Holiday catch up (Picture Fest!!)

I've been up to quite a bit during the winter vacation.

Firstly we had Christmas of course which, as usual here, was just another normal day lol. Megu took the day off work though and we stayed in and watched movies id downloaded to try and make it feel like Christmas day :)

I did manage to pull together a Christmas meal as can be seen here



On the Monday after Christmas we went to Kobe for 2 days. 1st day was to an outlet mall where a new Bape store was, and the 2nd day was to Ikea :)

The journey to the mall was a killer as we had already been on a coach for 3 hours and then had to travel by train and bus for another 2 hours. To be honest, it wasnt really worth it haha. the mall was pretty normal (despite being in the mountains, which was pretty cool) and the Bape store had very little stock. I bought just a t-shirt.

That evening we went for some Kobe beef (of course) which was worth it and was delicious.



We also visited the new Tetsujin 28GO robot that was recently built in Kobe.



Not as cool as the Gundam but still pretty damn awesome!

The next day was spent at Ikea and wondering around Kobe before we got on the coach to head home




For New Year we went to Megu's grandparent's house with her mum and dad and her auntie and cousin.

We ate traditional osechi which is lots of cold fish and veg and stuff. Was pretty tasty actually.





We also hit the sales this week and I picked up a few things. Also some stuff arrived from ebay and yahoo auctions



I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

-James

Tumblr

Ive started up a Tumblr.

I wanted something where I could just post random stuff I see or take pics of with out having to make a whole blog and Tumblr seems ideal.

I will keep updating the blog along the "catch up" style process that ive been doing recently.

Check out my tumblr here

Thanks

James

Christmas Trees and sausages

Some random phone pics from my crazy adventures in Japan!

Dinner at a really nice restaurant that had great sausages (I love sausages and u cant get good ones here so it was great to finally eat a good sausage. Yes Homo)

They also had a nice tree next to our table.



Another tree, this time in midland Square which is a high end shopping enter, full of LV, Gucci, Dior etc stores. The tree was sponsored by one of the jewellery stores in the centre



The earrings cost ¥4,000,000 and the necklace ¥2,500,000





This tree is in a park that is in the centre of Sakae, Nagoya's fashion district.



There is also an artificial ice rink there for the xmas holidays.



Today I went to Nagoya Castle to try out my new lens.

The trees are on the way to the castle. Great colours this time of year





This is one of the exits of the subway station. Very cool.



Finally some recent pick ups.

Vans





New Lens

Check out my flickr for more of my recent photos

Nagoya Car Show

On Saturday I headed to Nagoya Port to see the Nagoya Motor Show.

The show was less fancy than previous years, a sign of the economic stress on every business at the moment.

There were some very nice cars and bikes though, my favourite being the Honda VT1300CX bike and the Lexus LFA

Enjoy the pics.

Shopping and eating

Friday was my main schools Chorus contest. I teach at a different school on Friday so I couldnt arrive until around 1 o'clock, after most of the classes has sung (basically, every class sings a song Chorus style and then there are winning classes at the end etc).

What I did see was very good but I wasnt that surprised as id been listening to everyone practice at school for the past few months.

After the classes finished there was a performance by a Taiko duo. Taiko are Japanese drums. They were really good and the big drum was so loud it surprised everyone at the start :)

The Taiko performers

The Chorus Contest winners

2 of my special needs class receiving their certificate and trophy

That evening after work I met up with Megu in Nagoya to go and buy a wireless router. We bumped into Sento-kun, the mascot from Nara (Osaka). I wanted to jump him for coming onto our turf but Megu said to leave it as it wasnt worth it.



This is the router I got btw Buffalo WZH-HP-G300NH

Its great as I can get up to 300mbps transfer and I have attached my external HD to it and it works like a media server which I can access wirelessly and watch what ever is on the HD. Handy!

For dinner we went to Cocoichibanya Pasta. Coco is normally known for their curry houses (my fave btw) but in Nagoya they have a one off pasta shop which serves Ankake Spaghetti, a traditional Nagoya food which is a spaghetti dish with a spicy sauce and loads of different toppings such as burgers, sausage, chicken etc. I had sausage with half Ankake sauce and half curry sauce and a soft boiled egg and Megu had bacon and sausage with a crab crochet. It was awesome and cheap, only Y1600 for the 2 of us.




Today we went to Mozo again (big shopping centre here). They hace a huge Christmas tree type thing in the entrance, of which I took this crappy pic of.



For lunch we went to Mos Burger. a Japan only burger chain which I havent been to since I holidayed in Tokyo about 2 years ago! I had the Mos burger and a Katsu burger. So nice!



We also hit up the shops and I got a KM x Uniqlo knit top ive been after for ¥2000 less than usual and a ring (which im sure u will all love lol)





Finally, a sneak peak at my new beard. Rock and Roll!

Catch up or "What ive been doing and eating"

Whilst out and about the other weekend I walked into a Nixon sponsored Skate event here in Nagoya.

I took the opportunity to take my first skate pics, using my 75-300mm Canon lens I found in a second hand store for Y500 (about $5/£3)








Went to see Push at the cinema last weekend. It wasn't great but wasn't terrible, plus we got in for cheap. We had coffee in dotour (my favourite coffee shop here) before the film and I had a caramel and chestnut latte and we shared some pumpkin pie. They were delicious. Japan really jumps on the seasonal foods and autumn sees chestnut and pumpkin flavoured stuff everywhere!




We ate at The Tokyo Soup Shop a few days earlier and I had the Tokyo borscht and pumpkin soup and megu had Crab chowder. Really nice and cheap as well.



We also went for yakiniku again recently. I love yakiniku! We got a super large prawn this time which was tricky to cook but really nice.










Finally, I teach a special needs class at school which I love as we just have fun. No pressure of exams or anything. Here are some drawings of monsters they did when learning about names for parts of the body. I think they are great!

Nagoya Uniqlo Flagship Store

So, one of my dreams has come true!

Nagoya has finally got a flag ship Uniqlo store.

We have loads of Uniqlo's here, but none were flag ships which meant that they didnt get all the stuff in ie: +J and the Selveldge denim range.

As today was part of the opening weekend, there was a big sale on so we headed down to have a look and grab some bargains.


Its a 5 floor store, with B1 for women, 1st for men and women, 2nd for women, 3rd for kids and men and 4th for men.

They had the full +J collection in and loads of other stuff ive not seen before. They also had a pair of jeans, in my size, that ive been after for a while that were also half price (2000 isntead of 4000) in stock! Now, im not one to believe heavily in fate but.......

....couldnt say no could I?

also grabbed a couple of other things


Im gonna be spending a lot of money here from now on :)

Oh yeah, it was PACKED! The pics dont do it justice. It got stupid a some points lol

Out and about

We went shopping last week at a local shopping centre. This one is outside the Nagoya Dome, where the Chunichi Dragons baseball team play. Now, I'm a Giants fan so the Dragons can go suck balls, but they do have a very cool video thingy of one of the players there



We hit a local pasta place for lunch which had the best garlic bread ive ever had!



Also, there is a huge Dragons display in the centre as the team have made the play-offs (although they are currently 2-1 down to the Giants YAY!)


Here is my new watch strap that i picked up in Gifu. Its for good luck!

Rainy Day

I headed out to Sakae today to go to Oasis 21 to take some pics.

Oasis 21 is a big structure that has a large pool on top and a good view of the Nagoya TV Tower.

Underneath is a large area which is often used to events. As was the case today. When I arrived I found it full of ppl trying to sell cable TV. There was also a TV show being broadcast live.

I didnt get the pics I wanted to get, but got some of the event.

The weather was crappy today as well, lots of stop starting rain :(








I also picked up the new Bape Catalogue. Lol at the crappy watch, the collection however looks great. Click on the swaggerdap link at the top of the page to see some scans. Some real nice stuff coming this winter!

Gifu Castle

Megu and I headed to Gifu Castle on Sunday.

Gifu is the city north of Nagoya and is known to me to be where all the old people live :)

We caught the train to Gifu station and then got a bus to Gifu park where we would take a cable car up to the Castle.



Now, im not great with heights, so hanging from a wire going up the side of a mountain wasnt the best idea ive ever had, but its wasnt too bad.

Once we reached the top we then had a rather tiring walk up to the castle, but it was worth it. The view was great and the castle, although small, had some fantastic golden dolphin statues.



On the way back down we found an observation deck that again had a great view over Gifu, and as luck would have it the sun was just about to set. I managed to get some pretty spectacular pictures which I was really happy with.




After the trip back down the cable car we caught the bus then train back to Nagoya and ended up in this small, traditional Japanese restaurant known as "The Hard Rock Cafe" ;)



Never been to one before and Megu really wanted to go so we though "why not?". It was pretty fun actually. Great music and the food was actually really good, if not a little pricey. There was also lots of birthdays that night which resulted in this amusing event...






More pics over at my flickr.