SOFTWARE, JAPAN, SELF-ACTUALIZATION AND

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.

Changing this post from its original, since I forgot to hit publish last night in my hurried escape from the apartment (working late). I was running late for a dinner with Ayako so I sprinted out of the apartment to the train station.

What is normally a 10 minute walk turned into a 3 minute dash.

So, to make a slightly humorous title more understandable, sorry I pho-got

Vietnamese Pho and green curry which I ate this week… yummy

So back to the bento countdown. Last time we looked at 2 delicious bentos, one with a hamburger in sauce and one with chicken nuggets.

Here are 2 bentos that did not make my top 5… but that is because Ive never tried them (will do so later and give a verdict then):

I took this photo at the grocery store so you can see they have rows of these bentos ready to sell. On the left is a beef and onion bento, and on the right is an oyster bento. They both look good, so I’ll probably try them in the not-too-distant future.

Making it at number 3 on my top bentos for 290 yen (less than $3), is this one:

A fish bento. This bento is perhaps the healthiest prepared bento you can buy at the store. It only has about 650 calories, and the fish is just naturally good (when not deep fried, which this isn’t).

I like the fish bento a lot but I dont buy it as often as I should (the number 1 and number 2 on my list take up about 90% of the bentos I consume). Tune in later to get the final 2 on the countdown, plus a couple extra interesting photos.

So I’m going to interrupt my bento countdown to bring a special post.

A couple of months ago I discovered, on a local city government’s website, that an outdoor basketball court was at some park about 20 minutes away.

Most of last year I had been traveling 1 hour every Sunday to meet a co-worker at one of the best basketball courts in Tokyo. However, that particular weekend he was busy, so it worked out well that I had just read about that court close by. Although it was hard to find, the trip paid off because the basketball court was new and quite nice.

A couple weekends later I again traveled to the court to play ball (before it got too cold to play outside regularly). This time though something very fortunate happened.

Somehow the stars aligned and I arrived at the court right when 9 guys were trying to break into teams to play 4 vs 4 (one guy sitting out). 4 of the guys made up one group of friends, and the other 5 were a different group. The group of 4 asked me to join to play full court, which I eagerly agreed (in my broken Japanese response).

During a break between games, those 4 Japanese guys started asking some basic questions (which to me, being asked anything in Japanese is not really basic - but rather like a challenging mid-term exam). After some back and forth, rewording, and their occasional English vocabulary tossed in the mix (they could not speak English, but they understood a fair number of words), we managed to find a couple interesting similarities:

1) They all lived about 20 minutes from the court, and in the same city that I did (although on the other side of it).
2) It was their first time to ever go to that court (and my second time)
3) They were all the same age or one year different than me!

When we finished playing a few games the “captain” of their 4 man team asked me if I was interested in joining a team he was going to start. After a little thought, I agreed. The opportunity to learn Japanese and have fun playing my favorite sport seemed quite promising, so I exchanged emails with them and then went on my way back home.

Not long after, the captain of the team, Takumi, sent me an email inviting me to play ball again. I agreed and was surprised that the next time there were about 10 guys in his group.

Since then, they’ve reserved a gym on a couple occasions for us to play ball at (get out of the freezing cold air), which is something I alone would have been unable to do in Japan. And Takumi even went so far as to get everyone a team uniform. In fact, here we are in uniform after playing for about 2 hours at the gymnasium.

Although this might not seem that interesting to many of you, I dare say this event may have created the second most important social circle in my life here in Japan - friends.

Now, just a couple months after that one chance meeting on a new-found court, my social life has went from the textbook exchanges with postal clerks (which I couldn’t even get right) and restaurant staff to something that has meaning and sustenance.

Doors have opened. There is still hope for me yet.

It is Friday, and I hope you are having a great week! Today Im going to share a couple photos of my favorite bentos in Japan. A bento is the Japanese word for a packed lunch.

Although Americans usually pack a plate lunch or a bowl of food it usually consists of just 1 main item and some supporting item (like spaghetti and garlic bread, or soup and crackers, or a hamburger and fries), it is not the same in Japan. Japanese like to make their bentos from a variety of small samplings of each item. They do not fill themselves up on just one main course item.

Coming in at 5th place on my list of favorite bentos is this chicken nugget and gyoza dumpling bento. See all the different offerings in this bento?

A closer look at the label shows the 290 yen mark… very cheap (less than $3 for this bento). Unfortunately, this bento is the highest calorie bento and is the reason I don’t like it much. It weighs in at nearly 1150 calories!

4th on my list of favorites is this burger bento. The sauce and burger are quite tasty, and it even comes with a few potato wedges This bento has right at 950 calories and is rather good.

I’ll share my top 3 bentos on Monday, until then, enjoy the weekend!

So this post is a bit late, I hit the bed after several phone calls and internet account log-ins without remembering to post here. Now that I’ve been in Japan over a year, it seems silly to keep my Health Savings Account (HSA) open in the US. I’m now enrolled in the Japanese National Health System so I have medical coverage here, and the HSA wouldn’t really help here anyway.

I plan on canceling my HSA before my quarterly bill later this month. Now I just have to figure out how to roll my health savings out of the account into something accessible before any fees eat that money up.

On another note, when writing this post’s title I had to stop and wonder if my use of “an” was correct in front of the abbreviation. Something was telling me that “a” was not correct there when reading it, so I changed it to “an”… was I correct? Ever wonder the rule on “a” and “an” in front of acronyms?

http://www.gpuss.co.uk/english_usage/a_or_an.htm

The Friday before last I ate dinner and drank with my friend Sakuma san. Every time we go out and drink I learn a few new things about Japanese culture, language, and worldview which has been quite helpful in my stay here. Last time we ate together he ordered a particular dish that was new to me.

Extra large shrimp with shell included

I learned that the entire shrimp was a primary source of calcium for those that lived generations ago. The calcium comes from eating the shell, head, and even the tail. Nothing was left on the plate when we finished.

I have an action-shot of me taking my first bite, but I’ll spare you the grisly imagery.

Ok, here is the picture post friday… well, this week we will call it the Pizza post

Ever had an egg on a pizza? I have! Pizza in Japan is always an exciting experiment in flavors

Spread the yolk around. mmm, tasty

And if you aren’t interested in egg pizza, maybe you can settle for a bacon-potato pie at McDonalds?

Not bad at all, and it is less than the price of a small fry (small fry was about 200 yen / 2$!).

Today, on my way to the office, I thought about Japan’s favorite pastime. Everyday millions of people make their way to the trains around Tokyo in rushed fashion. Often as if they are completing a never-ending 100-yard dash.

Men and women, young and old, everyone is included in the morning and evening rush for the trains. I’m often amazed at how some of the ladies can descend a flight of steps in high-heels as quickly as some of the guys in soft-soled business shoes. Likewise, I’m often surprised at how nimbly some middle-aged men can jump into the train even when the doors are already half-closed.

Every morning it is the sound of other rushed footsteps that really gets the adrenaline going. Join in the frenzied rush for the train, or take it slower and admire the others that dash ahead? Either way it’s an interesting and fun experience.

This is going to be a super short post, because it just doesn’t require much to spell out the fact that I love chips. Tasty, unhealthy, deep-fried / baked / kettle cooked, spicy, salty, cheesy, sour-creamy, peppery, any-way-you-make-them chips.

In Japan my love has not disappeared, in fact it has only expanded to include many new brands and flavors.

On the right-side-of-the-bag-on-the-right (see comments) is a spicy flavored chip, and on the right is a Hokkaido-cheese flavored chip. Hokkaido is the large island that looks as if it is attached to the main island of Japan. Seems Hokkaido is pretty famous for cheese, beef, and cheese-flavored chips.

I even like mentai flavored chips… you remember my post about mentai chips?

night is here, time for sleep