Michelle.

Remeber how I was ranting about how prettttti the strawberries (ichigo) were? Well I managed to remember to take a pic this time. Are they not totally perfect clones? Imagine a whole field of them on the supermarket shelves! Makes you want to don on a hankerchief on your head and skip around in circles. Anyway...on Thursday I met up with a friend I haven't seen for almost two years (maybe it was one year...mmmm I think it was one, but two sounds better) and we had a long catch up (Mich says HI to Rach and Irene(s)) over a super meal consisting of grilled fish with rice and pickles. It was a fantastic meal! For under 10 bucks! It was so good I forgot to take a photo (by the time I remembered only a glass of water was left). I felt so bad I went and searched for the website of Ootoya Restaurant- it's the fish dish that's 640 yen (it comes with rice). You guys should just randomly click on other things and see what you're missing out on :P The funny thing about this restaurant is that it lists out the calories each dish consists. Pfff, like! Waste of ink, space and bandwidth! Could have utilise that extra 10mm square of area for bigger food pics. In my mind all Jap food are healthy - even the fried stuff. What's better is that what you see is REALLY what you get. No false advertising like some dodgy Chinese restaurants.
We just walked about Ikebukuro and came upon this department store called Tokyu Hands, a department store thats kinda like Kmart/Ikea/art supplies store hashed together, more upmarket with a designery edge.
They had these cool displays of miniature plastic mobile hangy things or just plain hangy things (no I am not hanging any hangy things on my mob!) and I took a sneak pic of a section of the food displays (they had sushi on the other display..I was too chicken to take more...I don't want my camera to be confiscated!)

We then decided to go to Ueno park to see the cherry blossoms at night (Michelle missed out on them last year) We had a quick pit stop at Andersons (one of the millions of psudeo-European bakeries) and I had a macadamia and walnut bread and Mich had a giant red bean bun. For those with keen eyes, you can probably tell I had almost forgotten to take the food pic again because the star bread (macca and walnut) had been hastily pieced together again not to mention a bite had been taken out of it already. What I mean by giant red bean bun was that it wasn't the bun that was huge, it was the beans inside. They were akin to the size of a 10c coin and it was absolutely delicious! (Mine too..it was kinda sourdough..but very nice)
Of we went to Ueno Park for a spot of nighttime hanami viewing - damn was it cold!! I personally think it's better during the day - I mean, at least you can see the trees and the flowers, and whether or not the thing that just landed onto your food were hanami petals or err, something else. I was really impressed with the great atmosphere and all around good cheer from the party-goers (or really picnic-ers). They were all suits, gathered around cardboard tables or foldaways, most likely company events, a rare occasion where everyone can let their hair down. Some of them were going down rather fast and beginnings of drunken karaoke could be heard.
It's funny that as you walk along the path there are continuous rows of shoes along the way...they are so meticulous! At the beginning and at the end of the park there are stalls of really divine smelling food like grilled octopus, okonimiyaki, ramen, yakitori, buttered corn, fairy floss and other nifty snacks. The off putting thing was that most of the vendors cooking food had a fag in their mouth or held it between their fingers - and being the new OCD Charlene that was a huge, huge ERGH.

The lanterns that line the pathway were very cool, even more so when Michelle and I realised that they doubled up as ads! (prob sponsored ads) This one's funny. It reads 'Mobile Sucia, it's super easy to use and it's available now!!! From, Ueno JR Station Master.' (Suica is a rechargable transport pass - you just keep adding money when you're low - and you 'beep swipe' your way through the gate instead of shoving a ticket into the gate machine - akin to HK's Octopus Card). I just love the 'From the Station Master' bit. Every single lantern is handwritten individually too!

Anyway I love the transport system. It's damn efficient. Some mobs are installed with a Suica chip so alot of Japs just swipe their mob and off they go. Sigh. We are SO behind the times!

After dinner up in 0101 (I had Italian pizza!!! They do try, but all you can taste is garlic paste....oh yeah, outbursts of any nature in regards as to why I ate pizza in Japan are not allowed.) we went for a walk about Ueno. It kind of reminded me a bit like Chinatown. I also saw a kebab store (!!!). The owner looked like he could have been Greek, Leb or from any Middle Eastern background. It feels almost like home! However, signs like the one above always pull me back into reality of being in Japan :) Freak Market. Ahaha! They sell clothes. But it wasn't freakish- actually very tame. Is that considered misleading? And what the hell is 'Adam's Apple of Ueno Ameyok...' The freakish lump that bobbles up and down when the collective Ueno-ians swallow?
Since I know alot of you like these Engrish humor, I'll leave you for the night with this one I found on my local drinks vending machine...

It sounds very ominous doesn't it? Almost forces you to buy a drink unwillingly because you never know if someone is going to burn down your house if you didn't.