Jack's DJ debut

Ocean Deep, Chiba city, Friday night, 10:30pm, Jack was back...
His set seemed to go down well. Dangerously for Jack, he was given free drinks and so necked a good few pints of gin and tonic (Tanqueray no less, not that it makes it any better for how rough you will undoubtedly feel the next day). Needless to say, Jack was a tad mullered...

Jack and his new camera (an Akihabara special). At this point, Jack really was in full flow

This picture is aptly blurry in my opinion, as this was probably how Jack was seeing by this time. It took us quite a while to leave the bar after his set, as Jack struck up conversations with various randoms on the way out, including a friendly young guy on a fixed-wheel bike
Shortly after this picture, Jack decided he wanted to ride the mama-charry home. He managed to roll it into a lamp post (no damage to him or the bike thankfully) shortly after stopping to rip the charms off his phone and throw them down an alleyway. I have no idea why, and Jack had no idea why he did it when I asked him the next day!
It was a good evening, though the 7am start and full schedule of teaching the next day was a little painful. With regards to Jack's journey to work on Saturday morning, he merely stated
"It's difficult to cycle and barf."

Jack's walk to work

Can't really complain when this is your route to the station in the morning...

Dolphin show

The dolphin show was pretty cool, if not slightly surreal. I hadn't really invisaged it to be in the middle of a built up area in Tokyo!

Tricks included various jumps and spins etc. Also, the trainers 'surfed' the dolphins i.e. stood on top of them whilst they swam round the tank.

There was also a sea lion show - not as good as the dolphins to be honest (the trainers seemed a little more wary of the creatures, especially when they didn't perform on first or second bribing with fish)

Cooking lesson - early summer flavours/'mother's cooking'

On the menu;

aspara no kimizu ae (asparagus dressed with egg yolk vinegar)
niku-jyaga (braised meat and potatoes)
saba no misoni (simmered mackerel with miso)
broad bean and ginger rice

Asparagus dressed with egg yolk vinegar: quite a vinegary flavour to this dish, but nice and light

Broad bean rice - delicious! I need to purchase a rice-coooker, everyone here has them and they make rice perfectly. There is something incredibly comforting and moreish about warm rice

Braised meat and potatoes: not really my kind of thing to be honest, but something that I'm sure Jack would like, especially as it is incredibly simple to make!

Simmered mackerel with miso: this was full of flavour (not good for people who don't like fish or miso, but I do so it was great). The fish was cooked in a sauce of sweet sake (mirin), sake, soy sauce, miso and ginger - a very Japanese dish!

Dessert: kashiwa mochi - a spring mochi (mochi is pounded sweet rice that is gooey and chewy) filled with miso an (puree of sweetened white beans with white miso). Believe it or not, I thought it tasted like caramel, it was good. The oak leaf if decorative - glad I checked before we started eating!

Kanda Matsuri

On Sunday 10th May, we headed to Akihabara to meet up with Mari and Ryota and go to the Kanda Matsuri (Matsuri=festival, Kanda=an area of Tokyo). People from surrounding neighbourhoods dress up in traditional yukata-style tops and help carry a 'mikoshi' (portable shrine), to the temple to be blessed and bring good luck to the community for the year. Each neighbourhood has their own clothing, Jack was particularly fond of this bunch...

Apprently it's traditional for the guys to have their legs and cheeks out like this!







There were lots of food stalls including this guy making edible models out of sugar...



The shrines are not light (as you'll see in the video), it's quite a wrestle to carry them along, and it got quite fraught at times!


Yes, you could buy a cucumber on a stick. Seeing as it was about 30 degrees that day, it seemed like not a bad idea ( the toppings on it are miso paste and mayonnaise)




There were stalls where you could play games and win prizes. Not really sure what was happening here but it looked cool

You could catch real fish and take them home in a bag, old skool...
Gay bananas...

Gay banana...

Ryota getting stuck in to some octopus

It was our first time for seeing Taiko drumming and it was incredible. If you ever get the chance, definitely go

Back to the island...

The prospect of beer chilled to below freezing at the airport was a bit too much to resist...

Our trusty steed for the journey

and a slightly more glamorous ANA pokemon plane

this is a local noodle delicacy called 'champon' it was pretty colourful and delicious

our hostess with the mostess - Erika 'the snack bar' Sanaka

sampling the local flow

plastic dart boards are pretty shit

but Japanese bowling shoes are pretty awesome

I managed to mash my hand up - the photo does not do justice to how much slamming a ball into the floor with hand attached hurts...

still, I managed to bash up A-Lund on the arm wrestling

another local specialty to Shimabara - peanut noodles, interesting.

The views from our room at the Kowakien ryokan in Shimabara - possibly the best hotel I have ever stayed in.

Just off for an onsen to chase some Japanese dudes out of the water. Literally every time we went to the onsen all the Japanese dudes would get out as soon as we entered, racism/xenophobia can be a wonderful thing sometimes.

on the second day we went dolphin 'watching' though it was more like a cross between wacky races and being a papparazzi as every time the dolphins popped up all the boats, which were mainly retired fishing boats would blaze over to the dolphins and scare them off.

the paps in action, I felt like a 3am girl

Alex

Alex fouond a dead fugu fish on this beach which was also peppered with jelly fish.

at Shimabara castle - which has an interesting history related to a Christian uprizing in the 17th century - there were some awesome costumes we could try on. May managed o put the slacks on back to front, but maintained her dignity despite this.

I just looked deadly

the best meal I have had in Japan, bar none! Erika's parents took us out for dinner one night and took us to their favourite restaurant, where they catch fish from the bay in the morning and keep them in a tank. We chose a flat fish that looked a bit like a sole, and some fugu - for those not in the know fugu is a potentially deadly puffer fish, and the chef has to undergo loads of training to learn how to safely remove the poison.

it was pretty and delicious

these were in a sweet bar Erika goes to regularly, the owner has a day job and this place is his hobby. His whole record collection was around the place and he had really interesting and broad tastes, well worth the visit.

A samurai house, with a cool spring water canal outside.

carp street - pretty incredible when you think how much they are worth.

going up mount Unzen - the local active volcano

Japanese people have umbrellas for all kinds of weather

Erika prefers a shroud

the rope way

another interesting meal. Erika said it was beef based but that she wasn't too partial to the meat, and she did explain that it was guts, it took a while for me to realize that it meant offal.

the noodles were nice though

this is something I had been keeping my eyes open for since we arrived - a sexy vending machine. It was an Alladins cave of perversion. You could get everything from porn to worn clothing, including undies, bras and oddly enough a swimming costume. Fantastic.

a Sasebo burger - susprisingly delicious and guil free

we went on a cruise called the 99 islands in Sasebo. Little did we know that it would involve going out on an 'aqua patio'

the Goonies ship as also out in the bay

Nagasaki: European, pretty, wet.

thats right, a cat bus, a man sized cat bus, what of it?

China town

'Sala udon' a dried version of the Champon in a noodle bar with its very own Yakuza, authentic as you like!

the peace park after a trip to the bomb museum, which was informative and moving.

stings covered in paper cranes

a really great sushi bar in the red light district of Nagasaki, which I found more intimidating than Kabukicho or Amsterdam due to the high volume of hostesses and prostitutes on the street.