Christmas Catchup

So then, you may or may not know that the plans I was excited about in my second to last post did not transpire. The most snowfall I've ever known in the UK fell 2 days before my parents were due to fly. The temperature remained subzero for over a week and Heathrow airport was crippled - they couldn't de-ice the plans fast enough. So on the Tuesday morning (Monday evening for me) that my parents were due to fly to Tokyo their flight was cancelled and, due to the backlog of other people whose flights had also been cancelled, they couldn't get a flight out until Boxing Day.

We ummed and ahhed about taking those flights and rearranging the whole holiday, maybe extending it for a few days at the end. But ultimately we realised that we didn't want to compromise on a holiday which had already had hundreds of hours of thought put into it, not to mention it wasn't going to be cheap. So, on the same day, Mum and Dad decided to cancel the holiday and they would rebook for spring or early summer when they might still be able to get into the hotels they want, plus the weather would be a bit nicer.

At first I was quite upset, not only because I wouldn't get to see Mum and Dad, but also because all of my plans for Christmas and New Years Eve had just been wiped and I felt a bit lost. Mum and and Dad could see on webcam I was disappointed so we decided to take a gamble and, at the last minute, bought me a flight home for Wednesday. It was a bit of a gamble because we didn't know if Heathrow would have sorted itself out by the time I'd fly but it was worth a go. We also decided, as a little present to him, we wouldn't tell Quiggin I was coming home.

So I woke up at 6am on Wednesday, I had to boil a kettle to have a hot shower because the hot water seemed to have broken, and I set off at 7. I made my first mistake of the day by trying to take a bus directly to Shinjuku Station rather than walking to Takadanobaba and taking the Yamanote line round to Shinjuku.  I'd never taken this bus before but I knew it'd go right past the station, so I gave it a go. It stopped outside two Shinjuku Stations (Shinjuku Sanchome and Shinjuku Higashi) but not the main one. Then the bus informed me nexts top was Kita Sando. Bugger, that's a stop beyond Shinjuku. So I got off the bus with my suitcase and went into the nearby metro station. I was starting to cut it fine and also starting to panic. So I got the train to Shibuya. I don't know, it seemed to make sense at the time. The Narita Express stops at both Shibuya and Shinjuku and I know Shibuya Station a little better.

Anyway. I got to Shibuya station, 8.00am, rush hour. Commuters were rushing everywhere, I was sweating buckets from the ridiculous temperature they keep on Tokyo Metro trains and then I got a bit lost. Eventually I found the right place and I found a chap to help me use the ticket machine and by a ticket to the station. I arrived at 8.00 on the nose and I was aiming for the 8.02 train. He informed me the next train was at 9.45 which arrives at the airport at 11.00 - 30 minutes before my flight takes off. I had missed my train by just a few minutes and the next train was too late. I nearly had a panic attack - he couldn't understand me when I asked if there was another way to get to the airport... So. I shook myself and remembered that there were other services to Narita from other main train stations - the biggest of which popped into my head at Tokyo Station, 25 minutes around the Yamanote line. The longest 25 minutes of my life. Did I mention how hot the trains were?

So I got to Tokyo station and a nice chap informed me there was a train at 9.00am which arrived at Narita at 10.00 - 90minutes before take off. Utterly ideal. I was so happy. I didn't actually manage to calm down and accept I hadn't missed my flight until I was sat on the NEX to the airport. Hallelujah.

From then on the flight went incredibly smoothly. I checked in and bumped into Valentina (who had left the dorm after me and arrived before me), I grabbed a quick Macdonalds and, happily, boarding was delayed by 10 minutes which gave me time to eat it. The flight was comfortable - the seat in front of me and the seat beside me were empty so I wasn't squashed. I landed 5 minutes early, my luggage was one of the first on the carousel (with a mysterious 'priority - first class' label) and then I walked through the exit to find Mum and Dad who had arrived only 5 minutes earlier. Even the drive home was easy, and quite pretty with all the snow.

Phew.

But the next part was to surprise James. Completely by luck he'd messaged Mum earlier saying he wanted to pop over that evening to pick up my Christmas gift so he could post it to me. So, half an hour late, he dropped by to pick it up. Then Mum and Dad said they had a present for him, led him into the family room where I was waiting and everyone was happy, Christmas was saved, good will to all men etc blah blah blah. He did look quite happy to see me!

So Christmas has been lovely- catching up with old friends, winning pub quizzes, trying to get computers to recognise new iPods (Dad's just heading out as I type to buy a new copy of Windows as I seem to have utterly borked this. Seriously, we've tried everything, reinstalled everything, spoken to helplines etc. it's the last option before chucking the laptop out a window).

I've got a week left in England and I'm looking forward to a party to see in the new year at James's St Albans flat (the pub quiz winnings padding out the booze kitty nicely) and more catch ups with friends next week. So, whilst we're all still rather sad to not be on our holiday of a lifetime travelling around Japan, we're certainly happy that Christmas has worked out for the best and, to put a positive spin on it, we get to re-plan the holiday for nicer weather. I hope everyone reading this (if you made it this far, congratulations) has had a lovely Christmas and enjoys their New Year's celebrations! Bring on 2011

Matcha green latte with strawberry kitkat

A week 'till Christmas! It's snuck up on me. I have advent calendars, the shops are playing Christmas music (frosty the snowman trance remix in the supermarket, seriously) and there are christmas lights everywhere. But, for me, it's just not Christmas without Mum and Dad. Happily they arrive on Tuesday!

A spanner in the works is this weather they've been getting in the UK. For 21 years I longed for a white Christmas and the one year it looks like it might actually happen and I've emigrated! I see from Facebook statuses that a few friends have been having trouble travelling with airport closures and flight cancellations. I really really hope this all gets sorted out as soon as possible, not least so my parent's trip isn't messed up. We've been planning this for months, it would be crushing for it to fall at the first hurdle of them getting to Japan.

Fingers crossed the weather behaves itself on Monday and they can get here safely.

I can't wait for them to get here and to begin our holiday. We're going skiing in Nagano, then to Hiroshima and Kyoto by shinkansen, it's going to be so much fun. I'm really looking forward to a few weeks off from uni, too.  I'm still struggling with my Japanese lessons and, once the review test it out of the way on Tuesday morning, I can go and meet Mum and Dad and start relaxing!

Also - I've booked flights home for February. I'll be in Blighty 9th Feb - 8th March :D

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Eyebrow guidelines

Hakone 2; food and ryokan

Okay, finally getting around to writing up about the ryokan we stayed at and the food we ate in both Tokyo and Hakone before I forget about it all.

Before we got to Hakone James and I enjoyed chosing the weirdest looking thing from the many vending machines around. One notable (unsuccessful) venture was:

Jelly in a can. You had to give it a shake before drinking. The texture was just gross.

Whilst at Asakusa, at Senso-ji Temple, we tried macha green tea mochi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daifuku)

Quite tasty! But I'm still not a fan of red bean paste, even when it's green.

 So when we got to the hotel in Hakone we were greeted with this spacious room:

 Tatami mats, paper walls, no chairs or beds, toilet with loads of buttons, private onsen on the balcony and no shower apart from the one next to the bath outside. The works.

James in his yukata with the warmer coat for winter over the top.

And me in my yukata without coat.

The bath:

The onsen was such a lovely, relaxing experience. It was pretty chilly in November and the shower next to the bath was the only way to clean ourselves. So you'd sit outside, quickly wash your hair, then jump into the bath. The temperature of the bath was hotter than expected, I couldn't really take it for more than 15 mins. The view was lovely and it was very private (thank God).

Once we'd settled in, had our first baths and got into the yukata, we then went to eat. And it was quite an experience. The way they do it in ryokan is to serve loads of little dishes and then maybe one larger one to share. Our first evening went like this:

Left: maybe mustardy chicken, Middle: some sort of fish on salad, Right: tofu

Then we were left to work out shabu shabu (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabu-shabu) for ourselves. Neither of us had done it before (though we had gone to Korean BBQ earlier in the week, similar cook-it-yourself philosophy, different method of cooking). Although it's not rocket science it was a bit daunting for us both to be given a bowl full of hot water and a plate of raw meat and be told to cook it ourselves... We did our best.

We googled it later and it turned out we'd cooked it for too long. Live and learn.

Another dish from the evening:

No idea what it was.

Then the next morning we were greeted with this:

Rather large for a breakfast! The pot on the left is a soup which was cooked at the table, the plastic lidded pot on the right was full of rice. The little dishes in front of me were some kind of fish (gutted), two little white puffs (don't know what they were), a raw egg, a square thing with a very strange texture (don't know what it is). In the dish with three parts I could only identify the chopped lotus root (on the right). The circular blue dish has little gherkins and ginger. The packet right at the front contained seaweed (didn't know what it was for, left it alone). And, finally, in the little white pot near the coffee was the infamous nattou.

Nattou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natto) is fermented soy beans which is a popular Japanese breakfast item. The taste is okay but, whilst the smell is unpleasant, it's the texture that upsets me, it's just disgusting. When you pick it up on the chopsticks it goes all stringy and makes it tricky to eat.

James gave it a go:

I left mine alone - I'd tried it before and I have no intentions of trying it again any time soon.

Then we headed off for our long day's sightseeing around lake Ashi. When we returned home a huge dinner was waiting for us. It began small:

Left: tofu, Middle: fish, Right: chopped tentacles(?)

Fish with pink lemongrass

Delicious prawn tempura with wasabi salt.

Another delicious soup cooked at the table. Here it is just after they lit the flames.

Then they brought out this large steamer full of veg, pork and two types of dumplings. It was absolutely delicious.

Of course the dinner was far too big and we couldn't finish everything, but it was a seriously tasty meal and well deserved after a day of walking.

Then the next morning was our time to leave. Our last breakfast was also large.

At the back: salmon and omelette, back right: squid, and in the front left: little fishes (they had been fascinating me in the supermarket for a while, I was glad to try them. They were chewier than I'd expected), middle: bamboo (?), and right: unknown but tasty.

 There was also another (rather rich) soup, some mini gherkins, nattou, I'm not sure what (in the blue circular dish) and another large pot of rice.

Before leaving Hakone we took a trip to a museum with the moss garden I took loads of photos of. After wandering around there we stopped for a coffee. I fancied something sweet but they only had Japanese style food so I took a gamble and got this:

I love the presentation! In the bowl were little sweet dumplings that (we were instructed) you pick up and dunk in the sweet caramelly sauce at the back, then in the powder at the front. James reckoned the powdery stuff might have peanut so I avoided that, but the rest of it was a really tasty, dainty little snack.

Phew. So that's all the food. I love Japanese food but, whilst it's fun to try all the new stuff, it's always a bit of a gamble...

Fuji-san and Hakone

On the 20th November James arrived in Tokyo and we spent a fantastic 2 weeks together. I showed him around the bits of Tokyo all tourists should see - the Imperial Palace, Shibuya, Shinjuku, Akihabara, Harajuku, Meiji Jingu, Ginza, and Asakusa and we squeezed in a 2 night trip to Hakone.

Hakone was a real highlight and full of new experiences for us both. We stayed in a ryokan (Japanese style inn) with tatami mat floors and futon we had to roll out at night. The hotel was fantastic; the food was amazing (more on that later) and we treated ourselves to a private onsen (hot spring bath) on our balcony which was so much fun.

I'll split the blog into two, one about what we saw in Hakone and one about the ryokan and the food. First; Hakone!

We decided to follow the Hakone circle route that we'd read about. First we headed up the Hakone cablecar which was actually a single track with two trains on it which were pulled up the mountain by cables. Halfway up there was a passing place where the two trains passed each other. We were easily the youngest people on it, crammed in with loads of old Japanese people. Even I was taller than most of them. After the cablecar we stepped on the ropeway (a gondola style ski lift, which I'm more used to) which was a bit more comfortable.

As the ropeway car climbed higher, the scenery got really dramatic. We got some pretty great views of Hakone town and the sea behind it:

We also went over the top of the volcanic area where they pump onsen water from. James named it Mordor.

Then the ropeway went over a peak and we had our first rather dramatic glimpse of Fuji-san. It was a stunning view, such a clear day and the only clouds in the sky were clustered around Fuji.

After oohing and ahhing over Fuji-san for a while, we headed up to Owakudani where there is volcanic activity and they famously cook the black eggs.

It was quite a steep climb up some steps to the area. Along the way were signs warning of the acids in the air and what damage it could do to your health. They mentioned asthma attacks as a side effect, which was nice. We continued up anyway.

On the way was this rather stunning view (I can never get sick of photos of mount Fuji). On the rocks you can see the sulphur deposits.

Once at the top, in clouds of steam and, I guess, acid, we saw a guy cooking the eggs in the water that collects:

I don't think health and safety is a big thing over here. We were warned to not stay around the vents for more than 30 minutes, but this guy works here?

James bought his black eggs. Ew.

Something that you cannot escape at Japanese tourist sights is Hello Kitty. There are Hello Kitty phone charms for every Japanese thing you can possibly think of.  So James decided to eat his black egg beside the black egg Hello Kitty. Makes sense, really.

Om nom nom.

Turns out Hakone isn't just known for its black eggs, but also it's parquetry. Like parquet floors, you know, wood and stuff. So, of course, there's a parquetry Hello Kitty.

After that, we realised we'd better get a move on and headed down to Lake Ashi. A really large lake with, for some reason, pirate ships.

We hopped on one (it was really bloody cold) and were taken to the other side of the lake. From there we wandered about, saw some pretty views of Fuji, pirate ships and torii from across the lake.

We then walked along a cedar avenue towards the red torii in the above photo. It was such a pretty walk.

We then realised the sun was starting to set and it was getting cold, so we hurried to Hakone Temple at dusk.

This is the red torii from a few photos ago:

And then it got cold and dark and we got the bus home (although we got off a stop early and had to walk for 20 minutes in the dark around some windy mountain roads. Character building stuff).

The next day we were due to head back to Tokyo. After checking out we left our bags at the hotel and went to see a pretty garden at a near by Art Museum. It was a moss garden so, instead of grass, there was moss. It was so pretty and lovely to walk around. We caught the very very end of the autumn colours as the last few trees were dropping.

And then we returned to Tokyo. More on food and the ryokan later!

Delicious Korean BBQ

Yum yum yum. You order a plate of meat and a plate of veg, then cook it yourself over a bbq set in the table.

And now I just wait for James to arrive!

Egg Dog

Oh! Nikko

This week we had a week off from classes due to some nicely timed national holidays and the Waseda Festival. I mostly enjoyed this time by being lazy, but on Friday Jessi and me went to Nikko to check out the autumn leaves. I'd often heard Nikko was a beautiful place that wasn't too far from Tokyo and that it's especially nice during Autumn. So, we decided to go.

I know daylight saving has just ended in the UK so you're all having darker evenings and whatnot. But in Japan there is no daylight saving and the sun sets really early. When I first arrived here in September I was surprised by it being dark by 6.30pm but now it gets dark as early as 5.00. With this in mind, we decided an early start made sense to make the most of the daylight. Alarms were set for 5:45am (ouch), we set off at 6.30 and we made it to Nikko for about 10 (walk to Takadanobaba, Yamanote to Ueno, change to Ginza line to Asakusa, then the 08.10 limited rapid to Nikko on the Tobu line which took about 2.5 hours. Phew).

The weather was absolutely gorgeous when we left Tokyo, clear skies, bright sunshine and just a bit of mist on the horizon. The Japanese woman sitting opposite pointed out to us my first glimpse of Mount Fuji seen from the opposite side of Tokyo, looming out of the mist. She said it'd been the first time she'd ever seen Fuji from this train, and it was pretty cool. I'm looking forward to getting a better look at Fuji-san later this month!

So, we finally got to Nikko, in glorious sunshine, and began getting our bearings.

The first sight we came across was the bridge. I'm not sure of its name, but it sure was a pretty bridge. You could stand and look at it for free or pay 3 or 400Y to walk across it, which we did. And so I got my first slight feeling of being ripped off. You literally walk across and then back again across this bridge, you can't exit the other side and there's a rather busy road running along side it.

On a positive note, when we were promenading across the bridge a family with their little girl in a kimono turned up:

She was so so cute! We asked her mother if she'd mind if we took a photo of her daughter, which she didn't and she proceeded to take a photo of the gaijin taking photos of their daughter. Weird. But nevertheless, the girl was super kawaii.

Once we left the bridge we walked up some stone steps towards where the shrines were. This is the first shrine we came across:

Lovely. It was a building sight, they were doing a massive renovation of it. We had bought a special train ticket which gave us entry to about 5 or 6 shrines in Nikko, this being one of them. We didn't particularly fancy walking around a building sight so we paid to enter a Japanese garden which was located opposite this.

The garden was utterly stunning and made the Nikko trip for me. I'd wanted to visit a Japanese style garden since arriving in Japan, and seeing this one with the autumnal leaves was gorgeous. The only problem (to which we were contributing) was how crowded with tourists it was. And this was early on in the day, before they'd all arrived. Anyway, on to the pretty leafy photos. If you don't like leaves, you might as well stop reading.

When we first arrived the glorious sunshine which we'd enjoyed in Tokyo and on the train seemed to falter and it went a bit dull. Me and Jessi would get very excited when the sun came out from behind the clouds as it made the photos look so much nicer :)

 Leafy.

Me with leaves.

Some more leaves, this time with water.

Then we left the garden and went to look for more shrines.

Jessi and I both had different aims for things to see in Nikko - I wanted to see a carving of the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil monkeys which get a mention in just about every guidebook, whereas Jessi wanted to see a carving of a sleeping cat.

I found my monkeys, complete with a huge crowd of people in front of it taking photos of it. It was sort of unimpressive, I'm not really sure of its significance. But it got ticked off the list nontheless.

Me in front of a pretty building, trying to use my head to hide an ugly 'no smoking' sign. Yeah, I get that smoking by these wooden world heritage buildings is a silly idea, but I think spoiling the view of them with 'no smoking' signs is destructive in its own way.

A very heavily decorated shrine.

It was up these steps that you get to a courtyard that leads to the carving of a sleeping cat that Jessi wanted to see. Which, of course, you have to pay another 400Y for the privilege. I was starting to feel fleeced so I didn't bother to see it, but Jessi did and she seemed happy when she got back.

Carvings of peacocks are just as good as carvings of cats if you ask me.

A coach load of biddys arriving.

The settings of the temples was stunning, surrounded by ancient cedar trees.

 It was nice to get out of the pollution of Tokyo to some fresh air.

We walked into a bit I don't think we should have (possibly staff accomodation). But the building was pretty!

 
We also found a guy sweeping gravel. Yep, sweeping it to make it neater. Fully worthy of a photo.

We also quickly visited the Imperial Villa but, sadly, this is the only photo I took and we didn't enter.

After an early start and a long day walking around mountaineous shrines, we started to head home. As the sun was setting, the view of the mountains surrounding Nikko was gorgeous as the autumnal leaves were bathed in golden sunsetty light. And then we went home.

Food and drink in Nikko:

I tried my first (and long overdue) cup of matcha green tea. Very tasty!

We also tried a Nikko speciality which is yuba (tofu skin) which is the circular thing in the bowl on the right. I'm not the biggest fan of tofu (it's pretty boring) and, I have to admit, I enjoyed the shrimp tempura more.

And I finally tried a fish on a stick which I'd been too scared to try at the Kawagoe Matsuri. We saw a guy cooking them on the street in Nikko so I thought I'd give it a go. It came whole, with head, tail, and guts. I guess I was lucky they'd taken off the scales! It was tasty but pretty tricky to eat.

And that's it for my adventures in Nikko. I did enjoy the day and I'm glad I went, but the sheer amount of tourists everywhere made it all feel less special and having to pay for entrance twice for some things made me feel a bit ripped off. Hey ho, I never thought Japan would be cheap.