A Most Japanese Weekend

hours in Japan: Food, Drink and Culture.

"Right now, I'm living abroad in Japan. My energy and money are spent... and people that I work with were involved in both. I'm Clare Dery, and today was the most Japanese day of my life."

Disclaimer: The following blog entry contains many images and videos filled with amazing contrasting traditional and modern Japanese elements. 

Click to proceed with caution.

6 month Japanniversary!!! Thank you to my friends, family and students' for your support!!

Hina Matsuri 雛祭り

Girls' Day falls on March 3rd each year and is a day to celebrate girls' health. An equivalent event for boys is held each May. 

Parents put up a platform hina dan with dolls in their homes for their daughers. The dolls are believed to harbour bad spirits, and they represent the Emperor and Empress along with their attendees on the lower levels. The Emperor, holding a ritual baton is always seated on the top left, and the Empress holding a fan sits on the top right.

A giant hina dan at my local fire station with real ume blossons either side of the platform.

 

The dolls on the third level traditionally hold musical instruments, but in this case cute emergency service civil servants adorned the platform!!

                                            It wouldn't be a true festival without businesses cashing in!!

It is important to take down the dolls before the end of the night. If the dolls remain overnight and thereafter, the celebrated daughter's future marriage will be delayed! 
This is similar to the Christmas tradition of taking down the decorations after the 12 Days of Christmas to not get bad luck. 

Unashamedly, I first heard about this festival via an early episode of Pokemon (over 10 years ago!), where Misty wins a set of 'Pokedolls' on 'Girl's Festival Day'. One of many Japanese traditions I learned via the show!!

A Spot of Sightseeing

The Imperial Gardens Sunday morning was heaving it down, but in keeping with the incomprehensible and unpredictable Japanese weather, the afternoon became inexplicably clear and warm. As not to waste the day, I decided on a whim to visit the Imperial Palace at the heart of Tokyo (the Japanese equivalent of Buckingham palace), and residence of Emperor Akihito:

Tatsumi Turret

Nijubashi Bridge and the Palace

I admired the contrast of modern and traditional in this area of the metropolis.

(Left) The southern-eastern skyline including Tokyo Tower.

The Imperial gardens are enclosed by a 5km loop (about 1.5 of which I walked before giving up to do some shopping in Shinjuku), which is a popular jogging route, particularly for businessmen and women at night to let off steam after a hard day's graft. The route takes joggers past religious, cultural (the theature district), business and political landmarks.
I noticed the joggers all ran anti-clockwise. See "Why do we run counterclockwise?" for an interesting article on the topic.

Another noteworthy thing of the day was that I had two Subways. I had been craving them for some time! Wasabi and soy sauce really make for a memorable sandwich ^^

Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus
-"Gnewch y pethau bychain."

Today is St Davids Day, so as I forgot Pancake Day recently, I thought I would cook a stir fry with leek to make up for it.

Plastic Fantastic

Any fries with your polymer?
No wonder the Japanese are so slim, half the food in Japan is made of none other than plastic!!

I refer you to the BBC's report on this Fake Food Phenomenon: Click here for the BBC's Video Report

 Andrew and Jen model an entire loaf of bread made of plastic for a mere £5. Now I've seen everything!

My phone charms-Oreo, Pingles and Peroni (left) and please enjoy the typical poor english found at the bottom of the Yakitori packet (left)!

Remember to click to enlarge photos!

A bit of a mouthful!

The Olympics is a popular topic among AEON students. It's refreshing to see the usually restrained students get so fired up and patriotic! It's also eye-opening to watch tv coverage from a different country's point of view: extensive documentries and interviews of each athlete are shown on many channels simultaneously, and Japan's first ever medal in the men's figure skating is still being discussed on talk shows 2 days later! When Japan played the UK at curling, I wasn't sure where my priorities should lie!
Everytime I watch the Olympics coverage, I'm reminded of Mamgu and Nagypapa :)

Birthday requests 
It's my birthday soon, so I wanted to make some modest requests:D Some things I've been craving: 

Trebor Softmints- I haven't found any mint-based sweets in Japan :(
Bounty chocolate bars
Crunchie chocolate bars
Moisturising cream
A tin of baked beans

And finally.. a new camera, since the display broke when I dropped it in the snow two weeks ago. ヤバイ :(

Contract Extension
I will be renewing my contract for at least a further 3 months, which will take me past December 18th ２０１０年. I will have a meeting with the staff about it early next month.
It's a long way off, so it's impossible to make an informed decision, but it's a good income, I like the hours (12-9pm) and I enjoy getting to know the students and feel confortable teaching them. Work can be stressful, as can any job, but it's definitely  the best job I've ever had.  I enjoy my life here, and although I miss family and friends and certain undefinable things, I'm not ready for job-hunting in the UK when I have a stable job here.

I Won't Get Board of Doing This!

Snow Park Oze Tokura, Gunma Prefecture 

Thursday Feb 11th is National Foundation Day a.k.a. a day off from work. Some of my coworkers (we were a group of 7) and I met up at 5am Thursday morning to drive to Gunma Prefecture, some 250 km NorthWest of Tokyo.
I borrowed wear from my coworker, and hired the boots and board.

We started at 8.30am, and walking up the side of the baby slope in heavy boots was a challenge itself! But the real challenge for a first-time-boarder was actually getting up and being able to stand on the board! It's not easy when you're not used to it!!! It took me a lot of practice, energy, abs muscles a whole hour to finally stand up for the first time!! The next challenge was staying up on the board!! I was extremely thankful for the bum padding I was lent!!

Once I was able to get up, I found the actual snowboarding and balancing bits quite easy; I've been ice skating several times and that balancing instinct helped a lot.

We hit the tallest mountain and I managed to board down it only falling down three times! I zig-zaged my way down down for a long distance, though the that was very challenging for my leg muscles! It was extremely enjoyable to snowboard in the snow with beautiful, misty scenery :)

The weather turned after we stopped to have lunch, and the face of the mountain was resurfaced with fresh powder snow. This produced a new challenge as this increased my board's speed dramatically and I initially found it harder to control the board, but at least it made for a softer landing!!

We finished boarding at 3.15pm. Our minds wanted to keep snowboarding, but our bodies were already aching and crying out for us to stop!!

At home, I had a long hot soak in my Japanese-style bath ofuru (a short, deep bath), as it is a Japanese tradition to usually go to a hot spring after boarding.

Today at work, having three energetic kids classes was very tough on my stiff, achy body!! But even so, I can't wait to snowboard again!!

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Multitasking when snowboarding is a bad combination.

Went Down T'Pub

I went to the Aldgate British pub in Shibuya to watch the greatly-anticipated Wales vs England Six Nations opener. With the BBC commentary, chilli con carne in my tummy and a mug of Strongbow, it didn't feel like Japan at all!!!

The Aldgate pub is near the 八チ公 Hachiko Exit of Shibuya Station.
Hachiko was a dog who, in 1924, would wait for his owner every day at the station at the end of the day and walk him home. His owner died at work in 1925 and never returned. However, but the dog continued to wait at the station at the same time each evening for 10 years, and the dog became famous nationwide.
 

Today Hachiko's mural is a popular landmark for meeting friends.

Snow!

The temperature has been fluctating dramatically lately. We had endless glorious clear, blue, dry weather; a week and a half ago, we even experienced a high of 18'C (64F)! But the last two days, we finally got snow!
According the students, the area doesn't receive a lot of snow, so I made the most of the opportunity:

I'm expecting to up close and personal with snowy slopes a week tomorrow though.. I can't wait! :D

Life, Death and Sushi

Tsukuji Fish Market is the largest fish market in the world. It is situated in Tokyo Bay about 40 mins away by Subway. Although it is open to tourists, one must respect that it is still a bustling work place.

Jen and I caught the first train of the day at 5.06am, which was already packed with early Monday morning commuters.
Tsukuji's peak trading hours are 5am-8am.

We weren't prepared for how dangerous the market would be! There were endless motor trucks, lorries and motorcycles zipping down narrow gaps between the market stands doing possibly 15mph! There was blood, ice and bits of unknown creatures on the ground.

The air was choked not with the smell of fish, but with the stench of fumes and cigarettes.

Tsukuji Market is truly a graveyard littered with polystyrene coffins of fish, but it's no resting place!

The fish were being cut, sawed and shaved before being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

 

 

  

Tsukuji isn't just a wholesale market, it also offers restaurants serving the freshest sushi in the world.

I spent £12 on Tai (red snapper), Ebi (Prawn), Toro (the pink, fatty meat from the belly of a tuna) sushi and green tea. You can't get a more Japanese breakfast at 7am than that!
The fish was soft, succulent, the freshest possible, and extremely tasty with a touch of wasabi!!!

It's perfectly acceptable to go out drinking with your boss in Japan, if not common practice.

Whatever is said when inebreated in a sushi restaurant stays in the sushi restaurant :)
Here I am with two students, the assistant manager, and my manager (behind me).

We enjoyed tuna sashimi, nabe (hot pot), raw duck meat and negi (leek).

Along with a lot of sake of course!