A better piucture of Nagoya Station with the JR Towers
The other side of the Towers
Some eels underground
Fishtanks in a mall under a road
A big display on the side of the Towers that drew huge crowds when it first opened.
A big spiral sculpture outside the Towers
The display makes music, and the screen shows a slideshow, and the trees change from winter white to autumn brown
A typical row of parked bikes that goes on forever
A 5 story Bic Camera right near where I live. The best place on earth. Electronics, golf equipment, everything. Not just cameras.
Felix!
This camera runs on 2 AA batteries and was borrowed from a coworker.
A complete Nova employee dinner. Including “Baum Kuhen”, whatever that is
A Baum?
Tasty...
Milo! Energy Food Drink of Champions!!!
Comes with a mug and stickers for the mug!
Awesome! Makes Milo that much easier!!
Me wearing my all black clothes
What's missing? Milo, grape juice, spaghetti, garlic chicken, (cooked by me) daifugu, and yep the lettuce too.......
Oh yeah! Needs the seaweed to be a real dinner. Plus the vitamin gummy dessert.
I tried to get this awesome Tommy Lee Jones ad. I heard he did one where is drinking coffee and crying(pictured). What I was NOT told, is that in the begginning of the commercial, he apparently works in a Karaoke bar serving drinks, and has robot ears that slide shut when he walks in to avoid hgearing the music people sing (which is always terrible), then on his break sees some woman singing on TV and starts crying. It's a classic.
Daifugu. The best stuff on earth
For some reason this tourbus is waiting on my street many nights when I go home. I like it. Seems like a clumsy guy like me could do well on that tour.
A front shot of the wonder that is Bic Camera
What's missing from the pancake?
Sweet Milk! (Sweetened Condensed Milk)
Bubbling pancakes are the best, because then the sweetmilk drizzled on top falls in the holes.
I found it! The universal, Standard Biscuit. From now on, all biscuits I eat will be in relation to this Standard Biscuit. For example, Rich Tea crackers are about 5 Standards Biscuits, and McVities DIgestives are at least 8.5 Standard Biscuits, but Saltines are only about 0.43 Standard Biscuits. In Flavour Units.
A typical seafood section of a store in Japan. I swear I saw one of the flounders flapping a fin constantly.
One of many water thingys in the towers, with an accompanying ”Do not drink“ sign.
Inside the 12-13th floor of the Towers. That's afacade of a restaurant there made of stone.
My poor attempt to capture the view from the 13th floor restaurant I ate at, outside, in the freezing wind. They gave out balnkets and had big heater-mushroom thingies though.
An Italian dessert, Catalana, apparently. I was prepared to get either icecream, cheese, or pudding based on the wax display, but was not prepared forthis strange amalgam of all three. I regret eating all of it.
Me holding the Daikon I finally bought.
For reference, this is way too much daikon for one person to eat, and dried fish and mushrooms probably need a soak before eating like this...
It looks good now, but not after having a quarter of a daikon inside you. Apparently they contain 'digestive enzymes' which could be very useful in certain situations but which I discovered the negative aspects of an hour later.
Japan has lots of deceptive food. For instance, this looks like a bag of sweet grapes or something to me, but is in fact equally delicious sugared beans of various kinds.
And this, which looks like some sweet azuki beans encased in sugar...
...And is sweet azuki beans encased in sugar. And AWESOME.
Here's today's harvest, fresh from Mickey's orchard.
Pretty much how my room looks when you look through the living room
Our wonder toilet, with none of the deluxe features, but a cool sink on top that goes when you flush. Efficient.
Our kitchen, with a 'fish cooker' when an oven might be, and you can make out our huge recycling factory in the corner
My bed, complete with clothes drying on the fan, and laptop for easy access. Right now, imagine this picture but with me sitting by the pillow and that is what's happening.
A horrible picture of the awesome view from my balcony. The JR Towers at Nagoya Station. Pretty much the city hub
what you see after you come in and take off your shoes
Me doing stuff in the bathroom that has the shower and sink and washing machine
The shower
our 'living room'. I think you can see one of my australian roommies playing secret of mana
What happens to your hands if you go from The Bahamas to Japan
Mocchi... In THREE different colours, as my roommate asked, “Are they all the same colour?”
The Mythical No SOmking Fish. This sign, and many like it on walls, posts, stair steps and other thngs around Nagoya drove my friend mad. He came in around the same time I did and became obsessed with this fish, who apparently I happily smoking, on an ad for NO SMOKING streets. Apparently smoking did pretty well for the fish, as he can now walk, and has arms. The Golden Dolphin supposedly is also part of Nagoya's history, but still...
It's Crunky! Popjoy! It's popcrunkalicious!
An interesting view of the edge of the Nagoya Station from a tal building.
Just SOME of the wonderful products you can find in pretty much any conveniebce store, in the snacks aisle. Note the Pocky is MEN only. Only men can fully appreciate the sophisticated flavour and robot action.
Why buy regular snacks when you can buy snacks and robots, together! Everything in Japan comes in a 'with robot' option. Enjoy spectacular Pocky-lightsaber battles!
Setting out for today's productive activities
And here's the fruit of my labours! It took a while to pull out all the little plastic bits. It's actually quite dangerous; I almost cut my thumb pushing out some parts and hitting sharp bits.
Technically it's not completed yet, since you're supposed to paint it, but the plastic is green and the robot is upposed to be green, so it's close enough. Plus I don't have any paint. I guess they assume if you buy this you're the kinda guy with a personal model paint set.
For fun I threw the leftover sprues together into a jumble.
Nothing is more powerful than the grown-up, bitter taste of Men's Pocky!
Delicious AND dangerous!
Mickey is also a banana plantaion owner! The yellow text says “Mini Banana”
And it's not kidding when it says “Mini Banana”
A glimpse of the Nintendo World 2006 Nagoya event
Sean hitting the cider pretty hard... Apple Cider, that is.
Before
After
THe photo I showed the barber before he cut my hair.
Common carrots in Japan. Around 30 yen a pop.
A completed carrot.
I made my own thai food! Peanuts and rice! No, but I actually did go to a THai restaurant for the first time in Japan earlier that day.
In Japan, you LOOK with your eyes AND your mouth. I skimpd on the LOOK Jr.
It's Christmas Eve in Japan, and that means it's time for Pokemon CHanmerry, whatever that is...
Which is apparently this kids champagne stuff I guess. It made lots of smoke when I opened it, must be Charizard flavoured.
CHristmas Eve Banquet! I'm not sure what those bean/nut things are, as per my prior arrangement, but they go well with chicken and rice.
An imporvement to daifugu, if possible. The Ichigo Daifugu, or strawberry sweet bean rice cake. I thought it was strawberry flavoured based on the pink colour...
But I had no idea just HOW strawberry flavoured it is!
Zenzai!
10 minutes Just Cut. 1000 Yen
My pineapple prcedure. Start with pineapple.
Cut off top, flip upside down for a half-day (As prescribed by student). Put top on bottom to keep it from being boring.
Later, cut the pineapple into an octagonal prism using the knife. (This is in opposition to the accepted Japanese method of leaving the skin on, and cutting it into section, like an apple.)
Cut into discs, and eat far too many all at once until you are sick of it. MMMMMM!!!! Also, this way keeps the vital hard centre part, the best part, which is never consumed in Japan. My students were aghast when I said I liked it best.
Making Ozoni (Apparently this sweet red bean and mochi soup is also called Ozoni? I'm confused...). Well, start with Mochi, which comes in cuboids in East Japan, but apparently I discovered after an eventful lesson today that in East Japan it comes in Spheres. Also the standing and walking sides of escalotrs are switched according to these mocchi-shapoe regions. Anyway mocchi is made from special soft rice being mashed over and over.
Toast moderately for about 5 minutes.
Put in a bowl and pour the sweet red bean paste that you bought in a can and mixed with water and heated up in a saucepan and eat too much of it.
Not only did it snow on the very morning that I left Nagoya for Tokyo (where it didn't snow at all), it snowed in Nagoya again the very morning I had to go back to work the first time this year. It's JAck Frost taunting me (As I could not enjoy the snow in any of these situations.)
On the walk to work, there was tons of snow. Of course, when I got off later that night, it was all gone... awww.
You can never have too much chopped cabbage, especially when making...
Okonomiyaki! It worked! Complete with okonomiyaki sauce, seaweed, dried fish flakes, chopped chicken, and probably some other stuff. I forgot the Japanese Mayonnaise though. This was WAY better than it looks. Extra cabbage for dessert.
