14 December 2010

Autumn in Tokyo

Hello everyone, sorry for the long gap in posting. There's no excuse other than laziness so I won't start by telling you how busy I have been, or how my Japanese has come on in leaps and bounds (not true). The true culprits are laziness, and a disruptive fondness for watching The Sopranos on DVD.

Autumn arrived here fairly abruptly - in one week the temperature dropped 10 degrees and all the trees went red.

Firey cherry trees in front of our flat

We have been enjoying the lower temperatures by walking walking walking round Tokyo at the weekends. There is no doubt that it is not a beautiful city, but it is pretty easy to navigate round with the aid of our Tokyo atlas, and there are plenty of surprising things to see (mainly dogs in trainers and hats). Plus, there is the added benefit that I am building a mental map of tea and buns emporia.


Angus and I taking a light autumn tea on the 11th floor of the Keio department store in Shinjuku



Well, we needed to fortify ourselves for the walk home

And most days here are pretty lovely - cool but with a light breeze and clear, bright blue skies. However, one morning we were woken up by an alarm and loud Japanese announcements. There had been a heavy rain shower and the river in front of our flat was a bit full. Exciting! Why it smells of eggs when it is flooding, but also when it is low, but not normally, is beyond me.

Meguro-gawa flooding


Japan celebrates Christmas with the same gusto it approaches Halloween - mainly as an opportunity to decorate everything. Christmas tunes have been belting out of speakers in shops since mid November. Staff are very long suffering, I would have filled my ears with plasticine if I had to listen to Paul McCartney singing Wonderful Christmas Time for a month and a half. In one shop, the glorious Kaldi Coffee Farm which sells cheap spaghetti and tinned tomatoes, Christmas and Halloween decorations were up at the same time. Alas, I didn't have my camera. This is probably for the best as I would have dropped it in sheer amazement.

And the Christmas lights are not skimped on, as you can see.

Pretty Omotesando - the area to go shopping at your favourite luxury stores (and eat chicken gizzards with a cup of coffee - well you have to take your chances when they're offered. Again, I think British cafes are missing a trick)

Food

Angus had a business trip to New Zealand and Australia at the end of October/ beginning of November. I took this opportunity to watch a lot of films I'm too embarrassed to name. I can assure you that I have learnt my lesson and will now pay more attention to film reviews.

While Angus was away I became a preserving demon, and made some pear, nashi (Asian pear), and chestnut chutney. It tasted like shoe scrapings when I put it in the pots, but Delia assures me that this is normal. It should be delicious and chutney-like after Christmas. The recipe is from Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family, if you're interested, which is an excellent book.

CHUTNEY (or: what happens when I am left unsupervised for a couple of days)

I have also taken to bottling things, seeing as I had some spare jars. Another of Sarah Raven's recipes (sadly less tasty than I was hoping):

Bottled peppers with feta and mustard seeds - unfortunately with a faint aftertaste of the Cash and Carry in Jersey (now defunct)

Now, I know you'll be feeling a little sorry for Angus because he missed the preserving marathon.

He did work very, very hard while he was away. However, I'm pleased to report he made the most of his one afternoon off.

40lb of frightening Australian menace

He says that koalas are a) surprisingly heavy b) emit a low growl that can take you by surprise and c) smell very strongly of Halls Mentholated cough sweets.

History doesn't record what koalas think about lawyers.

I also want to mention my recipe book success. I bought a copy of The Mustard Book which is totally brilliant (if you too are in love with mustard as I am).

I spotted a misprint so, being a recipe book creep, emailed the publisher, Grub Street. They sent me the correct ingredients for the recipe the misprint occurred in, and offered me a recipe book from their catalogue to say sorry.

This caused many backflips of joy in Nakameguro.

I am now the proud owner of The Yoghurt Book too. It reminds me of the saying 'money attracts money'. Could it be true that 'recipe books attract recipe books'? I'll let you know.

And three cheers for Grub Street!

Terrible signs

There's not much to say about the following three pictures.

Mr Children. A whale. I consider this to be perfect marketing of a Japanese pop sensation. Not AT ALL sinister.


Not sure if you can see how excellent this shop-front advertising is. If you are having trouble reading it, I'd be delighted to tell you again: "Pink label, Enjoy Your Life! Enjoy your inner style, your socks and your inner and your homewear style". Never were truer words said.

Are YOUR teeth doors? If not, I recommend you get yourself to Harajuku Shika Clinic immediately!


Chugakai (Chinatown), Yokohama

In an explosion of exploring zeal a couple of weekends, Angus and I took ourselves off to Yokohama (Bradford to Tokyo's Leeds - because of the wonders of suburbanisation, now essentially the same city).

Yokohama is a port, and there's a great description of it in Isabella Bird's book Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. Isabella Bird was a Victorian lady with fire in her belly, who decided that in 1878 she'd visit Japan by herself.

Angus and I have more hunger than fire in our bellies so our first top was Chinatown for hot and sour soup. Yum.

Chinatown was quite different in character to anywhere else we've been so far in Japan - my resident China expert leads me to believe that it was a good preview of our travels in China (as yet unplanned and unbooked). I am now, predictably, as keen as mustard to have a rummage around China.


Chinatown

Pretty Chinese temple in Chugakai in Yokohama




Kyu Asakura House


Last weekend we were mooching about in Daikanyama (up the hill from Nakameguro), and quite by accident, found Kyu Asakura House. There are no signs to it, it doesn't appear in any guide books, and there is barely a trace of it on the internet.

This is TOTALLY INSANE as it is absolutely breathtaking.

It is a house built in 1919 by someone called Torajiro Asakura, and remarkably wasn't flattened by the great earthquake of 1923 or the unfortunate economic problems of the 1940s.

The interior is absolutely beautiful, with painted screens, tatami mats, and lovely views into the garden. Here:



Persimmons - one of the major factors in Angus's desire to buy a ladder

Maple tree showing off in Daikanyama

Sliding paper doors - we took a roll of sellotape and some Tippex just in case we had a mishap

The roof of Kyu Asakura House

And the gardens of Kyu Asakura House - definitely worth more than the 100 yen (c. 75 pence) entrance fee

"confusion"

If you're interested, there is a little on the Shibuya City website (pdf).

Angus and I are off galavanting round Hong Kong and Malaysia over Christmas and New Year, so sending many Japanese New Year salutations west (and south, Jif).



Shiawasena kurisumasu to shin'nen akemashite omedetōgozaimasu mina!

26 October 2010

Since I started work in the middle of September, you may have noticed a drop off in the frequency of posts. I am only permitted to work 28 hours a week according to the terms of my visa, but as I am technically a freelance, I prepare for my lessons in my own time and therefore seem to be working full time.

This is just fine as I'm having a hoot, but it does mean less time for blogging.

Here's a picture of where I'm teaching:

We are above a cinema, handy if you get bored of being droned at about Jersey and want to relax your brain


I teach adults one-to-one, in 40 minute lessons with a 5 minute break inbetween each one. The students range from near beginners to almost fluent, although nobody in Japan is a complete beginner - English is taught in school as a compulsory subject from 6-18.

By the end of 9 lessons each day, I have to plug my ears with corks to stop my brain oozing out, but it is a lot of fun and I have really interesting students - surgeons, housewives, artists, and more salarymen and salarywomen than I can count in Japanese. I have to wear a black suit and white blouse - I look quite peculiar, I think most of you wouldn't recognise me.

The school I'm teaching at is in an area called Ginza which is full of very fancy clothes shops, and many ladies and gentlemen who lunch (shopping and lunching is considered to be too much fun for just ladies here so men approach it with equal gusto).

There is also a man with a troop of cats wearing hair scrunchies round their necks. These lucky cats are thrown up onto road signs where they sit all day to be photographed. Hmm. Time to take the camera to work!


Temperature

Back to one of my favourite topics - the weather. In September the run of 70 days where the temperature did not fall below 35 degrees ended. Apparently this was the hottest summer since records began in 1898 (I just KNEW I wasn't making a fuss about nothing). Cue great relief and leaping about in a cardigan just because I could. However, the day the air conditioning was turned off in the subway, they turned the heating on. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!


Dog craziness

There has been further dog madness.

Plastic labradors modelling this season's latest fashions

I can also report that the other day I saw a dog wearing dog sunglasses that were a miniature model of those of its owner's. I am sorry to say that I missed the opportunity to take a picture. If only I took my camera out every day.

Arnie

Angus had a better than usual breakfast in September, crossiants and coffee in the company of the talking Chesterfield sofa, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Apparently he was in Tokyo to promote southern California as a great place to do business.

By all accounts, nobody paid any attention to what he was saying as it was just too exciting being in the same room as the big man.

Camera shake caused by thrills at proximity to the Terminator


Highland Games

I knew that Scotland is popular in Japan. It is fairly easy to buy tins of shortbread here if you want, and I have seen large numbers of Japanese tourists on my visits to Scotland.

However, I didn't realise quite how popular Scotland is - this was driven home when we went to the Tokyo Highland games.

This event was held on 2nd October in Chiba, north of Tokyo, at the sports ground of Kanda University of International Studies. It was a lovely day and weirdly reminiscent of Britain in summer - warmish but cloudy with an occasional chilly breeze. My ears nearly fell off as there were 3 bagpipe bands practicing at once, plus a piper for the dance competitions.



The most impressive spectacle was not the caber tossing (it appears that for the purposes of heaving logs into the air, having a Japanese build isn't going to do you any favours) or the sword dancing, but the seriousness with which formal Scottish dress has been adopted by the Japanese. Here are some pictures of the magic.

We feasted upon fish and chips (strangely difficult with chopsticks) and watched a lot of dancing.

"Call that a portion?" or "why the Japanese tend towards slimness"

Mount Takao

Monday 11 October was yet another national holiday in Japan, this time 'National Sports Day'. Despite very strong urges to celebrate by sitting on the sofa in pyjamas, we took the subway to Meiji Memorial Forest Takao Quasi-National Park (the Japanese name for the place, not mine), to climb a hillock called Mount Takao.

Mount Takao is a sacred mountain, and also gives brilliant views over Tokyo.

It was a lovely day, just right for rambling up the hill. Unfortunately, we were not the only ones who thought of this and the mountain was threatening to collapse under the weight of approximately 3 million people who had the same idea as us.

In Tokyo, it is noteable how conservatively Japanese people dress. Clothes tend to be in muted colours, even at the weekend. Finding beige, grey, brown and cream coloured clothing is no problem in Tokyo. Cerise, turquoise, red, purple and green clothes are much rarer.

Something strange happens to the normally chic Japanese when faced with a mountain. Say hello to neon! Japanese hiking clothes are very jazzy - lots of primary colours and very bold patterns.

The other thing that is worth mention is the attitude to nature. In my experience, walking in the countryside in Britain is usually undertaken with a measure of reverence for peace and quiet, and all the natural goings on around the walker.

4 out of 10 of the Japanese walkers at Mount Takao had a portable radio strapped to their rucksacks, blaring Japanese radio, and in one case, a tape recording of French verbs. We also watched a family who had found a butterfly on a branch and were encouraging their little girl to grab its wings to 'encourage' it to sit on her finger so they could take pictures of her in a natural setting.

All quite different to what we're used to.

Here are some pictures of the temples and shrines that sit on the mountain

including what seemed to be a shrine to shoes

There was also a monkey enclosure full of Japanese macaques. They were fun to watch and my new mission is to see them in the wild, sitting in hot pools.

Kamagowe

To continue our explorations of Tokyo, on 17th October we went north to Kawagoe, in Saitama Prefecture, to see the matsuri (festival) there. This matsuri is famous for its dashi (floats - also the word for fish stock - see why I'm having trouble with Japanese?) - huge wooden vehicles with elaborate carvings and beautiful fabric drapery, and musicians and general hangers on, all pulled by groups of people with massive thick silk ropes.

The focus is on the masked people at the front of the floats, who I think are representing Shinto gods. And the music was performed on big drums with an accompaniment of wind instruments making thin high pitched notes. I'm reluctant to call that music 'haunting' as I'm not writing rubbish historical romantic dramas, but it's the best word I can come up with at the moment.

Everybody put your tassels in the air and shout "yeah"!

Also worth mentioning are the predominant snack at this matsuri:

Yes, they are bananas, covered in chocolate and hundreds and thousands, and mounted upon a stick. Ingenious!

We also passed an antique shop and were lured inside with the promise of interesting things. We found something excellent amongst all the old chipped china and torn kimono - a family photo album that definitely dates to before the unfortunate economic problems of the 1940s which are not mentioned EVER here, and possibly earlier.

I'm finding Japanese history very tricky to understand, and this little photo album is doing a great job in helping make sense of it all.

Can you see the plane in the background behind this chap? Any help dating the picture would be gratefully received.

Festival outside our back door

Two weeks ago, all over Tokyo, groups of people, well oiled with beer, picked up their shrines, and took them out for a walk. As usual, it was very hard to tell what the purpose was but everyone seemed to be having a nice time. Here they are outside our flat.

and from the balcony. The walking was accompanied by lots of grunting and singing. A jolly good Sunday out!

Sanma Festival

Meguro, the ward we live in, celebrates the abundance of mackerel (sanma) each year with a festival at which you is given a free mackerel and if you're lucky, a free yuzu (citrus) fruit too. Owing to the fact that we are terrible slugabeds, we didn't reach the festival in time for a free fish, or a free yuzu. However, we did see Sanma FM being broadcast

a man with a cat on his shoulders

and the remenants of an extremely long fish barbeque:

The next big thing

Order your copies of this CD at HMV now!

Language issues

My Japanese language skills are not developing, owing to a chronic lack of effort on my side, and the excellent English speaking abilities of Tokyoites. I tested some Japanese out on a taxi driver, and asked for 'Nakameguro-ebi, okudasai'. What I should have asked for was 'Nakameguro-eki okudasai'.

What I wanted was 'please take us to Nakameguro Station'. However, I asked 'please take us to Nakameguro Shrimp'.

Nature's revenge

Ah, the folly of expats. Having cocked a snook at nature with regard to my micro-garden, we received a little earthquake in the middle of the night, nothing major but enough to wake us up. HA! thinks I - one in the eye for Arrogant Dix. But you have not disturbed my garden!

Then, a week later, a cloud of butterflies descends upon my micro garden and proceeds to lay eggs. The resulting caterpillars then munched my whole microgarden to nothing in a day. RATTIKINS!

I considered eating the caterpillars as they'd be very delicately flavoured with a range of tender herbs, but I missed my chance and don't much fancy chrysalis pie, having seen on Planet Earth what's inside a chrysalis.


Inappropriate desserts

I give you the delicious, but unusually named, coq rouge.

Amazon parcel

Last week I made an order with amazon.co.uk (this sounds bananas but once you factor in the massive discounts on books, it is still far cheaper to buy books this way and pay the shipping than it is to buy books in Japan - English books are tooth-grindingly expensive). So far, so good.

Amazon now has a splendid little widget that allows you to track your parcel as it speeds towards you. Here is the path that my parcel has taken:

Glasgow - Edinburgh - East Midlands - Cologne - Tokyo - Shenzen (China) - Tokyo - Shenzen (China) - Tokyo

It hasn't yet arrived. Perhaps it has ambitions to see more of the world before it ends up in my eager paws.

Romance

I came across a funny item in an English language magazine during my green tea break at work last week; top then things men do here to attract a lady.

1. Buy dinner

2. Offer to carry heavy bags

3. Make a "bold move" during a sports game

4. Buy dinner for a junior member of staff

5. Sing a ballad at karaoke

6. Pretend their mind is elsewhere

7. Stock up on and present trivial facts (I think they stole this one from me)

8. Open the top two buttons of their shirt

9. Keep bangs at a manga-esque angle

10. Act jaded while loosening their tie

Now, I don't wish to cast aspertions on these methods as I see plenty of happy families around - some of these methods must work.

However, the Japanese government is concerned about a falling birth rate. I invite them to address points 8, 9 and 10.

That's it for the time being, ja mata!