Catching Up

A few things happened in the past couple weeks that I wanted to share. Yoshie and I went to Oktoberfest in Yokohama. It was held at the Akarenga or "Red Brick" buildings, which were warehouses constructed by the port of Yokohama at the end of the 19th century. It's kind of funny that, in a country with buildings that are a thousand years old, these 100-year-old buildings are considered "historical". I guess because they are among the first buildings constructed in the "Western" style in Japan ...?


The Oktoberfest itself was kind of fun, although the beer was expensive, it was really crowded, there were long lineups to get food, to get beer, and to use the bathroom, and there was no place to sit down. Okay, on second thought, it sucked and I probably won't go back next year. Yoshie and I sat on the ground to drink our beer and eat our sausages. After 20 minutes or so, a couple of seats came open at the table right by where we were sitting; we jumped up to claim them, and another couple tried to grab them at the same time. It was a staring contest for a while, but eventually they relented, I guess because they could see that we had been sitting there before they arrived. Once we had a place to sit, it became a lot more enjoyable. Oh, did I mention that there were people dressed up like Nazis in the crowd? In the above photo, you can see a guy wearing a military costume of some sort. Well, there were also people dressed up like Nazis ... it just doesn't carry the same anti-social stigma here that it does, well, basically everywhere else in the world. Weird.

After I took that picture, I turned around and took this picture:

Which is just to say that Yokohama is an interesting place. Huge skyscrapers beside Ferris wheels beside sail-shaped hotels, beside Red Brick buildings. Lots of interesting architecture in a very small area.

The next week, I went to the Ramen Museum in Shin-Yokohama with a few of my former students. That was fun; you can order half-bowls of ramen so that you have enough space in your stomach to sample the noodles from 2 or 3 different shops. We went to three shops, so that equals about 1.5 bowls, so I was pretty full by the end of it.


Yoshie and I went to Zenzoji in downtown Tokyo one gray and cloudy afternoon. I still find the clash between old and new, as cliched as it is, to be pretty interesting. Here's an interesting contrast shot, kind of crappy though, because it was taken with my phone.

On November 3rd, I went to see a demonstration of traditional martial arts on the grounds of the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. This particular school of martial arts dates back at least 500 years:

There was also a display of Yabusame, or archery from horseback. It is a ritual offering to the gods, asking them to give a bountiful harvest. It is believed that it has been conducted for 1000 years or so. Archers wear the full regalia from the 1300's, including doe-skin chaps.


I was wandering around in Tokyo one afternoon, when I spotted this balloon. I approached for a closer look, and got this shot of them firing up the burner.



A couple weeks ago, I went to a huge sword show. Hundreds upon hundreds of amazing swords, costing anywhere from about $500 (for a small blade in rough condition) to over $100,000. The average price for a sword was probably somewhere between $5,000 and $10,000. Too rich for me. It was fun looking around, though.

Back to Enoshima!

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we had a nice time in Enoshima, but we felt kind of rushed, so we decided to go again while the weather was still nice. We went back a couple weeks later (which is now about a month ago!) It was a weekend, again, so the place was really busy, but instead of being annoying, the crowds gave the whole place kind of a festive atmosphere.


We went up to the temple near the top of the hill where you arrive from the mainland. There is a special "knot" which is supposed to give you good luck (or fertility, or a long life, or something good, anyway) if you pass through it 3 times in a designated way. If I recall correctly, you go through once and go around to the left, again and go around to the right, and one last time, around to the left.


At the very top of the island, there is a pavilion with a garden, where a British merchant established a botanical garden in the late 1800's. Apparently, he was the person who introduced Darwin's theory of evolution to Japan, and he set about cataloguing the flora and fauna of the area. More importantly, there's now an observation tower up there.

From the tower you can look out over the ocean, and back over to the mainland.


Climbing up to the top of the island and then up the observation tower (who am I kidding; we took escalators and elevators the whole way!) gave us quite an appetite. Never ones to take a chance, we ate the same thing we did the last time - little fish on rice. It was just as delicious the second time!

We had a great time on Enoshima. The weather has really been cooling down the last few weeks, so I'm glad that we got there while it was still warm. Further updates to come...

The Stuff I Eat

After my next-to-last post, I was thinking about the kind of food I eat here. I had a few questions like that over the summer: "What's an average meal for you over there?"
Average would be a bowl of rice with some meat on top; either shredded fried beef and onions, or a deep fried hunk of chicken or breaded pork. In the west, Japanese food has a reputation for being healthy (sushi is low-fat, at least) but everyday food is just as bad as in the west. The traditional diet used to be better until everyone started eating meat.
Anyway, you sometimes get more exotic fare. This was an appetizer at a little bar I went to a while back. It was pretty tasty. Pate of pork heart, with a dollop of salmon roe on top. The pate is mixed through with green peas, and the whole thing has a little bit of sauce. When I was a kid, the peas alone would have made me retch.

I Survived the Typhoon

Hi! The typhoon came and went. To my experience, it wasn't a big deal, although I turn on the news this morning and see that 2 people are dead and one missing; the entire train system in Tokyo was shut down for hours yesterday morning, stranding hundreds of thousands of workers and basically bringing the city to its knees.

We knew that a big storm was coming, and people were bracing for impact. The newspapers were blaring headlines about the impending "morning commute panic" which was expected to happen. We learned from some other teachers that the high school was to be shut down for the day, but the university side of things was going to be "business as usual". This despite the fact that all of our students were assuring us that they had no plans of coming to class...

So I woke up a bit early yesterday morning, braved the hurricane winds, and went to the station. There were noticeably fewer people on the platform, but the trains were running. It was actually kind of pleasant because the train was less crowded than usual.

The bus to school was absolutely deserted - it was just me and another teacher, but no students. We walked through deserted hallways and opened up our classes. About 2 minutes before 9, the professor in charge came around and told us that all classes were cancelled for the morning. I later learned that this information had been on the university website for some time, but telling us that wasn't high on our company's To-Do List, apparently.

So, we sat around and amused ourselves for a few hours. The weather that morning was very odd. It started out rainy and windy - typical stormy weather - but the clouds soon blew away and it was a strange mix of sun and high winds. It was actually kind of pleasant being outside, because it wasn't cold at all, but the wind was whipping everything around and making it difficult to walk.

By noon, the storm had faded completely and it was just a nice, warm, sunny day. People who had taken the whole day off must have felt a bit sheepish - although they had a beautiful day to enjoy from home. A few of our students changed their minds and actually showed up for afternoon classes.

The trip home was also very pleasant, with the buses and trains only half full, I'd guess. It kind of made me think what a nice place Tokyo would be if about half the people moved away.

Weekend Update

Hi. It was a good September, overall. The weather was generally good, and I was especially happy that it wasn't too hot. We've had a few storms, but I think the sunny days have outnumbered the rainy ones.

I think I mentioned that I'm living in Yamato city now. Yamato is actually the ancient name for Japan; the name that Japan gave itself before it adopted the name that the Chinese had for it. The sun rises in the East, which, from the Chinese perspective, is where Japan was; hence "the land of the rising Sun", which is more or less what "Nihon" means. Yamato means "great peace", which is kind of ironic when you think about it.

Anyway, commuting into the center of Tokyo (the far side, actually!) from Yamato was kind of taking its toll on me. It was a 90-minute commute, which meant getting on a train at 7:12 every morning, and then not getting home until about 8 o'clock at night. Some people do this every day, and have done so for 40 years, which is probably why there are so many miserable-looking people on the trains here. But I'm back to work at school now, so my commute is only about an hour door-to-door, which is manageable.

I had to work both days last weekend, which meant I worked 11 days straight with no holiday, so I made sure to get the most out of the last weekend. I went to Jodo practice Friday night, and went out for drinks with everybody afterwards, which was fun. I don't understand a lot of what's being said, but people at least try to include me, which is nice. Mr. Matsui, one of the teachers, is a retired newspaper man; I asked him about the change over to computer-based publishing that happened in the 60's and 70's, and he happily told me all about it. I missed a lot of what he said, but I did pick up some interesting tidbits.

Saturday I slept in and that alone made my weekend. I did a bit of laundry and was off to iaido practice. I pay $50 a month for iaido, and it's not pro-rated ... if you attend for one week in September, you have to pay for all of September. So it was good that I went the first week of October. Hopefully I'll get my full money's worth this month. Practice itself was good, although I was really feeling the 2-month absence.

I hurried home and went shopping for Saturday night's dinner. I promised to cook for Yoshie, so I got the ingredients for chicken parmagiana. Of course I forgot a few crucial things (for example, I only had one plate!) so I had to rush back to the store again. By the time Yoshie arrived, I hadn't even started cooking.

Dinner turned out okay; not great, but okay. I cooked waaaay too much food. One chicken breast would have been enough for both of us, so if I make it again, I'll be sure to cut the chicken in half. It'll cook faster, too.

Sunday, we decided that, since the weather was nice, we'd go to Enoshima. This is a small island that has been a vacation spot for Tokyo-ites for centuries. You can see Mount Fuji from the island too, which is very nice. The most famous woodblock print of all is Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kanagawa" which could be set somewhere near Enoshima...

The island used to be accessible by boat (of course) and on foot at low tide, but now there's a bridge connecting it to the mainland.

It's kind of a funky place. It has a really nice "vacation" feeling about it. There are lots of tourist shops and restaurants, and the place is thronging with surfers, jetskiers, people with dogs, and families with kids. Yoshie had heard about a famous restaurant selling shirasu, or baby sardines. These are just tiny little fish with very little actual flavour. I gather that they swim around in big schools, and they are harvested using fine nets. She got raw shirasu with pickled ginger on rice (the far dish) and I got a kind of deep-fried seafood cake with salad on rice. The white stuff on top is a pile of steamed shirasu. It was really, really good. We also had a locally-made beer each. Yoshie's was made with salt water and was kind of interesting.

Yoshie asked me if we eat any kind of similar fish in Canada. I told her No, most people don't like the idea of eating fish whole - eyes, guts, and all - even if they are tiny.

Stuffed to the gills, we walked around the island for a while. Pretty soon the sun was going down and the full moon was out. It's not much of a photo, but you get the idea.

We really enjoyed our afternoon on Enoshima, and decided to go back, possibly next weekend. There seems to be a lot more to explore, so I'll take my camera next time, and hopefully have some better pictures to show you.

This Won't Last Long

Although not as bad as some countries (Italy comes to mind) Japan has had kind of a revolving-door when it comes to Prime Ministers. The last few PMs have only lasted a year or so each before resigning (I could look it up, but there are few topics I care less about than politics).

Anyway, this guy made headlines when he and the Democratic Party toppled the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power in Japan for ... well, forever, basically. Now there are tons of novice politicians who will be holding office for the first time, (including a woman who has never really had a full-time job before) which is sure to be a recipe for scandals and political disaster. I predict that this government is not going to last long.

And this isn't going to help:
PM's Wife Is a Frigging Nut

In Japan ... Again

Hello and thanks to everyone I was able to meet up with while I was home. My visit was far too brief, but everybody really did their best to make me comfortable and happy while I was there.

My flight back to Japan was good. I changed my seat and got an excellent spot behind the bulkhead (so, about 10 feet of legroom in front of me!) and nobody to my left. On my right side was the aisle, so I got brushed, bumped, and jostled by every single person who went by, but otherwise, it was a great seat, and I actually managed to get a couple hours of sleep. The crappy part was that the entertainment system wasn't working again (it didn't work on the flight to Canada at all). Or at least, I thought it wasn't working because mine wasn't, and nobody I could see could get theirs to work either. Well, at some point while I was listening to my iPod, I guess they made an announcement that some seats didn't have a working system, but you could move to a vacant seat (the flight was only half full) with a working entertainment system if you wanted. I didn't notice anybody moving seats, either, so this whole thing was lost on me. Point being, I complained towards the end of the flight, and the attendant looked at me like I was an idiot and told me I could have changed my seat. Whoops. So, no movies and no 5% discount by way of an apology (which is what we all got on our Tokyo-Toronto flight). Oh well.

My new apartment is okay, but a bit far from the Tokyo office. It takes the better part of 1hr45 to get to work, but at least I only have to do that for the next few weeks. School starts on the 25th, so after that, my commute will be much shorter. 10 minutes walk to the station, 30 minutes on 2 trains, and a 15 minute bus ride. About an hour in total, which doesn't sound great, but is fairly manageable.

Topic change:
When I go back to Canada, I spend a lot of time defending Japan and talking about why I like living here. But let me tell you about something I absolutely despise: bosozoku. We don't have an English word for these people because we wouldn't tolerate their existence in Canada. They are usually young men, who buy crappy motorcycles and remove the mufflers so that they are ear-splittingly loud. They like to ride slowly through residential neighbourhoods revving their motors, waking people up and generally creating as much noise as they can. I am sure that there are anti-noise laws in Japan, but for whatever reason, the police tend to ignore these jerks. Maybe they feel that they are just rebellious youngsters who are getting out their anti-social feelings in a (relatively) harmless way. But they make me see red - the thought that somebody is deliberately going out of their way to cause as much random irritation to as many people as they possibly can is incredibly annoying to me.

In Canada, I think neighbours would tend to put a stop to this sort of thing. If you lived next door to a kid who fancied himself a bosozoku, the kid would find his tires slashed, or a brick thrown through his window. But Japan being the (otherwise) incredibly polite society that it is, somehow these people continue to operate. When I hear one go by (and one has gone by 3 or 4 times since I started writing this) it makes me want to climb up onto the roof with a sniper rifle. As those tend to be pretty hard to get your hands on in this country, the next best thing would be to wait patiently on the sidewalk with my sword, and decapitate him the next time he rolls by. But then I'd be the one getting arrested, right? I tell ya, life just ain't fair.