The beautifull details

Hey Peeps,
Well I seem to have noobed my picasa album. Local Picasa says I have one, the default, website picasa says I have four and the blog says I have two so your missing out on some pics. Will endeavour to resolve this asap.
I must admit Im not much of a travelogger, been leaving out details so here they are in all their beauty and chronological order.
I have been seeing this chain of pharmacies around that has the best name, "The Drug Penguin, For the nice tomorrow" and a pic of quite a happy penguin. Haven't had my cam whenever I've seen one though so no pics.
When I was in Akihabra, Tokyo after having Ichie Molie and my first Umeshu I had to get a pack of Natto as it was recommend by the locals. This is fermented soybeans. About as messy as fondu and pretty average really. Supposed to be quite healthy, smells funky and doesn't really taste like much at all. I think I mentioned the spicy takiyoki (octopus balls) I had in Akihabra, better than the ones I had in Sendai. I found out what the tasteless flaky stuff was on them, a dried fish sauce type thing is what the lady said I think. For lunch one time in Tokyo, I wasn't entirely sure were I was at the time, I had one of those iconic rice triangles with the strip of seaweed. There was some sort of seed through it that looked like seaseme but tasted very different.
Next was Nikko which was famous for its laquerware when that stuff wasn't mass produced. There was this little museum devoted to the old way of doing it. Incredible how they get so detailed with such primitive tools. According to the info there they would apply at least 100 coats of laquer with powdered carbon between each layer! Beautifull pieces in there. For lunch after visiting the shrines of Nikko I had a curry bun which was very nice and filling. Still in Nikko they had a number of little graveyards scattered about town and all the gravestones were spotless, nothing like the one in fairfield. Its all really clean here which I find strange considering they dont have any bins on the streets here except next to the vending machines which I suppose are three to a block!
Sendai now, arrived at the train station and was looking at my map for all of 5 mins and a guy called Wataru comes up and asks If Im lost! He then goes on to walk me all the way to my hotel! The next day I am getting bearings before walking through town to Aoba-jo(Aoba castle) and another guy points me in the right direction so I start heading off and he tells me he will give me a lift! Drives me all the way there, As a result I did have difficuly getting back but all good in the end. Sendai people rule!
The castle was very touristy but looked out over the city. Heaps of families dressing their kids in Kimono and the male version(Yakuta?) there off. Then I noticed this little dragon dancing thing, watched it for a bit before I realized it was one of there robitics kits!! Classic Japan if you ask me. A robot doing a 100/1000yr old dance. After that went to the city museum down the road and learned a bit about Date Masumune. Did you know he had emmisaries dispatched to Rome and even went over to Korea! Dude is very cool and the pope of the time gave him citizenship, especially when you consider he was blind in one eye from childhood(smallpox). That was the night I had dinner off the map. Gyoza and griled eggplant cooked by Koujiro. They gave me a voucher for next time but I couldn't find the place again. The second cook there, Shima was a Uni student and we traded info on our countries. When I got back to the hotel there was some variety/dating show with a Japanese girl in kakadu! I even recognised some of the places as ones I had been to on my visit.
I've tried matcha ice cream(made from powdered green tea) with coloured Sago balls(seaweed based jelly if i recall correctly), not bad but not my idea of a desert, seen yoghurt flavoured pepsi but no V or Dare iced coffee. I finally had one of those sticky buns with the bean paste centre, again not my idea of a sweet but not really unpleasent. The ramen here is awesome. First one I had was Tonkotsuten ramen which is pork and prawn with a pickled egg. Another one I had was tomato based, not what I expected but I've only got the pictures to go by. Lunch one day was a sushi/sashimi plate from a seafood market up the road from the hotel. I think thats what I like most here, everything is mixed in. Across the road from this seafood market is a seven story department store called EBeans which is ladies fashion cosmetics etc, udon store and takiyoki store on ground floor though. In Brissy you'd have to go from rocklea into the cbd for that sort of trip. Then two blocks up are pachinko parlours(sooooo noisy) and Labi, a fantistic electronics store. Three blocks across is a lovely little park, these are small tall blocks too.
Anyhow this is too long for a post and I think we are about up to date. Let me finish by saying that counting in japanese is crazy. You have one suffix for counting drinks except beer which is a different one. You have another suffix for counting animals except birds which is different again and depending on what your counting can change the actual word for the number itself. eg 5=go/yon.
Future posts will be shorter but with current details.
Not missing Oz at all ;p