Long time no post! So anyways, after we got back to Kobe we prepared for the next leg of our journey, heading north. Spent Wednesday having a break at Becky's house (you can't sightsee every day!) and then headed out for dinner and pool with Becky, Raukura, and Tim who came out from Shin Osaka again.
Thursday - Sendai! The best thing about the train system here is that you don't really have to worry about knowing where to transfer etc. You just go to the counter and say 'Sendai?' in a hopeful voice, and they sort it all out and hand you your tickets and off you go. So we left for Sendai just before lunchtime, arrived around 5ish, and no dramas. Met Nigel, which was cool, he met Joe (we started going out after Nigel left for Japan) and we headed out to Ochiai which is the suburb Nigel has lived in for the last 2 years.
After leaving our bags at home, Nigel took us to a local yakitori bar (specialises in grilled chicken) and we had a few beers, ate a few interesting skewers, and I attempted to eat a baked potato with chopsticks. Not so easy. Then we headed down to a quiet little bar called Asa, and met Kumiko (hope I've spelt that right), Nigel's lady friend. She is lovely, and we played darts and learned to say 'hitta' and 'joysu' which mean bad and good in terms of skills. Oh and ganbate! Do your best!
The next day Joe and I headed out to Yamadera which was just awesome. Just the train ride out there was gorgeous, the Japanese countryside is so peaceful and such a difference to the big cities. At Yamadera we started with an ice cream from some super cute locals (chorushing Irashaimase! Welcome!) and then headed up the hills. Lots of steps, and as we were going up we passed all the school kids who had just been up there. Which was nice, because when we got to the top they weren't there :D
Came back, went into Sendai, met Nigel, and this is where some super awesomeness comes in - We went and watched Sendai Girls Pro Wrestling - AHHHHH So cool! I'd kinda hoped to see some Japanese wrestling while we're over here, but hadn't been sure how we would find out about it given how lacking in Japanese we are... But Nigel found a flier in the bathroom of the bar from Thursday for it, and so we went...
It opened with a chick singing what is most likely their theme song - ' Sendai Girls are rocking the world, Sendai Girls are Wres-u-ring' - and moved into some tag matches. The girls seemed a bit green in these openers, but everyone's got to start somewhere :) One girl, who was heaaaaps bigger than the others, looked like she was channelling Kevin Nash, slow moving and leather pants, hilarious. After the tag matches there were 4 matches that I'm pretty sure are part of a tournament, and the winners of the matches are moving on to the semis and final at the next show in a month. These girls were goood.. And they really don't seem to pull their punches. Maybe they're just really good at selling, but they really seemed to be smacking each other in the head, and kicking in the gut, and elbowing hard. Good times :)
The audience was almost more entertaining that the performers - it was so weird! Most of the crowd was silent during a bunch of big moves and then once the series of moves was over, there would be this super polite golf clap. And they really didn't get that excited. Up on the balcony with us, though, were some awesome dudes with drums who cheered super loud. And we just did our regular cheering, booed the ref sometimes and called out things like 'Ganbate Murasaki! Go Purple!' We didn't know their names...
Anyways, that was super fun and as soon as we have our lap top connected we will upload photos and videos :)
The next day we set out for Sapporo. We had booked tickets the day before and were due to be on the Shinkansen at 10:38. Cept we stuffed up and missed it :S Which actually turned out to be useful! See, when I booked the tickets, the lady handed me four tickets and told me the second train was full so we'd have to try our luck at the non reserved seats. I took this to mean that there were two trains. How foolish! When we rebooked our tickets the dude handed me 6 tickets, and I thought, my how fortunate. Had we gotten the early train, we would have not known to change trains quickly after the first one, hung around waiting for the second one, and then found out we were in the WRONG CITY. Yay for lateness!
Anyways! We're now in Sapporo. Met up with Liv (yay!) and went to an izukaya (drinking restaurant) for some snacks after the long train rides. On Sunday we went out shopping a bit (the weather was pretty yuk) and Joe and I now have cute summer weight Kimonos. At least I have a Kimono and he has whatever the boy version is called. We had a quiet night at home which was really nice.
Yesterday we went to Odori Park and went up the TV tower, which is pretty much a replica of the Eiffel tower. Apparently there is a mascot of the tower with a french moustache, we bought a badge with him on :) Lunch in the tower, interesting pasta (mine was on a hotplate and had a raw egg on each end of the plate that cooked while I ate the pasta.. a bit weird) and then walked through the park in the rain. Had a bbqd corn cob while walking, delicious! And odd. But yum :)
Liv took us to a local sushi place for dinner, and then we had another early night. Well, Liv did, since she had work today - Joe read into the early hours of the morning and I finished Memoirs of a Geisha and tidied our luggage, what fun! I'm pretty sure we won't exceed our weight limit, now that we've delivered the marmite, pineapple lumps, 42 below, baking soda, gingernuts and other goodies we were asked to bring over :)
Today we are off to the Sapporo Beer Garden, which I've heard means a brief tour through a museum and then very cheap beer... Mmmmm could be messy! I'm sure we'll be sensible drinkers. (yeah right)
Edit - PHOTOS! Five more albums. All up. Have a look :)
Monday, May 26, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ignorant Gaijin!
Hi all,
Feels like a long time since i've posted, Jen's been hogging :)
So when you last read we were in Kobe having just come back from Hiroshima...
The next day we did not much, it was nice to have a little break from travelling and siting seeing. We just went into Sannomiya and shopped a little with Becky and Raukara. Also we met up with Beth who is another english teacher, but she lives out in the rural lands. And later that night met Tim, who is an expat New Zealander living near Osaka, and Ryota and we all went to "all you can eat and drink japanese" - i know there is a name for this but i can't remember it... Ignorant Gajin!
Anyway it was good times we tried some new foods, everyone got a bit tipsy and some food was thrown :)
Now we were off to Karaoke but on the way we meet some equally tipsy japanese men in the lift, who did a strip dance for us. I'm not sure how that happened but they were good fun.
Then at Karaoke we all sang and drank and had a jolly good time. There are photos to prove it. Jen might post them soon, once the messier ones are culled :)
So the next day we were on the train to Nara where we would be staying at a nice traditional style hostel. After a bit of to and fro on the train (we missed our stop) we got to Oji and found Yougendo.
Yougendo was awesome. Everything was little paper doors and pretty gardens. But amongst all these traditionally restored rooms was a massive TV and a Nintendo Wii :D
Our room was nice, we got Kimonos to wear, hmm i don't think that's the right spelling and they are probably not called that. Someone will correct me :)
In the morning they made us a nice breakfast, i ordered bacon and eggs, but they gave me ham and cheese sandwhich anyway :( maybe there was a miscommunication.
The Yougendo was run/maintained by cute little japanese women and the bar managed by an english guy. The girls were so nice, they even remembered which shoes were ours and laid them out, and when we left all the ones there came out and talked to us and waved us good bye down the street. Those cuties :)
Anyway that day we were in Nara, we got some bikes which was awesome! (I love biking around tourist attractions in Japan! :D ) And saw a bunch of cool temples, most of which you couldn't take photos of :( and the ones you could all had a bunch of markets inside where you could by trinkets and cute little cats. Kind of cheapened it a bit. Also all these places seem to have hundreds of school children on tours, and heaps of tour guides with mega phones calling out hilirious commentaries (i assume they were hilarious, or japanese school kids like to laugh in unison a lot)
We got a bunch of photos where we could, Jen took a few secretly in places where you shouldn't. But we paid our 500¥ so hopefully Buddha will forgive us.
Also there are dear in Nara, seems to be a common theme for tourist attractions in Japan. These ones looked nicer but were no less desprate for our food.
The main attraction in Nara is the Todai-ji, a massive, statue of Buddha, and a whole bunch of equally impressive statues around it. There is this hole in one of the support beams there, which is apparently as big as the Buddha's nostrel and if you can fit through you will be guaranteed enlightenment. Seems a little bit like silly lies to make Gaijin do funny things, I guess there is a weight restriction on enlightenment. Needless to say Jen and I are guaranteed enlightenment, and we bought some trinkets to prove it :)
So then we were off to Kyoto where we met up with Tim for dinner. After a bit of a mission we managed to locate a Ramen house, this one was pretty nasty and had a pungent aroma, but that could have just been all the Japanese business men in there, who all watched us as we came in and then continued to watch us while Tim talked about the atmosphere and the fact that twelve japanese guys were stairing at us. Apparently one of them knew a little english and it was all very funny. The Ramen was quite nice, although apparently our standards of good ramen are not high.
It was getting late so we got into our hostel, this time we were staying in a dorm with bunk beds, so it was a little less comfortable. Made worse by two major faux pas on my behalf within the space of fifteen mintues. First i opened the door on a girl in the toilets. That was bad enough, then i walked into the wrong dorm... the girls dorm no less, and girls were changing and screaming at the crazy guy who was peeping in. So i was pretty glad when we checked out of that place. The beds were crap anyway.
So in Kyoto we didn't really see that much, we underestimated how long buses would take to get everywhere. But we did manage to see the Golden Temple, which is another temple, but this time its plated in gold, which was pretty. What made it even cooler for me was the awesome garden and lake around it, which was immaculately maintained. We bought some trinkets there and moved on to the Gion district which is known for Giesha and other cool things apparently. We looked around a nice park that was built there which also had the most impressive cemetary i have ever seen. But we managed to miss most of the awesomeness of gion apparently. But by this time we were both getting pretty hot and sweaty, and i had my first poo experience in a squating toilet, so that put us in a mood to go home.
We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Kobe which was pretty uneventful. And today we did pretty much nothing, having a wee break from all this holidaying :) which is awesome.
So tommorow we are off to Sendai, where we will be staying with Jen's friend Nigel for a night, maybe we will stop in Tokyo for a little bit too.
Phew, gratulations for reading this far. Most of the preceeding is mindless brain fartings, so feel free to comment on my lack of gramma and hilarious speeling mistakes.
kthxbye!
Feels like a long time since i've posted, Jen's been hogging :)
So when you last read we were in Kobe having just come back from Hiroshima...
The next day we did not much, it was nice to have a little break from travelling and siting seeing. We just went into Sannomiya and shopped a little with Becky and Raukara. Also we met up with Beth who is another english teacher, but she lives out in the rural lands. And later that night met Tim, who is an expat New Zealander living near Osaka, and Ryota and we all went to "all you can eat and drink japanese" - i know there is a name for this but i can't remember it... Ignorant Gajin!
Anyway it was good times we tried some new foods, everyone got a bit tipsy and some food was thrown :)
Now we were off to Karaoke but on the way we meet some equally tipsy japanese men in the lift, who did a strip dance for us. I'm not sure how that happened but they were good fun.
Then at Karaoke we all sang and drank and had a jolly good time. There are photos to prove it. Jen might post them soon, once the messier ones are culled :)
So the next day we were on the train to Nara where we would be staying at a nice traditional style hostel. After a bit of to and fro on the train (we missed our stop) we got to Oji and found Yougendo.
Yougendo was awesome. Everything was little paper doors and pretty gardens. But amongst all these traditionally restored rooms was a massive TV and a Nintendo Wii :D
Our room was nice, we got Kimonos to wear, hmm i don't think that's the right spelling and they are probably not called that. Someone will correct me :)
In the morning they made us a nice breakfast, i ordered bacon and eggs, but they gave me ham and cheese sandwhich anyway :( maybe there was a miscommunication.
The Yougendo was run/maintained by cute little japanese women and the bar managed by an english guy. The girls were so nice, they even remembered which shoes were ours and laid them out, and when we left all the ones there came out and talked to us and waved us good bye down the street. Those cuties :)
Anyway that day we were in Nara, we got some bikes which was awesome! (I love biking around tourist attractions in Japan! :D ) And saw a bunch of cool temples, most of which you couldn't take photos of :( and the ones you could all had a bunch of markets inside where you could by trinkets and cute little cats. Kind of cheapened it a bit. Also all these places seem to have hundreds of school children on tours, and heaps of tour guides with mega phones calling out hilirious commentaries (i assume they were hilarious, or japanese school kids like to laugh in unison a lot)
We got a bunch of photos where we could, Jen took a few secretly in places where you shouldn't. But we paid our 500¥ so hopefully Buddha will forgive us.
Also there are dear in Nara, seems to be a common theme for tourist attractions in Japan. These ones looked nicer but were no less desprate for our food.
The main attraction in Nara is the Todai-ji, a massive, statue of Buddha, and a whole bunch of equally impressive statues around it. There is this hole in one of the support beams there, which is apparently as big as the Buddha's nostrel and if you can fit through you will be guaranteed enlightenment. Seems a little bit like silly lies to make Gaijin do funny things, I guess there is a weight restriction on enlightenment. Needless to say Jen and I are guaranteed enlightenment, and we bought some trinkets to prove it :)
So then we were off to Kyoto where we met up with Tim for dinner. After a bit of a mission we managed to locate a Ramen house, this one was pretty nasty and had a pungent aroma, but that could have just been all the Japanese business men in there, who all watched us as we came in and then continued to watch us while Tim talked about the atmosphere and the fact that twelve japanese guys were stairing at us. Apparently one of them knew a little english and it was all very funny. The Ramen was quite nice, although apparently our standards of good ramen are not high.
It was getting late so we got into our hostel, this time we were staying in a dorm with bunk beds, so it was a little less comfortable. Made worse by two major faux pas on my behalf within the space of fifteen mintues. First i opened the door on a girl in the toilets. That was bad enough, then i walked into the wrong dorm... the girls dorm no less, and girls were changing and screaming at the crazy guy who was peeping in. So i was pretty glad when we checked out of that place. The beds were crap anyway.
So in Kyoto we didn't really see that much, we underestimated how long buses would take to get everywhere. But we did manage to see the Golden Temple, which is another temple, but this time its plated in gold, which was pretty. What made it even cooler for me was the awesome garden and lake around it, which was immaculately maintained. We bought some trinkets there and moved on to the Gion district which is known for Giesha and other cool things apparently. We looked around a nice park that was built there which also had the most impressive cemetary i have ever seen. But we managed to miss most of the awesomeness of gion apparently. But by this time we were both getting pretty hot and sweaty, and i had my first poo experience in a squating toilet, so that put us in a mood to go home.
We took the Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Kobe which was pretty uneventful. And today we did pretty much nothing, having a wee break from all this holidaying :) which is awesome.
So tommorow we are off to Sendai, where we will be staying with Jen's friend Nigel for a night, maybe we will stop in Tokyo for a little bit too.
Phew, gratulations for reading this far. Most of the preceeding is mindless brain fartings, so feel free to comment on my lack of gramma and hilarious speeling mistakes.
kthxbye!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Conceit. Inflated.
I would like to draw your attention to this awesome top Joe bought in Hiroshima:
http://picasaweb.google.com/starring.jenbee/FoodAndSigns/photo#5200981730506633554
It's kickin rad. We're not sure if it's pro or anti creation but we love it all the same :)
We're off to Nara today and Kyoto tomorrow, so an update will come after that.
http://picasaweb.google.com/starring.jenbee/FoodAndSigns/photo#5200981730506633554
It's kickin rad. We're not sure if it's pro or anti creation but we love it all the same :)
We're off to Nara today and Kyoto tomorrow, so an update will come after that.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Oh and the people!
I totally forgot to mention that Joe and I bumped into Amy and Nigel on Hondori St!! It was insane. Turned out we were actually staying in the same freaken hostel. How awesome :)
(For those that don't know, I worked with Amy at Trade Me and she left a month or so before I did to go travelling, I had no idea that she was going to be in Japan, let alone Hiroshima, at the same time as us!)
(For those that don't know, I worked with Amy at Trade Me and she left a month or so before I did to go travelling, I had no idea that she was going to be in Japan, let alone Hiroshima, at the same time as us!)
The things I have seen
It's been a short time between posts but we have done so much in that time that this entry is going to be annoying long...
So as Joe said we went to Himeji Castle. It was absolutely bucketing down with rain, and we had to buy some awesome umbrellas as we had failed to bring our own, but even so the views and castle were just amazing. Lots of photos (see the new album) which pretty much speak for themselves. My favourite part - overhearing a women describe this weird little alcove off the side of the castle that we'd gone into only to find there was no exit. Apparently that is the idea - in a battle, your enemy runs down into it looking for a way out, and you proceed to shoot them through the holes in the wall.. neato!
After Himeji we had a quiet night at home with Becky and some of her Jet friends. Watched The Castle and laughed at Australians.
Wednesday - Hiroshima! We got on the Shinkansen (super comfortable, awesomely fast) and got there pretty late in the day. Got to J Hoppers (hostel) around 7ish, got comfy, and then walked out in the Peace park in the dark. It was very beautiful, I think more so than in the day time. Photos of course to come.
Looking for food brought us to the Hondori area, a big old street full of shops and food. I have no idea the name of the place we ate dinner at, cos it was all Japanese characters but it was delicious and the waitresses were very patient with our terrible communication :) Had the best dessert - rice dumplings with vanilla ice cream, soy bean jam, some kind of sweet powder, and cornflakes. Yes I know, odd, but it was so so yum!
Thursday took us out to Miyajima Island, which was utterly awesome. Half hour walk, half hour train, and ten minute ferry from our hostel. It is one of Japan's three best views apparently. The shrine I mean. We rented bikes and rode all around the island, around the shrine and various temples, saw awesome treasures (and replicas thereof) and rode up and over the hill along a nature walk. Dad you'd be so proud, we even took a wrong turn, realised we were going much higher than needed and kept going! The bikes were just rubbish too, totally not built for uphill travel, and the rear brake on mine was NOT designed for safe downhill descent. Oh and did I mention the random deer all over the island? We got some ice cream and went to sit on the waterfront to eat it, and were promptly accosted by not less than four hungry and persistent deer. Some businessmen (why were there businessmen on a tourist island!) laughed at my dancing about but oh well :)
After getting back to our hostel, we headed out for some okonomi-yaki - japanese pancakes with cabbage and pork and stuff, pretty tasty! Had them cooked for us by some cute ladies at their pink themed eatery, yum yum.
Today took us to the Peace Museum, which was breathtaking, heartbreaking, and sadly got a bit repetitive. Incredibly interesting to read about the lead up - America deciding who to bomb, Japan refusing to surrender and the Emperor announcing that he preferred 100 million honourable deaths on the mainland.. But then horrific to look at the photos of burned bodies and destroyed city. It was also packed - like wall to wall - with school kids all visiting the museum with their school books and filling in worksheets.
Came back to Kobe and Becky's place this evening and we're having a relaxed chill out, playing with photos and having an early night. Joe has been loving the vending machines and taking photos of all his canned coffees, and I managed to cook us a meal at the flat with bags that we correctly guessed to contain rice and stir fry veges :) I had hoped to indulge in some Kobe beef but apparently it costs like a hundred bucks a meal. I don't think the steak could be a hundred bucks good.
Don't miss us too much, we're having heaps of fun :)
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Coffee Machine 3 - Joe 0
Hi Guys
We've stolen some internet from someone in Becky's building. So this post is brought to you with help from megumi, who doesn't secure their wireless connection. Yay! >:D
So Sushi the other night was good times. I just ordered what ever Ryota had. Which was a few orders of various raw fish, some eel, some shrimp and some miso soup. All quite delicious.
Kazu and Ryota are quite funny. Becky and the other Jet teachers have taught them all sorts of dirty words which they like to practise every now and then :)
So yesterday we went to Himeji Castle. We didn't go straight away we dawdled around Beckys for abit. And then went to Sonnomiya on the train. The first carriage we got on Jen noticed there were only girls on it. And at the first stop we got off to transfer and noticed that the carriage had alot of signs on it saying "Womens Only" Opps :o So anyway they didn't call the police or anything. I guess that silly giajin must do it often.
The trains are pretty awesome. If you have trouble working the ticket machine, or your just lazy you can order the cheapest ticket and then once you get to where you want to be, you can get a fare adjustment and it will tell you how much more to pay.
So in Sonnomiya we hung around looking at shops and even played a little Dance-Dance-Revolution. Which was a silly idea because we were going to be on our feet all day. Also there are a massive number of Pachinko and Slot machines. Every second shop is one of these and has a handfull of old guys in it.
Speaking of machines there are a massive number of vending machines here. And they are everywhere too, not just the cities. You could be walking through the bush up Nunibiki and find one. And often they have hot drinks in them. Which is pretty exciting, getting a hot can of coffee from a vending machine. :D Also on the topic of machines there are also heaps of Catcha-Catcha machines, i think that's how it is said. They have in them small toys that you can hang off your cellphone and bags. Mostly they are pokemon or Dragon Ball. But i saw some yesterday that were of naked, and semi-naken girls in degradingly submissive poses. These are just on the street for anyone to have. Some of them had girls in them that looked like they were six! Sifty hentai girls seem to be the norm here.
I'll let Jen talk about Himeji, but i'll finish my rant about machines with my arch-enemy the coffee machine.
I had bought a coffee when we went bowling. And i had totally screwed it up. There are buttons on there for selecting milk and sugar, and if you just leave them it defaults to none. Ryota saw me do this and laughed as I tried to drink my bitter black coffee. So anyway i had another attempt at these machines in Himeji. This time i ordered my coffee and then pressed the milk and sugar buttons. But nothing happened. Each coffee is 110¥ which isn't too bad so i thought i'd give it another go. This time before i selected which coffee i wanted. I pushed the milk and sugar buttons which lit up and made sounds so i thought i was on the right track. But then the sounds turned to a more piercing whining sound and all my lights went off. So i thought perhaps its because i had made all the selections avialable to me and could now order. But when i did the coffee came out again with no milk and sugar. Coffee machine 3 - joe 0. I guess i'll get an interpreter the next time i try and have a coffee :(
We've stolen some internet from someone in Becky's building. So this post is brought to you with help from megumi, who doesn't secure their wireless connection. Yay! >:D
So Sushi the other night was good times. I just ordered what ever Ryota had. Which was a few orders of various raw fish, some eel, some shrimp and some miso soup. All quite delicious.
Kazu and Ryota are quite funny. Becky and the other Jet teachers have taught them all sorts of dirty words which they like to practise every now and then :)
So yesterday we went to Himeji Castle. We didn't go straight away we dawdled around Beckys for abit. And then went to Sonnomiya on the train. The first carriage we got on Jen noticed there were only girls on it. And at the first stop we got off to transfer and noticed that the carriage had alot of signs on it saying "Womens Only" Opps :o So anyway they didn't call the police or anything. I guess that silly giajin must do it often.
The trains are pretty awesome. If you have trouble working the ticket machine, or your just lazy you can order the cheapest ticket and then once you get to where you want to be, you can get a fare adjustment and it will tell you how much more to pay.
So in Sonnomiya we hung around looking at shops and even played a little Dance-Dance-Revolution. Which was a silly idea because we were going to be on our feet all day. Also there are a massive number of Pachinko and Slot machines. Every second shop is one of these and has a handfull of old guys in it.
Speaking of machines there are a massive number of vending machines here. And they are everywhere too, not just the cities. You could be walking through the bush up Nunibiki and find one. And often they have hot drinks in them. Which is pretty exciting, getting a hot can of coffee from a vending machine. :D Also on the topic of machines there are also heaps of Catcha-Catcha machines, i think that's how it is said. They have in them small toys that you can hang off your cellphone and bags. Mostly they are pokemon or Dragon Ball. But i saw some yesterday that were of naked, and semi-naken girls in degradingly submissive poses. These are just on the street for anyone to have. Some of them had girls in them that looked like they were six! Sifty hentai girls seem to be the norm here.
I'll let Jen talk about Himeji, but i'll finish my rant about machines with my arch-enemy the coffee machine.
I had bought a coffee when we went bowling. And i had totally screwed it up. There are buttons on there for selecting milk and sugar, and if you just leave them it defaults to none. Ryota saw me do this and laughed as I tried to drink my bitter black coffee. So anyway i had another attempt at these machines in Himeji. This time i ordered my coffee and then pressed the milk and sugar buttons. But nothing happened. Each coffee is 110¥ which isn't too bad so i thought i'd give it another go. This time before i selected which coffee i wanted. I pushed the milk and sugar buttons which lit up and made sounds so i thought i was on the right track. But then the sounds turned to a more piercing whining sound and all my lights went off. So i thought perhaps its because i had made all the selections avialable to me and could now order. But when i did the coffee came out again with no milk and sugar. Coffee machine 3 - joe 0. I guess i'll get an interpreter the next time i try and have a coffee :(
Monday, May 12, 2008
if you're reading this..
You should do two things
1 - notice that we have added a link on the side that takes you to our picasa photo albums where you can see a bunch of pretty pictures of our travels :)
2 - subscribe to this blog so that when we update you are notified. We're not going to email you all everytime we update it!!
Went out to dinner last night with Kazu, Becky and Ryota, yummy sushi goodness! Photos up.
Today we're off to Himeji Castle, excitement = us!
1 - notice that we have added a link on the side that takes you to our picasa photo albums where you can see a bunch of pretty pictures of our travels :)
2 - subscribe to this blog so that when we update you are notified. We're not going to email you all everytime we update it!!
Went out to dinner last night with Kazu, Becky and Ryota, yummy sushi goodness! Photos up.
Today we're off to Himeji Castle, excitement = us!
I saw a snake
It is day 3 of our trip and we're not crazy yet...
Picking up where Joe left off, we jumped on a bus ride out to Sannomiya Station in Kobe, a 70 minute ride that took us past 2 ferris wheels and the Sega building (Joe was so excited).
It was so so tiring though, after the longhaul flight i just wanted to sleep, or eat then sleep..
We met up with Becky after a bit of a wander outside the station in the rain, and after meeting her we chucked our stuff in some lockers and went to a bar called the Polo Dog for food and drink. Nothing traditionally japanese yet, just the language barrier :) Met several of her friends, Eugene Suki and Dwayne, who also teach english and are Canadian, very fun and friendly.
Finally got home between 10 and 11, which for us was like 2am (and we had been up since 5:30am!) and got to sleep on some interesting futons in Becky's lounge - hard but fair...
After a good sleep in yesterday we wandered down to Tanigami ( the suburb where Becky lives) and had some kare - japanese curry. It's pretty much curry powder curry, and reminded me of Dad's curry sausages and rice, yum :) After that we went bowling with Becky and her japanese friend Ryota, who was quite frankly awesome at bowling. Another guy, Kazu, joined us later on and he too was freaken amazing. Made our skillz look drastically bad even though we played pretty much the best games of our lives...
Had a quiet night at home with all 5 of us having pizza and then watching Hot Shots Part Deux with japanese subtitles, damn that's a glorious movie. It was also amusingly relevant for today, what with the bumbling moron of a president and the situation in Iraq. Poignant.
Today we missioned about on the train system on our own, Becky having to go to work, and went to Sannomiya for a bit of window shopping. We then headed back to Shinkobe, which is the train stop between Tanigami and Sannomiya, and went up to the Nunobiki Herb Park. This meant a super awesome gondola ride up the hill that gave us spectacular views of Kobe, and when we get our laptop to the internets we will show you all the lovely pictures :) Had a buffet lunch at the top, and then wandered down the hill through the park, it smelled delicious and herby and was quite peaceful. If it had been in New Zealand we're fairly certain it would have a luge ride down the hill but thankfully it's not :)
Also on this trip, WE SAW A FREAKEN SNAKE - it was green and just hanging out in the herby bushes. Took pics of course. We tried to get closer to get a better pic but it got scared and ran away. Or possibly slithered... Quite glad it didn't go into attack mode... But yeah, first wild snake experience, what fun!
Now we've found an internet cafe so have been able to do this big old update.. Hopefully will get another done before Hiroshima, but otherwise will write around then :)
Tonight we're meeting up with Becky and her friends for dinner somewhere, probably sushi, we asked for a good japanese meal :) Until then we're going to hang out in this insanely huge timezone style place with games for africa, yay!
peace out
Saturday, May 10, 2008
wa-ka-ri-ma-sen
Phew we have made it!
Hi Guys and Mum and Dad :D
I can't speak on Jen's behalf but i have been pretty excited. Everything seems to make me laugh. From the talking escalators to the awesome monorails that take you to bagge claim :D
I'm suffering a little bit of culture shock after having only glanced at the phrase book in the last half hour of the flight. So i have two phrases so far. Konechi-wa and arigato. But so far that's all i have needed.
The flight itself was alright. There weren't too many screaming babies and the guy next to us was from Christchurch and he knows a little about Japan and was able to fill in some of the more obvious gaps in my ignorance.
I watched two movies, some flight of the conchords, played a few games and ate some of the fine inflight cuisine.
We have taken a few photos of stuff along the way, but for the greater part photography was prohibited :(
Anyways i think Jen will be back with our bus tickets so i'm off.
We'll post our full itinerary and maybe some photos soon.
Hi Guys and Mum and Dad :D
I can't speak on Jen's behalf but i have been pretty excited. Everything seems to make me laugh. From the talking escalators to the awesome monorails that take you to bagge claim :D
I'm suffering a little bit of culture shock after having only glanced at the phrase book in the last half hour of the flight. So i have two phrases so far. Konechi-wa and arigato. But so far that's all i have needed.
The flight itself was alright. There weren't too many screaming babies and the guy next to us was from Christchurch and he knows a little about Japan and was able to fill in some of the more obvious gaps in my ignorance.
I watched two movies, some flight of the conchords, played a few games and ate some of the fine inflight cuisine.
We have taken a few photos of stuff along the way, but for the greater part photography was prohibited :(
Anyways i think Jen will be back with our bus tickets so i'm off.
We'll post our full itinerary and maybe some photos soon.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
T minus 18 hours 19 minutes
It's 12:41am and I just created the promised travel blog. Our first flight is tomorrow at 7pm... We're not yet packed, but we have all of the other requirements sorted:
Apparently the first thing we're doing when we arrive at Becky's house is heading out for all you can eat and drink karaoke. Possibly the Japanese have not encountered appetites like ours so this is a foolish arrangement on their part... However I'll probably be quite tired so we'll see how keen we are once we've navigated customs and the japanese bus system. I'm very excited to use our phrase book that we possibly should have opened at a point earlier than two days before needing it :)
Watch this space, there will be hotpix
- visa (boo ya!)
- passports
- yen
- euros
- a few british pounds
- lonely planet guides
- pineapple lumps and 42 below for our adored hosts in Japan
- marmite
- probably far too many items of clothing but eh
Apparently the first thing we're doing when we arrive at Becky's house is heading out for all you can eat and drink karaoke. Possibly the Japanese have not encountered appetites like ours so this is a foolish arrangement on their part... However I'll probably be quite tired so we'll see how keen we are once we've navigated customs and the japanese bus system. I'm very excited to use our phrase book that we possibly should have opened at a point earlier than two days before needing it :)
Watch this space, there will be hotpix
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