Ari & Nici in Japan - food and beverages (食べ物と飲み物)

Hey guys (^-^)v

I'm so sorry I didn't post for such a long time.. It was the longest hiatus I have taken until now and I wish I could promise it never happens again, but I am not entirely sure about that. Anyways, I needed some time for myself, also to sort some things out. My current occupation doesn't allow me to have a lot of free time, and I am almost stressed out everyday with studying and homework and more studying (maybe I will explain it in a seperate post if anyone is interested in what I'm doing at the moment). So I took advantage of the holidays I had and did absolutely nothing. And I really needed that for myself to keep me going and to be able to finish the last two semesters. So I hope you understand and are still a little bit interested in what I post. For what comes next, I think there will be two more post about my Japan journey (it's more than a year ago by now Q_Q) and than we will see what's coming as, with a lack of free time, I also don't have time to explore things and show them to you.. But I have some huge plans for my future that I want to share with you and I will keep this blog running to at least that point of time. Anyway, here we go with the next post ^-^

Before Nici and I left for Japan my dad asked me to take photos of the stuff I was going to eat there because he had nearly no idea of what Japanese food was like (except for sushi of course). So I thought it may be a nice idea to write a post about what we were eating and drinking in Japan.
Also, I thought it might be interesting for some people, who also are vegetarians, as Japan is not really a vegetarian-friendly country and there is fish or meat included in lots of things..

While staying at our host family's place in Tokyo we usually got breakfast and dinner from our host mom.

breakfast - red bean paste filled bread, yoghurt with a slice of pineapple and a boiled egg (that I didn't like at all.. tasted like it has been boiled in soy sauce or something..)

breakfast - miso soup and some vegetables rice stuff for the microwave (althought I told our host mom that I am vegetarian I think there was fish included.. I just picked out everything that looked suspicious x3)

Dinner - Japanese style pasta, absolutely delishious *-*

Dinner - rice with stir-fried tofu, onions and some more slimy stuff (but tasted pretty good)

Dessert - CAKE ROLLS!

Dinner - vegetarian hamburger steak and rice

 As you maybe can guess from the amount of pictures I, most of the days, forgot to take pictures.. 
One evening, after we had visited a wind orchestra competition of our host mom's daughter, she treated us to dinner for kaiten zushi (running sushi)

You could either take something off of the conveyor belt or order something you like via touch screen

Mine delicious food ^-^
Our host mom laughed at us for only eating "children's stuff"..

they also had so yummy desserts that were soo amazing ^-^

As poor stundents don't travel with enough money to go to restaurants, we also bought a lot of food in Convenience Stores:

Dango and Milk tea

left - Nici's; right - mine, there was fish in the sushi rolls but I just picked it out

Yakisoba Pan

Omu raisu and Pasta

Melon Pan

A really great thing about Japan is that there are vending mashines for drinks nearly everywhere. Especially during the hot summers this is super convenient and refreshing ^-^

C. C. Grape - really delicious

My favourite drink of all time: C. C. Lemon ♥

favourite tea - just usual green tea, super refreshing at hot days ^-^

One day in Osaka we also got a pizza. As you might have heard before, pizza in Japan is super-expensive. We paid like 15 Euros for a normal-sized one (in Germany you can get some for like 5 Euros or even cheaper), and it was not even delicious.. My pizza margherita was flavoured with some strange herbs and tasted really unfamiliar, and the pizzas my friend's had ordered, did not have that usual pizza crust, but were made with some kind of puff paste instead.. I don't know if all pizza stores do it that way, but I can not really recommend eating pizza in Japan alone because of the price x'D

We also bought a lot of the really fancy snacks and ice creams Japan has to offer:

Ice cream from Baskin Robbins - Suica (watermelon) and cookie flavour. Definitely try out this store! Is has one of the best ice creams I have ever eaten

Frozen yoghurt you could assort on your own! Unfortunately, you pay for the weight and these were a bit very expensive..

Hello Kitty dounut at Sanrio Puroland (did not taste as good as it looked to be honest..)

famous Harajuku Crepe with strawberries, cheese cake, and chocolate sauce ♥

Last but not least I want to show you our food we had at fast food restaurants. All in all, we only tried two of them: Lotteria and MOS Burger. MOS Burger is my absolutely all time favourite! At the moment they only offer one vegetarian burger, but it is absolutely delicious ♥

Melon Soda and Rice-Kinpira Burger at MOS♥

Lotteria one the other hand only has frensh fries if you don't eat meat or fish...

Frensh Fries and (of course) Melon Soda again ^-^

But next time I also want to try Freshness Burger. They also offer a vegetarian black bean burger ^-^

Japan has to offer a really wide range of food and you will definitely not die of hunger as a vegetarian, but on the other hand it is really hard to find something you can eat in a restaurant. When we went eating out with our host family in Osaka, our host dad ordered ramen without meat for me and it was no problem, but I haven't tried it on my own yet, so I don't know if it had worked out too. But in supermarkets and conbinis you get lots of food you can eat and it's really good! It's just a bit sad that it is hard to get traditional food without meat or fish. If you are really craving for it, you can go to a Buddhist temple restaurant that traditionally serve vegan food, but it's terribly expensive so I didn't do it..

Well, I hope I could give you some new information and provide an insight into what kind of food will expect you if you don't go to restaurants.

Thank you for reading, and feel free to leave your opinion or questions in the comments!

See you next time (^-^)v

 

Ari and Nici in Japan: Odaiba

Hey guys (^.^)v

Welcome back to another post about Japan ♥

On our last day in Tokyo we visited Odaiba.

The train ride to Odaiba was one of the most cool I ever did x3

You don't ride a usual subway, but an overhead railway.

The train drives behind the glass walls which alone is yet very cool..

But the landscape during the ride even more amazing *-*

You drive along between skysrapers...

 

 And the route also leads over the famous Rainbow Bridge ♥ 

As you can already see, it was very cloudy that day..

 

Odaiba even has a beach ^-^

Rainbow Bridge in the background ^.^

For a while, we just sat at the beach and watched some stand-up paddlers.

But later, we decided to have a stroll to Tokyo Leisure Land!

(also because it started to rain...)

a bridge to cross the street to Leisure Land

it says "teleport bridge".... o.O ?

Leisure Land's characteristic feature is the huge ferris wheel:

It is even illuminated in the dark *-*

But we decided not to stay that long because we wanted 

to go to Shibuya one last time ^.^

 

it has colourful gondolas *-*

We did not take a ride with it, since I am a bit afraid

of heights and it was also really expensive.

The colourful gondolas were about 1,000 and the

transparent ones even 2,000 per person I think..

It then started to rain, so we spent some time in Tokyo Leisureland,
playing air hockey and Ufo-Catchers ^.^
But again, we didn't win anything x'D
But, I made a new friend ^.^

We had a lot of fun there ^.^
On our way back to the train station, we went by a shopping centre
and since it started to rain again, we went in.
It turned out to look rather strange on the inside:

The ceiling was painted like the sky and all the shops had a Venice-like looking front..
But the only interesting shops for us were a Lego store and daiso x3
But, since we were hungry, we also went to Lotteria in the centre ^.^

I had Melon Soda again ♥ but the fries weren't that good..

When we wanted to leave, some guys with a big video camera spoke to us.
They said they made promotion for the Olympic Games 2020 in Tokyo
and asked us to write a massage on a board they gave to us xD
Then they took a photo and wanted to post it on their official facebook page.
Our photos did not show up their until now, but they also took a photo with
Nici's camera. So I still have a pic to show you here ^.^




After this experience, we went to Shibuya again.
It was the last day in Tokyo for us since the next day we went off to Osaka.
I already wrote about our adventures in Shibuya here,
so let's continue with what happened when we came back to our host family's location.

When we left the train station, we suddenly heared some kind of music from nearby
and went to where we thought the noise was coming from...

There was a small festival nearby ^.^

I took a short video of the people dancing:

  

So, that's all about our last day in Tokyo.

The next day, we took the Shinkansen to Osaka ^.^

More about Osaka and other nearby locations we visited will follow.

And last but not least, my suitcase before we left x'D

looks like exploded but in the end everything fitted in x'D

Thank you for reading ♥

See you next time (^.^)v

Ari and Nici in Japan: Amazing Shibuya ☆

Hey guys (^-^)v

when we stayed in Tokyo, we went to Shibuya nearly as often as to Harajuku.

I have to admit Shibuya is really amazing, especially when it is getting dark *-*

All these neonlights and sign and so many people everywhere.

But let's start at the beginning:

When we first entered the district of Shibuya,

we were literally overwhelmed by this huge amount of people.

At famous Shibuya crossing (the one right in front of Shibuya Station)

we just stood there and filmed and took pictures for nearly 10 minutes xD

standing there felt like a wall of death x'DD

Then we had the heart to try ourself walking over the crossing

without bumping randomly into people... and it really worked!

No matter how many people are there, you can just pass the street like every other.

As you can see, the sun already set when we stood at Shibuya crossing.
And looking back, almost every time we went to Shibuya it was already dark or getting dark.
But that did not matter at all as Shibuya is really amazing in the dark *-*

happy and excited \(*-*)/

there was Tanabata festival in Tokyo when we stayed there

Of course, we did not just went to Shinuya for sightseeing
but also for shopping xD
Especially in Shibuya 109 !

a bit blurry but with Optimus Prime !

fancy mirror at Shibuya 109 toilets xD

There is so much music everywhere in Shibuya, it is just amazing *-*
Music in every store, music trucks on the streets,
and huge monitors at the buildings playing music.
And nearly on every monitor One Ok Rock's new single was shown xD

this is at Tower Records

After shopping, we were hungry and went to Family Mart,
a chain of conbini stores, and bought dinner:

the right one is mine ^.^ I ate it a lot xD it is not completely vegetarian, but I just picked the fish out

fancy frozen yoghurt dessert ♥ you could completely mix it yourself with whatever you wanted *o*

For eating, we just sat down at a corner of the street.
There a very very few cars in the shopping streets of Shibuya,
so you basically can walk on the streets all the time.
It was really cool to see all these different people passing by.
At some point it somehow felt really unreal to me to actually be there xD

I would have loved to visit some concerts in Shibuya's life houses,
but our vacations were so poorly planned that the bands we wanted to see
eighter were in Osaka when we were in Tokyo and played in Tokyo when we 
were in Osaka or didn't tour at all -.-'' (Next time, we will definetely plan better...)
But nevertheless, we visited some life houses in Shibuya (by accident x'D)

 

The second time we went to Shibuya was a very spontaneous decision.
In the first place, we wanted to visit Mt. Fuji that day,
but since it was a kind of holiday in Japan, the trains were terribly crowded that day.
This is also the reason why I look really shitty in the picutre I took with Ann Chirisu:

please forgive me my ungliness >.<

Ann Chirisu is a very cool and funny youtuber.
Check out her channel, if you don't already know her !
Her first channel
Her second channel (where she also uploaded her vlogs from Japan)

She lives in London, but since I follow her on facebook and instagram, too
I knew she and her boyfriend were in Japan that time,
but I never imagined to meet her in such a big city !
I was really surprised and too scared to talk to her first.
But Nici encouraged me to ask if she really was who I thought she was
and she herself seemed to be surprised someone recognised her there.

We also went in the same train and she talked a lot to us.
She is very very nice ^.^

While strolling through Shibuya, we also took a photo with famous Hachiko ♥

It was so much fun and this district is just amazing *-*
I wish we had more time to explore Shibuya and other Tokyo districts.
It seems like every part of the town has it's own unique character.

Fortunately we arrived two days before the big 'final bargains' ended xD

so crowded O.O

all these lights *o*

Tokyo Disney store ^.^

some train stations really have low ceilings...

We love Shibuya ! ♥
I hope we can see you again ! ^.^