Oishii Tabemono - Delicious Food

When people think of Japanese food, they obviously think of sushi.




Above is a picture of 'kaiten sushi' - or sushi on a conveyor belt! Literally. The restaurant has a conveyor belt snaking through all the tables, and you sit and watch as various types of sushi go by, and grab what you want! It is so fun. And at 100¥ per plate, it is a cheap and yummy way to have a nice lunch with lots of different tastes. My favorite is the eel. It just melts in your mouth.

But sushi aside, there is a lot more to Japanese cuisine, such as the wonderful world of noodles! I recently had the privilege of attending an udon-making event organized for foreigners at my local community center. Udon, pronounced ooo-don, is a delicious hand-made thick noodle, which is served alongside salad and soup.

When my hands weren't covered in flour, I managed to get a few shots of the udon making process.

After working the dough into a ball, it is then flattened, by foot, into a large circle.



Don't worry, there's a plastic sheet over the dough!



Then, you fold the flattened circle of dough into layers, and cut them into strips.



The next step is boiling the noodles in a delicious broth of veggies, seaweed and fish flakes. I know that sounds gross but it is really good. The udon is then removed from the broth and cooled in a dish. But what is kind of weird is that they serve the broth and the noodles seperately - but you're supposed to take the noodles from one dish and then put them into the dish with the broth. I guess that keeping the noodles separate, they don't get mushy.


Yum yum. Delicious, but a bit tricky to pick up with the chopsticks.

The day after the udon making, I was invited to a nabe party by the lovely Yoko who cooked us the delicious nabe, which is sort of a stew made with kimchee cabbage, spices, and anything else you want to throw in, such as eggs, chicken, shrimp, or even smoked French meat.



Hmm I wonder what Yana is thinking as she looks so longingly at the nabe? Perhaps..... 'These poor fools.... Little do they know... I'm going to eat all of it. ALLLLLLL!! *evil laugh*'



In Japan, before you start to eat, you say, 'Itadakimasu!' which means 'I'll recieve'. So, all this talk of food has made me hungry, so I'll go eat now. Itadakimasu!

Sensoji Temple - Asakusa

On the east side of Tokyo is the famous and impressive Sensoji Temple. According to Tokyo history, way back in 628, some lowly fishermen found a small statue of the goddess Kannon in their nets from the nearby Sumida River, and not understanding what it was, tossed it back, only to catch it again and again. Finally they took it to the local temple to get advice, and it was decided to build the Sensoji Temple to honor Kannon. This makes Sensoji Tokyo's oldest temple, and its large red lantern at its entrance is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city.



That isn't even the temple - that's just the first gate. After you enter the first gate, you walk down a shopping lane turned into a tourist trap, selling a wide variety of overpriced crap -- oops, I mean, wonderful Japanese souveniers! But once you escape the tourist trap, at the end of the lane you come upon the entrance to the main temple.

Look closely - do you see a cloud of incense wafting in the middle?




Before entering the temple, you have to 'bathe' yourself in the incense smoke to purify yourself. You can buy a bunch of incense and light it in the flames, so incense is constantly in the air at this place.



After that, you are ready to enter the temple.




The main building of Sensoji. As you can see there are a hell of a lot of tourists around all the time and it is easy to forget that this is a place of worship, and that inside the temple people are offering their prayers. They must think the tourists are annoying no? If you get prefer, you can do like these old geezers and just breeze out on the steps.



The Sensoji area is quite large, with lots of little gardens and statues of various gods, and, of course, the big man himself, Buddha. I've learnt that the position of Buddha's hands (postures) mean different things. When the hands are pressed together in prayer, it signifies 'the adoration of power'.



Ironically enough, just outside of Tokyo's oldest temple, is an interesting piece of architecture, at the ultra modern Asahi Beer Brewery with its.... um... unique sculpture on top.



Designed by Phillip Stark, the sculpture is called Flame d’Or, or The Golden Flame. It's supposed to represent a glass of fresh, frothy, golden hued Asahi beer. However, Tokyoites took one look at it, and promptly nick named it 'The Golden Turd'. Seems that the Japanese are not without a sense of humour!

Life in the 'burbs

So, now you've seen the madness of downtown Tokyo, but I haven't shown you the peace and quiet of life in the suburbs.



Where I live, in the western suburbs, is a really nice and peaceful area. What is good is that downtown Tokyo is so close, so it is easy to experience the big city chaos without having to live in the middle of it 24/7. I live just around the corner from a lovely little river, with a bikiing trail, close to parks and little woods, a golf range and sidewalk cafes and so forth.




In residential areas like mine, it is quite normal to find patches of veggies growing between houses, like in the picture above.

Every Wednesday, I ride my bike on the river trail, cut through the woods, take a short cut through the veggie field, and come out in a nearby town, where a lovely lady named Teruko teaches me the fine art of origami.



This is a little frog, or 'kaeru', and when you press its back for a second, it does a somersault in the air, and lands on its feet! But if you make it badly or lopsided, when it jumps, it lands on its back.



'Tsuru', or crane, which are very auspicious. In fact, the Japanese believe that if you make 1,000 origami cranes, you will get a wish granted.



This one is my favorite - it's a box made from 8 interlocking pieces of paper. Quite pretty eh!

Origami can be very simple or very, very complicated, but I can tell you that you certainly do feel quite satisfied with yourself when you can transform a simple piece of paper into something completely new!

The Mad Scramble

Tonight I headed downtown with Jana and her colleague and drinking partner, Phillipe, who is from France, and we went to the trendy Shibuya area. Shibuya is popular with young people as a shopping mecca, and it also happens to have a small cinema that was showing an interesting film by a Japanese director who was studying the evolution of reggae in Jamaica.

Shibuya is most famous for having the world's busiest pedestrian crossing in the world. At Hachiko Square, seven major streets intersect, and it is also a major intersection of human traffic moving in every direction. I even took a little video of the famous crossing to show you.



As Rupee once sang.... 'WHOOA! LOOK AT PEEEEEEEOPLE!!!'

Did you notice at the very end of the video, at the right hand bottom corner, a guy runs out into the intersection just as the light turns green, and almost gets hit by a motocycle!!!! Heh heh. Good stuff.

Eww.

I recently had the joy of experiencing my first critter -- a black, horrid looking Japanese cockroach. I woke up one morning, climbed down from my loft, walked into the kitchen to turn on the kettle for coffee, and when I turned on the light, there it was! Sitting on a plate from last night's dinner, munching away on some crumbs.

I looked down at it, it looked up at me, and mid nibble said, 'ohayo!' which is Japanese for 'good morning'. The f*cker didn't even run away! I tried to kill it, but obviously couldn't do so without breaking the plate it was sitting on, so it got away temporarily.

Later it resurfaced, this time sitting quietly on the floor, and it came face to face with the bottom of my boot. I thought it was kind of weird that it didn't even try to escape or run for its life. A reliable source who has been here for 8 years has told me that Japanese cockroaches are surprisingly docile, and accept their death with honor, samurai-style. But now, it is dead. Thank god.

Anyways, the video link below is a real hoot, I stumbled upon it randomly today. I'd love to put the code on the blog but I'm not to keen on stealing from YouTube. So just click on the link for a truly scary video. My cockroach incident certainly cannot compare!!



Click to watch: Japanese Subway Roaches

I feel the earth move under my feet

Here's a scary statistic for you --

20% of the world's earthquakes take place in Japan!

The Japanese archipelago is located in an area where four continental and oceanic plates meet.




Sometimes these plates get frisky and rub up on each other. Sometimes there is some pushing and shoving too, like aggressive drunks in a bar. This is the cause for frequent earthquakes and the presence of many volcanoes and hot springs across Japan. The beautiful and iconic Mount Fuji is actually not a mountain at all, but rather a dormant volcano, and is Japan's highest point. Fuji has not erupted since 1707.

Earthquakes, however, really do happen ALL THE FREAKIN TIME. You sort of get used to it... Sort of. I still get nervous every time I feel one. One second you're peacefully making a sandwich, humming to yourself in the kitchen, and the next second you realize the earth is swaying, swaying, swaying below your feet.

In September there was a 4.2 magnitude quake, and I was in school in the middle of the class. I held on to the table and looked around nervously, but the kids didn't even BLINK! They just chatted like normal through the whole thing as though nothing were happening. I guess they are so accustomed to it, it does not bother them at all.

Today one was measured just off the north coast of Japan's most northern island, Hokkaido, with a 8.1 magnitutde. That is freakin HUGE.




There have been some tsunamis occuring, but I live quite far inland, so I won't be affected at all.

The last major earthquake to hit Tokyo was in 1923, where over 100,000 people died and a large area of the city was destroyed. The scary thing is that they think massive quakes like this happen every 70 years or so. You do the math. Perhaps I chose a bad time to come to Japan!

In Japan, it is sort of scary that earthquakes are simply accepted as an inevitable fact of life. It is not a question of if, but rather WHEN. They all know it is bound to happen - THE BIG ONE - and that hundreds of thousands of people will die. Sort of a strange reality, no? To KNOW without a doubt that it WILL happen, and that there is pretty much nothing you can do about it. 30 million people live in Tokyo today. If tomorrow The Big One hits, can you imagine the devastation? But life just goes on as normal... I suppose all I can do is hope that it does not take place while I am here!

Funny food

To be quite honest, half the time I'm not sure exactly what I'm eating. The Japanese have a habit of putting really badly translated English onto damn near everything, but still, going to the grocery can be a difficult, frustrating and endlessly amusing task when you don't know what the hell it is sitting on the shelf! Often I take things home and try them out without knowing the name or the ingredients. Sometimes it tastes good... Sometimes I'm not sure what it tastes like... Sometimes I throw it away. No wonder I'm losing weight!

Anyways, because I always carry my trusty digi-cam around with me, I recently snapped some pictures of some funny food that I thought you readers might appreciate.



This is a bottle of ume (plum) salad dressing. Note at the top, it says, 'Food, for ages 0 - 100'. Apparently ume dressing is appropriate for both the pre-natal and the ancient. But once you turn 101, you better stop eating it. Or you die.



This stuff is actually a pretty tasty treat, and yes, it does have whole fish in it. Pop the whole thing in your mouth. Crunch crunch crunch!



Ever wondered why Japanese people are so slim? Two words - portion control. A 'loaf' of bread ONLY HAS 6 SLICES!



This is again portion control - EACH COOKIE is individually wrapped! In fact, this is quite normal in Japan, every damn thing comes hermetically sealed three times over. I am sure they would shrink wrap each peanut if they could. I'm not sure what it is, this obsession with individual wrapping, but it sure does cause a lot of waste.



Ok ok... So this isn't food at all... But I thought it was quite amusing anyways. I saw it in the 100Â¥ store today. Apparently it's for women whose husbands and sons keep pissing on the toilet seat -- you put the sticker of the fly or the bullseye to train their aim! Note the angry housewife, and the apologetic husband and son. Also, at the bottom you will see they have a visual of both types of toilets - both the sitting type, and the squatting type, the same kind I encountered in Turkey!



Ah heck, since I've already deviated from the topic of food, I'll just keep going. This is a shot of my laundry machine. Please note the brand name. ''Fuzzy Logic''. That sounds about right to me!