As always, we needed a few demonstrations before we get things done right.
Afterwards it was time for karaoke, and yours truly managed to find some Korpiklaani and Turisas on the songlist. The result was this:
We're truly sorry you had to see this.
December 28, 2009
Monja-yaki & Karaoke
Yesterday we cooked some Monja-yaki, Okonomiyaki, pork intestines and some miscellaneous (assumingly) edible things.
As always, we needed a few demonstrations before we get things done right.
Afterwards it was time for karaoke, and yours truly managed to find some Korpiklaani and Turisas on the songlist. The result was this:
We're truly sorry you had to see this.
As always, we needed a few demonstrations before we get things done right.
Afterwards it was time for karaoke, and yours truly managed to find some Korpiklaani and Turisas on the songlist. The result was this:
We're truly sorry you had to see this.
December 27, 2009
Xmas dinner
For Christmas day dinner we couldn't get our hands on a ham, so instead we went for yakiniku at Gyukaku.
So, that's it for our new neo-traditional Xmas meal, I have a strong feeling we'll be going back there.
Not knowing what we should start with, we decided to try out most of the appetizers before going with the plate with 4 kinds of meat, including tongue, some shiitake mushrooms and zucchini. The appetizers included things such as chilled tomato, kimchee, poached egg, seaweed soup, and of course rice.
The dinner didn't seem that heavy or big, but it slowly started to fill us up afterwards. The price wasn't that high either, though it wasn't one of the lowest either. All together 6450 yen for the food + 3 beers, and you could easily leave the appetizers out of the picture and get more meat to grill instead. Also, there are eat all you want/drink all you want offers available, so if you're hungry, those might be your best bet.
So, that's it for our new neo-traditional Xmas meal, I have a strong feeling we'll be going back there.
December 24, 2009
Merrrrryyyyyy Chrrristmassss
TampioTravels wishes everyone a Merry Christmas
Remember to behave, I know we'll try to.
Remember to behave, I know we'll try to.
December 21, 2009
Evening action
On our way to Tsukuba Express we happened to see some fire trucks near the Hanayashiki amusement park, though we never found out what had happened. Even when we returned to Asakusa after a few hours the fire trucks were still there.
3 of the trucks didn't fit in one picture, so you'll just have to take our word for it.
Well, anyhow, we went to Akihabara to do some late night shopping and decided to grab something to eat while we were there. We ended up in C & C, a chain specializing in curry dishes. The katsu curry (a curry & rice dish with a sliced deep fried pork cutlet) was simply incredible, and C&C made it straight to the TampioTravels top 5 dining places list.
Here's the meal from my point of view, I apologize for not having the patience to take a picture before digging in.
Here's the meal from my point of view, I apologize for not having the patience to take a picture before digging in.
Picture time
Ok, I'm feeling lazy and tired thanks to last night, so I'll settle for posting pics instead of typing.
First of all, most things in Japan seem to come in both extremities, especially food and drinks.
If you're a fan of whisky, here's something you might find exciting
First of all, most things in Japan seem to come in both extremities, especially food and drinks.
If you're a fan of whisky, here's something you might find exciting
Yes, whisky can come in 4 L bottles.
Up next, the best ramen I've had so far
Thanks to Tomo for showing Tsuyoshi's favorite noodle place.
And of course you can't have a meal without a dessert or two (well, at least i can't, not in here)
So, so sweet yet so, so good.
Luckily I can work it off in the escalators, even if I don't want to.
The picture is taken from halfway down, and it's only the first of the 3-4 escalators that take you up or down to/from the subway. Walking these up 10 times a day with a full backpack + hand luggage can get somewhat tiring I tell you.
Miikka is yelling that you don't have to necessarily walk those up, but come on, it's Tokyo. If you're not using your feet in these, you're not in a hurry. If you're not in a hurry, you're not really in Tokyo. That's my excuse anyway.
Miikka is yelling that you don't have to necessarily walk those up, but come on, it's Tokyo. If you're not using your feet in these, you're not in a hurry. If you're not in a hurry, you're not really in Tokyo. That's my excuse anyway.
December 20, 2009
Samurais, Icelanders, Salarymen, Sake
Well, Honestly I don't even know where to start. I'm not even sure how things came out the way they did. But hell, I'll at least try to cough something up.
So, we started out in Samurai Cafe as usual, bumped into a few old friends as well as some new acquaintances. One of these new comrades of ours, let us call him Sigu-chan, was an icelander who had been living in Japan most of his life, and has now been married to a Japanese woman for 7 years. He was thrilled to be able to have a conversation with people who could relate to what it is like to come from a frozen country filled with nature to a country centered around technology, unbearably hot summers and lack of forests.
The evening went on, and we kept on talking with Sigu-chan and some of our new local friends as it was starting to get close to Samurai Cafe's closing hours. What to do now? There was still plenty to discuss, and nobody was feeling tired yet. Coincidently Sigu-chan's wife was having a party at their place with their friends from around Japan, and Sigu-chan was kind enough to invite us to join them.
So off we went, visited a 24/7 convinience store to get a few more drinks for the occasion, and after a 10 minute walk we found ourselves in a small appartment with people more or less familiar to us. It took around 30 seconds to adjust to the situation, after which it almost felt like we had been doing this together for years. Few people were from Okinawa, one was a local salaryman who had slept 1 night at home this week due to just working around the clock, one was a guy with the coolest voice in the world, and of course there was Sigu-chan's wife who spoke fluent English and French in addition to Japanese.
The night went on and started to turn into dawn, the salaryman was showing us effection by stroking my hair and punching Miikka in the arm. We were told he's trying to show us he wants to talk with us, but can't because his English isn't that good. The other explanation was that we're taking all his women in Tokyo and he's taking his revenge on us (though in our opinion the first explanation seems more probable). The salaryman, who drank as hard as he worked, eventually passed out after stripping his shirt several times over. I'm sure you all agree the next logical step is to take a marker pen and draw things all over him. And since we thought he was becoming a fan of Finland we decided to leave a message along with the map of Finland on his chest, while his friends got creative with their drawings using his body parts as parts of their sketches.
Here's the result we worked so hard for:
So, we started out in Samurai Cafe as usual, bumped into a few old friends as well as some new acquaintances. One of these new comrades of ours, let us call him Sigu-chan, was an icelander who had been living in Japan most of his life, and has now been married to a Japanese woman for 7 years. He was thrilled to be able to have a conversation with people who could relate to what it is like to come from a frozen country filled with nature to a country centered around technology, unbearably hot summers and lack of forests.
The evening went on, and we kept on talking with Sigu-chan and some of our new local friends as it was starting to get close to Samurai Cafe's closing hours. What to do now? There was still plenty to discuss, and nobody was feeling tired yet. Coincidently Sigu-chan's wife was having a party at their place with their friends from around Japan, and Sigu-chan was kind enough to invite us to join them.
So off we went, visited a 24/7 convinience store to get a few more drinks for the occasion, and after a 10 minute walk we found ourselves in a small appartment with people more or less familiar to us. It took around 30 seconds to adjust to the situation, after which it almost felt like we had been doing this together for years. Few people were from Okinawa, one was a local salaryman who had slept 1 night at home this week due to just working around the clock, one was a guy with the coolest voice in the world, and of course there was Sigu-chan's wife who spoke fluent English and French in addition to Japanese.
The night went on and started to turn into dawn, the salaryman was showing us effection by stroking my hair and punching Miikka in the arm. We were told he's trying to show us he wants to talk with us, but can't because his English isn't that good. The other explanation was that we're taking all his women in Tokyo and he's taking his revenge on us (though in our opinion the first explanation seems more probable). The salaryman, who drank as hard as he worked, eventually passed out after stripping his shirt several times over. I'm sure you all agree the next logical step is to take a marker pen and draw things all over him. And since we thought he was becoming a fan of Finland we decided to leave a message along with the map of Finland on his chest, while his friends got creative with their drawings using his body parts as parts of their sketches.
Here's the result we worked so hard for:
Doesn't he look adorable?
Not long after he had passed out other people started feeling tired too, and one by one they went to bed until it was just TampioTravels, Sigu-chan and the guy with the coolest voice ever left. I started to feel the lack of sleep too, so we decided 7 in the morning was a good time to call it a day. Or a night. No, make that a morning. Anyhow, we started heading back to our hostel, watching people going to work, shopping etc. 7 in the morning. A Sunday morning. According to Sigu-chan and his wife, this was the true essence of drinking and socializing in Japan, or as one of my professors calls it: Nomunication.
So what do we learn from all of this? Go to Tokyo, say hi to a random person, the rest will take care of itself and you'll have a blast. TampioTravels over and out.
P.S. Here's our merry group of party people saying hi to all of you (isn't Miikka just radiating with happiness?)
Not long after he had passed out other people started feeling tired too, and one by one they went to bed until it was just TampioTravels, Sigu-chan and the guy with the coolest voice ever left. I started to feel the lack of sleep too, so we decided 7 in the morning was a good time to call it a day. Or a night. No, make that a morning. Anyhow, we started heading back to our hostel, watching people going to work, shopping etc. 7 in the morning. A Sunday morning. According to Sigu-chan and his wife, this was the true essence of drinking and socializing in Japan, or as one of my professors calls it: Nomunication.
So what do we learn from all of this? Go to Tokyo, say hi to a random person, the rest will take care of itself and you'll have a blast. TampioTravels over and out.
P.S. Here's our merry group of party people saying hi to all of you (isn't Miikka just radiating with happiness?)
December 19, 2009
We're famous.. sort of
TampioTravels (well, yours truly along with our friend Jonne) had managed to get to the Hall of Fame at Sakura Hostel, I'm sure you're as surprised as we are.
Apparently we're not the only ones overwhelmed with this feeling of surprise
It also seems that we made our way to the Sakura Hostel blog article regarding the same Hallf of Fame. You can find the blog here.
Somehow we manage to show up in blogs around Japan, I'm thinking it's because we start acting goofy when we get our hands on some alcoholic beverages.
..and that brings me to our next holiday activity: spending all our evenings and nights at Samurai Cafe. And speaking of which, it's about time we go to Samurai Cafe. Hell, it's been open for 1,5 hours and we're still here blogging our hearts out and serving glögg to fellow travellers. Something must be seriously wrong with us, we should probably go to Samurai and try to figure out what it is.
..you guys have fun too.
Apparently we're not the only ones overwhelmed with this feeling of surprise
It also seems that we made our way to the Sakura Hostel blog article regarding the same Hallf of Fame. You can find the blog here.
Somehow we manage to show up in blogs around Japan, I'm thinking it's because we start acting goofy when we get our hands on some alcoholic beverages.
..and that brings me to our next holiday activity: spending all our evenings and nights at Samurai Cafe. And speaking of which, it's about time we go to Samurai Cafe. Hell, it's been open for 1,5 hours and we're still here blogging our hearts out and serving glögg to fellow travellers. Something must be seriously wrong with us, we should probably go to Samurai and try to figure out what it is.
..you guys have fun too.
Tokyo, we're finally back..
..sort of. After finding out our flight to Osaka was 2 hours late due to having to wait for passengers from all around Europe, we were merely annoyed. Sure, it was a pain in the rear kinda annoyance, but still, somewhat bearable.
Until we actually arrived to Osaka just to find out our connecting flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo wasn't waiting for us unlike we had done back in Helsinki-Vantaa waiting patiently for the few late passengers. We ran our hearts out, queued patiently with the 200 other people in the disembarkation line, then ran some more. After reaching the luggage dropout point we were told we're about 10 minutes late, and that the plane is just taking off.
So, what to do now? We waited for someone from Finnair to come and tell us what to do next. Apparently, the next flight from Osaka to Haneda wouldn't be until 5-6 hours, so instead we were offered a flight from Itami airport to Haneda, departing in less than 2 hours. The thing is, you need to take a limousine bus from the Osaka airport to get to Itami, and the trip is no less than 75 minutes, assuming you get lucky with the traffic. The bus ticket was a whooping 1900 yen, and we had to purchase them ourselves, though we received forms to fill so we could get that 1900 yen back from Finnair in 1-2 months. The staff on the other hand was extremely kind, as one might expect in Japan. The lady that was guiding us to the correct bus wouldn't stop apologizing and bowing, and even when we were on the bus she happened to notice us from the window and took a bow that seemed it would last until we got safely to Itami.
90 hectic minutes later we were at the Itami airport, running for our lives once again. The situation got almost hazardous yet again, when we received differing advice about where we should leave our luggage. Having run between 2 floors 3 times, one might start to get agitated and distressed. Naturally of course, TampioTravels is an example of patience and calmness, and would never cave in to such vices. This time we made it just in the nick of time and were on our way to Haneda on a Japan Airlines flight, and seemigly as the only foreigners. The flight itself felt like a 1-lap Formula 1 race, and it seemed to be over before we could even realize it. The scheduled flight time was 1 hour, but I'm rather sure we made it a lot faster.
We took a train from Haneda to Asakusa, and ended up in Yokohama. Naturally this was intended, as we had always wanted to stop by at Yokohama with 15 kg of luggage on our backs. I mean, it's not like TampioTravels wouldn't get on the wrong train by accident, would we?
Now, 5 hours later than intended, we're finally back in Tokyo, preparing to do what we do best.
Until we actually arrived to Osaka just to find out our connecting flight to Haneda airport in Tokyo wasn't waiting for us unlike we had done back in Helsinki-Vantaa waiting patiently for the few late passengers. We ran our hearts out, queued patiently with the 200 other people in the disembarkation line, then ran some more. After reaching the luggage dropout point we were told we're about 10 minutes late, and that the plane is just taking off.
So, what to do now? We waited for someone from Finnair to come and tell us what to do next. Apparently, the next flight from Osaka to Haneda wouldn't be until 5-6 hours, so instead we were offered a flight from Itami airport to Haneda, departing in less than 2 hours. The thing is, you need to take a limousine bus from the Osaka airport to get to Itami, and the trip is no less than 75 minutes, assuming you get lucky with the traffic. The bus ticket was a whooping 1900 yen, and we had to purchase them ourselves, though we received forms to fill so we could get that 1900 yen back from Finnair in 1-2 months. The staff on the other hand was extremely kind, as one might expect in Japan. The lady that was guiding us to the correct bus wouldn't stop apologizing and bowing, and even when we were on the bus she happened to notice us from the window and took a bow that seemed it would last until we got safely to Itami.
90 hectic minutes later we were at the Itami airport, running for our lives once again. The situation got almost hazardous yet again, when we received differing advice about where we should leave our luggage. Having run between 2 floors 3 times, one might start to get agitated and distressed. Naturally of course, TampioTravels is an example of patience and calmness, and would never cave in to such vices. This time we made it just in the nick of time and were on our way to Haneda on a Japan Airlines flight, and seemigly as the only foreigners. The flight itself felt like a 1-lap Formula 1 race, and it seemed to be over before we could even realize it. The scheduled flight time was 1 hour, but I'm rather sure we made it a lot faster.
We took a train from Haneda to Asakusa, and ended up in Yokohama. Naturally this was intended, as we had always wanted to stop by at Yokohama with 15 kg of luggage on our backs. I mean, it's not like TampioTravels wouldn't get on the wrong train by accident, would we?
Now, 5 hours later than intended, we're finally back in Tokyo, preparing to do what we do best.
December 17, 2009
Wrrooommm
Planes to catch, people to see, beers to consume. How terribly dreadful.
Tokyo, you're ours now.
Tokyo, you're ours now.
December 16, 2009
Tomorrooowww
Yes. Finally. 1 more freaking night.
Miikka's anticipation is so hard it's starting to hurt my ears.
INFIIINIIITYYYYYYY
Miikka's anticipation is so hard it's starting to hurt my ears.
INFIIINIIITYYYYYYY
December 8, 2009
Gahh, just little over a week more
TampioTravels has to somehow manage to hang in there for 9 more days, but the closer we get to the date of departure, the more unbearable the wait seems to become..
Anyhow, Miikka is currently swamped with work, and yours truly is trying to wade his way through the final essays, piles of exercises and presentations before the 15th of this month, so at least we'll have something to kill the waiting process with.
Still, I can only borderline scantily await to pour that sweet, sweet Heartland down my parched throat yet again.
...
A deranged monologue appears!
'Pull yourself together, wretched SOB, it's just 9 more days now..
Just 9 more days..
9 more days..
..I SAID PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER
..just 9 more days.. '
P.S. No innocent bloggers were harmed during this disturbing epilogue.
Anyhow, Miikka is currently swamped with work, and yours truly is trying to wade his way through the final essays, piles of exercises and presentations before the 15th of this month, so at least we'll have something to kill the waiting process with.
Still, I can only borderline scantily await to pour that sweet, sweet Heartland down my parched throat yet again.
...
A deranged monologue appears!
'Pull yourself together, wretched SOB, it's just 9 more days now..
Just 9 more days..
9 more days..
..I SAID PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER
..just 9 more days.. '
P.S. No innocent bloggers were harmed during this disturbing epilogue.
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