Vending machines

These electronic dispensers are absoutely everywhere you go (I go past 7 soft drink vending machines in the 100 yards I walk along my street until I get to my apartment!) and are super convenient. I have seen some really weird and wonderful vending machines recently, so I thought I'd make a list of some of my favourites.

At number 7, we have the vending machines that surround an unsuspecting tree in Yokohama:


Sticking with the theme of nature is this floral drinks machine in Kyoto, at number 6:


I wonder how long this beer vending machine would remain in one piece in the UK? Machines that dispense alcoholic beverages come in fifth place:


In fourth position is this beast that dispensed hot pot noodles at a temple in Kyoto:


Third place is awarded to the every-so-handy umbrella vending machines that can be found in most train stations:


The final two places were hotly contested, but, slipping behind in second is this one in Akihabara:


I'm pretty sure (but not enirely certain) that the cans contain some sort of Japanese stew; by inspection of the picture on the front:


First place had to be awarded to the oh-so-strange 'canned bread' vending machine, also spotted in Akihabara:



For all those times that you're really desperate for some flavoured bread that's been sealed and cooked in a can. Honestly, what will they think of next?

Studying in the summer holidays?

Not cool! I have not got a huge amount to report on as I was stuck inside revising all weekend and on Monday AND on Tuesday. This was not what I signed up for! I did try to get outside and study in the nice weather - I went to Yoyogi-koen (the big park in Harajuku) to sit in the sun and work but gave up after about two hours as the insect world kept invading my personal space. There were so many ants that kept crawling over my books and myself (I thankfully didn't get bitten), and this guy got far too close for my liking:


I had the JSDA Sales Representative Class 2 exam this morning. It could have been worse but, unfortunately, the questions that I found the trickiest also happened to be the questions that were worth the most marks. Bummer. Major bummer. Hopefully I've answered just enough correctly to pass (I need 70%...) - I find out my result on Friday, so fingers crossed! I wasn't nervous before as I didn't care enough about a qualification that was going to lapse in 90 days time, but now that I've gone to the effort of actually sitting the thing, I would quite like to pass and be able to put it on my CV. We shall see... To celebrate the end of having to study obscure corporate law, I went and got myself a manicure. I am now the proud owner of some glittery, lilac nails.


Anyway, being stuck inside for four days did have its perks: take out food :) Here is a sample of some of the things I have eaten recently.

A lemon green tea frappuccino and raspberry macaroon from Starbucks (much better than the Starbucks at home).


A delicious selection of gyoza and sui mai.


Pancakes sandwiched together with custard.


Strange fried batter-balls with chunks of octopus in the middle. This sounds unusual but street vendors sell them all over the place and there is a bar/take out joint down the round from me (where I got these ones from) that only sells beer and different flavours of octopus balls.



And a tasty chocolate and orange mousse from the posh hotel patisserie that's down the road.


I did have an absolute FAIL moment one morning when I went to the coffee shop on the corner to buy a mocha and ended up with this instead:


It's a matcha latte - powdered green tea with sweetened boiled milk. It smelled and tasted exactly as disgusting as it sounds. This lurid green concoction was not a good way to start the day and I ended up pouring it down the sink :(

On one of my many coffee runs, I saw this lot being taken on a trip from (presumably) the local nursery. What a clever way to ferry toddlers around a city!



(For those of you with too much time on your hands, I have eventually uploaded all my photos onto my flickr account.)

More Comiket

I decided to take a break from studying this afternoon and headed back to Comiket to see some more cosplay and actually walk around the inside arena too. In what turned out to be an inspired idea, I took the Yurikamome monorail there but this time, stood at the frint of the leading train section. The monorail is completely electric and has no driver, just a massive window at the front, so it felt like I was driving it! (Admittedly, I was standing with lots of small children who actually pretend to drive the train and I got a few odd looks for being the only person over the age of ten standing so close to the front...) I was treated to even better views of the Tokyo Bay area and Odaiba from the front of the train compared to when I took it before and could only look out the side windows. (If you look closely, you can see Gundam poking out the top of the trees.)



I thought that I was being clever by going to Comiket in the afternoon this time, to avoid the crowds. I hadn't factored in the fact that it was Saturday today and also everybody else would have had my 'good idea' after heading along yesterday morning. It was even busier today! I didn't think that it would be possible, but I swear there were ten times as many people! Especially in the cosplay area outside - I could hardly contain myself and took far too many photos. The costumes this afternoon were even more impressive and lots more people had turned up in themed pairs or groups. I only spent an hour wandering around, but could have easily spent a whole day there watching everyone. Here are a few photos but, seeing as I loved them all, I'll upload everything onto my flickr account (eventually...).





(This Mario was definitely one of my favourites!)


Inside was just as crazy as outside (but thankfully air conditioned). Here, they employ people to dress up to help sell comics and merchandise:


But just about everything was already sold out by this afternoon anyway. There seemed to be quite a few interviews with writers/film directors going on that people were crowding around, and apparently you're not meant to take photos of them. Here is what happened when I tried:



I headed back home to do some more past paper questions, got bored, so went out for some okonomiyaki.


I've been told that this is Japan's version of a pizza, but it's more like a cross between a crepe and an omlette with lots of stuff inside and sauce on top. Yum yum! Anyway, I have been trying to work but I seem to have the attention span of a hamster and have ended up blogging instead.

Must. Study. For. Exam...

Comics and corporate finance law

Today has been quite surreal. I woke up and did some 'studying' (I tried, honest...) and then headed off to join the otaku at Comiket in Odaiba with some friends. This event is the world's largest hand-made comic book fair (according to wikipedia) and I have never seen so many people in one place at the same time - it was absolutely heaving!


We kind of didn't anticipate how popular the whole thing was going to be, and there's really only two ways to get to Odaiba, both of which were so busy that it took us about an hour to get to the Tokyo Big Sight (where it's held) and then about 10 minutes to get in. This left me with only about 15 minutes to actually look around before I had to head back to Shimbashi for my final JSDA lesson :( Which just means that I have an excuse to go back again tomorrow :) I spent all the time today checking out the cosplay area outside. Cosplay is when people dress up as their favourite anime characters, and some of the costumes were really impressive.





You could tell which costumes were condsidered to be the best, as they drew the largest crowd of cosplay-paparazzi:


It was a shame to have to go back to class but today's lesson was really useful. We finished up the section on Japanese corporate law, other finance laws and then moved on to calculations associated with bonds and financial statements. There is so much to learn!! Thankfully we did a lot of going over what we've already learnt. I've now just got to memorise it all over the next four days and also work out how to decipher the garbled exam questions.

I heart Odaiba

Just like mameshiba does! More on my new favourite area of Tokyo in a minute.

Today was the first day of my JSDA exam course. The guy who takes the course is really good - he's a good laugh and can explain things really well, but moves at an incredibly fast speed. He may even talk faster than I do. I have met my match... Surprisingly, some of the laws we're learning about are quite interesting, and I was shocked that a few have been recently implemented specifically to prevent the Yakuza from laundering money. I hadn't realised how prevalent the Yakuza still were in Japan, but securities firms have to be very careful when it comes to loss compensation as this was, up until quite recently, helping fund the Japanese mafia.

Learning the facts is going to turn out to be (relatively) the easiest bit. Deciphering the exam questions is considerably more tricky - the translation into English is, at best, extremely confusing. I realised things weren't going to go well when I read this statement on the front of the past papers:

"This examination is conducted in the Japanese only. The English translations of the questions are prepared solely for your information. Therefore, the Japanese version shall prevail if there is any discrepancy. You are not allowed to ask any questions or make complaints about expressions in the English."

Well that's me told... The course is pretty intense and there is so much to learn for the exam next Wednesday. I'm going to have to spend my whole weekend and all day Monday and Tuesday revising. Woop woop.

After today's lesson, I hopped onto the driverless monorail that goes to Odaiba, a man-made island in Tokyo Bay. This area of Tokyo is absolutely mental! The buildings are all so quirky on the outside and everything else is really kitsch. The weirdest looking structure has to be the Fuji TV building, with its floating sphere.


And, of course, there's a miniature version of the Statue of Liberty.


For some reason there is a giant model of Gundam (I think he looks like a transformer...) that moves and lights up.


Odaiba is also home to four of the biggest shopping malls I have ever seen. One even includes an amusement park, it's that big. Venus Fort is decked out on the inside to look like 'Italy':


And two floors of Decks have been turned into Hong Kong:


There's a Toyota showroom that's so big, it has its own indoor test track:


This double-act were hanging about outside one of the malls (the monkey looks genuinely unimpressed...):


And these two pretty much made my day: