Japanese Food Videos

This is going to be an awesome compilation of videos. 

I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I enjoyed making and eating them...that's right I ate the videos. >.<

Summer Sonic 2014

I finally made it to a music festival here in Tokyo, it is about an hour away from my house and really it was one of those last minute decisions.

For those who know me, I love Mogwai and I couldn't imagine my sleepless nights without them.
I was able to create many hours worth of work because of their music. So after my return from South Korea I was thinking about how I could see them, it so happens that they were playing at Summer Sonic.

I walked in the middle of the night to two 7-11's to find tickets, I struck out at the first one. Due to the staff's lack of English skills but at the second one he spoke great English! So the store clerk was able to help me buy a ticket. I really was able to to go, I had a ticket in hand.

There were 5 main stages and 5 little ones all held at Makuhari Messe which is next to the baseball stadium. The baseball stadium was also used as the main stage for the larger bands, though on Saturday we were all caught in the rain. Man was I glad I brought my umbrella!

South Korea Movie

Yup, so this is happening. I decided that I would like a little movie of my time traveling. I don't think that there will be many people featured in them but it may come about in later videos. Until then I'll keep working on my video editing skills.

Also I stumbled in across this, I found this really interesting. I wish that I could have a show that I could just eat all day?

Japan Throwback

Dear Friends,
I am still here in Tokyo Japan, I have been meaning on posting tonnes and tonnes of things about Tokyo. I wanted to sit back and write you a ka-ba-jillion words. I was lost in living the high paced Japanese life style and most of all enjoying my day to day life. So here I am sitting around this Friday evening thinking 'MAN, it has been a long ass time since I have written anything about Japan.' After months, weeks and many hours of procrastination I am finally going to share some of the things that I have done in the past couple months.

Where to start?

Monika, Cho-san and I at Purikura. You might have already seen tonnes of pictures like this on facebook but really these photobooths are amazing. You can borrow the costumes that are already there and use them in the photobooths! $4 of fantastic fun! Love these, I was actually thinking about marketing these somewhere in North America. They would be a hit.  Monika is my cosplay buddy, she has already gone back to Poland I will miss our purikura days! 

I moved out of the guest house and into my friend's place. This is my new room if you were wondering where I sleep at night. Rirakuma says HIII!

I spend a lot of time on the rooftop playing guitar and contemplating life. Like a lot of time. I have watched the sunset, rise and set again. 

My last guitar Jam, I was hosting a guitar jam at a cafe that I worked as an English chat host. I will really miss these sessions. This is Jin with his left handed guitar, he doesn't speak a lot of English but his improves and motivation to learn haven't been overlooked. 

I spent a lot of time on this beach in Zushi, I did an English camp there for a week teaching 5 year olds. They even made me a good bye certificate, I'll show you if you ever come over to my house in Edmonton. That is to say if I have one in the near future :P

This is my new friend Kristina (a wrestler I have to add) She is WAY strong and very cool :) I added this particular picture because I wanted you guys to remember that I usually make terrible faces for photos. It still happens to this day. 

Need I say more, share the love!

I want to say that this picture speaks for itself. In the end this is a good bye party for Cindy, Monika and I since we are all leaving this izakaya (Japanese style restaurant). I drank a lot this evening, so much I even fell asleep at the counter I usually serve drinks at. This photo is taken at umm...7am?

That's right folks there are still Polaroids being taken all around the world. 

Doctor Who Premier in Seoul

 I have been reminding myself over and over again to write about this joyous day. Since it was one of the main reasons that I went to South Korea in August. I had heard through the grape vine that the new doctor and his companion Jenna Coleman was doing a tour to promote the new season of Doctor Who.

I went to the venue without a ticket since they were given away for free and were all 'sold out'. At first they said that the tickets would be $15 but then they realized that the fans were really happy about the tour and decided to give the tickets out for free. So i went in hopes that someone would give me one ticket, I made a sign and off I went.

Instantly as soon as I got off the train I was greeted by a fellow fan that knew where I was going since I was sporting my doctor who shirt and we became friends. We met her boyfriend who had been patiently waiting in the line up for hours before our arrival, I couldn't believe how long the line up already was. There was about 100 people, I was thinking to myself it was going to be impossible to get tickets. They promised that every single seat after ticket holders arrived (or didn't show) would be filled by the people waiting in this line. I thought it was sweet but I am sure they had thought this through because at the end of the show everyone I saw in the line up was still there.

On to my story, I was interviewed by the radio show touring with the doctor and his companion which would be featured on BBC about why I was there in the line up today. I never did hunt it down maybe I can find it at a later date if I look hard enough. Either way after the interview this couple passed me buy and tried to sell me their ticket for an unreasonable amount even though they won VIP tickets through twitter.

Side note: There was a competition when the Tardis had landed in Seoul to send in a photo on Twitter. We did get to see everything that was featured as the best when we arrived on the big screen.

From there I told the couple that I didn't have much money but I would buy the ticket off of them for a lower price than they had offered me so I could get into the cosplay and merchandise area.  Which was only available for ticket holders and I really wanted some swag. We negotiated and I paid $12 to guarantee a seat that wasn't going to be in the back of the room.

I was able to buy some swag and take a picture with the Tardis before heading in and watching the interview with the cast. Now the only complaint that I had was the translator was really quiet and for the people who didn't speak Korean it was a hard pressed time to sit through all the interpretations. Either way it was fun and I got to watch the season premiers with a lot of die hard fans.

Daejeon, South Korea

So here is a mini post about a place called Daejeon in South Korea. I spent a total of 4 nights here just relaxing and chatting with people. I even was a little productive and wrote a couple blog posts while in this hotel room. I paid 35,000won a night which isn't bad since they wanted to charge me 40,000won. Yay for haggling. 

Yeah, I'm watching Korean Anime...hahaha Somethings never change eh?

Another rooftop! 

Yeah I watched the simpsons too...it has been a long time since I watched any. 

Why don't all countries have trees made of flags...it is sooo ummm...nationalistic. 

Riding the KTX in South Korea

We picked up a KTX ticket (a train ticket for the bullet train in South Korea) you can buy them in intervals if 1 day, 3 days, a week and so on. It is really cheap compared to Japan and I know that it would be best to have planned a little more in advance of the locations that I wanted to visit. I like to wing it so that is what I did, just hoped on and off of the train with a little too much freedom.

In the beginning we had to pick up the tickets at Seoul station since we bought then online, our passports needed to be presented. Side note: we paid about 80,000 won $80CAD for a 3 day all you can ride ticket. Which after looking into tickets while waiting at the stations we made our money back for sure.

Carl couldn't find a seat,
actually we had a lot of time on our hands.

The lady at the counter told us that we were able to stand it go and book a seat at the other ticket counter. I wasn't a bit surprised when they said that all the seats were booked on the train we wanted to catch so I just suggested that we get on the train and just find and empty seat. We found seats no problem!

First stop Seoul -> Busan. Approx 3 hours

Second stop Busan -> deagu. This was a bit of an accident since we decided to hope on the next local train.

Local trains: they actually check your ticket and on top of that they actually have a train car that have people just sitting on the ground. Yup we joined them. In this particular car they had a little food concession, you know tea, coffee, hot dogs etc. The best part is the fact that they have massage chairs, mini karaoke rooms and an old school 1945 arcade game. We only played 1945, it was super nostalgic!!

We transferred to the correct train from Daegu to Masan. It took about an hour but by the time we arrived, checked in and headed out to the busy district...we were hit by a typhoon warning. That didn't stop us! We had an evening of video games, searching for a cinema and having a couple drinks. In the end due to the weather not being the best and the 'club' next door being ultra shady we grabbed some drinks and just stayed in with Totoro.