Today I borrowed Dan’s bike and went for a ride up to the mountains behind Kobe.
This sign warns of during heavy rain the waters can rise very fast in just 10 minutes!
It didnt stop these guys and girls having a barbie right where the sign warns you about.
Sanna joined me on a hire bike to continue riding.
We rode over to Rocco island which is a island of reclaimed land from the sea.
The rest of the gang joined on us bikes to explore in the afternoon.
You can be forgiven for not knowing this (as I didnt) but Japan’s Kobe beef is meant to be the most expensive and best in the world. $55 for a meal of 150g Kobe beef and some rice and a few veggies.
Why so exy, well the cows are individually looked after by groomers who feed them beer to give them the munchies to make them want to eat more.
The groomers also take swigs of sake in their mouths and spray it over the cows and pat and groom them. This is meant to get rid of any flies or ticks from the cow, and also gets the groomers drunk, so they must like their jobs. Sounds crazy bit I’ve watched it being done on YouTube.
The beef has a lot of marbling of fat to give it a juicy soft texture.
The chef cooks the beef right in front of you on a hot plate. He is very fast with his tongs and knifes.
He also cooked some veggies and tofu and all the offcuts which had a little bit of fat in them he cooked crunchy and put into a bean sprout salad.
I recorded a video of the chef doing all the slicing and cooking, I will put it on my YouTube channel.
Ok here I am trying to get fancy looking snaps in some gardens around some temples, the best I could do with a camera built into a phone. These are taken in Kyoto by the way. Enjoy the tranquility…
So if your japanese and you’re reading this please excuse me but i don’t know what this food is called? let me know in the comments section below. Anyway for us westerns it tasted bloody good and i will call it a ‘japancake’.
Here are some sights from around kobe in japan where we are staying
Absolutely terrible sunburn on my face this is thanks to the sun climbing mount fuji the other day
Japanese heinz tomato ketchup!
Not strictly japanese dining this was a western cafe
Experimental japanese research boat like something out of james bond. It uses electromagnetic jet engines just like the submarine did in the hunt for the red october movie, very clever technology, basically a silent stealth boat.
One day this will be my balcony and this will be my view, but hopefully sydney.
Today it was so bloody humid i went to a huge department store spent 3 hours DJ’ing on some very Pioneer CJ’s I used to own and DJ on, i forgot how much fun i enjoyed mixing.
Great that the Kyoto temples are, it’s lovely to meet local people whilst learning about how to cook their food im more commonly just used to eating back at home in Sydney.
Sanna and me did a morning bento cooking class in someones home kitchen and loved all of it.
First off introducing the ingredients and then how to make the commonly used broth and then onto making up all the dishes that make up a bento box.
Would thoroughly recommend it to anyone visting the city of Kyoto.
making sushi with the seaweed paper and then the sticky rice on top and then all the ingredients that you want, for us salmon and avocado and some japanese radish.
sushi chefs!
pretty impressive looking sushi for a first time don’t you think? We were very impressed with ourselves
This dish was sliced onions and carrot in some beautiful japanese sauce and simmered in the pan for 20 minutes with some tofu at it towards the end.
the finished bento box made by me and sanna, marks on the left, sannassbon the right. A lot of preparation and it tasted great. Bento box means lunch box in japan by the way and the black and red colours are traditional of a bento box.
it’s time for team Tokyo shot to climb mount fuji
Right off we go!
Using the mules for sure that would be cheating
these were some interesting looking trees they must’ve been windswept from the high mountain winds
do we know which way we are going team tokyo shot could be lost already
mount fuji is of course a volcano so all of the mountainside is made up from ok rock volcanic ash which makes for some interesting climbing
sanna buying some supplies from a mountain hut
we were so hi we were level and above of the clouds at this point the oxygen started getting thinner
now we were about 3000 metres and i started to get altitude sickness come on which started with a small headache which got worse as i continued to call to climb
the hi we got up the mountain and closer to the summit the smaller the huts became
when we reached our stop over for the night at just 200 metres short office 3800 metre peak we have a dinner and some hot drinks with all needed a lot of calories
After this point things for me started to get worse my headache got bad from the lack of oxygen from the alitude sickness and i felt like i was drugged. In the morning i decided it was best for me to descend to lower altitude to get more oxygen but the others were going to the summit which was an extra 200 metres.
The weather changed to terrible because of a tornado off the coast. Visibility drop to just 10 metres it was a bad situation. Sanna got split up from the rest of the team and she went down the wrong side of the mountain. I awoke after just half a hours sleep to be told she was on the wrong side of the mountain, i had to run down the mountain quick to help her because she has no money to get out of her situation.
I ran down and got to the bottom to find her, on jy descent I met a new friend called Yuki from northern Japan, he was great to learn more about culture from him during our run down the mountain and relaxed me from the bad siruation.
Sanna was so happy to see me, the locals gave her dry clothes to use then we found our way back to Tokyo to meet up with the rest of the team Tokyo shot. This all happened so quickly i didnt take any photos of this all. What an adventure maybe not the best mount fuji experience but a real adventure.
Onwards to day 2! Massive hangover today, too many Tokyo shots with Dan wandering the bars.
We started walking the streets exploring, here is the same crazy junction from yesterday, everyone floods the junction fast.
Check this out for an Audi showroom Brendon!
Not a Audi but a very cool motorbike type thing.
In the afternoon my hangover got so bad I felt sick so the guys went to the Robot restaurant without me while I slept it off, I was very disappointed not to go. This is outside.
Robot restaurant lift to crazy times.
Even the waiting room is a bit crazy.
The crazyness show starts
Robot cow and panda
Robot crazy shark
Guys on bikes
Terminator!
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Back in the hotel I was having not so crazy robo fun. This is my dinner from 7 11, cold noodles and veggies and meat and egg, tasted better than it looks.
And hot noodles!
Here are photos from day 1 in Tokyo.
Me trying to look buff in Tokyo.
The buildings are so close together that the alleyways are tiny.
This looks like a nice shop.
This is the Golden Gai drinking district of all tiny bars each sitting just 5 to 8 people. Pets are extremely expensive and so treasured in Japan.
By lunchtime we’d met up with traveling partners Tanya, Dan and James.
View over Tokyo from the top floor of the government metropolitan twin towers.
This is the beginning of the famous Harukuju area where people come to dress up, especially the girls.
As you find in other Asian countries, the menu is either shown with fake food displays or photos. Not very appetizing for westerners but interesting to see.
My modeling career in Japan could be taking off 🙂
Sushi place where you order your sushi from a touchscreen and its made up and comes wizzing down a sliding tray system
What did I order??
Shibuya crossing is famous for 100’s of people crossing in all directions when the lights go green and has featured in a few films.
Sign must mean, putting a steering wheel to your face makes you happy.
Sanna and I visited this restaurant when we first came to Japan years ago.
I got very drunk with the owner and some guests and they took our photo and stuck it on the wall to this day.
The food was just as good this time as last.
We had a huge night out with Tokyo shots. Very late night and too much sake.
