AKJ_Other Recent Activities

Well, I have been up to a few other things recently too...

Firstly is Origami making, which was great fun...we had some really nice paper, so everything we made looked great! ~click on the bottom picture to zoom in if you want to see!

Also, I was keen to go to a baseball match, because you don't really see them in Australia. Chunichi Dragons* is the Nagoya team, so I went to see them at the Nagoya Dome. As it was a Wednesday, the dome wasn't crowded, but that was probably a good thing. 

We only paid around $10 for our seats (student price), and although they were in the top tier, it was the front row, so they were pretty good seats really...

 The Chunichi Dragons won, just by the way =)





* The website is in Japanese, but you can still find out a bit about the team by looking there, I think...

AKJ_The Family Around Nagoya

As you could hopefully tell from my recent posts, my mother and sister came to visit recently. Here are some photos of what we got up to in Nagoya...

 Oasis 21 and the Nagoya Television Tower...

 Back at the museum for the 'Ghosts and Eerie Creatures' exhibition...

 I had to post some more photo's of Nagoya Castle because it looked so nice that day...

 We came across this performance at Nagoya Castle!

 Nagoya Science Museum. The big ball is the planetarium. There are shows on in there, but only in Japanese...

I loved this thing...someone could stand on the other side of the room (10m or so) and whisper into another one, and you would hear it clearly...

 

 My sister was into those manga merch shops...Gintama chocolates...





 

AKJ_Tokyo

This one is going to be hard to fit into one post too, but, again, I'm taking the photo approach...

Places visited include:
   - Shinjuku
   - Harajuku
   - Shibuya
   - Meiji Shrine
   - Asakusa
   - Akihabara
   - Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building

Most of the above are famous shopping districts, which are really just interesting to walk around in...


 Various shopping areas

 Isn't it cute?

Of course, I have to start by emphasising the people... This was Shibuya, probably the busiest...

 I sacrificed a lot of brain cells to re-find this op-shop from last time I was in Tokyo...
 

My sister and mother at Takeshita Dori - Harajuku.

Meiji Shrine

 I think this was someone's wedding...?
 

These are for Goju's fan of Botany!



Asakusa

Tokyo Metropolitan Government building

I was particularly pleased with this find - unlike the Tower or Skytree, you can go up this building for free, and it isn't over-crowded (dependent on the time you go, of course...) It's a walkable distance from Shinjuku Station.
 

Sukiyaki Experience

I had been searching for somewhere to get reasonably priced Sukiyaki (beef hot pot) since arriving, so this all you could eat - one branch of the Nabezo restaurants - was a highlight!



 Gee, somehow, Tokyo actually turned out to be pretty painless...

AKJ_Kyoto

It's going to be some effort to condense my weekend trip to Kyoto into one post, but I think the photos of the trip are probably the most important thing to give a sense of Kyoto, so I'll try to use photos rather than words!

The itinerary included:
   - Nara Daibutsu (not actually in Kyoto)
   - Kiyomizu Dera
   - Kinkaku-ji
   - Fushimi Inari 
   - Arashiyama
   - Yastuhashi (popular food) making
   - Etsuke cup painting

Enjoy!

 
Daibutsu (Giant Buddha)

 Making friends with the locals

 I felt like kind of an idiot standing there like that, but it did make for a good photo, I suppose...

Kiyomizu Dera

The Japanese Girls in the group bought fortunes...

 Kinkaku-ji

Fushimi Inari

I went here with my mother and sister, separate to the group...

 

 Arashiyama 

It was so hot that day - pulling a human powered carriage would have been hard work!

Yatsuhashi

I didn't make these ones, sadly...but these flavours are interesting...Yatsuhashi is everywhere in Kyoto...I don't know how I missed it when I was there a few years ago..

Etsuke

 My not particularly impressive effort at Kamui from the Manga Gintama.



Other
 

Our Washoku meals were impressive. The one just above was breakfast. I would be hard pressed to tell you what half of it was, but it tasted good...

 The Chinese girls got a bit obsessed with their image making app...it's not a bad effort though...



Well, that's it for photo dump number one - I hope they are entertaining!