Awesome sushi for lunch

Beppu

I arrived in Beppu. Flight was good. Had a late dinner with my lab - very delicious.

Cars, music, and sunset

Today I was walking around Sakae and there is a car showroom in the underground mall Central Park.  Nissan was showcasing it's new zero emissions electric car called LEAF.  Hehe, the girls in the picture look quite confused as to why I'm taking a picture of them.  かわいいですね。

 The Nissan GT-R (formerly, skyline) looks sweet.  The base price in Canada is $100,000.

A few days I went to a concert (free ticket - yay!) of some famous Japanese violinists.  It was pretty nice, in this nice concert hall:

A sunset from my lab window.

Today I was walking home and notice these huge buds on this Magnolia tree.

Food Update

First, some cafeteria foods:

A random assortment of things:

 Indian curry - could have been a bit spicier:

 Korean bibimbap and a dessert:

 Interesting udon soup:

 After going to a violin concert (see separate post) we went to this chain curry restaurant called CoCo... this is some squid curry:

 Another random choice of things to eat and some "apple pie" dessert:

 Chicken cheese katsu:

I love this kind of mochi filled with bean paste!

 hmmmm tasty!

One day I went to an Indonesian restaurant (Sama Sama) with one of my Japanese class members:

 The place had some interesting decor and quite tasty food.  Some lamb curry:

 A sampler of various meats:

Today I went to the belt sushi place near me.
Some squids?

 Some fish:

Tuna - forgot to take a picture and ate one already ;P

 Other tuna:

 Squid full of tentacles:

 Some small fish.. very tasty:

 Finally some unagi:

All in all, the 7 plates were 1500yen (~$18).

Snow!

So I finally experienced my first snow in Japan!  It snowed the whole day and some and it was quite a lot for Nagoya standards - around 10cm maybe.

How it looked like on Sunday morning:

And Sunday afternoon:

Sadly the sidewalks in the city were not really cleaned - I guess there is no need for that if it is that rare.

The next day was a high of around 6C so most of the snow melted.

The students definitely enjoyed that - here are the remains of a snowman.

Also, based on extensive research (i.e., a few random samplings), the Japanese schoolgirls start to wear black  pantyhose with their school uniforms at around 5C.  I was beginning to wonder how they can stand not covering their legs when I'm in a jacket with gloves and a hat on!

Bike Ride to OSU

First of all, I bought a hat the other day since with temperature around 5C or less, it is a bit cold on a bike.  

 I went to this store in the mall near me and bought the hat.  When I was paying the girl was so happy.  Then she thanked me a few times, wrapped my hat in this nice cloth/plastic bag with strings.  Even asked if I wanted the labels cut which was nice since I could then use it to get home on my bike.  Then she took the bag and told me to walk with her to the middle of the store... she gave me the bag... thanked me like I did something good for her - was quite interesting.  Then when I was walking out of the store, all the other workers kept thanking me.

Also a few days ago, I bought a nice backpack while in this store where I usually buy clothing (that fits me reasonably well).  I like it.  It's not too big but just right and also fits well to my bike basket if I don't want to have it on my back.

So today I decided to go for a nice bike ride.  I haven't gone on a longer ride for a few weeks now.  I basically had two goals: to go to OSU and buy a HD and to return some movies I rented from Tsutaya in Sakae.  So I put my camera, and the movies into my new backpack and set out.

First, I went to the Ikeshita subway station area to check out some apartment building that I liked from the adds.  Didn't have a problem finding the building and it was basically on the way to OSU.  The funny thing is that the building is about 2 blocks away from that store where that lady bought my a present! hehe!  I can also see this building from the hallway of my university building.  Might be a good choice of a place to move into!  There are actually a few apartments in that building currently available for a reasonable price (basically what I am paying now).  What you think?  This is the street, the building is the one in the back - brown.

 14 floors - each floor 4 apartments.

 From the back.  It looks like the entrance doors are from the outside in the back - which is quite common in buildings here from what I saw.

From there, I went to OSU.  Here is a large street that actually has a highway underground which you can see in the distance comes out and switches to being above ground.

 You can see the highway coming out of the ground and some of the downtown (Nagoya Station) buildings in the background.

 At OSU, as always, lots of people.  Also some festive decorations.

I decided to get some tasty pastry fish filled with bean paste at one of the food stalls.

Behind OSU is a nice temple:

 There were some paper decorations hanging above the street in front of the temple entrance.

From there, I went to return the movies in Sakae and stopped at kappa sushi along the way home.  Had 7 plates of pretty decent sushi for around $9.  All in all, the trip was around 20km.