Sukiyaki

Popped to Shinjuku (our nearest big city in Tokyo) to have all-you-can-eat sukiyaki with TT. I hadn't had it for ages because I thought sukiyaki was something else! Had to go through the dodgy district of Shinjuku to get there and saw an afternoon DJ party/rave/thing. It didn't seem very popular-only about 20 people dancing.

Sukiyaki works thus: You have a saucer of broth in the middle, being heated underneath the table. You put the meat and vegetables in the broth and then you can take whatever looks cooked out of the broth. Then you dip it in a little saucer filled with raw egg and then eat it. Because the meat is really thinly sliced it cooks in under a minute. It's yummy.

Festival and Tsurukawa

Spent Saturday seeing Mark and Makoto. First we went to Ueno (north east Tokyo) to see some festival called Tanabata or something (I forget. This blog is very informative...). Something to do with stars I think. It was very near the newly built Tokyo Sky Tree - at 634 metres the highest tower in the world which is going to serve as a television broadcasting thing next year. I say it was very near but because its so big we could've been miles away :p

The festival was ok but I got sunburnt. The best bit was playing some game where you had to get some fish out of a paddling pool with a paper spoon. I managed to get 7 but some kid next to me had 20.... It was crazily hot so we had kakigoori かき氷 for lunch which is just ice and flavoured sauce on top.

Then we went off to Tsurukawa, Makoto's home in south west Tokyo. With air con we got our appetite back and ate a lot.

Also I felt my biggest earthquake this morning. Apparently it was in the same place as the last once but was only a 7.0 on the scale. Anyway things swayed violently for 10 seconds and then it all stopped. Quite fun but I'd like a bigger one.

The end!

Busy Weekend

I've been told to update more...

Met up with some friends on Friday & Saturday. One went to Cardiff on exchange last year and had come to Tokyo for the weekend. Hadn't seen her in a year so it was good to see her again.

On the Friday we walked around Shibuya and went to a planetarium - a posh cinema where you sit horizontally and have the image protected onto the curved ceiling all around your head. It was pretty impressive but because it cool, dark and relaxing we all fell asleep. I wish I could live in the planetarium...

On the Saturday we went to Kichijyouji to go to the zoo and an all-you-can-eat sweets place called Sweets Paradise. The zoo was quite small but it was only about £3. My favourite bit was when we got to play with some Guinea Pigs! Then we went to Sweets Paradise and ate far too much and felt sick.

On Sunday I went to Shibuya again with Thanh Thanh and bought an iPad. Very pleased with it.

It's Monday now and I still feel full and sick.

Heat

It's too hot. I've melted. It's currently 30 degrees AT NIGHT. I'll be shipped back to the UK in a water bottle.

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