The Ups and Downs of Kawaguchiko

Yesterday I visited the Fuji Q highland theme park with 4 of my friends and had a great time. We thought that Monday would have been very quiet and uncrowded but were soon to discover that this was not the case. We were sharing the theme park with thousands of University Students making the most of their last few weeks of summer holidays. It was a quite a shock when we were told that the wait for some rides would be 3 hours long. We couldn’t believe it! In the 6 hours we spent at Fuji Q we were able to ride 4 of the attractions and spent a total of 4.5 hours standing in line. However, the rides and attractions themselves were amazing and we soon forgot about all the waiting as we were flying through the air and dropping down huge drops on the various rollercoaster.

The highlight of the day for me was the Do Don Pa, a super fast rollercoaster that accelerates to 176km/h in 1.8sec! It was extremely scary but very exhilarating. My whole body was shaking for about 20 minutes after the ride.

After the day at the theme park, my friends and I ate Houtou noodles at a traditional restaurant in Kawaguchiko. Houtou are wide noodles, served in miso based soup with lots of pumpkin, mushrooms and seasonal vegetables and are incredibly delicious. I highly recommend a trip to Fuji Q followed by a dinner of Houtou noodles as a terrific day out.

Whats the Eco Point?

ECO POINTS

If you have bought an electrical appliance for your home recently there’s a strong probability that you would have received Eco Points. For those who don’t know, Eco Points are an initiative of the Japanese Government to encourage consumers to purchase products with low environmental impact. Points are awarded to consumers based on the price of the product as well as the products environmental friendliness. It was recently announced that these points can be exchanged for credit on Suica or Pasmo cards as well as used towards the purchase of flights with JAL and ANA airlines.

While the idea behind the Eco Points scheme seems honourable, I cant help but feel that the initiative is simply a broad gesture intended to persuaded the public that the government is actively working towards implementing strong environmentally focused policies. I recently received some Eco points with the purchase of a household appliance and was amused by the hypocrisy of it all as I was handed numerous sheets of environmentally damaging bleached paper explaining the Eco Points system.

Cynicism aside, I’m sure that the Eco points system will go some way to convincing consumers to purchase Environmentally friendly products in the future and therefore should definitely not be considered a useless initiative.

Is Food in Japan Expensive?

Is food in Japan Expensive?

Hello! This is my first post on the Global Communications Blog and today I’d like to talk about the cost of food in Japan.

If I ask my friends in Australia what they think of Japan, most people will say “expensive”. I’m not sure where this image comes from but before coming to Japan I also thought that Japan was a very expensive country. However, I was surprised to discover that eating in restaurants as well as grocery shopping in Japan is actually quite a fair bit cheaper than Australia.

It is usual to pay around $30 (2500yen) for dinner in a restaurant in Australia whereas in Japan you can eat a decent meal for around 1000yen. This is less than half of what you would pay in Australia!

Shopping in supermarkets is also, in general, cheaper in Japan than in Australia. Products such as packaged drinks (juice, soft drinks etc), tofu, fresh and dried noodles, fish, chicken and pork are much cheaper in Japan. However, fresh fruit and dairy products are more expensive in Japan.

I have found that if I steer clear of western style restaurants and cook Japanese style meals at home, eating out and grocery shopping is much cheaper in Japan than in Australia.

I also recently moved to a new apartment that is very close to a 100yen supermarket, which also helps keep my shopping expenses low!

Well, all this talk about food has made me hungry, time for my Onigiri!