Niigata Bust Pudding

Only in Japan.

On our way to Kanazawa for Sakura viewing, we stopped at a few rest area for toilet break and for some shopping. At the first stop, I had just woke up from a short nap. Still blur, I went to the toilet and then to see what are the things they sell at the store.

Most of the things sold in the store are very normal, nice looking candies, pies or cookies. However, suddenly my eyes fell on this item.

It says "Niigata Bust Pudding". I was wondering, are they misspelling the product (they often did in Japan). However, they even have a sample of the box opened, which is the same below.


Open the box, you will see a woman with big bust, wearing pink bra.



Then, you can unhook the bra from the front.


And ta-da!!!! 2 nice looking pudding for you to enjoy. Yes, you can eat or taste that pudding.


Fully opened box, with 2 real pudding, spoon & honey!!!!


All these are just for 347 yen, or RM10 :P..... worth it!!!

IUJ Ski Day

What's that....
IUJ's student society, called GSO, organizes the IUJ Ski Day every year. For ski, normally there are 2 things we have to pay for, the ski pass & the equipment rental. GSO negotiates bulk discount from the ski operator & from the equipment rental. I paid 2500 yen (1500 for ski pass + 1000 for ski rental).

On that day...


IUJ bus took us to the Hakkai-san ski resort, which is just 10 minutes away. However, Ben drove us there instead since the first bus left earlier than we thought.


Reached the ski-area, I immediately go to the equipment rental shop to get my ski equipments, buckle up & started skiing.


Start Skiing...

We take the ski lift to reach the top. The lift here takes much longer time than Urasa's ski to reach the top. The first difficult part of the ski is to get down the ski lift, since we are supposed to start skiing to get down the lift.

Actually we were quite a nuisance for other visitors, because we don't know how to get on the lift, occasionally the workers have to stop the lift to let us get on & stop again when we fell while getting off at the top of the hill. Our incompetence created such a long queue for those who wanted to get the lift up.

The Hakkai-san ski is supposedly to be easier than the ski-area in front of Urasa station, where I ski the first time. True enough, the slope was gentler and the view is much nicer. First 2 rounds, practice rounds. I fell many times over. Anyway, after 3 rounds, I stopped falling and able to ski all the way down. Completed around 20-30 rounds the whole day.


Ski is not easy. It takes at least 2 times just to get the hang of it. So many of the first time students they were just practicing whole day at the bottom of the ski resort, without taking the ski lift up.


One student, first timer, went up without knowing what to expect and took 2 hours just to get down, when normally it takes us 2 minutes to reach the bottom and have to queue to get up again.


More pictures here

Ski Day

Snowshower

Urasa 浦佐, where IUJ is located is known for heavy snow. Even though the temperature is just 1 deg C, snow is heavy. Everyone's bragging there's an unbelievable 3m of snow 2 years ago, a record in many years. However, there's only 0.5m of snow last year, which is almost equivalent to no snow.

This year, I prayed for more snow, hopefully 4 or 5m. Then I'll just climb out from my friend's window from the 2nd floor.

Last week it was snowing non-stop and the snow went up to 1 meter high, covering almost everything.



The roof of our dorm was totally covered with snow

and so is the whole university

From outside ......................................... From Inside

Even cars ...................................................... and bicycles


This is how it looks like in the middle of the snow

End of Winter Holiday

Coming back to IUJ is a chore. My flight is in the afternoon. I didn't realize that I would arrive in Tokyo at 8pm, clear custom, and then take 1 hour train to Ikebukuro and then rush for shinkansen / bus / train to Urasa.
I have given up all hope of coming back to Urasa at the same day, until I found out the day before the flight that I will be flying on 11am and reach Tokyo at 6pm, leaving me with 4 more hours to catch the last bus.
The nice thing in Japan is that... you can plan your journey way ahead. All the train schedules for EVERY train station & bus are always accurate up to the MINUTE!!! If the schedule say that there is no train, don't pray that miracle would happen.

On 9th, my MAS's MH070 was delayed reach Narita at 7pm. Then the custom has introduced new regulation to take photograph & fingerprint of all foreigners, delaying my departure from airport by another 1 hour. Luckily I was able to rush back to Ikebukuro by 10, and took the last bus at 11:30pm, and arrived in Muikamachi at 3am with Ben there waiting for me in the snow to pick me up back.

Had class next day.