Dogs in Japan

Heeeeeeeeeeey

Because Japan is a very mountainous country, dwellings tend to be built upwards rather than outwards. as a result, small dogs are super popular here - Toy Poodles and Shih Tzus being the most popular. It`s amazing.

DOGS WEAR CLOTHES



and shoes and socks when the ground is hot

IT`S SO CUTE IMMA EXPLODE

IT`S A WONDERLAND

ahem. Today I saw a dog cafe too- no, not like the cat cafe. Dog cafes are normal cafes where you go in and buy coffee or whatever-but not only are dogs welcome, a special menu exists for them too, with things like sausages; and they sit on the floor next to your table with a plate of food. It`s AMAZING.

It`s such a cutesy idea :)

Also, dogs seem to be treated like babies here - literally

Dog buggies are fairly common (NOT TO MENTION ADORABLE) and the dogs seem well behaved enough to stay in the buggies and not jump out :D
I also saw a woman walking around the supermarket with two Border Collies in her trolley. My first thought was "what aisle do they sell dogs in"

Dogs are hugely popular on Japanese TV, so this kind of thing is common. Yesterday I watched a programme called "Petio" and saw a Shih Tzu trained to fetch the balls on a golf course, a Poodle in a tuxedo and (my favourite) a 6 year old boy and his 4 year old sister taking their Corgi on a walk for the first time. I melted :`)

When people walk their dogs here, they bring a bottle of water, and when the dog pees on the ground or on a tree etc etc, they pour water over it so it won`t dry up and leave a stain. I think that`s a fantastic idea!

I saw these outfits for sale in Asakusa and died laughing.

Before I go, I can`t forget one of my favourite (and easily most popular) Japanese breeds - Shiba Inu :)

They look like big fluffy foxes :`)

Night gang,
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Japanese Cooking - Gyoza

 

Hey y`all,

today I`mma tell you about my dinner today (WHICH I LEARNED TO MAKE WOOOOO) - 餃子　(gyoza- pot stickers)

Okay, so gyoza isn`t actually Japanese food, it`s Chinese - but it`s so popular in Japan that it might as well be.

Gyoza are little pastry parcels of meat and onion, and they are DELISH. I love them. And cos I am so nice, I will share with you a recipe! :D

What you will need are:

• Minced beef (one pack should do it, yknow like what you get in Tesco)
• One long green onion
• One long leek
• Pinch of ginger
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of pepper
• Drop of Olive Oil
• Sake (Japanese rice wine, can get it in Asia Mart etc)
• Gyoza Wrappers*

Of course, in Ireland and other Western countries it`s quite difficult to get pre-made Gyoza Wrappers so here`s a video.

Ok, so once you have the wrappers, you`ll make the filling. Chop the leek and onion into very small pieces and feck it all into a bowl with the meat, salt, pepper, ginger, a drop of oil and a drop of sake. Mix and mush it all together (with your hands) until the meat is smooth and pink rather than lumpy and red.

Then, this bit is hard to explain, so another video is in order methinks. Skip to about 2:10.

Each wrapper should have no more than a teaspoon of filling in it - otherwise, it won`t close properly and the flavours won`t be locked in.

Now, put a bit of oil in a pan and put the gyoza into it, flat side down. Cover the pan and fry on a low heat. When the bottoms are browned enough that you can see the edges beginning to brown, take off  the lid. Put some water and oil on top of the gyoza and turn the heat to a high heat. Cover them again. Now just wait for all the water to vaporize and BAM! You`ve got a delicious snack :)

Can`t feckin rotate this

Nom nom nom!

We also had crab. It was yummy. UNDER THE SEA~

Hello also to fangirl @Aquinasaur :)

Peace out homies!
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Pilgrimage

Hey all,

Today was a national holiday in Japan (Marine Day) so my family took me to some religious sites in our area :) For those who don`t know, I`m a Buddhist, so it was a great experience for me, kinda like going to Lourdes for Christians :)

First , we went to this incredible statue: the Daibutsu (literally, Big Buddha)

It`s a 13 meter, bronze statue of Amitabha Buddha and it is truly breathtaking. It was built in 1252 by the Shogun, and originally it was housed by a giant temple. But, what makes this statue really special and holy (in my opinion) is that when the temple was destroyed in a huge tsunami in 1948, the statue was untouched. Similarly, the base of the statue was damaged in the Great Kanto earthquake of 1923, but the Buddha`s body remained unscathed. Remarkable!The statue is also hollow, so you can go inside and see where extra reinforcements have been added to the neck and head over the years. It`s amazing.
I was approached by an old Japanese man here who gave me a letter written in English and asked me to write to him and be his pen friend when I got home. It was so cute :`) I also posed in the same way in front of the Buddha for a photo (which I will upload when I have WiFi) and loads of random Japanese people thought it was hilarious and took photos. I felt so famous :D

Next, we went to Hasedera, one of the great Buddhist temples in Kamakura. Here is me praying there :)

Big smile on my face cos I knew I was being photographed.

It`s got huge gardens and is dotted with statues of Buddhist deities, koi ponds and beautiful old trees. There`s also a sprawling underground cave filled with fortunes and small statues. I did おみくじ (fortune) and got an eerily accurate good luck fortune (which was better than the equally accurate bad luck fortune I got in Sensouji in Tokyo. But, I was able to negate the bad luck by tying the fortune to a special pole, so it was OK!) When I say eerily accurate, I mean it- these aren`t just things vague enough to apply to anyone. When Yukika, my Japanese teacher, and her son did omikuji before, his said "You are the youngest of three siblings" like WHHAAAAT HOW. I`m not putting mine up but it was very very real. whhhooooooa trippy

This is where you tie your bad luck fortunes to negate the bad luck.

Hase-dera temple

Hasedera is famous for its large wooden statue of  GuanYin Buddha (same one from Ofuna). Starting to sound like a broken record? She`s a very popular deity in East Asia, because she`s basically the Mother Theresa of Buddhism. Legend says that she was granted 11 heads and 1000 arms by Amitabha Buddha so that she could help more people than before.

After that we took a stroll around a Shaolin temple before heading back home. It was a truly beautiful day and I felt like I really got in touch with my spiritual side :)

Special shoutouts to @ConstantlyYoung, @Forever_A_Conee and this creepy man for shamelessly promoting this blog on Twitter! :D if you wanna get mentioned, feel free to tweet the link to the blog and leave the link to the tweet in the comments :)
Also feel free to follow me on twitter at @CaoimheCarnage :)

Anonymous comments are now enabled, but please be nice :)

Peace out!
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Japanese Snacks #2

Well lads,

This weekend in Japan is a 3-day weekend so tomorrow evening I`ll tell y`all what I got up to :)

I`ve tried some very strange foods while I`ve been here. Mainly snacks... by Jaysus they`re strange. Delicious, but strange..

Pepsi Crisps

Without a doubt, the WEIRDEST food I`ve ever eaten. Pepsi flavoured crisps. They are sweet and almost fizzy, and taste like Cola Chupa-Chups lollipops. I can`t get my head around them, they`re so weirdly yummy and whaaat I don`t even

Pizza Crisps

 I don`t think this flavour is exclusive to Japan, but I`ve never seen it in Ireland. These taste great, and far less bizarre than the Pepsi crisps (called Shuwa Shuwa Cola, if anyone wants to search for them online.) They taste just like those mini-pizzas you can get in Tesco or Dunnes- you know the ones, mini margheritas with no crusts. Delish.

Fish
I have tried sooo many fish and to my delight, lots of them taste amazing!

• Eel （うなぎ） new favourite sushi. Tastes like chicken with a flaky texture in BBQ sauce. Nom.
• Octopus - YUCK NO NO NEVER AGAIN it`s weeeeeird
• Squid - funnily enough I like this. At least the taste. The texture is weird as.
• Crab - Nom nom nom I like crab om nom nom UNDER THE SEEEEAAAA

ahem. Short post tonight cos I`m shocked over the death of Cory Monteith/watching Japanese news with bated breath over Royal Baby.

Night yall,
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Airurando no Shinbun (irish newspaper)

Yo!

Just a short post today to show you myself, my lovely teacher Yukika and lovely sponsor Joe looking fabulously sexy in the Tullamore Tribune.

STUNNERS :*

WE ARE GORGEOUS

xoxo
gossip goat
Caoimhe

ファッション （fashion）

Hey all,

Considering one of the reading comprehensions on the Japanese Leaving Cert paper this year was about Tokyo Fashion Week, I`m gonna talk about something pretty cool about Japanese culture- the fashion.

Japan has so many fashion trends that have really impressed me and befuddled me.
School uniforms are pretty fashionable here, for example.

It`s not unusual to be loved by someone to see people walking around in their school uniforms, even at the weekend- and really, can you blame them？

they look cool.
 

Another popular trend at the moment is platform Converse!

They add at least an inch to your height, if not more, depending on the shoes. They are EVERYWHERE in Japan right now, everyone is wearing them. Mad!

A subculture of Japanese culture is Lolita, and while it`s not that common, it`s by no means unusual. I`ve seen a couple of Lolita girls already! Within Lolita there are more subsets, the most popular of which is Gothic.

Lolitas basically dress in cutesy Victorian-style dresses and carry parasols everywhere. What`s most amazing about this fashion is that the girls usually make their dresses by hand, which astonishes me (a girl who can`t even knit a scarf)

From Lolita emerged a fashion that looks very similar to Irish girls at times- ギャル (gyaru- the Japanese pronunciation of "gal" )

Gyaru girls dye their hair light, wear lots of makeup and fake tan, and often wear dolls' eye contacts, which make their irises look bigger and therefore, more Caucasian.

 They`re very influenced by American culture. Unfortunately, as with Lolita, there are far more extreme subsets...

That`s "ganguro" and that passes for fashion here.


There are of course fashion trends among men too, such as "host" fashion

This comes from "host bars" which is basically the cat cafe from my earlier post except instead of paying to play with kitties you pay to flirt with effeminate men
There`s also "visual-kei", popular among musicians..

These guys just do their best to look like anime characters.
And my personal favourite, the punks!

Something else amusing about Japanese fashion (as I`ve said before) is the "Engrish". English curse words are on everything, it`s hilarious..

I know that`s the name of a Dead Kennedys album, but still...

On the other hand, I have seen dozens of women wandering around in beautiful traditional Japanese summer kimonos (called yukata)

Japanese fashion is a beautiful blend of old and new :)

Night y`all,
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe

Japanese Snacks #1

Whattup crackas,

Today I`m gonna tell you about some Japanese snacks :D

This is my new favourite snack food- カレーパン　(curry bread). I get it usually once a week as a treat for lunch (I had it today om nom nom nom)

If you like curry as much as I do, you`d love this. It`s basically fried bread with curry sauce and sometimes vegetables or cheese inside. It`s light but filling, and absolutely delicious. I intend to bring a suitcase home filled with it. It`s also cheap (￥180 for a large scone-sized piece - about 1.50euro)

Here`s another one I love love love - 抹茶キトカツ　(green tea Kit Kats)

Don`t be put off by the colour- it`s amazing. It tastes like white chocolate with a hint of sweet green tea and awwwwh it`s divine I love it <3 Also, probably because of the heat here (36C today) the chocolate is quite soft, making it even nicer to eat :)

Something I`m eating lots of in this heat is a more traditional Japanese treat - かき氷　（shaved ice)

It`s essentially a Slushee with thicker pieces of ice, so you eat it rather than drink. It`s just plain shaved ice with a flavoured syrup poured over the top - typically strawberry or green tea, but yesterday I had a Ramune flavoured one, so anything goes really. Sometimes milk is added to the syrup to give it a more ice-creamy flavour. It`s lovely and great to cool you down in this intense humidity.

Those funny looking things are actually chocolate dipped bananas - a very popular street food in the summer. They`ve got a few flavours- chocolate, strawberry, green tea, etc. They are insanely sweet, not something I`m a big fan of. They`re nice for the first  bite, but after that you can practically feel your teeth rotting...

Here`s another traditional Japanese snack - だんご (dango)

Dango are balls of rice dough flavoured with different things, such as green tea powder or anko (sweet bean paste). Those pictured are in a sweet soy sauce type thing, and are easily my favourite. They`re delicious and light and nom nom nom~

This last one isn`t really Japanese- vanilla pudding

but I like this brand cos Clint Eastwood is on the jar

Similarly, Boss Coffee

has Tom Selleck smoking a pipe

Speaking of Tom Selleck, please enjoy this photograph of him, the magnificent specimen of a man

Night gang,
クイーヴァ
Caoimhe