Universal Studios Japan in Osaka

Liz and I thought we should finish up our trip with a trip to USJ for a day of crazy rides, popcorn and cool shows with our friends, Fiona and Scott. They bought a special USJ package (travel agents are always having specials that can save a lot of money) that included shinkansen tickets and the park entrance fee for roughly $120 which was pretty cheap and saved around $40 in total. There were heaps of people there even though we went on a weekday (but I’m sure the weekend would be a lot worse) but it was still such a fun day!

Of course our first stop was the roller coaster ride called Hollywood Dream although I didn’t find anything dreamlike about it. We had to wait an hour and a half to get on it and it had so many dips and even a loop that made me scream myself hoarse. I thought was going to wee myself if the ride went for any longer; it probably only went for 45 seconds but it felt so much longer! Luckily the ride was playing really loud music that drowned out my agonized and terrified screams that would have otherwise been heard all over the park. Now I remember why I don’t really like riding roller coasters, duh!

The day progressed with more rides like Jurassic Park, Back to the Future and Spiderman, and we watched heaps of shows like Peter Pan (uncool), Wicked (cool), Monsters Live Rock and Roll (very cool) and Waterworld (very, very cool – think lots of explosions, jet skis and the audience getting wet!). Of course there was the obligatory overpriced food we had for lunch and the silly souvenirs they pawn off to tourists but other than that, the park was really well-laid out and there were heaps of entertaining stuff. We spent the entire day there and all of us had a great time!

Oh, don’t forget to bring a bottle of water because it is really expensive to buy it in the park but they have plenty of water coolers near the bathrooms.

Himeji Castle

Our third day of the trip took us to Himeji Castle which was roughly five hours away from Hiroshima and on the way to Osaka, our next destination. This UNESCO World Heritage site boasts one of the best and most beautiful castles that I have seen in Japan. Besides that, it is one of the only original standing castles that was virtually untouched by war or natural disasters. It was so cool that you could go into it, climb the ridiculously steep stairs of each of the six floors, and view a great scenery of the city from the top (with plenty of benches for people to sit on after huffing and puffing their way to the top).

It was crazy to know that I was walking on floorboards that have been tread by people four hundred years ago, being in rooms where people lived, climbing many (many, many) worn stairs that would have been a pain in the a** climbing with a laden heavy tray of food or whatnot, seeing art scrolls that would have been painted with vibrant colours but now faded with age, and checking out the very primitive toilet systems (shudder!).

Lest we forget

I’ve just spent two days in Hiroshima but it feels like I have been through a mental wringer. The message that this city makes does not lessen even after a visit a second-time around; in fact it is just as strong and re-emphasizes the cause to prevent the mistakes of the past.

Liz and I visited Genbaku Dome, the Childrens’ Peace Memorial Statue and the surrounding park but the place that resonated in us the most was the Peace Memorial Museum. This building explains the bombing from start to finish with lots of very graphic and disturbing photos – I had tears in my eyes coming out. Besides that, it really pissed me off knowing that one of the reasons that America dropped the A-bomb was to justify to taxpayers the $2 billion dollars spent on the stupid project. Can you believe it?!

Anyway, Hiroshima and Miyajima Island was just as cool as I remembered it minus the crazy deer that stalked me the last time for the ice-cream I was holding. Liz and I even saw monkeys at the viewing platform at the top of Miyajima Island’s Mt. Misen and they were pretty cute! I found it pretty amusing that there were signs that said to not stare directly into the monkey’s eyes because it provokes them. Of course I had to do it, albeit from behind the safety of the glass windows.

For our time in Hiroshima, we stayed in Hana Hostel and accommodations were top-notch; just opened in August 2008 and was very clean and spacious. I was totally impressed and would recommend it! It even provided a guitar in the common room which Liz made full use of at the rooftop. Great place and all in all, it was a blast!

Note: Definitely buy the 2-day Miyajima free pass (2000 yen) which covers unlimited use of the city’s streetcars over a two-day period, the ferry to MIyajima Island and back, and the ropeway to the top of Mt. Misen. It saves tons of money!

Economic depressing affecting the Yen

It seriously hurts to exchange money nowadays since America’s and Australia’s closely-related economy have taken a downturn. Just before I left to go back to Sydney a month a half ago, it was roughly dollar for dollar. My AUS$500 would have changed to just a bit over 50,000 yen with change left over. Now at the current rate, I need to fork over an extra AUS$100 to even get the same amount! Seriously, ouch!

It doesn’t seem like a lot but to a university student who doesn’t have a job in Japan and doesn’t get Centrelink benefits, it is actually quite a lot especially if you consider the long-term implications. A hundred dollars slowly builds upon itself after a while and you can end up forking over hundreds of unnecessary dollars.

Come on share markets, hurry up and get better!

What can you do with a chicken breast?

Sometimes it truly amazes me what you can do with a bit of knowledge and some ingenuity. Take for example today; I was thinking about what to have for dinner but when I looked into my fridge I only had a piece of chicken breast. No other fresh ingredient and I was too lazy to hike to the supermarket. Hmm…that posed a bit of a problem for my dinner.

After rooting around a bit more, I came up with a cube of butter, half and onion and some garlic (for truly, who never not has any of these lying around), tomato sauce, some uncooked spaghetti and my trusty jar of chilli. Right, I was fairly certain I could do something with it…and how surprised I was when the end product was this crazy, delicious chilli chicken spaghetti!

I know you are thinking I must be tooting my horn but I’ve had my fair share of disastrous meals so I know when I’ve hit a winner. The recipe for tonight’s dinner came from a television program that I was watching last night. The chef cooked some cherry tomatoes in olive oil, put some spices in, diced prosciutto and what I thought was some white cooking wine and then tossed it with some fettuccine. Simple and it didn’t need very many ingredients. Well, I didn’t have any of the stuff he had but if that guy can do it then so can I with my meager ingredients!

First I diced the onion and garlic then fried them in butter, tossed in cubes of chicken breast with a teaspoon of chilli paste, squirted half a cup of tomato sauce and seasoned it with spices. I added some olive oil to keep things moist and let the sauce simmer for a while. Lastly I chucked cook spaghetti in and mixed it all together. Presto, dinner is ready!

Actually I wasn’t very sure what it was going to taste like; I was worried it was just going to taste like tomato sauce or worse. In the end, it tasted like spicy tomato chicken spaghetti or in other words, pretty darn good! LOL! The tomato sauce added a bit of sweetness that you usually don’t get with tomato paste and of course I like my food with a kick, hence the chilli paste. I made enough sauce just to lightly coat the noodles but not drown it like with spaghetti bolognese.

Like I said, a bit of ingenuity and desperation born of being a university student who lives by themselves (you know what I mean, don’t pretend to lie!) can go a very long way!

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Recipe: Spicy tomato chicken spaghetti

1 chicken breast

1/2 onion, and some cloves of garlic

1 tsp chilli paste

1 small cube of butter (optional, you can use more olive oil instead)

1/2 cup tomato sauce

pinch of dried italian herbs/spices

drizzle of olive oil

spaghetti noodles (cooked till a la dente)

salt and pepper to season to taste