I just love the Line Weather App so much and recently, just when I felt I was seeing the same illustrations over and over again, some new ones were released. Some really cute ones!
Monthly Archive for September, 2013
Walking on the street near a few days ago, I came across the cutest fire hydrant I have ever seen. I mean, it’s always a bonus if it’s cute, right? Still I am amazed at how cuteness plays such a huge part in Japanese life!
We took a trip to Hokkaido for the long weekend to relax for a bit. On the agenda: country side, hot spring relaxation, delicious food and nights out!
As we arrived to the new Chitose airport (Sapporo), we took the first train to a small city north of Sapporo called Asahikawa. We had read that the city itself wasn’t mind blowing, but it was a great departure point for a small hot spring village in the national park nearby. Indeed the city of Asahikawa wasn’t really exciting, a bit soulless to be honest. Our small business hotel, the Dormy Inn, had lovely hot spring on the rooftop, so it kind of made up for the lack of excitement! After a beer, we decided to go for ramen, which the city is famous for. We picked a highly recommended restaurant. It looked a bit dodgy but we’d been to dodgy looking places and had delicious food, so it did not bother us. However, we did not like the ramen at all! Asahikawa, you disappointed us a bit more…
Anyway, after a great night of sleep, we headed to Sounkyou hot spring village for a bit of nature sightseeing… The village is located in the mountains in the middle of a national park. We checked in at our ryokan and then took a rope way, then a chair lift and after a walk, we were able to admire the autumn views of the forest. It was really beautiful and so refreshing to get in such a place! However, it was so cold! Coming from 30 degrees in Tokyo to 10 degrees at the top of that mountain, we surely were surprised! In all honesty, it was very pretty and great to get out of Tokyo, but definitely not the most scenic place we’ve been.
The evening crab set that we chose for our dinner was amazing though and so worth the trip! There were a good 8 crab dishes each… Delicious!
The following day we headed to Sapporo, the main city of Hokkaido, that we had visited five years ago during the snow festival. After a quick visit to the hot spring facilities of our Dormy Inn, we met with a friend of Dave for lamb barbecue, a specialty of Sapporo. It was so yummy and the recommended restaurant, in the basement of the Sapporo Beer Museum) was really interesting, with its huge dinning room (an old factory room). I swear there were at least 100 tables with mountains of meat on each one of them!
As we were in Sapporo, we had to visit the Sapporo Ramen Republic where it’s possible to sample ramen from the various areas of Hokkaido. It’s a really cool place even though it’s a bit kitsch!
After Sapporo, we took a train and then a bus to the lake Shikotsu where we booked a night at a great ryokan on the lake. The lake area was stunning and our room had a superb view of the lake with the mountains in the background.
The onsen (hot spring) facilities were amazing. What is more relaxing than taking an outdoor bath while looking at such a beautiful scenic lake?
Then, there again, we had a really tasty dinner at our ryokan. It wasn’t crab, it was “seasonal specialties” such as autumn sashimi and mackerel rolls … yummy seasonal specialties!
To prepare for our journey back from the country to Sapporo, on the Hokkaido island, we stopped at a local convenient store. We bought all sorts of food for the train journey, including sushi, tofu, coffee, fruits, etc. When we saw the “Love love sand” chocolate sandwich, we had no other choice but buy it. I mean it’s the sandwich of love and it’s got chocolate in it!
Anyway, it turned out to be a pale imitation of a Nutella sandwich!
Last weekend, there was some kind of religious procession to the local temple. We went to see what it was about, but we arrived to late and we actually missed the procession itself. We saw people were queuing to pray at the temple or at the festival food stalls on the way to the temple. Festival food is always so exciting to get. We bought okonomiyaki for dinner and on the way home, we saw a friendly-looking lady selling bananachoco on sticks. Kids love them and so do adults, actually. That lady was joking with the kids and parents, and was quite successful at selling the bananachoco.
There’s a big painting of geisha in the Starbucks Cafe…
They sell “kimono” in the souvenir shop.
You’re being served by staff wearing a mask…
It couldn’t possibly be a blog about Japan if there was no post about Japanese toilets!
At the airport, as I entered the ladies room (or “make up room” as they call over here), I had three choices: squatting toilets, standard toilets and Japanese futuristic toilets. I really wondered who would choose the other two when you have Japanese futuristic toilets as an option!
Love the little symbol for the Japanese toilets: bum and spray!
In the toilet room, they actually had instructions of how to use the toilets, translated into English as “Equipment to cleansing the buttocks with warm water”.
When I first saw those vegetable juices in supermarkets, I wasn’t sure what to think. Were they soups? Salty or sweet? And the list of veg in them was incredibly long and not really appetizing! However, when we moved to Tokyo, as we stayed in short term accommodation for a while, we ate out a lot and found it hard to have our quota of fruits and veg per day. So, we tried these veg juices and they turned out pretty ok after a while! I even started to buy some for home after we moved into our long term rental place.
Today, on our way to Hokkaido, as the trolley lady walked by and the choices were so so, I went for a veg juice for old times sake!
The list of veg: carrot, pepper, broccoli, celery, green beans, lettuce, pumpkin, asparagus, cabbage, radish, spinach and some fruits to sweeten the whole thing!
I should really stop reading those Japanese scary stories… not only is it bad for my vocabulary knowledge, but it also makes my writing sound dramatically corny! Seriously, who would name a blog post “shadow in the dark”… Haha! Anyway, I was on my way back from a meeting yesterday, when I saw this strange shadow effect. It’s from the local Hawaiian restaurant’s flamingo statue. I thought it was kind of cool looking! It usually doesn’t that… In any case, it made me notice the restaurant for the first time! Who knows, I might even go…
Today, I joined a culinary adventure tour organised by Nippon Go! They took us to the famous Kappabashi district in Tawaramachi, where you can find everything from tableware and cooking pots to restaurant signs and fake food made of resin for restaurant displays. It used to be a place where only restaurants and professionals used to get their supplies but it’s now hugely popular with regular people, both locals and visitors.
Today, our tour organisers took us to various shops starting with a lovely traditional tableware and pottery shop.
Then, we stopped in one of the shops where they sell fake food. It’s crazy how real the food looks. I’ve been living in Japan quite a while now, and I am still amazed by those!
Even the beer looks real!
And the craziest food. I mean, is there a restaurant in Tokyo that sells such burgers?
After the plastic-made food shop, we went to a few shops where you can find all sorts of kitchen utensils. Impressive, really!
Finally, we had lunch in a famous okonomiyaki place. It was an old wooden house serving superb okonomiyaki of all sorts!
After, the delicious dinner, we did a workshop, where we made a tie dye handkerchief! It was fun but I wasn’t really good at it though…
At the end of the day, I unpacked my bag and was delighted with my purchases!
