Awesomeness overload. ETA: 3 days

It's been a while since I put up a blog, but I haven't done as much as I'd have liked. I did have a fun week before christmas. Had a couple of good dinners. First of all I went to a Japanese restaurant with a Japanese student I had met for language exchange a few weeks before then. She took me to a restaurant in London that I had never been before and actually had shockingly good sushi. In London Sushi Tetsu is still king, but this is the 2nd best I've had:

Looks and almost tasted like real Japanese sushi

I finally attended my first of the Tuesday Lunches that me and my friends set up every week. Due to circumstances we hadn't made a reservation and the restaurant we wanted to go to, Flat Iron, had a 90 minute waitlist. After trying a few other places we suddenly realized that it was somehow extremely busy and nearly impossible to find a place to eat on a Tuesday at 8PM.
Finally after searching for about an hour we came across MASH, a massive underground steakhouse, where we were told we'd have a table in 10 minutes. The 10 minutes turned into 45, so when we finally got a table I was STARVING, which made me decide to order 3 starters.

Fortunately enough the bar wasn't an unpleasant place to wait

 Starter #1: Lobster

 Starter #2: Pasta and #3: Kalamari

Main: Burger with fries

All in all a very satisfying meal.

The Friday of that week was Martijn's last day staying with me in London. To celebrate we went to an Italian Seafood restaurant with David and Niall.

 Seafood Carpacio to start. Wasn't impressed.

 Excellent lobster tomato sauce spaghetti

Pretty good as far as desserts go

We also had some oysters, but I haven't eaten enough oysters to say whether they were good or not. Overall a good meal.

Then Saturday me, Dave and an Australian friend of his went for some Ramen.

Tokyo Style Ramen if I remember correctly

Just like the first time I ate Ramen in London I was very, very unimpressed. The broth tasted extremely blend as did all of the toppings. Guess I'll have to wait until I'm back in Japan if I want to eat some delicious Ramen again.

Then the Sunday before Christmas I woke up and felt pretty terrible. A few hours into the day I felt very nauseous and got a headache and a fever. This was pretty bad, because I would be hosting 2 couchsurfers for a few nights. I didn't quite feel bad enough to cancel on the last day, so I just let them know I wasn't feeling so well. Fortunately enough Yukiko and Misaki were very understanding and very easy and relaxed guests.

The following days I felt a bit better, but still quite nauseous and I was barely able to eat anything, which was a huge shame, because they made some delicious food. We also watched the most epic christmas movie, It's a wonderful life, played a bit of poker and did calligraphy.

Sushi, Miso Soup and Hotpot

 Calligraphy, reading Tokyo

 Misaki, Yukiko and I

My calligraphy, reading: unheard of, calligraphy, National Parliament, vending machine and Shinagawa station

Right after they left my younger brother came visit me in London. I still wasn't feeling 100%, but I felt well enough to leave the house and do a couple things with him. We had some fun conversations about various subjects including Philosophy, because he's really into that. A few fun days and always good to spend some time with my younger brother.

Then came new year during which I felt decent, went to the gym for a few days and played a bunch of poker. Did really well at poker for a couple of days and speaking of going to the gym. Just before I got ill I did a timed 5KM run, trying to set as good a time as I could. Eventually I managed to run it in 19 Min 21 Sec, which averages out to 15.5 km/h. VERY intense and I'm happy with that result.

Nearly a week into the new year when I thought my illness has passed, it suddenly came back and I got very nauseous again. I went to see the general practitioner and was told I had a digestive system infection, most likely a very aggressive variant. In the end they were never able to pinpoint exactly what kind of bacteria/virus it was, but I felt pretty bad for most of January and didn't get anything done at all. My dad visited me for a few days too, but unfortunately enough I wasn't able to do a lot with him. Towards the end of January I was getting quite worried I may not heal up before leaving for Japan on the 5th of February, but luckily I felt better eventually and was also able to spend a week or 2 with my friends before leaving.

I attended a couple more weekly lunches, the most memorable of which was on the 5th of February, the day I left London. We had booked a table at The Hawksmoor Air Street, a steakhouse in central London, and it turned out they had added a Fillet to the lunch menu, which meant there was no other option than going with the express menu, because it was INSANE value for money. The steak ended up being slightly disappointing considering it was THE Hawksmoor, but nonetheless for 26£ eating a starter, 250g fillet, fries AND dessert in a beautiful restaurant with a bunch of friends was a great way to say goodbye to London.

 Yorkshire Puddings. Very tasty

Not the Hawksmoor's best piece of meat, but still a VERY juicy steak

After the lunch I said goodbye and took the Eurostar + Thalys from London to The Netherlands to spend a week with friends and family before heading off to Japan. So far I've met up with some friends I hadn't seen for a while, spent some time with my mom and dad, aswell as visited my younger sister in Amsterdam. With my dad I took a trip to Enschede to go to my favorite restaurant in The Netherlands: Restaurant TAO, which makes some of the best sushi rolls in the world. Uncomparable to the Japanese Nigiri Sushi, but as far as rolls go they are the most creative I've ever had.

 Don't remember what's in it

 Ebi Tenpura with Unagi on top

 Shoft Shell Crab

 Raw Beef with garlic

 

'Flaming Roll'

 Bonito Flakes on top

Rainbow Roll with Mango

While I have to give them sick credit for creativity still(especially the flaming roll.. I mean WHO comes up with the idea to light sushi on fire?! How awesome is that!), I was somewhat disappointed with the taste this time. Maybe my taste buds have evolved in some way, but I just didn't enjoy it as much this time. Oh well... still was a fun trip with my dad.

That's all I've done since my last blog. Movie wise, there's one I've seen that's worth mentioning:

-Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386064/

Likely the best action/war movie I've ever seen. If you like war movies, this is a must watch, it's basically perfect.

More importantly than movies though, I want to mention an anime I've seen that is one of the best pieces of media I've ever seen. If this was a movie it'd make my top 5 of all time.

-Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0994314/

-Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1196006/

A kid with no power's rise to being the king of the world. World politics. Ethics of things such as weapons of mass destruction and war in general. Life and why we are living. The way for humans as a society/race to move forward. An in depth look at concepts such as friendship, betrayal and lieing... and SO much more all of which packed in an extremely exciting, well told, beautifully animated series that practically never has dull moments, sometimes has multiple plot twists per episode and never EVER slows down. TV Series don't get any closer to perfection than this.

I haven't been able to do as much nor study as much Japanese as I'd like this past month, because of the digestive system infection, but that's all about to change. In less than 3 days I will be landing in Japan, the most awesome place on Earth. I'll first spend a week in Tokyo to do some apartment hunting. Then I'll spend a week or so in Nagoya to meet up with friends from last year, maybe spend a bit of time in Kyoto and Osaka aswell. Kyoto, because of their sick Ramen and maybe to meet some friends, Osaka mostly because I didn't get to see that much of it last time.

Then on the 5th of March I'll fly to Korea, spend a week eating Korean food and doing some sightseeing and then spend a week playing poker at the APPT. Then on the 19th of March I'll fly back to Tokyo and stay in an apartment until the 15th of June when I fly back to Europe.

Just like last time I'll try to update my blog every now and then with a ton of pictures.

Awesomeness overload: ETA: 3 days!!!