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Wednesday 11 May
12:57
On the shinkansen on the way from Hirsohima to Tokyo.. first picture a bit too blue! Must have left the wrong setting on from the previous evening.
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Wednesday 11 May
12:57
That's a bit better (i.e. less blue)! Chie here eating a bento bought in Hiroshima station.
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Wednesday 11 May
14:37
One of many attempts made to take a picture of Mount Fuji as we passed it on the shinkansen. Unfortunately it was a bit hazy and my camera seemed to struggle to pick out the mountain from the sky.
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Wednesday 11 May
14:38
I had a fiddle with the exposure settings here, so this might be a bit easier to see.
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Wednesday 11 May
14:38
Some power lines got in the way here...
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Wednesday 11 May
17:14
The outside of our "weekly mansion" - short term let appartment place, in Tokyo.
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Wednesday 11 May
21:35
Chie benefitting from the wonderful internet access in the weekly mansion.
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Thursday 12 May
13:28
Taken just before going for a chat with a company about a possibility of a job in Japan...
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Thursday 12 May
16:12
...taken after having had a chat... These chats are demanding things, and it is important to relax afterwards!
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Thursday 12 May
17:53
Next on the post interview relax programme was a whisky bar Chie had found on the web - Quercus Bar. This place was absolutely fantastic. A particular highlight was this whisky from Chichibu - a Japanese distillery I wasn't previously that familiar with. This was really superb.
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Thursday 12 May
17:53
A close-up of the label, which didn't really come out.
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Thursday 12 May
18:26
I also sampled a delightfully salty and pungant Brora whilst there - from "The Modern Masters" range, a Japanese bottling.
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Thursday 12 May
18:32
A blurred picture of Chie with some of the whisky selection behind her.
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Thursday 12 May
19:03
Chie and Watanabesan - the owner. If you're in Tokyo and into whisky (or even just looking for a good bar) then it really doesn't get any better than this - this place was simply fantastic.
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Thursday 12 May
19:04
Watanabe-san very kindly took this picture of me and Chie.
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Thursday 12 May
19:48
After leaving Quercus Bar, we headed back towards the station and had a look for somewhere to eat. We settled on this (in Chie's opinion) rather expensive tempura place.
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Thursday 12 May
19:48
...it was actually very nice, and her idea of expensive is obviously quite different to my English based standard - the meal for the two of us came to about 4000 yen (twenty quid).
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Thursday 12 May
19:49
Me picking up some tempura - possibly shiitake.
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Thursday 12 May
19:49
A slightly moronic picture of me enjoying some tempura.
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Thursday 12 May
19:49
Another moronic picture of me.
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Thursday 12 May
20:26
The chefs kindly agreed to let me take their picture - I rather like this.
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Friday 13 May
12:41
After a chat with an agency in the morning, Chie and I decided to head to a nearby Subway for a traditional Japanese lunch.
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Friday 13 May
12:41
This is me looking slightly stupid (actually probably this is a fairly normal expression for me) with half of a footlong veggie delite. Of course, a la Pulp Fiction, there is no such this as a footlong in Japan - it is a 30cm instead.
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Friday 13 May
14:07
The building where Chie went for another interview type thing.
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Friday 13 May
14:07
I seemed to be quite keen on getting the whole of the building in shot.
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Friday 13 May
14:42
While Chie was in her interview I wandered over to Akihabara for the compulsory tour of electronics shops.
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Friday 13 May
14:42
Erm, I can't remember what was wrong about the first picture that required me to take it a second time.
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Friday 13 May
16:43
After Chie finished her interview, she came over to Akihabara, and we went for a drink in "The Rose and Crown Victorian Pub" just by Akihabara station. As English pubs go in Japan, this one was pretty artificial, and didn't really manage to capture much of the feel of an English pub... but it was a nice bar nonetheless, and the beer was pretty decent.
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Friday 13 May
16:44
Me with a a beer and my purchase from Akihabara.
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Friday 13 May
17:21
Chie and I have this conspiracy theory that these South American musicians who play panpipes etc are following us around the world. We've seen them in a number of countries around Europe, but this is so far the first time in Japan. We've made a pact to photograph them whenever we see them from now on in an attempt to prove our theory.
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Friday 13 May
17:51
Thanks to Gwen Stefani, I've had something of a hankering to visit Harajuku...
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Friday 13 May
17:53
...it wasn't really quite as wild and crazy as I was hoping, but perhaps we came at the wrong time of the day/week/year. Or perhaps the spark of Harajuku has already fizzled out - as is the way of Japanese fashions.
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Friday 13 May
18:05
Some other part of Harajuku, en route to Shibuya.
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Friday 13 May
20:51
In the evening we met up with a load of old friends from Gyosei at this really good sumibiyaki place chosen by Yukisan. Here's Harukasan and Shusukesan...
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Friday 13 May
20:53
...and also Yukisan, Chie and me.
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Friday 13 May
20:55
Spot the gaijin here, in this picture of me, Hidesan and Yumisan.
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Friday 13 May
20:58
Taken during a canpai!
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Friday 13 May
22:23
An embarassingly blurry picture of Shu and Chie.
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Friday 13 May
22:24
A less blurry version of the previous...
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Friday 13 May
22:25
Me and Hide - smashing.
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Friday 13 May
23:13
A nice group picture taken on our way out.
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Friday 13 May
23:13
...and another...
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Friday 13 May
23:14
...and another!
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Friday 13 May
23:23
Taken outside Shibuya station, just before getting on a train back to our weekly mansion.
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Saturday 14 May
14:53
A bit of Shinjuku, as seen from the department store which is part of Shinjuku station. Here you can see the Docomo tower, which apparently givesd people headaches or something, because of all the mobile transmitter things on it.
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Saturday 14 May
15:53
We headed over to Shinjuku Gardens, within which one are is an "English style park" - at first I said it wasd just an ordinary park, and then realised that was exactly what it was supposed to look like from an Englishman's point of view.
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Saturday 14 May
15:55
Me demonstrating how an Englishman enjoys an English park.
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Saturday 14 May
15:55
I rather like this shot, again with the Docomo tower in the background. I began to wonder later if the whole notion of having an English style park as part of Shinjuku gardens was actually a kind of teasing towards the English on behalf of the designers. Also in Shinjuku Gardens are some traditional Japanese areas which are a lot more elaborate and one has to wonder if this is the Japanese showing off somehow or other.
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Saturday 14 May
15:55
Well, I for one love the simple, open and relaxed nature of an English park. As much as I like ornamental ponds and little tea houses you can't beat the plain honest simplicity of an English park. Grass, sky and a few trees, that's all you need.
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Saturday 14 May
15:57
This is the "French" part of Shinkjuku gardens I believe.
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Saturday 14 May
15:57
...this seemed to largely feature some rows of trees, gravel and some flower beds. Not sure if a Frenchman would recognise it as French, but I thought it was nice in its own way.
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Saturday 14 May
16:00
There were some particularly nice roses...
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Saturday 14 May
16:00
...of course pictures of roses are not well suited to having interesting comments written about them, unless you're an expert botanist (which I am not).
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Saturday 14 May
16:01
I think I was trying to say something profound with this mixture of flowers and high-rise buildings here, but the meaning has already been lost on me...
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Saturday 14 May
16:01
Chie and some rosebeds.
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Saturday 14 May
16:02
For some reason Chie wanted to get a picture of me with this sign for a variety of rose in the background. (Un)fortunately it is pretty much illegibile.
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Saturday 14 May
16:05
Into the Japanese bits now...
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Saturday 14 May
16:06
Consider the lily. Indeed, consider lots of lillies.
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Saturday 14 May
16:06
Oooh a bridge and another arty juxtaposition between nature and metropolitan blah blah blah.
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Saturday 14 May
16:07
Oh look, a cat!
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Saturday 14 May
16:07
Amusingly, the cat attempted to run away from me when he/she saw me, and then got to the edge of the water and was paralysed with indecision about what it should do.
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Saturday 14 May
16:07
Cat amongst the lillies.
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Saturday 14 May
16:07
A similar scene to the earlier one.
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Saturday 14 May
16:08
A tree and so on.
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Saturday 14 May
16:09
Yuka and Chie and a bit of the Japanese gardens.
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Saturday 14 May
16:10
Seemingly there is a legal requirement that any Japanese lake must contain at least one turtle. Reassuringly this particular lake did not disappoint, and in fact had several of the requisite reptiles.
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Saturday 14 May
16:11
Across the lake again.
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Saturday 14 May
16:15
A Japanese/Chinese style house.
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Saturday 14 May
16:16
..and again.
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Saturday 14 May
16:17
The Moriwaki girls posing artisitically.
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Saturday 14 May
16:17
That Docomo building again, looming over the park.
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Saturday 14 May
16:21
The girls emmerging from a wooded bit, on the way towards the exit (the gates close at 4:30 or something apparently).
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Saturday 14 May
16:23
A sign in the part featuring some cartoon creepy crawlies.
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Saturday 14 May
16:43
A French style Bistrot near the park, which looked nice but was closed.
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Saturday 14 May
16:46
A Buddha statue in the grounds of a little temple complex we happened to come across.
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Saturday 14 May
16:47
One of the buildings in the temple complex... I'm always a sucker for these kinds of buildings.
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Saturday 14 May
16:47
...and another.
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Saturday 14 May
17:41
Yuka enjoying a sundae kind of thing in a cafe somewhere in Shinjuku.
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Saturday 14 May
19:11
Later on, dinner at an Italian place in Shinjuku. The selling point of this restaurant was that it had a proper Italian style stone pizza oven...
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Saturday 14 May
19:12
As it happened though the pizza (mine at least) was a little bland, especially considering the price. The success story of this place were the sort of gratin dishes advertised on the menu as antipasti (although confusingly served at the same time as the main course). One potato one, and one pumpkin (!) one.
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Saturday 14 May
19:42
Outside the Pizzeria place.
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Sunday 15 May
18:07
The adorable Yukichan, and her uncle Shukun, singing karaoke, at the family's izakaya.
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Sunday 15 May
18:14
Me, having a bash at the old karaoke classic - Sinatra's My Way. For the first time in my life I was actually complimented on my singing, but I suspect this has more to do with the exceptional ploiteness of the Japanese, rather than any previously undiscovered musical talent I had somehow been hiding all this time.
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Sunday 15 May
18:14
More karaoke fun.
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Sunday 15 May
19:11
Yukichan and Shukun again.
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Sunday 15 May
19:58
Me giving Simon and Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson a go. This met with less praise than my first number. Ho, hum.
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Sunday 15 May
19:58
...although it did appear to cause an outbreak of dancing...
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Sunday 15 May
20:03
A real joint effort here, also involving Shukun's mum.
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Monday 16 May
14:35
We'd planned to go to this place in Ikebukuro - Rohlan - a Taiwanese restaurant which specialised in some vegetarian dishes for lunch, but got there a bit too late.
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Monday 16 May
14:35
The sign, etc, so we could remember what it looked like for later on....?!?
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Monday 16 May
18:57
We went back later on in the day and had dinner there. The food was really fantastic. Some really creative things with soya and some really excellent tofu. An absolute paradise for vegetarians like me. It is hard to explain just how exciting it is to have a menu full of choices I can actually eat for a change!
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Tuesday 17 May
13:07
After meeting Hide, we went for lunch at "Shakey's" near Shinjuku station, and it seemed only proper to kick the afternoon off with a beer.
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Tuesday 17 May
13:20
Hide and Chie enjoying their pizzas.
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Tuesday 17 May
13:54
Another giant mechanical crab. I think I may start a collection of these photos.
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Tuesday 17 May
14:19
A big building in Shinjuku. We went in one of these to talk about Japanese lessons.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:14
In front of the ambitiously named "Shinjuku Niagara Falls" in Shinjuku Central Park.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:14
...and again, with a change of characters.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:14
Now I think this is the Tokyo Metropolitan Goverment Building, which I had been up to the top of on a previous visit to Japan.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:15
The TMG building again.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:16
Another look back at Shinjuku's answer to Niagara. One wonders if there are some very modest skyscrapers around the real Niagara has a hommage to Shinjuku.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:16
Chie drinking Pocari Sweat.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:16
Hide in one of those reciprocal picture taking type shots.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:26
A great sense of perspective in this picture of me and Chie, taken by Hide, on the bridge leading over to the TMG building.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:28
Just wanted to randomly get a picture of the road.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:36
Chie had also washed her glasses here on a previous trip to Tokyo, and so it seemed appropriate to get a picture of it again.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:36
A close-up of Chie washing her glasses.
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Tuesday 17 May
15:46
I think this is in Shinjuku station. Hide is demonstrating the little barcode type thing used on Japanese posters, which you can scan with the camera on your mobile phone to direct you to the website.
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Tuesday 17 May
16:09
The outside of the building "Shinjuku Lion Beer Hall" wherein we would drink Guinness.
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Tuesday 17 May
16:10
Yes, we were heading for the Dubliners' Irish Pub.
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Tuesday 17 May
16:16
Mmmmm Guinness...
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Tuesday 17 May
16:16
...and mmmmm Guinnes again.
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Tuesday 17 May
17:11
After our Guinness it seemed like a good time to go and sing some karaoke.
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Tuesday 17 May
17:12
I'm obviously really going for it here!
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Tuesday 17 May
17:20
Chie having a go too - and look - you can also see the pitcher of Asahi which no doubt improved all of our singing prowess imeasurably.
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Tuesday 17 May
18:32
Hide singing whilst I look for the next song on the clever little pad thingy.
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Tuesday 17 May
18:47
Me and Chie doing a duet.
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Tuesday 17 May
19:33
After karaoke we decided to go for a curry - conveniently more or less next door to the karaoke place.
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Tuesday 17 May
19:33
Mmmmm - my vegetarian set meal. Lovely.
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Tuesday 17 May
19:34
Chie and Hide enjoying the tabe hodai - eat as much as you can.
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Tuesday 17 May
22:31
As Hide had to get up at a silly time for work the next morning, we went our separate ways after the curry, and Chie and I headed back to our weekly mansion. However, we clearly didn't feel like we were quite done for the evening, so decided to pop into this bar around the corner for a bit.
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Tuesday 17 May
22:31
Same again, but with the flash on, and me in it instead of Chie.
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Wednesday 18 May
14:11
On the train on the way back to Hiroshima from Tokyo. Here, somewhere after Nagoya (I think), a bit of a tambo (paddy field), and some houses. I'm really interested in the way houses and agriculture are interspersed in the Japanese countryside...
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Wednesday 18 May
14:13
Chie, I think reading the brochure from Ibaraki-ken Natural History Museum, which we visited on Sunday.
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Wednesday 18 May
14:13
I wanted to get a picture of the reflection in the window as we went through a tunnel. Unfortunately it was a bit blurred - this may have been more down to my unsteady hands than anything else.
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Wednesday 18 May
14:15
More tambo, and some pleasingly misty moutains in the background.
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Wednesday 18 May
14:15
Not convinced with my camera's ability to take in this scenery, I had a good few attempts....
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Wednesday 18 May
14:15
...stilll going...
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Wednesday 18 May
14:15
...and still....
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