Japan - Day 17-19

It's hard to believe that I've been in Japan for 19 days, just short of 3 weeks. It's gone by really quickly. When I actually think back to what I've done this time around, its actually been quite a lot:
Hakone, Kamakura, Takayama, Shirakawago, Osaka, Nara, Fuji as well as many different places in Tokyo itself: Yokohama, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ginza, Akihabara and all the other typical Tokyo attractions.

I'm happy that I've kept myself pretty busy, but have still managed to spend time with S and relax in my last few days here. In these last few days, I've completed my Japan burger review with a Maccas Benchmark (5/10) for those keeping score: Definitely the worst burger of the lot, but remarkably consistent in flavour, texture size etc to an Australian Big Mac, which I guess is the whole point of Maccas - the consistency no matter where you are in the world.

S and I caught up with the Chinese Heiress and her best friend on Friday night for dinner where we had Izakaya in Shinjuku - which was a little overpriced but whatever. The meal was a bit average, with the highlight being tofu with garlic chilli paste, a vego dish which tells you how average it really was..

Saturday night was spent with some of S's old hiking club friends where one of the guys bought a bunch of fireworks and we had dinner, got on a couple of subways to a random riverside and proceeded to combine alcohol and fireworks, always an intelligent combination..

This led to antics such as:

I'm pretty sure this is an advertisement of what NOT to do with fireworks. But all in all a really fun night with some chilled out guys and a very polite Japanese girl - sorry boys, shes taken.

Today S and I went to our one and only summer festival. We hadn't been to any others mostly because of the inevitable crowds that they attract and the current temperature in Tokyo (35c + humid) does not lend itself to wanting to rub my sweaty body against other people for several hours. It was the Azabu Juban Nouryo Festival which is famous for its food stalls.

As expected, the whole block was packed and hot as hell. It was compounded by the fact that all the food stalls emitted their own heat, with the worst being the roast fish stalls which literally had bonfire going...
It was a good experience however, with many girls dressed up in Yukata and whilst the food was not cheap, it was pretty good in general. The locals here must be used to the heat, because they were chowing down on baked/fried potatoes (slathered in mayonaise and butter), takoyaki, okonomiyaki, ramen burgers etc, as well as a variety of cold desserts and iced drinks.

Unlike Australia where the selling of alcohol is restricted to those with a license, every 5th stall here was selling alcohol of some sort, there was beer, spirts, sangria, cocktails, basically any alcohol you could want was available. If this was australia, I could see this quickly deteriorating into a drunken riot (see bulldogs games).

This was my last event here in Tokyo, and tomorrow I head to London for an overnight before I fly to Uganda. If I am able I'll continue to post pictures on facebook and write this blog whenever I can..

Until then, leave me some comments!

Miles