Japan Blog (July 15-22nd) (cont...)
Okay, so like I said before I wanted to try and continue writing about my Japan experiences by going through my pictures and trying to jog my memory..
I've been looking at my pictures and it looks like this will be a little more difficult than I thought it would be.. for now I am going to be going off the dates that are on my Facebook upload date, and then we'll see from there ^^; Once I get to the tour part of my studies it will be a little easier to remember, I think.
This week I stopped into Book Off (AGAIN), and managed to get a few more super cheap stuff and snag an Arashi CD
I'm sure I was wandering around with awesome people such as Tsemin, Naomi, Yvonne and Katie, too :D
Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru!
Nodame!
Yotsuba!
I got this entire L'Arc photobook for 100 yen. THAT IS KIND OF RIDICULOUS I MISS YOU BOOK OFF D:
There was also a really awesome sunset going on that weekend and I felt so good I wanted to go out and take some pics of it
Another big thing that I did that weekend was I went to the Haccho Miso Factory in town here. It's only 1 train station away so we decided we'd go try it out. Me, Young, Tsemin and Simon ventured over there and they have tours of the place and there's a restaurant that sells only miso flavored things. We ate lunch there and it was DELICIOUS. The special thing about this factory is that it's been around for a LONG time, and they still do everything the same way they did when they first started. Also, Haccho Miso is a darker miso so it has a bit of a stronger taste and such
Tsemin testing the height of the barrel
Diagram of how they make the miso... the first time I saw this I thought they were real people standing very still -_-;;
There was a drama that was filmed at this factory starring Aoi Miyazaki. She's one of my favorite Japanese actresses so that was a really awesome surprise
Inside the fermentation building. The stones that they set up on the barrels never fall off. They claim that they stack them in a certain way and even through earthquakes they don't fall
This is their miso character.. it's so cute
We had miso flavored soft serve ice cream. It was actually really good, and I went back to this place and got it like 3 times x_X;
This is the food that I got from the miso restaurant. It's rice, a bowl of akai miso, and an egg and conbu covered in some really really delicious miso sauce
After we went to the factory we had planned to walk over to the castle. It was a very bright and sunny day that day and I remember walking to the castle (which wasn't nearly as close to the train station as the miso factory), and it was just blisteringly hot. There were no clouds and no trees either
When we got to the castle, there were quite a few different things to see. The grounds were fairly large.. there were a few areas to go into and see a museum type of thing, and then there was the actual castle which they (sadly) turned into a museum. It was SO hot that we were tempted by the 500yen entrance fee to go into the Okazaki museum and see the history of Okazaki. So that's what we did first.
In the museum were lots of little intricacies, weapons, and different figures to see. They also had some samurai outfits on display, and some samurai helmets that you could put on.
Here's me wearing my stylish samurai helmet...
Me and Simon-san duking it out
Adorable
They also had this wooden horse thing that you could sit on and pretend you were fighting in the army... we told Tsemin to get on it and put on her angry face and this is what she gave us
Charge?
Simon-san's angry face... lol
I'm.. not sure what to think of this
;;
They also had this section where this guy was standing by a table with a bunch of samurai stuff. Everyone wanted me to wear it really badly and the guy wanted me to wear it too so...
He stuck this one with gigantic horns on it on me
;; it was REALLY heavy actually and felt like it was going to fly off the back of my head
My best samurai pose
After that we headed over to the actual castle grounds. It was surrounded by lots of trees and greenery and flowers and such. It was really nice
Here's a video of the grounds that I took. I guess by what I say in the video I was trying to get the deafening sound of the cicadas, but that failed seeing as they stopped making noise as soon as I started filming
;;
We went inside and it was basically just a museum, which was sad. I was hoping to see a lot of the old castle stuff but they had mostly renovated it, but they had a nice lookout area at the top of the castle...
And after we were done with viewing the castle, we came back down to land and walked back from the way we came. At that time we encountered an awesome anamatronic clock that did some sort of dancing and such at certain times. It was really awesome and really intricately made o_O;;
Then we saw a sign for カキ氷!! It was so hot that day and that sounded really tasty that we decided to go over there and get some. They gave us SO MUCH. I mean, I suppose all it is is shaved ice and flavors, but my god... it was only like 200 yen. Me and Young shared a strawberry one and Simon and Tsemin got a green tea one.
Aaannd the resident love hotel. lol.
AND NOW FOR GRATUITOUS FOOD SHOTS 8D
I had gone to Domy again and was just wandering around to find something new to try and I found these. They are Hi-chews, except they have some sort of little round things in them that pop kind of when you chew it. This one was flavored Soda/Cola... and to this day I'm still not sure if I like it or not
;; I liked it but I didn't at the same time
And that's that for that week. Hopefully I can work on the next week soon
I've been looking at my pictures and it looks like this will be a little more difficult than I thought it would be.. for now I am going to be going off the dates that are on my Facebook upload date, and then we'll see from there ^^; Once I get to the tour part of my studies it will be a little easier to remember, I think.
This week I stopped into Book Off (AGAIN), and managed to get a few more super cheap stuff and snag an Arashi CD
I'm sure I was wandering around with awesome people such as Tsemin, Naomi, Yvonne and Katie, too :D
Kimi no Tame ni Boku ga Iru!
Nodame!
Yotsuba!
I got this entire L'Arc photobook for 100 yen. THAT IS KIND OF RIDICULOUS I MISS YOU BOOK OFF D:
There was also a really awesome sunset going on that weekend and I felt so good I wanted to go out and take some pics of it
Another big thing that I did that weekend was I went to the Haccho Miso Factory in town here. It's only 1 train station away so we decided we'd go try it out. Me, Young, Tsemin and Simon ventured over there and they have tours of the place and there's a restaurant that sells only miso flavored things. We ate lunch there and it was DELICIOUS. The special thing about this factory is that it's been around for a LONG time, and they still do everything the same way they did when they first started. Also, Haccho Miso is a darker miso so it has a bit of a stronger taste and such
Tsemin testing the height of the barrel
Diagram of how they make the miso... the first time I saw this I thought they were real people standing very still -_-;;
There was a drama that was filmed at this factory starring Aoi Miyazaki. She's one of my favorite Japanese actresses so that was a really awesome surprise
Inside the fermentation building. The stones that they set up on the barrels never fall off. They claim that they stack them in a certain way and even through earthquakes they don't fall
This is their miso character.. it's so cute
We had miso flavored soft serve ice cream. It was actually really good, and I went back to this place and got it like 3 times x_X;
This is the food that I got from the miso restaurant. It's rice, a bowl of akai miso, and an egg and conbu covered in some really really delicious miso sauce
After we went to the factory we had planned to walk over to the castle. It was a very bright and sunny day that day and I remember walking to the castle (which wasn't nearly as close to the train station as the miso factory), and it was just blisteringly hot. There were no clouds and no trees either
When we got to the castle, there were quite a few different things to see. The grounds were fairly large.. there were a few areas to go into and see a museum type of thing, and then there was the actual castle which they (sadly) turned into a museum. It was SO hot that we were tempted by the 500yen entrance fee to go into the Okazaki museum and see the history of Okazaki. So that's what we did first.
In the museum were lots of little intricacies, weapons, and different figures to see. They also had some samurai outfits on display, and some samurai helmets that you could put on.
Here's me wearing my stylish samurai helmet...
Me and Simon-san duking it out
Adorable
They also had this wooden horse thing that you could sit on and pretend you were fighting in the army... we told Tsemin to get on it and put on her angry face and this is what she gave us
Charge?
Simon-san's angry face... lol
I'm.. not sure what to think of this
;;
They also had this section where this guy was standing by a table with a bunch of samurai stuff. Everyone wanted me to wear it really badly and the guy wanted me to wear it too so...
He stuck this one with gigantic horns on it on me
;; it was REALLY heavy actually and felt like it was going to fly off the back of my head
My best samurai pose
After that we headed over to the actual castle grounds. It was surrounded by lots of trees and greenery and flowers and such. It was really nice
Here's a video of the grounds that I took. I guess by what I say in the video I was trying to get the deafening sound of the cicadas, but that failed seeing as they stopped making noise as soon as I started filming
;;
We went inside and it was basically just a museum, which was sad. I was hoping to see a lot of the old castle stuff but they had mostly renovated it, but they had a nice lookout area at the top of the castle...
And after we were done with viewing the castle, we came back down to land and walked back from the way we came. At that time we encountered an awesome anamatronic clock that did some sort of dancing and such at certain times. It was really awesome and really intricately made o_O;;
Then we saw a sign for カキ氷!! It was so hot that day and that sounded really tasty that we decided to go over there and get some. They gave us SO MUCH. I mean, I suppose all it is is shaved ice and flavors, but my god... it was only like 200 yen. Me and Young shared a strawberry one and Simon and Tsemin got a green tea one.
Aaannd the resident love hotel. lol.
AND NOW FOR GRATUITOUS FOOD SHOTS 8D
I had gone to Domy again and was just wandering around to find something new to try and I found these. They are Hi-chews, except they have some sort of little round things in them that pop kind of when you chew it. This one was flavored Soda/Cola... and to this day I'm still not sure if I like it or not
;; I liked it but I didn't at the same time
And that's that for that week. Hopefully I can work on the next week soon