Our Blog

An Autumn Afternoon

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:00:28 +0900

I thought we’d change directions a bit for this post, so here’s a set of photos taken just with my mobile phone camera illustrating an ordinary day in our area. No fancy day trip, or restaurants - this is everyday life for us at the moment, as we count down into Silver Week.

Autumn

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 22:40:01 +0900

Yet another season is upon us and once again like clockwork everything has flicked modes. Places have stopped putting air con on, sweet potato pie shops are springing up everywhere, the weather all of a sudden lost its humidity, and supermarkets have packed their shelves with the inexpensive fish seen at the top of this entry - Sanma.

These two fish are as fresh as can be, and just bought from a supermarket on the way home from work. They set us back 480yen for two ($6AUD) and aside from having some healthy unsaturated fats in them, they really tasty and easy to cook. They are just grilled with salt on the skin, and served as is with some citrus and daikon.

As we now are looking down the barrel of a final 6 months here on the visa, we have planned things out a bit more than the first half of the trip. Where before we simply planned as things came about what we’d do, we’ve now sorted out plans for the entire 6 months - including a trip up to Sapporo to watch the Snow Festival on the 9th and 10th of Feb, and a stop-off in Singapore on the 13th and 14th Feb for Chinese New Year.

Our next trip was planned entirely without the help of a lonely planet, and its certainly refreshing. We’re jumping on an overnight train from Tokyo across to Kanazawa, where we’ll check out one of Japan’s finest gardens. We hire a zippy little Toyota IQ and drive to stay in Toyama for a couple of nights where we can explore the less well travelled side of Japan. On our final night we are moving to a 1300 year old Onsen town near Kaga city called Yamanaka Onsen, which is known to be Japan’s #1 spot for lacquerware, and to top it off their biggest festival of the year is happening while we are there. The plan is to celebrate two years together while soaking away in a remote onsen deep in a gorge filled with trees (hopefully) turning bright colours for Autumn.

10 Fujisan Photos

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 19:07:37 +0900

We made it up Mt Fuji and it was a great experience. I have to say although loads of people do it, what they say is true - which is that its no touristy stroll. Its a genuine mountain climb. We failed to heed the “sleep low, climb high” advice and slept in the highest hut prior to the summit at 3450m. We actually felt fine whilst walking, if only getting a little bit tired in the thin air. However after trying to sleep in a hut at 3450m we both felt symptoms of altitude sickness. Here are a few photos, using the GPS tracker that I kept on my backpack the entire ascent. Between point 1 and point 10 is 7 hrs of climbing over 1.1km of ascent.

Summer

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 13:19:53 +0900

2 months down the track and Summer is well and truly here. We’re both on 5-6 weeks summer holidays and the rainy season is closing off. The first few typhoons are heading our way, and all the festivals and concerts are in full flight.

This period of time is unchartered territory for both of us. I’d already been to Japan in the most popular times (spring and autumn) where the guidebooks tell you the weather is nicest and the tourist sights more plentiful. Whilst this certainly holds true I have to say I have thoroughly enjoyed a Japanese summer. The weather has failed to be as hot as people made it out to be (given we got 47 degree days in Sydney just before we left this year), and the festivals and activities on are fantastic.

After moving to a new apartment with fantastic wide open spaces around us, we had family visit and then before we knew it we were at Hanabi (fireworks) and the long awaited Summersonic festival.

The Hanabi experience was great, with all the women and men dressed in yukata and abundant alcohol, music and fun times. The fireworks were a bit of a let down in our case though, as with everything else in this consumer society there were ads. Right in the middle of the hour-long fireworks display, about every 5-10mins they would stop, and flash a big advertisement across the big screens. So in effect, rather than a heart-pounding 20minute bonanza, we got a drawn out, fizzling display that was so obviously designed to prolong not the enjoyment of the spectators, but the time slots for advertisements.

Summersonic was another awesome experience and it left me seeing the advantages and disadvantages. Compared to say the big day out in Australia/NZ, there are ZERO bogans with southern cross tattoos, but the crowds are almost robotic and conformist - completely against the grain for an alternative music event. The illustration of this was when I saw in the mosh pit of Limp Bizkit a small group of Japanese guys get a pit circle going. Fired up by the energy and anger in the music and releasing it in controlled violence with other like-minded guys? No. They’d just seen it on TV somewhere and figured thats what you are supposed to do to Limp Bizkit. It ended up with about 3 guys kind of breakdancing around in the middle and puffing up their skinny chests, while girls politely rocked on the perimeters.

The food and facilities and attractions crapped all over anything provided back home, but the performances seemed to be affected by the lack of crowd energy. Ego-fuelled artists like Ne-yo (I know, he’s not at all alternative), bombed out because their usual tricks to get the girls in the crowd screaming fell on deaf ears to an audience that lacks a comprehensive grasp on english and are too polite to yell out unless everyone is.

Woken up by our first proper earthquake tremor this morning, and made me wonder while i pondered if the swaying was going to get bad enough to evacuate - should I be more careful about what I wear to bed here given its such a seismically active area?

Soon to come, climbing Mt Fuji - 1 week from today. I’ll also try to update the photo highlights after this post, as they look so much better here than on facebook.

- A

Rainy Season

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:31:09 +0900

So it was officially announced by the Japan Meteorological Agency that the rainy season has begun here in Tokyo. Its going to last til mid July but interestingly the rainy season refers to a large meteorological pattern that exists around this time every year. It doesn’t mean a monsoonal wet season where it absolutely pours every day.

Its exciting to be living through all the seasons this year and the plants and festivals that each brings. Cherry blossom was our first and now the rainy season. Marked by lush green and hydrangeas flowering.

Even if it doesn’t rain, its highly likely to be cloudy and remain very humid. The relief for the rainy season in mid July arrives in the form of a blistering summer.

Quite a few cool events on the horizon:

July 18-Aug 23 - School holidays
July 25 - Massive fireworks on the Sumida River (20,000 shells)
Aug 8,9 - Summersonic Festival (Linkin Park headlines Sat, Beyonce Sun)
Sep 13-27 - Sept Sumo Grand Tournament
Oct 11 - Final of Rakuten Japan Open Tennis (Federer hopefully)
Oct 31 - Bledisloe Cup in Tokyo?