Every Buddy Loves Raymond

NEW BLOG LOCATION

2009-04-28T19:18:00.000+10:00

I got serious blogging and got a new address...

http://www.everybuddylovesraymond.com/

See you there!

23rd April 2009 - Unpacking some goodies from my trip

2009-04-23T22:07:00.004+10:00

I've been home for the past few days now and I've been getting some pretty bad withdrawl symptoms from my trip... I miss Japan.. The pastry tour ended a bit too soon...

However, one of the highlights of my homecoming is the unpacking of the various treasures I've accumulated during my journey to the land of the rising sun. I saw some merchandise from Squaresoft on display in some of the hobby stores in Akihabara and it was the start of an addiction. I had to have these!

The below are the Final Fantasy "trading arts"... The individual figures are sold in sealed boxes and you don't actually know which character was inside each box (kind of like trading cards). However, at 1050Y a pop ($14AUD)... you could end up with 4-5 of the same character which would totally suck.

So when I got to the hobby/electronic town strip in Osaka... there was a little store who sold these figurines out of its packaging so you know exactly what it is you're getting... The prices for each figure varied depending on how rare they were... Squall and Sora (from Kingdom Hearts) were the priciest ones at 2500Y a pop. So after putting these puppies together with my shaking sweaty palms... here they are in al their glory...

The coffee table wasn't an ideal place to leave them (as it doubles as our dinner table)... so they had to have a new permanent home where I would appreciate it more often. Where else could I put it?

The detail in these models are pretty cool... Its a pity I'm missing Zidane... otherwise I'd have the entire set of the 1st collection. However... it gives me a great reason to return to pick up some more goodies from there in the near future :) Here's some close ups... (I seriously need a new camera with image stabilisation)

One of my biggest regrets was not purchasing this... I saw it in Japan for about 20,000Y (about $300AUD)

It was the defnitive collectable from the Advent Children movie... the final battle between Sephiroth and Cloud. The problem I had was lugging around my huge luggage as well as a huge box that this piece of art would be in. I may end up buying this online and getting it sent down under (or I could carry a LARGER empty suitcase next time I go to Japan :) )

18th April 2009 - Gold Coast & Brisbane

2009-04-20T22:51:00.002+10:00

We finally arrived on Australian soil again and we were greeted with warm sunny Gold Coast skies and it was nice to have some humidity in the air (the air in Japan was very very dry).

Here's our hire car that we used to drive from Gold Coast through to Brisbane Airport. We were so knackered from the flight that we drove into the Pacific Fair carpark and caught a few Z's. I drove most of the way to Pacific Fair with one of my eyes asleep.

We gradually made our way from Gold Coast from Brisbane and we encountered a ouple of stops... Here is the Harbour Town outlet mall.. I picked up a pair of Diesel pants for $70 (marked down from $350)... finally a pair of pants that FIT me!

When we did make it to Brisbane Airport... I picked up some essential reading material :)

This flight concluded our trip...

It was good to be home... finally :)

17th April 2009 - Last day in Japan

2009-04-20T00:17:00.000+10:00

So today was the last day we were to spend in Japan... our flight departs from Osaka around 8:55pm this evening so it left us with plenty of time to explore the city one last time.

We picked up some supplies at the fruit shop in front of our hotel... This place sells fruit at relatively reasonable prices. The drinks are a bargain here (68Y for a 500ml bottle of water, and 88Y for a massive can of Coke - We'll get to that later)

We decided to wander around Osaka again... we wanted to explore the Hep Five building (the one with the Ferris Wheel from the previous night) and see what else was down there. First things first... We needed an early morning snack... waffles were on the cards at Osaka station.

We got the cinnamon & apple waffle from this little kiosk. The waffles had juicy chunks of apples baked into the waffle itself... GENIUS!

It was still a bit early and most of the shopping centres in the area were still closed.

Along the side alleys of one of the shopping malls looked interesting...

The fake cherry blossoms lured us deeper into it. Unfortunately as it turns out... this whole strip was chock a block full of Pachinko Parlours.

Just as we walked out of this Pachinko alley, the gates opened and we were presented with a Hankyu department store dedicated to men's stuff. If the other Hankyu store is anything to go by... this department store is going to be an interesting experience for my wallet.

One of the first stores to greet us at the entrance was a Tiffanys Jeweller dedicated to men (I didn't know they existed). Next to it was a Bvlgari store with a nice limited edition watch on display... It would set you back 2,100,000 yen (around $30,000 AUD).

Wandering up to the upper floors, we came across a nice little boutique stationary store with some pretty cool mens stationary and office stuff. They had a really nice range of globes but they would have been a nightmare to carry home on the flight tonight.

I can say that I finally found something within Hankyu that fit my budget in this store :)

It's a retractable pen!

Across the road from Hankyu... Hep Five was finally opened for trade.

This department store catered more to our budget ($300AUD t shirts from Hankyu were just overkill)

Inside this massive 8 storey shopping centre contains a full scale whale and it's calf dangling from the ceiling.

When we made it to the top level... you can see the entrance to the huge ferris wheel. A ride is 1000Y (or $15AUD) per person.

Before we knew it... it was already lunchtime again... We settled on Italian as the other restaurants in this establishment didn't look too flash...

The salmon pizza looked nothing like the wax replica on display...

We left that italian restaurant pretty disappointed. After a bit more shopping... we needed yet another break... Deli Cafe at Osaka station looked like a good place for a recharge and coffee...

but the only coffee available was perculated... I'd rather drink chinese herbal medicine... so we had some pastries from there instead :)

Seated at the bakery... there was a lady to left her handbag and shopping at the seat next to us to reserve the table as she went to the counter to order some food and drink. Japan is such a trustworthy society that they can just leave their handbag and valuable possessions without any fear of anyone stealing it. That bag would have disappeared whilst she was still carrying it in some of the neighbouring asian nations.

It was early afternoon by now so we made our way back to the hotel... The side market alley offered a few souvenir foody gifts we wanted to take back to Aus... including this little store which sold fresh mochi desserts. We bought a box of cherry blossom flavoured mochi as it was in season.

Here's the little restaurant we tried a few nights ago that had the most incredible Katsudon.

In one of the local grocery stores, I found these baby gems :)

They are baby Ritz crackers with what tastes like laughing cow cheese in the middle... Absolute yumminess in this little red packet.

The fruit store across the road sold the largest can of soft drink I've ever consumed... a 650ml can of Coke :)

My thirst was quenched (I almost drowned in Coke btw) and I just had my snack of Ritz crackers... we were now ready to make our way to the Airport. We left around 4PM and the ride from Osaka to Kansai Airport takes about 1 hour... We got on the train JUST before the peak hour rush and scored some seats. Here's Ee reading yet ANOTHER Stephanie Meyer book...

There was still some daylight by the time we reached Kansai Airport in Osaka.

And we caught the sun setting on some distant mountains...

We needed to have dinner before we boarded the plane and settled at a katsudon/deep fried food house on level 5 of the International Airport Terminal. Ee had the mixed croquet plate and I had the giant pork katsu fillet.

The pork katsu I had at Canal City earlier on was far superior. We weren't satisfied until we had dessert so we trekked on...

Here we go... a perfect end to our Japan trip.

The best strawberry ice cream I've EVER had... it had real chunks of strawberries in there (it should for 490Y per tiny serving)...

The dark chocolate drink... Ee was right... there was a difference between Godiva chocolate vs Cadbury/Nestle... it actually tasted like a richer & more expensive chocolate...

We cleared customs and did some brief duty free shopping... I picked up this necklace which was being promoted by a number of famous Japanese sports stars... The metal bits on this necklace are magnets made out of germanium... I'm not sure what the benefits are (the details are in Japanese) but it seems it polarises the ions in your body to help it function better.

I wore it on the flight hoping it would help prevent the crappiness I feel after a long flight... Fail.

The plane responsible for taking us home...

16th April 2009 - Shopping in Osaka

2009-04-17T00:48:00.000+10:00

Today was already the second last day that we'll be spending in Japan and a big day was planned to cover as much of Osaka as we could. We got up early and started making our way to Tenma Station via the Osaka JR line to pay a visit to Osaka's version of Akihabara (electric town) - called Nippombashi. Across from us was a train that allowed women only during peak hours in these marked carriages..

After a few stops.. we finally arrived at the JR Tenma stop and it was pretty desserted (by Japanese standards).

There was a cool wall which resembled the backdrops used in a typical Daft Punk music clip.

We then made our way through the "WALK" which is a long underground tunnel joining the JR Tenma station to the other side (populated by the other private subway lines as well as the main retail strip in this part of Osaka). What do you know.. we stumbled on yet another bakery :)

It's not long now before I go on my pastry detox diet when I get back to Aus.

After another couple of hundred metres under this "walk" way... we started seeing more people (coming in and out of the private subway lines). My guess is that hardly anyone uses the JR Umeda station as it is so far away from the main areas of interest that people just catch the private lines. (We've been walking for close to 15 mins by now.

Halfway through the tunnel, we saw a statue of a whale doing a Yoga pose...

This tunnel went on...

and on...

Until finally we made it through to the other side. We headed south and started making our way to the Electrical/Hobby stores... We then encountered a store we wouldn't enter... Everyday High Prices doesn't seem like a place for bargain hunters like us :) - They need to speak to Big W to get a few pointers.

There were a few traditional stores along the way which sold artistic hand fans, traditional Japanese thongs/shoes as well as Kimono stores.

About 10 minutes walk from the station.. you start to see the strip of Electronics and Hobby stores.. It really is a baby Electric town.

There were hobby stores everywhere... I paid a visit into one of these smaller ones which had a massive selection of figurines and collectables.

I purchased some Final Fantasy figures as well as Sora from Kingdom Hearts

A pic of one end of Nippombashi from a pedestrian overpass.

and here's the other end.

Here's a whole building dedicated to the Gundam merchandise... I've been inside and it's massive!

We started making our way back to our hotel to drop off some stuff we've bought this morning before we went to the next shopping destination. I saw a dedicated Tomica shop and just had to visit it... Didn't leave empty handed either :) This time I picked up 2 extra Tomica cars.. An Evo X and a Race spec GTR35.

Our next stop was the Tenjinbashi-suji street markets at Tenma. This is apparently the longest street market in Japan as it spans about 3km in length. We walked to and fro and covered about 6km by foot on this strip alone. Tenma station is about 2/3 down one end and we had absolutely no idea where to start... Both directions of the strip stretch well beyond the horizon.

The shopping here is intense... The pricing is about half the price of similar garments found in Tokyo.. however, although there is a huge selection to choose from.. They lack the cutting edge fashion found in Tokyo... But it still made for really good shopping.

After about an hour of walking... there was still no end to the tunnel in sight.

It was now lunch time and we were keen to try something different today. We saw this little restaurant amongst the shops. It was called Pac Pac... we'll give it the benefit of the doubt.

Plastic models of food in window... Check...

When we sat down... we instantly noticed there was something odd about the tables.. each one of them had a hot plate on them... Now that was a surprise!

The waiter took our order (Pork fried noodles and bacon okonomiyaki). To our surprise.. the waiter switched on the gas to the hotplate on our table... We were suddenly going to have Teppanyaki without even knowing it... I wasn't prepared for it... If he throws a raw egg at me today...

However, this was a simple Teppanyaki place and it was pretty much cooked for us on the plate without us needing to do anything. The waiter popped by every 5 minutes to touch up the meal and he let us know when it was ready for us to scoff down.

I've tried this dish in the past and it tasted too seafoody... This time around though, the Okonomiyaki was nice, fresh and full of flavour. It's changed my attitude towards this dish.

One we finished lunch, we tried to see if we can cover the strip in it's entirety (we needed to work off that lunch after all). Here's another Kimono shopfront with some beautiful Kimonos on display.

We were at an intersection and we saw a barber shop which looked like they cater for midgets judging by the size of the entrance/door.

The strip stretched on for AGES.

Until we finally made it to the other side! Mission accomplished (and dammit my appetite is returning again)

Here's what the other side of the market looked like... nothing much out there.

When we walked back, there was a little kiosk selling some deep fried stuff..

Jeez did this line grow in the last 5 minutes we passed it...

Soldering on to the station again.. we came across this ramen shop which sold MASSIVE servings of Ramen.

In front of our hotel was this NICE RX7... It's amazing that a car like this is about 17 years old yet it still looks as modern as the cars coming off the current production line.

In the evening, we did a bit of shopping in Osaka/Umeda. Osaka is a HUGE city.

There was a record store in this Cylindrical building I wanted to check out called Tower Records.

The reason I wanted to visit this record store was because of this album. It's a Japanese DJ who remixed a whole heap of songs I listened to in one of the clothing stores in Kyoto yesterday. I did a bit of googling last night and found the actual album I was hearing. I've tried about half a dozen CD stores today in an attempt to locate it without any luck.

Unfortunately Iwalked away from Tower Records empty handed as well.. I may need to place an order for this album online.

We spent a brief moment in the Hanshin Shopping Centre and left pretty much immediately as it was one of those premium department stores.

Standing at a distant footbridge, you can see how large Osaka station is (there's a Daimaru on top of the station.

In the distance on the same footbridge, you can see a large ferris wheel within a shopping centre. We may pay that place a visit tomorrow.

The Yodabashi is a MASSIVE shopping complex which is more electronics based and has a huge level for hobbies and collectables in the upper floors.

I wanted to get this Camera (Panasonic TZ7) - But due to the bad exchange rate, it's actually cheaper for me to buy it from home ($585AUD compared to the $700AUD in Japan under the current exchange rate).

Time is now about 8PM and it was dinner time... We were on the "SWEETS MUSEUM" on the 7th floor of the Yodabashi complex and decided to have a small dinner so that we could enjoy a dessert afterwards. There was nothing "small" up there aside from this tiny burger joint which tried to be a Mos Burger. It was called Big Man burgers... My dinner was calling me :)

I had a Bacon and Egg burger with chups.

Here's the dessert... Two sweet crepes... Ee opted for the Strawberries, cream with chocolate ice cream and I had the pineapple, peaches, cream and vanilla ice cream crepe. Awesome way to end the night :)

So that's it I guess... it's my last post in Japan for this trip... Hopefully they'll have pastries on the plane :)

15th April 2009 - Kyoto and Osaka (Noda)

2009-04-15T23:38:00.000+10:00

This morning the skies were very cloudy but at least the rain had stopped. It was breakfast time and we needed fuel to get us through yet another shopping expedition. Looking onto the main Shijo-Karasuma street from the entrance to our hotel... an immediate breakfast option sprung at us out of nowhere.

It looked promising from the outside.

They had a proper coffee machine too!

Seeing as we were going to get a proper coffee this morning... we may as well pick up some food as well. Ee Laine picked a muffin that was flavoured with green tea and red bean. It was surprisingly good (the super subtle taste of the green tea in the muffin complemented the coffee really well)!

I opted for the BLT (Bacon Lettus Tomato), but they included some egg in there for good measure. One thing I've noticed is that every sandwich place I've peeked into cut off all the crust from the sandwich itself. This one was no different. The lettuce was fresh and crispy... the bacon actually tasted like bacon for a change which was nice.

Here's my Mocha... with a clump of vanilla ice cream in it (could be the new way I ask my coffees to be made going forward LOL).

After breakfast, it was still too early and most of the shops in the main strip were still closed (a majority of them open business from 11am). We walked down the road to the Fuji Daimaru (which was open from 10ish) and blew some time in there. Again everything inside there was made out of 100% unobtainium. When the clock struck 11, we jumped out of Fuji Daimaru and back into the street market strip. This time we came across a store that was closed the previous night. It's called "Highlander" but the shopping bag that they issued had "SPINNS" on it. SPINNS is a chain of budget trendy fashionwear which has a portion of their store dedicated to good second hand garments and accessories. You could pick up a cool vest in there for 390Y (or about $5AUD).

Here's what the store looks like on the inside. There's two very large levels of stuff to go through.

I picked up something different here... A berret made out of denim, inclusive of the jean pocket on the top of the dome :) This Berret is the replacement one for the one I lost about 10 years ago.

Here's another section of that immense shopping strip.

This is the perimeter of the shopping strip... and there's plenty of shops here too. One of these stores specialised in antique artwork/paintings which we wanted to bring home to furnish our place... Unfortunately they cost a bomb (starting from $50AUD and going up to the thousands) and we didn't have any way of getting it home without damaging it in our luggage. We reluctantly had to give it a pass.

Before we knew it... Lunch time :)

We still had cravings for Omrice that last night's meal didn't satisfy so we were at it again... This time the place is called Rakeru and they are situated in the dead centre of the shopping strip.

You'll need to climb up 3 flights of stairs to access it... but it is definitely worth the effort (you'll need all the stairs you can walk up to burn your upcoming meal off). The fitout was heavily European influenced.

Here's my plate of Omrice with Chicken fillet in herbs. The Chicken was very very salty but wasn't too bad if you ate it with 2-3 mouthfuls of the rice & omlette.

Ee Laine's option included a soft bread roll with a heapload of butter (this appears to be one of their signature food items at this restaurant) as well as the other bits. Eventually during the course of the meal, the bread and the other bits ended up on my plate.. so that there was room for dessert for the person seated opposite me (not mentioning any names).

In comes the Chocolate Brownie Sundae.

We rolled down the stairs of Rakeru after our meal and hobbled around for a few more hours until we started making our way back to Osaka. On the train, we saw a little schoolboy with a cool vintage looking leather back pack. I wanted to rob him of it :)

"Here little boy... let me help you carry that heavy back for you as you get off the train"

- Kid hands me the bag

- I kick him off the train onto the platform

- Doors close

- Kid cries

- I have a cool bag

I didn't go through with it as I didn't have any additional days of annual leave to factor a 3-5 year holiday extension to cater for the jailtime.

Peak hour in Shin-Osaka station... It was very very difficult to get around dragging 30kg bags around the station... It was made even more challenging when 20% of the girls in Japan are incapable of walking in a straight line. These girls in front of us snaked between the bins on the left and the yellow tiles on the right. I wanted to kick them but again jailtime held me back.

Walking up and down the train platform took about 5 minutes... I needed a drink...

Surprisingly it tasted like carbonated Ribena (don't know why I was surprised at all).

In no time, we were back at Noda station (the original stop when we first landed in Japan a week and a bit ago). It was about 8pm and most of the shops in that little market next to our hotel had closed with the exception of a few restaurants. Dinner was now calling.

We walked into this hole in the wall restaurant with a small window displaying plastic versions of the food that they served. It didn't look like much but we were starving and so we settled on dining here tonight. I don't even know what this restaurant is called as there were no signs anywhere in the front of this restaurant (aside from the plastic food).

The restaurant was run by an old Japanese couple (I'm guessing they're in their sixties or seventies)

The decor was very snug and traditional with lanterns and paper everywhere.

Speaking of lanterns... these ones caught our eye. They were so simple yet so beautiful... These lanterns did a good job of creating a warm ambience in this tiny restaurant.

When Ee Laine got her Soba with Tempura Prawns and Vegetables... We both cheered... The serving size as well as the quality of the food was amazing. Ee Laine's dinner below was 1030Y (or about $14AUD) We have never tasted tempura that had a batter that was this crispy/crunch and tasty... I needed ear plugs to drown out the crunching from the other side of the table.

I laughed hard when I received my Katsudon... I'm used to a katsudon (the egg and pork cutlet) being on top of the rice and being served in a single bowl. This is ridiculous...

All the katsudon's I've ever experienced in Australia basically has white rice covered with soft fried eggs and a soggy pork cutlet on top. There is a brown "Katsu sauce" which is savoury and sweet (kind of like BBQ sauce) drabbed over the top of it. In tonight's version, there was no sauce. Instead, there was a different kind of concentrated soup (yes that's right.. they replaced the katsu sauce with a soup!) The soup itself was concentrated sweet and savoury... it acted as the flavour catalyst for the egg and pork. The soup penetrated the crispy skin of the pork cutlet and into the pork itself. Every bite of the pork is completely infused with flavour.

This was one of the finest Japanese meals I've ever had (this includes Tetsuyas BTW)... and all the above only set me back 980Y (or about $13.50AUD)

This is what I absolutely love about Japan... there are little surprises around almost every single corner which fill you with delight. Getting lost and having circumstances working against you to force you to try something different is just Japan's way of getting you to uncover treasures like this restaurant we found tonight.

The food filled our table as well as our growing waistlines tonight... I don't think I'll be eating breakfast tomorrow (but I may be wrong :) )

Another plus... The green tea was served in a cup which required TWO gulps to drink :)

14th April 2009 - Mazda Museum in Hiroshima and Kyoto

2009-04-15T01:16:00.000+10:00

This morning the heavens opened up and everything was absolutely drenched.

I did prepare myself through purchasing an ultra compact umbrella for 700Y a few days earlier. At least it kept my hair dry...

In Hiroshima, it's impossible to cross the major intersections as there are no traffic lights for the pedestrians to cross... What they have done instead was build a vast network of underground ramps and sections which enable you to cross the road underneath the streets whilst also gaining access to shops etc without getting wet during raining periods.

This morning's mission was to locate a place which served bacon/eggs... We strolled into the shopping mall attached to Hiroshima station - unfortunately it's called Asse.

Inside is a UCC cafe which served euro style brekkie.

The breakfast deals came with coffee (best perculated coffee we've experienced yet)...

As you can see... they were uber generous with the allocation of milk.

The bacon was the size of a 20c piece, egg was neither fried nor poached... The salad had a wierd dressing on it.. Bread was too buttery (even for me)... and the sausages tasted like rubber bands. Verdict.. Fail.

Ee opted for the cheese and ham toasted sandwich... At least the didn't mess that one up.

Afterwards we did some shopping and I picked up some more car magazines and Ee picked up the next volume of the Twilight series. Around 12:30, we made our way to the southern JR line to catch the train to Mukainada station (pronounced Moo-Kai-Na-Da) on platform number 5. Mukainada is just 4 minutes and 2 stops away from Hiroshima station.

When you step on the platform and into the trains, it seems like you've stepped back in time. Everything is old but I guess it gives it a really nice character. There's no LCD or tv screens within the train like the ones in Tokyo... so it's hard to know what stop is next unless you can read Japanese off the ageing map attached above the roof of the doors or if you can listen to the train operator through the muffled 60 year old speaker system.

On the way to Mukainada, you will go past Mazda Stadium... it seems this end of town is owned by Mazda.

This is what greets you when you step off at Mukainada station

Looking into the distance at the top of the overpass.. there doesn't seem like there's much going on around here.

When you step out of the exit, you veer to the right path straight ahead... and through that narrow alleyway is the main road where the Mazda museum is situated.

You're advised to call up a few months in advance to book a slot on this tour (which is free).. You just need to be available at the 1pm timeslot. Once you sign in, you can walk around the showroom... I spotted a YELLOW NC MX5... first time I've seen one in this colour.

you are then ushered into a bus. No pics were allowed on the way to the museum/manufacturing plant... We did pass a massive port as well as "the 2nd largest privately owned bridge by a corporation" which stretched 560m long.

Once we arrived to the facility (after a 10 minute bus ride), we were greeted with a few of their models...

We were then introduced to a brief Mazda history lesson. Mazda in her early years manufactured cork and tools... They diversified into motorcycles and the below was used extensively in farms and commercial applications.

The below is Mazda's first attempt at making a passenger vehicle... believe it or not this small car seats 4 (they didn't elaborate whether or not these 4 people were midgets)

A MINT example of what we know locally as an RX3.

Yet another vintage classic

This is the Cosmo... Mazda's first attempt at a sports car and was powered by their first generation Wankel/Rotary Motor. There were quite a few design cues borrowed from the Cosmo which were carried over to the first generation Roadster/MX5 pictured next to it.

Here it is... I've finally found the world's CLEANEST and FINEST example of a NA6 MX5 (it's only got 14km on the odometer).

I wouldn't mind one of these in my garage :)

A showroom pony FD3S. The most beautiful stock sports car Japan has ever made. Period.

The next room was dedicated to this legend. The ACTUAL car Mazda won the Lemans 24 Hour race in. The engine has been separated from the car so that it can be viewed by drooling onlookers. This engine is a 4 rotor monster that drinks a litre of fuel to cover a distance of 2km (that's right... TWO kilometers).

The wheels on this car are 14" wide.

Ridiculous dishy rims manufactured by RAYS.

I've always had a soft spot for one of these since I saw them online a few years ago... I finally got to see how it looks in real life... I don't think I can fit in one! Mazda AZ-1 (there are a few floating around in Australia)

Next was the start to finish in the processes that the Mazda designers go through to develop a car (which apparently takes about 4 years for a model). The first step is sketching and claying a miniature model to base a design off

Then a 1:1 scale model is built (hobby collectors will have problems sneaking this one out of the factory in their pocket). Yes.. the below is completely made out of clay and paint.

Then another model is made of the shell with an empty interior so that the interior designers can work on the dimensions/internals of the interior.

This room lists all the separate components used in the RX8.

Here's a crash test RX8 at 50km/h into a wall... I wouldn't speed in this thing...

Here's what the rotary looks like straight out of a metal cast...

Here's the completed/machined rotor ready for installation.

The robots & machinery press the sheets of metal through moulds to create the aluminium panels... The below is the entire shell which has been completely put together by machines and robots. It is now ready for painting.

The manual assembly of the interior involves the following components.

After seeing the above processes in making a RX8, we walked into the actual manufacturing facility. I was like Charlie in Willie Wonka's Chocolate factory. It was amazing inside there (unfortunately I couldn't take any pics inside). It is a worthwhile experience if you have the capacity to do it.

Below are some concept cars on the other end of the tour. This is a hybrid car that runs on both petroleum and hydrogen.

Here's the Hybrid RX8 which is a Hydrogen or Petroleum powered Rotary vehicle.

How it works... The hydrogen tank (large cylinder on the left) looks dangerous.

Here's some snaps of one of their more recent concept cars.. the Ryuga

We then made it back to the main showroom at the entrance to the Mazda museum. Here's the new Mazda 3 (known locally in Japan as the Axela)

Kitted out with Mazdaspeed seats

Looks like we may be upgrading from our MX5 to the new one soon...

Straight after we left the Mazda Museum, we rushed back to the hotel in Hiroshima, grabbed our luggage and then ran back to the station to catch our Bullet Train to Kyoto.. We were only given 25 minutes to do all this once we left the Mazda Museum and we made it with 30 seconds to spare.

When we got to Kyoto, it was wet there too!

After we dropped off our bags... we headed straight to the market that we visited a few years go... as the shopping there was awesome.

We came across this store where I purchased a jacket and bag.

Stumbling around a few more hours.. we needed dinner and decided to try the "Om Rice" suggested by good old Addy in the previous post. We settled on dining at the Lipton teahouse (they also had a large selection of desserts there as well which aided in our decision)

Here's what my Om-Rice looked like.

Beneath, the Omelette was filled with fried tomato rice.

Ee ordered the carbonara - they put on the parmesan without asking whether or not we take it... Our table smelled like feet for a while.

Strawberry tart for dessert :)

We visited a few neighbouring stores to the Lipton restaurant and came across this one store that sold traditional hand fans. These fans ranged from $30AUD to about $500AUD

It was getting late and all the stores were closing up so we started heading back to our hotel. Then we came across this mega parfait... We may be giving it a go tomorrow :)

13th April 2009 - Hiroshima

2009-04-13T23:56:00.000+10:00

Today was a special day... I've wanted to visit Hiroshima for a long long time and it was finally happening today!

We tried to get something different this morning for brekkie and headed off to Maccas (we really felt like a bacon & egg muffin).

When we got there, the only muffin they had included bacon, egg, cheese, and 2 sausage patties. That was a bit too much (even for me) so we continued our trek for munchies. As we walked around further, we realised that the morning was full of inappropriate breakfast food... It was 9am and it was way too early for ramen. We were then greeted with Starbucks and I realised I haven't had a sip of coffee for over a week. That needed to be addressed... STAT!

I downed a grande mocha from Starbucks... Normally the coffee there tastes like rubbish but I guess I've missed the coffee so much that it actually tasted fine. It seems all the foreigners in Hakata congregated at this Starbucks (this was by far the largest gathering of white folk I've seen since Osaka airport)

One thing you'll notice about Japan is the amount of vending machines around each corner. You'll never go thirsty (if you've got coins in your pocket). You can get a 500ml bottle of mineral water for 110Y (about $1.50AUD) at some "non branded" vending machines... However if you go to a "Coke" vending machine, the prices of the drinks are slightly dearer (same bottle of water will cost 150Y).

We still needed brekkie... In comes the bakery. There's a buddhist saying "excess is suffering" and boy was I getting sick of bakery food... This time the main bakery at Hakata station had less on offer... the place was called Trandor.

Our selections this morning... Ham, cheese and onion. The ham actually resembled spam andd was quite salty.

This was a bacon, egg and curry roll (the curry hit us with surprise as we didn't expect that)

The time had come for us to hop ontot he bullet trailn bound for Hiroshima. This is the Hikari Rail Star Super Express.

The ride lasted about 1 hour from Hakata to Hiroshima station. When we stepped out of the North exit, we could see our hotel in the distance (it's the one with the white sign) It as a 3 minute walk from the station and we had to go through a protest rally (I had no idea what their cause was - they looked like labourers so it's possible they had lost their jobs)

In front of our hotel was a people mover that resembled a space ship

In the distance on top of the hill near the entrance to our hotel was a large cemetary.

This is Hiroshima station... I didn't realise how huge the station was until we returned back from our hotel.

The next stop was the Hiroshima Memorial Park and we had to go back through the Hiroshima terminal to get to the south exit. The south exit had trams (they call them street cars over here) which takes you directly to the Hiroshima Memorial Park.

The 15 minute journey costs a flat rate of 150Y per person. As you can see below, Hiroshima is a LOT less crowded than Tokyo. The pace here is so much slower and relaxed... In fact, the locals here seem to adopt the principle "I'll get there when I get there" which meant that I was able to keep up with the cyclists on foot.

This is the coin machine located next to the driver, you drop your 150Y fare into the white box at the top of the machine. If you don't have the right change, this is a change machine as well.... you just issue the 1000Y note into the note feeder and coins drop out of the bottom. The driver does not manage money whatsoever so that they can focus on driving. GENIUS!

When we got off at the 10th stop (M10)... We were greeted with the A-bomb dome. This building (or what's left of it) is now a heritage listed building. This building was so eery... even the rubble inside the ruins seems to have been untouched since that August morning in 1945.

One of the many small memorials around this park

This photo on one of the boards next to the A-Bomb dome took my breath away. The devastation the bomb created was immense. Just looking at the picture below... you can see there was absolutely no escape.

As this building is heritage listed, the Japanese government now intend to preserve the building as it is forever. There have been 2-3 major restoration projects on this site over the past 65 years and this steel reinforcement brace was completed during one of those restoration phases.

Here's the canal that runs through Hiroshima

More memorial shrines

This is what the A-bomb dome looked like prior to the bombing

This is the Children's Peace Monument. This statue is surrounded with little cubicles with what looks like pieces of fabric from afar.

I remember when I was in primary school of a story involving a Japanese girl who had survived the A-Bomb (was not in the immediate impact zone) but developed Leukemia when she was 10 years old (she was 2 at the time of the bombing). She tried to fold 1000 paper cranes when she was in hospital as it was supposed to grant her a wish. She got to 700-800 before she passed away. Her classmates completed her work by making the other paper cranes.

Below is a close up shot of a girl holding a big paper crane, I'm guessing that statue is the girl from the story.

After taking the above picture, I looked to see what was inside each of those glass cases surrounding this statue. There were thousands of paper cranes from school children across the globe. There is a registry here at the Hiroshima memorial for schools/groups who contribute to the paper crane donation. Some of the work here from children is amazing.

Submission from down under :)

Here is the flame of peace, it is set in front of the Hiroshima Memorial Museum that is visible in the background.

Entry into the Hiroshima Memorial Museum is 100Y. I was amazed at the size of this exhibit. I was expecting a few pictures and photographs.. but there was so much more to see than I expected.

August 6th 1945, this is the day that changed this city.

Here is a watch from a civilian... it seems the a-bomb impact froze the inner mechanisms in the watch so it had stopped working at the moment of impact.

Here is a letter from Albert Einstein urging President Roosevelt to authorise research to create an Atomic Bomb.

A scientific probe used to measure the impact of the atomic bomb (specifically the heat and air pressure when the bomb is detonated). This probe is delivered via a cloth parachute and radio's back the readings to a hovering US aircraft.

Various official correspondence from parties within the US Government discussing likely targets for the dropping of the first A-Bomb.

A huge panoramic image spanning an entire wall encapsulated Hiroshima in the hours after the bombing.

On the ground level of this memorial museum were two huge scaled models of Hiroshima city... both before and after the bomb was dropped.

There was also a large image of one of the first photos on the ground from a Japanese reporter immediately after the bombing.

"I fought myself for 30 minutes before I could take the first picture. After taking the first, I grew strangely calm and wanted to get closer. I took about ten steps forward and tried to stap another, but the scenes I saw were so gruesome my fiewfinder clouded with tears." - Yoshito Matsuhige

When you walk upstairs, there are some more interesting models and actual bits of Hiroshima that have been removed from their original home to be immortalised in the museum.

Here's a replica of the A-Bomb that was dropped... It's the size of a volkswagen polo (3.5m Long and weights 4 Tonnes)

This was pretty gruesome... The deep scarring marks in this CONCRETE wall was from the impacts of fragmented glass which flew through the air at such velocity that it left marks a few cm deep in concrete. Can you imagine what these bits of flying glass would have done to human flesh?

Here's a child's tricycle... not sure if the child was on the bike at the time of the explosion.

There were also a whole heap of videos and images of actual injuries sustained to the people during the blast. I didn't manage to take any pics of them as I was too taken by the graphic nature of the injuries they endured.

Walking back outside, we started making our way to Hiroshima Castle. We passed this one final memorial piece in the park.. the Peace Bell.

On the way there, we saw a parking station for bicycles.

Here's some snaps of the Hiroshima Castle and it's moat…we didn't end up going into the castle itself (had to squeeze some shopping in)

I've eaten from Bento Boxes bigger than this car...

We didn't think Hiroshima had any large shopping malls and were looking forward to shopping in smaller stores... We were wrong. This is the Sogo Supermall...

Again, Sogo was one of those premium outlets which were well beyond our budget... attached to it was a smaller mall called Aq'a which catered for the stuff that we were after.

It was 4pm by now and we haven't had lunch yet so we headed straight to the basement level (which is where most food places are located within shopping malls). Ee Laine opted for a prawn salad, I bought a fried egg thing on something I thought was turnip/taro (but turned out to be a seafood/cabbage mixture that tasted like an oversized fishball), as well as some Chicken karage (deep fried chicken)

Food was meh (especially the seafood patty of death - it was so rich and tasted too seafoody.. I think it's meant to be split up to feed a family of 8)

Here's Ee at a typical clothing store for Japanese teen girls... The "in" thing in Japan right now is layered t-shirts with suspenders... We've seen this EVERYWHERE. The thing is, you can't purchase the suspenders on their own so that you can have this look from your existing clothing collection. The suspenders are sold as a complete set involving an additional 2-3 garments.

On the top floor of the Aq'a mall, there's a massive book shop with an impressive collection of magazines.

In the car magazine section, they sold limited edition collectable toys authorised by the local car companies. Here is one of the Fairlady Z 2+2 (280Z in Australian speak).

I picked up a few GTR magazines :)

When we finally made it out of the Aq'a shopping mall, we walked down the main strip (about 50m) and we were then greeted with this MASSIVE shopping alley called Hondori St. This stretched for about 500m and connected another 5 or so shopping centres. We were not expecting Hiroshima to have such a massive shopping precinct. Hondori St was lined with independent stores selling more unique clothing (at a much more reasonable price... t-shirts here start from 1900Y or about $30AUD, and jeans from about 7000Y/$100AUD))

In one of the chemists, we spotted the engrish sentence of the day

We also ventured into a 100Y shop where EVERYTHING in there is 100Y -

I bought this little pocket calculator as I was through converting Y to AUD in my head (and getting it spectacularly wrong).

A few stores down was a toy store which had a lot of cool stuff...

I was pondering this, a GTR set including the current shape and the boxy version from the 70s.

Instead I got these for 300Y a pop

By the time the stores started closing down at 8pm, we were both smashed to buggery. We picked up the following gourmet dinner from the 100Y shop and ate ourselves silly. We had an early night as we had a big day planned (visiting the Mazda Museum)

12th April 2009 - Hakata, Canal City and Fukuoka

2009-04-12T22:03:00.001+10:00

We were counting on today to be much more laid back compared to what we encountered in Japan. Fail. I should have known what I was in for when I suddenly realised I was playing pictionary with the hotel receptionist when I asked her how best to get to Canal City from our hotel (she couldn't speak english).

Hopefully my directions will help any fellow travellers with locating this venue from Hakata station.

So firstly you need to make your way to the Northern End of the Hakata JR terminal (it is VERY handy to have a compass with you at all times as you will most certainly lose your bearings at some point as most of the buildings look the same after a while). When you walk into the bus terminal, you'd need to go to gate number 4, which is about 20-30m from the entrance of this Bus Depot.

You don't need to purchase a ticket from any of the machines. When you enter the bus through the rear door, you just need to pluck out one of these tickets from the machine.

When you arrive to the second bus stop, that's when you get off the bus (directly in front of the 7/11 convenience store)... Walk to the front of the bus and drop a 100Y coin into the little container next to the bus driver.. exchange bows/smiles and hop off the bus. You then walk down the road a few meters (in the same direction as the bus) until you see the Canal and the buildings either side of it. In no time you'll spot Canal City (it'll be pretty hard not to)... If you're getting lost... just follow your nose and walk towards the stinky scent of an open sewer (that would be the Canal)

Once you're near the Canal, it's a cool sight but not so for the nose. I'd imagine this place would reek during summer time. To my surprise, there were living creatures in the Canal (small fishes) so I guess the water down there isn't too bad (I couldn't count how many eyes these fishes had though)

In no time, you reach one of the 3 towers that make up Canal City... This place is HUGE!

Here's the central Tower of the 3 interconnecting towers.

When we finally made our way through to the basement of this complex, the main strip was built on either side of the man made canal that flowed through the centre of Canal City.

There were numerous banners/flags hung throughout the building which was promoting the Spring Festival... One of the main attractions was some intricate flower sculptures. Here's the Panda (next to it was a billboard for World Wide Fund for Nature)

Here's a baboon (for a moment there I couldnt tell the arse from the face)

An Elephant

The Lion King stage performance was on show at the Canal City and there were a few promotional floral sculture pieces of some key characters in the show on display - Hakuna Matata baby!

And finally a polar bear (it was also the main performance stage for a number of acts throughout the day - I'll cover that later)

Inside one of the restaurants was a cool clear grand piano in the bar area

Breakfast time and our Pastry Tour of Japan continues (thanks Kev :) ) - This time we stopped by a promising bakery which also sold cookware and miscellaneous tidbits including t-shirts, coffee mugs and fridge magnets. They should have been alarm bells but I wasn't paying attention.

This is one of the 3 items we purchased from this bakery/cafe. It was a ham/spinach/mayonnaise combo in a dense croissant-like pastry. The mayo actually tasted like lard and the central layers of pastry underneath the crispy skin was dense and too chewy. I'd rate this a 4/10.

Then came the sausage/cheese/onion roll below. Choice number 2 also failed. The sausage was cold (which is totally gross) and the bread was also cold and chewy. 3/10 for this sausage bun of evil (I hope I don't get sick as a result of eating it).

Choice number 3 was Ee Laine's... Bacon/Onion/Cheese Loaf... It was done VERY well and may well have been the saviour of this bakery. Ee Laine gives it a 6.5/10 (yep.. she's a harsh critic too!)

After washing the dough down with some bottled water, we shopped around for another hour or so until we heard some music and laughter/cheering... There was a guy at the bottom level doing tricks on a bicycle against a backdrop of retro western music (which included Ricky Martin). This guy managed to cycle round and round in circles (cm from the edge of the water) without the use of his hands (he was standing on the handlebars at the time) - Later, he did it again whilst juggling 3 juggling pins. I wonder how many bones/testicles he's broken over the years to perfect this performance.

Continuing on with our shopping, we came across an optical/spectacle store called Zoff. They were selling complete single vision spectacles for 5200Y (about $70AUD). Ee Laine FINALLY found a pair of plastic frames which fit her asian face.

The asian face syndrome (about 99.9% of the asian population is affected by this) is symptomatic of not having a european nosebridge. The end result is that a majority of frames on the market today (which are designed by the europeans) do not fit properly on asian faces. The frames often touch the cheeks of the asian wearer... That is until we discovered this bit of GENIUS... BEHOLD... the latest in Japanese eyewear fashion (well I'm assuming it's a recent thing).

The way they get around this problem is to extend the size of the plastic nosebridge to cater for the Asian masses. GENIUS! Also, because we wanted to get the frames on their own at the shop, the nice storekeeper knocked 1000Y off the price of the frames which brought it down to 4200Y.

Few more hours of shopping and we needed to have lunch... I was getting homesick (ie code for me needing a break from ramen/katsudon and PASTRIES) - Enter the Colonel.

Ee Laine ordered a fried Salmon roll with tartare sauce and onion. When we opened up the paper packaging, we discovered that we get larger fish fingers back home.

Being the designated fatty in this tour group of two... I opted for the "Big Box" meal with an additional piece of "Fried Chicken with Japanese Seasoning"

The burger itself was about half the size of a McDonalds Cheeseburger back in Aussie land (now THAT's small). Then came the piece of original recipe drumstick. The drumstick itself was dry and there was something missing in the recipe. It just doesn't taste as good as it does back home... it was as if it was missing one of the secret herbs and spices (funnily enough, Nova 969 were trying to figure out what the secret ingredients were just before I left for Japan last week).

Before we knew it, we had covered the entire Canal City (took us about 5 hours to get across the 3 towers, 6 levels in each tower) - We had a brief break at the Canal where I took this pic (looked like I had run a marathon)

We decided to walk across the bridge into unchartered territory to see what was beyond the Canal of stink. A dark saloon drove past... I'm pretty sure it's full of underworld figures.

After about 2km, we found another Daimaru.. but this time we didn't go inside (I couldn't squeeze in another pastry from their basement of buttery goodness - nor could I afford the 5 figure yen starting value for any item within that building)

So we walked through it to see what was on the other side...

ANOTHER SHOPPING MALL!!!!

The shopping mall in the distance (called Vivre - not sure where that's from or if it was a typo at the time when they sent the plans to the neon sign makers). Within this mall is about another 8-9 levels of fashion retail. Except this time the pricing of the clothing is a lot less reasonable (about $200AUD for a jacket rather than the starting price of $400-$500 from the other premium stores we've been visiting over the past few days).

Ee finally spotted a jacket that she liked and we proceeded with the purchase... the shop said that they accepted Mastercard or Visa but my cards were declined for some reason (even though I've specifically walked into my bank and alerted them that I was travelling to Japan over these few weeks). I used a large portion of my Yen on this purchase and needed more...

After treking about 8km and trying 8 different ATMs, I finally made a breakthrough... Citibank... You are my saviour!

What I thought was strange when I asked the info desks at various places (shopping malls, info booths at bus and train stations) for an ATM, they asked "which bank"? It seems that you can only withdraw money from a certain bank if you have money with THEM. I don't believe their banks are interlinked but I could be wrong. The key was to locate the Cirrus/Maestro sticker on the ATM terminal - I found that out the hardway... I should have worked off that miniscule KFC Burger by now.

We headed back to Vivre to cover the upper levels that we missed during our ATM expedition and came across this little gem in the top floor of the Vivre shopping mall. It's called Hanjiro and the pricing of the goods in here was UBER reasonable. This store takes up the entire top level.

The garments and accessories here are either samples, runout stock or second hand (but in great condition). I picked up the following LEATHER belt for 290Y (about $4AUD)

We were pretty knackered at this stage (we've pretty much been shopping non stop for about 10 hours) and tried our hardest to see ONE more mall on the strip... Mitsukoshi.

Once we stepped inside, we realised it was like another Daimaru (LV, Chanel, Bvlgari etc greeted us) and we knew the goods in there were too rich for my blood (particularly if I can't use my credit card).

Defeated, we started crawling our way back to Canal city for a quick bite to eat before heading back to our hotel. Then I saw this baby glide past me. It's the new Nissan Fairlady 370Z. I believe it looks sooooo much better than the 350Z in real life.. I wasn't a fan of the new "Arrow" front/tail lights but it grew on me. It was a pity that this beauty was stuck in traffic... I would have loved to hear it rip down the stretch.

Alongside the Canal, these little kiosks popped out of nowhere (I was certain they weren't there a few hours ago). They sold hawker style Japanese food... prices looked really reasonable ($3-$5 AUD for a feed) but I was wasn't so concerned as to what they're leaving out to have their prices so low... it was more about what they were putting into the food to reduce the prices so significantly. I said no to food poisoning and possible hospitalisation and kept on walking.

When we got to Canal City again, we settled on this place... Don't know what it's called as there were no English writing anywhere in this restaurant. However, there was a small sign that stated in English that there was a 10% discount offered to tourists to dine there - provided you can submit a passport as proof. SCORE!

We placed our order and requested for 2 x hot green tea servings. They gave me the smallest cups I've ever drank from in my life.

In fact, the waitress had to refill my cup so often that she should have just brought a stool and set up camp next to me. Each cupful was about 1 gulp.

Here was my dinner... Yes it looks familiar... I ate the same thing last night - almost (as you can see, I am the adventurous type)... It was a pork cutlet battered and deep fried with katsu sauce, served with spinach mixed with ground peanuts, bamboo shoots, pickles, thick miso soup and a small side dessert of mochi with ground nuts. Verdict: This is possibly the best Katsu rice I've ever had. The cook has gone to great lengths to ensure that this was perfect. The cut of pork they had used was not too fatty and not too lean (if it was too lean, the meat would dry out and be chewy/stringy like jerky). The batter was crunchy/crispy, and a metal meshed platform was underneath the katsu to ensure that the oil does not collect at the bottom of the cutlet and make the base soggy. GENIUS! Complimented with all the other side dishes, this was a very luxurious take on what I'd consider to be Japanese fast food... A perfect 10 goes to the chef on this one.

Ee Laine's choice included all the same side dishes as my selection with her main being the teriyaki chicken. However, there was not enough chicken given and there was too much skin. The skin was soggy (should be grilled and crispy) and the sauce seemed like it was poured over the top when it should have been simmering with the chicken. A 3/10 was given as a verdict.

Fully bloated, we decided to walk back to our hotel from Canal City rather than taking the bus and it took us about half an hour. My feet are ready to fall off tonight.

11th April 2009 - Tokyo to Hakata

2009-04-12T00:24:00.000+10:00

Today's blog is going to be short (compared to yesterdays standards)..

We're going to be travelling on bullet trains today from Tokyo to the south of Japan for about 9 hours which means we're going to blow most of the day in transit.

But that didn't stop us from squeezing in some goodies in Tokyo before our marathon transit!

Firstly, I took a pic of Otsuka station as it is today.. chances are I'm going to come back here the next time I visit Tokyo and I figured I should have a "then" and "now" shot prepared for the future.

Here's an instance of a major change at Otsuka station... When I last stayed here 3 years ago, there were no escalators or lifts.. just a long stairway from the street level to the JR rail platform. This posed a massive challenge for me as I had to carry a backpack (roughly 15kg at the time), 2 x large luggage bags (about 25kg each) and my camera gear. I almost had a cardiac arrest by the time I reached the top of the staircase... so the below picture was a huge relief for me this time around!

I was expecting a ghost town at Tokyo station today (it is 10am Saturday afterall)... I was wrong...

We made the executive decision to pay a visit to Damaru again and this time we wouldn't leave empty handed! I managed to get a better look at what the people in my previous post were lining up for.. they looked like layer cakes cooked on a spit... For a queue this long (even on a Saturday) this must be worth lining up for... Pity we had a bullet train to catch as I would have LOVED to see what the fuss is about.

Ee Laine made her choice of dessert from this selection:

It took the person behind the counter a good 5 minutes packaging and boxing the cake... I mean seriously dude.. we just wanted to munch on it then and there... He even put an Ice bag on it to keep the cake at a perfect temperature up until the moment you put it into your mouth... As he went through all that trouble.. we had to wait until later to scoff it down (I could have ripped the packaging apart in front of him - caveman style - but Japan is a civil society and it would have been slightly inappropriate to do so).

Here is the said packaging with ice pack.

My choice was made with the below choices...

After waiting a good hour after purchase, and seated comfortably in the large Shinkansen seats... we opened the icy treasure chest to reveal the goodies we bought at Daimaru

For the price we paid for the desserts (500Y for the Strawberry Cake and 300Y for the Fruit Tart) - they were by far the best desserts money could buy (with the exception of that liquid strawberry cheesecake from Tetsuyas - but you'd need to eat a whole heap of seafood and kiss half a week's salary goodbye to to have it). These two scored a perfect 10 in my books.

8 hours after departing Tokyo station and covering vast distances of Japan via 2 bullet trains, we finally reached our destination for the evening... Hakata Station.

As we were finding our bearings to figure out where our hotel was located, this little rice box drifted past me.

After dropping off our gear, we went hunting for food.. we haven't eaten a proper meal (aside from those yummy desserts) for the whole day and I was in a pretty grumpy mood for it. This was one of (if not the ONLY) mall near Hakata station which had a decent selection of food.

We (rather Ee laine) didn't feel like Mos Burger again so we settled on a non English speaking joint in this establishment.

This little restaurant was very cosy inside... the pace here is a lot slower and less hectic than what we had experienced in Japan.. Still the food came out in less than 4 minutes from the placement of order.

My choice for the evening was the Pork Katsudon - tasted fairly standard (I'm getting quite picky with Japanese food now)

Ee settled for the Pork Katsu/Prawn Tempura combo with rice and Udon... The funny thing is that this is the first instance that Ee Laine has ordered MORE food than I have in one sitting yet I was the grumpy mofo as a result of starvation.

The exciting conclusion to my evening included an early night back at the hotel (all the shops here closed at 8pm - LAME!) - Decided to use the coin operated laundromat/dryer... there's another 1.5 hours of my life I'll never get back... Today was definitely a writeoff... hopefully tomorrow's visit to the Canal City will be way more interesting!

10th April 2009 - All over Tokyo

2009-04-11T22:29:00.000+10:00

This morning we decided to head off to Ueno to visit one of Tokyo City's major parks. We stopped off at Ueno station where we were greeted with the sweet buttery scent of fresh bakeries crafting their arts. The main bakery at Ueno station was Andersons and yes the choices they had there were pretty vast...

The below were our selections at Andersons... a sourdough roll with melted cheese and herb, a potato roll (we didn't know it was potato at the time... SURPRISE!) and an Almond and Custard danish. The verdict? The Danish was by far the best danish we've ever had... hands down. The pastry was tasty, crispy yet fluffy and light... Hard to explain but it is definitely worth trying if you happen to be in Ueno station for some reason.

After getting lost in the labrynth of underground tunnels, we finally made our way to Ueno Park... We were disappointed to be about a week or two too late to view the cherry blossoms in this park in their full glory but it was still nice.

Here's a pic of a really nice baby maple tree like one we have back at Ee Laine's parents place.
And some more pics of varous areas of the park

For some reason there's a massive whale in the middle of nowhere.

There was an exhibit at the Museum of Western Art which featured some works from the Louvre but we didn't have the time to see it.

At the traffic light across from the museum, we uncovered yet another moment of awe... A traffic light that tells pedestrians how long they have to wait before it's their turn... An0 upside down pyramid is used to indicate the time left until the lights change. GENIUS!

After we finished with the park, we made our way to Akihabara (also known as Electric Town). This suburb is full of Electronics and hobby/comic superstores that take up 10-15 levels of a towering skyscraper.

It really is a paradise which appeals to the boy within each man (as you won't see actual boys in this town - most of the people in the comic book shops are aged 20+)

At the base of one of these towers was a small grocery store.. Both Ee Laine and I were in awe of the quality of their produce. I mean I've been told that Australia has some of the best produce in the world and I've believed that for as long as I can remember. All that goes out the window when you see this:

These Strawberries didn't have a BLEMISH... They were identically sized.. and they were PERFECT. In fact, they were so perfect that they heavily discounted (50% off) one box which had ONE slightly bruised Strawberry in the punnet. A punnet of these strawberries would set you back 400Y or about $5.50 AUD

Next stop was Tokyo Station... We've rushed past this station previously because it was just too busy for us to walk around here during our previous trip. At the exit of the subway was the basement of a boutique shopping centre which had a selection of premium Japanese desserts and sweets (known locally as Mochi - They are glutonous balls with sweet centres made out of beans)

Just when we thought we'd seen an impressive collection of desserts... We were in awe of this collection from a neighbouring shopping centre called Daimaru:

There was a MASSIVE queue at the entrance for one of the kiosks which sold layer cakes.
We didn't get a good look at the store as it was too busy at the time but we were able to cover the rest of the store dedicated to overdose your sweet tooth (this section was about the size of a football field).

We then made our way back to Shibuya as we hadn't covered the other 2 corners on that 4 corner strip the night before.

Here's what that crazy intersection looks like during the day (still a stupid amount of people during off peak periods) That tower in the distance is Shibuya 109 which is probably THE fashion precinct for young women... There were 13 floors of contemporary ladies fashion and it was a bit too trendy for us conservative Aussie folk. The fashion in that building makes us Aussies look like we're dressed from a wardrobe belonging to the middle ages.

Unfortunately I was too distracted to take pics inside the complex... but boys.. if you want to leave your GF somewhere whilst you go exploring on your own.. this building is the spot for you! We lost about 4 hours in there without knowing it.

The final stop of the day was Harajuku which is the punk/goth capital of Japan. The main strip has a whole heap of wierd and wonderful garments and some are priced quite reasonably in this stretch (I picked up a jacket here for 5000Y which equates to about $70AUD).

Before we knew it, it was night time and there was a building which caught my eye.. The Audi dealership:

We walked into one of the shops in the premium end of Harajuku and the garments could feed a small African nation for a year (There was a "nice" jacket in there for about $5000AUD)

Before we headed back to our hotel in Otsuka, we stopped by an Italian Restaurant in Harajuku for dinner (it was about 8:30pm by now) to see how their Italian food rated. This restaurant was called La Pausa and it had a pretty tacky Italian decore.

We ordered the prawn spaghetti with pink cream sauce as well as a pepperoni pizza.

The Spaghetti was too raw and undercooked (almost crunchy) but the prawns were nice. The sauce was slightly too bland for my liking so as an overall I'd give them 5/10 for their efforts.
The pizza on the other hand was a different story. It was a wood fired pizza and the portion was quite generous. The base was super thin yet very very crunchy/crispy. Surprisingly, even though they used pepperoni, there was no excess oil (as you'd expect from a pepperoni pizza) so the base retained it's consistency and did not get soggy or chewy. It is a big call but I'd say it was one of the best Pepperoni pizzas I've had... ever.

9th April 2009 - Osaka to Tokyo

2009-04-09T23:36:00.000+10:00

I tried sleeping in today but my damn body clock set off it's alarm at 6:01 am (the usual time I wake up)... So I turned on the tele to watch some more Japanese TV, this morning I caught their version of Sunrise/Morning Show and yes... it was bizaare.

One of the things they mentioned on the show was this miracle tight pant that had a number of springs in them.. And they had versions for both men and women! If you're having trouble fitting into a pair of skinny jeans, simply wearing these tights would be the equivalent to losing 5kgs or 8.5cm off your waist (of course they had the photos to prove it). For only three payments of 4900 Yen, you could acquire one of these miracle tights... but I declined as a set of complimentary steak knives were not on offer.

So we got downstairs and had the "complimentary breakfast" which was a selection of two types of bread... one of which was a croissant.

Ee Laine and I decided to have a leisurely stroll around our hotel as we had to catch a Bullet Train (also known as Shinkansen) to Tokyo in about an hours time.

Instead of turning right in front of the hotel which would have directed us back to Mos Burger... we took a left this morning and uncovered a vast marketplace 5m from the entrance to our hotel. The streets were lined with tiny businesses (most shopfronts were 3m x 5m in size).

There were pet stores, stationary shops, hand bags... you name it and it was there.
There were already kiosks opening with deep fried crumbed animal bits (this was at 9am in the morning mind you) and even I thought it was a bit much to eat this gear for breakfast.
We walked a straight line as we didn't want to get lost in the maze, we did have a train to catch and the chances are that we can't count on a bullet train being late. When we did make it to the other end... I discovered a long lost friend :)

Standing across the road from the street market, we uncovered the name of the marketplace - Shimbashi Street Market

We Kept trudging along and stepped into the Jusco Shopping Complex... this place was pretty big but I'm sure I'll be seeing some titanic shopping centres over the coming days.
Snack time (yes we ate about 30 minutes earlier but food is the universal language and we intend to be quite fluent in it :) ) At the entrance was valet parking but not of the normal sort you'd expect:

Ee got a fruit salad from the mall and I picked up this drink:

From the extensive soft drink selection

My god is this drink is awesome... it was like a peach explosion in my mouth, I'd rate it a 8.5/10.

Time was winding down and we needed to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and commence our trek to Tokyo via the bullet train... but we had to stop by one of the bakeries in Shimbashi Market that we had passed earlier for a bite... This place was called "Tour de France" - for some reason, it seems the Japanese are absolutely smitten with French culture/cuisine and there are heaps of French influenced bakeries around each corner.

This was my booty from the visit to that little bakery... Sausage, cheese, sauce and crispy croissant skin... DROOL

Oh, before I go on any further I must point out my "what the hell?" moment of the day - I'll let the below speak for itself.

Just looking outside the bullet train as I type this blog entry is giving me a headache... we must be travelling between 250-300km/h right now and the world outside is a blurr. Below is a pic I took of our ride before we hopped on.

Mount Fuji sped past our window and this was the clearest image I got with my camera *boo*

After about 3 hours on the bullet train, we finally reached Tokyo. We got to our hotel at 3:55pm and finalised payment/paperwork for the room. Time was now 3:58pm... check in is at 4pm.

Have you guys ever watched "Meet the Fockers" where Ben Stiller is at the airport at the end of the movie and was the only one in the terminal... and the air hostess won't let him on the plane as it wasn't his turn? I had that moment live today and I almost lost it.

So.. I grabbed my gear, walked 3m away and sat down. Twiddling my thumbs on the table staring at her. 3 minutes pass by and she then hands me the keys... This incident replaced my original "What the Hell?" of the day.

After dropping off our luggage into our room at 4:01pm, we made our way to Ikebukuro which is the neighbouring suburb to our hotel.. I was interested in scoping a camera and I made a deal with Ee Laine that she can go wherever she wants after I check out this Electronics superstore known as Biccamera... This shop was 7 complete levels of awesomeness (excluding the huge basement with all the camera gear)... At the end, there was no worthwhile purchase there as the Yen was just too strong... it would be cheaper if I bought my camera from Australia which was profoundly disappointing.

Then it came to my turn to fulfill my end of the bargain... we walked into Seibu and it was basically 9 complete levels of awesomeness if you're a lady...

If you can picture an area the size of a football field dedicated to stilletos/high heeled shoes priced at a weeks salary.. you're in hell if you're a bloke or heaven if you're a lady (or a bloke who's into this kind of stuff) Just when the damage seemed over, the next level was dedicated to handbags...

After crawling out of Seibu, we made our way to Shibuya and got lost in the labrynth of shops and neon signs... The below foot traffic at possibly the biggest intersection in the world is quite something to behold... The volume of people you see below is constant and makes you wonder where they all came from and where they're going.

Distractions got the better of us and we ended up forgetting to eat dinner (was about 9pm when we realised this) and we decided to eat at the nearest/nicest looking Japanese restaurant. This restaurant popped up:

It seemed quite busy and the ordering is a piece of cake. I LOVE this system where a vending machine is used to take your order! It takes away the pain of trying to converse in a foreign language and fumbling for payment with unfamiliar currency. You just insert money, a listing of available meals to match your budget light up and you just press the button for the corresponding dish. A ticket prints out as well as change being issued via coins and you walk into the restaurant and take a seat. That's as simple as it gets really!

I ordered the monster sized "oishii noodles" - Oishii means yummy or something along those lines from what I gathered. I rate the Ramen a 7 out of 10 overall (9/10 for the sheer volume of food for 1000 Yen)

Aside from the food, here's my major purchase of the day - a pair of Nike Runners, they are so light it's as if you're walking bare foot... they probably weigh between 200-300 grams.

8th April 2009 - Flight to Osaka

2009-04-09T01:06:00.000+10:00

We woke up this morning greeting the fabulous view from our room... our hotel was directly across the road from an amazing beach and there were plenty of surfers out there at stupid hours of the morning.

Upon arriving to the airport around 7am this morning... tragedy struck.
Due to a mixup, Ee Laine had booked our flight to Osaka on the previous day and we had missed our flight by 24 hours to the dot.The lady at the Jetstar counter was pretty uber helpful (we were advised that to purchase another set of tickets would cost us about $1200 each one way which was ridiculous). She flagged down her manager and they managed to squeeze us into a flight today with no extra charge.

Ee and I couldn't thank them enough for sorting us out with this outcome and we are truly grateful for Jetstar to have offered the solution that they did.

So we checked in our baggage and made our way into the terminal... We thought that we would visit the newsagency inside the departure lounge rather than the one on the outside... But there was a problem... There was NOTHING on the "other side" apart from the duty free store (which only had alcohol and purfume), a coffee kiosk and the TRS counter.

The below pic is the International departure terminal... I could swear I have more seats around my dinner table at home...

The flight to Osaka from Gold Coast took about 8 1/2 hours and was painfully slow... However surprisingly Jetstar economy had much more room than some of the other carriers I've flown (including Qantas) and the video on demand was a neat entertainment feature.

The way the children onboard the flight behaved... yet another reason I'm reluctant to bring any kids of my own into this world.

After we arrived to Osaka, we picked this piece of cardboard up... It's basically the most expensive piece of cardboard I've ever purchased (it's a rail pass for 1 week of travel in Japan - totalling in excess of $400 smackers per person)

The train we were on was surprisingly empty. The trains are on time (something I'm not quite used to thanks to Cityrail) - In fact, when I went to the Japan Rail help desk to try and book a bullet train for 11:30 tomorrow morning, she gave me a choice of 11:28am or 11:34am (and yes, they are separate trains). How's that for service? One other thing I noted, whereas Sydney has that man with the booming voice who does the announcement of which stations are the next stop (or the lady voice that has popped up over the past few years)... The train I sat on tonight had a robotic Japanese accent... I'd imagine that would be exactly what Stephen Hawking would sound like if he spoke Japanese.

After an extra hour of transit, we finally arrived to our hotel... Yet another sign of Japanese attention to detail: Stating the height clearance of vehicles entering a car park is just not enough... the full dimensions MUST be stated so everyone's on the same page:

Here's our accomodation... Toyoko Inn at Osaka - They are a chain of budget hotels with everything you need for about 80,000 yen a night twin share. When I say everything I mean everything... They even supply you with shampoo/bath gel, toothpaste, toothbrushes and the list goes on and on. That term "don't forget your toothbrush" doesn't really apply to holiday makers who decide to stay with this chain.

It was about 10pm by the time we checked into the hotel this evening and we were still yet to have dinner so we walked around the corner to see what was open... And we stumbled upon this little gem. I've heard some great things about this burger chain called Mos Burger from some online buddies and I certainly wasn't disappointed. This burger puts the places I visited on my hamburger tour in USA a few years ago to shame!

Ee's pointing at the Mos Burger Motto "Hamburger is my life" - Engrish is awesome!

Both Ee Laine and I were completely stuffed for about $16aud...

A++++ Burger joint... will eat from there again!

PS. Whilst typing tonight's blog, I had the tv on to see what kind of whacky shows are on this time of evening... There's a show on right now where they rate cleavage of women and use various things to poke their boobs. Captivating stuff...

7th April 2009 - Off to Gold Coast

2009-04-08T23:35:00.000+10:00

After months of planning, the day has finally arrived for us to jet off on our first holiday in YEARS!

Ee Laine and I are both staying a night in the Gold Coast and our international flight is due to leave tomorrow morning from there.

But first things first... I was feeling a bit peckish and thought I'd squeeze in a snack before I jumped onto the flight... Enter curry pie with mash and gravy from Harrys de Wheels (didn't know they had one at the domestic terminal)...

After the snack, we made our way to terminal 36 to board our flight when we saw some baggage handlers on the side of our plane... We located our luggage (marked with a fluoro orange strap) and watched on to ensure it made it on the plane... There was a lone bag in the middle of nowhere on the tarmac and Im not sure which flight it belonged to...

We were in flight for about 1 hour 20 mins before we touched down... to my surprise, Gold Coast airport looked almost identical to Cairns airport... Perhaps the QLD gov scored a group buy with airports :)

So after we picked up our luggage, we strolled outside to locate a cab... the driver dropped us off a good 200m from the doorstep of our hotel... what a prick.

We are staying a night at the Mantra in Coolongatta and first impressions... room was roomy and neat, but had a really wierd stale smell in the air.

Then came to the business end of the night... what to have for dinner... We ventured out on the main strip outside our hotel and there were numerous cuisines on offer.

We settled on an Italian restaurant called "Earth n Sea" which claimed to have "amazing" food... we settled on the fettucine carbonara and the "hot lips" pizza which had ham & pepperoni...

After eating ourselves silly, we rocked back to the room to rest for the day ahead.

5th April 2009 - Taking it easy

2009-04-06T11:34:00.001+10:00

This Sunday started off like every other Sunday... wake up late (9am) and drive for about an hour from home to Pyrmont for breakfast...

We've tried numerous brekkie joints over the years and we have settled on this little gem for the past year (we used to go for Yum Cha but there's only so much miscellaneous animal bits you can consume in a lifetime)

Our breakfast place of choice is a little cosy cafe called Cafe XXII (22 for all those who are illiterate with roman numerals :) )

They are located on 22 Union St Pyrmont.

Ee Laine decided to treat her sweet tooth this morning and ordered the fluffy buttermilk ricotta pancakes... awesome choice :)

I on the other hand was in the mood for my regular Sunday special - Cafe XXII Big breakfast with Fried Eggs, Sourdough Toast, Grilled Tomatoes & Mushrooms, Sausage and Crispy Bacon *Drool*

After this hearty meal, we needed to work it off... Rolling back to the car (uphill I might add) was quite a feat in itself. We made our way to Alexandria (warehouse capital) to look for bargains. Ee scored a nice black Saba dress for $50 (RRP $280)... I spotted myself a pair of G-Star jeans for $50 (originally $220) from DFO...

Oh yeah.. almost forgot one of the highlights of my day...

We went to Chatswood Chase to check out the new wing of shops and stumbled across the new Coles supermarket. I must say it looks pretty awesome (for a supermarket)...

Standing in line to purchase 2 bottles of water, there was a bloke standing in front of us with his purchase sliding on the black conveyor belt to the check out operator (named James according to the tattered badge on his chest). This MALE CUSTOMER had just one item he wanted to purchase.. a pack of Libra Pads.

The teenage staffer asked him without thinking "is this for you today?" - Awkward silence...

I think I pulled a muscle from holding the laughter in me and preventing a real life LOL ...

James from Counter 5 of Coles in Chatswood Chase - you are a douche

1st April 2009 - Uzbekistan gets April Fooled by Socceroos

2009-04-02T23:35:00.000+11:00

So we scored some freebee tickets to watch the Socceroos play tonight at ANZ Stadium for one of the key qualifying matches for the 2010 World Cup... If we won tonight and depending on outcomes of other games... The Socceroos would be the first team to qualify for the World Cup (besides from the hosting nation - South Africa).

This would be the first Soccer game that Ee Laine and I have watched live and we sure weren't disappointed!

So... here's the timeline of events...

Caught the train to the venue... It had been raining for most of today and there were little rivers and lakes which had formed on the path of the regular trek from Olympic Park station to the stadium. It was damp, there was a strong odour of clothing which had not dried properly... compound that with the oily smoke from the fast food stores made me feel ill (I'm denying any possibility of the KFC Tower Burger I ate an hour earlier being responsible for turning my stomach)

When we finally made it to the front of the Stadium, we realised our seats were on the OTHER side of the stadium... a good 2km away... Seems much further in the rain!

The stadium was pretty packed for a rainy day (to my surprise) as I was expecting dismal support as a result of the weather...

Now we were supposed to be seated at the "under cover" section of the stadium... turns out that there was technically a roof over our heads... but it was 100m above us and it offered NO protection whatsoever with the horizontal gravity defying raindrops that were hammering us... We had no choice but to pull out the poncho... yet another first for us this evening (the below pic looks like we're in those inflateable sumo suits).

The first half was pretty damn frustrating... Early in the first half Bresciano only had the goalkeeper in front of him and decided to kick it straight to him... The sound of 57,000 forehead slaps was deafening. Nothing much happened after that in the first half.

Then came the second half and Jesus walked onto the pitch (Josh Kennedy) and there were instant results. That miracle header came out of nowhere and suddenly I had experienced my first live goal at a soccer match - the euphoria was amazing and the atmosphere would have rocked the roof off the stadium (if it had one).

About 10 minutes later, a U-Stan guy charges into our Harry Kewell.. bounces off him and needs to be carried off the pitch on a stretcher whilst Harry stood there wondering what hit him (from memory two of the Uzbekistan players had to be stretchered off, one had to get "magic spray" on their leg, the goalie needed assistance with his ankle because it was tough work standing in a stationary position, 4 players carried on like they lost a leg in a minefield only to miraculously recover when the ref ignored their performance)

Here's a pic of Harry getting ready to pwn the goalie whilst a Uzbekistan player is being carried off:

And the kick to put the win in the bag

Australia 2 - Uzbekistan 0

By the end of the game, the light drizzle had ended... Almost as soon as the whistle was blown for full time, the heavens opened up and flooded the joint. Our $1.50 ponchos were certainly put to good use tonight!

PS - if you're interested in a play by play summary... visit this link:

http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,25274682-5017925,00.html

My new toy - Lenovo thinkpad S10

2009-04-01T01:04:00.000+11:00

With my impending trip to Japan in a weeks time, I thought it would be an opportune time to get myself a Netbook... For those not as well versed with geek stuff... a Netbook is basically a small laptop (or NOTEbook) which has a screensize anywhere from 7" to 10".

My research has led me to the following sites which has swayed my decision from one Netbook to another... The ones of interest to me were the MSI Wind U100, Lenovo S10 and the Asus eeePC.

http://forums.msiwind.net/other-umpc/have-lenovo-s10-and-kills-wind-t3928.html

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/118847,lenovo-s10-mini-book-will-match-msi-wind.aspx

http://blog.laptopmag.com/unboxing-the-lenovo-ideapad-s10

After reading up on a number of competitive reviews as well as seeing the goods in person.. I made the decision to go Lenovo and purchased it over the weekend (after a healthy session of yum cha with some colleagues and boosting my cholesterol to dangerous levels of course).

OK... So I've been playing with the Lenovo S10 for the past few hours...

Here's how big the netbook is compared to my smiggle ninja mousepad:

Here's the 1024 x 576 resolution of fail against a website backdrop:

My hand on the keyboard to scale...

Initial thoughts.. The keys are smaller but I am slowly getting used to it... The home keys (F and J) feel like they've been offset a bit... So I have been making quite a few typos over the past few hours on the Netbook.

The Matt finish is awesome (no traces of fingerprints ANYWHERE) and the screen is actually quite good (nice and bright) - However, I can see why it could be quite glary for use outdoors as it is pretty reflective.

The Trackpad is small but you get used to it.. I think the way the cursor moves with little movement on the trackpad makes it quite intuitive.

It is pretty quiet, you can hear the fans every now and then but seems to occur when you start an application, it goes back into cruise mode once the app is up and running.

Speaking of apps... The S10 comes preinstalled with Norton.. I deleted that shit immediately... Norton is known to smash system resources and is extremely difficult to remove after installation. I'm in the process of installing AVG as I type.

So I've linked up the S10 to my main desktop PC wirelessly and by doing so I've now got access to 800gb worth of movies/music on my netbook which I can pretty much take with me anywhere in the house... Will do an experiment to see how far I can take it before the signal cuts out.

My next mission is to locate a slim hard case (not neoprene/wetsuit material) to house this netbook... I saw that there's a caselogic jobbie on sale from JB Hifi

I'm very happy with the purchase :)

Before the purchase, I scoped out the MSI Wind and my impression of it was "what a tubby lil bastard"... Looked too "cute" and was quite a bit clunkier than the S10. The eeePC was a bit pricier (the 1000HE recommended by Stivo) - However, it does have over 9 hours of battery life (which is awesome) but I couldn't justify the $850+ pricetag.

The S10 was $520, plus $89 for the 6 cell battery upgrade (bringing the battery life from sub 2 hours to 4.5 hours)

One other thing I'm looking at picking up in the next couple of weeks is an ExpressCard tv tuner so I can turn this lil mofo into a mobile TV :zoidberg:

14th February 2009 - Valentines Day @ Sydney Aquarium

2009-03-04T23:36:00.000+11:00

Ok... So this Valentines day marked the 6 year anniversary I've had with Ee Laine... and we thought we would do something a bit different this year. Previously we've done the fancy restaurants, the romantic getaways and I guess this year... nope we're not having dinner at a restaurant in Chinatown (first pic certainly looks like we were!)... We decided to see some mermaids - aka Dugongs.

So here's what we saw... This was the first fishy fishy fishy that greeted us that day:

Walked in a little further and I didn't expect to see these lil buggers... I didn't know what I was looking at until I looked closer:

They say you should never smile at a crocodile, it's hard not to when it's grinning like this:

These seahorses were pretty cool... the tank looked almost magical due to all the little floating bits in there (I think they were baby seahorses or stuff that has come out of their crapper.. it was hard to tell)

This little cuttlefish was pretty cute... It followed my finger around the tank... I was pretty damn sure it was doing what it could to interact with me. This lasted for about 3 mins before it decided to float away. Definitely was one of my highlights at the aquarium.

Another creature participating in the aquatic smiling contest

Finally, we reached the part of the aquarium that hosted the special guest... The Dugong! We were lucky enough to catch them during feeding time (they were fed lettuce in this wierd contraption) - If you've ever seen Zoidberg from Futurama munch on things... that's exactly what the Dugongs look like when they eat.

It's hard to picture how the sailors back in the day mistook these things as mermaids.. I'll let you decide:

And finally... We can't leave the aquarium without a snap of this monster...

Their mates in the wilderness have been munching on beachgoers the past summer... Something to do with Sydney Harbour having cleaner water which has encouraged greater fish population on the shore (I don't imagine this is the case if you've paid a recent visit to Circular Quay... that place reeks like an open sewer).

So there you have it.. a brief tour of Sydney Aquarium... I'll probably go back there if they manage to bring in a pink dolphin or even a whale shark (apparently there is one in Osaka - Japan)