Saturday, March 26, 2011

Lucky French Harmonicas

The costumes of the week are made of stone. The language of the week is Beginner French as spoken in Africa, and apparently intermediate level as spoken in Spain?The construction company of the week is shown below. We hope neither is used for construction.The Festival of the week is the Harmonica Festival, lasting 4 days! The biomechanics man is shocked!Creepy snow sculptures of the week include aliens
And the scary happy family. I'd take the aliens any day.Perhaps you wonder about some of the things 7-11 sells here? Well there's Craze Hottis, which are between the slurpees and the mashed potato machine.
More delicious is Roti John, below left. This is a fried egg, onion, meat and bread combo with mayo and chili sauce. It was invented for the original white colonials (hence the name), apparently as a hangover cure.Speaking of hangovers, the hotel of the week is the Hoover hotel. Freshly vacuumed!

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Hotel Hobbies

Ever find yourself bored in an esthetically luxurious hotel as shown above? Well, inspired by the book "Hotel Hobbies", I tried to entertain myself. Hobby #1: soap carving.Harder than I thought, but I made a nice flower, no?I decided to make up my own hobbies. How about hotel gastronomy. Reheating pizza: Kettle and steaming cup method does not work well. Hairdryer method: Works better, however bathroom covered in herbs.
Iron method: Not sure how, too scary, orientation challenges.Hotel hobby #3: Towel Origami. Total failure, the book lied. This was supposed to be a chicken.More successful: hotel spa pedicure. (Suggest wine is not minibar variety).
Relaxing foot scrub sadly only increases boredom.Overall verdict: hotel hobbies pass the time, but you may end up just as bored as you started.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Blowing in Otaru

Guess what Barry's practising? Below, he's shown putting his hands way too close to molten glass.Don't worry, I showed him how it was done.Eventually, Barry got the hang of it, check out his blow!And his smoothenation.And one of our masterpieces.
To sum it up, in Otaru, you can do your own glassblowing as a tourist. No language skills required!
The finished results are a sight to see! A great way to drink sake.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

How to Pork, Teppan style

Looking for a some teppan pork and an okonomiyaki? Just find a pig called Gord, (Golton in Japanese) first. Careful cuddling him as his ears are sharp. You can also identify the restaurant by the flying pigs.Ordering is based on a simple, colour coded system!Then you will get this, which is an uncooked okonomiyaki!To cook, just follow these Japanese instructions! Still confused? Eventually the waiter will help out.
And the result is worth it, we ordered more!