Horse sashimi

Nothing worthy of a mention has been happening of late really. I went to the beach last weekend (again). This time it was a beach south of Tokyo (Enoshima) but this beach was pretty dirty and not as nice as the beaches in Chiba (and much less nicer than home). Having said that, we still had fun swimming and drinking beers on the beach.

Last night i went to an Izakaya after work and sampled horse sashimi (raw horse meat). It was more tender than i expected and actually wasn't too bad... Neighhhhhh

Also, i have started listening to a new band. They are called Enter Shikari and are kind of a mix of punk/emo/metal and trance. They have punk singing, metal breakdowns and trance synth. It's pretty cool so check it out... Fairly original i guess.

Earthquake and heat wave

Yeasterday morning i was awoken around 4:20am by my room shaking. It shook for about 1 minute and then subsided. I thought at the time that it must be another earthquake but the next morning i wasn't sure if it had been a dream or had actually occured! Well, turns out there was another earthquake, in Chiba prefecture (my prefecture). This one measured 5.3 on the Richter Scale, but from what i gather, didn't cause much damage. This coincides with a huge earthquake in Chile yesterday, which had a magnitude of 7.7 and caused significant damage and fatalities.

Tokyo is also experiencing a heat wave, and apparently yesterday was the hottest day in the country's history, maxing ot at 40.8 degrees celcius. Fifteen people also died of heatstroke yesterday, induced by this unusually hot weather. The houses here have thin walls and crappy insulation and get much hotter than houses in Australia. Students informed me it is mainly elderly that died (although i know there was at least one school kid among those 15). I was told that elderly often refrain from using air conditioning which would explain it.

All this crazy weather. Good ol' global warming eh... Maybe it's too late??

Tokyo Bay fireworks

As i previously mentioned, there are fireworks in Tokyo throughout the whole summer, but one of the biggest shows was last Saturday night. I had planned to meet some Japanese friends there and a guy who i went through training with, a guy from work, and his housemate all accompanied me there. Me and Gio (the black haired lad) were keen to wear a jinbei as the Japanese friends we were meeting were sure to wear Yukata. We decided against geta as many people had told us that they were uncomfortable and cause blisters, so instead, we wore normal thongs. Andrew (the blonde haired lad), however, took a bit of convincing/harassing to buy and wear a jinbei. He finaly conceeded but didn't have any thongs, so he wore shoes (which he was paranoid about the whole night- paranoid of looking like a git... haha). Brendan opted out and wore normal clothes... soft.

So we met at Shinagawa station and caught a bus, and after about half an hour of searching for a 'fireworks watching spot', we decided on a nice crowded corner of footpath next to the bay, which had a nice view of a bridge ( i don't know which bridge). The fireworks appeared to break over the bridge... I had conjured a romantic notion in my mind that the fireworks were going to involve sitting on a nice patch of grass, with plenty of room to move as we consumed food and champagne (well, not exactly, but you get the idea)... It was soon made appparent that my expectations were a little off the mark as we watched from our crowded footpath, and dined on potato chips and cans of Asahi (Japanese beer). But, thats Tokyo for you... Always masses of people everywhere... It was still great though!!

During our walk back to the bus stop, we came across a traffic warden (i guess thats what they are called). They are found everywhere in Tokyo and their prized tool is an electric fluro red baton that they point and swing around. These batons somewhat resemble light sabres, and because our jinbei clad selves somewhat resembled jedi knights, we convinced the warden to let us borrow her baton and we got some snaps.

We then went to Shibuya and had some beers and some food at an Izakaya. We got lots of looks from the young trendy Shibuya crowd, who i'm sure were suprised to see Gaijin wearing jinbeis (at least in somewhere as busy as Shibuya).

We then cught a taxi to Roppongi and went to a club. Some people were very suprised that we wore our jinbeis to a club and many Japanese approached us during the night, and informed us that they were glad we were sporting jinbeis.

P.S my Jedi shot looks more like i'm trying to hit a home-run.


Andrew has shoes, Gio has thongs...


Filing in time on the train


Tokyo Bay


My one and only actual fireworks shot!


Some strange gaijin wearing jinbei and watching fireworks...


Japanese watching fireworks


The team


The mystique and beauty of the Yukata is somewhat lost when the wearer has one sleeve rolled up and is smoking a cigarette!!


The force is strong in this one


Shibuya Hachiko intersection (I have no idea who the Japanese bloke is...)

Nothing too exciting

Nothing much going on lately. I went out clubbing on Saturday night and on Sunday i went to the beach. The beach i went to is called Onjuku. It takes just over two hours on the train from my house. I met the Brasilian guys there, who i went surfing with last time. I took my surfboard but the surf was tiny. I had a short surf but the main purpose of the day was to have a bbq on the beach. I met some more of their Brasilian friends and tried some interesting Brasilian bbq foods, includings chicken heart skewers... tasted salty. I havn't had a decent surf since i got here but i have to remember that i didn't move to Tokyo to go surfing, i came here for other reasons...

This saturday is the Tokyo Bay fireworks. There are fireworks most weekends during summer but this is the big-daddy of them all. I'm going with some guys from work and some Japanese friends and we are going to wear traditional summer festival clothing- Jinbei and geta for the guys and yukata and geta for the girls. More about this later. Will hopefully have some photos too...

Speak soon

Cheers

James