The hunt for good ramen in London continues…

A common question I get asked is, “Where can I get good ramen in London?” Well, I’ve been trying to do some research (results below). Unfortunately the short answer is that nowhere and noone does ramen like they do in Japan. There are places which do serve “ramen” but inevitably the stock or ingredients are [...]

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Golden Week

Golden week was a really good opportunity to have a proper break, catch up on sleep and do a few fun things. Its a fantastic idea having a week of national holidays back to back, but unfortunately this means that everywhere you go, prices are doubled and everywhere is crowded. Interestingly, Japanese people love domestic [...]

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Anyone for strawberry pasta? Or ramen at the library?

Just when I thought I had seen it all in Japan, I realised I have only been scraping the surface of bizarrity. (That isn’t a word but it sounds right somehow. My English ability has dropped to the level of a 6 year old.) I went for a mosey around the public library at Tsurumai [...]

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Strange foods that I have eaten in Japan…

Japan has a wonderful variety of food, some of which is strange, some of which is horrendous. Some things which I used to think were really different or interesting have become so normal (green tea ice cream,miso soup, seaweed, raw eggs, pickled cucumber and radish etc) but there are still things which I find a bit bizarre.

However strange something sounds, I will always try it once to see what its like, and so I thought I would share a few of my experiences with you.

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Valentines Day

Question: what whips Japanese girls into a fury of baking, borrowing sugar, and locked kitchen doors? Valentines day of course!

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Time to catch up

This week is a very welcome week off whilst the University entrance exams are undertaken by scores of terrified looking High School students from all over Nagoya. I was unfortunate enough to be walking the wrong way back to the dormitory on Monday afternoon just after 5pm faced with a stream of about 500 students, [...]

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Spontaneous trip to Nara and Near Death!

For the last month or so, one group of friends  have been telling me of the wonders of a particular restaurant in Nara (not so far from Kyoto). This restaurant was said to have served very authentic and delicious Indian food the like of which I have not seen for over 4 months. Ever since [...]

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Winter break and a rather alternative Christmas

My very first Christmas away from home.

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Crime Against Wine!

I understand that desperate times lead to desperate measures. Cut backs, switching from branded goods to generic, making certain necessary sacrifices etc. However, what I saw today, red wine being sold with a free sample of processed peelable “cheese string”, is verging on unacceptable. Even more so when you consider that this has NOTHING to [...]

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End of term X-factor

Finally scraped some time off the floor to write an update. Been very busy with end of term mischief making: end of term exams equates to  lots of parties and silliness, We had a leaving party today for all the students in my level which was interesting for several reasons. Firstly because we tried to [...]

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