Neko Cafe

I have been crazy busy lately moving out, cleaning my (ex-)apartment, filling out paperwork, organising my trip and all sorts of other little niggly bits and pieces that I haven't really had time to jot down any of my adventures here. The fact that my life has been boring and slightly frazzling lately also means that I've had nothing interesting to write about as I'm pretty sure nobody would care to hear how long it takes to empty a small Leopalace apartment of one's possessions, how frustrating it is trying to pack all your stuff in one suitcase still leaving room for your stuffed bear because you are just too immature to leave it behind or how long I spent procrastinating on imgur.com trying to avoid doing any of this. Today I am officially moved out and sleeping on my friend's fold out couch that presses into my spine in such a way that last night my legs went dead and I almost fell on my ass on the way to the bathroom. Classy lady.

Whining aside I had a really lovely day today when my friend Kanade and I went to a neko cafe (cat cafe) in Yokogawa here in Hiroshima. I was at a cat cafe once before so I sort of knew what to expect second time around. Cats. That's what I expected and I was certainly correct. This one had a fantastic jungle-gym type area encased in glass along one wall that led to the front window of the cafe where the cats could chill out or play. Most were asleep when we arrived but some were strolling around like f*cking kings allowing some of their human subjects to pet them briefly before disappearing inside the cat beds. They were all beautiful pure breds and Kanade took a shine to the Norwegian Long Haired cat that looked like a tiny, majestic lion and who seemed to like the smell of my jacket because he used it as a pillow for most of our visit. Enough talk! Pictures!

There's a little, lazy lion lying on my coat. Say that fast 20 times

Afterwards we got burgers from a well known burger joint called God Burger who clearly have a pretty high opinion of their burgers. Mine was called a delicious burger. It lived up to its name. We ate them by the river and looked at the cherry blossoms.

Shiitake

Taking a break from the travel logs for the time being I am going to tell you about what I did last Sunday. When I told some of my friends I was going into the mountains to plant mushrooms eyebrows were raised, bad jokes were made as to the legality of my actions. "Planting mushrooms! Are you sure that's legal? Ha ha ha..." My friends are smart asses. On a mountain in the area of Nishi Yamamoto here in Hiroshima there is a community group who try and promote green activities for the area. One of these was planting shiitake mushrooms and my friend kindly invited me along to join her, her boyfriend and friend.

So how does one go about planting shiitake mushrooms I hear nobody ask? Well I'll tell you. After paying my ¥500 I was handed a chopstick with a number on it. This number indicated the two logs I was to pick out from the bundle. We took our logs over to the volunteers who held them in place while we drilled twenty staggered holes into them on four sides. Then we took pared down shittake fungus and hammered it into the holes. Job done. Seriously, that was it. The logs were then propped up under trees where they will sit until next Autumn when the shiitake will begin to grow and can be picked. 

My hair attempting to be a mushroom too. (Picture taken by Kanade)

There was a see-saw for the kids so naturally we had to play on it (Picture taken by Kanade)

A log from last year with some tasty goodness growing on it

Then when our planting was done we took a little stroll through winding paths up a hill and to a little park area where we sat and ate delicious bento that Kanade had prepared. Hurray for shiitake Sunday!

Feast your eyes on that deliciousness

An Alternative New Year

This year instead of going to a bar packed to the ceiling with people and attempting to break a personal record for how much fizzy bubbly I can consume in one night I did something very different. I've never been the biggest fan of New Year's anyway (10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1! Oh nothing happened...) so when my friend Kanade asked me if I would like to climb a mountain with her on New Year's I thought "Why not? In fact... Hell yeah! I'll make that mountain my bitch!" So on New Year's Eve I travelled to her house on the northern side of the city armed with warm clothes, a bottle of port, cloves, cheese and olives. 

From her apartment we popped over to her parents house five minutes up the road and had traditional toshikoshi New Year's Eve soba noodles and watched Kouhaku; a New Year's Eve singing contest that I can only describe as Japan's version of the Eurovision i.e. ridiculous outfits, some cheesy songs and, of course, scantily clad ladies. Highly entertaining. After the countdown we clinked our chai-rums (freakin' delicious), shared our resolutions (mine is to stop saying awesome because I'm really starting to annoy myself and was one I broke repeatedly on the way up the mountain) and then went to sleep.

Four and half hours later we woke bleary eyed and dressed in our warm gear and packed our supplies. Supplies: 1 ground sheet; for sitting, 2 blankets; for sitting on the ground sheet, 1 sleeping bag; for outer warmth, 1 thermos of tasty hot port; for inner warmth, 2 torches, 1 lunch box of sushi; for nom noms, 1 bag of rice crackers, 1 bottle of water. Armed with supplies and wearing as many layers as physically possible we walked the dark streets of Hiroshima in the quiet and gentle snow and arrived at a temple where 50 or so other people were waiting for the fire department volunteer to begin the climb up the mountain. Off we went.

The descent took a little over an hour and wasn't particularly difficult (that's 'cause I'm totes hardcore huh!) The snow as we climbed was absolutely beautiful and as we approached the summit and the sky became lighter the sight of the city below still lit up and bathed in mist caused me to break my New Year's resolution several times with its awesomeness. At the top we sat and drank and munched and waited for the sun to pop it's head over the mountains. The first sunrise of a New Year, known as Hatsuhinode. Never before have I taken so many pictures of the sun.

Waiting...

C'mon!...

Awesome

After we climbed back down the mountain we went back to Kanade's lovely parents' house again and this time we ate osechi; a traditional New Year's Day meal and had a small cup of sake. The whole experience was very Japanese in every way and utterly amazing.

Get a load of that deliciousness. Mmmmm...

30 Day Photo Project

Here are the results of my 30 day photo project in which I attempted to photograph something from my day everyday for 30 days. November was a quiet month but I still found a few interesting(-ish) things to do and photograph. Click on a picture to embiggen.

November 1st: Took an... interesting trip to a Japanese doctor's office

November 2nd: Met my friend Darren for wine and all the chips

November 3rd: National Culture Day. I went to the Botanical Gardens where they
had a mini-Autumn festival

November 4th: One of my teachers who lives nearby took me on a bicycle
tour of my neighbourhood

November 5th: Weather was miserable, spent most of the day playing Pokemon online.
I am now the Pokemon champion (33 hours well spent I say)

November 6th: Taught my private student how to express emotion and opinion through
words and badly drawn smiley faces

November 7th: Taught 5th graders at a new school. Sneaky picture of the staff
room

November 8th: Nothing to do so I cycled to the seaside. All the fishermen looked quite
surprised to see me. Even the the ones who had taken a quick break from fishing to
go and pee in the trees opposite the road

November 9th: Went to the Kyogen

November 10th: Was invited to a school festival for one of my teachers'
son's school. Acquired much festival treasure

November 11th: Went to a One Piece themed bar downtown. I was overly
excited as you may be able to tell from the photo

November 12th: Had language exchange with my friend Ai. She gave me an orange and
I inflicted my bad Japanese on her. Probably not the fairest of trades

November 13th: Did sweet feck all today. Here is a picture of my beanbag where I
parked my butt and spent most of the day watching shows

November 14th: Making dinner I noticed my chopped mushroom looked like little
mushroom moustaches

November 15th: Waited at the Hiroshima learner driver centre for a taxi to take
me to a private business English class way up in the hills. The statue is part car
part lady. This is probably what Transformer porn looks like

November 16th: Had nothing to do so I went lurking around the graveyard
next door to my house

November 17th: Met Darren and went to this interesting bar. The owner gave us
free jasmine tea and donuts for some wonderful, unknown reason

November 18th: After the gym my two friends and I passed an art exhibition
in an old bank that one of my other friends is involved in. This is a really
terrible picture. You can't see the wire peanut at all behind the curtain

November 19th: Got into school and one of my students had a bag of presents for me.
Delighted! Then got home and there was a ¥500 voucher after arriving in the post.
Dear diary... Jackpot

November 20th: Another day of doing nothing except sitting on my arse and
vegetating. To represent said vegetation here is a photo of my teddy,
kindle and bed

November 21st: More presents from a different student in a different school.
Must be doing something right. Should I use this to my advantage and create
a tiny, powerful army of elementary school kids?

November 22nd: The sake section at my local shop. I went for wine in the end
since I prefer my alcohol to taste less like feet and more like tasty goodness

November 23rd: Another lazy day of vegetation under the judgmental eyes of
SpongeBob Squarepants. You live in a pineapple you ass, take your judgement
elsewhere

November 24th: Cycled to Mitaki Temple to see kouyou

November 25th: Went to Miyajima Aquarium to see the fishies

November 26th: Taught a different private student how to say "I can..."
Was given a Pokemon toy by her mother for my efforts

November 27th: Spotted this on the way to my Japanese class. Must go Christmas
shopping...

November 28th: Went food shopping. Yawn...

November 29th: I ate a delicious bento by the Atomic Bomb Dome watched
by 5 hungry cats (I cheated here, this is 2 photos put together)

November 30th: Met Darren for delicious payday curry. Got a cupcake afterwards in Mister
Donut and this was on the side of the bag. Seemed apt. Thanks you beautiful people who took
the time to read this post, and thank you to Mister Donut for the compliment encouraging
me to return and stuff my face with their tasty, calorific pastries. Yum!

Dreamination

A combination of 'dream' and 'illumination' it's a sparkly Christmas light show that runs for a month every year over the holidays on Hiroshima's Peace Boulevard. My thoughts upon seeing it were less along the lines of "This beautiful Christmas light show sure is captivating and really conveys the magical essence and festive feeling that only Christmas time can bring" and more akin to "ERMERGOD! Look at the shiny, flashy lights! I want to go to there..." Which I suppose goes to show that it at least has the ability to bring out the child in all of us (although my inner child is closer to the surface than most and seems to slowly be usurping power from the semi-responsible adult at the wheels of my brain, probably by distracting her with cakes and shiny objects). Enjoy these bright and colourful pictures while I try and regain some semblance of the maturity that I lost gallivanting around Dreamination.