Capcom Bar/Design Festa 2012, Odaiba

I've gotten a bit behind on the updates, time has flown.  We've been here for almost two months now, and (I know this is getting repetitive) things are getting easier.

A couple of weeks ago we went to a video game-themed restaurant in Shinjuku, the Capcom bar.  It was really entertaining.  The food, the music, and even the staff interactions were all themed around video game references.  Some dishes were linked to a video game scene, and so if someone was served a particular dish, you'd suddenly be in the middle of a dramatic piece of theatre where everyone had to jump in and interact.  The staff were great, and very patient with our language skills, and after a bit we were able to participate with the best of them.

Photos HERE.

The food was great, and even with the theatre element, we were out of pocket about how much you would be for a nice meal out in Australia.  One of the memorable moments was when we ordered the Takoyaki roulette set, which are octopus balls where one of them is loaded up with a HEAP of wasabi.  They arrived about a minute before the first bit of audience participation started.  We each had a takoyaki, and within half a second I realised that I had grabbed the wasabi ball on my first try.  I coughed and spluttered for a while, just as a waiter came over and explained how to interact as the theatre started.  I didn't interact too successfully, I was too busy trying to refresh myself with my cocktail (a tequila shot does NOT help).

A couple of days after this, on the weekend, we went to Odaiba for the bi-annual Design Festa.  Jason had gone in November the previous year while I was at the JALT conference and said that we HAD to go, and that I would love it.  He was completely right.

The Design Festa runs over two days and is held at Tokyo Big Sight exhibition building.  The stalls, performances and food took up most of the building; two storeys and about 5 large exhibition halls, excluding the outside area where the bands played and the smokers hung out.  We spent pretty much the whole day wandering around the various stalls, taking photos, buying stuff and digging the ambience of the place.

A lot of the stalls had handmade things, like vinyl toys, magnets, pins, knitted and crochet toys, paintings, jewellery, and the list goes on.  We each bought some t-shirts, and I managed to score some home-spun yarn that was so pretty it made me irrationally excited.  I also seem to like frogs, given that I bought two crochet frog things, one was a hand puppet that we've named Bernie, and the other is a pouch that I've put all of my cross stitch and crochet tools into.

There was a lot of stuff that we were interested in but couldn't warrant paying what it was priced at, but that's how these shows go.  We were exhausted by the end, but we felt thoroughly cultured and happy.  I'm pretty sure we'll go back in November, given how much we enjoyed it this time around.

PHOTOS AND VIDEO

I'll try to update again soon, work has been keeping me super busy and I kind of collapse on the couch when I get home.  Jason starts his new job on Friday, yay!  Next week the students have a changed schedule because some of them have mid-term exams, so hopefully I will feel a little less tired during the week this week.

Until next time!

Golden Week break

Here's a bit of a late wrap-up of Golden Week.  While we didn't get an Easter Break or ANZAC day, we did get a stretch of holidays, leading to two consecutive long weekends, one a three-day weekend, the other a four-day weekend.  We managed to get a nice bit of sightseeing done on our days off, and here's a bit of a summary below:

On the Saturday of the second long weekend, we went to Minami-Machida, not too far away from where we live.  It's a nice shopping district with a lot of outlet shops and family restaurants.  We saw the most families with dogs out that we'd seen in one place since we arrived that day.  I later found out that that particular Saturday was a holiday designated as "Children's day", so a lot of families were out and about having lunch out or on their way to a picnic nearby.  Our aim was to go to Nitori, a furniture and homewares shop, to have a look for some curtains and scope out what there was on offer.

We ended up going to lunch first, at Outback Steakhouse, an American-owned, Australian-themed restaurant.  We got there as they were opening, so we got the full effect of the welcoming.  In most restaurants and shops in Japan, people are greeted by "Irasshaimase", which means "welcome" (roughly). Because this place was Australian themed, we got the onslaught of "Irasshaimase g'day mate", which was hilarious.  Every time it happened (which was frequently), we'd start laughing all over again.  The food was really good, but you can tell it's American-owned, not much was Australian about it.

On our way out of the steakhouse and towards Nitori, we came across a street performer re-enacting the sinking of the titanic.  He played the ship, and ended the scene by dunking his head in a bucket of water.  It was great, and brightened the day a bit more.

Photos from our day in Minami-Machida are HERE.

The following day, we went out to Kamakura, a pretty popular sightseeing spot full of temples, shrines and historic architecture.  It's also got a few popular surf beaches, so it has a lot of tourists year-round, but it's particularly busy during Golden Week.

Kamakura is home to Daibutsu, a giant statue of Buddha that is housed in a temple called Kotoku-in.  We couldn't have picked a better day to visit, it was warm and sunny, and we got out early enough to beat the big crowds.  Daibutsu is hollow, and is big enough for people to fit.  We could have gone inside the statue, but the line was a little too long, and we decided we'd save it for another day because we don't live too far away from Kamakura.

Photos from our visit to Daibutsu and Kotoku-in are HERE.

After we finished up in the temple, we walked to the beach nearby, but it was so windy we couldn't do much apart from walk along the sand.  The windsurfers took full advantage of the gusty conditions though, they were dotted up and down the seafront.

PICS HERE!

It was hard to go back to work after that weekend, but we made the most of our time off, and already have plans for the next time we go out to Kamakura.

I've got some more photos from the current weekend, but I've yet to upload them, it'll wait for another blog post.  The big news from the last couple of days is that Jason has a job!  In his field too, which is a big relief for him.  Details to follow in the next post.

Days are filling up quickly

Well it's been a little while since I last updated, things got busy quickly!

Work has been very busy, I get my head around things and then just as quickly learn something else that I hadn't been doing needs to be done, but I'll get there.  That's not what you're interested in, I'm sure!

We have settled in a lot more now, we have important things like all our necessary kitchen appliances, we have curtains in some rooms, and we have a couch to sit on.  At the moment we're on a holiday.  Although we don't get Easter in Japan, we do get Golden Week, a series of public holidays that often happen in a row each year.  It's been wonderful to have the time off and get the things done around the house that need doing.

We have our gaijin cards now, and our first bills have been paid, all of this feels very adult and like we're making some progress.  We had a look around Kawasaki station on Monday on our day off, went to Kichijoji on Thursday, and had a day at home today.  The weather's been pretty drizzly/rainy so it hasn't always been ideal to go and do things outside the home.  The cherry blossoms have been and gone, but the weather is warming up, and it's looking like a hot summer.

I've become an expert at sorting rubbish here, which is pretty important in Japan.  Today was the general rubbish and cardboard day.  On my way downstairs with my load of rubbish, I bumped into our next door neighbours, a young couple with a toddler, introduced myself in an awkward mix of English and Japanese, they seem very nice.  I really like the area that we're in, 30 mins commute to Shinjuku, and far enough out to have a rooster crowing throughout the day next door.

Otherwise there's not much to report, things are becoming routine, and it's nice to have a routine.  Things will be busy again soon, so we're revelling in the laidback until it starts back up again on Monday.