Japan Blog (July 15-22nd) (cont...)
Jun. 1st, 2010 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eggchanOkay, so like I said before I wanted to try and continue writing about my Japan experiences by going through my pictures and trying to jog my memory..
I've been looking at my pictures and it looks like this will be a little more difficult than I thought it would be.. for now I am going to be going off the dates that are on my Facebook upload date, and then we'll see from there ^^; Once I get to the tour part of my studies it will be a little easier to remember, I think.
This week I stopped into Book Off (AGAIN), and managed to get a few more super cheap stuff and snag an Arashi CD
I'm sure I was wandering around with awesome people such as Tsemin, Naomi, Yvonne and Katie, too :D
Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru!
Nodame!
Yotsuba!
I got this entire L'Arc photobook for 100 yen. THAT IS KIND OF RIDICULOUS I MISS YOU BOOK OFF D:
There was also a really awesome sunset going on that weekend and I felt so good I wanted to go out and take some pics of it
Another big thing that I did that weekend was I went to the Haccho Miso Factory in town here. It's only 1 train station away so we decided we'd go try it out. Me, Young, Tsemin and Simon ventured over there and they have tours of the place and there's a restaurant that sells only miso flavored things. We ate lunch there and it was DELICIOUS. The special thing about this factory is that it's been around for a LONG time, and they still do everything the same way they did when they first started. Also, Haccho Miso is a darker miso so it has a bit of a stronger taste and such
Tsemin testing the height of the barrel
Diagram of how they make the miso... the first time I saw this I thought they were real people standing very still -_-;;
There was a drama that was filmed at this factory starring Aoi Miyazaki. She's one of my favorite Japanese actresses so that was a really awesome surprise
Inside the fermentation building. The stones that they set up on the barrels never fall off. They claim that they stack them in a certain way and even through earthquakes they don't fall
This is their miso character.. it's so cute
We had miso flavored soft serve ice cream. It was actually really good, and I went back to this place and got it like 3 times x_X;
This is the food that I got from the miso restaurant. It's rice, a bowl of akai miso, and an egg and conbu covered in some really really delicious miso sauce
After we went to the factory we had planned to walk over to the castle. It was a very bright and sunny day that day and I remember walking to the castle (which wasn't nearly as close to the train station as the miso factory), and it was just blisteringly hot. There were no clouds and no trees either
In the museum were lots of little intricacies, weapons, and different figures to see. They also had some samurai outfits on display, and some samurai helmets that you could put on.
Here's me wearing my stylish samurai helmet...
Me and Simon-san duking it out
Adorable
They also had this wooden horse thing that you could sit on and pretend you were fighting in the army... we told Tsemin to get on it and put on her angry face and this is what she gave us
Charge?
Simon-san's angry face... lol
I'm.. not sure what to think of this;;
They also had this section where this guy was standing by a table with a bunch of samurai stuff. Everyone wanted me to wear it really badly and the guy wanted me to wear it too so...
He stuck this one with gigantic horns on it on me;; it was REALLY heavy actually and felt like it was going to fly off the back of my head
My best samurai pose
After that we headed over to the actual castle grounds. It was surrounded by lots of trees and greenery and flowers and such. It was really nice
Here's a video of the grounds that I took. I guess by what I say in the video I was trying to get the deafening sound of the cicadas, but that failed seeing as they stopped making noise as soon as I started filming;;
We went inside and it was basically just a museum, which was sad. I was hoping to see a lot of the old castle stuff but they had mostly renovated it, but they had a nice lookout area at the top of the castle...
And after we were done with viewing the castle, we came back down to land and walked back from the way we came. At that time we encountered an awesome anamatronic clock that did some sort of dancing and such at certain times. It was really awesome and really intricately made o_O;;
Then we saw a sign for カキ氷!! It was so hot that day and that sounded really tasty that we decided to go over there and get some. They gave us SO MUCH. I mean, I suppose all it is is shaved ice and flavors, but my god... it was only like 200 yen. Me and Young shared a strawberry one and Simon and Tsemin got a green tea one.
Aaannd the resident love hotel. lol.
AND NOW FOR GRATUITOUS FOOD SHOTS 8D
I had gone to Domy again and was just wandering around to find something new to try and I found these. They are Hi-chews, except they have some sort of little round things in them that pop kind of when you chew it. This one was flavored Soda/Cola... and to this day I'm still not sure if I like it or not;; I liked it but I didn't at the same time
And that's that for that week. Hopefully I can work on the next week soon
I've been looking at my pictures and it looks like this will be a little more difficult than I thought it would be.. for now I am going to be going off the dates that are on my Facebook upload date, and then we'll see from there ^^; Once I get to the tour part of my studies it will be a little easier to remember, I think.
This week I stopped into Book Off (AGAIN), and managed to get a few more super cheap stuff and snag an Arashi CD
I'm sure I was wandering around with awesome people such as Tsemin, Naomi, Yvonne and Katie, too :DKimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru!
Nodame!
Yotsuba!
I got this entire L'Arc photobook for 100 yen. THAT IS KIND OF RIDICULOUS I MISS YOU BOOK OFF D:
There was also a really awesome sunset going on that weekend and I felt so good I wanted to go out and take some pics of it
Another big thing that I did that weekend was I went to the Haccho Miso Factory in town here. It's only 1 train station away so we decided we'd go try it out. Me, Young, Tsemin and Simon ventured over there and they have tours of the place and there's a restaurant that sells only miso flavored things. We ate lunch there and it was DELICIOUS. The special thing about this factory is that it's been around for a LONG time, and they still do everything the same way they did when they first started. Also, Haccho Miso is a darker miso so it has a bit of a stronger taste and such
Tsemin testing the height of the barrel
Diagram of how they make the miso... the first time I saw this I thought they were real people standing very still -_-;;
There was a drama that was filmed at this factory starring Aoi Miyazaki. She's one of my favorite Japanese actresses so that was a really awesome surprise
Inside the fermentation building. The stones that they set up on the barrels never fall off. They claim that they stack them in a certain way and even through earthquakes they don't fall
This is their miso character.. it's so cute
We had miso flavored soft serve ice cream. It was actually really good, and I went back to this place and got it like 3 times x_X;
This is the food that I got from the miso restaurant. It's rice, a bowl of akai miso, and an egg and conbu covered in some really really delicious miso sauce
After we went to the factory we had planned to walk over to the castle. It was a very bright and sunny day that day and I remember walking to the castle (which wasn't nearly as close to the train station as the miso factory), and it was just blisteringly hot. There were no clouds and no trees either
In the museum were lots of little intricacies, weapons, and different figures to see. They also had some samurai outfits on display, and some samurai helmets that you could put on.
Here's me wearing my stylish samurai helmet...
Me and Simon-san duking it out
Adorable
They also had this wooden horse thing that you could sit on and pretend you were fighting in the army... we told Tsemin to get on it and put on her angry face and this is what she gave us
Charge?
Simon-san's angry face... lol
I'm.. not sure what to think of this
;;They also had this section where this guy was standing by a table with a bunch of samurai stuff. Everyone wanted me to wear it really badly and the guy wanted me to wear it too so...
He stuck this one with gigantic horns on it on me
;; it was REALLY heavy actually and felt like it was going to fly off the back of my headMy best samurai pose
After that we headed over to the actual castle grounds. It was surrounded by lots of trees and greenery and flowers and such. It was really nice
Here's a video of the grounds that I took. I guess by what I say in the video I was trying to get the deafening sound of the cicadas, but that failed seeing as they stopped making noise as soon as I started filming
;;We went inside and it was basically just a museum, which was sad. I was hoping to see a lot of the old castle stuff but they had mostly renovated it, but they had a nice lookout area at the top of the castle...
And after we were done with viewing the castle, we came back down to land and walked back from the way we came. At that time we encountered an awesome anamatronic clock that did some sort of dancing and such at certain times. It was really awesome and really intricately made o_O;;
Then we saw a sign for カキ氷!! It was so hot that day and that sounded really tasty that we decided to go over there and get some. They gave us SO MUCH. I mean, I suppose all it is is shaved ice and flavors, but my god... it was only like 200 yen. Me and Young shared a strawberry one and Simon and Tsemin got a green tea one.
Aaannd the resident love hotel. lol.
AND NOW FOR GRATUITOUS FOOD SHOTS 8D
I had gone to Domy again and was just wandering around to find something new to try and I found these. They are Hi-chews, except they have some sort of little round things in them that pop kind of when you chew it. This one was flavored Soda/Cola... and to this day I'm still not sure if I like it or not
;; I liked it but I didn't at the same timeAnd that's that for that week. Hopefully I can work on the next week soon
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:24 pm (UTC)Rambling~~~
How are things going at work? Have you... taken action?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:27 pm (UTC)hmm... no action taken yet.. :( If we're talking about actually talking to my boss about it that is.. I'm working on a way out on my own right now but it won't be stable enough for me for a while, so until then I'll probably have to stick it out
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 01:07 am (UTC)I wish you were here to do silly things with me T^T
no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 11:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 02:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 04:27 am (UTC)The view from the balcony is so pretty @___@;;; I love the golden-esque colors of the sky. Also, I get a nice impression of the neighborhood you stayed in. Seems like it'd be quant but maybe busy at the same time, if that makes sense X3 Busy but peaceful? I dunno what I'm going for anymore XD
Miso soft serve?!?! I bet it was good. I tried all sorts of crazy ice cream flavors over there that I thought would be horrible but they were MAXIMUM UMAI~! Also, I thought those guys were real too at first in that picture XD
Omg that samurai gear looks like fun! You wouldn't have been able to get me to LEAVE that place XD I would have been sword fighting all daaaaaaaay~! And your samurai pose is very threatening. I think if I saw a samurai run up to me doing that pose, I would run out of pure confusion.
The Okazaki Castle clock is pretty fricken' cool! I've never seen anything like it before. I mean, I saw a moving clock thingy while I was in New York, but it wasn't half as intricate as this one is.
Love hotel, woooot! Now I know what a real one looks like. Do love hotels have certain characteristics that regular hotels don't have? I guess it helps if you can read japanese X3
I think I got Hi-chews similar to the ones you have there, only mine had little jelly bubbles in it. Very good! My favorite are still the green apple ones though, nom nom nom~!
Long comment is long @___@;;;;
no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 04:08 pm (UTC)You better have run out of pure confusion!! XD
Love hotels typically have some sort of weird designs. They don't actually say "Love Hotel" on them usually (which results in a lot of foreigners mistaking them for regular hotels >_>;;) For example, regular hotels are really only just a tall building with lots of windows and probably a sign that says "Blah Blah Hotel", but if you ever see a hotel that has some sort of "theme".. yeah that's a love hotel. Like an Arabian theme... or an Under-The-Sea theme XD;; yeah.. all the COOL looking hotels are love hotels.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 02:15 pm (UTC)i miss you guys soooo sooooo sooooo much. and i know you've prolly heard this enough.. but i miss bookoff.. i wish i found as many good buys!
i remember walking into that bookoff after dinner, after having sushi.. and i was sooooo inept in japanese (still am) that i didn't really know what was going on around there!
i miss okazaki sooo much! and i only had the miso soft serve once.. sadly :(
and i wanna go to a matsuri and have loads and loads of delicious food. and watch fireworks from the top of our house and many many many many more
-japan sick-
no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-10 02:56 pm (UTC)your trip seems super fun!!! *envy*