Misc Japan photos, 27 April 2012

 

This dog is SO EMBARRASSED about taking a big shit in the street. Luckily you are cleaning it up for him. Good work, Responsible Dog Owner!

We went to a ninja museum. I'm not sure how one should enjoy something in the style of a ninja but I assume it involves rolling everywhere (we did not do this).

This is one of the seven main disguises that ninjas used.

Two of the other disguises. WATCH OUT THAT CANE PROBABLY HAS A BUNCH OF NINJA SWORDS IN IT

In Soviet Japan, life lives you

lol flapss

Which one of these should I have bought? Sadly I bought neither :(

Misc Japan photos, 26 April 2012

We got this from a capsule dispenser. Only ¥200!

Someone was just giving away this Fullsesh Nail Rub! Anyway now we have a Fullsesh Nail Rub.

This was on the ice bucket in our hotel room

(._______.)=={

Latest fashions

When you take photos from a moving shinkansen they turn out crazy. Also sakura~!

Misc Japan photos, 23 April 2012

Today we went to this shrine that brings good luck for love (I think Shara wanted to go there so Shinee would fall in love with her). Anyway they also had a million Maneki Neko there, including two giant ones.

People had written their wishes and tied them up. They were all from Japanese women wanting to get married. Rows upon rows of them. If you know a Japanese woman WATCH OUT SHE WANTS TO MARRY YOU

Would you trust this ape with your pet?

AT LAST, MY SEARCH FOR CHAIR SOCKS IS AT AN END

This was where we went for dinner. It was a sushi train, but in addition to the conveyor sushi (which not many people seemed to be interested in), you could order whatever you wanted using a touch screen, and when it was done, it would whizz to you using a separate conveyor belt above the regular one. BUT the best part was that when you were done, you put your plates in a slot (shown just at the bottom of this photo), and then after it registered five plates, the screen would show a small pachinko-style game, and if you won, you would get one of the capsule toys shown at the top of the photo. THIS IS THE GREATEST IDEA OF ALL TIME. The toys are super cheap but they definitely kept us eating in order to get another shot at winning them, and it was tonnes of fun. Whoever thought of this is a genius.

:(

 This guy is on all the subway trains. You are very stern, Mr Agent!

Food review

Fanta (melon Calpis)

Karaoke came with all you can drink soda, which was pretty awesome. The only soda I hadn't already tried was melon Calpis Fanta. Melon Fanta is already by far the best Fanta, and this tasted as you would expect it to, like a combination of melon Fanta and Calpis. Basically like a ice cream soda but with melon Fanta. I think I prefer regular melon but this was a nice change. 4 stars.

Crunky

I got this mainly because of the name. It's just chocolate with "malt puffs" in it. I think there's a candy bar in Australia that is the equivalent of this ("Crunch"?). 3 stars for the candy, add an additional star for the name.

Pocky (nutcream)

Haha okay I definitely bought this for the name. Nutcream Pocky is very delicious. I guess it's just Pocky with peanut butter on it, but I liked it more than regular Pocky. Would buy again. 4 stars for the candy, add an additional 2 stars for the name. YES THAT IS SIX STARS THAT IS HOW FUNNY IT IS TO SELL YOUR CANDY AS NUTCREAM FLAVOURED.

Okonamiyaki

I had this for lunch. This was a pancake type of thing with pork and plum in it. It was pretty good, but there were some bites that were very plummy and then other bites that weren't plummy at all. We cooked this ourselves but the restaurant lady was the one that mixed up the batter, so that's on her. 3.5 stars.

Pancake thing (chocolate)

This was a pancake filled with chocolate. Shara thought this was delicious but it was a little rich for me (plus I was still full from lunch). 3.5 stars. 

Crepe cake

This was Shara's dessert at dinner. It was a cake made out of alternating layers of crepe and cream. I had some, but again, a little too rich for me. Still good though. 3.5 stars.

Icecream sundae

Oh man this was delicious. This was my dessert at dinner. Icecream sundae with strawberry topping BUT the entire bottom half of it was some sort of strawberry froyo/gelato type of thing that was v. delicious. I was pretty full at this point but I would eat again. Also it was 200 yen. 4.5 stars.

Being a tourist in Japan

One of the weirdest things about being in Japan is the constant feeling you have of being this stupid loud lumbering giant. On the train and what have you everyone is real quiet and well-dressed and knows exactly what they are doing and you are sitting there towering over everyone else with all of your ridiculous baggage and your stupid jeans and sneakers trying to figure out what the hell is going on because you took a holiday to a country without learning to read any of the language, you monumental dickhead. I just want to apologise to everyone all the time.

I should note that everyone is actually super friendly and accommodating and no one actually makes you feel like this, it's just the self-conciousness that comes with being surrounded by people that seem to have their shit together. That everyone is so nice almost makes it worse, because you know if some Japanese dudes were trying to get around Sydney, bogans would be yelling at them constantly.

Liquor review: Slat (Grapefruit and ???)

I'm sure I don't need to tell you that chuhais own. My preferred Cocktail Partner was not available at our hotel's vending machine, so I had to make do with Slat. I had a choice between a Slat that was clearly lemon, and one that was either grapefruit or blood orange. I went with the unknown. Looking more closely at this can, it appears to be grapefruit and something else, but I'm not sure what. Orange maybe? I am a huge antifan of grapefruit, but it was actually pretty good here. You could taste the grapefruit but it didn't have that horrible bitter aftertaste, it was just sweet. I later found out that Slat's gimmick is having chunks of fruit pulp in their drinks. It's pretty great, but it was a bit of a surprise to start with. Anyway this was pretty good, but my aversion to grapefruit still knocked it down a few points. Give me Cocktail Partner any day. 3.5 stars.

Misc Japan photos, 22 April 2012

heh, butt

#unintentionalpoetry

Don't put this orange juice in the microwave okay?

Oh we missed the Happy Thanks Fair! :(

This is a statue of a lady we found. Not sure why she is doing that sexy pose.