapporo to Nagoya to Okinawa. Now if anyone ever looks at my status updates on facebook you'll know we're not really impressed with the area we're in. Well the bus ride from the airport took two hours for one thing, and then we realised when we arrived in the area of our hotel (appartment room actually) that the place we're in is full of American army bases. We had no idea :( It took us 5 minutes to understand what the taxi driver was saying (NO BASE! NO BASE! AMERICAJIN? NO BASE!) and then a bit longer for him to understand we were English tourists.
So here we are in the most awfully decorated room complete with plastic flowers and yellow net curtains. Also the bathroom seems to be in a conservatory (at first we thought it was on the balcony) and there is no shower curtain and no hot water. I had to crouch in the bath to have my cold shower this morning. We are right next to the sea, but there isn't any sand, just these big jumping jack type concrete blocks.

So, we've booked a hotel near the airport! It will definately not be as loud as it is here since here they keep training in the planes overhead and the planes they're using are REALLY loud!! They do this it seems from around 11am to 9pm. The only stretch of good beach is cordoned off with metal fencing as it is just in front of where the army planes land.
The new hotel is very close to the main city, so we're hoping things will look up.

botanical gardens and tv tower

This is going to be a short post as I am exhausted and want to sleep. It's also our last day tomorrow so want to get up early!

Today we went to some botanical gardens which were gorgeous. Our first experience of proper Japanese autumn. While Jamie was eating there was a very friendly and hungry crow staring at him the whole time, Japanese crows are very pretty and big.
We also went to the top of a tower in Odori park (central Sapporo) at sunset which was breathtaking. We then ended up in the local bar where we introduced peep show to the australian chef (which he downloaded straight away and watched while he cooked our food!), he absolutely loved it!! Then he started introducing it to a couple people as 'this new English comedy'. He makes great English food including a very good venison and blueberry pie. We were lucky as it was just made them from scratch (which I saw his assistant chef make as most of the kitchens are open to the venues so you can see everything they're doing) and the ingredients were sourced locally. YUM! Tomorrow is ladies day which is a day that foreigners Japanese wives go and have discount drinks and 'bitch about their husbands', I think I'll go and join them!

Ok, I'll just put up some pictures and let that be all. See my facebook profile for an edited video with a few clips from the day since this site is not letting me!
Goodnight from Sapporo!!

the friendly crow

the tower we went up, looks a lot like the eiffel tower

very strange christmas bauble with an old lady in it!!

Our first ballgame

Hello dear readers. I am currently exhausted from the night and day that I have had. Suffice to say people now recognise me when I walk down the street or into the local gaijin bar, which I think it pretty good for our 4th day here :S

Well last night couldn't sleep so thought I would join Jamie in the foreigner bar down the road. Now I don't know if I have mentioned this before but the Japanese like to get completely pissed on a regular basis. And when they do, they REALLY do, like slurring of speech, loss of the use of their limbs, etc.
So in the bar we met a completely rat arsed Japanese guy who could hardly talk. Here are a few pictures of us, and one with Jamie and this liver medicine that the guy gave us. He was insisting there was no LSD in it for some reason, but apparantly it is essential for drinking and he seemed to have no hangover today! So much so that he drank three more beers.





The chef was also incredibly drunk!! You can see the kitchen from the bar and it was hilarious watching him try and put a plate of food together when he could hardly see straight!!! (he kept the bar open till 5 which was nice!)

Well the Japanese guy told us he was going to a baseball game the next day and that we should go (even though it was sold out). And naturally we agreed! So that is what we spent the whole of today doing, watching a baseball game. And oh boy, it was crazy indeed.

Now baseball in Japan is very popular and they have a huge stadium in Sapporo for it, their team is called Nippon Ham Fighters (why ham?!)


Oh, and this is the kind of food they have at a baseball game in Japan, (as well as some funky looking hot dogs) called a bento box (which I'm sure most of you are familiar with). There were loads of different varieties to chose from!



So, to the game. The crazy thing was that everyone was constantly shouting chants and cheering and smacking their sticks together in unison. Every player has a different chant such as...

Go, go

Let's go

Kaneko,

which they shout over and over again. I don't know how they remember all of them!! To illustrate this better, refer to the videos on my facebook wall. So I will leave you with a few pictures.

SHOPPING!!! And lots of Engrish!

Now be prepared for mostly images in this post because oh yes, as expected, there are many weird, wonderful and just plain mad things for you to see!!
I'm just going to dive right in with the pictures...

Racist pants

Pure Engrish

Hip cushion: apparantly it's 'stimulating'

This seems to be some kind of lude wash cloth for men, the drawings are hilarious, I'll put a couple close ups in underneath for you!!!

This believe it or not is lube. Very well disguised lube if I do say so myself. There were a lot more products that were adult in nature but my dad reads this blog so you will have to request those pictures privately!

There would've been a lot more pictures (like the jumper with a story of someone coming off crack on it) but the words were too small to work out in a photo. So you will have to settle for a picture of some mad mall mascots. It would've been me with the mascots but Jamie got so sick of shopping (it only took like 40 minutes!) so I was by myself and therefore too shy to ask for a picture with them :(

Now here are pictures of my wonderful purchases. Men, no need to look away as there is some good Engrish on them.


My favourite and most expensive top (favourite not only because it has the word gluttony on it, but also because it has a squirrel)
In case you can't read it this is what the speech bubble says...
"This taste has got me! It's warms the cockles of my heart"

This shirt come in two parts, this is the back which oddly enough should be read first.



Erm... I don't think anyones favourite word is interview!!!


Now I don't understand why they would equate Obama with chanel, but that's that's the Japanese for you! You're always wondering (erm... why?!)


front



the back is the best

Now I will leave you with a picture of a menu. Oh but not just any menu, see if you can spot two Engrish'isms