Alrighty.
So, as you might have noticed, I haven't been blogging regularly for months. See what happened was: I went to London, I went to Japan, I did a bunch of crazy stuff all over London and Japan, I thought about writing about said crazy stuff, I started to write a little bit, I realized how much writing it would actually entail to cover all of the stuff that I did in the detail that I wanted, I panicked.
I panicked for several months, and didn't write anything because I was so overwhelmed by all of the stuff I'd mentally piled up to write about.
In the time that I was in a self induced blog coma I went back home to the US.
Now I'm back in Japan, and it's time to write roughly a bajillion posts about being here.
In Japan some of the best shopping can be found in big subway or metro stations. It's worth taking the time to wander around the shops. Some of the bigger stations have gourmet grocery stores attached to them where you can find some amazing free samples and perhaps a little something yummy to take back to your abode.
I wandered into a bookstore in the Ryokuchi-Koen station and found a two part magazine that devoted one part solely to recipes that use a great deal of garlic <3 <3 <3. Granted the recipes are all written in Japanese, and I can't read a lick of it, but the pictures are forthright.
Clearly, this is a garlic man flashing his clove at an astounded lady garlic.
The lady garlic responds by pile driving the garlic flasher into the page.
She also lights him on fire.
Garlic man is so frustrated that he needs to poop.
And he wants to be forgiven for flashing the garlic lady.
She's playing hard to get though and spins so fast that she turns the garlic man into a pile of mince.
To add insult to injury she takes a grater to garlic man's head.
*Warning: spicy food may cause spontaneous and complicated yoga positions.
This is a recipe for ??? a garlic cocktail ???
Lady garlic cheats on garlic man with a jar of mayonnaise (cue the aioli puns.....now). Garlic man's Michelle Bachman crazy eyes and crown line above his head illustrate how much he regrets ever whipping out his clove in the first place.
Clearly money well spent.
While I was in Ryokuchi I stopped by Hattori park to visit the Open-Air Museum of Old Japanese Farm Houses. It's a straight shot from Ryokuchi-Koen station to Hattori park, and the museum which is inside the park.
Signage on the way to the park. Note that: trees frown upon digging holes, and posters, every time you hang from a tree limb a tree cries, flowers hate PDA, birds lecture hunters, children should be particularly cautious around moustachiod whiffle ball golfers, and it's way cooler to smoke when you bring your pet goldfish with you to the park.
Follow the mushroom house.
Lotus vegetable statue.
Sunflower beds :).
None of these whiffle ball golfers have particularly lush mustaches ergo small children are safe around them.
A couple of little boys caught what I thought was a small bird in their net. Turns out it was a huge, and rather upset, cicada.
Lady encouraged her terriers to jump in the pond.
Cue the sprinklers.
They had slippers to use at every farm house.
They'd set up a small TV for visitors to watch as they entered the rice grainary. PS - you have to run the DVD yourself. How long would it take until someone stole the remote if they tried this in the USA?
Fire truck.
It's over 90°F and I forgot to bring a sweat towel. :(
One of two things inside every farm house, an emergency call button and a bucket of water.
Ah nature, and the wild calls of the fire engine bird (my guess is it's just a crow imitating a siren, anybody know what kind of bird makes this sound?).
Zombie lantern
Wow, random dead beetle!
Oh, wicked creepy spider. Aaaaaaand moving on.
I thought this house looked cute. Turns out it's a bathroom. I was still happy to see it.
They keep a garden behind the loos.
As it turns out the Scarecrow's parents were actually Japanese, and are just as moody.
I had a zelda moment as I walked by these two foot tall stone notes, and felt like I should be adding a song to my ocarina repertoire.
Hooray for finishing a post, and visiting the old farm house museum before the typhoon hit. Now I need to find indoor activities for the next...four days?
