Japan: Time Extension

Got my visa extended for a year, even though I only asked for 6 months. That said, I don't plan to be here for that long if the wife's Australian visa gets finalized sooner.

Japan: Straight Sevens

There's a vending machine near our house that is the only one that has 500ml cans of Calpis. It also happens to be the only one with the "numbers bonus game". It goes like this:

• Buy any drink from the machine. In this case, 120 yen for Calpis Water.
• After the drink is dispensed, the numbers bonus game starts. Like slots, four numbers shuffle randomly. If you get 7777, you win a free drink of your choice.
  
• I got 7777! So for my free drink, I chose a 500ml can of Calpis Soda.

It was rather entertaining!

Japan: Yum Cha

Yesterday, the family went to Rokko Island to have all-you-can-eat yum cha for the respectable price of 3000 yen each. The Chinese restaurant was located inside the Kobe Sheraton Hotel. The food was good, though restaurants here in Japan use mustard as a condiment as opposed to chili, and there's nothing better than shrimp dumplings drowning in chili sauce.

What wasn't good, however, was the price of the 190ml coke I ordered... 700 yen! That's almost $9! The wife said that I should have expected it, considering that we were in a hotel and hotels are expensive. Yes, but still, 700 yen! I could have bought 6 litres of coke from the supermarket for that much. Oh well.

Japan: Show Me the Beef

A couple of friends from Australia came to Kobe to visit. This gave the wife and I the perfect (and only) excuse to finally eat some Kobe Beef, which is known for its marble appearance and expensive cost.

We went down to a restaurant in Sannomiya and ordered 2x160g and 2x200g dinner sets. The taste... was very good. I don't know if it's worth the money (8000 and 10,000 yen respectively), but it was very tasty. The restaurant cooks the food in front of you, so it was also entertaining.

After leaving, the wife revealed that the restaurant had charged us the wrong amount. We ended up paying about 5000 yen less than we were supposed to. We kept walking, only to occasionally look over our shoulder. Lucky!

Japan: New Year

The new year in Japanese brings with it some traditions. On December 31st, the family came together to eat o-sechi, which is basically a box with lots of different small-portioned food in it. Actually not that great, but it is traditional and fairly expensive.

At around 11:30pm, after the annual NHK Kohaku Utagassen singing contest finished, we ate some new years Toshikoshi soba. Tradition has it that you eat the soba and drink the soup before midnight, but you must not leave anything behind in the bowl.

New year's day, and the kids in the house got packets of money (Otoshidama). I remember getting such when I was younger and, frankly, it was awesome. Too bad no money packets are given to adults. Had azuki and mochi for breakfast, and lunch was what was left of the night before's o-sechi. All nengajo (new year's cards) are delivered on this day, regardless of when you sent them before.

Today, the wife and I, along with her friends, made our way to Nishinomiya to a temple to get our new year's fortune (Hatsumoude). You shake a tube full of sticks and then pull one out. The stick has a number which corresponds to a fortune. I got the best one, while one of the wife's friends got the worse. I don't really believe it, but no harm in trying, eh?

Japan: Why is it the Opposite?

Two of the wife's sisters are pregnant, so the family went to Nakayama Temple in Takarazuka today to pray for the upcoming babies. At the temple, the mother-to-be buys a haraobi, a long piece of cloth that has writing on it telling you the gender of the baby. As all good fortunes go, the gender of the baby is actually the opposite of what the haraobi says.

The haraobi said "girl."

Japan: End of Year Trivia

Christmas is a different time here in Japan. They see it as purely a commercial occasion, free of those perky religious overtones. Santa-san delivers presents and the kids are happy. Christmas Day is not a public holiday, but the Emporor's Birthday is, and it's on the 23rd. Close enough. I gave some presents to the adults in the house as I figured (correctly) that Mr Claus would forget about them.

Had to send a visa application off a few weeks ago. The main Japan Post office in Kobe is open 24 hours (which is awesome), but for some strange reason, they don't sell things that you would expect a post office to have, like envelopes. Had to go to 7-11 for them, but that wasn't a problem since 24-hour convenience stores are everywhere.

Japan: Osaka Motor Show

Today, the father-in-law and I went to check out the Osaka Motor Show. The star of the show was the lovely new Nissan GT-R, which was very nice in the flesh, but there's something not quite right about it for me. There's a few too many angles in the body, or perhaps I'm used to the curves of the 350Z. Still, I would say "no" though!

Spent most of the time looking at the Japanese cars. American cars weren't particularly interesting (Chrysler didn't have a Viper there), but some of the European stuff is always eye-catching (Ferrari, Lamborghini...) The concept cars were interesting, and were usually the first thing I looked for when entering an area. I liked the Nissan Pivo2, Honda Puyo and the Lexus LF-A. Biggest surprise was the Japanese Mitsuoka Orochi, which looked insane.

A good number of people there, but enough room to move around. All in all, a good time had.

Japan: Lost and Buy

It's official - I lost my Nintendo DS. I have a feeling that I forgot to put it back into my bag at Okinawa airport after playing with it. The wife was kind enough to call two airports and the airline to see if anyone found it, but that resulted in nothing. So in summary, I lost my Final Fantasy XII Nintendo DS, a copy of Saiyuki and my Mario Invincible Star DS pouch. I'll probably buy a replacement before I return to Melbourne.

On the weekend, the wife and I walked into Seiden to check out video cameras. I was thinking of buying a "play" camera; something that I could carry in my pocket for fun. I was eying the high-def Canon HV10, and wanted the wife to give it a test drive. While we were there, however, I found a Sony HDR-HC3 for 50,000 yen. Bargain! Cheaper than the HV10 too (bigger though). So I bought it. Perhaps an impulse buy, but $500-ish for a HD video camera (and a half-decent one at that) was too good to pass up.

Japan: Trip to Miyako

The wife and I spent the past three days on Miyako Island in Okinawa, which is a 2-plane, 3.5-hour trip from Kobe.

Miyako, like the rest of Okinawa, is very much "island lifestyle" - that is, everything is laid back and relaxing. The speed limit is 40km, the music on the radio is distinctly chill-out guitar (Okinawan music is itself a genre), and everyone is friendly. We stayed at the Allamanda Shigira Bayside Suite which was great except for the bed, which looked and felt nice, but for some reason did not give a good night's sleep (the sheets were rather loud).

We hired a car and drove around to various spots on the island for food, views and shopping. Tried to see a beach sunset on the first day but it was too cloudy, and we didn't actually find the beach. Went to three beaches on the second day and had a dip in one of them (first time I've been to the beach in ages). Went to a Greek restaurant for lunch, which is the first Greek restaurant I've seen/been to in Japan at all.

Final day, we made a couple of clay shisa, which turned out really good. They'll be sent to us in a month's time due to kilning. For lunch, went to the only(?) taco rice place on the island, where I ate too much.

All in all, our trip to Miyako Island was very good. Recommended if you're looking for a relaxing-type holiday.

PS. I think I lost my DS somewhere between Okinawa Naha airport and home, because I can't find it :(

Japan: One Year Later

Today is my one-year wedding anniversary. It's been a quick year, to be sure. The wife and I went to stay at Hotel de Maya on top of Mt. Rokko for the night. Nice view of Kobe at night. Food was good, the room was so-so. Woke up this morning to rain and really heavy fog.

Love you, baby! Here's to more years, hopefully :)

Japan: Tokyo Games Show

The wife and I made the trip to Tokyo this past weekend to visit friends and go to the Tokyo Games Show. The trip didn't start so well, with me getting some stomach pains on the 3-hour Shinkansen ride. I blame the combination of Mister Donut and cafe latte which made my breakfast for that morning.

TGS was very cool. Definitely worth the price of admission (which was only 1000 yen). I didn't play any of the demos (the waiting times reminded me of rides at Universal Studios), but instead just soaked up the atmosphere. I bought some plush Puyo-Puyo and a Kirby. The wife took some booth babe and cosplayer photos.

Stayed at a friend's house for the weekend (thanks H&K!), and also had lunch in Harajuku with an old AMH buddy. While in Harajuku, saw a weird old dude wearing small fish bowls for earrings, with actual live goldfish in them. Went through JR Shinjuku station a couple of times and was totally amazed at the amount of people that pass through that place; and indeed, in Tokyo in general. Too busy and crowded for my like.

Japan: Age of Wisdom Part 2

The weekend was busy. Saturday night, the family went bowling at Round 1. I managed a few strikes and also won a couple of toys from the UFO Catchers for the kids. The wife knocked down 9 pins during a special round and won herself a small novelty billiard table.

Sunday was spent alone in my room as I finished up yet another wedding video. The wife was working, attending a bridal fair.

Monday morning. The last of my wisdom teeth was removed. They saved the hardest til last... At night, we went to our friends' place to premiere the wedding video to their satisfaction.

Today, my cheek is swollen and I didn't sleep last night. My body aches all over.

Japan: Weekend Trip and KISS

Saturday, the wife and I went to Nagoya, which is a 3-hour train trip from Kobe. The day started at 6am, and I was very tired on the train. Played Pokemon Diamond to pass the time. Once we got to Nagoya, we met up with the wife's friend and her two kids, and then went to have unagi at a famous/popular restaurant named Houraiken. We waited almost an hour to get in, and while the food was good, it isn't really worth the wait.

After a leisurely stroll through Tokugawaen, we parted ways with the friend and went to another popular restaurant named Yamachan, which is known for its chicken wings. They were good, but we didn't eat much due to still being full from lunch. We got back to Kobe around 11pm.

Today, we bought a new digital SLR camera: the Canon KISS Digital X. My sister-in-law has one, so we've played with it before and were thoroughly impressed with the picture quality and ease of use. We were thinking of getting the Nikon D40x, which was about 20,000 yen cheaper, but decided to get the KISS because we knew what we were getting.

Japan: GOOAAALLLL

The wife, sister-in-law and her husband, and I went to last night's J-League match between Kobe Vissel and Urawa Reds at Kobe Universiade Memorial Stadium. The Reds are top of the league while Kobe sit around 10th, so obviously the chances of winning were not good.

Trailing 2-0, about half-way through the second half Kobe managed to score. In the end it remained 2-1: a loss. 20,000 soccer fans and 20,000 baseball fans (whose game ended about the same time at the stadium next door) meant it took about 30 minutes to get out of the car park.

I think I prefer to watch it on TV. It's easier to see what's going on.

Japan: Bridge!

My parents-in-law and I went for a day trip to the other side of Japan to have a look at the JR Amarube bridge. The bridge is unfortunately known for an accident which involved a train falling from it due to strong winds. A four-hour train trip there was broken halfway with a side-trip to an onsen. Father-in-law and I went in while Mother-in-law waited outside. Bought a copy of Famitsu to keep myself interested during the train ride. On the way back to Kobe, a thunderstorm came in. I got some good lightning on camera. Got home at 9pm-ish (having started the day at 6am), in time to watch Japan beat Vietnam in the soccer.

Japan: Age of Wisdom

This morning, my two left wisdom teeth were taken out in a relatively quick procedure at the local dentist. The wife accompanied me and served as translator, although this phrase doesn't need much translation: AAAAAHHHHHHRRRRGGGGG!

Just kidding. It was painless, thanks to the aesthetic. Indeed, I even managed to laugh myself silly as the numbness of my lower lip caused me to dribble water as I tried to gargle. Good times. The remaining teeth will be removed sometime next month. I will get that procedure on video.

Japan: Another Wedding

The wife's friends' wedding was today, and I was the cameraman (again). It was far too hot (over 30 degrees easily), so the last thing I wanted to do was running around in a suit. The ceremony was held in Kitano, overseen by an American priest whose Japanese accent amused the kids in attendence.

The reception was held in a restaurant near Daimaru. The wife was co-MC for the night. I had a bit of battery trouble, and unfortunately I missed one thing from the night (not really important, but still). The room had mood lighting, which of course is terrible for a video camera, so I think the footage might be quite dark.

A smaller party was held after the reception for friends of the couple. Nothing special about that one, except for the game of group jankenpo with a prize of 20,000-ish yen. The bride eventually won that one, but that was probably intentional.

Japan: Tour of Duty

Today marked six months of living in Japan. To celebrate, the wife and I drove around to various stores to find a toaster to give to my parents-in-law. I thought it would be good to show my appreciation for them letting me stay at their house and leech their food and electricity. Eventually picked one up from Yamada Denki, which meant some extra points on my point card.

Japan: Fireworks

The family went down to Meriken Park this evening to watch the hanabi (fireworks). I went to this event previously; the first time I came to Kobe back in 2004. I don't know how nostalgic one can be of something that happened 3 years earlier though... Anyway, the wife and I dressed up in yukata (mine was Jean Paul Gaultier - seriously) and geta; both of which I found uncomfortable. It was also a warm night in the high 20's, but the wind across the harbour was fairly cool.

Meriken Park was full of people. We found a spot next to Oriental Hotel. The fireworks were good and we made it home quickly by avoiding the crowd.