Setsubun

Hello all,

A second update today! Oh yeah! This time about the event that happened yesterday. Still recovering from my illness, my girlfriend and I went to Kashima-jinja to see the Setsubun (New Years) Celebrations. It's a very small and local temple, so the festivities were kept very small as well.

At first, there was a ceremony in the main shrine, where the young priest blessed the new year and all the invitees (mainly old geezers who gave considerable financial donations throughout the year). We were loitering around a bit and saw the number of children and parents steadily increasing.

I guess it's the same everywhere in the world where religion doesn't play much of a major role in society any more. Well, I mean, not a major part as in that the dogma isn't influencing daily life, but the traditions are kept in a modern fashion. Something like Easter.

Where I'm trying to get at is: a religious fest is always a good excuse to toss candy in the air like you just don't care! It's a time to make the kids happy and put some candy in their greedy little hands.

The weather was nice, I was high on Coca Cola and malnurishment, the atmosphere was relaxed and the air pollution wasn't too bad as well. It was a good day. A lazy Sunday.

No descriptions as well, since the pictures pretty much speak for themselves ;)

Cheers!

P.s. for those who have their worries about me: I'm doing fine now. All is well!

Tokyo from above and below

Hello all,

I've been quite ill the last few days, but today I seemed to have recovered from the trots and whatnot. 't Was no fun, but I managed to pull through and live another day.

Anyway, let's forget that. 've been out and about in town with a few friends from the Netherlands, hence me visiting the two places described in this blogpost. Not two places I'd visit on my own... So, let's talk about one of the highest towers in the world! The Tokyo Sky Tree. I've been on it and hot damn, it's high! I

I'll spare you the technical details, since I presume you (the reader) is capable enough of using the Googles. If not, why are you even online? It's a high motherfucker and I think I've never been on such relative heights in a building before. You know, there are mountains I've climbed that were higher and had houses on it, making those places even higher (maybe even twice or thrice as high), but the Sky Tree is something different.

Tokyo isn't a place with many tall buildings, as you can see from the pictures, and if there are any, they are concentrated in certain areas. like Shinjuku, Tokyo-Chiyoda, etc. This makes the Sky Tree stand out from the rest of the city and makes up for a great view of the city and more!

For me, the most interesting part was, of course, checking out the railway lines that crawl around the densely packed neighbourhoods.

After the Sky Tree, we went for a lunch near the tower, since I wanted to support one of the surrounding shops, rather than having a meal in the mall of the tower itself. It was a rather splendid lunch as you can see.

During digestion, laziness struck and we took a Tobu train to Asakusa, just across the river, and visited the famous Senso-ji. You know, that temple with the massive lantern in front of it. You've probably heard of it.

Concluding our day, we went out to visit Akihabara by the hyper-modern Tsukuba-Express. Two stations for ¥200! That's damn expensive! I'll probably never use the Tsukuba-Express again...

Today no descriptions on the picture-hover-overs, since I'm in a lazy lazy mood. Plus, they pretty much speak for themselves.

More Beer!

Hello all!

Last weekend, my girlfriend arranged another visit to a brewery! This time it was Asahi! I was pretty excited again, but this time not because of the quality of the beer, but rather the location and the trip towards it.

The route took us on the section from Shibusawa to Shin-Matsuda, one of the most beautiful parts of the Odakyu Odawara line. From the rather straight sections on the Kanto plains, a tunnel takes you to the curves of the Sakawagawa river flow (酒匂川).

Not my video, but it gives a good impression on how it looks from the front.

Anyway, Asahi isn't the best of beers and you can taste it. At first I thought they were using pure ingredients, like with Suntory Premium Malts, but I was wrong. Very wrong. During the tour, the ingredients were explained and although my Japanese isn't very well yet, I managed to understand that cornstarch, potato starch and sugar are added in the brewing process as well. I was disappoint.

Despite the beautiful surroundings of this hyper-modern factory, the great care they take in maintaining the quality level of the beer (I say 'quality level', not 'quality' here!), the taste is still extremely bland and it tastes more like water, rather than beer. It's a shame this is one is the largest beer brewery in Japan (about 40% of the market) and still only produces a quite boring brew. I guess the Japanese taste for beer isn't that refined yet. My only hope for the future of beer now lies on the efforts of the micro and craft breweries.

Cheers!