Free Tea in Japan

Location: Lake Toya, Japan. At our WWOOF host’s festival-party-cultural-event-thing

Date/Time: 11th July 2009 (ages ago, I know!)

Variety of Tea: Wild Tea. Made from a local wild herb. It’s an ancient remedy to everything, but then a cup of Tea always makes you feel better doesn’t it!

Cost: Free, if you know where to look.

Service: Made over an open fire by the Chief of the local Ainu tribe. He was the kind of guy who looks like he knows the all the secrets of the world.

Taste: Subtle herb taste and a hint of smoke from the fire. Like nothing else but right tasty.

Ambiance: Beautiful sunny day, calm lake on one side and mountains on the other. Very nice indeed.

Shadam rating: 8/10. A once in a lifetime cup of tea. A tasty brew in a beautiful setting, made by the chief of an ancient tribe. Sometimes, the best things really are free.

Sayonara Japan

These are our last photos of Japan, including:
Our final WWOOF
Hiroshima and the yearly peace festival
Miyajima island with it’s floating Temple
Osaka where we got a boat to China.

As usual click here or click the pics to go to Flickr

Pics coming next… China!

Rural Japan to the Big Smoke

Just what you always wanted… more pictures of Sheena and Adam!

These are all from Japan. Michael Jackson died during this time so there’s a wee tribute to him in there, can you spot it?

So if that sounds like your cup of Tea then click here or click the pics

Click the pics to go to Flickr

Same Chef, New Country

The chef has officially left Japan. The food was good and all that, it was just time for a change, you know…

So, to mark the ocassion and because we have a few new pics to share, click here to see the Chef leaving Japan and arriving in China.

Including the time the Chef met big scary Chef in Osaka. Enjoy.

Chef with Scary Chef in Osaka

Only in Japan

We’ve seen lots of strange and fantastic stuff in Japan an we’ve even managed to take pictures of some of it.

So if you want to see pictures including:
A Sundae with a slice of cake on top
A £20 Melon
Sushi shaped USB sticks

Then clickthe pic or get clicking here

Sundae with a cake on top

Working for a living in Japan

This isn’t just a big holiday you know, we’ve actually done some work. Well, I say work but it’s actually been really good fun. So anyway, here are some pictures of our second WWOOFing experience in Furano, Hokkaido in the north of Japan. Enjoy.

Click the pics or click here

Click the pics!

Tea (sort of) next to Lake Toya, Japan

Tea vending machine, Lake Toya, Japan

Location: Hot Spring bath next to Campsite on Lake Toya, Hokkaido, Japan.

Date/Time: 8th July 2009, about 6pm

Variety of Tea: The free vending machine kind… I’ll be honest, we actually had a beer but I really loved the tea vending machine so I wanted to use the picture.

Cost: The Tea was free! Hot spring bath was 390Yen (about £2.50) which was a bargain after a rainy day camping, the beer was 180Yen (about £1.20).

Service: self service so I’d say it was excellent!

Taste: OK, this isn’t really a tea review but after a roasting hot bath, the cold beer was cracking.

Ambiance: We were sitting on the floor with lots of old Japanese people sharing polite nods and the like… feeling quite pleased with ourselves after a hot bath. So yeah, pretty good.

Shadam rating: 9/10 for the hot bath, 8/10 for the Tea machine, 6/10 for the beer, 0/10 for the tea review (sorry!)

The land of the rising sun

…and just when it looked like all our pictures would be late, here are some from the country we`re still in!

Please enjoy our first impressions of Japan and our first week of WWOOFing

Click here or click the pics

Click the pics!

2 months in… what has Adam learned?

Emergency-Backup-Security Snickers

1. Russians don’t drink vodka very much
2. I can have clean underwear every day with only three pairs of pants and two pairs of socks
3. In Russia, anything that looks like milk is probably yoghurt (we bought yoghurt instead of milk 3 times)
4. Even posh Japanese restaurants have picture menus and plastic models of food
5. I’m always happier when I’ve got a reserve backup security Snickers bar stashed somewhere (the one pictured above has been with us for about 3 weeks)
6. You can use shampoo as washing up liquid
7. Bringing 11 USB memory sticks was probably overkill
8. You can have a cracking bath almost anywhere in Japan, even at the bottom of a mountain in the middle of nowhere
9. A pint of guiness in Tokyo costs £8 but a bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky is only £9
10. I use exactly 50ml of toothpaste per month

Tea in Sapporo, Japan

Tea in Sapporo

Location: Sapporo, Japan

Date/Time: 15th June 2009

Variety of Tea: Green Tea milk shake (cold). Might have had ice-cream in it

Cost: 450 Yen (~£3)

Service: Just the usual friendly and helpful Japanese service we’re getting used to.

Taste: Maybe just about the nicest drink I’ve had on the trip so far. Tasty, smooth, creamy… a little bit special.

Ambiance: Just a wee café but it had just started raining so it looked pretty good at the time

Shadam rating: A strong 8/10. Might be stretching the definition of Tea a bit, but is was a smashing drink.