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I guess it's been a while since I last blogged here. It's been a busy month. Those intensive Nihongo classes really take up a lot of time in the most unexpected ways.
Speaking of Nihongo classes, I just took my classmates to one of my favourite yakiniku type places in Tokyo, Negishi. I've only ever been the Shibuya branch, but there's apparently one in Shinjuku and one other large neighbourhood as well. We went to the one in Shibuya as it's just a stone's throw from the school.
Upon first glance at the relatively simple menu, they thought the prices were rather high for what you were getting. But after one bite, they were converts. They, like me, think the food there is fantastic. The meat there is done well and the sauces are spiced up nicely. We each ordered a set different menu course and sampled from each other's plates. Although, the tororo soup, the pork soup stock, rice mixed with oats, and the pickled veggies seemed to be staples for almost every dish, so there was really no need to share those ones.
Here's a close up of our various dishes:
Access to the one in Shibuya:
1. get to Shibuya eki on any line and get to the Hachiko exit
2. walk up the street that's got the 109 on the right and the Tsutaya with the Starbuck on the left; make sure you are on the same side as the Tsutaya record store.
3. When you get to the cross street with the 2 Marui Department stores (logo is 0101 in large red and white) cross in a straight line towards the one that has a MacDonald's at the bottom. The other Marui should be visible to your right.
4. Once you pass that intersection, turn left and the Marui with the MacDonald's should now be on your right.
5. Walk about 2 small blocks and look to your right and down into a stairway going to a basement restaurant. That's Negishi. It is just passed an Excelsior Cafe shop. Across the street diagonally, you will see the Parco Department store. If you hit a Denny's on your right, you've gone too far.
Good luck. It's well worth the effort. My set menu with 2 kinds of bar-b-q meat and sauces and other side dishes was about 1400 yen. My friend had the stew and 2 side dishes and that was 1200 yen. You can get a set meal for 800 with a single type of meat (pork or beef) and one flavour.
It's been a busy week and these summer sniffles aren't helping. From the end of July until this weekend, there are some big fireworks on display in and around town. I went on Thursday night to the one near Gaienmae and Aoyama icchome eki. It's in the triangle between Harajuku, Shibuya and Ropponggi ekis.
There were tonnes of women in the summer yukata and some men in the jinbe. I loved the little kids in their outfits too. One of my Japanese friends told me that I could not possibly go to a Hanabi festival without wearing a yukata. So I did. Wow. It's hard to breath in those things. Maybe because I put it on myself and was totally worried about the whole piece coming apart, it may have been done overly tight. Something about pulling too tightly on the obi (think large cumberband). More on Yukata in another post.
The fireworks was pretty crowded. We were slightly to the south and away from the main action streets, so it wasn't so bad until we headed back to Shibuya eki after the fireworks. We were lucky in that we dined near the area and walked up and down the streets looking for possibly good vantage points and just by chance happened to see a small bunch of people on a rooftop terrace. Okay --- roof being the roof of the 2nd floor of a larger office building so not an extremely high roof, but still it was an elevated view. When we went to check it out, it seems that it was not a private party at all, and that there were small groups of people up there. The nice part about it was the room to maneuver with my camera. There were tall hedges for privacy from the streets below, so we all had to stand with our backs to the wall of the giant office tower behind us. But the worse part about being there and trying to take photos was that there was a lady, who wore her long hair up high on the top of her head, Pebble Flintstone style, so some of my shots were obstructed by a large blob of hair. How rude is that? Why would you go to a fireworks display and wearing your hair up high knowing that everyone was going to look up? That completely goes against everything I'd learned in Japanese culture classes about the people here going out of their way to ensure that they aren't disturbing you.
Despite the Pebbles-wannabe being on the roof, I did manage to capture some awesome pics. I have posted a few of my faves.
I'm so excited. Apparently, the opening of Batman (or Darkknight as it's title here in Japan) is August 9th. These posters are about 2 stories tall and can be found on the side of the Tokyu Department store beside the Hachiko exit in Shibuya.
Batman and the Joker are being described as:
最強 - strongest最凶 - wickedestI loved the first Batman movie with Chritian Bale, so I am expecting big things from this one. Also, this movie was the last movie that Heath Ledger filmed. He was the Joker.
