BBQ...Japanese style

In Japan, BBQing is not the easy, spontaneous activity that it is in England, especially if you don't have a garden. They have special alloted areas near parks and the seaside, and you have to reserve and rent a pitch.
Now I'm guessing they were still on winter opening times as we had to get to the place at 10am to get everything going and then had to be finished and cleaned up by 2pm.



Even though it was an incredibly windy Sunday morning, and the sky was an ominous grey, we soldiered on and had ourselves a BBQ. It was a female affair with Eri, Noriko and Maki doing the cooking and cleaning whilst the boys did the majority of the eating

Tammy came and showed her expertise by breathing life back into one of the dwindling BBQs

The park nearby hosts a flower museum and this rather fetching character

There's an area with an array of weird and wonderful bikes that you can ride...sadly it closed at 3pm so couldn't go on them

Instead we hit the yacht club cafe/bar/restaurant place, 'Cafe Gosh'. It served surprisingly good coffee, cakes and smoothies, mmm!

Mari

Ryota (and Ben)

Mari and Ryota gave me this awesome camera. Its made of cardboard and to operate it you pull up the tab for around 3 seconds (depending on the light). I'm really looking forward to seeing how the first roll turns out!

Post Cafe Gosh, the boys couldn't resist this climbing frame


This picture had surely got to be used for their debut single...Boys Will Be Boys

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