Everything is Illuminated

Hi all! Been another eventful weekend (detecting a theme here!), and looks to be an eventful week here as well - got some more classes, and various projects are being worked on, so I promise I'm keeping busy! Like this here penguin I'm flying through my days!

Before getting into that though, a quick update on my Masters program and all that:

I've gone to my faculty's administration office and got the low down on what I need to do, and am now underway in making my application for the exam that will allow me to 'matriculate' from a research student to a masters student. Part of this requires me to take the TOEFL English test (making a native English speaker with two degrees from an English speaking university in an English speaking country is bizarre, but Japanese aren't known for their lateral thinking). As well as that, I need to get some recommendation letters from some of my lecturers at Victoria University, which is a bit of a mental thing given I had to get two of these for my application for the scholarship (in Japan agencies don't seem to talk to each other at all). Finally I'm in the process of reformulating my research topic; I'm going to be looking at climate refugee policy, primarily in New Zealand, but potentially expanding out into the wider Pacific as well so as to include Japan, Australia, America and so on. All of this needs to be done and submitted by the end of November, so I'm glad that I made inquiries when I did, because nothing was made apparent to me myself, making for a bit of a shock (it seems to me this program/Tokyo University itself is very hands off and requiring students to be entirely proactive themselves - which is a bit difficult for foreign students who are finding their feet!) But all in all I think I am under control now, I am getting some letters sent post haste to me, and then the rest of the application will fall into place I should think. The exam itself is in late January/early February, but the University bureaucracy requires this all to be done ASAP - how very Japanese!


I arranged to meet with an old friend from my time at Tsurumine, where we got on the train at the same stop. We arranged to meet at Shinjuku station for lunch, and had decided to go for okonomiyaki (grilled Japanese pancake). It was absolutely lovely to see her, having last seen her in January 2012, and there was naturally a lot to catch up on!

A batter of cabbage, noodles and beef is mixed together

Beef is grilled on the hotplate with some cabbage, noodles grilling alongside

The batter mixture is poured overtop

An egg is cracked into the centre, and a lid placed on for four minutes

Following four minutes on the grill, the pancake is flipped over

One freshly made okonomiyaki

After lunch (which went on til well after 4!), I headed back to Komaba to go out again, this time to Korakuen, which is the location of the Tokyo Dome, a large baseball stadium. As well as this, it has a fairground, with a ferris wheel, waterboat ride, merry-go-round, various fairground attractions, and a full on rollercoaster! Additionally, it has been decked out with a full on illumination set up in the lead up to Christmas, which was one of the main reasons I wanted to go. Having brought my full camera set up I wasn't able to go rollercoastering (noone wants a $2,000 lens weighing over two kilos flying from a rollercoaster towards them), but I will definitely make a return visit there when I am less encumbered. The main attraction there for me was the illumination and the people, with some particularly choice photos (in my opinion) being produced!

The gardens along the promenades were covered in fairy lights, making the whole place a Christmas tree

I was reminded somewhat of a library, albeit in this case an illuminated, magical one!

As you can see I had a thing for these balls in the water!

There was also a display on dessert art, with various dessert chefs producing some delicious looking works of art

Following the illumination showcase, we headed to a Chinese restaurant which is close by to Hongo campus - the corollary of this being that the illumination/rollercoaster park is within walking distance of uni! I will be sure to capitalise on this and take my camera there so I can make a wee mission back to the lights, especially as the sun sets at around 5pm here!


Sunday I had arranged to meet with some other older classmates, Arei, Hossa, Yuki and Yuya. These were my good friends (as well as Ginga, whom I met last week), and we met up to go visit an aquarium. I'd been liaising with Hossa to set this up, and he had deliberately not told Arei or Yuki of this fact, so when I turned up at the meeting spot there were a few very surprised faces. Hossa and Arei had, since finishing school, gotten married and had a child, Kiina (Ki-chan), who is now three. Ki-chan was very shy at first, not just because three year olds are, but also because I was the first gaikokujin (foreigner) that she had met - scary!

We made our way to Sunshine City Aquarium, catching up on the last five years, and upon arriving we were told that there had been an equipment failure earlier in the week, and thousands of fish had died. This had us thinking the aquarium would be like the Dead Sea (literally), but nothing could be further from the truth! Had they not told us, I would have been none the wiser! The aquarium has displays of Japanese ecosystems, but also those of the Amazon, Australia, South East Asia, Africa, and all in between. There are, in addition to fish, frogs, lizards, turtles and toads. And that's just the inside part! The aquarium is actually on the top floors of a skyscraper, with the top floor being outdoors, and having seal, penguin, otter, and pelican enclosures.

Illuminations as you walked up the stairs were very cool, ocean scenes!

Part of the seal enclosure is a ring shaped track that the seal can swim in, so you can walk beneath it as he goes around

The otters were quite content snoozing

Penguin infinity pool immersion

The penguin enclosure included a large tank that was essentially an infinity pool, allowing you to walk underneath it, as well as look out across the city beyond - the lines in the background are from neighbouring skyscrapers!

Part of the top level, with the seal tunnel to the top right. Also there's a Wally hiding in this photo, can you see him?

We left the aquarium once we'd seen everything (though naturally with a three year old in tow we rushed through parts of it - I will definitely go back to take my time), and we headed for lunch. It was decided to go for monjayaki, which is a famous Tokyo food. Similar to okonomiyaki, it is a bit flatter, and rather than taking slices of it and putting on your plate, you use little scrapers to scrape off bits, straight from the hotplate, and eat! It's made of a batter, shredded cabbage, and whatever toppings you order. We ordered four varieties: fish eggs, pork, rice cakes and curry. Not quite as filling as okonomiyaki, but an experience nonetheless!

After lunch, we made our way to Harajuku, with the intention of going to Yoyogi Park, but before this we took a quick detour to a Purikura booth, with the normal big eyed, porcelain skinned images as a result

This Wally is easy to find

Also funny was the actual photo booth name, which came with very obvious connotations:

I didn't know what to make of this

Yoyogi Park is a big park just above Shibuya, somewhere that David, Victor and I tried to get to into a couple weeks ago but to no avail. At this point it was getting reasonably late in the day, but that didn't stop people from visiting the park in droves, both to relax with friends or catch some buskers. Ki-chan was having a blast running around, and we decided to get icecreams, which she devoured with great joy, getting more icecream around her mouth than in it, but luckily Arei was on hand with wet wipes to clear everything up.

I found this quite amusing - a yo yoer, in Yoyogi Park - geddit?

One sweet potato flavoured icecream, purple too!

I was mid conversation when I saw this guy, immediately stopped talking and shot him down with a blast from my camera

 What was most amusing was what we saw as we left the park. When we arrived we saw a group of 'Yankees' loitering around the entrance, all dressed up in denims and leathers, with thickly waxed hair in the Elvis style. But when we left they had produced speakers, and were all dancing to 50s and 60s rock music, with a big crowd gathered around them. These guys are the original nerds of Japan, most of them being in their 50s and 60s themselves, reliving their halcyon days I think!

I also saw a group of people congregating around a woman for reasons unknown, but as I got closer I could see why - she had a couple of meerkats on her! One in her arms, and one resting on her shoulder. The meerkats seemed quite unphased by the attention and cameras all around them, as did their owner - though you'd no doubt get quite used to this if you made a regular occurrence of going out with meerkats in Tokyo I think!

There was something hilarious about the way the meerkat looked whichever way the woman did

Our final stop for the day was for dinner. We opted to go to an izakaya (grilled meat bar) in Shibuya, apparently well known for serving raw meat (deliberately, not accidentally I hasten to add!) In there we were all brought to a table, with a round of drinks ordered (including a soft drink for Ki-chan). Most of it was fairly standard fare for izakaya, grilled meats, vegetables etc etc, and plenty of beer. However one thing on the menu did pique my interest, if only because I had never eaten it before, and also, as people who know me well will know, because I cannot say the word out loud (long story). Apparently Arei was quite fond of this meat as well, and before we knew it, we had on our plates little slices of raw horse meat, which we dipped in bowls of garlic and soy sauce. It wasn't a particularly unusual meat in terms of flavour (possibly in part due to the sauce), but it was incredibly chewy; not in a sinewy way, but rather I could see how strong the animal was, its musculature was incredible!

Cleveland, or was it Hazel? Very delicious all the same!

After a few hours of drinking and eating, we decided it was time to head home (and get Ki-chan to bed, being almost 9pm!), so we all meandered our way back to Shibuya station, and I made the quick trip back to Komaba.

A solid weekend all round, highly enjoyable, with some highly serendipitous moments, and plenty of great sights and experiences! I'll definitely aim to go back to the illuminations and aquarium alike; the photographic opportunities are too good to pass up! I'm aiming to get done as much of my application as possible tomorrow, as well as checking the work of one of the Ph.D students in my zemi - she is delivering a presentation in Princeton in English, and wants my assistance in making sure it reads well - no pressure! Otherwise, there's some more adventures on the horizon, I seem to have every weekend day booked until December now! 

I'm slowly expanding my knowledge of the area, and in doing so finding more and more places that I either want to visit, or in the case of me having visited, go back to (usually with my camera!), so there's plenty more to come!

Until next time though!

Troy　トロイ