Wandering Around Piccadilly Circus

 Food, Great Britain, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on Wandering Around Piccadilly Circus
Jul 052011
 

My first stop today was Piccadilly Circus, where there’s a neat used Japanese book store called Adanami. It’s in an old dry cleaner’s, and when I got there, I could still see the old dry cleaner’s sign.

I got there just a little too early, because they were still closed. They open at noon, and it was still 11:45.

So I headed down the street to kill some time, and found the Vintage Magazine Store, and looked around in there. I checked out their vintage magazines in the basement. They have a nice collection, but it’s all on the expensive side. I was scouting it out for my brother-in-law, who often uses old magazines as references for his graphic design work.

Upstairs, they had an interesting selection of post cards and birthday cards, as well as movie-related novelties. I got some funny birthday cards, so it was a success.

Then I went back to Adanami to search for used Japanese books. The prices there were pretty good for the most part, but I didn’t have a whole lot of luck finding the books that I wanted. I was interested in finding some books on 国語 (sort of like Language Arts for Japanese), but didn’t find anything that struck my fancy. I did find a copy of Harry Potter. It was a bit pricey for a used copy, but it’s getting harder to find it in Japanese.

FYI– no credit card accepted there. Bring cash. They also have a karaoke box in the back, if that’s your thing.

Bulgogiiii

After that, I headed to a Korean restaurant in the neighborhood called Soju, and had a really good bulgogi lunch set meal. Bulgogi is a Korean dish of marinated beef that’s been grilled. I got some kimchi along with it, as well as some pickled mung bean sprouts and rice.

Considering how paranoid everyone is about bean sprouts and other salad ingredients in Europe these days, I ate them without really considering it. Oops.

The only downside was that the chopsticks were metal and kind of thin, so it was hard getting them to work. I’m much better at using wooden chopsticks than plastic or metal. A spoon came with the chopsticks, but there was no way I was going to wimp out and use the spoon.

Mitsukoshi and Japan Centre… Again!

After lunch, I headed back towards the station, and then towards Mitsukoshi‘s basement, where the books are. I wanted to have a good look over them before I headed out, because I can’t look over them at home. They have a really good selection on Japanese learning, even though they’re all pretty expensive. If nothing else, you can check them out and then buy online from someplace like BK1 Honto. I found a really good book on business Japanese that I haven’t seen anywhere else, so I decided to take the hit and buy it. ( £36. Ouch!)

Then it was over to Japan Centre again to look at their books and to see if they had anything else interesting, but nothing really jumped out at me.

They didn’t even have Men’s Pocky.

I headed back to the hotel to rest for a bit and to pack my books to send home tomorrow. Box wrestling, commence!

Showers? More Like a Fire Hose!

Packages packed, this evening was my first encounter with the rain in England. And rain it did, violently hard.

My Gore-Tex jacket was barely able to keep me dry, and my nylon hiking pants were getting soaked fast. So I dashed into Boots‘, and stared at umbrellas for about 15 minutes. I figured that it wouldn’t really matter which one I picked, because they would all kind of suck, so I got the most compact one for 10 pounds, and sure enough, it sucked. It barely covered my head and made sure I got completely soaked.

Then it was off to Tokyo Spicy, for a katsudon. They make an awesome katsudon.

Oct 142007
 

I went back to Nagoya today, because even though I got sunburned, the festival was going to go on with or without me.

I rode my evil little bicycle to the station today, because even though it’s uncomfortable, it beats walking.

On the way to the station, I saw two guys riding on the same bike. Then I saw a police car pull them over, and 3 cops piled out to lecture and/or ticket them. Bad boys, bad boys… COPS: Okazaki!

After watching that action unfold, off to Nagoya I went.

Dashi and Kagura Parades

I managed to catch both the Dashi and Kagura float parades, and the childrens’ Mikoshi parade, as well as a parade for the sister cities, which I skipped. (Fast Fact: L.A. is a sister city to Nagoya.)

The Dashi are these giant floats on carts that have all sorts of bright decorations on them, and karakuri mechanical dolls on them that perform various little dances and act out plays.

Dashi Parade

They’re setting up the dashi floats now after wheeling them into the square.

Dashi Parade

Mid-performance!

Dashi Parade Special Effects

Special effects!

As impressive as the plays are the people who have to turn the Dashi floats, which have wheels that don’t turn.

These things are hard to turn.

More turning.

The Kagura floats are these floats that are basically drums with lots of gold ornamentation on them, and kids just beat the hell out of these drums with long sticks.

Kagura Parade 2

 

Kagura Parade

It’s loud.

The Children’s Parade

Then came the kids’ parade. That was mostly lots of cute mascot-y things, and weird things, like a lion-dance-like shinkansen (bullet train).

Children's Parade 9

And this rabbit-thing was cute:

Children's Parade 12

Then there was an appearance by the Nagoya Fire Board Marching Band, and their color guard, the Lily Angels. They were all very good.

Nagoya Fire Bureau Marching Band 7

Tubas!

Nagoya Fire Bureau Marching Band 6

The Lily Angels:

Nagoya Fire Bureau Marching Band 2

Nagoya Fire Bureau Marching Band 4

I saw some cars and mascots with people from sister cities, and started to get bored and decided to move on to the park.

After the Parades, Wandering Around Nagoya

As I was heading to the park, I saw a building that was called the Robot Museum, and I was intrigued.

Robot Museum 1

But apparently it had just shuttered its doors for good. Darn it.

Robot Museum 3

They even bagged up the exhibits.

Robot Museum 4

In the park there were a bunch of guys wearing 50s-style outfits, dancing. They even had the greased-back hair.

50's guys

50's guys 6

There were the usual festival stalls for stuff like taiyaki, takoyaki, and yakisoba, but I gave those a miss. (The guys are still dancing here.)

50's guys 8

I liked the fountain in the park.

Fountain

Fountain Statue

And you can see the Nagoya TV tower in the park as well:

Park in Nagoya, Broadcast Tower, etc.

On to Atsuta Shrine

Then it was time to head to Atsuta Shrine for a martial arts expo. Apparently they have mastered the art of hiding giant buildings by not putting up any signs near the respective subway stops. I saw signs for everything but the shrine coming out of the subway, so I wound up walking the wrong way for 10 minutes until I figured it out.

By the time I got there, I was fading, so I strolled around a bit, watched some Iaido, saw all the cute kids for shichi-go-san (a Shinto ceremony for kids aged 7, 5, and 3, hence the name shichi-go-san, which is Japanese for 7, 5, and 3) and I didn’t feel like taking pictures. The lighting was bad, and to be honest, I just didn’t feel like it.

I also skipped the omikuji (omikuji are paper fortune slips you can usually get at temples and shrines), because the I didn’t feel like jinxing myself when I’m not even one week into my trip.

I  headed back to Nagoya station, where I ate many tasty things (another chicken & egg sandwich and an iced cocoa, which were both delicious), then back home to ride the buttbuster 9000 back to the dorm.

Now I’ll do some laundry, some homework, and sleep.

Men’s Pocky Is Awesome

Oh, and I had a box of “Men’s Pocky” for dessert tonight. Don’t laugh. It’s awesome.

The chocolate is nice and dark, not too sweet, just the way I like it.

For those who don’t know, Pocky is a snack made of thin pretzel sticks covered with chocolate (and other things), and are laced with something akin to crack, because they are that addictive.

“Men’s Pocky” is made with a dark chocolate coating, because in Japan, manly men aren’t supposed to like sweet things. It’s, well, unmanly. Manly men should like bitter things.

So this is the candy for manly men… if manly men ate candy.

Unfortunately, they’re too busy eating rusty nails and the organs of weird creatures that taste like battery acid.

Because they’re manly!

I’m up to over 500 photos now, and it’s only been 4 days. I’m in trouble. Thinking of the photo editing alone makes me shudder.

Tomorrow is a rest/recovery day, with more classes. I don’t plan on doing much.

Thursday, I’m on my way to Kyoto to see some temples. I can’t wait for that. I’m going to hit all the highlights I can.

Oh, a postscript– I went to a drug store to pick up something for my sunburn, and to my great surprise, they sell topical prednisone cream over the counter. I found this out because I asked for something, and the pharmacist gave me some to use. (For those who don’t know, prednisone is a powerful steroid anti-inflammatory drug, usually only available by prescription in the U.S.) So now I have something else to get rid of before I leave Japan, I guess.

Remember– you can’t bring those sorts of things back to the U.S. without a prescription!

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