Autumn

Finally it's Autumn!! The season started for long ago, but finally you can feel the actual change in the weather. It's around 15 degrees Celcius outside, and sometimes it's even raining (once or twice in 2 weeks). Well, it's too early for the rainy season, it's in Winter. But this is what Japan looks like when it's rainy (sorry for the bad quality of the photos, I was taking pictures with my phone. I promise to replace them as soon as I can ;) ):

This is, by the way, the famous Shibuya crossing - the most crowded pedestrian crossing in the world. There can be up to 2.000 people crossing this road here on a Saturday afternoon at the same time.

And this lovely place is near Ikebukuro station :D

You probably noticed the transparent umbrellas - they are everywhere. Not all people remember to watch the weather forecast (which is about 90-95% accurate here in Japan) in the morning. So if it suddenly (for some people) begins to rain outside, they can go to the nearest convenience store, kiosk, drugstore or supermarket to buy one of these umbrellas. These are disposable umbrellas, only for one time use, therefore, they cost around 500 yen. Though, I've seen one in a supermarket for as little as 150 yen! If you're a fan of transparent umbrellas, you can also buy a normal one, which won't break after one use. These will be at least twice as expensive.

Nature

So, I made a video of my latest hiking trip, just to make it interesting for both you and me ^^ Enjoy ;)

The Language

I'm back ^^ So, here's a small post about the language, because there are some interestings issues in connection with it. As you can imagine, all the bigger nations are more or less self-sufficient, and Japanese is one of them. Most of the people living here are the Japanese, so there's no need to learn English. Therefore, except the buisiness life, English language is more like a trend. It's fashionable to wear t-shirts with imprinted English words or sentences that do not make any sence, or name a fashion shop in English just for the language's sake:

Funny, right?

Well, here is another example, just outside Ikebukuro station:

More sweets

If anyone wonders about traditional Japanese sweets, here they are:

The first ones, the yellow ones are made from sweet potatoes. These are not sweetend European-kind potatoes, but rather these:

They are naturally sweet, and there are many different kinds of sweets made out of these, such as cakes or buns. They even use it as a filling in ordinary bread buns.

The second sweet, the pink one, is made of rice. As I understood, they cook rice, and then batter it for couple of hours, until it becomes one solid, sticky mass. Then they form it and add other ingredients. Usually sold as odango:

A bit sweet...

Today I experienced a major dissapointment. Does everybody remember an anime Spirited Away? The one that got an Oscar? In any case, here's a reminder:

Well, I remember one scene, where Lin is feeding those little black fluffy balls with some kind of colorful candy:

And ever since I saw them in the Japanese shops, I was eager to buy some. So, as you can guess, I bought those today.

To my (and probably your) dissapointment, these small candies are made of melted and colored sugar... The advantage of this experience is that I became even more curious about Japanese sweets ^^

Out there...

What I especially love about Japan are the vending machines:

These are literally everywhere, in the streets, shopping centres, game halls, etc. As somebody, who has survived the Japanese summer, which just ended now, I can say that these machines are undoubtedly convenient. The beverages cost from 100 to 180 yen, dependent on the location of the machine, and they are selling everything from water to beer. As far as I know, there's also a possibility to buy canned coffee in a special cans that can warm the coffee up.

There's only one inconvenience - there are no trash cans in Tokyo. Well, not entirely everywhere, sometimes there is a trash can for bottles and cans close to one of those vending machines. Sometimes there are some in front of a convenince store, and of course, in university full of exchange students :D But most of the time you can circle around the whole block (and these are a lot bigger than in Denmark) withought finding any. Conclusion - wear a bigger bag, so all of your trash can fit in there, until you'll get home.

Weather updates

I promise to write something soon, during this week ^^ But right now I can tease you a bit with the weather forecast: