Umbrellas, food, beer, wasabi, weather, fireworks

Sup sup?

Just a bunch of little things to keep this blog rollin'.

Fireworks! Went to a fireworks show last weekend. Different parts of the show are sponsored by different companies, so they're all trying to out-compete each other. It was a full 1.5hrs, the fireworks were amazing and they were expecting 950 000 people to watch. Yes, you read that number correctly. They were televised, and there were even rich folk watching from helicopters. Seriously. We staked out a good spot early (the good spots were already disappearing by 3pm) and thankfully there were plenty of people selling food and beer nearby, so we were able to make quite the day of it. The weather was perfect...which brings me to:

The weather! It's been raining pretty consistently here, it being rainy season and all. I've actually stopped checking the weather reports here, and not because it's raining all the time, but because they actually don't have a clue what they're talking about. I know I know weather is never well predicted, but here it's actually ridiculous. They were calling for thunderstorms for the fireworks day and the reports on the actual day concurred. Clear skies. All day. This sort of thing is actually very frequent. A funny thing to do if you're bored is to check different weather websites and just see by how much the reports differ. It's hilarious, some call for rain, others for sun, some say hot, others say cold. I think the weather reports are just hooked up to random number generators. Speaking of weather...

Umbrellas! Every time a single drop of rain falls, EVERYONE'S umbrella springs open. If it's just a light drizzle, EVERYONE opens up their umbrella. And since the weather is so unpredictable, people often get caught without their umbrella. Never fear, every convenience store sells umbrellas for cheap. Whenever it starts to rain, you can always see them flying off the shelves (heaven forbid a drop of rain falls on them *gasp*). All these umbrellas look the same, so it's pretty common for people to take the wrong ones from the holders outside of buildings. Never fear, buy another one! I'm on my second, I don't know anyone still on their first, many are on their third. I think for every person in this city there must be 3 umbrellas. No wait, everyone has an umbrella for the sun too, so maybe 4 per person? People even have umbrella holders installed on their bikes that hold open umbrellas over their head. Looks pretty funny actually. Especially when you've had a few...

Beers! The popular beers are pretty standard. Sapporro is a common one, as are Asahi Dry and Kirin. However, there are also a lot of "fake" beers that have a lot of additives to get around tax laws so that they can be sold for cheaper. I've heard they give nasty hangovers. Also, you have to be careful at bars, because the local way of pouring a beer is like 40% head. Bleh. The good news is that I found a brew pub that sells some real tasty local brews, and pours them properly. The bad news? Pints there are like $12 each. Bleh. I paid the price though because I was missing my favourites from home. Another thing I'm missing from home is...

Food! While yes, the Japanese food here is fantastic, that's mostly what all food is. It's been getting pretty frustrating and has been leaving me craving cheese (I told you I'd complain about the lack of cheese), pizza and bar food. Pretty much all the garbage that we know and love. These cravings have actually forced me to find some alternatives and to my surprise I have discovered some really good Indian food in this city, as well a great Italian place and a Thai joint. I've also discovered that the bakeries here are pretty decent, I can get a small wheel of camembert in the super market for cheap enough and the milk is awesome. Yah that's right, you heard me, the milk is delicious! It's all pretty high fat, like 3.6% or something, but different brands actually have distinctive tastes and I've definitely found my favourite...it's got a bit of a wheaty taste or something. Good to have around to wash down the...

Wasabi! Okay, this is a weird one. It's actually WEAKER than the stuff I got back home. It's damn tasty, especially mixed in with soy sauce, but it doesn't give you that brick in the face feeling when you've had too much. And I think I've figured out why. The stuff back home isn't real wasabi. It's actually a mix of horseradish, mustard and your favourite neon green colouring. I always thought that wasabi was just that: some modified version of horseradish. Apparently wasabi is actually a root all on its own. It's in the same family as horseradish, but isn't actually horseradish. So there!

That's it for now...gonna take some time this weekend to explore some more of this city, I'll keep you posted!