Shimokitazawa's curry festival

In the end I didn't eat so much curry as I expected I would.

Tetsumen's Delux Tomato Curry Tsukemen

Sakura-ya's Teppan Beef Tendon Curry

I actually eat the Curry tsukemen quite often, so it wasn't really a special dish (delux had a boiled egg and rice with it), and the teppan Curry was just curry made in an Iron pan. Both were pretty good.

Curry Pizza

Right now, and until the 19th, it's the Curry Festival in Shimokitazawa.
Many curry shop adds new "special" items to celebrate it, and many non-curry shop add a special curry dish to celebrate it.

Today I tasted a Curry Pizza at a pizza shop called Napoli.

I had never been to that shop before but I'll go back to taste their normal pizza soon, they look actually pretty good.
The Curry pizza however wasn't so good.
It wasn't bad, and I'm glad I tried it, but I wouldn't order it again lol.

I went there with my boss, and since we weren't sure of how it would taste we also ordered a normal Quattro Formaggi pizza along with it.
It was pretty good.

I'm probably gonna try a bunch of other curry stuff until the festival ends, I'll post about it here.
I don't want this blog to become a food blog... but I don't have much things to talk about lately haha. Sorry!

Surprise Matsuri in Shimokitazawa!

Well it must not have been a surprise to people who paid attention, but I didn't know about it.
When I went out to get dinner today I heard some noises that reminded me of a matsuri... I followed them and they led me to a matsuri!

Japanese Festivals (matsuri) are really great. Everyone seems so happy, and energetic! I really love them! I think this one might just have been one of the most fun ones I've been to, too!

I took some pictures and videos to try to convey the atmosphere, but you really need to live one to understand how awesome they are.

 
You can see the full album here (Google+/picasa)

Here are the videos:

Matsuri in Shimokitazawa part 1 by Shurikun




Matsuri in Shimokitazawa part 2 by Shurikun

And of course, you can't go to a matsuri without eating matsuri food!
This time I got some yakisoba!

I hope I can go to a lot of other Matsuri this summer!(and maybe even with a cute girl if I'm lucky!)

Lil Update

Hello everyone! here's just a little update, Nothing big happened yet, so I didn't post many thing. The first few weeks back were pretty much me settling back, and trying to find an apartment, then settling into said apartment.
You can see the pictures of the apartment here: apartment

As you can see it's quite bigger than what I had last time, and it's about the same price, though the other one came with a fridge and a bed and a desk, this one came empty. The main advantage is that it's a 2 minute walk from here to my workplace! That pretty much means I have now 2 extra hours per day since I don't have to commute anymore.

Getting an apartment suck in Japan btw (unless you use a company specialized with Gaijin). Japanese real-estate agency are fucking thieves. My appartment rent is ~68000 yen per month or so, that'S fine, but in order to be able to get it, I had to first pay the first 2 month (february was already halfway through so 1.5month) which is fine, then 1 month for deposit, that I should get back when I leave and 20000 yen for insurances. These are the normal fee that I accept to pay, and understand why they exist, the followings though, are where it gets ugly. 1 month "key money" which is pretty much just money you give to the owner of the place as a gift, 1month agency fee, same thing but for the agency you used to rent the place, 20000 cleaning fees for cleaning the room before I get there (oh btw when I'll leave I have to pay 30000 yen cleaning fee so they are charging everyone twice for cleaning, which mean the same cleaning is being paid twice), 15000 yen for changing the key (which in all reality should be like 2000 yen) + some other samll fees I don't remember.
So right now I'm living on a pretty low budget for a while.

Though I said nothing much happened, at least 2 things did happen that were pretty nice, I met a friend from Google+ in Akiba, I was able to see Tokyo covered with snow, which was pretty nice (pics here: Snow In Shimokitazawa) and I met a friend from Quebec I had not seen in like 12 years or so (since high school).
It's kinda weird, I haven't seen him for 12 year, and I meet him in Tokyo, to then learn his sister is actually one of my friend and he's also a friend of one of my Ex Gf... We were kinda close for a while without even noticing it, yet we had to be on the other side of the globe to meet again!

That's all for today!
Here's a little pic to help you through your day!

Picture of the March page of a calendar I ordered before leaving Japan