Not that it's the most important thing at the moment, but the internet connection was a little borked last night; http-requests rarely made it to the web, and as a result, I couldn't even get the blog itself, let alone the back end. Ah well, one day doesn't matter.
Every time I go to Japan, I make it a point to try as much weird snacks/flavours as I can and feel like.
Unlike the Dutch, the Japanese try just about any flavour there is, which may result in something very nice or something very inedible/undrinkable.
I've had about 9 different variations of Pocky, drank various types of soft drinks, including something called Bottle Man II, Jell-o from a can, some milk drink with egg (tasted something like eggnogg, but without the alcohol), a Red Bull-like drink called R-18, Calpis Water, Calpis Melon Soda and Calpis Peach, and of course Asahi Beer and some sake from Hokkaido.
Today, we went to Tennoji for some sightseeing; Osaka itself is also a lovely place to wander around in. We had dinner at the only Dutch restaurant here in Japan:
Oude Kaas(Dutch site); I had a pancake with bacon and cheese. Tasted very good, and it was fun to eat there.
You see, the owner of the restaurant lived in the Netherlands for almost 14 years, so he speaks Dutch.
We had a nice chat with him, and I'll try to get a Japanese friend of mine to go there as well.
Pera peraOne of the things you can help the Japanese with when you're fluent in English and able to speak a little Japanese as well, is getting not-so-fluent foreigners off their hands. ;) I was standing in a Vodafone shop for a question regarding some accessories which are very hard to get back home (here, you can basically get them at every Vodafone shop or reseller from stock at normal prices instead of paying four or more times the amount at the City Points in Europe), when a guy (probably from the Middle East) came in and wanted a prepaid phone. The guy behind the counter told him no and acted as if they were out of stock, but the real reason is that someone on a 90-day Landing Permit or a Visa shorter than 6 months is unable to get a prepaid phone, due to the anonimity a prepaid number provides and terrorists could make use of them. Telling someone it's out of stock is easier for a shop clerk that's unable to speak English than explaining the how and why. ;)
So I took over, explained the guy what he needed to know and also explained how the Japanese usually access the Internet when he asked me where he could hook up his laptop.
Same thing happened in Akihabara a couple of days ago when a guy from Iran tried to ask an old Japanese man which train he needed to take to Shinjuku.
Sometimes, it's very helpful if you know your way. ;)
a-nation 2006Tomorrow, we are going to the a-nation concert near Kobe. I'm really looking forward to this, as in the previous years, we always missed out on that.
a-nation is a festival/concert with performances from various artists and bands from the Avex record label. We need to get there by 13:00, the festival starts at 13:30, I believe, and will run until 21:00 or so.
Since I'm an avid fan of some of these bands, I'm glad I finally got this chance.
We'll be on a three-day trip starting the day after tomorrow, so no updates until after I get back.
I also noticed I'm taking alot less pictures than on the previous holidays, and I'm too lazy to sort my pictures at the moment. @_@
Oh, and Niels bought me a gift; the Shop 99-tune on CD...
Cheers, K.