葉っぱの隙間からの月

Went to a restaurant in Shinagawa called Ogasawara Shoten. They had some really tasty yakiniku and the drinks were really cheap as well. I ended up getting some sort of kalbi set, I don't remember the name but you can see what it came with in the picture lol.

The yakiniku tasted great but the grill was a little too hot at first so I had to turn the heat down. I had to flip my meat over really fast to make sure it didn't burn at first 😂. It was a fun experience though. After I got it turned down though I had a nice relaxing meal. The miso soup was nice as well it all tasted great to be honest and afterwards they had a free coffee service which was a nice way to end lunch.

They had a pay pay campaign going on as well, so I got a nice discount for using it. Really handy app

初めての京都
定番の清水寺です
紅葉がめっちゃ赤かった

青と白、ただそれが美しい北アルプス。

I am enjoying the charm of winter at zao mountain in Yamagata prefecture.

Went to Shinjuku Station the other day and took of photo of the giant metal sculpture while I was there. I've only passed it a few times since it was erected during the pandemic, but my curiosity finally got the best of me, and I had some extra time anyways so I snapped a quick shot of it.

I did a little research on it and it was apparently made by the famous arist Tomokazu Matsuyama and the theme of theme for lack of a better word is to greet visitors with surprise and bewilderment.

It's pretty interesting and looks different from every angle as well. If you look at the right side of the photo it's kind of cut off you can see it holding a flower with its arm outstretched.

The name of it is Hanao-san, and while I'm not sure of the origin behind the name it has certainly piqued my interest...

[English／日本語]
Can we see Japan through the contents of Japanese people's bags?1

What do Japanese people carry in their bags? I would like to introduce you to the life and culture of Japan through this.

1Wallets
Compared to other countries, Japanese people probably carry more cash in their wallets. Although electronic payments have been increasing recently, there are still many stores that do not accept electronic settlements or credit cards. Keep a little extra cash in your wallet when you are living in Japan.

2Folding umbrella
What percentage of chance of precipitation do you take an umbrella with you? Half of Japanese people carry an umbrella even when the chance of precipitation is 30%.

3 Hand cream and eye drops
It is very dry in winter in Japan. When you try to open a door, you may feel static electricity, which can be painful. Also, contacts tend to dry out in winter. For this reason, I use hand cream and eye drops to prevent them from drying out.

4 Eco bag
In Japan, plastic bags have been charged since last year. As a result, more and more people are carrying eco-bags.

5 Anti-infection goods
To prevent infection by the new coronavirus, more and more people are carrying a small size disinfectant. Some people also carry spare masks in their mask cases. Recently, fashionable mask cases are being sold and are being adopted as a new fashion. It would be nice if we could have fun while preventing infection.

I will continue to introduce the contents of Japanese people's bags next week.

日本人のカバンの中身から日本が見えてくる？①

日本人はカバンの中に何を入れているでしょうか。そこから日本での生活や文化などを紹介したいと思います。

①お財布
おそらく他の国と比べてお財布の中には現金が多めに入っています。最近は電子決済が増えてはきましたが、まだ電子決算ができない店やクレジットカードが使えない店が多くあります。日本で生活するときは少し多めに入れておきましょう。

②折りたたみ傘
あなたは降水確率が何％で傘を持って行きますか？日本人は降水確率30％でも半数の人が傘を持ち歩きます。

③ハンドクリームや目薬
日本の冬はとても乾燥します。ドアをあけようとすると静電気がおきて、痛い思いをすることも。また、冬場はコンタクトも乾燥しやすいです。そのため、ハンドクリームや目薬で乾燥を防いでいます。

④エコバッグ
日本では去年からレジ袋が有料になりました。そのため、エコバッグを持ち歩く人が多くなりました。

⑤感染症対策グッズ
新型コロナウィルス感染予防のために、小さいサイズの消毒液を持ち歩く人が増えました。また、予備のマスクをマスクケースの中に入れている人もいます。最近はおしゃれなマスクケースが売られるようになり、新しいファッションとして取り入れられています。感染予防も楽しみながらできるといいですね。

来週も日本人のカバンの中身について紹介していこうと思います。

A tiny house in the middle of snowy land. The photo location: near Yamagata station

I took these photos last week at Shinagawa Station. They were having a small lacquerware exhibition sort of thing and were selling goods from I suppose Naraijuku as is written on the cloth, but I don't remember if there was anything else to the setup.

They had a lot of really cool lacquerware pieces though and I managed to pick up a couple of spoons and some extra chopsticks. I would have liked to buy more, but unfortunately am not in the need for much tableware at the moment lol.

They also had some traditional children's toys and I was considering getting a Jacob's Ladder since I hadn't seen one in years, but decided to pass lol.

The Wagasa on the top of the stall were also for sale too.
Only ¥1500 and they're handmade!
It was a cool exhibit though, I'm not sure if it was just a one day thing or if they're still going for a while but definitely drop by if you're at Shinagawa Station and see it open.

I love cherry blossom and autumn colors both. Surprisingly today during my afternoon walk, I got a wonderful opportunity to see both of them at the same time. It was an truly amazing experience. These photos were taken in Wako city of Saitama prefecture.

We went to a small restaurant in Meguro called "Meguro Flat" over the holiday and had a really nice lunch together. The place had a nice atmosphere and seemed very multicultural. There were newspapers on the walls in some other languages I'm not sure what languages, but they were Latin based at least and posters of wines from different countries and the menu was interesting as well. If I remember correctly, jerk chicken is a local specialty of Jamaica and I've never had the chance to try it before, but this place was offering it so I decided to order it. It tasted really nice and the salad that came with it was refreshing. There was also a spoonful of mashed potatoes on the side with the pickled carrots and the place also offers all-you-can-eat bread! I love bread so that was a plus. My girlfriend ordered an assorted platter and the cream in the middle went really well with the bread so we got another free basket to eat it with lol.

Incidentally, I look like I'm posing for the camera, but I was actually just admiring the atmosphere of the restaurant lol. Anyways, it's a nice place, so anyone visiting Meguro or looking for something to do should check it out. It's like a ~5 min walk from the station. I think the nighttime menu might be different as well, but I'm not certain of that.

地元、群馬県館林市にある

旧秋元別邸の紅葉が色づき始め

陽の光が一瞬だけ入った所を撮影しました📸

グラデーションが綺麗です。

雲海浮かぶ富士山綺麗でしょう
山梨県富士河口湖町に撮影

A light and shadow snowy view of mount Zao. Its an ideal place for winter activity. This photo was taken from the ropeway of mount Zao

Cherry blossom with snow. It was an amazing experience to see snow along with cherry blossom.

After a sudden snow fall the Wako Jurin park in Saitama prefecture looks like this.

もうすぐクリスマス*´ω｀*

Nature's own art work. It's snowflakes on the glass of the ropeway on Mount Zao Yamagata prefecture.

秋月の紅葉。
友人が連れて行ってくれてから25〜6年ぶりの秋月。

The Christmas alley. We are preparing for Christmas day and nature is also preparing for it.
The photo was taken from Wako city in Saitama prefecture.

A path to go the heaven. Surrounding is fully covered with snow while the road is snow free. The photo was taken in Mount zao in Yamagata prefecture.

初めてのポートレート

友人が一生懸命に構図を考える様子を
のんびり撮ってました♪

A symmetrical ginko alley on a snowy days in Saitama prefecture. The photo was taken in Wako city.

Managed to stop by Ueno Zoo the other day for a little bit and while I didn't get to see much of the animals because we were short on time, we did get to see a few of the attractions around the park.

The first one is "Sala Thai" a gift from the Thai Government to mark the 120th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Thailand and Japan, as written on the plaque.

The second one is the five-story pagoda of the former Kanei-ji Temple.
The pagoda was built in 1631 and rebuilt in 1639.

Besides that are just some photos of the scenery around the park, and you can see some of the autumn colors on the trees and even in Shinobazu Pond.

We also managed to get some tasty lunch.
This looks like steak but it was actually like a pork-steak cutlet type of thing. It tasted great though.

Hopefully I'll have some more time to actually see the animals next time I go lol
It's was registered as an Important Cultural Property in 1911.

Some more photos from the Shinagawa Aquarium since I wasn't able to post them all yesterday.

I have a lot of pictures of jellyfish but it's so hard to take good photos of them, and it's the same for fish as well.
A lot of them are just too small and so the photos came out blurry.

Anyways, these are some of the better ones I was able to take.

I really liked how the iguana was just chillin on the branch and warming himself up with the UV lamp. I haven't seen an iguana in a long time.

I was happy I was able to take some decent photos of the sharks as well. I'm not exactly sure what types of sharks they are but they're still really cool to see. The smaller one seemed like he was tired and when I first passed him and he was sleeping in the back of the tank but when I came by again he was at the front moving around slowly.

I was pretty happy with the stingray photo as well, and I'm not sure what the long stingray-looking animal was, but it was interesting. It might not be a type of stingray at all, I'm not sure because it was my first time seeing it, but it kind of looked similar I thought besides the tail area.

Penguins are always cool too. I like the emperor penguins. Their hair always reminds me of Boris Johnson's😂

Then just a couple pictures from the dolphin show area. I got a nice melon soda float and then there's a picture of a dolphin listening to his trainer's instructions lol. Thought it was cute

The snowy view of Yamagata city. Looks awesome. The photo was taken from Hotel crown hill Yamagata which is very close to the Yamagata station.

Went to the Shinagawa Aquarium for the first time last weekend.
It was my girlfriend's sister's birthday and so we made reservations for a restaurant and bought tickets to the aquarium in advance.

We ate at Grill & Bar AW55, they had an all-you-can-eat salad bar, a drink bar with different types of flavored water, and some soup as well. All of it tasted really good, I really liked the Bolognese pasta, but the salad and soup both tasted delicious as well.

After eating we went to the aquarium and it was really awesome, I liked seeing the jellyfish as always but the dolphin shows were really awesome as well. We actually stayed long enough to see the afternoon show and the night show, both with different themes.

On top of that, we unintentionally got to participate in a wedding😂. It was totally unexpected, they even did a special show with the dolphins to celebrate it. It was quite the spectacle to see.

After enjoying the aquarium we went to get some dinner and found this hole-in-the-wall yakiniku restaurant that was unfortunately going out of business, probably due to the pandemic.
Luckily for us, all drinks were 100 yen... Between the 3 of us we ended up ordering like 25 different drinks I think, we started with a round of beers that each would normally cost 600 yen, for just 100 yen, and after that we ordered a bunch of different meats and just drank every different type of drink on the menu lol.
I was trying everything plum wine, sours, beers.. we were a little drunk on the way out of the restaurant but we ended the night with some cake around 11pm still!

All in all, it was a total blast.

Several times I saw mount Fuji with maple leafs but this is the 1st time when I saw the Fujisan with ginko trees and that is also when there is a lenticular clouds over Fuji san. The whole atmosphere was amazing. The image was taken from Oike park, Kawaguchiko. Snow cover Fuji san, lenticular clouds, ginko trees and lake kawaguchiko what could be the best other than this?