Capsule Hotel

Yet another Japanese invention.

(From wikipedia) A capsule hotel (カプセルホテル) is a hotel system of extremely dense occupancy. The guest space is reduced in size to a modular plastic or fibreglass block roughly 2 m by 1 m by 1.25 m, providing room to sleep. Facilities range in entertainment offerings (most include a television, an electronic console, and wireless internet connection). These capsules are stacked side by side and two units top to bottom, with steps providing access to the second level rooms.

This is what it looks like from outside:

And the inside:

My feet is in the pic, u can use it as a reference for its actual size. Facilities:

Small personal TVControl Panal: Radio, alarm, lights, TV control
Its small and cosy, and provides basically everything u need for a night's sleep. Its kinda small - or like an enlarged coffin - not for the claustrophobic pple. haha.

Matsu-shima Bay

MaTsuShiMa (松島) is voted one of the most scenic places in Japan

This is why....

It has an amazing scenery for the bay and some small islands surrounding it...

Back on land, there are some nice shrines nearby

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A ferry brings you around the islands... its a perfect opportunity to feed the seagulls then.

This is a bridge that connects the mainland to one of the smaller islands. Legend says that you will find your loved-one on this bridge while crossing it. But sigh... it was a weekday, and there was no one else around except us.

This stick of BBQ fish meat is one of the local specialty there.

Sendai

Sendai(仙台)
one of the busiest cities north of japan above tokyo. When we reached there, the whole place was decorated to celebrate their 七夕(TaNa-BaTa) Festival a few days later. Its the same festival as the chinese's 牛郎织女.

At another corner of town, there was another small street parade..(not sure what they are celebrating, but it sure looks interesting)...

The most famous local speicalty in sendai is 牛タン (Cow's tongue).

And what can be more authentic than actually eating it from this shop which created/originated this dish decades ago:

Here is what the set meal looks like. Rice, soup, and meat. The soup consists of bean sprouts and some pieces of beef meat. The main dish consists of some veg and a few slices of barbequed cow tongue's meat!!

It taste quite good actually.. very chewy...

After shopping, we went to a nearby tower to see the night view of the whole city.

Nikko

Ahmet, Kim and I took a 9-day road-trip together to explore the northern part of Japan.

First stop, Nikko (日光)

One of my labmates once said "はっきり見えず、もっと美しい". Things look prettier when you cant see it clearly. I think its quite true in this situation.

It was a misty and wet day... but the layer of mist added a mystical aura to the grand shrines and jungles in the area.

Went thru all the shrines just to see this:

The most famous architecture in Nikko: 3 monkeys. One covering its ears(no listening), one covering its mouth(no speaking), one covering its eyes(no seeing)

My homestay host: Uchida san, brought us around Nikko... :)

This pic is taken in front of the biggest river there...

For lunch, she brought us to this fancy restaurant, hidden within one of the landscape gardens

To eat this 5000yen steak set!!!

(wow.. so ex!!)

Dinner was a Yuba (Toufu) set meal

Video Arcade

Here are some more unique games found in some video arcade:
Apart from the normal (big-sized) console machines,




There are weird things like this fish tank foot-reflexology. You just soak your feet in a tub full of fish, and the fish will nibble on the sole of your feet, thus biting away the dead skin cells.


There are also quite a number of simulated sports games such as this golf game:Here is my lousy attempt at a softball game (P.S. this is the FIRST time i tried playing this)

Kabuki

Ahmet, Kim and I went to watch a Kabuki (歌舞伎) play at the National Theatre
Fun experience. Kabuki is a form of Japanese opera where men dress up as women in the play. (I have no idea why they do so, but the "female" character's voice sure sounded weird)

The theatre has a very high-tech stage

This is one of the "exciting" fighting scene... so dramatic...

The rest of the play was pretty much like the next video:

For those who know japanese: Do u understand a single word they are saying???

Its no wonder so many pple fell asleep in the theatre. haha.

Did u also realise how weird the female character(a guy) sound?

Odaiba

Odaiba (お台場)

Some famous landmarks:
Ferris Wheel:

Fuji TV Building:There's a viewing gallery at the top in which u need to pay money to enter. Here's a tip: you dont actually have to pay to go up. Just follow the other elevator to the second highest floor - where a chinese restaurant is - and u get an equally good view from there. Furthermore, its FREE!!

(FAKE) Statue of Liberty

History Garage where u get to see vintage cars


Toyota also has a showroom there. Here are some of the cool stuff found there:

A Toyota-made robot which plays a trumpet!!

Toyota's Auto-drive car. Just like a themepark ride, all you have to do is to sit inside and enjoy the view as the car drives around automatically.

This is one of Toyota's new Hybrid car - Crown. It sure looks cool....

Hanabi (Fireworks)

Hanabi festival (花火大会) falls in between late july and early august. There's practically a firework display every other day somewhere in Japan.
Its a tradition to wear bathrobes (Yukata 浴衣) and picnic when u watch the fireworks.
Here we are.. me and my labmates. Quite "kiasu", we reach the picnic spot 3 hours before the start of the fireworks just to secure a good seat.
Here are some unique ones. They come in various shapes - heart shape, ghost, jellyfish, cat face, flying saucer, butterfly, mushroom, spiral etc etc. Indeed impressive.

Heres a unique one.

Clubs, pubs, bars

Apart from the fact that they are ridiculously expensive, clubs in Tokyo are otherwise quite fun to visit and hang out at. In contrast, Izakaya (居酒屋) is a more common and affordable place to get together and hang out in Japan.
Shibuya, Roppongi, Takadanobaba, etc are places full of clubs. Been to a few of those, some of them have very unique interior design. (Yipes, i realised that i dont have any nice photos to post here, cos i seldom bring my camera to clubs. sob.. sob... what a waste..)
The crowd is usually international.
Some new friends I made in a club:
Thai, Jap, Indian, and Me

Nice exterior design:

This particular club even had a live percussion performance: