Day 28: NSFW, The Sexiest Picture I Have Ever Taken

I'm going to just straight up start with the single sexiest photo I have ever taken, be careful if you are at work reading this!

I would make a funny comment but it's far to sexy to joke about

You may recall back on Day 11 I had a plate of meat, oh and on Day 19 I had another plate of meat. But this is the best plate of meat I have ever seen. This is 焼豚 (焼-yaki, cooked with heat and 豚- buta, pork). The above plate was the same price as the other 2 plates ¥500/$5/£3, but it had more and thicker meat and it was more delicious than any of the others.

I mean just look at it, damn it's sexy!

Anyway, my lunch consisted of something to try to recover from my banging.....post non-ramen party brain pain. We went to Coco's which is a family restaurant and I ordered the "Hamburg steak"

That cheese looks good eh? Don't be fooled, it is still Japanese cheese

This is hamburg steak. It's a burger in a square shape. The cheese is peppery and that lump on the right is a super hot piece of ceramic that you use to cook the piece of burger if you don't like your beef rare. It was pretty good, delicious and greasy, just what you need to get rid of a post non-ramen party brain pain.

Thats not the light, that's using a effect to make the picture "cool"

I had the kotteri ramen and the delicious plate of meat! In fact as I type this I realise how awesome the plate of meat was. I think I will be having it again today! 2 plates of meat in 2 days isn't bad right? right?

I'll finish with an under-reported phenomenon of the Japanese. They love reversing into parking spaces. All of the time, If you go to any car park in Japan 90% of the cars will have the cars facing outward. I have asked them about it and the response has always been that reversing in is "Easier". I have never really understood it but whatever floats your boat/ is easier for you.

I saw them move into this spot, but couldn't take a picture till they left, too weird

The reason I bring this up is because today I saw this white car reverse into this space. Thats right, they could have easily pulled through to any of the spaces but no, they decided to reverse into it. yup, that also happens a lot in Japan. There are many things I have come to accept about Japan, this is not one of them. 

Right, now I'm off to eat ramen and a plate of the sexiest meat i will ever see. 

Day 27: A Day of Variety and This is What I Get?

Sorry about my lack of posting, as you can tell I am rather delayed. I'll cut the pretence It was because I finished work at 4 and had to have another ramen party at 6, I could have used the hour I had free to write this however I decided to clean my apartment. I thought it would be best that people didn't know that my apartment was an absolute hole. Now none of the 3 people who came know that my apartment was a total mess, but everyone on here does..... Great thinking Steve!

Today was open school which means that I had to work on a Saturday. It also means that I couldn't leave school for lunch. I had to bring my lunch, which means I had to bring a combini (Convenience store) lunch. Which is...okay. 

This looks a lot like vomit, but it tastes a lot better. Not that I have ever eaten vomit!

This is mapodofu which is a Chinese spicy tofu on rice, it is pretty delicious. This is actually a dish that I miss making, it's massively flavoursome and easy to make. Combini mabodofu is ok, not delicious but definitely above edible.
 

Is it a doughnut or curry? Well it is clear that it isn't curry, right?

This is a Curry-pan. In Japanese "pan" is bread, it's from Dutch, that doesn't stop them from thinking pan is an English word (Me: "What food do you like to eat?" "I like pan.") Inside this little doughnut is Japanese curry. It too is pretty delicious and I have had some excellent curry-pan from bakeries. Combini curry-pan is ok, not delicious but definitely above edible. 

After all the cleaning, I picked up some of my friends from the station and we had a ramen party. And I found out after we ate that for one of us it was her first time eating ramen! She didn't even tell us, just afterwards she lets us know. She opted for the mini ramen, you have to go easy your first time!

Isn't it so cute, so tiny. 

There is a very good reason why you have never seen me eat the mini ramen. I mean just look at it, it wouldn't fill me up for longer than a second. (There may or may not be some hyperbole there) 

There still ain't no party like a ramen party!

I had the chashu-men and the buta-kimchi, the pork with spicy fermented cabbage (It really does taste better than it sounds). We then had a non ramen based party. Fun was had by all, mostly because the apartment was clean. 4 bowls left, the end is so neigh!

Day 26: Not So Friday Feeling

WOOOP its Friday, the day when the weekend begins, the day when you can go crazy and have a hang over for 2 days. The day you can over eat, watch a marathon of terrible movies until the early morning while stuffing your face with chocolate and snacks and then tell people that you didn't do much, because we all do it but we all feel the shame after. 

Except not tonight, no, tonight I have to get to bed at my usual weekday time because tomorrow is open school. This means that a whole bunch of junior high students come looking at all the classes and when they get to mine, they see the foreigner and get super scared and can't even say hello. Fun times. 

To make up for your obvious disappointment about me not ordering the cold ramen (I know, I know, nothing can make it up to you, I can only do my best) I decided to order cold udon today. I told you about udon all the way back on day 5. If you have forgotten, it is another noodle and soup combo.

So similar and yet SO much more exciting to me than ramen right now

Cold noodles, not exactly something you immediately thing "YES, delicious", right? Well, I say to you, leave your preconceptions at the door. My first day at my job the teacher who was helping me get about took me to this restaurant and she ordered the cold udon. She asked me what I wanted, and I looked at the menu, it looked something like this:

But this is what I saw:

So despite cold noodles sounding weird and kinda gross I decided screw it, when in Rome (This was in Japan, "When in Rome" is just a phrase! But maybe they have cold noodles in Rome, who knows). They were amazing, they were cool and refreshing, and lots of flavour. Even better, I was told they were healthy!

Also, given the situation they were a god send. What do you consider hot? 25°C? 30°C?? Well I'm British, and I lived in Glasgow, Scotland for 4 years before coming to Japan. In Glasgow its Taps Aff (Tops off) at about 17-20°C, there is even a website advising people in Glasgow if it is warm enough to take your tap aff. Bearing all this in mind, it was a casual 40°C when I arrived in Japan. I was not built or that kind of temperature

You do not want boiling hot noodles and soup in 40°C weather. I don't care where you are from! Even my family who were a bit unsure at first loved the cold udon.

This is how my view of ramen is now

Anyway, your not here for udon are you? If you wanted that you would be at 1monthofudon.com (Future blog idea? Maybe!) So today I added an egg to my kotteri ramen (Just going crazy in my final week), and got a new side. 春巻, I love words like this one in japanese because 春(haru) means spring and 巻(Maki) means roll. Direct translation, Spring roll.

They look innocent enough but they are little packets of tongue burning deliciousness

They were pretty good, but expensive ¥500/$5/£3, the same as the plates of meat. I think you know which I would prefer. Also, I definitely burnt my tongue on those little delicious bastards.

5 bowls left. Tomorrow I'll talk about my health a bit, but mostly it's not been anywhere near as bad as I expected. Sorry for the late post, I had another 2 hour "nap" today. Wish me luck working on a Saturday!

Day 25: 7 Bowls!

Bugger! It is currently 23:30 where I am, I had such grand plans for my free night, however I overate ate at the ramen shop. Combining the overload of food and my current constant exhaustion lead to me to say to myself "I'll just rest my eyes for a little bit" (Has there ever been such a prolific lie to oneself?). Also, why is it so easy to fall asleep watching TV? It's like they want ou to fall asleep and not remember what you just watched/waste electricity!

Anyway, including today I only had 7 bowls left. 7 bowls. 7 BOWLS

This happens with every 7 day countdown in Japan! Truth!

I'm on the home stretch, not long now. I decided to go for the spicy ramen today to give myself some variety. I really am grasping at straws. Following my realisation I was ignoring information on the menu I had a double look at the red badges on 3 of the bowl on their menu.

It now pains me to look at the exciting cold ramen! 

I never realised his but those badges say that all those 3 bowls are limited to 30 bowls a day (Don't get that confused, not 30 a day per person, but that would be impressive). This being said, I have never had a problem ordering the spicy ramen. Japan really doesn't do spicy, i think i have seen Japanese people it maximum 5 times in my 100+ visits.

Lets just say that I painted this, not that I used an app

So I got to the eating, and it was a bit of a struggle, I was rather pathetic when it came to the spice today, I made it through the egg, noodles and biggest pieces of meat I could find. However, as I said before the soup has little lumps of meat in it, and I am all about the meat! It emotionally pains me to leave meat uneaten, however, it physically pained me to drink the soup. I think I can live with the emotional pain.

It still hurts to look at, both in my heart and on my tongue

I drank about 3/4 of the jug that you see in the picture above, and just as before I decided to say that the soup beat me they refilled it (Yesterday a 12 year old, today soup, what next?) You will just have to believe me that i drank all that water, I'm so manly (Tomorrow I will have a picture of me drinking every drop. No, no I won't).

If you don't see me when these 7 bowls are over, don't look at the picture at the top, or it could be you next! Or just only never eat that 7th bowls of ramen. Don't risk it!

Day 24: The Cutest Thing in The World!

I have an apology to make, there will be not blogging about cold ramen today, I did what I always do with Japanese, I assumed I didn't know what it meant so ignored it. However, if you look at the picture below you will see  in the blue circle there are some Kanji (Japanese characters), they say that the cold ramen is only available during the summer! Sad times, both for you and for me hoping for some variety.

Disappointment no 2. No shiny bowl to eat out of!

So to deal with my disappointment I decided to get the chashyuu-men, the extra meat ramen and my typical gyouza. Delicious! However, I had actually decided to go for a nap after school with no alarm (Always a good idea) which had left me 45 mins to get to ramen, eat ramen and then get to karate. I forced myself to utilise the power of the slurp to cool the noodles so I could eat the whole bowl and gyouza in 10 mins and get to karate on time! BOOM

These are getting a little dull, so from now on, every day I'll use a different effect. ARTSY!

Forcing yourself to eat really quickly is just what you want when you have an hour of vigorous movements coming up, no? Oh, and the cherry on the ramen (we can make it happen), is that I got the time wrong for karate and I turned up 15 mins early!

So, I haven't been for 3 weeks. That's always fun, going back after not working out for weeks. I will definitely be feeling it tomorrow. Anyway, enough bitching onto the fun part. So I have discovered that, if you think Japanese kids are the cutest, and they really are (No matter how much my Japanese friends, teachers and students tell me white babies are cuter it's just not true!), then you will think that Japanese kids in karate 道着 (dou-gi, karate uniform) is 10 times cuter!

I have no picture of that for obvious reasons

Well, I thought it couldn't get any cuter. There I am in my 4th week of attending and having gotten used to the cute kids in their tiny karate dougi and then they don their sparring pads and helmets. That's it! That is the cutest thing I have ever seen, it is ten times cuter than that Gif (I like typing that word, cause there is no debate that follows about how it is pronounced when you type it) of the bunny in an office falling asleep, you know the one I mean, this one:

I have no picture of the kids for obvious reasons

Today was the first day I had my own sparring pads, which meant I got to do some sparing. This was very exciting for me, I had watched the other adults spar for a few weeks and hadn't yet got a chance, it was also the first time I have ever owned a cup (Pretty sure that is the sign of becoming a grown up).

OH MY GOD, HE WASTED AWAY! Oh wait he cant have he is eating ramen everyday

Then the cuteness ended. The sparring began and I teamed up with another novice, and I don't really understand most of the Japanese so I just watch the others so I was a bit slow, my partner understood and was slow too. So far so good. Then I was teamed up with an orange belt. For those of you who don't know, belts in karate change colour related to your level, so we all know black it's bad ass, orange is like a level 2 rookie and white, well white means you could kick Bruce Lee in the face.

The next big thing on the internet: oversized karate dougi selfies

Wait, wait, wait, that cant be right, oh yeah. White means you are everybody's bitch. The orange belt just let rip, I wasn't really expecting it and he just kept on punching and kicking me. I knew I had to retaliate but I felt bad, he was literally half my height, oh yeah forgot to mention, he was 12. I was getting repeatedly punched and kicked by a 12 year old and I didn't know what to do, a misplaced or overpowered punch/kick could have really hurt him but I didn't wanna just stand there and take it. In the end I just stood there and took it. 

Anyway, hopefully tomorrow will have less 12 year olds beating me up! But of course there will always be ramen!

Day 23: Japan is a "Quiet" Country

You may or may not have heard Japan described as a quiet country. Especially if you live in Japan, you will very often hear this being said. It isn't exactly true. Here is a quick excerpt from what you may hear when you go to a ramen shop:

IRASHAIMASE!!!!....SLURP!!.....Random.ramen.order....ARIGATOUSGOZAIMASU......SLURP........IRASHAIMASE..Random.ramen.order.......ITADAKIMASU......SLURP.....IRASHAIMASE.....SLURP

Slurpy slurp slurp slurp

Its not exactly golden silence. Now I'm not complaining, Its just all about perspective. Japanese people don't talk loudly, public transport in Japan is so quiet you could hear a ramen noodle drop. I have literally been on a train so packed that i couldn't move but i could hear the tap tap tap of a 3DS at the other end of the car. 

Restaurants tend to be very similar, if people are talking (I have seen completely silent Japanese dates) it is very quiet. So you are sitting there, in near perfect silence really getting into your ramen (In a very silent, intimate way) and then a new customer comes in and you hear "IRASHAIMASE" (I'm not just spelling it out easily, it is always shouted) which means welcome, and every customer gets a welcome from every staff member, it's like the dominos effect with everyone shouting welcome.

And the funny thing is that now if i don't get an IRASHAIMASE i get a little upset. I really do go "Oh that was a little rude!" I have explained the slurping before, it really does make it better (go on, give it a shot!). And ARIGATOUGOZAIMASU means thank you very much, always shouted at you so you know they mean it. It's all very polite, but most certainly not quiet.

You just see 5 bowls but I see that this plus 3 is all I have left

Today was a second ramen party, many of the people who live in my apartment block came and had their first experience of Rairaitei. I think they loved it, I even managed to order a vegetarian miso ramen, something I don't foresee myself ordering. I keep saying it, want friends? Get ramen!

I dunno if you can tell but I may be running short on witty captions for the same picture everyday

Got the egg ramen today and my equal favourite side, 豚キムチ(Buta-kimchi) the pork and kimchi, spicy fermented cabbage (Honestly it is better than sounds). It was fairly enjoyable, I have started to have an increased appetite since I started this challenge which helps overcome the flavour boredom that I am currently suffering. Not long now and tomorrow I will try their cold ramen, never had it before it will be nice to try something new this month.  

Day 22: Tomash me up

Post 2 in one day, pro-duc-tive! Today was a national holiday, Its culture day (I'm not really sure what that means, i asked a teacher but he didn't really now what it was for either). This morning I woke up in Shizuoka and decided to head home and eat ramen back in my hometown. En route I decided to pop into a combini (That's what convenience store, they shortened and Japanesed convenience-conveni-conbini) That's where I ran into this beauty:

Competition: What would you call your own fizzy tomato drink?

Yep, that is exactly what it looks like. It is a carbonated tomato drink. Thanks Japan, just when you think you have seen it all, got it all worked out, they throw you tomato soda. It is almost exactly how you imagine, tomatoey and fizzy. I wouldn't suggest you go out and get a ticket to Japan just to try it, in fact I would say that it is only worth buying it once, trying it and then never buying it again. It isn't disgusting, but that is probably the best praise that i can give it. 

I try to try as many things as I can in japan, this has lead to some rather......interesting experiences. I have tried esspressoda, the fizzy coffee drink (Not fantastic), Pizza flavoured crisps (Fantastic) and tomato and salt flavoured gum (Not fantastic but surprisingly tasty). I love trying new foods, I see it as better to take the risk of eating something weird if the possible outcome is I discover something delicious. There are hits and misses. In fact, I have a rule that in any restaurant I go to I have to try something new until I have tried the majority of the menu. At my ramen restaurant I had tried all the types and all the sides before this blog was even a twinkle in my eye. 

You want to see the ramen up close? No? Too late!

Back to my old ramen shop today, wasn't really feeling it so got no sides just the kotteri ramen and to be honest it wasn't too bad. I was once again joined by Tommy, but no rude (only if you're British) picture today. The ramen was good, my photography was not. Now I have 3 more days till I get to have some more variety in my day, I think I can cope with that! 9 days to go!