Japan Day 7 (Part 2) - Spinach and Bras
Remember, remember the 5th of November. Well, actually, no, don't remember that date at all, you fools! Here in Japan it's 'remember, remember, the 30th of November'. It obviously took Guy Fawkes a bit longer to get to Japan... Incidentally, that was Mark's joke - I borrowed it - thanks Mark! (crap joke, wasn't it!)
Today, I noticed an interesting similarity between South Africa and Japan. That is to say that their road workers work in similar ways. How many Japanese road workers does it take to repair a road? Three - one to repair the road and two to stand on either side of the coned-off area, waving flags. Photograph 1 of this section shows what I mean. I noticed the same thing in South Africa. Mark explained that this happens in Japan because they like to give jobs to people, to get them working rather than being unemployed. Some of them have even evolved their abilities - they can beckon you on with one hand, whilst waving the flag with the other (multi-talented)! After our earlier trip to Togakushi (detailed in part 1 of today's blog - if you haven't read it, WHY NOT!?!?!?). We headed to Starbucks for a while to do some work and listen to more Christmas music (and gawp at more women). I felt festive today from the very start, so I ordered my first piece of Christmas Cake of this new, and soon-to-be over-long and annoying, Christmas season. Photograph 2 shows my Raspberry Christmas Cake, which tasted... nothing at all like Christmas cake. It was like a raspberry sponge cake - very nice, but not festive. ARE YOU LISTENING STARBUCKS?? Your Christmas Cake is NOT Christmassy! In fact, it's about as Christmassy as the Easter Bunny dressed as a pumpkin with 3.14 written on the side (pumpkin pi)… clever one that, eh! Ok, on to our evening meal, before I get back to more stupidity. We went to Poco-a-Poco (so good, they named it twice). There we ate pizza (photograph 3) and a creation called OmRice (photograph 4). The Japanese are very clever people - who would have thought of the idea of getting cooked rice in a bowl…. and placing an omelette on the top. Then, not content with sitting back in glee at their cleverness, they went that extra step further and named it OmRice. Genius. Very tasty, too. After those two courses, I felt as stuffed as a taxidermist's workshop. Mark, however, was still going (the greedy b*stard) and he ordered an egg custard dessert. Photograph 5 shows his dessert (together with Sayaka eating in the background). HA - I did it - another photo in my blog of someone eating! As we were leaving Poco-a-Poco (so good, they named it twice), we spotted some weird fruit shaped halloween ornaments sitting in a bowl on a table (photograph 6). The owner of Poco-a-Poco (so good, they named it twice) (ok, that's getting annoying now!) told us that they had grown these large pear-shaped fruits (calabash) for over a year until they had become huge. They then cut the insides out and made halloween faces out of them. Superb! My final photograph of the day was taken on the way home, when we stopped at a 24 hour convenience store (how convenient!). Photograph 7 is therefore of…. no, go on, you guess…. yes, that's right - they're Christmas Spinach Doughnuts!! Ok, so they're not actually Christmas ones (though they easily could be, as they are about as Christmassy as the Starbucks cake), but they are spinach doughnuts. Amazing… and probably quite disgusting. I might have to try one before I leave Japan. Ok, I'm going to end tonight's blog post with another bizarre idea that I thought of, with some help from Mark, tonight (and following a mis-communication with Sayaka). Yes, I'd like to introduce to you: bras with brail - "because, even people with sight problems need to feel some titillation" . Ok, it needs some more work. Right, I'm off. I need a lie down… and serious medication too, by the looks of it…