So today my energy was sapped by a cold. Usually they don’t slow me down, and they don’t tend to be bothersome like the occasional headache from staring at a computer screen too much. However, this one made me both tired and “blah.”
Tracing the events of the weekend I’m going to guess that this cold could have been avoided. My immune system tends to be pretty tough but there is good reason to believe my Saturday night weakened it
And the culprit is probably this new drink that my senpai (”mentor”) and friend Sakuma san introduced me to. Its name is Hoppy.
We generally go out to drink 1 night a month and on Saturday we tried a new place along with this drink. Sakuma said this drink is popular with older businessmen, it was the drink of choice before the “Highball” whiskey and tonic became popular.
Hoppy comes in 2 parts, first a bottle of non-alcoholic wheat based drink and second a glass of ice with shochu rice liquor. Pour in the Hoppy until glass is full then drink up. It tastes like tea and I could hardly tell alcohol was in there, in fact I figured at first that this was a very light drink…
However, I am sure now that those 4 glasses of Hoppy precluded by 2 beers and followed up by three shots of whiskey was more than enough to put my immune system on vacation leave.
You may ask, sure you werent suffering from a hangover 2 days later? No, I learned long ago that copious amounts of water directly following my return to the apartment is the cure-all to alcohol consumption. However, coupled with the horrible weather (and maybe the raw horse I ate the day before… ok, that might be a stretch) and there is the most likely source of my cold… but don’t let that dissuade you from trying Hoppy when you are in Japan.
After work I met Ayako at the train station, something I do every Monday thru Friday. After meeting up I dragged her to a local restaurant that I wanted to try called Doma Doma. Doma Doma is a Japanese style Applebee’s I suppose. The menu is filled with Japanese favorite dishes and drinks. Bar and grill.
The photo above shows 3 different meats we ate (not pictured is the salad, vegetable sampler, and dessert). The three meats are duck (left), Japanese style roast beef (top right), and the most interesting of the three - raw horse (bottom right).
The duck and beef were excellent. The horse was bland and chewy. Raw horse is worth a try, but I think you will find tastier meat from other animals (and in the land of “raw” it doesn’t even hold a candle to raw fish).
After eating we rented a movie I’ve been interested in seeing. The movie is of Japanese production and looks like an interesting mix of fantasy, history, science fiction, computer animation, and ninjas. I suppose the ninjas were the tipping point in wanting to see it The movie’s name is Goemon.
Tako! Fresh… well, looks fresh but isn’t actually fresh since it has been in the freezer for a couple weeks, so let me start that over… Fresh-looking octopus, raw and soaked in vinegar. Yummy!
Here I am cutting the octopus, tasty snack. Strange, octopus “tako” was one of the things I was most afraid to eat when I came to Japan, especially raw octopus. Now, however, it is perhaps my favorite Japanese dish!
Here we go, fresh from the ziplock bag.
Snack size! Perfect on crackers with cheese or just by themselves.
Up close and personal.
This past weekend was our self-emposed deadline for filing taxes here in Japan. By law taxes are to be filed by mid-March so our deadline wasn’t at all unreasonable.
So on Sunday we went to the tax office, which was quite the experience. In Japan it is common to go to the local gov’t tax office and have a representative help you fill out your forms for no direct cost (it’s obviously paid by tax money). There were a lot of people there on Sunday, and a lot of assistants willing to help. Almost felt like the wolves had trained the sheep.
In all honesty though, they were quite nice in helping to fill out the forms.
“Just got home from Illinois, lock the front door, oh boy
Got to sit down, take a rest on the porch
Imagination sets in , pretty soon Im singin’
doo, doo, doo lookin’ out my backdoor” +5 points to the person that knows the band
Yesterday the weather was great, almost 60 degrees F.
Working at the apartment has its advantages in several aspects, one of them being the incredible silence. In Akasaka, where the office is that I travel to 2 days a week, ambient noise can be a mind-killer.
Not only is it louder inside the building, but usually there are trucks with loudspeakers that pass by at a snails pace while they scream about some particular political candidate or party.
There are 3 commercials in that video made by the Japanese cell phone carrier Softbank.
Ive seen the 3rd commercial at least a half-dozen times, and each time I see it I cant help but laugh. Is that a real song? If it is - hilarious!
By the way, I hyphenated that first word in the title to help make sure it would not get flagged by any web filtering products at your place of work. Hope it worked (if it caused any problems, drop a message in the comments and Ill change it).
Today was another day at the office. Rather pleasant weather outside and a productive environment inside thanks to headphones that I remembered to bring today. Then again, the office wasn’t as loud as it normally tends to be.
For lunch I tagged along with a few co-workers and ended up going to great restaurant that had a hometown feel to it. The food was cheap and surprisingly very tasty (although a lot of it was fried which instantly means slightly unhealthy).
All of that food (rice, soup, spaghetti, salad, fried fish,shrimp, and muscles) for 790 yen. The shop is next to the akasaka-mitsuke station across from a restaurant called the Miami Garden (it sells pasta and pizza).
Later in the day I ended up talking with a co-worker about the book Getting Things Done. I was interested in his review of it and in learning more about the book’s content. He had a copy on him, which sparked the conversation, and I took a moment to thumb through it.
I’m actually quite interested in book layout, typography, and structure as of late. Reason being, that I myself am finishing a book that has been in the works since last year. My book will published soon, hopefully by the end of March, - so more information on that soon to come.
Although Japan does not celebrate Valentines like the Western world - I still bought my wife a present… although perhaps with a Japanese twist.
I bought her a nabe pot and filled it with boxes of chocolate - including a real life Wonka chocolate bar sold here in Japan (Ive never seen them in the US, are they sold there?). It was Whipple-Scrumptious!
After we cleared the pot of chocolate, we ended up using it to cook a tomato sauce nabemono dish. Very tasty with shitake mushrooms, carrots, onion, chicken, cabbage, and tofu on top. Here are some photos of the pot and nabemono =)
So last night I met up with a friend that I haven’t seen since last summer. He and his wife recently bought a house in Chiba and have been overly busy moving and living between two places.
We ended up going to a station on the Yamanote line (it circles Tokyo) that I had never been to before. Tamachi was the name and honestly it is hardly a place people would be enticed to stop at. Other than having the headquarters for NEC and Morinaga (Japanese food manufacturer) located there, you won’t find much of anything else except 1 university. This part of metro Tokyo is rather quiet and just not a tourist or local hotspot.
Seriously, look at the Wikipedia page for it - just about bare bones, smallest page for probably any Tokyo station:
As for Valentines, in Japan things run a little differently
Instead of couples buying gifts for each other, like in the States, it is standard for only the women to buy or make chocolate for the men, and for the men not to do anything. Even women employees buy chocolate for their male co-workers. The world is a better place because of this system
But don’t worry ladies, there is another holiday on March 14th called “White Day” during which the men are expected to return the favor
[EDIT] I just realized that Tamachi station may be famous for something. The fact that women give men chocolate on Valentines day is due to the Morinaga company that I mentioned was headquartered there. Valentine’s Day in Japan brought to you by Morinaga
Ok, enough with the bento countdown already, the suspense is just killing everyone! I can hear it in the eerie silence that is the world of blog xml feeds.
Here is my number 2 favorite bento on my top 5 countdown. This bento is so delicious I cannot adequately describe it in words. Granted, the rice, spaghetti, egg, and vegetables are all the same as the other bentos listed here, however this one takes a higher spot because of the main component.
Let your eyes feast on that for a minute! The fried meat cutlet is on a bed of finely shredded cabbage and is topped with a most magnificent mixture of two sauces. I couldn’t believe what it was when I first found out, but it is simply tartar sauce and a sweet - almost honey - sauce both brushed across the top.
I love that bento.
And in the spirit of love… its time to find out my number 1 bento… drumroll please… ok, thats enough. My favorite bento is an “aisai” bento and I don’t even have a photo of it. Reason being, because an “aisai” bento is translated as a “loving wife” bento - a dish of food made by my loving wife for me to take to work. Since every dish is different I cant show any photo, but just imagine a Tupperware container filled with 6 small portions of some Japanese style food on top of a bed of rice and you have it.
