bryna in japan.

Sky Tree and Misc.

My friend needed to get more tea and souvenirs so I went with her since I’m always up for kaitenzushi! : D

She needed to go to Asakusa for some stuff and we managed to get a better picture of the yet to be completed Sky Tree over there! :D The Sky Tree will be the new Tokyo Tower but I like the present Tokyo Tower D: I’m it’s number one fan! xD

Interesting architecture… golden turd, beer, and the Sky Tree! (The sky is gray again >_< it’s been humid and gray/rainy these days!)

Went to our favourite taiyaki place since we were in Asakusa! They’re selling cold taiyaki since it’s summer :O This one was white chocolate with soybean cream(?) - it was yum :D

It was still early after dinner so we headed to Akihabara since my friend needed to get some souvenirs from over there and I wanted to use up some of my Yodobashi points!

Got these lego earphones for free (with my points :D) and I still have over 3000 yen’s worth of points to spend before I leave!

And on the way home, while heading back to the station, we found the Gundam Cafe!

Long queue!

Abura Soba?

An abura soba place popped up right next to Hoshien a couple months ago and I was really apprehensive about trying anything from there because the sign/logo for it is basically just a huge 油 (kanji for oil)! But I’ve been hearing really good things about it so last week, right after our return orientation, I found some time go to!

Man this stuff is good. It’s not healthy at all but it’s delicious! It’s basically ramen without the soup? Instead of soup you add vinegar and ラー油 into it and mix it up! Doesn’t sound all that special but it’s really yum!

Abura soba! Started eating before I remembered to take a photo so it looks kinda gross! But it’s really not!

Enoshima Revisited!

Because the last time we went to Enoshima it was raining and a bit of a disaster, we had to go again! And since it’s アジサイ season and Kamakura and Enoshima are famous for their アジサイ, we decided to go to last Saturday! Enoshima when it’s not dark, cold, and rainy is lots of fun!

Birdies have new clothes :)

Tried takosenbei! (octopus… cracker?) Looks like a fossil but it was yum!

This ema is awwwww :)

Beautiful blue アジサイ

Kitty :D

More アジサイ :D

Lovers’ bell :D We couldn’t find it last time - glad we did this time!

Lovers buy locks, write on them, and lock them here! Rilakkuma got tied up here too!

Then it started to rain >0< not as heavy as last time but I didn’t have my umbrella on me so we went for lunch and shelter from the rain!

Lunch! 江ノ島丼… not quite sure what was in it (I think it was seafood) but it was good!

Then we headed towards the Enoshima Iwaya Cave! But before that, some engrish…

Run for refug!

Sea! It was a little gray but at least with the wind, it wasn’t boiling hot!

Turtle rock :)

A dragon was waiting for us in the cave!

I had a lot of fun around the cave area looking into the rock pools, dodging those cute little bug-like creatures that were running around, and watching families fishing : ) I don’t know why but it felt like the stress and everything was gone when we were walking around there! Loved it :D

After the caves we headed back to the lower (?) part of Enoshima.

Don’t know what these are but they’re pretty :D

The three bottles in the middle say ‘Mystery Zone’ - press it and see what drink you get!

Grabbed a little bit of food before we left!

アジサイ ice cream - it was murasaki imo and matcha flavour!

And last but not least, murasaki imo kurokke :D

I had lots of fun on this little trip even though it did end up raining! I’m glad we came back and got to see all the things we missed the first time round! I really like Enoshima :) But I got bitten by mosquitoes again at the Lovers’ Bell… so in two days, I got like 10 mosquito bites >0< I think that’s a record!

Sky Tree in the Making

Last Friday I went to visit Jokanji (the throw-away temple) with my friend because she had to go for one of her classes. It was interesting (I ended up doing some research on it after coming back home that night) but also slightly depressing : ( And I got 7 mosquito bites in just a few minutes at the temple >0<

We then walked towards Ueno to go to a kaitenzushi place which has amazing tea (time to start getting souvenirs!) : D But before reaching the place (man, it was quite a walk - it was hot, humid, and my mosquito bites were so itchy >0<), we came by a street called kappa-dori where we took a picture of the Sky Tree in the making! The pictures didn’t come out that great but there are more to come because we just took some more today!

Kappa :D

Sky Tree in the making… we had to stand in the middle of the road to take this picture!

After kaitenzushi and buying tea, we headed for Shinjuku to see Sex and the City 2! It was really funny and we laughed a lot… but only one or two other people (probably also non-Japanese) were laughing with us >0< Everyone stayed so quiet and the girl next to me even covered her mouth as if she was in shock when Samantha’s more racy scenes (trying to use different words so when people google certain things, my site won’t come up so they won’t be disappointed xD) came on! I wasn’t really sure why no one was laughing but the other day I was talking to my language partner about this and she said that Japanese people don’t normally like to laugh in cinemas D: Especially since the topic is still slightly taboo? they might not feel comfortable laughing? Which is a little odd to me but that’s another lesson on cultural differences learnt!

ホタルの光

One night last week, I was trying to write my sakubun (boring!) and I just got so bored that I felt like I needed to go for a walk. I had heard that you can see fireflies at the Chinzan-so gardens so I decided to go on the spur of the moment! The garden was beautiful but it was dark so I didn’t get many photos. And the fireflies were very beautiful too! Even though there weren’t that many, I was very happy to be able to see them : ) Fireflies remind me of summer ♥

Love in Shinjuku

I was tutoring in Shinjuku on Sunday morning and had some time to spare before I had to head back to Baba to meet my language partner. So I went looking for the love sculpture! :D

Karaoke & Honey Toast!

Honey toast was something I wanted to try since we discovered it in Kabukicho some time last year. After some researching on the internet, it appears that this company (?) called Pasela invented it. Pasela runs a few karaoke places too so we killed two birds with one stone and went for karaoke and honey toast last Friday!

Pasela is a little bit more pricey than some other karaoke places but it’s fancy! :D (and there were tambourines xD)

Of course Spice Girls had to be sung xD And of course these corny videos with foreigners in it were playing in the background!

And finally, honey toast!! ♥

Delicious!

The aftermath!

All in all a great night! I got to sing some JYP as well as enka so my karaoke experience is complete xD I will definitely miss all these wonderful desserts when I leave Japan!

Starting to wrap things up…

In a little bit over a month I will be back home! Which is why I started to make a list of all the things that I still want to do while I’m here. This includes a lot of food related things like buying oden from a conbini (before they pull it out of stores for the summer!) <— I completed this last week :D

Anyhow, going to Sweets Paradise one last time was definitely on my list! And I went with my friends 2 weeks ago! Dessert buffet, you will be missed ♥

And this wasn’t really on my list of things to do, but again about 2 weeks ago they were filming some drama at the church outside my dorm! I managed to get a few stalker pictures from the toilet xD

Famous people (but I don’t know who they are D:) My language partner knows who they are though so they should be famous xD

Kabuki

Last Sunday I went to watch Kabuki! It was on my list of things to do in Japan and I finally got the chance to see it! The event was organized by a Waseda women’s alumni group and we got discounted tickets! :D

Before the actual play started, there was an introduction thing where they explained the stage, instruments, how to act different characters, and the like :D I enjoyed it a lot! Watching a middle-aged man who has no experience in Kabuki try to out the female characters is quite hilarious xD

The actual play was really cool too :D We watched one called Narukami and although there were parts I couldn’t understand I enjoyed the parts that I did xD The stage, props, costumes, and makeup were incredible. Some parts of the play were so scandalous! The priest touched the princess’ breasts and started describing it and then went on to feel her up some more! Something that I never saw in Noh xD My favourite character was definitely the stage assistant though. He’s not part of the play - he just sneaks around in the background giving and taking away props and stuff but I just really enjoyed watching him sneak around haha :D

Anyhow, no pictures during the play but here are some pictures of the stage :D

Sponsored by Toyota?

Other side of the stage

green tea crazy ♥

No better place for a green tea crazy person to be than Japan!

There are lots of green tea products in Japan and I’ve been enjoying them thoroughly :D It’s 新茶 (shincha, literally new tea) season right now (coming to an end of the season now maybe? not too sure) and they’ve been selling 新茶 in bottles and I love it! I find it a lot more delicious than regular green tea :D 新茶 is made from the first picked tea leaves of the season so it’s limited time only. I’m trying to drink as much of it as I can while it’s still being sold!

Shincha~

In other green tea related news, Mister Donut has started selling their matcha donut series and man it is good! I have tried them all (fatty =x) and pon de matcha milk crunch is my favorite :D Unfortunately the matcha series is limited time only too D: so I will be making many trips to Mister Donut (luckily going there requires walking to Baba station so I can burn some of the donut calories off xD)!

Mmm delicious ♥