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!!!)
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)
and had an amazing view from the room see pic below!
Above a New Year market in Harajuku serving up the usual Noodle and Octopus delights!!
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.
1 comment:
You look as if you had a really good time. The photos are very good, I didnt realise that the scenery was so lovely. It was lovely to see all that snow and not feel cold (never mind we will probably have it for real in March Ha Ha)
Shirley
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