29th January
Here is a reason why I love Japan...
A teacher just came into the office today offering a tray load of yummy cakes (from the fancy French patisserie in town) and because I am a girl, I got to pick two for free! In a country where women have to apologise for answering the phone, I think that's a pretty good deal!
Here is a reason why I love Japan...
A teacher just came into the office today offering a tray load of yummy cakes (from the fancy French patisserie in town) and because I am a girl, I got to pick two for free! In a country where women have to apologise for answering the phone, I think that's a pretty good deal!
27th January
Had another great day of boarding today - Kat, Kyla, James and I went to Sugadaira, a mountain about half way between Nagano and Saku. There is still very little snow here in Iiyama (allegedly the snow capital of Nagano!) but once we made it to Sugadaira in the morning the mountain was covered and flurries falling from the sky! Felt like things were starting to fall into place with James keeping me right and I hardly hurt myself at all! Spent the morning playing on the nursery slope and then followed kyla to a beginner cross country track to practice going forwards and turning around the corners!
Kyla and me on the lift
The nursery slope!
Kat just chillin' out!
James Sensei - teacher of all things knarly
Had another great day of boarding today - Kat, Kyla, James and I went to Sugadaira, a mountain about half way between Nagano and Saku. There is still very little snow here in Iiyama (allegedly the snow capital of Nagano!) but once we made it to Sugadaira in the morning the mountain was covered and flurries falling from the sky! Felt like things were starting to fall into place with James keeping me right and I hardly hurt myself at all! Spent the morning playing on the nursery slope and then followed kyla to a beginner cross country track to practice going forwards and turning around the corners!
Kyla and me on the lift
The nursery slope!
Kat just chillin' out!
James Sensei - teacher of all things knarly
Powder inna day, louder inna night!
I have just come back from my second Japan snowbaridng trip to Hakuba. This time I joined the GAA (Gaelic football group - see August's wakeboarding trip entry!) at the ingeniously named Lady Dianna Hotel. Kat, James and Kyla travelled up on the Friday night and Bel, Nic, Kiren and I joined them early on Saturday morning. Our package included lift pass, rentals, accommodation and meals - all coming in at just under 100 pounds for the weekend. I was booked in for a lesson with Ryan again on the Saturday to try and master turning (!) and then on Sunday Kyla and I were up bright and early to play on the mountain all day. I had so much fun and despite a few tumbles I'm keen to go back next weekend. Kyla and I even made it over to the ski park to watch James and his new friends (in the form of some Irish engineers) attempt some jumps on their boards. We got comfy at the bottom of the jumps (which involved me having to edge down a reasonably steep hill... "Gambatte legs" or "do your best legs"!!!) and watched in awe as all the experts threw themselves off the jumps. Hopefully I will get some pictures off of the others who were not scared to keep their cameras in their pockets!
Kat and me getting ready for some knarley-ness!
Nic gettings tips from our instructor Ryan
Katrina Sensei
Bel
Me!
Kat!
In between some snowboarding, we also went to a live reggae night in a local club/tavern which was amazing. The bands were brilliant and the place was packed. We had been geared up to a bit of a disappointment since all day Saturday on the mountain we had been subjected to a Japanese DJ freestylin' over the tannoy... "red tail wine, tastes so fine", "if your not new to this, you're true to this" etc etc in a REALLY bad Caribbean style accent. But luckily, at the club it was just non stop reggae beats and the whole place came alive with people dancing!
Pre-club party in the hotel (and Belinda's head!)
Me, Kyla and Kat
James
Bel and Kiren
Kat - mid dance!
Friday 19th January
Been out for dinner twice this week - the first time was with a teacher from my special school (Mami San) and the second was with the office lady at my main school (Maruyama San). Mami San is my age and speaks very good English so it was nice to have some chat and a few drinks. We went to Sabo on Wednesday night in Iiyama for a random mix of Japanese and Western food, served with chilled red wine!
Maruyama San is in her 40s and hardly speaks any English - it took me about 30 minutes to work out that she was actually asking me to go for dinner with her! She picked me up and took me to meet another Japanese teacher (also very little English) at a Japanese restaurant I had never been to before. We ordered set meals and needless to say it involved a LOT of raw fish and random egg mousse cups! There was also some tempura too, which I do like, a boiled giant raddish, fried rice, smoked salmon salad and Nozawaonsen pickles. All washed down with some Japanese green tea.
Even though I wasn't hungry afterwards, I was dying for a bowl of spaghetti bolognase!
I am off to Hakuba again this weekend to hit the slopes, so it will be an early start both days to make the most of my lift passes. We are also all booked in to attend a reggae night called Snowsplash which should be interesting!
Been out for dinner twice this week - the first time was with a teacher from my special school (Mami San) and the second was with the office lady at my main school (Maruyama San). Mami San is my age and speaks very good English so it was nice to have some chat and a few drinks. We went to Sabo on Wednesday night in Iiyama for a random mix of Japanese and Western food, served with chilled red wine!
Maruyama San is in her 40s and hardly speaks any English - it took me about 30 minutes to work out that she was actually asking me to go for dinner with her! She picked me up and took me to meet another Japanese teacher (also very little English) at a Japanese restaurant I had never been to before. We ordered set meals and needless to say it involved a LOT of raw fish and random egg mousse cups! There was also some tempura too, which I do like, a boiled giant raddish, fried rice, smoked salmon salad and Nozawaonsen pickles. All washed down with some Japanese green tea.
Even though I wasn't hungry afterwards, I was dying for a bowl of spaghetti bolognase!
I am off to Hakuba again this weekend to hit the slopes, so it will be an early start both days to make the most of my lift passes. We are also all booked in to attend a reggae night called Snowsplash which should be interesting!
Monday 15th January - Nozawaonsen Fire Festival
The Nozawaonsen Fire Festival is a famous event throughout Japan to celebrate the beginning of the year and pray for a good harvest. When I told my teachers that I was planning to go, they all responded the same way by saying it was very spectacular but they themselves had never been! I found it to be quite strange that one of the most famous Japanese festivals is happening 15 minutes from Iiyama and they opt to watch it all on telly instead. So Jo (a fellow Iiyama gaijin) and I met up about 6ish for the short drive to Nozawaonsen to experience first hand this notorious festival.
The evening started off with some frantic searching for a car parking space and in the end we settled for a quiet spot away from the potential crowds. Jo and I met Tamaki (one of Jo's work coleagues) who took us to his friends house for some pre-festival drinks. As we were getting comfy around the kotatsu with free flowing beer and nabe, I noticed that there was a TV in the corner showing a group of middle-aged men wearing outfits made of straw, sitting in a circle amongst crowds of TV cameras and press. Apparently it was a live showing of the pre-festival activities which entailed a group of 42 year old men (42 is an unlucky age) singing and chanting whilst drinking a required minimum of 1.8L of sake.
As the men got drunker and drunker, they set fire to a huge bundle of straw in the house (by hitting two stones together no less), dragged it outside and began the proceedings. Basically, two groups of drunk men (25 year olds and 42 year olds - 25 is also unlucky) have to protect a pre-built wooden castle from charging members of the public waving straw bundles ablaze with flames.
We were quite close to the castle so this is all I could get on camera!
Its starts off with young children harmlessly attacking the castle (and the men) with small flames but then it gets really serious when the teenagers and other adults attempt to set fire to this castle. The 25 year olds hang off ropes (I later found out that this was because they were too drunk to stand - think hanging onto an overhead handrail of a moving train...) and hit the oncoming attackers with branches to put out their flames. The 42 year olds (also just as drunk) sit on top of the castle putting out any stray flames and also helping to defend it. There were no fences or officals holding people back - it was a free-for-all drunken attack with flames and flammable objects! I just stood and watched in complete astonishment and kept waiting for the Casualty theme tune to kick in. At one point, I saw three semi-concious men being dragged away with blackened faces and bloody clothes. As with most japanese festivals, there were of course 'officials' who's job it was to provide everyone with free sake from a communal cup. I however, was too mesmorised with what was going on to accept...
These kids were apparently shouting "we want sake" at the men on top of the castle.
The men hanging from the ropes are all 25 years old.
And in good spirits!
Although this looks like a man rescuing a child from a burning building, it is actually a man taking his child nearer to the flames so he can light his sticks!
The man on the right has a bottle of comunal sake tied round his neck - he is known as an 'official'
The 25 year olds fighting off the public!
And the grand finale - the castle goes up in flames (all the fighters have been carried off by this point!)
The Nozawaonsen Fire Festival is a famous event throughout Japan to celebrate the beginning of the year and pray for a good harvest. When I told my teachers that I was planning to go, they all responded the same way by saying it was very spectacular but they themselves had never been! I found it to be quite strange that one of the most famous Japanese festivals is happening 15 minutes from Iiyama and they opt to watch it all on telly instead. So Jo (a fellow Iiyama gaijin) and I met up about 6ish for the short drive to Nozawaonsen to experience first hand this notorious festival.
The evening started off with some frantic searching for a car parking space and in the end we settled for a quiet spot away from the potential crowds. Jo and I met Tamaki (one of Jo's work coleagues) who took us to his friends house for some pre-festival drinks. As we were getting comfy around the kotatsu with free flowing beer and nabe, I noticed that there was a TV in the corner showing a group of middle-aged men wearing outfits made of straw, sitting in a circle amongst crowds of TV cameras and press. Apparently it was a live showing of the pre-festival activities which entailed a group of 42 year old men (42 is an unlucky age) singing and chanting whilst drinking a required minimum of 1.8L of sake.
As the men got drunker and drunker, they set fire to a huge bundle of straw in the house (by hitting two stones together no less), dragged it outside and began the proceedings. Basically, two groups of drunk men (25 year olds and 42 year olds - 25 is also unlucky) have to protect a pre-built wooden castle from charging members of the public waving straw bundles ablaze with flames.
We were quite close to the castle so this is all I could get on camera!
Its starts off with young children harmlessly attacking the castle (and the men) with small flames but then it gets really serious when the teenagers and other adults attempt to set fire to this castle. The 25 year olds hang off ropes (I later found out that this was because they were too drunk to stand - think hanging onto an overhead handrail of a moving train...) and hit the oncoming attackers with branches to put out their flames. The 42 year olds (also just as drunk) sit on top of the castle putting out any stray flames and also helping to defend it. There were no fences or officals holding people back - it was a free-for-all drunken attack with flames and flammable objects! I just stood and watched in complete astonishment and kept waiting for the Casualty theme tune to kick in. At one point, I saw three semi-concious men being dragged away with blackened faces and bloody clothes. As with most japanese festivals, there were of course 'officials' who's job it was to provide everyone with free sake from a communal cup. I however, was too mesmorised with what was going on to accept...
These kids were apparently shouting "we want sake" at the men on top of the castle.
The men hanging from the ropes are all 25 years old.
And in good spirits!
Although this looks like a man rescuing a child from a burning building, it is actually a man taking his child nearer to the flames so he can light his sticks!
The man on the right has a bottle of comunal sake tied round his neck - he is known as an 'official'
The 25 year olds fighting off the public!
And the grand finale - the castle goes up in flames (all the fighters have been carried off by this point!)
12th January 2007
Ok, so I survived the earthquake and any aftershocks that we were told to expect. There was no great emergency because apparently it happened miles from here and all I felt was a tiny rumble!
This weekend saw us approaching a 3rd birthday celebration in Japan, and the responsibility of turning one year older belonged to Kyla! Having decided on a quiet weekend, Ky and I had a Starbucks on the Friday night followed by a walk down the Gondo (with some interesting "people" watching...) and then some cocktails in the rather funky Asian Night Market. It was too cold for my camera to work and so I have a distinct lack of pictures but will try and steal some from the others!
I met Kat and James on Saturday afternoon for some last minute shopping and then we headed over to Kita-Nagano to pick up the others for some Okonomiyaki and a pint of Karaoke fun! Here are some of Kyla's pictures of the night...
Ok, so I survived the earthquake and any aftershocks that we were told to expect. There was no great emergency because apparently it happened miles from here and all I felt was a tiny rumble!
This weekend saw us approaching a 3rd birthday celebration in Japan, and the responsibility of turning one year older belonged to Kyla! Having decided on a quiet weekend, Ky and I had a Starbucks on the Friday night followed by a walk down the Gondo (with some interesting "people" watching...) and then some cocktails in the rather funky Asian Night Market. It was too cold for my camera to work and so I have a distinct lack of pictures but will try and steal some from the others!
I met Kat and James on Saturday afternoon for some last minute shopping and then we headed over to Kita-Nagano to pick up the others for some Okonomiyaki and a pint of Karaoke fun! Here are some of Kyla's pictures of the night...
There was an earthquake!!!!!!!!!
Ok, well it was a little tremour and I didn't notice anything other than my wardrobes shaking for about 4 seconds and an email from Kyla that confirmed she felt it too!!!
It has snowed all weekend so only ventured out today to have coffee and a wee peek at the sales. David has added a few extra pictures and words of our last night in Tokyo at the bottom of my novel, so have a look if you have time to scroll past all my garbling!
Ok, well it was a little tremour and I didn't notice anything other than my wardrobes shaking for about 4 seconds and an email from Kyla that confirmed she felt it too!!!
It has snowed all weekend so only ventured out today to have coffee and a wee peek at the sales. David has added a few extra pictures and words of our last night in Tokyo at the bottom of my novel, so have a look if you have time to scroll past all my garbling!
4th January 2007 - Happy New Year!
Well, my first Christmas and New Year in Japan has officially come to an end. I wish it all could have lasted longer but if it did I would never get around to updating this blog. So here goes, starting from the top. Get comfy people, it's loooong...
22nd December - Happy Birthday Bel!
It was my last day of school today and I took a few hours nenkyu so I could leave early and get the place ready for the arrival of David-san. David's flight was due in at 10.40am the next morning so I had an early start ahead of me. It was also a certain somebody's birthday that could not go uncelebrated so I headed off to Kita-Nagano to wish my favourite Aussie a Happy Birthday. The plan was to have a few drinks at Bel's and then go out for some dinner but as more and more people arrived the time ticked on and I had to sneak off early for the last train home to Iiyama.
James, Matt, Nic, Me and Jon.
23rd December - 3rd January. David in Japan part 2!
I decided to take the Shinkansen down to Tokyo in the morning, partly because I wanted to check I could actually do it on my own and also because the 3 1\2 hour bus journey didn't get me into the airport on time. Saw the sunrise over Karuizawa which was beautiful and am 99.9% sure I saw a snow covered Mnt Fuji from the window but everyone I have told so far has looked at me with a face and responded with "reari?". So, maybe not...
Arrived at the airport far too early but enjoyed my third breakfast that morning in Starbucks - extra hot, tall, skinny, caramel macciato with chocolate covered caramel doughnut. YUM!
David's flight was delayed by all of about 5 minutes and I think I paced the arrivals lounge for what felt like a whole hour but once he appeared through the glass I quickly forgot that I had been awake since 4am and became super-efficient at navigating the railway system again with ALL bags in tow! I had booked us tickets on the bus back to Nagano so we had to get a train into the centre of Shinjuku (home of the famous camera shops!) and locate the bus stop. We managed it with time to spare and even squeezed in another Starbucks for the journey.
Once we got back to Nagano we had time for dinner and a beer before the train back to Iiyama. All the snow had melted in Nagano but once we got through to Iiyama there was still snow in the rice paddys and on the mountains. Oh and it was also about 1 degrees!
Christmas Eve arrived with no more snow and all chances of a white Christmas were diminished. Still, we were feeling very festive walking around Beisia listening to their synthesized verions of Christmas songs and buying all the ingredients required for our Japanese Christmas dinner. David had even sent a box ahead of his arrival containing ingredients for trifle so we were well and truly over-prepared in the food department! As it was my first attempt at making a trifle (mum usually only puts me in charge of chopping the veg back home!) it was a bit touch and go for a while, but once we decided that you only really need cream half way round the top bit and aesthetics had nothing to do with it we were fine!
(see that red thing to my left - that's an 18 litre tank of kerosene in my kitchen!)
After our preparation was over we decided to head out for some dinner in the form of Okonomiyaki - a kind of DIY savoury pancake/fritata type thing. We were sat at our very own hotplate and then after 30 inutes of me trying to decipher the menu we ordered one tuna and one pork. There were pictures at the side of our table to help with instructions but we pretty much just made it up as we went along, and the result... delicious okonomiyaki!
This is the before shot - cabbage, veggies, crispy things, raddish, tuna and raw egg (see the picture instructions underneath the bowl?!).
Step 1 - mix it up!
Step 2 - plonk it on the hotplate
Step 3 - pose for picture holding funky spatula thing
Step 4 - pat it down and then flip it over
Step 5 - add the sauces in swirly pattern (note: do NOT add fish flakes...)
Step 6 - order another beer and get ready to eat!
Step 7 - pose for one last photograph!
Christmas day arrived very early for me (6.45am to be precise!!) because I was far too excited about all the presents under the tree! We had *bacon sandwiches for breakfast and managed to resit bucks fizz until lunch time (when we pretty much decided that Champagne straight up would be suffice!).
*the meat looked like bacon and tasted a bit like turkey rahers and went a funny grey/pink colour when we grilled so I am using the word 'bacon' pretty loosely!
We ripped open our presents and I pranced around in my beautiful new red suede Dune shoes from David! I had managed to get David a Hanko/Inkan (a small chop Japanese people have their names engraved into to use as signatures) with his surname engraved on it. Makoto helped me chose some lucky kanji characters that included the letters of his surname in Japanese "Kuraku" (Clark) which turned out to be 久 and 楽 which can mean "fun" and "forever" (any Japanese experts please feel free to correct me on this - that was my first attempt at using the Japanese function on the computer!!).
We decided to go for the traditional walk in the afternoon (minus the red shoes - much to my dissapointment!) as it turned out to be a beautiful but freezing day. It was strange seeing everyone going about their normal business with the shops open, building work going on and kids walking home from school.
On the way home we stopped to take some Christmas Purikura complete with santa hats and genki-ness! By this point we were almost falling over from hunger so we hot-footed it back to the flat for our well earned Christmas lunch. I can't take any credit for the meal as David was responsible for a beautifully cooked chicken wrapped in *bacon (*see note above about said bacon!) and stuffed with... eh stuffing! All served up with mashed potatoes, veg and gravy.
We had salmon and cream cheese sushi for starters and the polished off the meal with our trifle!
All in all we had a lovely Christmas day!
We spent the rest of the week relaxing, shopping and dining out. On Tuesday we had dinner at a Russian gay bar called "Sechibar" in Nagano city. There is nothing particularly Russian or gay about the bar but for some reason it has taken on this particular reference and nobody is quite sure why. We had a few Chu-hais on the train and once out of the rain and safely sat in our seats for the night we ordered some of the warming food on offer whilst sipping cocktails. I have been a few times to this particular bar and there is usualy a wee dog sitting at the door in a funky knit jumper and to my delight here he was again...
And yes... he IS wearing a nappy!
The back streets of Nagano
David and his Chu-hai!
On Wednesday we took the train a little South of Nagano to Matsumoto. The journey was just over an hour but took us through the mountains and the views were lovely.
Matsumoto seems to be a lot more traditional than Nagano and apart from the very depressing pedestrian crossing tune that plays every time there is a green man, it has a really nice atmosphere.
Matsumoto also has an English pub claiming to serve fish and chips so we trundled off through the side streets to find it for an early dinner when the sun went down.
Can you sense my excitement at the Sarsons Malt Vinegar??!!!
David and I had a dinner date with the two teachers at my visit school - Nourinn Ko on Thursday night so after some shopping in Nagano we walked along to "Hyorokudama" (my favourite Japanese restaurant in Iiyama) to meet them. It had just started to snow on our way back from Nagano and it was really chucking it down in Iiyama! Dinner consisted of a traditional warming winter Japanese dish called Nabe (na-bay) and some warming beer! Nabe is served as a large bowl of broth on a heater and then trays of raw meat and vegetables are brought in for you to add and cook as and when you want it. My teachers told me that to be able to eat nabe, you have to book the restauarant 7 days in advance and pre-order for your party. The waiter also told us that 30 chickens were used to make the broth and that we had to drink the "collagen" that was left over...
Nabe in all its glory
Shimada Sensei and me.
Once we had finished dinner, we settled up and stepped outside into the snow!
We woke up the next morning to a complete covering of snow and bitterly cold! We had some shopping to do for a few last minute snowboarding bits n bobs so we braved the weather headed out!
On Friday night there was time for a quick dinner with Makoto and his wife Tamie at the Itallian restaurant in Iiyama called "Surge". As always, Makoto was very enthusiastic with his English conversation and occasionally forgot to translate for his wife!
We were up early on Saturday to get the 7.19am train into Nagano where we were meeting Kirin and Nic (our very kind chauffeurs) to drive us up to Hakuba for New Year. Kat, James, Kyla and Bel were already there and had settled into Powder Lodge nicely.
We arrived to lots of snow (apparently the best powder in the world) and beautiful scenery.
As we were there pretty early on Saturday morning we were able to get kitted out with rental boards and boots and were on the mountain before 11am! Before I even managed to get both feet into a board we were already on the ski lift and I was having visions of me breaking my neck jumping off at the top! Luckily, when the moment came to get off the chair David had calmed me down and told me just to jump out the way! Miraculously I managed to stay upright and sort of hop and slide out of the way (with one foot still in the board!).
The mountains were amazing and I was pretty happy just hanging out and not actually having to snowboard at all, but as 2007 is my year for trying new things I thought I'd book a lesson with our resident instructor Ryan and get down the hill on a board.
David decided that as he was a little rusty he would join my lesson with Bel and Kat, which I think made it much more fun for Ryan (three girls, complete beginners and more concerned about their matching outfits = grumpy instructor!!!). Still, he was very patient and wait for it... he actually used the terms "you're a natural" as I was sliding down the hill slower than the five year olds learning to ski.
So, here are a selection of David's photos - not suprisingly, he would NOT let me hold the camera while on a board, facing down a hill, not paying attention... Oh and some pictures of us just looking "knarley"!!!
So, after two days of falling over and still looking cool, Hogmannay was upon us! We started it off with a rather sporadic meal at a Mexican restaurant - I think they call it apres ski?
The night then progressed with showers and hair straightners to the rescue, followed by our secret santa ceremony. My secret santa did exceptionally well and brought me the loveliest brown cordroy bag (thank you Kyla/Kat/Bel/Kirin!!!)
James in all his santa glory!
We all then sat around the log burning stove, sipped chu-hais and played charades...
We all then jumped in a couple of taxis (it felt like -6 degrees by this point!) to make our way to where we would bring in the bells. It was quite quiet at 11pm and we were the only onces dancing for a while but minutes before the bells the place was packed.
The whole thing was great fun and definitley one to remember. I better sign off now and leave you with the party pictures...
....................This is David taking over now for another brief blog hijacking!! Don't worry I’m not going to give my account of everything - just on Tokyo as Madz doesn't have any pics from there!
After Hakuba we spent a day travelling back to Iiyama via Nagano on the 1st. We were back early which meant we could recover from the snowboarding etc and pack for Tokyo.
When we arrived back in Iiyama there was still quite a lot of snow but the roads were much easier to navigate (with a large quantity of bags!) and everything was rather deserted being the 1st of Jan.
The next day we set off as early as possible to Tokyo, first on the local train to Nagano and then on the Shinkansen to Tokyo. Of course making time for a quick lunch stop in the form of Soba noodles in between - which I have grown rather partial to. There is a great little stall that sells Soba at the station waiting room in Nagano and I would highly recommend them if one is passing through!
The Shinkansen ride is a long but interesting journey that lets you see a cross section of Japans scenery quickly; however much to my disappointment there was no sign of Mt Fuji on this occasion!! ;-)
On arrival in Tokyo we made our way as quickly as possible to our hotel via Shinjuku. En-route we bumped into one of Madz's friends from back home and it was nice to hear another Scottish accent again!
Our Hotel (the Century Hyatt) was rather nice (understatement)
After dinner we ‘found’ ourselves in one of the largest Gap stores I have ever seen.
Well, my first Christmas and New Year in Japan has officially come to an end. I wish it all could have lasted longer but if it did I would never get around to updating this blog. So here goes, starting from the top. Get comfy people, it's loooong...
22nd December - Happy Birthday Bel!
It was my last day of school today and I took a few hours nenkyu so I could leave early and get the place ready for the arrival of David-san. David's flight was due in at 10.40am the next morning so I had an early start ahead of me. It was also a certain somebody's birthday that could not go uncelebrated so I headed off to Kita-Nagano to wish my favourite Aussie a Happy Birthday. The plan was to have a few drinks at Bel's and then go out for some dinner but as more and more people arrived the time ticked on and I had to sneak off early for the last train home to Iiyama.
James, Matt, Nic, Me and Jon.
23rd December - 3rd January. David in Japan part 2!
I decided to take the Shinkansen down to Tokyo in the morning, partly because I wanted to check I could actually do it on my own and also because the 3 1\2 hour bus journey didn't get me into the airport on time. Saw the sunrise over Karuizawa which was beautiful and am 99.9% sure I saw a snow covered Mnt Fuji from the window but everyone I have told so far has looked at me with a face and responded with "reari?". So, maybe not...
Arrived at the airport far too early but enjoyed my third breakfast that morning in Starbucks - extra hot, tall, skinny, caramel macciato with chocolate covered caramel doughnut. YUM!
David's flight was delayed by all of about 5 minutes and I think I paced the arrivals lounge for what felt like a whole hour but once he appeared through the glass I quickly forgot that I had been awake since 4am and became super-efficient at navigating the railway system again with ALL bags in tow! I had booked us tickets on the bus back to Nagano so we had to get a train into the centre of Shinjuku (home of the famous camera shops!) and locate the bus stop. We managed it with time to spare and even squeezed in another Starbucks for the journey.
Once we got back to Nagano we had time for dinner and a beer before the train back to Iiyama. All the snow had melted in Nagano but once we got through to Iiyama there was still snow in the rice paddys and on the mountains. Oh and it was also about 1 degrees!
Christmas Eve arrived with no more snow and all chances of a white Christmas were diminished. Still, we were feeling very festive walking around Beisia listening to their synthesized verions of Christmas songs and buying all the ingredients required for our Japanese Christmas dinner. David had even sent a box ahead of his arrival containing ingredients for trifle so we were well and truly over-prepared in the food department! As it was my first attempt at making a trifle (mum usually only puts me in charge of chopping the veg back home!) it was a bit touch and go for a while, but once we decided that you only really need cream half way round the top bit and aesthetics had nothing to do with it we were fine!
(see that red thing to my left - that's an 18 litre tank of kerosene in my kitchen!)
After our preparation was over we decided to head out for some dinner in the form of Okonomiyaki - a kind of DIY savoury pancake/fritata type thing. We were sat at our very own hotplate and then after 30 inutes of me trying to decipher the menu we ordered one tuna and one pork. There were pictures at the side of our table to help with instructions but we pretty much just made it up as we went along, and the result... delicious okonomiyaki!
This is the before shot - cabbage, veggies, crispy things, raddish, tuna and raw egg (see the picture instructions underneath the bowl?!).
Step 1 - mix it up!
Step 2 - plonk it on the hotplate
Step 3 - pose for picture holding funky spatula thing
Step 4 - pat it down and then flip it over
Step 5 - add the sauces in swirly pattern (note: do NOT add fish flakes...)
Step 6 - order another beer and get ready to eat!
Step 7 - pose for one last photograph!
Christmas day arrived very early for me (6.45am to be precise!!) because I was far too excited about all the presents under the tree! We had *bacon sandwiches for breakfast and managed to resit bucks fizz until lunch time (when we pretty much decided that Champagne straight up would be suffice!).
*the meat looked like bacon and tasted a bit like turkey rahers and went a funny grey/pink colour when we grilled so I am using the word 'bacon' pretty loosely!
We ripped open our presents and I pranced around in my beautiful new red suede Dune shoes from David! I had managed to get David a Hanko/Inkan (a small chop Japanese people have their names engraved into to use as signatures) with his surname engraved on it. Makoto helped me chose some lucky kanji characters that included the letters of his surname in Japanese "Kuraku" (Clark) which turned out to be 久 and 楽 which can mean "fun" and "forever" (any Japanese experts please feel free to correct me on this - that was my first attempt at using the Japanese function on the computer!!).
We decided to go for the traditional walk in the afternoon (minus the red shoes - much to my dissapointment!) as it turned out to be a beautiful but freezing day. It was strange seeing everyone going about their normal business with the shops open, building work going on and kids walking home from school.
On the way home we stopped to take some Christmas Purikura complete with santa hats and genki-ness! By this point we were almost falling over from hunger so we hot-footed it back to the flat for our well earned Christmas lunch. I can't take any credit for the meal as David was responsible for a beautifully cooked chicken wrapped in *bacon (*see note above about said bacon!) and stuffed with... eh stuffing! All served up with mashed potatoes, veg and gravy.
We had salmon and cream cheese sushi for starters and the polished off the meal with our trifle!
All in all we had a lovely Christmas day!
We spent the rest of the week relaxing, shopping and dining out. On Tuesday we had dinner at a Russian gay bar called "Sechibar" in Nagano city. There is nothing particularly Russian or gay about the bar but for some reason it has taken on this particular reference and nobody is quite sure why. We had a few Chu-hais on the train and once out of the rain and safely sat in our seats for the night we ordered some of the warming food on offer whilst sipping cocktails. I have been a few times to this particular bar and there is usualy a wee dog sitting at the door in a funky knit jumper and to my delight here he was again...
And yes... he IS wearing a nappy!
The back streets of Nagano
David and his Chu-hai!
On Wednesday we took the train a little South of Nagano to Matsumoto. The journey was just over an hour but took us through the mountains and the views were lovely.
Matsumoto seems to be a lot more traditional than Nagano and apart from the very depressing pedestrian crossing tune that plays every time there is a green man, it has a really nice atmosphere.
Matsumoto also has an English pub claiming to serve fish and chips so we trundled off through the side streets to find it for an early dinner when the sun went down.
Can you sense my excitement at the Sarsons Malt Vinegar??!!!
David and I had a dinner date with the two teachers at my visit school - Nourinn Ko on Thursday night so after some shopping in Nagano we walked along to "Hyorokudama" (my favourite Japanese restaurant in Iiyama) to meet them. It had just started to snow on our way back from Nagano and it was really chucking it down in Iiyama! Dinner consisted of a traditional warming winter Japanese dish called Nabe (na-bay) and some warming beer! Nabe is served as a large bowl of broth on a heater and then trays of raw meat and vegetables are brought in for you to add and cook as and when you want it. My teachers told me that to be able to eat nabe, you have to book the restauarant 7 days in advance and pre-order for your party. The waiter also told us that 30 chickens were used to make the broth and that we had to drink the "collagen" that was left over...
Nabe in all its glory
Shimada Sensei and me.
Once we had finished dinner, we settled up and stepped outside into the snow!
We woke up the next morning to a complete covering of snow and bitterly cold! We had some shopping to do for a few last minute snowboarding bits n bobs so we braved the weather headed out!
On Friday night there was time for a quick dinner with Makoto and his wife Tamie at the Itallian restaurant in Iiyama called "Surge". As always, Makoto was very enthusiastic with his English conversation and occasionally forgot to translate for his wife!
We were up early on Saturday to get the 7.19am train into Nagano where we were meeting Kirin and Nic (our very kind chauffeurs) to drive us up to Hakuba for New Year. Kat, James, Kyla and Bel were already there and had settled into Powder Lodge nicely.
We arrived to lots of snow (apparently the best powder in the world) and beautiful scenery.
As we were there pretty early on Saturday morning we were able to get kitted out with rental boards and boots and were on the mountain before 11am! Before I even managed to get both feet into a board we were already on the ski lift and I was having visions of me breaking my neck jumping off at the top! Luckily, when the moment came to get off the chair David had calmed me down and told me just to jump out the way! Miraculously I managed to stay upright and sort of hop and slide out of the way (with one foot still in the board!).
The mountains were amazing and I was pretty happy just hanging out and not actually having to snowboard at all, but as 2007 is my year for trying new things I thought I'd book a lesson with our resident instructor Ryan and get down the hill on a board.
David decided that as he was a little rusty he would join my lesson with Bel and Kat, which I think made it much more fun for Ryan (three girls, complete beginners and more concerned about their matching outfits = grumpy instructor!!!). Still, he was very patient and wait for it... he actually used the terms "you're a natural" as I was sliding down the hill slower than the five year olds learning to ski.
So, here are a selection of David's photos - not suprisingly, he would NOT let me hold the camera while on a board, facing down a hill, not paying attention... Oh and some pictures of us just looking "knarley"!!!
So, after two days of falling over and still looking cool, Hogmannay was upon us! We started it off with a rather sporadic meal at a Mexican restaurant - I think they call it apres ski?
The night then progressed with showers and hair straightners to the rescue, followed by our secret santa ceremony. My secret santa did exceptionally well and brought me the loveliest brown cordroy bag (thank you Kyla/Kat/Bel/Kirin!!!)
James in all his santa glory!
We all then sat around the log burning stove, sipped chu-hais and played charades...
"Three men and a baby..."
Kirin and Nic
Bel and Ky
Bel and Ky with their presents from santa!
Dave and Kat!
Katrina-sensei!
We all then jumped in a couple of taxis (it felt like -6 degrees by this point!) to make our way to where we would bring in the bells. It was quite quiet at 11pm and we were the only onces dancing for a while but minutes before the bells the place was packed.
The whole thing was great fun and definitley one to remember. I better sign off now and leave you with the party pictures...
(the infamous dancing dave!)
Oh and one more for all of you who waited until the 3rd to take money out the ATM...
...it worked on the 1st!!!!!
....................This is David taking over now for another brief blog hijacking!! Don't worry I’m not going to give my account of everything - just on Tokyo as Madz doesn't have any pics from there!
After Hakuba we spent a day travelling back to Iiyama via Nagano on the 1st. We were back early which meant we could recover from the snowboarding etc and pack for Tokyo.
When we arrived back in Iiyama there was still quite a lot of snow but the roads were much easier to navigate (with a large quantity of bags!) and everything was rather deserted being the 1st of Jan.
The next day we set off as early as possible to Tokyo, first on the local train to Nagano and then on the Shinkansen to Tokyo. Of course making time for a quick lunch stop in the form of Soba noodles in between - which I have grown rather partial to. There is a great little stall that sells Soba at the station waiting room in Nagano and I would highly recommend them if one is passing through!
The Shinkansen ride is a long but interesting journey that lets you see a cross section of Japans scenery quickly; however much to my disappointment there was no sign of Mt Fuji on this occasion!! ;-)
On arrival in Tokyo we made our way as quickly as possible to our hotel via Shinjuku. En-route we bumped into one of Madz's friends from back home and it was nice to hear another Scottish accent again!
Our Hotel (the Century Hyatt) was rather nice (understatement)
and had an amazing view from the room see pic below!
As the day was getting on we didn’t spend long getting dressed up for dinner and made our way to Harajuku.
Harajuku is definitely one of Tokyo’s more interesting districts with some interesting fashion trends, however on this occasion we were not there for that. Instead our aim was dinner and shopping, this came in the form of Pizza Express and Gap respectively!!
Above a New Year market in Harajuku serving up the usual Noodle and Octopus delights!!
Having tried a fairly wide variety of Japanese food on this trip and Madz craving something a bit more familiar to back home, Pizza Express was the perfect solution! The food was great as always and with a doctor from India as a waiter we were in safe hands (he was funding his overseas studies).
After dinner we ‘found’ ourselves in one of the largest Gap stores I have ever seen.
Although not much was spent and I found the sizes rather small, they did have a photography exhibition on which was interesting with various stars portraits.
From Gap we made our way back to the hotel via the back street shops of Harijuku! With an early flight (I’m sorry to say back home) the next morning this saw the end to a great evening and an amazing holiday. In the morning we had a hearty breakfast with everything from sausages and eggs on toast to bagels and all the usual accompaniments (yes I was still hungry after a big dinner the previous night)!
We had previously booked ourselves onto the airport bus direct from the hotel, which made life very easy in the morning and after a few stops for other passengers we were all too quickly pulling up at terminal 2 Tokyo Nartita Airport. Spirits were briefly lifted at the Airport by this rather humerous instructional poster! ;-)
This was followed by a very sad goodbye and an uneventful flight back to Edinburgh.
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