Hiroshima Holiday – 4th and Last Day Farming

Having slept in the smaller, warmer room last night, I was so refreshed and cosy in the morning! And as we now had air conditioning, we also had a nice warm room to get changed in! Breakfast was the usual, but I got a photo of this one:

After breakfast Shimohara had a very odd little panic and didn’t really explain why other than something about another job and he just left us for an hour or so. We weren’t sure if we were supposed to do anything or be ready in 10 minutes or 2 hours, so we spent a while bimbling about.  When he came back we went straight out to the shovelling field, but he took the other girl to the station, and it was just the three of us today. It was much more fun to spread the pile of stuff today as there was no silent Shimohara making it feel a bit oppressive so we chatted and had some fun. He came at about 12pm and brought Fuku-chan though!

I love this picture, Bekah is mid shovel throw!

Break time!

Lunch was a bit of a surprise today, we went home to change into clean(er) clothes and then drove off into town for okonomiyaki!! It’s a gorgeous food that has so many variations depending on where you eat it. Basically it consists of cabbage, noodle(sometimes), meat, pancake batter, egg and any other random bits you want in there. The Hiroshima style okonomiyaki is very layered; rather than all mixed in like some other styles. Okonomiyaki itself means something like, ‘cooked as you like’ so you are free to put anything in or on it and do it however you want! The sauce is the best part, I could eat that all day! I took step by step photos on my dying camera, so you can see exactly how ours was made 🙂 It was a lovely little village restaurant so it had a really homey feel to it, and Shimohara had clearly been there a lot!

Ready for lunch!

She started with cabbage and then added noodles on the giant hotplate

Spooshing around

Adding some flavour sauce or another

More spooshing

Batter time

Adding some more flavour things to the batter

She split the cannage/noodle spoosh into 4 and popped a bit on each pancake

more flavour

Meat!

A bit more batter

Time to flip

This is what they looked like turned

Then it’s egg time; apparently she usually got double yolks and there was only one egg out of four with a single yolk! She had a poster on the wall of a 4 yolked egg too!

Spoosh the egg and pop the rest on top

Moving it onto the egg

Flip again!

Sauce time; the best sauce ever

Green stuff time

Plating up!

Skillful hands

My finished okonomiyaki

Itadakimasu!!

 

I couldn’t finish the whole thing, it was so big! I stuffed myself as much as I could and Bekah finished the rest 🙂 We had a little coffee and a boiled sweet afterwards and Shimohara paid for it all! On the way home we stopped for petrol, checked on Shimohara’s cows (he has so many different farm things going on all over) and then got back into work gear. When we got back to spreading, a man came with a truckload to tip a new pile onto the field we had done yesterday and we ended up chatting. It turned out that his son was also at SOAS studying! Such a small world! None of us could believe it, least of all him! He kept repeating variants of ‘no way!’ over and over again! It was very funny. He was very friendly and made the job much more fun. He left to go and get another truckful and when he came back he’d brought us a bottle of coke each! We chatted some more, I asked what was in the stuff we were spreading and it turned out it was burnt fruit and veg skins etc. He was good fun!

After dinner boiled sweet

Adorable coffee

There was an escaped goat when we got back!

Truckload number one

Selfie!

Our cokes 🙂

Truckload number 2

Shimohara returned about 6pm and spread with us for half an hour. He was a man of even less words than usual at that point but I managed to get out of him that what I’d been hearing was, in fact, the music road. I thought it was, as in 2012 I had driven over one with the lady I had stayed with. It was very cool; every time someone drove over it there would come some resonating sound and if they were driving at the right speed then it would be a song!

When we got back I showered while the girls walked the dog and the goats! We had dinner and Shimohara gave us all little cloth bags for bits and bobs as a present and we gave him some lemon sherberts and a postcard. We had a nice relaxed evening and even went out stargazing a bit; I learnt quite a lot as Yzzy really loves the stars!

I’ll leave you with a bonus picture of the sunset and one of Bekah with stuff on her face!

Constantly Updated – Cool things!

I was updating my ‘Odd Things’ post with more pictures and realised that some of the things I’ll be taking photos of that don’t need their own whole post aren’t ‘odd’ but ‘cool’! So this is where the cool photos are from now on 🙂

Also, at the very top of the blog is a little box of links to all the ‘Constantly Updated’ posts, so if you want to bookmark them, or find them quickly, you can 🙂

Sakura KitKat

And it’s actually pink!

Mitch and I have tickets to so many things!!

Japan and Marlene have introduced me to golden kiwi fruit; it’s delicious 🙂

So you know underground car parks? Well Japan cycles so much that they have them for bikes!!!

They even have a thingy which pulls your bike up for you!

I bought the Japanese guide for my Japanese version of Zelda and now I can finally get past damn Jubajuba! It counts as practice 😛

I love these hair extensions!

I got my own ice lolly makers 😀

My first ice lolly of many this summer

Marlene taught me how to make cute paper hearts 🙂

Marlene and I made omerice and curry sauce one night; it was yummy!

Dessert!

I bought bear tights!!

I started cheerleading!!! It’s great fun 🙂

The ends of the temporary fences are so much cooler in this land

booze post! I ordered alcohol from amazon, I didn’t know you could do that!

A nice Starbucks person drew me a smiley face 🙂

Delivery company with a man powered delivery tuck. Love this.

My present for doing another research thing for my teachers

I recently aquired chairs and a blanket to make a sofa on my balcony!!

I started learning German!

Best ice lolly ever; watermelon covered in soda chocolate with chocolate ‘seeds’

This little guy was huge! About the size of your thumb. Just chilling out in my halls.

I bought a polaroid!!

The only way to revise; with my new favourite alcohol that Japan has revealed to me! Cassis and orange juice

I got a once-a-month job as an English conversation person and this is the nice entrance

Bekah as a ginger!!

And Sam as a ginger!!

They drew on the cups 🙂

My friend Robin drew me. The expression pretty much sums us all up in that particular class!

I retail therapied myself and bought all the Harry Potters in Japanse!!

I also bought a candle which makes my room a lot cosier 🙂

The last in the set!!

I started football!! Yay! I have been going for a few weeks now and I’m really enjoying it; the girls are all lovely and it’s awesome Japanese practice 🙂

You can get anime themed juice at convenience stores!!

I have recently learnt to make my hair do this 😀

My hair in those big curls making excellent antennae

So most men in Japan have these wonderful and stylish manbags and I just love it! I had to snap a sneaky pic of this guy’s as it was just so designer looking 😛

The manager of the football team went home to Kyoto for a bit and brought back these amazing matcha biscuits; they were really sweet and had white chocolate in them 😀

In class our yes/no cards got updated from bits of paper to proper little paddle things! They’re so cute!

Practical Japanese; this id how I learnt the word for graze!!

This, my dear friends, is my booking for KFC on Christmas day. Bitchin’! KFC wont know what hit them when we turn up… I might wear a Santa hat and everything.

On my way to the immigration bureau to pick up my forms, there was this funky tower. I don’t know what it is but I liked it.

Some pretty trees on the walk to the Bureau! Which actually only took 20 mins; quicker than waiting for and riding the bus and much prettier and cheaper too!

A nice view of Tachikawa station plaza

I had jacket potato at Sam’s! I miss ovens >.<

It was cold so we hid in the duvet 🙂

I found my university advertised on the tissue packets they give out! That’s something Japan does; gives out little packets of tissues with adverts in. I reckon it’s awesome as I’m way more likely to take the advert and then never need to buy tissues! Sadly this would just end up going very wrong in England…

Bekah, Sam and I had a DS party 🙂

This cost me about 60p….. It’s huge!!!

A photo I forgot I had from when we went to Ikea; I fit inside this egg chair just for kicks!

I bought a spray art from a guy in Ikebukuro and now all my photos are making the best ever frame 🙂

I bought another Nanoblock Pokemon 🙂

Mitch sent me flowers from 6000 miles away. Who said long distance relationships don’t work! He’s a cutie ❤

I couldn’t resist this from a 100 yen shop; it says Cat, What makes you so happy?

Oh I don’t know, maybe because it’s filled with CHOCOLATE!

I used the wrapping from my flowers to cover my bedside table 🙂 Much prettier!

I realised that this is probably something I should put on the blog as it’s really not something we have in England! Everywhere you go in Japan there are vending machines. Including in front of my dorms, in front of my lecture building, in the stations, randomly on street corners etc. They sell everything from biscuits to ice cream to canned coffee and some, like the one in the photo, are totally digital; you can pay using your Pasmo or Suica (Japanese Oyster Card) and they even have built in bins for when you have finished your drink. They’re so great! They don’t cost more than the shops either so if you’re thirsty they rock! Good ol’ Japan and its convenient stuff.

My wall of photos above my bed! It’s very comforting to have these all here, and with all the purikura I’m doing the collage is getting slowly bigger!

I have seen nanoblocks in England before, but not Pokemon ones!!!

Lots of tiny bricks

partway through

Done! Isn’t he adorable!

During the school festival I didn’t have classes so I had the luxury of being in my room when the sun hits my bed in the early afternoon! It has been great to warm myself up here 😀

I went back to my dorm a different way and the sun was setting and looking all pretty 🙂 My room is the right hand building, top floor, third from the right!

Autumn is beautiful here

In class we interviewed a Japanese student about her future and the teacher took this! I think it’s a great memory, thanks sensei!

Thanks Steph, these are working wonders on my feet now it has gotten cold 🙂

This rain got this heavy in about 3 seconds and lasted for about 10 minutes! I had just finished taking my washing in too!

The sky after the rain 🙂

I found clothes in my size!!!! I never thought trousers would be a possibility for these whacking great hips, but apparently they are!

And a nice jumper to go with the coat and trousers 😛

These are melon sorbet ice cream pots!! The English says “Hope this food will bring you a wonderful time” How cute!

Minus the packaging

Once this little melon is open 😀 The ice cream is tasty and then you get a little melon pot afterwards! They love melon in Japan.

I went to do a random thing for my teachers’ research project and they gave me a USB in return. One can never have too many USBs I guess!

Our teacher gave us cookies in class 🙂

No one ever told me chocolate sauce was free at Starbucks! This was an exciting moment.

When you do something well in Japan the teachers circle it rather than tick it like we do in England. So when you do really well, you get a giant spirally swirl on the entire page! This made me giggle a bit 😛

My friend told me about a shop nearby that sells western stuff! The item that made me most happy was the Maggi!! I was expecting to have to eat my eggs without it for a long time but now I don’t have to! 😀 I know the tins and herbs aren’t specifically western, but I finally found ingredients for chilli, so this made me very happy!!

For those of you who can’t Japanese, I’m going to attempt to explain why this is so cute! Basically the sign says “this is panda bread” which doesn’t sound all that great, until you know that it reads “panda pan da!” which is a very cute little play on words 🙂 The first ‘panda’ is written in the script used for foreign words and means ‘panda’. the second ‘pan da’ part uses the foreign language script for ‘pan’ (bread) and then the normal script for the ‘da’ (this is). Does that make sense? If not, just know that it’s a sweet little word play that tickled me 🙂

The view from the 8th floor of the Research and Lecture building, where I’ll be studying in my breaks from now on I think!

Casual devil sticks with a traffic cone on a rolla bolla. I like Ikebukuro.

I know my address works for ordering online; I Just got all my translation books!! I can start reading around my dissertation topic now 😀

LOOK WHAT I WON IN A UFO CATCHY ARM MACHINE IN IKEBUKURO!!! The people there see you trying and come over and open the door to move the one you want to win so you can actually have a chance if you get it right 😀 Isn’t that cool? The ones in England are all just cons, so I’m very happy 🙂 I went with Bekah and she won some Attack on Titan stuff she has had her eye on for ages too 😀

Diggers are a much fancier colour in Japan! Or at least this one is 🙂

The covered walkway down the long road between the halls and the main campus 🙂

The lovely view from the second floor of the main lecture building; how cool is the circular yellow brick road!!

This isn’t really odd, but cool! I was in a lecture and the lecturer asked us where we were all from. Seeing it written down that there were 25 different countries represented in one small room really made me think about what it means to be here!

Some new foods with Sayuri

On January 22nd I went out with my lovely tutor, Sayuri. It was great fun, we went out for dinner and doughnuts in Musashi-Sakai. We went to the Saizeriya there and funnily enough we sat at the same table that Mitch and I sat at the one other time I’d been there!

This is just a tiny post to show some new food really, so it isn’t that exciting! I had something called Doria which turns out to be basically rice covered in cheese and whatever else you pop on top! It was delicious! Afterwards we went down to the food court of the 7/11 building and had donuts from Mister Donut. I thought they were going to be normal doughnuts but they turned out to be chewy and gooey inside! I haven’t had doughnuts like it before, they were great!

Of course we also had Starbucks and some great conversation, talking with Sayuri is really fun and good for my Japanese!

Doria and meat sauce

What it looks like on the inside

My new favorite doughnut!

Smoosh