Sunday, January 14, 2007

Fugu


Fugu, (box fish/puffer fish) are are delicacy in Japan, and also my pet. The actual fish to eat is bigger than the ones I have but deadly poisonous. Chefs need a special license in Japan in order to prepare the fish for eating (removing all the poisonous parts). The taste is rather bland in my opinion but it obviously appeals to some as it is also fairly expensive.
Of course I would never eat my fish, they seem to have a character all of their own which i have never seen in fish.. they are also constantly hungry!!!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

iPhone


Its arrived :) The long awaited and much speculated about item...the Apple iPhone. Tired of carrying your phone and your ipod around separately? No problem pick up this dandy device and your all set for any eventuality... ok well maybe thats going a bit too far but eventualities involving phones and ipods anyway :-)
It looks nice! but...has a touch screen, i dont know exactly why but never been a fan of these... end up getting your finger marks all over the screen, sometimes the wrong button is pressed by mistake etc..... oh well its not available in Japan anyway (not sure if it ever will be since the phone networks here are quite tightly controlled, we only just got razor)

Tuesday, January 9, 2007

Kamakura - Enoshima

Well today I decided to go out somewhere... was playing with the idea of going to FujiYoshida (near to Mt.Fuji) but the weather was just 'OK' so changed my mind and ended up at Kamakura. This is a popular seaside place for both foreigners and Japanese alike. Its famous for temples and shrines but decided to not go that route today and ended up at the beach... pretty deserted but nice all the same.
Started walking along and along and eventually found myself at Enoshima which is another famous seaside resort along the coast. A good workout at any rate and it did present some photo opportunities on the way.....

Train snacks


Its so cute! Well... so Japanese at any rate, only in Japan can you buy snacks from the train when you're not actually on the train yet..

Monday, January 8, 2007

Mille


I was window shopping today and saw this ...... would love to own it but its rather expensive :-(
Still I can dream......

Good & Bad

First the bad.... it was really nasty weather this weekend, wet and cold. Made me loathed to

leave the house but nevermind, sometimes these things are necessary..... Here is my station looking grey, and miserable........




Next the good...got a photo published in the Metropolis free magazine this week.. submitted it a while back and had totally forgotton about it so was very suprised when someone said it was there... here is the website


and an edited version of
the original --------->

Tuesday, January 2, 2007

A good start!

As is usual for the new year one ambition is to try to become healthier.. so with this in mind decided to visit one of my favorite hamburger places to "kick things off" as it were... Double cheeseburger with extra cheese.. mmmmmmmmm.







But seriously, going to try to get fitter this year so have set a limit of a burger once a week and going to do my best to stick to it!

Monday, January 1, 2007

あけましておめでとうございます (Happy New Year!)

Well its here, another year starts the first to be recorded on here. What did I do? Well the somewhat traditional practice of going to the local shrine and praying for a good new year.






Arrived at about 11:15pm, hardly anyone there yet, the whole place is lit up but not much going on.......





As you can see though it gets popular, actually this was at 11:40pm and the line is already forming pretty fast... hmm better get in line.









By the time I'm leaving the line is going down the steps, under the entrance and...well down the road. These people are going to be waiting a while :-)







Getting my "New Year Fortune"........pay the modest sum of 100 yen and shake a small drum which has a large number of bamboo sticks inside, one will fall out and the number inscribed on it corresponds to a fortune.





My fortune, as you can see its all in Japanese, this one is classed as an "OK" fortune, meaning some good and some bad. (I'll try to put more info. later)