Today I thought maybe I should talk about how amazing the Izakayas in Japan are.

Just around my house, there are about 10 different Izakayas that I can go to. (I live by Nakamurabashi)

My favorite is the Yakitoriya, Yakitonya, and Himonoya.

You probably all know what Yakitori is. Yakiton is similar to Yakitori, but it’s pork instead of chicken.

and Himonoya serves delicious seafood! (=

Nakamurabashi is honestly one of the most convenient location to live at (appx. 15 minutes from Ikebukuro) so if anyone is reading this and considering moving… you should come here!!

Anyways, back to Izakaya. So as I’ve mentioned, there are about 10 Izakayas just around my little station… so can you imagine how many there are around bigger stations like Ikebukuro?

No wonder Japanese drink so much… and no wonder there are so many drunk people after 8pm every night!!

I also love the fact that every Izakaya is different from other Izakayas… and you can enjoy many different knds of food and atmosphere! (unlike the Canadian pubs and bars that served all the same food and beer…)

Mmmm…  I know what I’m doing tonigh =)

 This might be a bit late seeing that ive been here for a while, but anywho…

 Woke up in Asakusa’s Sakura House Hostel, although Simon said he forgot we were in Japan lol. But I was just surprised at how fast the sleep had been, still exhausted from the day before I guess. So did not want to get up, possibly because we would have to trek those stairs all over again at the station. Eep!

OMGoshimasu!!! It is sooooooo cold here! Like 6 degrees….

One hour later after trying to find a better entrance to the station and failing, we scaled those stairs once again. But luckily this time a nice Japanese man helped us, yay! I’m putting that to Good karma.
We finally arrived at Higashi-Jujo Station, which is about 10 or so minutes from the some of the more central areas like Ueno or Ikebukuro.

UH OH!!!! Well actually more like CrAp!!#%(%^$@%^Y$%&!!!

Just as we meet the House manager Simon realises that he has left his back pack on the train, the one full of over 30 DVDS, and expensive headphones, and as we find out later my glasses! They tell the train station manager what has happened and they say they will contact us if they find it. SO DEVO!

We sulk on our way to the apartment, which turns out is only like 3 mins from the station, yay, and we can’t even hear the train, double yay! We sign our contracts and then turns out we cannot pay for rent with our credit cards. ARGh what a day this is turning into- looks like we will have to head to Ikebukuro tomorrow to go to their main office and pay.

Oh also, turns out after signing the lease, our house manager gets a call from the train company. THEY HAVE FOUND SIMON’S BAG!!! Only in Japan would a bag full of $$$ DVDS be returned to the lost and found. That definitely made our day. Phew.

After all that we get to explore our little town. It actually is quite established, there are so many panchinko places, little restaurants and even clothing stores. Starving from only eating a couple of Calorie Mates that morning, Simon and I pick a soba and udon restaurant. Lucky for us it has plastic made models of the food we can eat. I like soba.

Back in the house, we meet our other house mates. Everyone is so nice. Most are Japanese young women and there’s also an American guy from New York State.

Omgoshimasu, it is so cold it is actually snowing outside!!! Snow, I have finally seen snow for the first time ever- in real life that is. The snow is very wet and basically turns to water when it hits my hands. But it is snow nonetheless. No one can believe that I’ve never seen snow before.
Unfortunately there was not enough to create a snowball in commemoration of the event.

According to this sign train guards in Japan like to taunt little girls by dangling their hats off the platform.

Nearly everywhere you go to eat you can find plastic made up models of what you can order(refer to the photo on the left). Some of the more up to date ones look really realistic then there are the dodgy ones with the meals made of paper then covered in cling wrap lol. It is pretty handy though, especially when you can’t read Kanji, like on our second day we had to point out to the chef what we wanted to eat.

In ueno there was a big noodle bowl with chopsticks moving the noodles up and down, it looked really cool and the noodles hid the pole that was making it work. i thought this was a smart way for attracting customers wanting to eat some soba!

Its such a good idea to get a grasp of what the restaurant is offering and what sizes are available. I think that making these little plastic models looking so realistic is an art in itself. 

OMG last night my bf and I were taken to a NINJA restaurant! it was soo fun and hilarious. it was in akasaka, when we first entered everything was wooden and dark, the lady at the reception had to call a ninja to take us into the restaurant. but there weren’t any visible doors just lots of wooden walls. then BAM! out of no where a small part of the wall opens and closes and a ninja had appeared!

she took us through another secret entry and then we found ourselves in a small box of a room, she said that we had to use ninja magic to get the door open and we had to chant “nin nin nin nin” and the door opened. we walked past a river where the ninjas apparently train everyday, and then there was a broken path running over the river, but luckily we had a ninja with us to use her magical powers to restore the bridge, but we had to be fast and as soon as we all past the bridge it was broken again.

after this exciting adventure to enter the ninja’s caves, we were shown to our room. the restaurant looked pretty awesome as it was all dark and lots of wood, kind of looked like were pirates would eat or something as well.  the food was crazy we had some shiraken crackers, and a bonsai icecream desert! it really looked like a little bonsai, but tasty, but the food was a bit expensive, luckily it was someone elses treat. there was also a ninja magician, and he had some crazy card tricks- i cant even describe what he did in words, but we were all left gobsmacked.

it was definately an experience that you would not have anywhere else!

last weekend our guesthouse had its 2nd welcoming party. seeing that a lot of people had left and been replaced with new guests- it was time for everyone to meet each other. The party was a Takoyaki party, but other foods as well like yakisoba and okonomiyaki were also present, its not a party without all that fried food.

Anyways, some house mates and myself helped our house manager set up, he had brought two fold up tables and many fold up chairs as well as a mini fridge cooler. Our dining room is so small i was wondering how everything was going to fit in. but it somehow kind of ended up working out, with two tables joining to make a long table and one of the other tables making our kitchen a ‘counter style’ where the takoyaki was going to be cooked up.

Before any cooking was done we had to get some groceries, 4 of us went, luckily too as there was so many groceries we had to carry. drinks, yakisoba, ice cream etc etc. we got it all home in time to get ready. omg there was sooooo much food and drinks! there was even a keg!

It’s so great having these parties to welcome new guests, it really provides a good fun atmosphere for everyone to get to know eachother. We all ate so much and drank so much, afterwards some of the housemates went out to the club in sihuya, and some of us stayed at home.

we all woke up in the afternoon the next day and watched borat

In 5 years of searching for the cheapest, most edible all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, I have suffered more than one bout of diarrhea. I have over-paid and I have under-eaten.

But when I have visited Gut’s Soul, I have not been disappointed.

For 1,460 yen (1,260 if you are happy with only pork) you get 2 hours of carnage.  Use the convenient remote control to avoid human contact while ordering, thus improving the efficiency of your consumption. Throw in another 1,000 yen, adding all-you-can-drink to mix, and suddenly the food tastes good.

Not that it tastes bad. But it’s certainly not gourmet. Think clumsily chopped blocks of B-grade beef, pork and chicken. Thinly sliced onions and cabbage with brown spots. Watery kim-chi and microwavable fries. Oddly available flour tortillas.

Think you getting more meat for less money!

Next time you are in Nakano, throw down your not-so-hard-earned cash, order as much as you can, and crawl out a happy customer.

Gut’s Soul…because the gut knows better than the brain.