Japanese Week at Central Eastville Lifestyle Mall!

Back in 2020, at the beginning of covid, the wife and I were booked to finally visit Japan. Obviously, we never got to see the snow in Hokkaido, hopefully that will be a treat for the new year but this evening, on a visit to my favourite shopping lifestyle mall, they were having a Japanese themed event. You could have almost have been in Tokyo!

It was odd. There were no souped up, street racing Subaru Imprezas. Not a 'top knot' in sight, no vending machines, no yoofs on dance mats and definitely no dodgy looking, forty-odd year old, naked women wearing schoolgirl outfits and squeaking in unfeasibly high tones. Regardless, it was stereotyped, tacky and great!

We do 'tacky' very well in Thailand I'm proud to say. We put a lot of effort into it and that hard work pays off as you can see from the photographs below. Thai's are mad for all things Japanese and Korean and they are often the places Thais will travel to first as neither require a visa to enter.

Korea is tricky as many Thais go there on 'package' tours as a tourist with the intention of going to work and always get the third degree before they are allowed entry with many being refused. A recent stroy from the Bangkok Post had Korea up in arms and threatening to refuse visa free entry in the future because out of a recent tour of 52 people who went to the holiday island of Jeju, only 4 actually left! In anger, Korea turned a whole plane load of Thais away at their border the following week so the preference for real tourists is to go to Japan, although very much more expensive than Korea.

Anyway, its great to see people getting out and about again albeit still masked up and much as its fodder for a few cheap jokes, I like this sort of tatt and as I have mentioned many times before, I love this small mall for its relaxed feel and the fact that in a supposedly animal loving country where its difficult to take your pets out, here, you can walk them, put them in a pet pushchair and pushed them around or just sit and show-off while everyone takes pictures.

The wife just wanted to get into the food!

Possibly some sort of potato cake, both regular and sweet. Like everything, I have no idea about the Japanese authenticity!

Noodle bars. Why do I think that writing looks more Chinese than Japanese?

Japansese T-shirts...perhaps! They'd paid for a stall so if they say they're Japanese...

I loved these. I wasn't paying a fiver for one and I will wait untill the next photo to tell you what it is...

Did you have a guess? Well, its candy floss....or cotton candy as some none English speakers may know it, made into doll like creations and stuffed into a plastic cup!

I see what they did there. One of the famous cherry blossom trees as well as a cut out, kimono clad Japanese figure.

The Japanese love jam and bread. Who'd have thought it? Not a flat cap of ferret insight and at a Japanese fair, in a Thai shopping mall, the sign is in English!

Hope everyone is having a great week and thanks for dropping by. I wonder what I can come up with for my next exciting post!

@nathen007

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