Last weekend, I went to this construction site near Meijo Koen and took a bunch of pictures. I realize that this kind of thing doesn't appeal to everyone, but this is the kind of stuff I like. I hope someone else out there might like it, too.

20070708

 
Oh yeah, and I also found this nice little restaurant that was open to the outdoors not too far from my local Daei. I love eating in the open air, so it was great. The thing that was significant for me, though, was that there was a menu that I could read the whole damn thing without a dictionary. I was so proud. I had a hotate salad (scallop salad) and a small unagi donburi.

  

Sorry for the late post, but I've been busy lately. Anyways, a couple weeks ago, first a friend and I went to this place in Nagoya called Sunshine Sakae. It happens to be the building with the Ferris wheel which is adjacent to the building where my school is. Anyway, on the second floor they have this place where they have a bunch of ramen shops, with styles from all over Japan. It's actually similar to the Yokohama Ramen Museum, but on a much smaller scale. Anyway, every summer they have what's called a "Ramen Fight", where you get to vote on which of all the ramen shops is the best. This day, we had some Kyuushuu style tonkotsu ramen, which was pretty good, but I'm looking forward to trying all the rest of them.

Oh, and afterwards we went to karaoke and met up with an Australian friend of mine, Derek. We stayed out until past 6. Why do you do karaoke so late, you might ask. Well, I'm actually usually ready to go home a lot earlier, but the trains are stopped from 12 until 6am, so we're kind of stuck. But my new place is a 15-minute walk from Sakae, so that means I'll be able to easily go home at a reasonable hour.

June 2007 Karaoke

  

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I've been very busy lately, and for right now I can't say too much more at this time. So for those of you that requested pictures of karaoke and drinking, here you go. Here are some photos from a couple of weeks ago, when we had a going away party for Chris-sensei. We went to this awesome tabehoudai (all you can eat) and nomihoudai (all you can drink) shabu-shabu place, then, of course did karaoke until the light of day.

chris sendoff

Today, I felt like having some Korean food, so I went to this place called Kannichitei　( 韓日亭 ), which just means Korean-Japanese restaurant. Had some bibimba, which I used to call be bim bop in America. Nothing special, and definitely not spicy enough, but the place was clean and pleasant, and the other patrons all were speaking Korean, which made it like a mini-vacation.

I haven't posted in a while, because I have been super busy for the last week. Also, it's not something I can discuss on this blog. I will hopefully be able to talk about it next week.

   
I put up a bunch more pictures from Matsushima (松島) and Sendai (仙台). Some cool looking boats, and I got some surprisingly good photos of blossoms (I'm not sure exactly what kind they are). I also went to the public library, which is called the Media Center, and it's a really cool public space. That's the one with the big inflatable sleeping baby thing. They planted a bunch of trees all over the city, so it's a very pleasant city to walk around in, even if there isn't that much to do. I took a bus called the Loople, which was 600 yen to ride all day, and takes you to places like the Botanical Garden and the site of the former castle at Sendai, which overlooks the city. I think Sendai is more of a nice city to live in than it is a place to visit. I like the weather there for sure!

sendai

Here are some of my photos from Sendai - I'll post more later. Sendai is famous for gyuutan (cow tongue), and for nearby Matsushima, which is one of the three best sights in Japan. I took a boat right out among the islands, and of course there are many pictures of islands. But most of the folks on the boat were more excited about the seagulls following us. The weather was changing constantly, and so was the sea, so I got lots of different colors and some good shots of the seagulls. There isn't much to do around Sendai, but I definitely recommend Matsushima for a day. More to follow...
  

aomori

"Apples are grown in Aomori" is a line from one of our textbooks from a unit on the passive voice. I couldn't get that out of my head all week.

This week is Golden Week, so we have all week off. I took a few days and went up to Aomori to visit my friend Daniel and his family. It was great to see them again and meet his sons Rin and Take for the first time. The weather up there is cooler, of course, and the sakura were in full bloom this week. We went to the Jomon Jiyukan, which had some recreated buildings from the Jomon period(around three to five thousand years ago). (One amazing thing about this place is that admission was free. It's the first thing of its kind in Japan that I have ever seen that you didn't have to pay to get into.)

After Aomori I went to Sendai, and I'll post photos from there a little later. As you can see, during the trip up, I saw Mt. Fuji (from the ground) for the first time.
  

味千ラーメン

Earlier this week, my friend Candice inadvertently sent me on a mission to try Ajisen Ramen this weekend, because I guess there's one in Fremont, is that correct? Ajisen is a chain of ramen places all over Japan and Asia, with even a few stores in North America. Anyway, I was very lucky that this was the weekend, because usually they're closed on Sundays, but they happen to be open on the 22nd of every month for something I would interpret as customer appreciation day. And on this day, a bowl of noodles is just 300 yen (Today, that was about $2.52). I like the feeling of the place; it definitely has a better feel than, say, the Sugakiya chain, which seems to appeal to high school kids who just want to eat ramen and ice cream for as cheaply as possible. This place is definitely for adults. Although there was no beer, so that did put a little damper on things, because I usually like a beer to enjoy with my ramen. I didn't spend a long time there, but I'd probably give it an eight. Nowhere near the stuff I had in Fukuoka, but definitely worth going back for - especially next 22nd!

By the way, my bowl took approximately a minute and a half from when I ordered it to arrive, and so I was reminded of why there might be some naysayers about Santa Ramen (in San Mateo). In Japan, I can rarely recall a bowl of ramen taking more than five minutes to get to my seat after I ordered. (Actually, there was one time, but it was when the proprietor was really busy with like ten other customers, and he gave me a free dish of tofu for my troubles). Once you get to your seat, you should never wait more than five minutes for your ramen. That's what I expect now, anyway.

2007お花見

In the interests of letting Google take over every single aspect of my life, I'm trying out Picasa. So here's a link to my photo album of cherry blossom pictures I took at Meijo Koen and near Nagoya Castle.

The slideshow is kind of nice, and the image editor is pretty decent, too. We'll see how this goes.

Yesterday, a few of us tried to go and do ohanami (looking at cherry blossoms, drinking and eating and singing under the trees), but the weather was totally uncooperative. I did get a couple of interesting shots, but overall it was a wash (pun intended).

  

But, actually, the evening wasn't a wash at all, because I got to try another food Nagoya is famous for, あんかけスパ (ankake supa, or spaghetti), a thick spaghetti with a nice spicy sauce that they'll put almost anything on. This was a real treat, and I had some very pleasant company to go along with it.