Noise . . . Pure Noise . . .

Here's me starting to try and learn how to play the solo to Sound Horizon's 'Asa to Yoru no Monogatari', when I really should be studying for JLPT instead. It's pretty horrendous playing by any standard and a lot of the notes are wrong, but . . . well . . . everyone has to start somewhere right ? :)

地獄少女 三鼎 (Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae) Update

The following PV is Tsukihana 月華, by Kitade Nana. It is the opening theme to Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae. Not exactly sure how one would describe this PV, but the song is growing on me XD




The ending theme is called いちぬけ Ichinuke, and similar to the previous 2 seasons, is sung by Mamiko Noto aka Enma Ai's seiyuu. Pretty awesome as always :)

Hokkaido Trip Report 5 (Final)

The day started with a visit to the Sapporo Nijo fresh seafood market. It was snowing heavily and I couldn't resist taking a shot of a school blanketed by snow before leaving the hotel. But I digress. Back to the market, there was pretty much a wide variety of seafood, albeit a little expensive. The only other people I remember seeing there were a group of schoolgirls, some teens and several businessmen . . . a somewhat strange bunch of people to be at that market.






Next up on the list was the Asahi Beer Factory, where we gathered to view some video on Asahi Beer and following that, got to sample the beer in a large dining hall. A mug of beer was provided together with some small snacks to go along, and if you managed to finish the initial mug, you can bring the empty mug to the counter and swap it for a mug containing a different type of their beer, possibly the Asahi Gold. Upon finishing that, you can swap once more for an Asahi Stout, I think. For those that don't drink, they also provided cans of milk tea and coffee.




Following that was a visit to the Sapporo Station Shopping Arcade, which includes Daimaru. Unfortunately, we were given very little time to walk and thus missed out on a good amount of shops. The amount of foodstuff in the basement of Daimaru alone would probably put the local Takashimaya branch to shame. From bento sets to snacks and desserts, there was a whole myriad of colors and understandably, it was one of the more packed areas. Unfortunately, I didn't really think to take photos of the Sapporo Train Station and/or Trains at this point in time.





Lunch today was a more interesting affair compared to previous days. Apart from the hotpot, there was also DIY tempura, as you can see from the picture. What you do is to dip the item in the batter provided and then place it in the oil for roughly 2 minutes. You can choose to make the batter thicker or thinner depending on your preference. This was also the first time that I had ever tasted Crab tempura, which was pretty delicious.




After lunch was a stop at the Chitose Factory Outlet Mall, Rera. It had a large number of familiar shops such as Adidas, Nike, ABC Mart, Levis, Guess, Tommy Hilfiger and many more. Since it was a factory outlet mall, I guess the prices were reasonable. Although you might not see it from the pictures, there were far more people then shown, perhaps all browsing within the various shops.





Dinner was scheduled pretty early at around 4.15pm due to our flight to Tokyo being at 7pm. It was chinese food this time at a restaurant located at the mall. Simple but tasty, though the restaurants here such as Crystal Jade would probably have better fare.






Below is an ad featuring Kimura Takuya at the airport. Another thing I didn't mention was that you did not need passports for domestic flights, just the air ticket. Might be common information elsewhere, but not here since we have no domestic flights locally.



Proceeded to the Garden Hotel Narita for the night, as our flight home was not due until the next morning. Visited the nearby convenience store in search of food owing to the early dinner and settled on bowl noodles as well as an Ichigo Daifuku (The very same Ichigo Daifuku as the one I bought in a previous trip). One thing I don't understand is why we seem to be lacking those bowl noodles with meat included over here, when they seem to be common in Japan and Taiwan. There wasn't much left to do after this, as the hotel was in an area without a shopping street of sorts, hence the report ends here.



It was an enjoyable trip overall.

Hokkaido Trip Report 4

First up on today's itinerary was a trip to Otaru, a sort of port town. As you can see from the picture, the temperature then was 5.9 degrees, one of the warmer days.




We visited one of the orgel/music box museums in the city, along a street filled with several other shops selling glassware, different types of snacks and food.




Some of the tunes were pretty up to date with a wide selection. Songs ranged from well-known artists such as Mr.Children and Hamasaki Ayumi to those from the Ghibli films as well as some disney films. Due to time constraints, I didn't really get to visit much of the other shops as I had lingered in the orgel place for quite a long while.

Before returning to the coach, I bought a lavender-flavored soft cream which tasted pretty good. It had just the right amount of sweetness that I liked, flavorful but not too sweet. There were other flavors available of course, such as one with a combination of milk, lavender and yubari melon flavors.

Next up was lunch which consisted of a hotpot (Remember me mentioning in the first post when I said that meal provided a preview of things to come ?), fish flakes which you're supposed to pour onto the rice, as well as a grilled hokke fish (at least I think it's called hokke). It was delicious and tasted slightly sweet. In case you can't see clearly from the picture, the dessert was a yubari melon- flavored jelly.



After lunch was a visit to the Ishiya Chocolate Factory. We only got to wander around outside as they weren't prepared to take in visitors at the moment after re-opening for business only recently. If you are unaware of the scandal which previously surrounded it, good for you :D





As you can see, it hardly looks like a factory from its exterior. From its European theme complete with luxurious patios, it could certainly have passed off as a hotel or some themed resort, at least from the outside. There is even a mechanical performance every hour, which begins at the clocktower and partially involves the patio and part of the main building. Shiroi Koibito was already sold out for the day over there even though we arrived around 1.15pm.



Next on the itinerary was a stop at the Tanukikoji Shopping Street, which had many stores above ground as well as underground. There was even a Daiso nearby which had around 7 levels if I remember correctly.





We then proceeded to Odori Park and though it was raining, there was still a festive mood in the air with all the christmas lights and decorations. Many of the stores sold food and sweet sake.




Just opposite the section of the park I visited was the Sapporo TV Tower, but I didn't get to go up to the observation deck.



That was because our next stop was the JR TOWER Observatory T38, which stands for Tower Three Eight and the observatory deck is on the 38th floor. The Tower was linked to a shopping mall called Stellar Place, which was crowded with festive shoppers.






The view was pretty spectacular, at least to me. There were also 2 live musicians on the observatory deck playing classical pieces to add to the mood. If you go there during the day, you might even be able to see all the way to Otaru if the weather is clear.

A barbecue/grill dinner was next on the list which consists of those stuff you see in the picture as well as beef, pork or chicken. We decided to order special kobe beef to sample, which turned out to be pretty expensive. It cost more than 10k Yen for that plate in the picture on the top right. Granted it was probably the best beef I had ever tasted, but the price was really high.




After dinner, we proceeded to the hotel.



There was an onsen in this hotel as well, which included a small outdoor pool. Once again, it was nice being in the outdoor pool as it was snowing at the time that I visited. If I recall correctly, the temperature of the hot spring this time was not as high as the others, so it merely felt warm instead of hot.