With Golden Week coming to an end in Japan, today is one of the special day’s in Japan called Children’s Day (also known as Boy’s Day).

Children’s Day (こどもの日) takes place each year on the 5th of May, and it is also known as Boy’s Day (端午の節句).

For many weeks I have seen the beautiful Koi banners like these above blowing in the wind. Before the day the koi-carp (koinobori) are raised, with each Koi having it’s own meaning.

The carp is used to show strength, as in Chinese legend, a Koi swims upstream to become a dragon.

The black carp is called “Magoi” and it is placed at the top to represent the father, then this is followed by the red carp “Higoi” which is the mother, and finally the last carp that can range in colours.

Similar to Girls Day, dolls are displayed (Kintaro Dolls (a famous Samurai), and a Samurai helmet to show strength and health.

I love the Koi carp , and I hope everyone had a nice Golden Week.

Earlier today I went to the Houjyou Godai Matsuri in Odawara, which was pretty awesome!

I saw people dressed up Samurai gear, as well as Ninjas and people coming together to create this annual festival.

The festival was pretty awesome, and I especially liked the parts where they carried and ran through the street with the Mikoshi.

Please check back here soon for a post with more pictures.

The Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Natural History (神奈川県立生命) is a pretty neat museum just outside of Odawara (小田原市, around 30 minutes, nearly 2 hours from Tokyo).

I thought I would check it out as I lived in Odawara, plus I love nature and history.

The museum is right next to Iriuda Station on the Hakone-Tozan line (Only 220円 (£1.45) from Odawara station).

When entering the museum you will see the ticket machine like this above and the price for a single adult was 510円 (£3.40)

The first exhibition you come across shows how the earth formed, with all random crystals and types of rock spaced out in the exhibition.

Below is a model of the globe showing how active Japan is, as well as other places. I couldn’t understand many of the exhibitions, as each part was in Japanese..so I am lucky I had visited with a friend, but I got the jist of each exhibit.

Another part showed creatures from fish to mammals.

Such as the scary sharks and random fish that were huge.

I liked this below which had “I am male” written next to it, as it made me laugh.

A scary polar bear..

and birds, such as this Pelican? that looked like the one in Finding Nemo.

I loved seeing the butterflies, as they look so pretty.

One exhibition I found interesting was about life in Kanagawa, and what animals live/have lived in Kanagawa.

Although I have no idea why they had a moose?

but this creature below looked cute.

A view from above of the display showing rocks/minerals and the galaxy.

Upstairs you can also find a restaurant and an area to chill out in and have a drink.

the view was pretty nice as well.

I enjoyed the visit to this museum in Kanagawa, as it’s a nice place visit for a few hours..also for some reason at the train station we saw so many cute cats lying around .

An awesome video and website featuring everyday sounds from Tokyo and a 3d landscape showing Tokyo.

To celebrate 10 years of Roppongi Hills? A 3D projection mapping of a miniature model of the city of Tokyo at a 1:1000 scale can be found at Tokyo City Symphony.

The website allows you to compose your own song, and it looks stunning as well.

As you can see, the keyboard is used to write your own piece..which is pretty smart.

and the buildings/detail looks amazing.

When I lived back in Odawara, I was unable to find any at first as Pepsi are trying to push their product called “Pepsi Nex”.

I then found these cans in some vending machines, which are twice the size of cans back home!

The cans cost between 100円 – 120円.

and then in a 100円 shop I found a bottle.

The taste is different to Pepsi in the UK, which is my favourite fizzy drink (soda), but it tastes okay.

Pepsi Nex

I tried Pepsi Nex as well, which I imagined tasting like Pepsi Max.

and I was wrong..it just has a weird taste?

Pepsi Ex

Pepsi with extra caffeine..

Which proper boosted my energy, but the taste wasn’t anything special.

You can also buy huge bottles of Pepsi (only 1.5L), but I only found this in the Seiyu supermarket. I also found Pepsi Twist (lemon Pepsi), but I haven’t tried this one.

As well as these flavours, they also have the “fat-blocking Pepsi” which tastes awful, so I’m not surprised it can make people loose weight .

Pepsi is by far my favourite of the fizzy drinks in Japan, but it is dangerous as so many vending machines on my way home in Tokyo stock it.

I lived literally 30 minutes walk from an area with many plum trees, which Odawara is famous for.

Around February to March each year the plum blossom comes out in Odawara, with one site mentioning that Odawara has some 35,000 trees? The area I went to also has a nice gelato ice cream shop selling many flavours of ice cream.

I think I had cookies n cream and chocolate, but I also tried the plum and yuzu flavours.

From the ice cream shop all you could see was the beautiful flowers from the plum blossom, so I took plenty of pictures .

The flowers look beautiful in mixtures of white and pink.

They also had many stores around, such as Yakisoba, Okonomiyaki etc.

So I decided to have Yakitori, which was so tasty.

before going for a walk around to see more of the beautiful flowers.

On my way back I also spotted a cute dog called Hachiko, although this Hachiko was a girl and not a male dog like the famous one in Shibuya…but still kawaii

Welcome to Episode 5 of OKINJAPAN…

In this episode I talk about how I got my haircut in Japan, as I hadn’t changed my hairstylist for about 5 years..I have totally lost man points for writing this…

I had no idea really where to go, but friends living in Japan helped me with these links below.

• Sinden Salon
• Gold Salon Tokyo
• Watanabe Hair Salon
• Yokohama Hair Salon
• Favori Hair Salon

I noticed when looking for a haircut in Japan that many places charge the same amount for men and women as well, which is totally different compared to the West. I’m not sexist, but girls usually have more hair then us guys? So I find it weird that the prices are the same.

The usual price is around 4,000円/5,000円 for just a cut, or another 4,000円 or more on-top of that just for getting your hair dyed..hightlight’s cost more as well.

I went to a place called Hayato on Omotesando, with a voucher (coupon) I found on Hot Pepper. I got a cut and colour (highlights) for around 6,000円, and they did a good job I think?

I was pretty nervous, but they spoke English to me the entire time. They have another shop in Roppongi, as well as in New York and London.

Before

After

It was pretty scary in between getting my haircut as well, because an earthquake happened and I still had the foil stuff in my hair..so I was glad that I didn’t have to go outside.

For more information about the Tokyo Hayato shops, click here.

I love Takoyaki as well!? So I thought I would try this cola.

The cola tastes like what we call “roller cola?” in the UK, but with too much gas. It pretty much sucked, but to be honest I prefer Pepsi or Coke .

This time it features a new dance? but the same randomness and pranks played on the girls in the video.

In it’s first weekend it broke Youtube records by racking up 50 million hits..which is pretty impressive.

An awesome video of a flash mob dance that took place in Asakusa recently…I think?

The video features a group of 230 people and the use of 9 different cameras.

It say’s on the website that top performers such as HIDEBOH (tap dance), AFRA (beat boxer) Isopp (break), Shuho (house), THE GALAXXXXY etc. The shopping center mascot “Nyaka Kun” also participated in the event.

I like the guy with the newspaper at the start and the beat boxer is cool.

I love all the energy off the video, and how it was filmed in such a cool place.

For more information, visit the Exabody website (Japanese).