As some of you know I was doing Japanese lessons for 6
months at the start of the year in order to fulfill my dream of moving to Japan,
my lessons stopped when my amazing teacher Eri moved back to Japan in April,
and I was pretty excited to be coming back to Japan so that I could see her
again. It was decided we would meet at Tsukijima station at 6.30 and
go for dinner in a local area and have Okonomiyaki and Monjyayaki. Once
again Japan turned into all about the food for me, being in a culture with such
amazing food has blown my mind (and my belt line)
As I got off the train I saw Eri waiting at the gate,
exciting stuff to see her again and we headed off into the cold Autumn night
down a little side alley lined with restaurants. This whole street does nothing
but Okonomiyaki and Monjyayakii and the most amazing thing is that you get to
cook it yourself!!!! I am still not 100%
sure on what the difference is between the two but they are both a Japanese pancake
kinda thing. I think (don’t quote me and please correct me if you know the
answer) Okonomiyaki is made with an egg
pancake base and is a signature dish of Hiroshima area (we had the Tokyo
adaptation) and the Monjyayaki is
made with a flour and water base and is a Tsukiji speciality dish that used to
be made for little kids to eat (I think it would be equivalent to our bubble
and squeak). It didn’t look so nice but it was great, we had one that was made
from Cabbage and pork and apparently because of the way that it looks a lot of
foreigners don’t enjoy it. Baka Gaijins, I am pretty sure most of them would
have put things far far worse into their mouths but alas I digress.
Doesnt look so delicious, but tastes great (both the things in this picture ;) )
After dinner I headed back to the hotel room to find the little asian getting ready to head out on the town with the boys from
Adelaide. The plan was to meet at Shibuya crossing at 11 and we would see where
the night would take us from there… Clubs in Japan don’t really start to kick
off until about 12 or 1 in the morning so we had some time to kill before we
headed off somewhere so a stop to the 7/11 for some more Chu-Hi was necessary.
We set off to find a club called Air because there was a house DJ that was
playing that was supposedly the business, one thing that I learnt is when Stewy
says he knows where something is, he might be confused. The boys jumped into a
taxi to try and find the club and I decided to call it a night, afterall Saturday
was tattoo day. Again on catching the last train I was struck by the amount of
people that were on the train, the normally quiet train carriages had turned
into loud rowdy train carriages.
Midnight at Shibuya Crossing
I got back to the hotel and I don’t know what came over me,
I was filled with so much fear for the impending tattoo that I couldn’t sleep,
for anyone that knows me, I am pretty heavily tattooed so in reality getting a
small tattoo on my foot shouldn’t be anything to blink an eye at. I think possibly
the fear of the unknown, a tattooist that I know doesn’t speak English, I don’t
know how he tattoos or if I am going to like the design that he has drawn. I
also thing that because my last tattoo was my back piece in my head, I am
associating all tattooing with that 3 months of constant pain and healing, I
guess there was nothing I could do but suck it up and see how we would go. I
ended up drifting off to sleep just as I heard a smacking sound against the
hotel door and on opening it found a small asian man slumped against the door
and on dragging him inside he got into his bed and profusely thanked it in
Japanese (heck I don’t know what was in his bed, but if it made him thankful
and he was quiet who was I to say anything).
Some other observations I have made on Japanese Life
- Their construction workers are no where near as good looking as ours. They dont really do High Vis, it all looks to formal and clean
- There are a lot of homeless people, no one asked me for money but they were everywhere. You would walk through train stations and there would be homeless people sleeping in corners everywhere. The symptom of a fucked up economy
- They promote smoking like its a glamorous activity and there are cigarette vending machines on every corner. I know its someones choice to smoke but I dont like it being thrust in my face (much the same as religion I guess)
- Stand up ramen bars arent for tall white people, bending over to eat my dinner is never my idea of a good time
- I think I want a small asian child, they are the cutest
Love and a Boring Life
Miss K
I dont smoke, but would consider doing it just so this guy doesnt kill me
Painful Ramen - Stand up eating is pretty painful its true
I'm all for love hotels but I dont think this one is for me
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