Popularity is on the up-trend

This weekend's trip was just a shopping trip to Utsunomiya.

Among other things, I found some interesting t-shirts. There are plenty of t-shirts with what I call decorative English on them here. You can also see examples from all over, not just Japan at www.engrish.com. Japundit also has examples on a regular basis.

I have some from my first trip to Okazaki. Here are my latest acquisitions:

"Evryday Happily
Having more than enough delight"









The next one has stuff on both sides!

The front:
"Livre D'Images
Popularity is on the up-trend du to its flexible idea
Renew your mood with your chin
Now, I have a rech feeling
These are my favorites
Handing the popularity on to the
next generation
Livre D'Images 921"


And the back:
"Luxurious feeling of the best quality
I feel comfortable
with my heart
exhilierated 921
Livre D'Images
These days, I feel
like I'm not myself We will
in the gap of your heart
Blowing away the
Cobwebs"

Personally, I don't think it's bad English because I don't think it's a failed attempt at a serious translation of something into English. (It may be the actually be the most ingenious marketing campaign directed at foreign English speakers in Japan!) And even if it were a serious attempt at translation, it still wouldn't be as bad as the bad Japanese or Chinese tattoos that you can see at Hanzi Smatter. I mean, I can just take the shirt off.

Sounds of Japan

I have a watch and an alarm clock, but I can tell certain times of the day by the sounds outside my apartment.

For instance, there is a produce shop that has metal roll-down shutters that make a loud screechy noise when they go up or down. The shop opens at 7:30 am and closes at 7:00 pm, every day.

There is also what I think is a temple bell that rings at 6:00 am and 6:00 pm. Its tone is very low, not very loud and slow. I haven't pinpointed where it comes from. And I haven't figured out how many times it rings. It's one of those noises that you don't notice right away. You just gradually become aware that you're hearing it. .............Bong.............Bong.............Bong.........

The sewers along the roads are covered with concrete blocks that aren't cemented down. They make a distinctive rattle when cars drive on them.

Cars also beep when they go backwards. And most Japanese back into parking spaces.

I can hear the "all aboard" horn from the train station all the way from in front of the school in the morning. I think it's because the train station is down in the valley, and the school is up on the hill. The train station is 9 minutes away from my apartment in one direction and the school is 15-20 minutes in the other direction.

Speaking of the school, Westminster Quarters sound at the start and end of each period. "The Entertainer" is played over the loudspeaker system during osōji, or cleaning time. I'll never think of that song the same again!

Finally, there are LOTS of birds. Noisy ones. There are also crows. Karasuyama means "Crow Mountain," and it got the name honestly.

Rice cooker cooking

I made a rice dish in my rice cooker with the stuff I'd brought back fromTairaya. It was good, and I shared some of it with another ALT who lives in my building. He is new to cooking, so I thought he'd appreciate it. And he did.

Today, I went to Tairaya and got some more salmon and made the dish again. Here is a rough recipe for those of you who can wing it in the kitchen:

1 measure of rice (use the cup that came with your rice cooker)
Toppings (use the toppings of your choice; here is what I used)
1 myoga, sliced
3 fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced
Salmon with skin and bones removed
About 1/3 cup chopped onion
1 T soy sauce
1.5 T sake
1.5 tsp rice vinegar

Clean the rice as usual. Put the rice in the cooker, and add the usual amount of water. Put your toppings on the rice, then add the soy sauce, sake and rice vinegar. Put some sake in the cook to0, if you wish.

Cook the rice as usual. Let it sit about 10 minutes after it's done. Flake the salmon with a fork, then mix the toppings and rice together. Serve.

I will probably get two meals out of this. YMMV (Your mileage may vary.)

There is a bit of a pun here, as both sake (the alcoholic drink) and salmon are "sake" (さけ) in Japanese. The Chinese characters, or kanji, are different: 酒 and 鮭.


Here is the myoga.








And the shiitake mushrooms.











Here is everything before cooking.









And afterwards.








And ready to eat!








You could probably add peppers, garlic or other spices to taste. Experiment and have fun!

How far does your yen go?

To give you an idea of what I'm buying at grocery stores and the cost of food, here is the result of today's shopping trip:

7.5 grams cinnamon: ¥113








2 liters of mikan flavored drink: ¥168
Mikan refer to all native oranges, but mostly to mandarin oranges.








1 can ume flavored Chuhai: ¥108
Chuhai is an alchoholic beverage. Ume are often referred as plums, but are actually related to apricots.







15 ready-to-cook gyoza: ¥145








1 can loquats: ¥98








1 bottle (.5 liter) Aquarius: ¥ 98

Most sodas and such in .5 liter bottles are ¥98 in stores, and ¥120-150 from vending machines. They are about the size of a 16 ounce soda bottle.

Aquarius is like Pocari Sweat: not too sweet, no describable flavor. It's made by Coca-Cola.

3 cucumbers: ¥100
These are thinner than in the US.





1 Kiwi: ¥128







1 Onion: ¥39








1 piece of salmon: ¥250








Garbage bags for burnable trash (10): ¥130
You have to buy these to put out burnable trash.





4 pieces of fried fish from the deli: ¥ 218








1/4 Hokusai cabbage: ¥99











10 eggs, size M: ¥198








3 Myoga: ¥99
(similar to ginger-- I haven't tried them yet)






1 pack of fresh shiitake mushrooms: ¥158
This is probably the best deal, compared to the US.





Grand total: ¥2,149 = $20.01 US.

I'll put the salmon, myoga, some shiitake, some onion and some hokusai in the rice cooker with some rice to make dinner tonight. The rest of the hokusai will probably end up in a stir fry, or okonomiyaki. Yum!

This weekend's trip

This weekend's trip was to Shinjuku -- another section of Tokyo.

I had been to the Maruzen store by Tokyo station, which has a large foreign language (English and other languages) section. The Kinokuniya store in Shinjuku also has a large foreign language section. There is also a Tokyu Hands store -- it has all kinds of household things.

Unfortunately, it was very cloudy, so the pictures aren't the best. But it didn't rain, so that's OK.

The first place I went was the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. There is a tourist information office there. I found one sheet guides to the different sections of Tokyo. They appear to have better maps for free than the guidebooks that I spent good money for.

The main reason to go here, though, was the view. You can go to the 45th floor for a view of the city. It's a very fast elevator. I think it went up to the 45th floor faster than the elevator where I used to work went to the third! Had the weather been better, the view would be better as well. But the price is right, so I'll try to go there again before my year is up. Meanwhile, here are some pics for you!

Here are some pictures of the building from the ground. There are two towers, connected at the bottom.




























Here are people in the other tower looking out.







You can see I don't have a filter to eliminate window reflections, but here is the view.




Here is the other tower.

















Here's another view. You can see that there is some greenery here...















This was taken from the ground. I don't know what building this is, but I think it looks cool.














After that, I went to find Tokyu Hands and Kinokuniya. The first thing I found out about Shinjuku station is that you can't get from the east and west exits directly to the south exit. The west exit took me to the Tokyo Metropolitan building, but I wanted the new south exit to get to the Takashimaya Times Square, where the stores are.

At one point, I found a McDonald's and thought that would be a good place for lunch and trying to find out where I was in relationship to where I wanted to be. It was noon, so it was very crowded. But a bacon lettuce burger is very good! I figured I was on the north west side of the station -- and I wanted to be on the southeast station. I did finally find Takashimaya Times Square.

The Krispy Kreme in Appleton may have closed, but here's one in Shinjuku!





















Here is a promenade outside Takashimaya Times Square, where Tokyu Hands and Kinokuniya (and Takashimaya department store) are located.

There was a slight earthquake while I wrote this. A little rattling, but not much.

Holy Mackerel!

It's what's for dinner!

If you remember, I bought a book that tells how to clean fish that comes closer to a natural state than I'm used to. I had eaten mackerel (鯖 saba) in miso sauce at school and it was pretty good. So Sunday, I decided to try to make it myself.

The recipe was for four people and called for one mackerel. The smallest portion I found at the store was a half of one. As you can see, that's ¥198 , or $1.83 US. I had to cut off some fin, but at least the head and innards were gone!

Here it is cooking. There is a paper lid in there to keep it from getting jostled around and breaking up while simmering. They are used a lot here, but you can also use parchment paper. For less delicate foods, they have drop lids made of wood that fit into the pan and sit on top of the food. This keeps the food under the liquid, and also keeps it from jostling around too much.

Here is the result. The recipe said that one-quarter fish should be one serving, so I planned to save half for the next day. But I really liked it, and had read that mackerel should be eaten on the same day you buy it. So I was a pigasaurus and ate the other two pieces, too!

That's convenient!

Earlier in my stay, I was trying to find boxes for sale to use to mail things home. In the US, they are easily found with all the other mailing supplies at Wal-Mart. But I couldn't find any here.

Finally, I figured out why: they are offered for free at grocery stores. If you look at the front of the store by the check-outs, there will be a good supply of boxes available. Just come in and take what you need!

Also, you'd think it would be hard to sell purse-sized packets of kleenex here, although I have seen them for sale. They are offered for free with advertising on them. I haven't seen anyone around here handing them out, but I've seen it in larger cities.

What I Was Doing During the Earthquake

I was having a lot better time than the folks in Iwate prefecture, that's for sure! I was on a train at the time of the earthquake, so I didn't even feel it. Had I been in my apartment, I would have felt it.

I went to Mt. Mitake (御岳山) in Chichibu Tama Kai national park. It's actually in the part of the park that is part of Tokyo, but you wouldn't know it to look at it!

Here is a map of Japan. The northeast marker is my apartment. The southwest marker is Mt. Mitake. If you enlarge the map, you will see Morioka further north. The epicenter of the earthquake was in the soutwest corner of Iwate prefecture, which is the prefecture that Morioka is in.

It took me over four hours to get there. I went by train from Karasuyama to Mitake town. Here is the train from Ome to Mitake. You can tell which side is the scenic one!

Then I took a bus to the cable car, a cable car to the lift, and more steps from the lift to the shrine.

Here are pictures of the cable car. It starts at 828 meters. Rob will remember cable cars.

Here is a picture of the lift seats. Nothing keeps you on except your own good sense.




The view from the mountain was great! On a clear day (not yesterday) you can see Tokyo tower and Mt. Fuji, if you know where to look.









Finally, here is the shrine. Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples coexist nicely in Japan. Often, they are right next to each other. Most people are both Shinto and Buddhist. Shinto ceremonies include weddings (although many people who are not Christian get married at churches or at chapels) and Buddhist ceremonies include funerals.


A nice man took my picture for me. I'm dressed for hiking!


After looking at the shrine I went hiking, looking for one of two waterfalls. I went to the less impressive one because it was closer. I was concerned about catching trains since I'd missed my connection at Shinjuku station. It's the busiest train station in the world in terms of passengers, so I don't feel too badly. Still, I didn't want to get stuck in Hoshakuji with no way to get to Karasuyama. So I went down this trail quickly. And down, and down some more.

I really paid for it when it came time to go back up! And I don't know if I didn't go far enough (the map said 15 minutes) or the water was low, but there wasn't much of a waterfall.


Still, it's a very nice park. If I went again, I'd arrange to stay overnight in Tokyo before and after, so I wouldn't have to rush.







I got back to Shinjuku earlier than I thought I would, so I tried to find Kinokuniya Bookstore. I couldn't find it quickly, and really just wanted to rest so I went back to Karasuyama. So, Shinjuku will be another trip!










Usually, I would have stopped for gyoza and a beer in Utsunomiya. The train from Shinjuku to Omiya was so crowded that they'd have to push another person in. When I could finally sit down on the train, I slept a bit.

Sorry about the sloppy formatting -- the pictures made it hard to get the paragraphs to fit in neatly.

Dealing with Rainy Season

Japan, or at least this part of it, is much more humid and rainy than Wisconsin. But rainy season has started, and it's even more humid and rainy now. Since I do my laundry at the laundromat and hang my clothes out on my veranda to dry, this is a problem. Of course, I could just spend the money and dry my clothes at the laundromat as well.

But I decided to buy a rack to use indoors for when it's either raining, or I run out of hanging space on the veranda. I have both a rope and a pole, but if I want to air out a blanket or wash a sheet, I run out of room quickly. So, here is a picture of my clothes drying rack. For anyone new to the blog, I did not pick out the tarp blue curtains! If you look closely, you can see how narrow the veranda is.

Japan has a lot of handy gizmos for hanging out laundry. This is because most people don't have dryers, due to lack of space and high energy costs.

I also got a handy gadget that hangs from a doorway. You can either hang a pole between two of them, or hang something from one of them. The blue thing is for hanging several small items, like socks or underwear.

Yesterday was a rare sunny day, so I got a lot of laundry done. Today was cool and humid all day. As I walked home, I heard a few thunder-boomers. This grew into a loud thunderstorm, with lots of rain. I guess I timed my walk home just right!!

I thought it was just me, thinking that it was cloudy an awful lot here. But in my book about Japanese food, I read that milk is not fortified with vitamin D. The lack of it in the diet and lack of sunshine in some areas can cause a deficiency, especially in children. Lucky for me, my hubby sent me a giant bottle of multiple vitamins!