This will be a quick post, but I’ve now been in Tokyo for six weeks! Next week my daily Japanese classes (and their accompanying homework) will be over so I’ll hopefully have time to update this more often. Again, because my days consist mostly of class and work, I’m not doing a ton of interesting stuff.

I also went through about a week of stabbing face pain (I’m fine now), which I assume was some kind of sinus infection or something. The air in Tokyo right now is crazy dry so I chalk it up to that. (HUMIDIFIERS ARE YOUR FRIEND.) If you’re ever coming to Tokyo, I recommend bringing your own Tylenol/Advil/whatever because it’s expensive here. And if you take North American-style SUPER DUPER EXTRA STRENGTH anything, well, that doesn’t exist. From what I’ve seen, stuff like Tylenol isn’t any weaker here — it’s about the same dose as regular Tylenol in North America but that’s all there is. You also can’t buy medicine at a drugstore or convenience store — you have to go to a pharmacy (kusuriya) and ask for it.

But here’s some things I’ve done recently:

I ate omurice! I don’t really like omurice (basically an omelette filled with rice and topped with ketchup, or in this case, hayashi sauce) but Mike does. Why Japanese people have to put ketchup on it is a mystery to me.

I went for some fancy-ish tempura at Tsunahachi! This one was one of the appetizers. This location was one of the higher end Tsunahachi locations, but I’ve also since eaten at the main shop in Shinjuku. The main one is much cheaper and very foreigner friendly with an English menu. Both have very good tempura.

Tsunahachi gives you a bunch of different kinds of salt for your tempura. Tempura is delicious with just some simple sea salt.

Mmmmmmmm. My favourite is always the shrimp heads.

Another random food item.

I had highballs at a bar in Shimokitazawa! (Someday I will write an entire entry about Shimokitazawa.)

The bar had cool lights made out of wine bottles.

I went to Mother, another bar in Shimokitazawa that looks like some kind of underground Gaudi cave.

I had hot wine because it was samui desu (cold outside).

I went to karaoke! On the weekend, it’s about ¥2500 ($27) for two hours including nomihodai (all you can drink).

Obviously every karaoke box has a million AKB48 songs. The BEST part is that all of the AKB48 songs use the actual music videos, not the cheesy guy-walking-around generic type videos that are used for Western songs.

This is the only Japanese song that I know all the words to. And only because I learned it in my high school Japanese class.

Here’s a photo of Mike probably singing either The Beatles or Queen. This is how karaoke works: I pick songs and Mike sings them, and then I try to sing Japanese songs and totally fail because my kanji-reading and singing skills are almost nonexistent.

Well, that’s about it for now. I’m hoping to get my hair cut (and dyed?) in Harajuku this weekend, so that should make for an interesting future blog post. Japanese hair, here I come!

Because we like to eat food, this past weekend Mike and I decided to check out the Furusato Matsuri (ふるさと祭り東京) at Tokyo Dome. Furusato means hometown and matsuri means festival. Basically it’s a giant food festival celebrating food and drink from all over Japan. The website for the festival is here, but it’s only in Japanese.

Tokyo Dome is a massive baseball stadium and it was packed. (In hindsight, I probably should have gone on a weekday.)

So many people!

Japan is filled with adorable mascots. Every town, prefecture, police department, whatever, has one. This guy is some kind of garlic prince from Takko in Aomori prefecture. Fun fact: the mascot for Nerima (where I live) is named Nerimaru. He totally looks like a taco with an antenna, but he’s actually a daikon. (That link has cute videos of him!)

Have I ever mentioned that Japan is really, really good at organizing crowds?

Well, I love Hokkaido. Okay, I’ve never been to Hokkaido. But I like seafood!

Apparently Hokkaido is also home to a lot of meaty items.

Like these swirly sausages, which Mike promptly swooped in to get. Mike has a thing for meat on sticks.

Hokkaido sausage: proclaimed to be oishii and Mike’s favourite thing out of all the foods we ate.

My favourite was obviously GIANT HOKKAIDO CRAB!

So good. I really need to go to Hokkaido.

More Hokkaido seafood (scallops). On a side note about scallops, they sell them with the roe attached here — which is awesome, because the roe is delicious. I never see them for sale with the roe in Canada. Why? Why do you hate tasty food, Canada?

More meat on sticks.

And yet MORE meat on sticks.

Mike had one of these — some kind of sausage on a stick with dough inside. I did not taste it.

Takoyaki! One of my favourites. From Osaka, the home of takoyaki.

These are kakuni manju, or pork buns. Kakuni is a specialty of Nagasaki. I’m wondering if David Chang stole these for his Momofuku empire, since they’re basically the same as the Momofuku buns.

Tomato ume! Okay, I don’t know how these work but they’re yummy. They look like an umeboshi but they taste like a combination of umeboshi and cherry tomato. So, sort of like a sweeter, tomato-y umeboshi. Sounds weird, but it’s good.

Everyone’s favourite mascot, Kumamon (the mascot of Kumamoto prefecture). Kumamon is huge in Japan. Like, Hello Kitty huge. He’s everywhere. So of course I had to buy a Kumamon-shaped cookie, which you could only get in a set with a tote bag for ¥1200 (about $13.50 CAD). Whatever, Japan!

Furusato Matsuri also includes recreations of festivals from around Japan — we watched this one briefly and I have no idea where it was from, but it included people carrying a mikoshi and kids dancing. (Umm, like every Japanese festival does.)

I felt kind of sad that I just didn’t have enough stomach space to eat nearly all the foods I wanted to try — some booths had huge lineups, so I can only assume there were some delectable things I missed out on. There were these desserts shaped like cute chickens that I really wanted to try, but when I went back to get one they were SOLD OUT!

NOTE TO SELF: Visit more places in Japan and eat as much food as possible.