Dogs in Japan

Ok, it’s almost a month since I last wrote in this blog, so sorry about that. I guess I have lost the “wanting to tell everyone back home about everything I experience over here” spirit a little. Besides I am busy enjoying my last months here, which is a valid reason I think :P But I know I am gone regret being a lazy writer when I am back home again and only have my blog to remember Japan by, so here we go.

Starting light I am making a post about something I have wanted to write about a long time, that is dogs in Japan. Dogs in Japan are tiny, cute and always fashionably dressed and groomed. Yes, you heard right when I said dressed!

All the dogs here always were clothes, and I think I can count the times I have seen dogs without clothes true the year so fare on two hands probably. Now that summer is kicking in for full it seems awfully hot, and border to animal cruelty, but the dogs doesn’t seem to mind. Maybe they have special Japanese dog genes, and are similar to their masters who all prefer to where long pants and long sleeves true the summer (a slight exaggeration, but not fare from the truth).

Anyway, dogs are a huge thing over here, and a big industry. Example, the way from my dormitory to the closest station is about 15 minutes walking in suburb/small town, and in that time I pass no less than two veterinary/dog groomer places, one only dog grooming place and one dog fashion/bling store. This is the norm!

And now, over to the pictures.

All the dogs are wearing clothes of course, even the Labrador if you look closely. Big dogs like the Labrador is rare, and a status symbol since it means you have a big enough garden/house for it to live comfortable in.

Also if you look even more closely, at the top of the picture there are three more dogs. From the left, one sitting in a pink dog bag, in the middle, one sitting in a dog stroller, also completely normal over here, and then at last to the right a dog wearing a black jacket and a yellow wrestlers mask! Poor thing.

You can get all kinds of dog clothes and accessory in Japan. This store had a good selection of dog yukatas, to the left the female version, to the right the male. 

This is the normal way of selling and buying dogs in Japan. You watch the puppies true a glass window or a cage in the store. This was a ratter nice store, with a large playing area with actual dog nannies inside. I have seen worse places with small cages and awfully young puppies without their mothers around. I try to avoid talking about negative stuff in this blog, but I can’t write about this topic without mentioning the bad aspect of it also. It would bee like censoring.

This is a normal dog salon. They always have windows out to the public for people to see, and they are always super busy. Notice the dog to the right standing on pedestals. Good balance on that one.

Climbing Fuji-san part 2

Saturday 23/5 – Sunday 24/5:

So we made our camp close to station 5 and set out exploring the area with our extra time. We took a lot of foggy pictures, with a little sun here and there. Here is an example of the landscape above the three line. The “something something” degree slope was pretty consistent.

We also ended up walking a little bit of the path into the scarce forest, right by the three line. There I caught the glimpse of a medium sized animal as it fled away from us, over an edge under 10 meters away from where we were standing. It kind of looked like a dog I had seen earlier that day, since it had the same color, so I told Kojiro and we went to see over the edge after the animal.

It was a bear! And it had already run pretty far, but now it felt safe again and was resting on the other side of the valley, looking back at us now and then. We watched until the fog swallowed it, and then we hurried back to the path, not feeling as safe as we thought we had been before.

We probably surprised it walking quietly without heavy backpacks. It could have ended up as a dangerous situation, but luckily for us it didn’t. Many hikers wear bells to scare of bears, and it seems there are several people killed by bears every year in Japan. But that is mainly in Hokkaido, the northern part. Seeing a bear on Fuji-san is considered very rear.

Back at the tent Kojiro collected his “bear flute thingy”, to scare of the bear, and I picked up my camera, which I of course had left behind that one and only time on that trip on the exact same time that I am lucky enough to encounter a bear in my life, go figures. The bear picture in this blog is from Kojiro’s camera (pink, because it was the cheapest), and I am sure I could have taken better ones.

So surrounded by fog we sat not so quietly, kind of hoping to see the bear again, but also doing the responsible thing, scaring it of by sound. The bear was gone though, and we didn’t see it again that trip.

Afterwards it was the usual make some dinner and go to sleep routine, and then waking the next day to the sound of heavy rain and wind on the tent. Not wanting to go outside, we stayed in the tent for some hours, waiting for it all to calm down.

It did in the end, but just by a tad. It was still raining when we finally went outside and not very tempting climbing weather. But there was nothing to do but to continuo on, knowing we would probably not make it to the top.

Morning view

Fuji-san looks pretty cool on a map 

The first bit of climbing was on volcanic gravel, zigzagging up the mountain passing closed huts (actually I would call them shacks. They call themselves hotels…). Leaving a lot of stuff in the tent, climbing was a lot lighter that day, but at the same time the weather was bad and the attitude high, so we didn’t go very fast.

You’re supposed to walk slowly to prevent attitude sickness. Also in season, it is possible to buy oxygen on the way. Reaching the snow limit we increased the phase since we could go strait up, not having to zigzag along the path. We used crampons (the spikes for your shoes) again, but this time the snow was a little slushy and you had to watch your step, not falling true the deep snow. It was still raining of course, but it soon turned into snow.

After counting the progress up the mountain, reaching 3000 meters felt like a big accomplishment. I had never climbed that high before in my life, and I was pretty happy about making it. We walked maybe some 50 more meters up and sat down in hiding from the wind against one of the many shacks along the way. I think it was station 8, but I am not sure.

There, Kojiro presented me with the sad news that it was time to turn back and head home. The weather was pretty bad, and would only get worse higher up. Besides even if it was only 700 meters left, those 700 meters are the toughest ones, with less oxygen because of the height, and also being the steepest part of the climb. He predicted we might use about 3 hours on them. But the main problem was the weather.

I was reluctantly persuaded. Besides from the wet and cold weather I was in good shape and didn’t suffer from any altitude sickness yet.  I really wanted to make it to the top, and maybe see the crater at least.

Going down was as usual the easy part. You could almost run down with crampons, and the rest of the way wasn’t that bad either. We met other climbers now and then of course, but not so many that high up. We even met a few skiers and snowboarders chasing the last snow in Japan.

Getting lower down, the weather cleared a bit and I got some of the best pictures of Fuji-san so fare. Then after that, reaching the forest that now was covered in fog, I got some more “trollske” pictures.

The rest of the trip ended in us taking a taxi back from station 1. Taking a long and anticipated bath in an expensive (all Mt Fuji onsens are expensive) onsen next to a famous rollercoaster park named Fujikyu Highland, and then heading back by train.

So that was the end of my first climbing (half of) Fuji-san experience. There is no choice now, I have to return somehow, sometime, and climb it the whole way. And when I do, I promise to write about it here : )

Climbing Fuji-san, part 1

Saturday 23/5:

Ok, here it comes. After writing about a countless number of mountains that I have climbed here in Japan, I am actually gone write about a mountain you all sure have heard about before, mount Fuji, or Fuji-san.

3776 meters tall, which makes it about 1000 meter taller than my last and my highest ever climbed mountain, Tengu-san that I wrote about in this post.

Climbing it in wintertime has been more or less out of the question. Actually the season for climbing Fuji-san is from the beginning of July to the end of August. That’s when your chance of good weather and not so much snow is at it’s best. On the downside it can get quite crowded. There is usually a queue of people part of the way and the whole thing sounds quite annoying actually.

So luckily for me, I have my own local Japanese mountaineer (Kojiro) to climb Fuji-san together with of season. He is pretty qualified for the job as he is going to work as an actual Fuji-san guide all summer, lucky him!

It was only us two climbing, in fact it was kind of a date, to Fuji-san, which makes it probably the coolest date I have ever been on. You see, I have managed to get a Japanese boyfriend, only months before I am returning home, smart as I am. So besides from that fact, (which I have decided to ignore until it can’t be ignored anymore, so no more talk about that here) I’m having the time of my life!

Anyway, in Japan you keep on dating after you get together, so we were actually together at the time, and have been so for well over a month now ^^

But ok, back to Fuji-san. Climbing Fuji-san of season means less people, but also worse weather, and fewer conveniences, like for example open huts (and snack shops!) on the way, and the luxury of buss rides to the mountain. It is actually quite a distance from the closest train station to the mountain itself, and only two choices in how to get there, taxi or walking.

After some consideration we decided to go by taxi. It would leave us with a lot of extra time that day, reaching first camp (we had woken before 5 o’clock that morning, as usual when going hiking), but it wasn’t too expensive, and walking along a care road wasn’t the reason we had come there.

The taxi driver was talkative and helpful. He knew a lot about the area, and let us of at a temple on the way to refill our water tanks with delicious Fuji-san water. The temple had a large tori gate, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, and there was a wedding in progress at the time, very idyllic.

Fuji-san seen from the train. Still quite a lot of snow as you can see. And there is even a rice field in the picture, the first one in this blog ^^

Reaching the foot of the mountain, we started from the first station walking. Fuji-san is divided into 10 stations, the 10^th being the summit. There are several different routs up the mountain, so the stations are at different heights depending on which rout you take.

The wheatear was warm, and most of our trip that day went true forest, shattered with small shrines and joggers. Apparently there is a marathon going all the way up to the top of Fuji-san, and people were training for that.

Getting to station 5, the scenery changed from deep, green, warm forest to a more barren, windy, cold landscape. You saw a lot more of the black volcanic rocks that Fuji-san consists of, and there was a mist or actual clouds surrounding us now and then, making the atmosphere  “trolsk” (Norwegian for fairytale like. Just picture google the word, and you will see what I mean).

Around station 5 is where people usually start climbing from and usually at nighttime also, to see the sunrise. But since this was the middle of May, that wasn’t an option for us. Actually we had planed to go as early as the previous weekend, but the weather forecast was bad so we didn’t go.

If we had gone the previous weekend, we would have ended up climbing Fuji-san on the 17 of May, which would have been kind of cool, being Norway’s national day and everything (see this post for more info). If I had taken a picture with a Norwegian flag on the top, I probably could have ended up in some newspaper back home. But you can’t do anything about the weather…

And more about that, the weather that is, in part 2, coming soon, promise!

Station 5, not a pretty place.

Starting to look like a volcano.

Sun umbrellas, the swine flue and visiting the Emperors palace

Sunday 21/5:

Which is actually not such an easy thing as it might sound. First of all, the Emperors palace, or Tokyo Imperial palace as it is called is only open to the public two days of the year, that is January 2, which is New Year’s Greeting day over here, and a big thing, and then December 23, which is the Emperor’s birthday. On these days they will actually appear on the balcony, just like the Norwegian royal family on 17 of May, which I wrote about in my last post.

But since I was back home in Norway on both of these days, I would have to find another way to get into the inner gardens and see the palace, or actually Shing did. There are apparently guided tours in the inner gardens all year round, but you have to apply months in advance, and there is a big security check or something because they asked us for passport numbers and loads of stuff true the whole application process. Shing didn’t recommend doing it again, and I was as usually happy to take advantage of someone else taking the initiative. Doing stuff and being active is great, but the planning and organization part is a bore, so the trick is to get everyone else to do it for you :P

Anyway, meeting on time was important and we ended up running the last hundred meters or so. The actual tour was of course done in a big group, all in Japanese, but with English walking guides for us foreigners. We were supposed to walk in three lines and everything, not that anyone did, but there was guards herding us  the whole way, taking care we didn’t step on the wrong side of the sidewalk and so one, so that you really felt like sheep.

It was midday, and pretty hot, and all the fine ladies were using umbrellas for the sun, which they do over here. I remember thinking it looked so corny with the sea of umbrellas, but in the end I should maybe have brought one myself, or at least used sunscreen because in the end, I ended up with the seasons first sunburn.

How many umbrellas do you count?

How many sunhats do you count?

The inner garden was pretty enough, with big open spaces which is a luxury in Tokyo. The palace itself was a long modern looking building, in front of a huge plaza, at the time being swept by a horde of normal looking people in white headbands. I didn’t really get the hang of who they where, but maybe it is another tour where you are allowed to help out at the palace?

Anyway, we saw a watch-tower, the palace, a famous bridge, and that was about it, and here are the pictures.

The palace, with some entertaining guys in front of it. Qian on the left, also a new YSEP student and also from Singapore, and Hatto on the right, YSEP student from Thailand. Qian is by the way not sick, but just properly prepared, now that the swine flue came to Japan. We are all advised by the University to not travel abroad, wash hands, avoid close contact with sick people and “practice good health habits including adequate sleep, eating nutritious food and keeping physically active”…

The famous bridge, and a sun umbrella close up. Pay attention, since this is important Japanese culture. While we sun bath in Norway to make us self look darker, they try to keep out of the sun as much as possible to keep themselves light. They even have lightening creams and products, which can be kind of dangerous I have heard, since they contain acids. I was given a free sample once, visiting a pharmacy..

PS: Next post is gone be a good one ^^

Norwegian day ^^

Sunday 17/5:

17 of May were truly a Norwegian day. First of all it is Norway’s national day, which is celebrated properly with flags, children parades, national dresses, food, ice-cream and so on. This is done all over the country, but also at the different embassies we have trough out the world. So that was what my plan, and also Harald and Ask, my fellow Norwegians in the YSEP program, plan for the day was.

In addition I woke up to the news that we had won Eurovision the night before. If you don’t know what Eurovision is, don’t worry, it just means you are not from Europe. It is a yearly singing contest (or more a “who has the best stage show” contest lately) consisting of almost all the European countries. Actually I don’t like it that much, and seldom watch it, but of course it is fun when we win, so then I watch :P  The songs are more or less all horrible, and the whole thing is pretty “harry” as we would say in Norway. The only fun part is the voting, that involves a lot of alliances between neighboring countries and so on. East Europe has been doing well the last years, because of their number in participating countries and equal taste in music. Anyway, the song we won with is names Fairytale , and it is probably possible to youtube it.

Now, over to my day, and 17 May in Japan. We went early, or actually not so early, because of a small food party we had the night before. Our Swedish friend, Jocke was leaving us to head home to Sweden, so we had a small going away party where the Indonesians made incredible delicious food for everyone, plus there was Korean food and sushi (which is a little different from Japanese sushi, and very “oishii”), plus I and Kojiro also made sushi for everyone, plus plus. There was even Swedish meatballs and candy!

So not so early up that morning, and then if you add some fooling around to actually find the place, you have three hungry Norwegians throwing themselves over what was left of the buffet. And what buffet, there were loads of salmon of course, “spekemat” as in salted dried meat, scrambled egg, “flattbrød” which is dry paper thin “bread”, sour cream, Norwegian style sandwiches and much more. It was heaven for a Norwegian fare away from home ^^

Afterwards we were actually capable of being a bit social and getting to know fellow Norwegians staying in Japan. A lot of It-related people actually, which promises well if I find out I want to stay in this country.

I found the Norwegian style waffle stand and got my best waffle, or at least most appreciated waffle in my life. Afterwards I passed time by taking pictures of all the pretty national dresses and watching the usual 17 May games, like potato race, sack race (funny translations) and so on, being played by the kids.

 

Cute kids wearing “bunad”, the Norwegian national dress. There are many types, colors and styles, but they all kind of look like this. 

Then there was time for another buffet, this time the cake buffet. There were no leftovers this time ^^ The Norwegian style cupcakes and strawberry cake was my favorites (there is such a thing as Norwegian style cake, promise). Then there was a lottery of course, standard part of a Norwegian 17 May. The grand price was a trip home to Norway, and there was many more fun prices. I didn’t win anything (having no tickets), but it was extra fun with the girl that won two trips to Disneyland, lucky her!

So that was that for this time. Again I jumped over a few thing including short visit to Tokyo Bay (a bridge that goes all the way to the middle of Tokyo Bay and then underneath it), and an amusement park (with lots of rollercoaster, including a standing on (!). It was raining of course.. which was a good thing since it was golden week). Next post will be a cultural one, see you then.

A small mountain trip and Golden week

Sunday 3/5:

The day after I went on a short Wander Vogel trip to a small mountain outside of Tokyo. Actually I had been in the area before, on my first camping trip in Japan, which I wrote about in this post (Ps: in Norwegian). It was golden week by the way, so there were lots of other travelers out hiking.

Golden week is a week full of national holidays, so that almost everyone has vacation, and consequently everyone is out traveling at the same time making it a horrible and expensive week to do exactly that.

It was a one-day trip, just for the beginners, or beginner. Wander Vogel is starting to be a small club now that the fourth graders retired, and no new first graders started. I recruited Shing (think that is how you spell it), a new YSEP student from Hong Kong and Singapore that is interested in mountain climbing.

Shing was not used to the steep and tall mountains of Japan, just like me the first time, but he did great and we had a nice trip, event though in the end we didn’t go onsen at the end of the trip due to Golden week and to much people : (

Shing

Doing the Japanese countryside by bus

Saturday 2/5:

The next Saturday we all met again for another Yuka arranged event, this time taking us out of Tokyo for some sightseeing. Us this time was a few YSEP students again and a Japanese friend of Yuka.

It was very typical Japanese style sightseeing, that is everything was done in a big group, with guides and a strict schedule. I am not sure if it was my cup of tea, but it was nice to have experienced it.

We drove a buss out to the countryside of Japan and did different things like Sushi buffet, Wasabi (strong root you use with sushi) center visit, Strawberry picking, green tea leafs picking (which was my favorite), visiting a small water fall, and at last a boat trip out to sea with a view of Mt. Fuji.

We used the buss in-between all the different posts and passed the time by learning and teaching language. I am sure we drove the other passengers mad at one point, trying to learn thong twisters in both English, Indonesian and Japanese.

Here is the Japanese one: Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyakuda

The meaning of it is partially forgotten at the moment. Here are the pictures of the day.

Japan has big Strawberries!

Maid Café, Ghibli Museum and a Music Performance

Saturday 25/4:

Ok, still working on catching up with my blog and jumping ahead to the next unique event of my life, going to a Maid Café for the first time and Ghibli Museum.

It was a gray and rainy Saturday, packed with Japan experiences all arranged by Yuka, my host family friend. She is really good at arranging things to do for her exchange student friends, and we were a whole bunch of YSEP’ers going that day. She also arranged a hanami lunch party that month to, but I will have to skip it along with, some Wander Vogel parties and a lab party (just mentioning them since this is sort of a diary for me, and it is practical for remembering things afterwards). Luckily all the events were indoor events, so we didn’t notice much to the rain.

First of was lunch at a maid café. And where do you go to find a maid café in Tokyo do you think, Akihabara of course. There was a line to get inn and everything, mostly because the place was tiny, but also because it was popular I would think.

A maid café is by the way a café serviced by girls dressed in cute maid outfits. Very popular among otakus (Japanese for geeks), but I was surprised about how many “normal looking” people that ate there. There were no pictures allowed, except the food (since you had to pay to get your picture taken with one of the maids). The food was cute enough for picture taking. Here is a dessert I shared with Yuka, and an omelet that one of the maids drew one with ketchup. Kari to (and) Yuka it said :P

Koorazy

After the maid café experience we headed of to Ghibli museum. Being a Ghibli fan, I had been looking forward to this part of the day.

Ghibli is a huge animations company over here, making great children’s movies, sort of like Japans Disney. Just like the Maid café there was no pictures allowed, so you will have to do with this one picture, taken from the outside from underneath the umbrella.

From the little you can see it was quite an interesting building. Tiny but with lots of small details, stairways, glass paintings, alcoves, bridges, exhibitions and possible the prettiest toilets in all of Tokyo. The point was that there was no sett order of which to explore the museum, you just ran around all the hidden pathways and saw what you found around the next corner. It was a lot of fun.

Other things to mention about Ghibli museum is that the tickets are not too expensive, but they are hard to get a hold of so you have to order some time in advance. You get to see a short movie to, which varies from day to day. We saw one of the “nekobus” or the “cat bus” from “Tonari no Totoro”, it was super cute and with lots of new versions of the nekobus, I won’t say more than that.

Also on the tickets you got a small random clip from one of the Ghibli movies that you could se if you held the ticket up to the light. I was the only one that could identify all the different clips everyone had gotten, so I guess I am a bigger Ghibli fan than I thought. 

After Ghibli museum there was one more post for the day, a Japanese music performance. It is kind of hard to explain, but it was band music basically, just with lots of dancing and jumping around and colorful outfits and banners and swordplay and all kinds of different stage effects you can think of. Everyone was very energetic and it was a cool experience.

They played the soran dance of course, which I have already mentioned in my post from a class visit that you can find here. Everyone had to sing to the soran dance. Then there was janken-poi, or stone, scissors, paper (which is immensely popular over here) with the whole audience in the break. Another special Japanese twist was some kind of rattle thing we were handed to clap with or make rhythms with along to the songs. It was a lot easier than clapping all the time, since you only had to move your wrist a little, and people still clapped if they were very impressed with something in the performance.

So that was the ending of my long Japanese experiences day. Next up is also a Yuka event the following weekend, so look by my blog (I am getting a lot better at writing often again now I hope).

Home Stay in Tochigi

Sunday 18/4 – Saturday 19/4:

Ok, jumping many days forward in time, since I am so incredible fare behind in my blog I have arrived at Tochigi about three hours buss ride outside of Tokyo close to Nikko. I and a bunch of other YSEP students where there to participate in a home stay event.

It all started out with a grill party in beautiful surroundings by a lake. We where given our respective home stay families, and I where greeted by part of the Inose family, mother Shouko and her two daughters Riko and Miku. They had drawn me a pretty drawing as welcoming gift and Riko soon took my hand and we became best friends in no time.

It was easy talking to them, since Shouko talked great English seeing as she had lived in America. The kids had also no problem understanding my simple Japanese and talking simple Japanese back. Shouko was also really kind and thought me a lot of Japanese, even thou she maybe ratter would have practiced her English with me.

The barbeque was delicious and the wheatear was nice. After the barbeque we drove home to the Inose family, stopping on the way for ice cream and grocery shopping. Their house was big and nice, half in the suburb half in between rice fields and open grass fields, miles away from how things are in Tokyo. I got to meet Takao, the father of the family that had been working the whole day and Atsuki, the son that had been to a baseball game.

That night the family had friends over, and we made okonomiyaki, drank, played with balloons, ate cake (all besides Takao, since cake is only for children and women in Japan), played wii and had a great time. When the time for going to bed came, they let me use the bath first, just like the last home stay I had been to and they let me sleep in the house tatami room.

I asked Shouko what tatami rooms (rooms covered in straw mats) are usually used for, and she explaind to me that it is used as guest room, sick room if one of the kids are sick or just running around in (also for the kids I imagine)

The day after I was lucky enough to get a lesson in Japanese bento (matpakke in Norwegian) making. Shouko though me how to make tamagoyaki, the yellow slightly sweetened egg you find in all bentos over here. She had a square frying pan for only that purpose, and the ingredients was egg, sugar, soy sauce and some other Japanese ingredients. Then you mixed it all, pored small amounts of it in the frying pan and let it fry until dry (but it should not get brown, so not to high temperature). After that you rolled the thing up with chopsticks, witch required some concentration, pored up a new batch of egg mix and let it fasten to the first roll of egg by lifting the roll and letting the mix come inn underneath it. Repeat one more time or so, and you have tamagoyaki ^^

Here is the finished bento box, for Atsuki who was going to Baseball practice again. A bit more complicated than “matpakke” probably but also a whole lot more tasty I think. The dish to the right is Nikatsu, that is Katsudon (Tonkatsu and egg mix) on rice, many “katsu” to keep track of, isn’t it. 

Afterwards Shouko took the girls and me to a park close by. It was on of the prettiest parks I have seen so fare, with a special exhibition of hundreds of large koinobories. 5 of May here is childrens day, which is celebrated with hanging up koinobories in households with children, or boys I think it was. The tradition was different from place to place, but in Tochigi the grandparents gave either koinobories or a samurai hat if the families new child was a boy. Atsuki was given a samurai hat, which was at display in the hallway of their home.

Riko picked me some flowers

After some strolling around in the park, and a bunch of great pictures afterwards, it was time to go home to Tokyo. It had been a great experience, being welcomed into the Inose family, seeing the differences, but mostly the likeness between a Norwegian family and a Japanese one. Again thank you for having me over, I miss you all ^^

Some more partying in Tokyo, izakaya style

Thursday 2/4 –  Friday 3/4:

Wrapping up the rest of the week with the Norwegians I went on Korean barbeque with them Thursday. We were supposed to go to an Ninja restaurant, but since it was a Ninja restaurant it was a hidden restaurant and.. yeah we didn’t find it.

After that I managed to find a izakaya for us to go to, and we had a great night. It was their first izakaya experience, and I think they liked it for we went again the next day, instead of going out to clubs like planed ^^

That is, after and finishing meal with the whole class, that I also joined. It was at a pretty crazy looking western themed place in a cave. Then afterwards, the whole class wanted to joint us for izakaya! I got kind of freaked out, since I hade no idea where to find an izakaya. We usually go izakaya much closer to our dorm, so I didnt know any izakayas in Tokyo centrum. It would have been ok to use some time to look around with only a few friends, but around 30 people dangling behind was no fun!

I had some idea where to look, and had heard that Ebisu was a good place for drinking. So to Ebisu we went, and after over an hour searching and a lot less people dangling behind I finally found a cozy little izakaya for us. Again it was a great night. The day after Mia and about half of the class left for Norway, and that was that. Hopefully Mia will return to Japan, since she is planning to join the same program as me. Something I am recommending for everyone out there interested in Japan ^^

And here are some izakaya pictures.

Korean barbeque (not really izakaya)

Everyone was fascinated by edamame, a classic izakaya dish that I love. It is baby soybeans, boiled and served with salt. And they are quite fun to eat.

Here is edamame omiyage, super kawaii.

Nabe!