Lunch

When I am at school I am going for lunch in different places with other students.
This is chicken nanban, well chicken with mayonnaise!
Delicious but kind of fat!

This is the menu of the restaurant very cheap and a lot of possibilities!

Otherwise there is another nice one

I like the decoration on the wall

and there I have tempura

the others are taking udon, nice too but not as nice as tempura!!!

And today for the first time we went to an indian restaurant, very good but a bit expensive.
Tomorrow… well I will see:-)

crazy Japan

Japanese people are known for making very nice or strange things!
For example they like to have nice food shape.
They also do it with cakes and many other things!
This was a bento!

This is an explanation why smoking is bad, I let you read :-)

This is the real name of a disco in Fukuoka, I don't explain, for those who understand please enjoy :-)

As for the food they also have a lot of funny things
This is a sweet

I didn't like it very much
But you have to try to know, right!

They are also very funny with their dogs!
When it's raining or cold they all have their coat!

so sweet!

And in the summer time they also have flowers in their hair!
This is what is making Japan so interesting, there is always something new!!!!

sumo :-)

Just for those who are interested, today was a sumo day: enjoy!

Trip to Akizuki

Today is a national holiday in Japan.
So with the school we went to Akizuki a small village to see the autumn colors

The village is very nice, with some shrines

and the bus stop is very interesting, kind of cosy

and of course the food is greatttttt!

look at the red colors

and this one, very nice!

just amazing

but the food :-)

this is pulp, very good, love it!!!

This is carage, strange, no taste but healthy they say, oh well...

and this is soba (noodles) ice-cream, that one too I'm not sure, I don't have to try everything!!!

after that we went to visit a paper making factory.
The produce it from wood

they take the watt

and then with this tool create the paper

and that's me trying, I am not so sure that my sheet will be nice ...

that's the paper before drying (one week)

and that's the result after, this is used to paint, to do lamps

or calligraphy of course.
The day was really nice, no rain, really lucky and great time, tomorrow is week-end!
Guess were I'm going:-)

Miyagino training

This week I had the great chance to have a dinner with Hokaho a sumo from Miyagino stable.
The dinner was with him, one of my teachers and some fans of him!
And today he invited us to his stable to see his training.

As you can see all the sumos are very flexible, this is part of their training.

Hokaho is still lower rank (makushita) but I hope he will be sekitori soon.
He is really a very nice and intelligent person.

I could also see the hairdressing of some sumos.

As you have seen the sumo haircut is very specific and so they have some specialized hairdresser

They put some special wax that smells so good

and as you see the hairs are pretty long!

From some face expressions that I have seen, I think this is hurting sometimes!

I have offered Hokaho some present, including a swiss knife with which he hurt himself, I was feeling so bad!!!
And as a thank you he offer us some sweets (that are actually delicious!)
If you want to see more pictures
Here also a video of some part of the training.
This was again really nice experience!!!

Today was a sumo day

so you can look at the pictures there: Day 8
no more comments!!!

Chanko nabe restaurant

Tonight after the sumo I went with some teachers and students to a chank nabe restaurant.
This is a nori salad

this was sashimi in soy sauce, just delicious!

and this is the chanko nabe itself, look at that, with meat, fish, tofu, vegetables, just incredible.
This is what the sumo are eating every day!

We also had some fish balls

and when we have eaten all that, we had some mochis in the nabe.
After that you don't want to eat anymore!

The owner of the restaurant is a former sumo, this is him when he was active.

this is him now, a very nice men, that offers us some calendars and some japanese games!

And this is us after our dinner!
This was a small but very nice place!
And of course you can watch the new sumo pictures here: day 7