Sunday, August 1, 2010

THE EPIC POST! Crepes, Cicadas and Cocktails!

Warning: This is going to be a long post…as we haven’t updated properly in a while…I’m just sayin’… it’ll be lengthy, and there may also be a pop quiz on it next post to see just how closely you pay attention to every single exciting word we post on here (which is definitely all of it!).

Alternatively, you can just scroll down to each highlighted day if you do want to skip out...but we will find you...and hunt you down!






Thursday night was Ayumi-san’s birthday, and to mark the special occasion Nicolas had organised to make crepes with our group. By the time Carly and I came out to the kitchen the batters had already been made up for both savoury crepes (made by Juerg) and sweet crepes (made by Nicolas). I don’t know about carly, but I have to say, the thought of savoury pancake type things didn’t sound too appetising for me… so when Juerg gave me the first savoury crepe with ham and cheese…I wasn’t expecting anything good. Especially if the quality of the meat is anything to go buy in the supermarket - check out that fatty steak!












The roll on the other hand actually looked pretty good:












I was overly surprised to find it was probably one of the tastiest things I’d had so far in Japan! It was awesome, and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to go googling for some sort of recipe…. I think Carlos will agree we also need to cook the sweet ones again too. After watching Nicolas for a bit, I decided to give it a go at cooking crepes too – the first one, needless to say, turned out a bit stodge – too thick and over buttery, I sneakily put it on the plate for everyone anyway, hoping that some poor soul, who wasn’t me, would take it and eat it (my plan was a success!). However, my crepe flipping skills became much better after the first one, and Nicolas and myself had a ‘flip off’ in which I became the new master flipper and got upgraded to the large fry pan.












Meanwhile, as all this was going on, Carly was in the background concocting suspicious crepe parcels for Nicolas, Juerg and myself. Apparently, if we were to turn around before she was done; we would find Tabasco sauce in them as a special treat.




























When I finally bit into my parcel Carlos had made, I found that she had carefully planted all three different sauces (kiwi, mango and strawberry in the shape of a smiley face) into the middle which exploded out of the crepe and all over my hand, arm and plate.

It was a delicious burst of flavour and I do not regret getting everywhere in any way…even if I did totally forget about the crepe I still had cooking on the stove…for another unsuspecting victim! So, Carly became the crepe saucing master after Juerg and Nicolas also appreciated her special parcels.







OH! We have an Italian update! After keeping us up again til 2:30 in the morning, being their usual douchey selves, we found out that it was their final night and that they were leaving the next morning! Needless to say, there was much joyous celebrations in our room, so no more haggling the manager to try and move rooms. I think we’ve actually got one of the best rooms in the house…as we heard that the higher storey rooms are almost a third smaller than ours, and we are the only room in the house with two singles instead of bunk beds; and compared to the mattress’ on the bunk beds, we scored pretty well!

Also, if any one was looking for pet mould balls, we found some:




















Friday marked the awesome free movie day and the discovery of another 100¥ shop! Seeing as I totally missed out on seeing Inception before I left, I couldn’t believe it when Yoshida offered us free tickets to go see it with her! Once again off to Tennoji station, we met up with Yoshida-san and her niece Ryoko who lives in Nara (about an hour away from Osaka). We found that similar to us, they also sneak in food and drink into the cinemas, which was great when we saw the 100¥ sign. I was very happy to find Pringles and Peanut M&M’s to have during the movie, while Carly found some chocolate/strawberry triangle things, plus a coke each and all for $1 each! (How we do love being stingy!)















In the actual cinemas, I was pretty excited to discover they sold frozen coke, only to discover it came in a shittely small cup not even fit for small toddler. After two sips, that was gone (yay…) and all for a nice overpriced $2.50.












However, I was delighted (as was Carly horrified) to discover the release of a new Pokemon movie that’s out! Only to horribly discover (to Carly’s delight) it was only in Japanese :-(















We were a bit early in the cinema, and while we sat waiting for it to start, we couldn’t help but laugh at the fact the cinemas were playing deep suspenseful music, while calmly showing us not to put our feet on the seats, or that the candy bar was still available.

For those of you that haven’t seen Inception, we would definitely recommend it, even if like us…you’re not really Leonardo DiCaprio fans. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, Yoshida gave us all 1000¥ gift certificates at the local mall in Tennoji. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find anything on Friday…but as it is the equivalent of shopping in Myer, with anything from Tiffany and Co. jewellery to Victoria Secret Lingerie…it was a bit hard to find anything within our price range. However, Yoshida-san being as awesome as she is - just sent us another message with more free movie tickets (Win or what!). Carly is also organising to teach Yoshida and some of her students English – so we will keep you all informed on how that goes! Apparently, there is also a Café about an hour away that hires foreigners per hour to participate in simple English conversation…so we’ll see what happens there too…


Saturday night was our first night out on the town. We met up with Miho and Chizuko at Tennoji station and went to a small bar called Tin’s Hall to see Chizuko’s boss Kelly play in his band with his brother Corey. Here we had some cocktails, and Carly's Mango Daiquiri looked pretty awesome!



















It was pretty old school stuff (ie…Led Zeppelin) so not really our sort of thing, but we still had a good time having cocktails with Chizuko and Miho, as well as Ryoko who also came down to see us. Ryoko (right) and her friend.



















Chizuko bought us a round of interesting drinks which were fun to try – one tasted horrible and we all pulled faces as we tried then gave it back to Chizuko who actually liked the taste! (Yeh…if you like the taste of raw gasoline with a hint of mint!) The other three were really nice – we had Mango, Pineapple and Orange daiquiris.































































We left Tin’s Hall at 11 and said goodbye to Chizuko at the station. There we met up with Miho’s friend Shiho, who had stayed in Adelaide with Miho and headed off to Shinsaibashi - the largest and most well known shopping district during the day and nightclub scene during the night in Osaka. On the way to the Pure Osaka Club we stopped at one of those classic Japanese photo booths and this was the result:




Our eyes look crazeh!










Finally, we made it to Pure at around 12:30...everyone goes out so late here because the Taxi's are a minimum of $50 so everyone just waits until the subway starts at around 5:30 then catches that home for $3...which is definitely worth it! We got in the club within 10 minutes and paid our $25 for unlimited drinks. The free drinks menu was limited...but they had vodka sunrises, so we were set! We also tried a few different drinks - I liked the Peach Oolong and Carly liked the 'Moscow Mule' and the 'Screwdriver', and we both liked the 'Fuzzy Navel'. Most of them were just mixed with different juices or tea and were nice and sweet. Apparently my drink choices were poor and shitty, and Carly's were awesome - but I like Oolong tea...even if it does taste weird! Hmph!

So Pure was tiny, and it was quite hard to dance, but we were very impressed with some of Shiho's dance moves, we thought she was all quiet then BAM she just came up with these ultra cool dances and a few people stopped to watch. Apparently she does African dancing...so Carlos and I want some lessons. Kim - I know you'll want us to learn some to teach you when we get back!




Carlos, Shiho and Miho!

























Oh, also, unlike our VIP rooms in clubs...theirs was not only upstairs, it was hidden behind a secret bookcase door which led to a private bar and room that overlooked the dancefloor with chandoliers, and red walls and carpet and really nice leather chairs...just a pity it was the VIP room and we couldn't go up there :(















After we'd had enough of Pure Osaka (it gets sooooo hot in there) we left for some fresh air and headed to our first Japanese Maccas experience around 4am to wait until the subway opens. It was also apparently the place to get some sleep before the subway opened...












I also managed to successfully order Futatsu (2) Cheesubaagaa's with cheezu to (and) meato to ketchup and Furido Potato an futatsu coca-cora's. Amazingly, they got my order correct...even though it was a mix of English grammar and Japanese words strung together or made up completely. Carly was quite impressed! We were also very impressed at the fact that they are only $1 here, and THEY TASTE THE SAME AS BACK HOME! Quite possibly the first pre-made food item still full of delicious flavour...just a pity it's unhealthy :-( We left maccas around 5:15 to head to the station and Shinsaibashi was still filled with drunken teenagers roaming around everywhere. As we crossed the bridge, the sun was just starting to come up, so here's Shinsaibashi with the river flowing through the middle.























We also found this crab rather appealing, and thought that Ben would appreciate its awesomeness:













Lastly, we saw a group of guys carrying one of their passed out friends to the subway, who had obviously had a big night haha












Then, among the giant crab we found, we came across this giant Whale in the middle of Namba station. The station was desserted...so we took the opportunity to pose with the roped off whale.










By this time, we were so overtired it wasn't funny, and couldn't wait for the subway to arrive already. It was now around 6am by the time we'd taken photos and said goodbye to Miho and Shiho.













Shout out to J-Hoop...this image is for you buddy!



















On the subway home, we met up with Oche, our friend from JF who is from Cairns. He'd also been out all night and couldn't wait for bed. Walking back to the house together, we thought we'd record the cicadas that were chirping in the trees. Those shitty things are so loud, Carly, Oche and myself had to shout above all the noise just to speak to each other. Enjoy!

And finally, we are done. Apologies for this lengthy post...we hope it was worth it!

4 comments:

  1. Yo, I've been to that Crab too! We had Ramen at a shop near there, and it went on forever. As in, I started eating, and by the time I'd finished eating, the bowl didn't look any emptier. That crazy crab.

    As for the cicadas, they are indeed annoying. All of the photos are really awesome, one is pretty hilar though, because Carly looks really angry even though she's smiling.
    (it's the one at the club)

    P.s. as if you need the pokemon movie to be in english to figure out what's going on...

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  2. Wow! Shinsaibashi looks quite amazing, like in all the photos you see (but never expect anyplace to really be like); Jet Set Radio Future!

    What a pity that mould balls probably violate every custom law and cannot be brought back to Australia to flourish :(

    The shop those fellows are carrying their munted friend past is called monkey majik and that is quite fantastical.

    Thank you for the giant crab!
    Here is an interesting report on just that very topic!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uq9pp586AE

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  3. You guys crack me up. Loving the adventures. And can I just say- get on this African dancing! Hahaha. You know me so well. I'm wondering if nightclubs in Japan are anything like in Kenya... cos in Kenya, everyone just points and laughs at all us sadly un-rhythmic white folk who are attempting to look cool and 'with it'. SO- learn the dance, and teach me, so I can knock their socks off next time I go to Africa! Haha.

    Also LOL at Sarah and Pokemon movie. You're like a 12 year old boy. And I cannot believe how many people of different taste reckon Inception is good. I really have to get on that. But I'm soooo busy! :(

    And I CANNOT believe taxi's are $50!! Outrageous. This is why you need to travel in DEVELOPING countries girls :P

    xx

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  4. That pic of the guys sleeping reminds me of the Asians sleeping on their desks in the Barr Smith Library.... Cant wait to Skype with you guys tomorrow!

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