ほら！不思議な酔ってるサラリーマン！ [It's a long one... beware.]

LET'S THINK BACK.......


Alllllllll the way back in time to my last blog post.... To recap for all you bed potatoes.... [bed potato: a person who is too lazy to move to the couch to be a couch potato.] I had just spent over 3 years wandering about like a nomad trying to find my disorganised buddies in the busiest little patch of Tokyo one would ever wish to see.

However in the end, through the magic of wi-fi we were all reunited and I could finally shave the meter long  hobo beard that had grown so elegantly in the sheer amount of time it took to find them.

impressive beardage no?

So after a quick shave, my squeaky clean face glistened in the moonlight and attracted the attention of some loitering bar advertisers. These people's job  and sole purpose in life is to constantly approach people standing around Hachiko and ply them with useless garbage about the bar / club they work for. 

We even have a regular harasser now who spots us every week and bumbles over to present leaflets to our unimpressed visages... However, as these touts get paid per person they lasso and herd into their establishment he keeps offering us a larger and larger discount to choose bar he works for. So, maybe one day soon, he will offer us drinks free, and then I possibly will consider going.


Izakaya!

Izakaya...... what a wonderful phase...... 

Izakaya...... aint no passing craaaaze!!! 

IT MEANS NO MONEY, FOR THE REST OF YOUR DAYYYYS, 

ITS A SOBER FREE, PHILOSOPHY. 

Izakaya.

Ok, for you avid readers who border on the obsessive people back in England I will explain a little bit about Izakaya. Imagine the scene; you are hungry after a hard days mowing the lawn, SO you get in your car drive to the nearest ASDA and casually walk in, you then take a seat, and proceed to order their finest smart price pasta and a jug of milk....This is what the kanji for these 'izakaya' bars bring to mind, as they are '居酒屋' or literally the 'alcohol shop in which you exist', they just took the going home part out of a liquor store. 

So in summery its a barestraunt (bar + restaurant); you can eat, drink and be merry until the very early hours of the morn. Now as you can imagine these places do have some very good points that make them great places to gather and socialise, but they do have some veeeryyy baadddd ones too. I will arranged them in a good, then bad, layered sandwich as to not tint the pond of opinion too far either way.

This is where we went: 

Watami. It's a nice place. I'd even go so far as to say my second favourite so far!! Now to present the izakaya swings and roundabouts!.... coupled together for your reading ease.

1. pro: Enclosed rooms.

Going to a bar and being surrounded by drunken gibbons is inconvenient. Sometimes I just want to inflate a giant bubble of soap around me that would be as light to a vampire. (The drunks would hiss, turn into a bat and fly away from it) But in a Japanese Izakaya you can have your own snuggly little room for just you and the people that you choose to be in it!

Heaven.

It also means it's a little quieter and you can talk to people easier and also without the risk of spies noting down your every word and selling it.

1. con: Enclosed room... next door.

So everybody is sat casually drinking in their own anti social boxes, happy in the awkward conversation less bliss when you start hearing mysterious clunking noises....

What could it be??

Upon closer inspection you realise the noise is coming from the the common black suited drunken salaryman..... 

http://www.fashimi.com/2010/11/07/drunk-salaryman-on-the-train/

These guys make so much noise as they drink sake after sake... And it gets to the point around 2am where you hear glasses smashing willy nilly and the unmistakable thud of people falling off tables that you begin to wonder if they are actually doing ok.... over there... in their little box. But the waiters keep bringing them booze on request, and they keep drinking. Its actually rather remarkable how much alcohol one average size salaryman can consume before collapsing, but needless to say most don't make it home without a detour.....

2. pro: The button thing.

The button thing is a god send. Its just a little doorbell selotaped or glued to the end of your table but it makes the whole business of trying to attract the attention of a waiter null and void. 

These are the methods we use in the UK:

- The menu shut (slamming the menu shut extra hard in unison that coincides with the passing of a waiter as to indicate you have made a decision on your food)

- The slightly open mouth and raised hand (this pose makes it look like you wish to say something, and if you hold it long enough somebody is bound to ask you about what you want... right??)

- The increasingly exasperated excuse me (often not wanted to appear rude, instead mumble excuse me in a manner that only a dog could hear, but yet still sigh and grumble when then waiters stroll right by without a glance)


But in Japan, with the prod of a button, a waiter appears as if out of thin air to take your order. Much love for the button.

2. con: Not having the button thing

Having got used to the button, the disappearance of said button causes all hell of inconvenience. Upon making the decision of you order, you lightly close the menu and take your time, safe in the assurance that in a mere 1 minutes time your food and beverages will be on their merry way. HOWEVER, you reach across the table and HORROR OF HORROR there is no button.

Now what?

You're stuck. Alone. In a room feeling increasingly smaller, and it seems no amount of shouting SUMIMASEN (excuse me) through the door can attract the attention of a waiter. This is also when being in your own special tatami box of drinking becomes a double hassle... as sometimes it feels that as soon as your door is shut, everybody instantly forgets you are there.

3. pro: Yummy noms.

Yummy noms and drinky drinks! 飲み放題 means literally all you can drink, a common idea in Japan, and like a buffet of booze you order whatever alcoholic  beverage you want in a time limit for a set price. Some of these deals are dependant upon you deciding to use dosh to buy a delicious dish of food (possibly dim sum) to go alongside your copious collection of cocktails. As I'm a food vacuum this isn't a problem for me, and I even found one of my favourite dishes at an Izakaya, the partial fried block of fish. 

Delicious

I think it is a bonito fish, but I can never be sure. It is raw on the inside, crispy batter on the outside and 100% yummy! It comes with a little pot of mayo for dipping. I could eat this every day.

The all you can drink deals are usually great value for money as well, You can usually get beers, sake, cassis (a popular blackcurrant liquor that tastes of roundtrees fruit pastel ice lollies) drinks, and a variety of Japanese vodka based 'sours' all for the sweet sweet price of 1200 yen for 2 hours (thats about... *maths* just less than a tenner). 

enough drinks?

2. con: Sneaky sneaky appetisers

Now, I'm not usually a person that gets aggravated easily (a hur hurr hurrr), but this sneaky appetiser business needs to just fall off a cliff into a burning snake pit...of doom....

Take a look at this photo.

Let's see what we have here......3 strands of cucumber, a blob of egg mayo and a little big of slop that looks like vomit.... this costs £4. AND! This is a fancy one.... 

The worst 'appetiser' i've come across so far was the tiniest platter you've ever seen containing a not-even-fair amount of watery coleslaw. (Yes, that also cost £4.) The worst part of this is however, that these boxes of slop are not only compulsory but the staff just handily neglect to mention it's cost when you enter the izakaya. Thanks Japan.

But using our high levels of intelligence we have learned from our mistakes and have now wised up to their tricks! This means we now often enquire about the price of their minute vegetable slop before we sit down. But it's too late for my bank account as I must have spent nearly £20 or more on these 'dishes'. Due to this I know make a point of actually eating them... just to get my moneys worth.

I've been Sam, and this is my Blog! Please subscribe on the right!!

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南口..... ない

Meet Hachiko,

Woof.

Hachiko was a dog.

A special little shiba inu that belonged to a Tokyo University professor named Eisaburo Ueno in the 1920’s and during his owner's life, Hachikō greeted him at the end of each day at the Shibuya Station. The pair continued their daily routine until May 1925, when suddenly Professor Ueno did not return. The truth was the professor had suffered a sudden cerebral haemorrhage and sadly passed away, never to return to the train station where Hachikō was waiting so loyally. However, each day for the next nine years Hachikō awaited Ueno's return, appearing precisely when the train his owed should be aboard was due to arrive at the station. 

Sadly in 1935 Hachiko too passed away, but in remembrance of his loyalty that touched the hearts of so many, a statue of him was erected outside the exit of Shibuya station where he used to wait so faithfully every day. This statue has now become a world famous meeting point where people wait for their friends to arrive off the many trains that pas through Shibuya station every day.






Now, considering this massively interesting and would famous specified 'meeting' 'point' exists (I italicise there just to reeeaaally highlight the definition of these words.), you may be shocked to hear anybody would request to meet up in one of the other million places elsewhere around the station. Yet this is exactly what some of my friends did.


'hey we are going for some drinks, meet at Shibuya station south exit' they said....... not a problem until you realise this: 

Is Shibuya!

It's hustling, it's bustling, and theres no chance of finding anybody there in any time less than a millennia 2 millennia 2 millennia and a half. Despite this, I powered through like a trooper and continued with the odd location meeting plan, hoping to casually happen upon the south exit. However, after doing a full loop and a half of the (very large and grubby) station, traversing 2 overpasses and bobbling my way through a hobo city but still not finding the now-presumed-fabled 'south exit'. I came to the realisation that seeing as the exit was mythical, nobody else would be able to find it either.


This being said... I had no way to contact anybody. 

For a normal person, this would have been the end. They would have broken down crying hysterically, started talking in tongues, acting like a chicken etc.... BUT being the proactive and highly resourceful human I am, I had this in the bag. All i need to do was wander about the streets of Tokyo until I found a sneaky unguarded wifi!!!

accurate representation of my wifi search.

FINALLY, my efforts paid off and down a random street I located a sufficiently unprotected wifi to access my Facebook!! Through the use of this amazing, cutting edge technology we managed to rearrange the meeting place to where it should have been to start with... the aforementioned doggy related world famous meeting spot. And all was well in the world!!

Lets ask the pro of punctual meetings about this almost disaster...what do you think about these shenanigans Hachiko??

これはハロウィーン、楽しいハロウィーン

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night!

It's time for a spoooooookey halloween blog!

As per usual I did a variety of things for halloween, the reason for this is mostly because i'm a massive child and love spooooky pumpkins and running about dressed as a skeleton.  I decorated my room with stickers of ghosts and banners of the colour orange, I went to parties in costume and face paint and I ate spooky shaped chocolate, the only thing I didn't do was carve a pumpkin :( This is the first year when such a gourd-less tragedy has occurred and the sky-high prices of vegetables here in Japan is entirely to blame for I could not get a carve-able sized pumpkin for less than around £40 - £50 in Tokyo. The sadness.

Kicking it all off

I was so eager to dress up as a skellybob for this halloween, I practiced my face paint days before, and wandered around in my onesie many a time before the first party day. I had decided to be a skelly this time around as for the previous few years I had gone safe with the zombie outfit of 2010, so I thought I should switch it up a bit. I also couldn't really justify bringing a bag of cloth rags held together win pins and bandages all the way to Tokyo.

The first party I attended was the international student gathering held by my university. This meant it was nice and exclusively tucked away in my campus and was really friendly and chilled. There was free drinks, hashbown-esque potato triangles and sticks with chocolately almonds on the end. This however was no replacement for cocktail sausages and plates of salt and vinegar french fries crisps......maybe my future career path lies in catering Japanese parties in the style of a shitty english buffet. (Or maybe i'm just being a grumpy llama due to the fact I couldn't actually eat any of the free grub as it would ruin my face paint i'd meticulously applied for the 3 hours preceding the party...)

A worthy winner??

Amongst the food and friendly atmosphere, I also managed to talk to a variety of new Japanese people from my department in the university. Sadly I forgot everybody's name almost instantly and accidentally told a few of the girls I lived in a supermarket. But aside from that, the Japanese language practice was good!! Live (in a supermarket) and learn right?

At the end of the evening there was also a costume contest! I didn't win. SADNESS. But! one of my friends came third, and I felt a little bit of victory there as I had helped make her costume using my super duper GCSE level arts and crafts abilities.  The winner of the contest was in the end a guy who had, instead of a costume, just attended the party with bits of cabbage selotaped to his body. He then spent the night waving around what remained of the cabbage in people faces..... And no, this is not the most ridiculous costume to win a prize to be mentioned in this blog...

High school musical once told me, 'we're all in this together, once we know, that we are, we're all stars, and we see that.'

Party, Ultra Edition.

The main party was a bit like a sumo wrestler, big, loud, and not ashamed to flaunt it. It was time, for AGEHAAAAAA!!!

More like a concert than a night club, this venue was so big it had to be built a bus ride away from Tokyo. We were all super excited for this night after hearing so many good things about the Ageha in our time here, and we weren't disappointed. The place had about a million dance floors, heated outdoor terraces and seating areas, a pool section and even a food court (which even sold the good old clubbing staple food, the kebab.

Looks quite cool though!

What made this night extra special was the fact that everybody there, who wasn't a massive bore, had dressed up in halloween costume. In England when halloween rolls around many people grimace and apply slightly darker eyeshadow than usual, or wear an unfashionable hat they got 5 birthdays ago in an attempt at a 'costume'. But here people really seem to enjoy the craziness of all hallows eve and there was hardly a poor-effort costume in sight. This made the fact that I had under estimated the Japanese enthusiasm and desire for fancy dress, and instead of wearing my onesie again had drawn a rib cage on a t-shirt (using the previously mentioned arts and crafts prowess), thinking 'it'll do... nobody will go all-out in a club, surely...?' yet more obvious.... as I stood between a man wearing only speedo sized pants and a horse head, and a sexy Pikachu on a lead.....

Welcome to Japan everybody!! 

Halloween should always be a show. And when a show is needed, Japan doesn't do things by halves... There was mirror images of me  scantily clad air hostess / bunny dancers in heels longer than their skirts, a variety of live DJs (my favourite was Mitomi Tomoko), and a massive costume contest with a prize over over 3000 pounds!!!  However, only in Japan can a man with a toilet on his head and loo roll pants, thrusting vigorously with a plunger on his crotch and a loo brush in the air, win said 3000 pounds to the tune of 'what does the fox say?' D:

Thanks to Gus for the video and Ageha for the photos.

Extra!!: 5 [店の名前はおかしい]

JUST A SHORT ONE!

Thing's in Japan often have weird names. Often this is a result of bad translations into english, but sometimes this gets taken to a whole new level. When the bad english is in massive text on the front of a shop or on a massive advert the mistake is in the open air for all to see and me to giggle at!

Recently I have been taking note of these embarrassing shop names more and more on my daily trundle around tokyo and I thought i'd share a few of my favourites with you!




AT NUMBER 3!!! As rabbit.

This name sounds a lot like 'ass rabbit' which in the Uk would may imply the shop may sell a certain bottom related rampant product..... instead it sells clothes.




AT NUMBER 2!!!! Bagel and..... bagel.

I wonder what this shop sells? Oh good, I'm glad they clarified their products offerings under their store name or I would never have known! They DO look yummy though. 




AND FINALLY AT NUMBER 1!!!  Titty and Co

*immature giggle* I don't think this even needs explaining..... boobies. ( . Y . )


HAHA, thanks for reading..... ;)

体は４分の３キャラメルコーン

Getting organised


The other day I went to buy my textbooks.... it was SO easy! I don't know why i'm even mentioning this seeing as is was so uneventful. The shop I went to was really nice and cool, and it was also run by the university! It sold all sorts of stuff from ice lollies to t-shirts and I even bought myself a smattering of Meiji university related products. This included but was not limited to a super cool uni jumper and a little Meiji owl figure to hang off my bag!

My textbooks look super cool but slightly difficult .. some of the titles of the reading exercises are almost hellish in their 'why is this even here?' factor. The most -___- of these so far is 'health neurosis undermines the mind and body'<--- this title makes me sob....

I'm a textbook model.

While we are on the topic of books, I bought a bunch of magazines and stuff to read... back issues and such, this mean they were so cheap! only 100 yen (70p) each. The main type of magazine I bought are japanese 'fashion'  magazines... this means they are full of pictures of people wearing giant pink fluffy hats with ears and shiny plastic trousers posing like contortionists. Very amusing to read how this is fashion.... in fact i might just buy said fluffy hat. The other type of magazine I bought was a music magazine! The language in this magazine is more complicated so I haven't really read it yet BUT IT HAS MY FAVOURITE BAND ON THE FRONT... this makes it ok right?

KERAAAAA and One OK Rock!

Anybody who has read this far.....BOOK OFF!!! No no no! don't leave the page, it's the name of the book store! The home of 立ち読み (stand and read), This means exactly what you would expect, people go to the bookstore, take the most recent issue of their favourite manga and just read it then and there. 

If i just stand here, I don't have a pay... right?

On my day of shopping I also made the drastic mistake of trying the super delicious and highly addictive CARAMEL CORN. My favourite flavour of this delightful treat is basically like a peanutty wotsit, but instead of cheese there is only caramel. The main problem with these snacks is the price. A MASSIVE bag is only 70p and as such I bought loads and shoved them all in my face like a crazy hamster. In fact I have worked out using maths and angles and 3 calculators that I am now indisputably made 2 thirds from caramel corn. (give or take 2 thirds...........)

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil!!!

So I have to end my blog here as I'm just going to the shop....... definitely not to buy more corn... IM NOT ADDICTED.

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HULKに成ろう！！！

What a complete banker........


I want to cover a few points in this post, filling in the gaps about my boring life as a budding professional form completer... The other thing I intent to blab on about endlessly again is.... yet more trainy frolics. (I know you all SO look forward to train posts.) and it's definitely not like this....

So to start off on a more boring note than trains (so you'll think the next part is comparatively interesting) this part is about *drum roll please*

..........

bank accounts!!!

Ok, Ok, I get it... you want interesting content. I'll get to that soon! But for now I'm still happy I managed to fill in 6000 (give or take 5996) very complicated bank related forms entirely in Japanese! AND, I didn't even make one mistake. People all around me were making exasperated noises and getting replacement form after from. BUT as the amazingly skilled form filler I am, my correctly used ball point pen ink was glistening in the glow of the fluorescent light ready to be approved much before many of the room had finished even one form.

But not without some confusion along the way...

So, from one thrilling topic to another!!.... All aboard!! It's time for departure!! First class is situated in the first two carriages and a trolley will be passing through the isles as we journey through the blog paragraph of a lifetime. 

Trains part two. 

My theory is as follows: I think the station and the trains are the crossroads where all the weird, eccentric, frantic and bored people of Tokyo clash in a scattering of suits and briefcases. 

                     - Sam Burton

Face of utmost horror.

Today I was waiting for my train, (a rare occurrence in a country where it is possible to be in a train traffic jam due to their frequency.) So as I was tutting and sighing to myself at the huge span of 2 minutes extra I was being forced to delay my daytime activities, I gazed across at the opposite platform where the announcement that the train door were closing was just being made. At this moment a man who had just entered the station made a face of utmost horror... He then started to not only began to run towards the train but to take the stairs 3 at a time. As he reached the train the doors had almost closed, but, instead of resigning to his fate like a normal person, he instead grabbed the closing doors and amid the cries of 'お客様、やめてください！！’ (STOP please Mr customer), proceeded to become the incredible hulk and wrestle the doors back open as to board the train.

Even though the train he boarded was the 12:42 and the next one was at 12:43. 

I hope he comes back......I could use a hand with those pesky trains.

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全地球の生き物は虫

It's time.....

to face.....

THE INSECT!

Japan is full of bugs. So much so in fact that you wouldn't be blamed for just staying indoors 24/7, with your feet of the floor and all the windows shut. There's crawly ones, slimy ones, flappy ones and even jumpy ones, each annoying and creepy in their own way.

But I think my 3 least favourite that i've seen so far are as follows!



3. Cicada　セミ

These horrible tree bugs are the somewhat iconic sound of summer in Japan. That is if you enjoy the relaxing background music of buzz saw crossed with dial up internet. They live underground for most of the year as mini child bugs and then when the heat of the suns rays warms their manky bodies they pop up to the surface to annoy everybody and shed skin everywhere.

Damn am I getting fat?

2. Stink bug　カメムシ

These bugs are like my sister, green and eat rotting food out of bins. Well not just bins actually, any delectable piece of mouldy garbage is like a 5 star restaurant for this green buggers. So basically they have a hoover on the front of their faces and suck all the extra juicy rot juice from inside the food and this sits in their belly for the next forever. This means if you squash them or even sometimes just shove them off your items all the stink comes out and contaminates the immediate vicinity with lingering grossness.

look at it, pretending to be a normal bug.

1. Giant hornet　スズメバチ
Quickly everybody, get indoors, get into the bunker, hide your budgerigar, the hornets are coming and they are ANGRY!!! In summery, these are the worst; so bad I even named my blog after them. (But now, I am saddened deep down into my core to tell you.... I saw a hornet. My blog title is redundant. For shame.) Fact is, these stingy monstrosities live all over Japan and this includes in random bushes around Tokyo, as such is there prevalence they claim over 40 lives a year. But as if the sting isn't bad enough, if you catch them on a day where they went to the shop but it was out of milk, they also spray you in the eyes with flesh melting toxins... signal the rest of the swarming hive to hunt you down. You don't get stung by these, you get stabbed.

He mad.

EXTRA CONTENT: I also don't like it when i'm casaully walking down the road in the glow of midday, and all of a sudden the sky goes dark as the sun is put into eclipse by the gigantiuan wingspan of what I call 'demon-hummingbird-flapper'. I call it as such because google did not provide me a name, so we can only presume its lack of internet existence is because it came STRAIGHT FROM HELL! It's body is fully black and when it flies directly into my face unexpectedly I swear it's wings have power akin to a jet engine or two. Ok, maybe i'm exaggerating a little... but when I see a big-ass bug, this is still me:

I'm just going to go weld my windows shut. Bye guys!