Chronic Barodka - adventures in Messe

Japan is wonderful place if you are willing to fully get in the swing. For me this has involved experimenting with the range of energy drinks on the market. Yesterdays experiment was with one that I would describe as being as close to rocket fuel as I have ever encountered. Compared to RedBull 'Real Gold' is rocket fuel. Also it has a rather enticing colour as you can see.

A Cheeky nose and a flavour akin to the sweat of a scared child.
As any energy drink mixologist knows the true test is mixing the energy drink with alcohol. Yesterdays offering was Sky Vodka - they make everything in America now.

As is was set to be a long night I thought I should crank it up a notch and mix in some good old British know how - Berocca. From now on the 20th of December will be known as Berodkas birthday.

The bubbles made for an interesting change of pace.

Blin - the hottest craze to hit Japan

Birtles and Kaori

Matching outfits are apparently quite the thing over here...

Hawtin was incredible

The food on offer was a curious choice of 'special meat miso and rice' which i thought sounded a bit too mysterious..... at first. So I had a crack at a 'moffle' which held a delicious white chocolate surprise in the middle. The only problem was that it seemed to be made of polystyrene which was a bit of an issue.
The miso turned out to be quite nice but also looked a bit iffy kind of greyish and watery but after the berodka it tasted rather nice. In saying that though paint thinners might have tasted nice after berodka.

Phone charms are big business in japan - mainly for teenage girls, I refuse to be outdone by that demographic in any way shape or form so I have been pimping my phone with everything to do with Mario that I can get my grubby little mitts on.

The aftermath of a night on the berodka, May was as always effortlessly hot, while I managed a curious whiff of someone who lives
in solitary confinement...

1 Elvis, 2 Elvii?

M: What's the plural for 'Elvis'? We think 'Elvii', so here are some Japanese Elvii and their rockabilly girls hanging out in Yoyogi Park on a Sunday...

There was one girl that definitely looked the part but was a bit rubbish, can you guess which one I'm talking about?

This dudes hair was bad ass, it was like the little blue fella in the mighty boosh, 'it's all me'

Pounding rice, dried squid and hungry carp

M: Today we had a lovely day. We started off early and went to a community festival in downtown Tokyo. Apparently it's quite popular in Tokyo to have a festival in your local community - but we busted in on this one as it was held by a friend of a friend of a friend. Everything there was free! We had free noodles, soup, sausages, sweets (puddings but they call them sweets here) and much to Jack's delight, free beer!

As soon as we arrived, Jack was roped in to pound some rice to make these gooey sweet-rice puddings in 'tradional Japanese style'

The noodle women...

They were doing a raffle but it seemed pretty much like a free-for-all...
Jack tackling the dried squid, it was quite tough and chewy...

Jack with some other goodies - they were pretty much giant Wotsits...

After the festival, we went along to an Edo museum where they had recreated a section of a town that you could wander round...

Jack and Ryota in an Edo-era hotel...

Jack and Ryota enjoying a katatsu (a table with a heater and blanket)...

There was this weird mechanical cat on top of one of the roofs...

A mock toilet, basically a hole in the ground...

A child-size woven sandle...
After the museum we went to a Japanese garden and had tea and cake in the tea room...

We also fed the fish - check out the gobs on these carp!

This is why Jack and I have colds...

M: After two days of training (which would have been holiday otherwise), Jack and I went for a few drinks in the evening...what should have been a couple of bevs in Chiba, which is a 20 min walk from our flat, turned into a trek into Tokyo to Shibuyu and drinking through the night as there are no night buses or trains, you have to get the first one home on Sunday morning!

We were knocking back these badboys on the train...

And this is the result...

Needless to say that when we got back home on Sunday morning, we were both hanging! Sunday involved Jack only moving from his chair to go and have a bath and watching a dvd through the door. I managed to make it to the shop to get some food supplies and rustle up steak, potatoes and peas with ketchup to comfort the boy. Delicate is probably the best way to describe us that day! Happy times :)

Autumn scenes...

The local park on Thursday

Cooking part deux...

M: On Thursday, I had my second cooking lesson with Tomoko. I had requested making sushi as I wanted to know how to do it properly and here are the results...

The spread

This was my absolute favourite! Tuna with avocado, delicious. We mixed in some umezu (plum vinegar) with the avocado to give it a bit of tang - Japanese cooking tends to use this instead of lemon juice

This doesn't look so great but was lovely - aubergines and ginger cooked in home-made dashi (Japanese stock made from seaweed and dried fish)

Ebi (prawn) spring rolls and fried cobnuts. So tasty!

Anago (conger eel) and cucumber sushi. Surprisingly good - especially with wasabe and dipped in soy sauce

Tomoko bought some traditional Japanese autumn sweets for us to have afterwards. They are made from soy beans (like most things here) and sugar. They looked like plasticine and had a similar texture but were strangely delightful - not too sweet and perfectly complimented by a bowl of matcha (powdered green tea). Tomoko practices tea ceremony and prepared the matcha in the traditional way, it was quite special