外忍者 - gai.ninja

New websites and blog

2011-08-19T03:30:00.001-07:00

Just a quick post to say that now I'm a qualified (albeit unemployed!) garden designer, I have launched my professional website. You can see it at www.myfirstnamemysurname.com (I don't want my full real name linked on my personal blog - if you don't know it then drop me a line at thegaininja@gmail.com)

I have a new blog there, for writing about all things garden design, as well as to post my pictures of landscapes, flowers and so on. There're a few pretty pictures up already, plus you can see some of the work I did for college. I'll be making a few changes to the site over the next few days, mainly to make the images on the Portfolio section much bigger, so if bits of it are broken, that's why.

Also, if you're interested in garden and landscape design then check out my new online magazine - Alfrescapades. It's a place to collate "fun, funky and fresh landscape and outdoor design". Maybe you'll enjoy some of the content too :)

Finally, the sales part: if you live in or around London and are considering having any work done on your garden, or know someone who is, please do get in touch!

First! Prize! Wow!

2011-07-28T06:56:00.000-07:00

Life has been so busy lately, but so good. It really is true that hard work pays off. Just wish it hasn't taken me 32 years to realise quite how much that's the case! I have quite a bit of news to share, mainly about graduation, but this is a follow-up to this post, in which you all very kindly helped me to choose which photos to enter in the Southport Flower Show photography competition.

Well, the results are up today, and I'm absolutely thrilled to say that I won first prize in the Garden Views category (for people aged 17 - 54), with the picture below.

WOOOOOHOOOO! So pleased it was this shot, too, as it's definitely my favourite :) Thank you to everyone who made a suggestion! As an extra bonus, I think there's actually a cash prize - might take myself clothes shopping!

The judges said it's "a wonderfully evocative composition. It is really very difficult to obtain perfect exposure right across a picture such as this but it is achieved here to perfection".

Finale - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-07-10T05:00:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons that I thought the knotweed would be a good diary subject is that I didn't think was likely to go anywhere fast. Those of your who actually know my housemate will also know that she isn't exactly motivated when it comes to matters of the domestic variety, so I assumed that the knotweed would be around for the summer, possibly even culminating with it taking over the garden sometime in early October. Well, turns out I was wrong, because I came home one evening to find she had bought a metal incinerator box, which the photo shows her putting it together. Shortly afterwards I joined her in hacking down the knotweed, puitting it in said box, tipping white spirit on it and burning it (it's so invasive that you're not even allowed to throw it out with normal household rubbish.)

This was back on the 17th April, and since then it's mostly stayed away, apart from the odd sprout. That said, it's growing rampant in the garden behind the fence, so you probably haven't seen the last of this series yet...

Episode 5 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-07-10T04:29:00.000-07:00

Oh dear. Once again, Big Time Blog Update Failage has taken place. And to top it off, this series, with its lofty creative ambitions, has come to a rather abrupt end. Above is the final photo of the knotweed in its naturally bushy state, taken on 17th April 2011.

これが最後のイタドリ写真です

Photography competition

2011-05-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

If you've arrived here as a result of a pestering e-mail, tweet or Facebook status, then thank you very much for coming!

I'll try and be brief (haha)... I've decided to enter my first photography competition, specifically for garden photography, but I can't decide which photos to enter. I know quite a few readers are into photography, and a couple are professional, so I figured that asking publicly couldn't hurt.

The competition is run by The Southport Flower show. I plan to enter two categories, into which I can enter two photos: "Plant Portraits" and "Garden Views". (There's a third one for wildlife in the garden, but I don't think I have a single picture of a bug, let alone something more exciting).

Anyhow, I've shortlisted the pictures I'm considering entering, and would be really grateful if you could leave me a comment and tell me which ones you think are the best.

As usual, all are shot with my 50D using a 50mm prime lens. No photoshopping, let alone cropping, has occurred in the making of these images :)

Plant portraits

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

Garden views

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.
(really can't decide between all these misty shots!)

13.

14.

15.

Episode 4 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-04-22T01:31:00.001-07:00

As of the 12th April (４月１２日）.

Episode 3 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-04-17T05:32:00.000-07:00

The knotweed as of the 9th of April.
４月9日の虎杖。

Please technically support me

2011-04-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

So, I recently bought a Western Digital *one terabyte* drive. Amazing. All that space. Do you remember floppy disks too? Wow.

Anyhow, I have a PC (yes, I know) and a Mac (woo). The external drive is attached to the former.

I've installed Syncback on the PC, and sorted out what to backup on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. That's working finely and dandily.

However, I'm struggling to sort out the Mac. What I was planning to do was backup various folders to a shared drive on the PC called, wittily enough, FiC. However, FiC isn't coming up as an option on either TimeMachine or Disk Utility, which both seem to be OSX's in-built options for backing up.

Do you know a bit of software that automatically back up to a shared drive when the Mac is connected to it? Or is there another way of doing it? Some kind of automated macro thing? My *nix knowledge isn't that hot. Nor, come to think of it, is my Mac knowledge.

<- n00b

Thanks!

Experiencing work

2011-04-09T14:45:00.000-07:00

Just finished an intense but amazing week of work experience with Andy Sturgeon, one of the UK's top garden designers (5 x Chelsea medal winner!). Lovely guy, fantastic team, really relaxed working environment, lots of laughter, and this is the view from my desk:

Episode 2 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-04-05T15:34:00.000-07:00

The knotweed as of the 2nd of April.
４月２日の虎杖。

Sneak preview

2011-03-28T02:42:00.000-07:00

The last time I did something creative I was really, really happy with was when I made the fab embroidered cardigan for Jasmine, and given that I'm now studying to become a creative professional, that probably gives you some idea of the insecurity I am normally wracked with about my work, and perhaps the high standards I set for myself ;)

Anyhow, I have just finished the drawings for my latest project (I am studying Landscape and Garden Design) and I'm actually really happy with them, so thought I'd share here. The technical details of how they're done are below, if you're interested.

These are done by creating a 3D model in a piece of software called SketchUp (it's free and really easy to use - have a go!). I then took "photos" of the model from the required angles (essentially by exporting them as JPG's) and then altered these photos and mashed various styles together using Photoshop.

Hopefully I'll get a good mark for this project :)

Riots

2011-03-28T02:33:00.001-07:00

On Saturday there was a march in London to protest against the cuts in government spending. Sadly, as always seems to be the case, some people used the occasion to commit acts of violence, aggression and vandalism. And equally as sad are the reports of excessive police brutality that are starting to come through.

If you would like to see some incredible photos of the event then please check out my friend Eugene Lum's amazing shots over at Flickr (the more brutal ones start on the second page). And if you need a professional photographer for anything then check out his main site) :)

Episode 1 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

2011-03-28T01:30:00.000-07:00

Here in England, Japanese Knotweed is a massive problem, as I suspect it is in the States and many countries. Personally I quite like it from an aesthetic point of view, but it grows so quickly that it can easily take over a garden, especially if it's a small one like ours. I thought I'd start a new series showing the growth of our very own knotweed, which I will christen "Teriffid".

This is day one, the 28th of March. I was mainly trying to get a shot of the cat (have got vague thoughts of a "wildlife from the window" series) but since you can see the knotweed, or lack thereof, I figured it was a good place to start.

イギリスで虎杖は大変問題。とても速く大きくなる。これは３月２８日の虎杖。この虎杖の名前はテリフィド：）

Just a reminder...

2011-03-26T16:01:00.001-07:00

...that if you've not donated to the earthquake relief in Japan that you can do so to a variety of charities at a site that Google set up.

It's easy to excuse not donating by thinking that Japan is a first world country with a historically strong economy, something I suspect happened with the floods in New Orleans too, but when you've literally got nothing, in a country with a climate that can be as inhospitable as Japan, for many people the provisions from aid agencies will be key to not only keeping them alive, but also helping them to re-build their lives.

You vs. The Rest Of The World

2011-03-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Confidence is something we all struggle with, most of us on our own, blissfully unaware not only that the rest of the world understands just how we feel, but that they invariably feel the same way too. Positive thinking is really important to me, though, as is the idea that you're capable of doing anything you put your mind to (something that karate definitely taught me). I recently read something that I think is spot-on, and applies to a lot of people I know (myself included!) several of whom could really do with a massive kick up the arse to have a much more healthy relationship with our old friend Change.

It’s lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is often easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.

If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.

Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.

Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel. If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort. I’ll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is “realistic,” I won’t have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and delicious wine on the brain, I’m prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of 1-10 appears to be a 2 and a 10 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through.

The fishing is best where the fewest go. There is just less competition for bigger goals.

It's from Tim Ferriss, who recently published a most excellent book (with a not-so-excellent title) The Four Hour Body.

So...

2011-03-26T15:46:00.000-07:00

I think I'm going to start blogging again. I've said it before, and failed, and so I'll probably say it again, but this time I mean it. Honest.

Rather than drag through everything I've been doing for these past 5 months (wow, has it been that long?!), I'm just going to drop straight back into regular posting, and maybe say what I've been up to at some other point, not least because otherwise bits and pieces will all be completely contextless.

So, wish me luck!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T13:35:00.000-08:00

Since getting back from Japan life has been rather hectic, what with becoming a student again and trying to hold down a job, and as a result this blog has been left fallow. Whilst I'm not going to promise a dramatic improvement (don't make promises you can't keep, I think!), I do just want to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and a great 2011. I'll leave you with a picture of my beautiful niece, who is with us (my parents, sisters and brother-in-law) for what will be the first white Christmas of my life!

Origins Craft Show

2010-10-24T03:44:00.001-07:00

Some photos of my favourite things from the Origins Craft Show, held at Spitalfields in London last month.

James and Tilla Waters beautiful ceramics.

Yamashita Mizuyo's super-cute ceramic houses

Sadly I've not been able to track down the name of the person who made these lights

I love love LOVE these amazing pictures by Debbie Smyth, made by wrapping thread around pins. Such a simple idea but such rich and striking results. Definitely one of the coolest stands at the show.

These are made of metal but look like Japanese rice bowls and cups. By Maya Selway.

Amazing paper cutting from old maps by Claire Brewster

Making and baking

2010-10-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

Two days after arriving back in the UK, I jumped on a train to Bangor to spend two weeks with my sister who, at that time was very heavily pregnant with my little niece. We spent lots of time cooking - cakes, soups, crumbles, curries - some of which went in the freezer for post-partum convenience food, and some of which were scoffed by us with cups of tea. Whilst L had afternoon naps, I played on her Wii, which went some way to burning off the calories! Here are some pics...

View of the Menai Straits taken from a pub we stopped for a drink in

Red currant and blackberry mini fairy cakes

L making sushi rolls!

Finished rolls

Curry night! The nan in the pan at the front was made from a mix from Muji, which I brought back form Japan. 'Twas delish!

The chicken tikka was amazing, but required three different marinatings

We made an origami mobile for above the cot. I brought some origami paper back from Japan, and also some spray varnish, which we sealed the cranes with after we'd folded them.

The finished mobile

The last two shots are of Conwy, where we went for a wander around at the weekend, when A, L's husband, could join us. My niece has since been born - a healthy and hair 8lb+ baby girl. I'll check with L whether I can share a photos with you.

A far-away time...

2010-10-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

It's funny how you can become so wrapped up in a new life that things in an old life just slip away into a big murky pool of forgotten-ness. Like this blog. Last time I wrote, it was about Nagasaki, but going back that far seems kind of pointless now. Instead I'll summarise what I did after the last post here, for your benefit, but mainly for mine, years down the line when I want to re-read about the good times I spent in Japan. There is one important post I still need to do about Japan, and one less important but hopefully interesting post, and then I'll be done with with writing, although not so much thinking, about it for a little while, especially since I have some cool photos and stories of my New English Life to post.

The last day in Nagasaki was spent looking at the attractions, if that's the right word (which it really isn't) at the A-bomb epicenter in the North of the city, not far from where I was staying. After Hiroshima, their effect was lessened and since I didn't think I could handle another museum, and the mental trama it would entail, I just wandered around the sights, bought some presents for the dojo and Hitomi, and a lunch box for the train, then slowly made my way down the station and back to Nagoya.

In some weird circle-of-life thing, you can actually read about the next day you can read about on this post.

For now, it's time to delve through Flickr for my favourite photos of the last few months...

Nagasaki - Day 2

2010-09-10T01:32:00.000-07:00

If yesterday was all about Eastern, today was all about Western. It started off at Glover Garden, a park on a hill overlooking the harbour and based around the house of Thomas Blake Glover, a Scot who lived in Nagsasaki and was instrumental in several key advancements in fishing, medicine and other technologies introduced from the West. To get to the garden meant taking a tram, the best transport network in the city. They actually re-claimed old trams from other cities who were ditching their tram network, so most of them are restored originals:

Below are a few pictures of the garden itself, in which are sited about ten restored houses built and inhabited by merchants and other key figures from the West who lived in Nagasaki. The location of the garden, the incredible views, the climate, the tropical plants and the beatiful examples of Western architecture actually made me quite jealous that I wasn't around to enjoy such an amazing ex-pat life style!

Annoyingly, they (and many of the other pictures I've posted recently) do tend to highlight the fact that I need to get another lens that will enable me to take better photos of close-up things so that they fit in the frame. The 50mm len is good for portraits and so on, but less so when you want to take a photo of a large building directly in front of you. (Got any recommendations of Canon lenses, then please post a comment!).

This wall and roof is from the Confucian Shrine, which is the only such shrine built outside China by Chinese hands. Sadly the entrance fee was rather high, and given I had already paid to enter Glover Garden, and was on my way to do the same somewhere else, I decided to give it a miss. I do like the reds and oranges of the exterior, though.

Because the Dutch East India Company had a base in Nagasaki, on the island of Dejima (more on this soon...), you occasionally see some things from our friends across the North Sea (really I should say "family", given that I'm half Dutch!). Above is a sign for a cafe called Lekker, which means "delicious".

A bit further along from the cafe is Oranda-zaka - Holland Hill, or Dutch Slope. There are a few more Western-style houses here, a couple of which have been turned into a photography museum.

The next stop was Dejima, 出島 in Japanese. The kanji 出 means "exit" or "leave" and the kanji 島 means island (the same as in Miyajima), because it was here that Portugease and Dutch traders were kept during the phase that Japan closed its doors to the rest of the world. The island was reclaimed from the sea when it was built in 1634, although now it has become part of the city. However, ambitious plans are afoot to revert it back to an island, but since this will involve re-routing both roads and rivers, it's unlikely to happen for a good few years yet. What is well underway, however, are plans to re-create the island as it was in the 1600's, which means restoring and re-building the original town. What has been done so far is a museum, and below are a few pictures, a couple of whice show the peculiar meeting of Japanese and Western styles or architecture.

This is a model of the original Dejima. Only about a third has been completed so far.

After leaving Dejima I went to complete a Very Important Mission, about which I will write another time. Afterwards I went on the ropeway up to Inasa-san, a 333 metre mountain which they say afford "100 million dollar views of Nagasaki" ("they" presumably being the tourist information board). I'm not sure about 100,000,000 dollars, but the views were pretty good! I arrived at about 5.30pm, ate my dinner up there and stayed until night fell, which meant I could get a good range of shots.

Nagasaki - Day 1

2010-09-04T04:03:00.000-07:00

Getting to Nagasaki involved a 10 hour journey from Hiroshima, which you can read about on its own post. I arrived in the evening and headed straight to the Minshuku Tanpopo, a family run B&B with tatami rooms and futons and, after a conbini dinner, had a nice bath and an early night.

The next day was a walking tour of epic proportions, covering most of what I will call the "Chinese sights" in Nagasaki. Nagasaki has had a lot of exposure to foreign cultures due to its location and prominence as a key trading port in Asia. In the 1600's, Portuguese traders were the first Westerners to grace Japan's shores, but before that trade was conducted with other Asian nations, predominantly the Chinese. There are therefore a lot of Chinese temples, Western buildings, and other remnants of foreign culture, like Catholic churches, Portuguese cakes and a Chinatown. Anyhow, as usual I'm going to skip over the city's history (if you're interested you can read more on Wikipedia) and crack on with some photos.

This is an anomaly on my day of Chinese sights - it is a monument to 26 Christians that were crucified in 1597 when the Japanese government decided that the Christianity that the Portuguese were trying to introduce probably wasn't such a good thing after all. Strange to think how different Japan's culture would be if those missionaries had succeeded.

These photos are all from Shofuku-ji, a temple near the 26 Martyrs monument. It was in the early stages of neglect and decay, which made for lots of cool things to photograph.

There are lots of cats in Nagasaki, presumably due to the fact that there are also lots of fish shops! I occasionally saw cats running out of shops with a chunk of fish in their mouth. They were pretty friendly, and mainly had their tails intact, which none of the cats in Nagoya did.

Tying a piece of string around the leg of this statue is supposed to help rid you of a bad habit. Sadly I had no string, but plenty of bad habits.

These red joists are in Kofuku-ji, another Chinese-style temple.

This entrance gate is from Sofukuji (spotting the naming trend?!) which was constructed in 1629 for Nagasaki's Chinese residents.

This is megane bashi. Megane means "glasses" and bashi is "bridge", so named because the two arches reflected in the water look like a pair of glasses.

After all the walking I ended up in Chinatown, where I had a dinner of chanpon - a pork-based soup with noodles, meat, seafood and vegetables which is a very traditional Chinese Nagasaki dish, before getting my weary self back for some much-needed rest and recuperation, ready for another day of walking and graveyard breaking and entering the next day...

Hiroshima

2010-09-03T23:38:00.000-07:00

Hiroshima's main attractions, if they can be called that, are primarily centred around the park constructed in remembrance of the atomic bomb that was dropped on the city at 8.15am on the 6th of August 1945. Although the city itself has quite a buzzing and laid-back vibe, in the area around the Peace Park, where various monuments and museums are situated, there is an atmosphere of respectful quiet. Expecting our time spent here to be emotional, we agreed to visit in the morning, and to go to a garden in the afternoon, where we could relax in a less traumatic space.

Arriving at the genbaku domu mae (genbaku - 原爆 - means "atomic bomb", and mae just means "in front of") tram stop, the first thing you see, emerging from the trees, is the genbaku domu - the A-bomb Dome. Before we could reach the building itself we were accosted by several anti-nuclear campaigners, asking us to sign petitions, which of course we did, despite the fact that we had not yet seen things which would make our opinion on the matter even stronger. The dome was the public building closest to the hypocentre, and has thus been preserved as a symbol of both the destruction caused, and the hope Japan harbours that it will never happen again.

As you probably know, cranes are the most commonly made origami item, and are a symbol of peace in Japan (and, I suspect, may other countries). They are said to live for 1,000 years, thus the folding of 1,000 orgami cranes is said to bring peace and happiness to whoever completes them. The number of cranes around the peace monuments in Hiroshima is probably in the millions!

The photo above shows a view through the arch of a monument in front of which (below the flowers) is a stone chest containing the names of every known person who died as a result of the bombing. Names are added as hibakusha pass away from diseases thought to be related to the radiation of the bomb. The Japanese inscription reads, "Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil." Through the arch you can see the peace flame, which will burn until all nucler weapons are eliminated from the world (you can't see the flame itself as it was too hot and bright) and at the end the genbaku dome.

After walking around the park, we headed into the Peace Memorial Museum. Entry was a token fee of 50 yen, but the museum is excellent, starting at the begining with a history of the city itself and the background of Japans involvement in the war (which manages to be reasonably, although obviously not completely, un-biased), then moving onto the dropping of the bomb itself, with models showing the areas of the city decimated by it, artefacts belonging to people who died (including bottles and cups that had melted) and some truly horrific photos showing injuries sustained. There were first-hand accounts by survivors, speaking primarily of water - how the burn victims called out for it, but how there wasn't any to be found, and that water containers that looked unaffected were often filled with the bodies of people who had climbed in seeking relief from their injuries. It was incredibly moving and really brought home the uninaginable devastation and horror that followed that morning back in 1945. A good section of the museum was dedicated to talking about nuclear technology, and which countries regularly conducted tests on weapons. The photo above shows a clock displaying how long it's been since the last nuclear tests and the dropping of the last nuclear bomb. Finally, there were several galleries which contained rotating exhibitions; when we went there was one showing pictures done by survivors of what life was like just after the bomb. These were graphic, and showed everything from the burnt zombie-like forms of survivors walking through rubble to barrels of water with dead people staring up out of them.

After spending the morning facing the very worst aspects of human nature, a peaceful wander around Shukkein, a traditional garden, was the perfect antidote:

Sharifa loves Japanese food too, especially sweet things involving red beans, so I treated her to a kaki gouri. After spending the previous two days raving about the one I had in Tomonoura, I figured it was the least I could do ;)

Afterwards we headed back for an early night, both of us having an early start in store the next morning for our respective train journies.

Miyajima

2010-08-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

After leaving Tomonoura at about 4pm, I got to Hiroshima at 7pm, and met up with Sharifa in a hostel close to the station. She had travelled straight down from Nagoya, leaving at 6am, which gave her time to stop in Kyoto for a few hours sightseeing. Like me, I think she was happy to get off the train! This was my first experience of staying in a hostel, and because it was busy we ended up having to get beds in a shared room - not an experience I have any desire to repeat! One of the girls in our room had an alarm clock that sounded like the hatch buzzer from Lost, thus making us wake with a start thinking that the world was about to end ;)

Anyhow, despite a less than ideal first nights sleep, we rose early to visit Miyajima, an island off the coast of Hiroshima which is famed for it's large red tori in the sea:

Just going to interject with a little nihongo (Japanese) lesson here... Shima actually means "island", and jima is just an altered form of the same word - sometimes shi is changed to ji in words, depending on somewhat arbitrary factors, like how they sound or what letters preceed it. Hiroshima is written 広島 (広 means "wide" or "spacious", 島 means "island") and Miyajima is written 宮島, where 宮 is the kanji to denote a Shinto shrine.

The island is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and is mainly covered by forest and shrines, and inhabited by deer (although there is also a school and a couple of roads for the small number of humans that live there). Here is one of the deer:

There are lots of shrines to visit, many of which are surrounded by lush gardens with lots of statues:

The main thing to do, apart from visiting the red tori, is to go up Mount Misen, which is a 535 metre mountain, accessible via three different hiking trails, or by cable car. Now, like me, you might just have read that and said "535 metres? A mountain?! That's not a bloody mountain - it's just a hill!" and thought climbing it would be a nice afternoons walk. Well, let me tell you now that's entirely wrong. It is a monstrous climb - imagine spending two hours in 37 degree heat going up stairs. And not ordinary evenly-spaced and height steps, but big stone steps set into a steep slope, interspersed with short sections of rocky track. It was horrendous. By the time we reached the top we were exhausted, although we were rewarded with some amazing views over the surrounding sea and islands, and an enormous sense of satisfaction :)

Right at the top was a deer, to which Sharifa gave a piece of donut which she had carried up with her. Funnily enough, the deer loved the donut and wanted more. To demonstrate this fact he jumped up at her and made funny noises, then made to follow us down, but thankfully gave up.

After making the descent, which took about a quarter of the time it did to go up, we wandered around the gift shops (most of which are hideously over-priced) then jumped on the ferry for the return trip. Here are a couple of views from the way home:

Jet lag woes

2010-08-31T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's 6.36am, and I've been awake since about 5am. Bored of lying in bed unable to sleep, I thought I may as well get up and do something constructive - upload photos and write my blog. Unpacking seems like too much effort at this precise moment, plus I suspect all the rustling around will wake up mum and dad.

It's a bit odd being back. People here are much bigger, scruffier, hairier and noisier than their Japanese counter-parts, and small things like seeing them sit with their shoes on seats grate a bit. Also, it's really really cold! Although we did sit outside and have a glass of wine last night, when I went to sleep I had to get an extra blanket as I just couldn't get warm.

Tomorrow morning I have to be up early for a busy day of meetings and a long train journey, so am hoping that this evenings sleep will be longer and better quality than tonight's. Anyhow, on with catching up with blog posts...

Back to the start

2010-08-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Since arriving back from Nagasaki on the 26th (which I did do safely, despite the fact that my travel blogging seems to have stopped several hundred miles away) things have been busy in a not-good way. On the morning of the 27th, Operation Clean-Up and Pack-Up commenced. In the afternoon Hitomi came round to assist me, which was an enourmous help as she is an experienced mover, having lived abroad a few times, and also much more organised than me. I was hoping to see more of her before I left, but what with the World Cup and travelling, I didn't have time, so it was good to hang out for a day.

That evening was my final karate practise. Sensei made it a hardcore one, with sets of 100 koshi no kaiten gyakuzuki, koshi no kaiten junzuki, sonobazuki, mawashigeri, maegeri and so on. Then lots of idokihon too. Good fun. Afterwards we went for drinkies, and it unsurprisingly ended up being drunken and late. Like 4am late. Will post some pictures when I have a chance to upload them, but suffice to say it was a lot of fun. However...

...the next day I got up at 8am, feeling rather the worse for wear, and continued packing. At 2pm the men came to turn off the gas and electricity, shortly followed by the man from the rental company to do the final inspection. At this point I was still surrounded by quite a lot of stuff, mainly things I didn't want and was trying to give away to various friends. Luckily it all went well - the flat was "kirei desu ne" - "looks beautiful, doesn't it" - and I won't be having to pay anything for repairs. Also, he let me keep a key, finish packing and post it in the letter box when I was finished - result!

I spent the night at Sharifa's place, and we went out for a last meal with about five friends. I had tempura, which was another "tick" on the list of eating all the Japanese foods I want before I leave! After a somewhat stressful journey to the station, which was crowded becasue of the Nagoya Matsuri, I had a most awesome surprise waiting on the platform at Nagoya Station, in the form of Jacob, who had come to see me off with a gift of a bento for the journey. It was a really sweet gesture, and just what I needed after lugging my cases there. The journey to Tokyo was very relaxed, as all Shinkansen trips are, and after another stressful journey across the city, this time as a result of the Heavy Luggage Of Doom, I finally made it to the Suzuki's. Woo!

It's awesome to be back. After arriving at the house at 4.20pm, and having a chat with Yukiko and the boys (Daijiro pronounced my Japanese "pera pera" - "perfect" - yay!) I headed out again at 5pm to meet up with Kosei and some of the Shorinji guys for yaki-niku (Korean BBQ) and a few drinks. It was a nice chilled evening with lots of food and chatting and not too much drinking. We were home by 10pm and I was in bed by 10.30pm for a very hot nights sleep! As an extra bonus we were joined by Hatsuno Sensei, the Shorinji Sensei, who is a sprightly and cute 81 year old. He is just awesome - think of Mr Miyagi in Karate Kid and add some sake and you've probably got a fair impression of him!

This morning Yukiko and I went to the Softbank shop and cancelled my phone, had sushi for lunch (for the past two weeks I've had sushi at least every day!), did some shopping and came home to meet the boys who got out of school at 1.30pm. Now were are just chilling before dinner and TV time. Dinner is due to be epic - Yukiko is a fantastic cook and after seeing what she got at the supermarket I'm quite excited. Going to dig my camera out and get some snaps :)

This is probably the last update I'll make till I'm back in England, and can clear the travelling backlog and maybe some other posts I never got round to writing or finishing. Crazy to think I'll be back in 48 hours. I have mixed feelings about leaving, but I do know that I'm excited to be starting a new phase in life. See you on the other side of the world!

Longest train journey evar!

2010-08-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made the trip from Hiroshima to Nagasaki. Since I'm travelling with the Seishun Juuhachi Kippu, a super-cheap ticket aimed at students (the best deal you can get for train travel in Japan, actually - check out this page for more information), I can only take local trains. This meant that my trip took ten hours. Yes, ten. 10. 1-0. Madness. From 9am till 6.45pm. Have a look:

I'm now two days behind on my travel blogging, but rather than sit in this internet cafe any longer, I'm going to get out and enjoy Nagasaki and write and post more photos another time :) Laters!

Tomonoura

2010-08-22T02:58:00.000-07:00

Since the journey from Okayama to Hiroshima was relatively short (a mere 167 minutes), I decided to make a stop-off midway, in a place called Tomonoura. It was described in my travel guide as being a "must see" along this part of the coast, and despite only being accesible by bus, I had enough time to stash my luggage in a locker at Fukuyama station and make the half hour trip down the coast.

Arriving in this sleepy little village, I could see why the guide thought it was worth a trip. The heat of the day, and the fact that the bulk of the days work had already been done, meant the streets were quiet and the harbour devoid of any real activity, and yours truly could wander around and soak up the peace.

This stone lantern was the lighthouse in days gone by

One thing I didn't get time to do in Okayama was eat the local sushi - barazushi - which is a selection of cooked and raw fish over rice. I picked up this bento from the station and ate it in the shade of a temple, over-looking the sea.

Boat-repair shop

On the wheel-barrow are shimp which have been laid out to dry in the sun. Below is another shot from a different location

Fishermans work clothes, hanging out to dry

Unsurprisingly for August in Japan, it was another blistering day, and after all that walking I treated myself to a kakigouri. It's a hugely popular summer-time dessert made from shaved ice with flavoured syrup over the top. They come in all flavours, from child-friendly melon and strawberry to the more sophisticated green tea. Mine was green tea flavoured ice with a big dollop of sweet adzuki beans in the middle, with condensed milk on top of that. Delicious :)

There were quite a few cats here, mostly friendly and mostly with their tails intact, both something of a rarity in Japan!

At 4pm it was time to head back to Fukuyama and on to Hiroshima to meet up with Sharifa at the hostel. Watch this space for our adventures :)

Naoshima

2010-08-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Long-term readers will know of my love for kabotcha, Japanese pumkpin, although the example above isn't edible and is actually several metres high. It's part of an ever-expanding art project on an island off the coast from Okayama called Naoshima. Accessible via train and boat, it's home to several galleries as well as many outdoor art installations which are located across the island. As you might not be able to gather from the photos, it was about 36 degrees, and whilst I really wanted to spend ages pottering about creating perfects framed shots, I thought I might fall down with heat exhaustion after about three minutes standing still, so ended up going for quick snaps rather than artistic masterpieces!

After getting off the boat, one of the views from which is above, I went straight to hire a bicycle, having read it was the best way to get around. Heading south from the boat terminal I went straight to Benesse House, a modern gallery housing works by Andy Warhol and David Hockney, amongst others. Annoyingly, due to "traffic restrictions" (?! traffic, what traffic!) I had to leave my bike at the top of a hill and walk down to the museum and its collection of outdoor exhibits, so it was great to be in the aircon for a while! I also had an excellent squid ink curry for lunch. Below is a photo of a beach on the way to the main museum building, and home to one of the outdoor exhibits - a frame set on the cliff, which you can just make out:

After the museum itself, I wandered around some of the outdoor exhibits, including these big metal sails that actually moved gently (by means of some small motor, rather than the wind, I suspect!) and two two-metre high marble balls.

On the way to the kabotcha was a light blue wall onto which were set thousands of sparkling glass cubes in a kind of wavy pattern. It was cool :) (I'd never make an art critic, hey!):

And along from that were several brightly-coloured fibreglass animals:

Here are a few more pictures of the kabotcha, which was mostly surrounded by lots of people so I had to wait to get these shots when they were all gone:

I was originally planning to look at another set of outdoor exhibits - the Art House Project - but I found myself a bit short of time, and didn't want to spend on entry and not have enough time to enjoy it all. What I decided to do was the sneaky solution - cycle past some of the sites and have a peak without having to buy the full ticket ;) Then I bought an ice cream and sat down for a well-earned rest!

This was a really good day - when you're cycling around a peaceful sleepy island with beatiful beaches whilst admiring some world-class artwork, life can't really get much better. Unless, that is, you are cunning and pack your swimming gear! The beach below even had changing rooms and a shower, so after a quick dip in the beatiful pancake-flat sea, I took a shower, put on some fresh clothes, dropped my bike off and jumped on the ferry back to the mainland. The perfect end to a day that could only have been more perfect by being a few degrees cooler!

Kurashiki

2010-08-21T03:34:00.000-07:00

Still on Day 1 of The Travels, after visiting Kourakuen I jumped on a train to nearby Kurashiki, a small town home to a district of merchant houses and warehouses from the 17th century along a central canal with weeping willows along either side, and gondolas sliding along its length. Although very busy it still has a relaxed atomsphere, and after a lunch of the locally produced sushi and noodles I was ready to face the heat and have a wander around.

This is Ivy Square, an old spinning mill which has been converted into a complex of shops and restaurants. The main building is covered in ivy, hence the name ;P

The Japanese Venice!

At some point I'll go back and label these photos here and on my Flickr stream. Check out the latter for the full set of photos.

This ended the first of what has so far proved to be a hot but incredibly awesome and rewarding few days of travel. Sadly the pay-for internet here (Hiroshima) is hampering my ability to catch up and actually write about the pictures I"m showing you, but suffice to say I'm having an excellent time. Right, will try and knock out a post about Day 2 before my time runs out!

Korakuen

2010-08-20T03:43:00.000-07:00

Korakuen, in Okayama, is one of the top three gardens in Japan. I have already visited the other two (Kenrokuen in Kanazawa, and Kairakuen in Mito), so wanted to make the pilgramage to the final one. I based myself in Okayama to visit the places I'll cover in the following posts. It's a well-located town with a picturesque river running through it but not much else to do besides the garden, a reconstructed castle and a few museums. Without further ado, here are some photos of the garden, my first stop on the first day.

Travels

2010-08-20T03:39:00.000-07:00

A brief summary of my travels... On Tuesday morning I left Nagoya for Okayama, where I stayed for three nights. Today I left Okayama and arrived in Hiroshima, where I will stay for three nights, and on Monday I will go to Nagasaki where I will stay for... you get the picture ;)

Since they make you pay for the internet here (boo!) I will avoid the kind of type-heavy posts like yesterdays, and instead fill your screens with pretty pictures of amazing sights :)

Wado World Cup 2010

2010-08-18T05:02:00.000-07:00

So, now that it's all over, I shall endeavour to condense into one post the busiest week I've had since, well, possibly since I arrived in Japan. It started as normal, with training on Monday and Tuesday, and then a special class on Wednesday, which I normally take as a day off. The class was at another dojo somewhere in Nagoya, and we were joined by Nukina Sensei (who runs our partner dojo in Bucharest - he married a Romanian and moved out there) and four Romanians - Octavian, Soreen, a guy whose name I have annoyingly forgotten and Luca. Luca is ten, and had come to Japan without his parents, who were replaced for two weeks by his dojo family. Pretty cool. On Wednesday I thought he was kind of shy, but as the week went on I realised he's a smart and cocky little bugger :) His English is good (it far exceeds any of the children I've taught in Japan!) and he was happy hanging around with us and feeding money into the vending machines to get can after can of fizzy drink. After the Wednesday training session we went to a "stamina buffet" which basically consisted of meat and veggies you can grill at your table, but also salad, sushi and a few other bits. Good fun.

The next two days I was up early to translate for the training sessions for the WWC (Wado World Cup). These were held in the sports hall of a nearby high school. Each country had a two hour slot booked in which they could turn up and train. As it turned out, only a handful of countires turned up, which gave me time to do my own training. On Friday, Sensei asked Tatsuo, my 16 year old shodan test partner, to come along and train with me on the stuff I'd be tested on. I feel quite bad for Tatsuo as Sensei has got him training with me lots, and not on his own stuff. On Friday he wanted to go shooping with his sister but Sensei wouldn't let him go home! :( I'm going to buy him a thank you present. I saw some truly awesome katana umbrellas today, but they only had girly patterns left. Hopefully I'll see them again somewhere else.

On Friday after the training session, we went out for dinner with Sandra, her boyfriend Wil and her brother Andre. Sandra and Andre are Romanian and train with Nukina Sensei, or at least Sandra did till she moved to London to study graphic design at Camberwell. Obviously her English is perfect, but she and Andre also speak fluent Japanese, as a result of attending a Japanese school in Romania from the age of six. Bonkers! Apparently her mum was brought up here and wanted her children to speak the language too. Wil is actually Dutch, and from the Ishikawa Dojo near Rotterdam. Weirdly I had befriended a good friend of his, AJ, via YouTube, so that was a cool little coincidence.

Saturday and Sunday was the competition. I met up with quite a few people I knew - Carl and Amy who were the interns at Shiramizu Dojo in 2008, and Louise who was one of the interns in 2009. I had also been communicating with this years intern, Pete, via his blog, and it was good to meet up with him and go out for some drinks with him, Carl and Amy on Saturday night.

There were a couple of people from the dojo competing - Juri-chan, the 14 year old Karate Queen, was fighting for Japan in the "Cadets Kumite" section, and Hide was fighting for El Salvador (long story!) for the Mens Kumite -67kg. Kodai, 12, was also doing a kata demonstration in the arena during the lunch break.

This is Amy (in red), in one of her earlier fights. She came third overall :)

This is Hide (in blue). He also came third overall :)

I didn't get any photos of Juri-chan's fight, but she lost in the final to another Japanese girl. Still, 2nd is still pretty awesome. It's actually the Japanese Wado Nationals this coming weekend, which is a much bigger deal, given the quality of the Japanese competitors, so I think she will be focussing on that now.

The competition itself was excellent - incredibly well-organised and with a competitive but friendly atmosphere. Unsurprisingly, the Japanese were by far the best performing team, and by the finals the few gaijin that had managed to get through were cheered by all the foreign teams, who chanted their name and urged them on. Pretty cool, especially when the Japanese also started chanting :) The award for Best Supporting Act definitely goes to the Spanish supporters, who came adorned with red and yellow clothing and face paint! They moved around the arena to get to the front whenever one of their countrywo/men were up, cheering and shouting loudly.

Sunday evening, after the competition, was a Sayonara party for the competitors. It was held at a swanky hotel and a really good buffet and loads of drinks were laid on for everyone. The guys in the Japanese team got absolutely hammered in about half an hour, after necking back beers and roping in lads from other teams to do the same. Each country had to take to the stage to give a brief introduction and then say "cheers" in their language, but the Spanish speech ended up in football chants and doing the macarena, and the Japanese, who were last, mainly involved a bunch of red-faced guys looking very happy! :D Sadly, though, I had my grading the next day so after scarfing down some free food and chatting to a few people I headed home for an early night. Although it wasn't that early as I ended up lying awake and tossing and turning thinking about the next day. Anyhow, below are a few pictures from the evening:

On the left is my Sensei, aka Sensei aka Matsuzaki Sensei. On the right in Sakagami Sensei, who runs the British Wado association.

This is team Romania! From left to right: Octavian, Andre, Luca, Sandra and Soreen. Only Sandra actually competed; Octavian took, and passed, nidan (2nd dan) and the referees course, Soreen took, but failed sandan (3rd dan) and everyone else just came to watch and hang out. It was decided that Luca, chatterbox extraordinaire, should make the goodbye speech.

This is Amelia Harvey from England who was beaten in the Cadets Kumite by Juri. She ended up coming third though, which was awesome. Tough to watch a fight with your dojo buddy and countrywoman against eachother!

This is Louise Fisk, whose karate is just excellent.

And this is Sandra and Wil, in an annoyingly blurry but otherwise very sweet photo :)

The grading you already know a bit about, and there's not that much more to say, really, although I will upload some videos if I manage to get copies from the Romanian guys. Early start for a seminar, then the grading started at about 2pm. Kihon, kata, yakusoku kumite, jiyu (free) kumite, then waiting for the results. After that it was the Ikueikan summer beer garden/meat BBQ party, so on with the photos!

Love this picture, although would love it more if it was framed slightly better!

This is Abe-san, fellow white belt and truly awesome guy. He is aiming to go to Cambodia in a few years time to do voluntary work, and also wants to teach karate there. His English is pretty good, so we always have a good natter during training :)

Yoshikawa-san, also a fellow white belt

Kato-san, another fellow white belt, and also incredibly generous - he paid for everyone's meal and drinks on Monday night (at least 30 of us!) and then took a few of us out to karaoke afterwards.

Just to finish the story, after the meat and beer fest we went out for karaoke, I got home at 3am, then had to get up at 9am to pack and leave. That was a horrible experience I don't want to repeat, but luckily now the memory is fading!

Anyhow, since I'm travelling I have other things to blog, so will stop writing now, and apologise, especially if you have no interest in karate, for the length of this post ;)

drumroll

2010-08-17T16:16:00.000-07:00

...I passed! Woohoo!

It was a really really long day, starting with a seminar from 9am, then the grading from 2pm. There were quite a lot of people - maybe 100 - taking grades from shodan (1st) to rokudan (6th), and all that material to cover meant we didn't finish until 7pm. After getting our results we headed straight to the summer dojo "Beer Garden" party that Sensei organised. It was all-inclusive drink and meat, the latter being cooked on a BBQ grill thing on your table. Good fun. After that myself, Nukina Sensei (our visiting Sensei from the patner Ikueikan dojo in Romania), two of his Romanian students and three Japanese Ikueikan students (Kato, Yoshikawa and Shinkai - will introduce everyone with some photos in another post) headed off to do some karaoke and didn't emerge from there till 3am! Ooops!

Of course I was starting my travelling the next day (yesterday) and that meant getting up early, packing and spending 6 hours on a train to get to Okayama, where I am now. Must say I felt like death for the whole journey - absolutely exhausted and a little bit queasy! The last week has been so hectic, and, although fun, I am looking forward to kicking back a bit now. Went to bed at 9pm last night, got up at 7.30am. Just had my very good included-in-the-room-rate breakfast, and am now heading out for the day to explore. There is a computer in reception, so will try and do some more updating later :)

Belts and trousers

2010-08-15T21:00:00.000-07:00

Sitting outside the gym waiting to go and register for my shodan test. Was quite nervous last night and didn't sleep that well, which in a way is good as now tiredness is overtaking nerves as the predominant emotion! Either way, it's too late to do anything now but try my best. Thanks to everyone for the good wishes - see you on the other side, when I may or may not have a new black belt to stop my baggy white trousers from falling down!

My apartment

2010-08-10T21:38:00.000-07:00

Since I'm leaving I wanted to get some footage of my apartment here and thought I'd do a little guided tour for you, in case you are thinking of coming to live in Japan and are curious as to what kind of apartment you could get (or just want to have a nose around mine!). Over here there is a type of apartment called a 1K, which means one room plus a kitchen. At home we'd call it a studio flat. The difference is that here whole buildings are filled with the same type of apartment, whereas in London studio flats are usually odd-shaped flats that have been carved off from houses that have been turned into flats. If you put your sound on you will here my dulcet tones wittering on about what you will see. Personally, I dson't plan to ever listen to the audio!

Busy busy busy!

2010-08-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

Last night Sensei asked me if I could help and translate at the World Cup training sessions tomorrow and Friday. Of course I said yes, even though it means that today is insanely busy! Really my Japanese isn't great, but perhaps Sensei has mistaken my ability for grinning and nodding for actual linguistic skill ;) I've trained Monday and Tuesday, and today I'm attending a special class with the Romania and Swedish teams. Then I'm assisting/translating all day tomorrow and Friday, then watching the World Cup on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday morning I have a seminar to attend, and then my shodan grading in the afternoon. Straight after that is a drinking party with the karate guys, and then I am getting up early the next day for a lonnnng journey down to Okayama, where I start my ten days of travelling. Phew. I am tired just writing about it. Came to the internet cafe today intending to spend some time writing my CV, since I really do need to find a job for when I go back home, but have got absorbed in a barrage of blog posts. Perhaps I'll find time to do that during lulls in the world cup, although what with me being The Queen Of Procrastination, perhaps not!

Mochi machine

2010-08-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

Mochi are Japanese sweets made from pounded sticky rice and normally filled with sweet red bean paste. You have probably read me talking about them before, or heard me writing about them, becuase I love love love them. Mmmm awesome chewy rice and sweet beany filling! Can't get enough!

You can therefore imagine my excitement when I found out that the parents of Junko, a Japanese friend of ours (Sharifa and myself) run a sweet shop and bakery just up the road! Whilst I wait and keep my fingers crossed that they get a big mochi order to fulfil so that I can go and watch, Junko did let me into the kitchen to have a nose around.

I asked her how they pound the rice for the mochi when they're made on such a big scale, and she said they use a machine. I assumed it would be a closed machine - like a metal box with rollers or something - that you put rice in and it comes out a smooth paste at the other end. What I didn't expect was the below, which is basically an automated version of how it is done by hand, the only difference being the hammer is lifted automatically and not by hand. I would guess that the machine is about two and a half to three metres high, and the bowl about 40cm across.

The picture below shows the various machines which are used to steam the rice before it is pounded:

The kitchen is also used to make Western cakes and biscuits, and had similar machines to the ones we had when I was a chef many moons ago. Here are a few implements, just coz I like kitchen gadgetry :)

Photos of pretty things in the 'hood

2010-08-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

The streets here often have beautiful displays of flowers - outside peoples homes, on the sides of the pavements and even in the middle of the road. Whereas at home people would get drunk and destroy or steal them, here they are appreciated and many people put a lot of effort into making their streets a nice place to walk around. Here are a few snaps of flowers from my neighbourhood:

Another great thing about Nagoya, especially in summer, is that almost every night has a sunset worthy of an oil painting. Or at least a couple of photos. These two were taken the night before last from my apartment balcony:

Photos of festival food

2010-08-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

Summer is festival time here in Japan - almost every weekend there are festivals and firework displays, and these are always accompanied by stands selling traditional festival food. The Japanese equivalent of hot dogs, burgers and candy floss, I guess. Here are a few pics of food stalls and their wares:

Takoyaki are balls made of something resembling pancake batter but with chunks of octopus in the middle. They are served covered with katsuobushi - dried fish flakes - and doused with mayonnaise and brown sauce. Om nom nom.

Chocolate covered bananas are always a hit with the kids. Plus their phallicness makes them a good photo subject ;)

This guy is mixing up a batch of karaage - fried chicken. It's delicious, but way too greasy to be consumed on a regular basis.

Gomi rules

2010-08-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Gomi is rubbish, and Japan has a very strict set of rules regarding the handling and disposal of the different types. I recently finished reading If You Follow Me, a fun and easy-to-read book about life as an English teacher in rural Japan, and one of the themes running through it was gomi, and how the main characters consistently failed to dispose of it in the correct manner, causing trouble and embarrassment for the locals. It reminded me that I haven't made any posts about the rather laborious sorting, washing, storing and disposal routine, so I will tell you all about it ;)

This poster is A3 sized and appeared in all our letter boxes in English a few months ago, after what I assume were errors in our gomi management. ("Our" being myself and the other gaijin who live in the same block). As you will see (especially if you click through to the large version) you need to do something different with almost every type of rubbish.

These are the recycling rules. All containers needs to be washed, and the plastics, paper/card, glass and metals all stored separately and put into separate bags for collection. To make life more confusing, some can only be got rid of at local drop-off points, and the others need to be put out in a different place to burnable and non-burnable garbage.

It creates quite a lot of work, and I am absolutely certain that Brits would not follow such a system. In my apartment I have two bins for burnable and non-burnable (below) garbage, and a big bag for plastics, which make up by far the largest proportion of my trash. Everything here comes in plastic - fruits and veg are all wrapped in plastic bags, fish and meat come on recyclable trays, plastic food wrappers can be recycled, bottles and of course sushi and other takeaway food too. In two weeks I can fill a bin bag with plastic things. I find the amount of plastic waste I create quite distressing. I have another bag for the other recyclable things - food cans, glass bottles and mile cartons. As I mentioned above, anything that has had food in/on it needs to be washed first - bottles rinsed, bits of rice rinsed off, meat and fish juices washed away.

There are two main types of what they call "refuse" - burnable and non-burnable. The former is all food waste, plus paper products, wooden chopsticks and so on. The latter is non-recyclable plastics, bits of metal and other random small items that can't be burnt. This is by far the smallest proportion of my rubbish.

The final thing to bare in mind is that all these types of rubbish need to go in the correct bag; at the supermarket they sell lots of types of bags - red for burnable, blue for recycling and so on - and you need to make sure the right things go in the right one.

Whilst this all sounds like a pain in the arse, it's mostly ok if you keep on top of it, and the most annoying thing is having so many bin bags cluttering up the apartment!

Gadgety greatness

2010-08-06T23:48:00.000-07:00

Thought I'd share another cool gadgety thing that Japan has but England doesn't. This time it's nothing high-tech, but instead is a magnificently simple loo paper changing mechanism:

A friend from Canada thinks I am mad for thinking this is so cool, as he swears they have them there too, but hey - I still think it's awesome and should be mandatory in all toilets across the world.

Bullet pointed weeks (and weeks and weeks)

2010-08-03T22:08:00.000-07:00

Good lord it's been a long time since I blogged. In my efforts to save money I've not been coming up to use the internet cafe much, and when I do I seem to get side-tracked by other (admittedly important) things, such as finding a job, so the back-log of blog posts is growing. The "saving money by chilling in my apartment" thing might be a bit of a false economy though, as I got the biggest electricity bill of my life yesterday! It's so hot now (been up to 37 some days) that I've had the aircon on all the time. Including at night. Might have to stop that habit before I bankrupt myself. Anyhow, here are some of the more interesting things I have done recently:

One of my schools had a Ladies Lunch - about 25 of us went to a local restaurant for a delicious Japanese multi-course lunch. Was great to chat to everyone in a more relaxed context, and give out my email address to stay in touch with some people.
Went to a BBQ at a farm owned by one of the teachers from my school last year. Didn't take any photos to share with you, sadly, but did eat lots of delicious fresh fruit and vegetable, and a whole lotta grilled meat! I also came away with a big bag of veg - corn on the cob, tomatoes, onions, peppers and a whole kabotcha. I love kabotcha, but it was a bit of an effort to eat it all, especially to think of new and creative ways to make it even tastier!
My friend Meaghan left to go back to Canada :( We went out for a nice goodbye dinner, and discovered a place that sells pints of gin and tonic for 290 yen! Some other friends also left, and that of course warranted another night out sampling Japans not-so-fine lager beers. Most of my friends here have left now, mainly to go back to university in their own country, so my social life mainly consists of karate friends and teacher friends.
I have far too much free time on my hands (read - absolutely bugger all to do) which makes the days drift by in a haze of sun, iPhone games and reading. Every day I try to do at least one useful thing, which today was coming to the internet cafe to make a blog to advertise the things I am selling before I move. Check it out here! I'm mostly organised with my post-grading travel, having booked all the hotels and sorted, for the most part, my itinerary. My pre-move out flat inspection is booked, as are the people to sort out the electricity, gas etc. bills. I even know how to cancel my mobile phone and pay the last bill. Go me.
As well as one useful thing per day, I am also going out for half an hours sunbathing every day, in the hope that I will build up a gradual and non-burny tan. So far so good, although I do have some odd sandal marks from wandering around outside.
The Wado Kai World Cup is next weekend, and lots of people are arriving in Nagoya to train, and some of them are coming to the dojo. Last night class was lead by Nukina Sensei, who runs our partner dojo in Bucharest. He used to live in Nagoya but married a woman from Romania and moved out there and started his own club. It's fair to say that his karate is awesome, and it made a nice change of pace to have a new sensei for a night. We all went out drinking after class, which was fun as always.
Tomorrow I'm having lunch at Sharifa's apartment with a Japanese/American family who live nearby. She is cooking Jamaican food, including jerk chicken, pasta salad and banana fritters. Om nom nom.

That's just about all the interesting things I can think of at the moment, and the fact they are so boring should give you some indication of the excitement level in my life. Really it is all about karate interspersed with the odd bit of beer drinking! I'll do another post with my travel plans, which will commence on the 17th August, but for now I need to go to the International Centre to advertise my things for sale. Hopefully the next updates will be more timely than previous ones have been.

24 days to go

2010-07-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Have I told you that I have my shodan (black belt) test on the 16th of August? I honestly can't remember, so sorry if I have, and sorry if I haven't. Time is shooting by, much as I suspect it would if I was a dog with my head hanging out of the window of a Porsche, but with an element of pressure I suspect our canine friends don't experience.

Practice now consists mostly of refining techniques and kata - getting my weight as low as possible, pointing my foot correctly, getting just the right amount of hip-twist, and so on. I will be doing basic kihon, two pre-arranged kumite drills (yakusoku kumite), two kata - pinan shodan (my choice) and kushanku (theirs), plus some free sparring (kumite). Sensei has got me doing lots of kata in front of the dojo, which is working well as I appear to becoming less nervous, and my intense dislike of performing in front of other people is slowly going away. Still, 24 days isn't very long... *gulp*!

Karate is like...

2010-07-23T00:03:00.000-07:00

...having a dumpster full of lego, and a photo of the fantastical creation you are expected to make with the millions of pieces in your possession. As time goes on, it begins to take shape, but you also get distracted - forgetting to add bits here, deviating from the photo there - and you periodically have to go back and adjust. Add to that the the fact that other people occasionally come along and point out what you're doing wrong, or what you should do, and sometimes it feels like you'll never get the damn thing built. And in fact, you won't. Not like the picture. But build it you will, with your own spin, your own little take on things, and in your own style.

Kyushoku - Friday 16th July

2010-07-16T00:13:00.000-07:00

Meant to post much more of these, but in my haste to eat kept forgetting, and now suddenly find myself here: at the last kyushoku ever. A truly sad day.

Clockwise from the gyunyu:

chikinnageto - chicken nuggets
natsu yasai kare - Summer vegetable curry
ocha - green tea
mugigohan - barley rice (with pickles)
reitou mikan - frozen satsuma

Rating: 4.5/5

I love love love Japanese curry, and managed to get a double portion ad an extra chicken nugget! Yay! They were a bit fake (that weird TVP stuff I think, and not actual chicken) and if they were better this might have got the full 5 stars. Still, a delicious last meal. Now it's back to cooknig for myself. Sigh ;)

Last day

2010-07-16T00:00:00.001-07:00

Today is the last day of term, and I've just taught the last English class of, what I will assume to be the rest of my life. I'd like to say that I feel sad and wracked with emotion, but... I don't. Although it's been fun, it's also not been challenging enough, and the work environment sometimes trying to an annoying extreme (you'll hear the last of Creepy Stalker Teacher in another post!), so I am glad it's come to an end. It's actually my last day of work for the forseeable future - gulp. Need to get on the case of sorting out some part time work for when I get back to the UK!

Because it was the last day of term, I knew concentration levels would be low so the kids made posters showing their names, birthdays and three things they like, and presented them in groups. I love seing the creative kids who come up with things they like beyond the mundane dogs, melon and so on, and the best was a boy who, when presenting his poster, shouted out "I like meat, I like melon, I LIKE MEEEEE!". Awesome. In the same class was Haruna, who shares her birthday with my sister (Ninja the Middling), hence the fact I remember her name, and is also really sweet. Had a nice chat with her after class. I'll certainly miss some of the kids, and their little entertaining selves!

Now, it's time to get home, wolf down some dinner and head out to the dojo!

Clothing special!

2010-07-12T23:45:00.001-07:00

Due to my failure to do a "bullet pointed week" post for, well, for long enough that I should probably call it "bullet-pointed month" instead, I have a small collection of t-shirt phrases that I figured I may as well roll into one post. I also have a bonus baseball cap AND photo of some an example of amusing choice of brands, which I'll start with.

The lack of being able to read English, and the lack of exposure to Western brands in the context

in which they "belong" and intend themselves to be perceived, means that people often wear things that are completely out of place on them. A minor example of this would be the Carhartt t-shirt I spotted Sensei in the other day, but the woman (yes, I know what you're thinking) above takes it to another level. The t-shirt she's wearing is from a UK brand called Howies who, although eco-friendly, is more associated with youth skate culture. On the t-shirt is a picture of a skateboard in the style of the London Underground logo, and the type says "London Transport". She is wearing a pair of blue and orange Nike mules, shown above. All in all, quite an odd get-up, but one which isn't that out of place here.

On to some t-shirt slogans...

I love this one, it being a combination of political yet nonsensical:

Can Putin survive this and will Kirienko be able to get his hands on those new shoes?

This one almost gets away with being cutesy, but the typos push it into the realms of ridiculousness:

My Jhony over the ocian. My Jhony over the sea.

And I have no idea as to what this one is even trying to say:

I love vagary glance

Finally, the aforementioned baseball cap, which I actually considered swiping from the owners head and running away with, so utterly wonderful is it:

Filths Hamburgers
Only beef!
100% beef!
Here's the beef!!

Tenki : 天気 :　weather

2010-07-12T21:06:00.001-07:00

We're smack-bang in the middle of the rainy season, or tsuyu, here, which is probably the most intolerable of all the Japanese seasons, because it's not only hot but also incredibly humid. It's been up to 32 degrees for the past week, so I suppose I shouldn't complain too much about the fact it's raining all day today!

Tsuyu is supposed to come to an end around the 20th of June, and looking at the forecast for the next 10 days, this would certainly seem to be the case. However, it's not all the good thing it may seem, as without the rain to cool things down it's due to hit 36 degrees! *gulp*! Looks like I'll be spending some time at home with the aircon on!

It's all hot air

2010-07-06T22:29:00.000-07:00

You might think that this is an ordinary drying rack...

...but you'd be wrong. It is in fact a Super High Tech incubator into which you put freshly washed cups. After four hours of being kept at a constant temperature they spawn, creating a new generation of cuplings and saving you the hassle of ever using a tea towel.

Time to go

2010-07-05T22:56:00.000-07:00

Since I've now told Sensei, some close friends and, today, The Company, I think it's time to share this news on the blog... I am going to be leaving Japan at the end of August.

I feel like it's time to go home. Amazing as Japan is, an awesome country that's given me some incredible experiences, delicious food as well as a fair few aches and pains, I miss my friends and family, and feel it's time to start a new chapter in life. On a personal note, this will start with my becoming an aunt in September, and on a professional one, with the commencement of a course in Garden Design, which will (hopefully!) lead to a new career that never sees me being based in an office ever again!

As the time for me to go approaches I'll try and do some more reflective posts - the good and bad of Japan, the things I want to take home (literally and metaphorically) and the things I'll be glad to see the back of - plus I'll be doing some travelling so will have lots of photos and adventures to post.

For now, however, I'm focusing on the last six days of work before I'm faced with an expanse of free time (and hot weather!).

Mail order mushi

2010-07-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

The post offices in Japan aren't just for buying stamps and posting letters, but also stock a huge range of leaflets advertising mail order shopping services. Not just your average tupperware and mens casual shoes mail order, ohnosiree. These are for everything from melons to pickles to sausages, and a number of other weird things inbetween, including... insects (mushi, in Japanese).

These tanks of crickets even come with fake plants and a couple of rocks, for that authentic insect habitat vibe. I, for one, definitely won't be placing an order anytime soon!

Dieting, Japanese-style

2010-07-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

Whilst waiting for my washing to finish at the weekend, I flicked through a couple of the womens magazines in the laundry and came across an advert for diet pills, aimed presumably at the millions of fat girls here. As you can see, what constitues "fat" in Japan would constitue "get-thee-to-the-hospital-now-or-you-may-die-of-anorexia" in England.

Left hand page:

Right hand page:

You will notice that one of the before weights is 42.1kg. What this means is that if this girl is 5 foot 2 inches (most Japanese girls are around my height or taller - 5 feet 5 inches - so this is short) at that weight her BMI would be 17.1, which would put her in the "underweight" category. And that's before she lost any more weight. Whilst BMI isn't the be-all-and-end-all, I do think it gives an indication of whether someone is a healthy weight or not.

It's a shame that girls here want to look so skinny. Japanese bodies aren't voluptuous and sensual, but rather skinny and unshapely. It's sad that society/the media/other girls/men put pressure on young women to conform to such an unattractive ideal. As a friend on Facebook recently said, "some of them look like they'll blow over in a heavy wind"!

Killing in the supermarket

2010-06-21T01:57:00.000-07:00

Only in Japan could you go to the supermarket on a Sunday afternoon to find two men, each wielding a stake and a big knife, working their way through a tank of live eels.

The process was: grab a live eel, stab it through the head to anchor it to the chopping board (and to stop it writing around and falling on the floor), make one cut to take the top fillet off, chuck the organs in a small tray, make another cut to get the bottom fillet off, and move onto the next eel. Really interesting to see, and totally unexpected to actually have them do it on the main shop floor.

The packs in front of them are unagi - grilled eel that has been basted in sweet soya sauce. It is believed that eating eel gives one strength to deal with the hot summer weather, hence the fact that they are being promoted in-store now, as it's been about 30 degrees this past week.

A great day out

2010-06-16T23:09:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I met up with Hitomi, one of the teachers from Shinden, where I taught last year. I hadn't seen her for ages and it was really good to catch up and to give her the Lion bars Mum had brought over for her from England (they were her favourite when she used to live there). We had a really chilled day together, which was much needed as I was shattered from a hectic week of work and karate.

We started out going for a lunch of okonomiyaki, which is one of the most indulgently delicious Japanese/Western fusion foods. It is a thick pancake containing, normally, cabbage and pork, which is liberally glazed with brown sauce and smothered in mayonnaise. There really is no way of describing it without making it sound disgusting, but you'll have to trust me that it isn't! Check out the recipe here and try it at home! The picture above isn't mine, but is from smallcloud on Flickr.

Next we hit the supermarket to buy ingredients for making an English style dinner, dropped them back at Hitomi's flat, had a revitalising cup of tea (which she had actually bought as a present for Mum and Dad, but since they aren't here we decided to drink it ;) headed out for a walk. We went to her home town of Okada, which is a a small town in Chita-shi which still has quite a few old buildings. It was a textiles town and many of the merchants houses are still standing, as were the stone buildings used to keep stock and records safe in the event of a fire (these buildings have a name, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is).

We stopped at a little shop with lots of looms, on which you can make your own woven things in the local style - using thin strips of fabric as the weft, with thread as the warp - from a coaster to a small rug. Sadly the shop was closing early so we only had time to make a coaster, but mine looks awesome. Above is one of the ladies who work there finishing off the fringe and cutting it from the loom.

After a walk through the meandering streets, we went to a senbei (rice cracker) factory where they sell hundreds of different types of snacks - sweet and savoury. And, this being Japan, there were lots of samples to try - yay! Bought a couple of packs which I have slowly been munching and crunching my way through this past week.

Next stop was Hitomi's parents house, where we arrived to find her dad sprawled on the floor watching TV and her recently-ill dog, Botan, in very genki form, rushing around happy to have some visitors. After some apple, watermelon, a yummy red bean cake from Hiroshima and lots of chatting about the best places to visit in Japan and the reviewing of various travel brochures, it was off back to Hitomi's to cook.

I was in charge of the main course - bolognese sauce - and whilst that cooked down Hitomi whipped up a couple of awesome salads - one with lettuce, smoked salmon and an apple vinegar dressing (a revelation in sweet/sour salad dressings) and another with edamame, corn, daikon and dried squid, with a curry dressing. The dried squid, which I sometimes eat as a snack, was awesome in a salad and added a nice chewy texture. Apparently she got the idea from a recent kyushoku.

As we cooked and ate, we watched This Is It, which I still hadn't seen. This Friday, the 25th of June, is the first anniversary of Michael's death. To me, it's still as sad an event as it was a year ago, and watching him perform and rehearse brought home again what an amazing talent he was. Although showing his age (and, I think, thinness, exhaustion, lack of spark) in some clips, it's clear his voice was as clear as always, and his dance moves not too shabby either ;) Such a loss.

Hitomi asked me what "this is it" means... and I struggled to explain it! "The thing you've been waiting for", "the highlight", "the pinnacle"? It really is one of those terms whose meaning changes depending on how it's used, and has a meaning that isn't very straightforward to explain. It kind of assumes knowledge of various other English phrases which is not at all helpful for a non-native speaker!

After that it was about 9pm and time for me to head home after a long and entirely satisfying day out. Hitomi expressed interest in watching some of the World Cup in one of the "English pubs" here in Nagoya, so watch this space for some potential football action!

Bullet-pointed weeks

2010-06-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

Time is flying at the moment - in a mere five weeks it will be the end of term, and I'll be faced with an unending expanse of time to spend lying in my apartment with the air-conditioning on. Actually, this summer I will probably try and do lots of sight-seeing, given my impending return to the Land of Eng. Anyhow, here are the highlights of the past few weeks condensed into one post:

Two weeks mean two t-shirt slogans - yay! The first was on one of my fifth grade students:

Lough and everyone will lough with you
The second was on a teacher, and warrants a description - the shirt was black, and the writing varying shades of purple, one word to a line. Next to each word was a cartoon drawing of a pig with a cutesy happy face. The words?

DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS DRUGS
Stalker Teacher's (ST) latest ramblings (I think I could make a regular feature out of these alone) involved the carbohydrates consumed in England. I'm trying to recall how the conversation started, but he basically insisted that we only eat bread in England. I tried to disagree, and said "we eat potatoes, rice, pasta and noodles too", and he kept saying "no, only bread!". The scary thing is that the guy has actually been to England, but no doubt on a package tour where they were forced to eat toast for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and lord only knows what for dinner. Bonkers. I briefly considered asking someone to video tape a British supermarket, to show the aisles of all types of rice, pasta, noodles, grains, beans etc., but didn't think my efforts would be appreciated.
I mentioned last time that PM Hatoyama might resign over the Okinawa base issue, and resign he did. It is very unfortunate that Japan now has the fourth Prime Minister in as many years. It has caused nary a ripple in Japanese society, where people don't seem to complain about these things. But what the country needs more than anything is strong consistent leadership to bring it up-to-date and in-line with the rest of the World, something that I hope his successor, Naoto Kan, can provide. Something else that seems to have been ignored here is the fact that Naoto is married to his first cousin!
Undoubtedly, the high-point of recent karate classes has been watching the kids kumite at the dojo. By arriving half an hour early, I sometimes manage to catch the end of the mock-tournament that Sensei sometimes does at the honbu. Since the kids start at age five, some of them have no idea about the finer points in fighting but have an abundance of spirit and courage. These two things, and the fact that they all wear protective body and head gear, combine to make the fights resemble something from a slapstick comedy video. They normally start by both kids running at full pelt towards each other, fists hanging limply by their sides. One, or both, will then execute a single punch, sending the other child staggering backwards. One guy even managed an awesome head kick, dropping their opponent to the ground. Sensei, as he referees these bouts with Judi-chan, can barely control his amusement, and neither can I - at one point I had to hide my face and wipe tears from my eyes, lest anyone saw and pronounced me insane. One of the crazier boys, who's only six, came up to me after class and fired a few English questions at me: "Do you like potatoes?" and "What's your phone number?"! Brilliant.
The high point of my school week happened yesterday. Calling it a "high point" is not quite accurate - perhaps "low point" would be better - decide for yourself. Pool season has started which means that the timetable often changes - if it's sunny the kids swim and English is bumped till after lunch. Anyhow, one day the change had resulted in my being five minutes late to class, and as I walked into the classroom I heard the teacher getting the kids to practise saying "hello". So far so good? Not really - as I walked in I turned and looked at the blackboard at which she was pointing, only to find written on it the word "harrow". Doh.

Interview with Richard Amos

2010-06-09T21:10:00.001-07:00

Although I study Wado, I believe a karate-ka not should have an interest in karate as a whole, and therefore try to read about and look at other styles of karate, and even other martial arts. Training in two styles is something else (and not something I would advise, unless you are very proficient in at least one of them!), but having an attitude that your style is best and that all the others are not worth paying attention to is narrow-minded and you will lose out on the benefits that others technical tips, entertaining stories and wisdom could bring to your own practise.

With that in mind, Richard Amos is a Shotokan practioner, the head of the World Traditional Karate Association and was one of the first foreigners to take the JKA Karate instructorship course in Japan; probably one of the most renowned and demanding karate qualifications. There is a good interview with him on The Shotokan Way website (via Andre Bertel's blog), where he talks about taking the qualification, the politics within the JKA in those days (bleurgh) and living and training in Japan.

Magazines

2010-06-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

Just to say that the awesome Kat has offered to send me Wired, and the awesome Felicia has offered to send me Ebony - yay! Thanks very much to both of you! Will be in touch if you manage to track them down to find out what you'd like from the country of the rising sun :)

Happy 500th!

2010-06-08T22:39:00.001-07:00

Wow, I just noticed that what was about to be a mundane post is in fact my 500th, so I'm writing this instead, to congratulate myself for keeping a blog going for so long ;) I never imagined that nearly two years after starting it I'd still be sitting down and typing away on a regular basis. That said, when I started I didn't think I'd still be in Japan, in the second year of a job and life filled with karate. Here's to another exciting few years, filled with 500 more post-worthy goings-on!

Smoking makes you big and strong

2010-06-08T22:14:00.000-07:00

Winston is the number two selling tobacco brand worldwide, and is owned by Japan Tobacco, which itself is 50% owned by the Japanese government. They have recently launched a new poster campaign and I thought I'd share a few pictures with you. As you can see, they give a clear and unequivocal message: smoking is cool, it gives you big muscles and makes you look like a hard mo-fo (it also makes your hair drop out, turns your eyes freakishly round and gives you a proclivity for shorts that are just too short).

This advertising also betrays another somewhat-unpleasent aspect of Japanese society, which is that male things and female things are very clearly defined, and going against the grain is just not done. It is obvious with the packaging and advertising for many brands, from soft drinks to coffee to tobacco, whether they are aimed at men or women, and whereas at home if you bought a Coke Zero (which is apparently, although I had to be told this, aimed at men) it would cause not even a raised eyebrow, here if you bought a product which was considered, and marketed, to be masculine, it would certainly get commented upon. This seperation of male and female traits extends to all sorts of things - for example, men are not supposed to like chocolate and desserts, women are not supposed to like lots of meat - however it's a big and potentially rant-worthy topic so I won't say much more. What I will leave you with, however, is a link to an article on the fact that The World Economic Forum’s 2009 Global Gender Gap Index, which also tracks gender inequality, shows that Japan ranks 101st out of 134 countries, and leave you to draw your own conclusions as to why this might be the case...

Onegai!

2010-06-03T21:50:00.000-07:00

Onegai means, roughly, "favour", and onegaishimasu is the act of receiving that favour. It's one of many Japanese words that don't have a direct translation in English, but I guess you could kind of infer the meaning from the context it is used:

on entering the dojo
upon bowing to all seniors already in the dojo
by the kids to the teacher(s) at the start of a lesson
by other people when they are going to do something for/with you, for example handing the tea lady your used coffee cup which she will wash, or giving a teacher a copy of the plan for next weeks class

That last point might give you a hint as to the purpose of this post...

Yes, I have a favour to ask!

Actually, two favours - one of someone each side of the pond. I am after two magazines: Wired from the UK and Ebony from the US. Wired features an alternate reality game (ARG) created by some friends I used to work with, and Ebony has a cover story on Prince, who is just plain awesome.

If anyone would be so kind as to send me a copy of them, I would be most grateful! In fact, if you do I will return the favour by sending you something a similar weight and value from Japan! (You can choose what this is, or leave it to my imagination).

If you're interested, please drop me a line at my real email address, if you have it, or at "gaininjablog" at the email service provided by Google.

Onegaishimasu!

Two cool foods for hot weather

2010-06-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

Picked up some previously un-tasted foods at the supermarket the other day, and since they are appropriate for the rapidly enhottenating weather, I thought I'd do a little post about them.

Tokoromen

These are noodles made from agar. You simply rinse them in a colander then add the included sachets of dressing and yuzu juice. Yuzu is a Japanese citrus fruit with a flavour that sits somewhere between lemon, mandarin and grapefruit, and has a sharp refreshing taste. The noodles are cool and slimy but light and delicious.

As well as agar noodles, you can also get konnyaku ones called shirataki ("white waterfall"). Konnyaku is a strange gel made from the roots of the devils tongue plant - the starchy flour is boiled with limewater and cooled to make a thick gel which is then cut into various shapes. Shirataki are used in cooked food and salads, and I have been eating them with a miso-based dressing as a salad. Konnyaku has virtually no calories and is high in fibre, making it a healthy and light thing to eat in the summer.

This is a picture of the noodles in their packaging. Most Japanese supermarkets have a konnyaku section in the refridgerators, usually near the tofu and nattou products - look out for them next time you're there!

Kurogomadoufu - Black sesame tofu

Unsurprisingly, there are loads of different types of tofu available here, but that makes choosing which one to buy quite tricky. Normally I end up buying the same brands so as not to end up wasting money and finding I've got something soft and mushy when I wanted something firm and stewable. However, I decided to branch out from the norm for once, and picked up this black sesame type:

It had a slightly firmer texture than normal tofu, and I served it as it came with a splash of soya sauce on top. Below are both the above plated and ready to eat!

So there you have it - two new healthy summer foods to enjoy in the hot weather, safe in the knowledge that your pre-swimwear-time diet will remain intact!

Bullet-pointed week

2010-05-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

Since I am planning on leaving Japan this year, look out for more posts about things that I want to remember and tell you about - weird things, funny things, note-worthy things and, hopefully, interesting things. With that in mind, here are the bullet-pointed highlights of last week:

I had my first instance of boob-gropage at school, when one of the first-grade boys (six years old) took advantage of the fact that both my arms were raised and occupied (by a goodbye high-five session with the other kids) by standing in front of me and patting my chest whilst grinning and looking pleased with himself. After saying "dame" (which means "no", in a round-about Japanese way) the teacher dragged him off. When I'd said goodbye to everyone else, he came up to me, bowed and apologised - "gomennasai". I told him it was ok, since it would probably be the only time for the next 15 years he'd have such an opportunity ;)
I've been meaning to post a "T-shirt slogan of the week" on a regular basis for ages. Because I can't take photos of students I thought they would have been dull posts on their own, hence my decision to put them here. I don't think they need any extra comment from me, and I will post them verbatim, typo's and Janglish intact. So without further ado, here is this weeks:
I love your round eyed
I have acquired a stalker-teacher at one of my schools. There is a type of older (50-odd) Japanese male that is besotted with Western women. And when I say "besotted", I mean that doe-eyed infatuation that you normally only witness in teenage girls when they talk about their latest crush. This plays out in the same way - the staring, the dreamy looks, the walking past the desk unnecessarily, the asking of inane questions, and in this case the printing out of a lot of information on my home town in England, and the standing next to my desk and attempting to read it aloud. Quite strange. This morning he came over and asked me if I was drinking coffee out of my coffee cup (I don't think we even have Western tea here) and then asked me if I drank tea in England. What makes it funnier is the amusement it provides the other teachers, who know exactly what's going on. I try not to catch their eye otherwise we both end up giggling!
Leaving school on Friday I saw a couple of girls looking down at a grey lump on the car park. I thought to myself "hmm, that looks like a dead pigeon" (haw haw haw). Looking up, there was a teacher at one of the classroom windows who pointed to the splatter on the window, which displayed in all-too-real detail how it got there. Sad.

One of the kids has super-curly hair, something that's very rare here and indeed a trait I'd only witnessed in a couple of kids at the dojo whose mother is from St Lucia. I asked the teacher where the girls parents were from, and she explained that they were both Japanese. So far so boring, until I tell you the actual words the teacher used to convey this were: "No Obama"!

It's been a bad week for the Japanese PM, Hatoyama-san, who made a promise in last year elections to start moving the American military bases out of Okinawa (there have been all sorts of problems caused by US soldiers, beyond the issues already attached to having a heavy military presence on a beautiful and peaceful island, but I won't go into them here). Unfortunately for him, he's been forced by the combined weight of the US and the fucked-up-ness of the North Korea situation to renege on his promise, much to the anger of the Okinawan people and the general disagreement of most of the rest of Japan. There is talk of him resigning, but we will see what next week holds.

Appropriate advertising fail!

2010-05-31T17:12:00.001-07:00

It's bad enough that porn mags are sold in every convenience store at the eye-level of a five year old, but here Playboy (プレイボーイ） magazine is advertised on metro trains. Appropriate advertising fail!

NSFP: Crafty work

2010-05-31T01:15:00.000-07:00

The second of my previously mentioned Big Projects ("big" in this case perhaps not being the most appropriate term) has now been completed, dispatched and happily received by its new temporary recipient, L, in preparation for the arrival of her baby in September. This is what I have been working on; some photos of it and a bit of blurb behind its construction.

L, being a hippy too, asked for organic baby clothes. I couldn't find any here, nor could I find any organic fabric from which to construct something from, so I thought about what else I could make and settled on the idea of modifying second-hand baby clothes. That way they are still environmentally sound, but also personal. There is a shop in Nagoya that sells second-hand baby clothes, and from there I picked up this cute Baby Gap cardigan:

At this point I didn't have any plan of what to do, apart from "something natural involving leaves and plants". Also, at this point I didn't know the sex of the baby - I found out halfway through, and ended up modifying the design as I worked on it. This, I should just mention, is why this post is marked as NSFP - Not Safe For Parents - it will give you a very big hint as to the sex ("hint" as in "you'd be stupid not to work it out"). I have emailed to tell them not to read any posts with this in the title, but just in case - Mum, Dad, you can go away now ;)

I started off making leaves from some pretty green fabric by drawing a leaf shape onto the fabric, cutting them out leaving a margin, and folding and sewing the edges down. This was quite tedious and time-consuming, as I had to make quite a few. I also embroidered a "stem" of sorts around the cardigan, using a "loop" stitch. It may surprise you to know that I won the sewing prize at school, and it certainly surprised me to know that I remembered what I had been taught all those years ago! Beyond fixing things, mending buttons and adding elastic to old pyjama bottoms, I have done absolutely no sewing since the age of about 15, when I won said prize, so by this point I was already quite pleased that things looked ok!

The next major task was sewing the leaves onto my stem, which I did using what may or may not be a very loose "satin" stitch (Google hasn't really provided a definitive answer to what this is, so if you know better please do say so in the comments!). This took ages! I worked on the train, at school and in the evenings. It was a source of surprise at school - everyone knows that I do lots of karate so to see me working on something so feminine definitely caused amusement, but also approval - I could hear some of the teachers speaking in Japanese about the "girls activity" that I was doing! Here is a close-up of the leaves. I used thread of alternating colours - cream and green - for a bit more interest (don't forget you can click all these photos to get bigger versions):

It was during this phase that I found out that what we all thought would be a "he" was in fact a "she", and after seeing some pink fabric I thought would look good with the cream-coloured cardigan and the green leaves, I added a Japanese style flower to the front. The final design ended up looking like this:

Front

Back

Detail of the flower

The one problem I have when I do anything creative can be summed up by the word "dissatisfaction". When I start I usually have a clear image in my mind of what I want to achieve, and when the end result doesn't match up to it I get annoyed, frustrated and generally demotivated. Even my garden design I wasn't particularly happy with - I still don't think the final design was very cohesive and polished - just a few good-ish ideas thrown together and made to look pretty. However... this was the first time for as long as I can remember that I finished something and thought to myself "wow, that looks really awesome"! Excitedly I packed it up and sent it over to the UK, and L called me the night she received it to say how much she likes it, and how it's lying on the sofa and "whenever I walk past it it makes me smile". Frankly, what better reaction could there be?!

As a result of this success, I have been making other things, which are also turning out ok. I am even considering selling them at some point, but they take me so long this may not be for a long time yet! Will hopefully have some pictures to post in a few weeks.

Day-to-day

2010-05-26T17:24:00.000-07:00

Mum asked me a question when I spoke to her the other day which, if she knew more about my daily routine probably wouldn't have asked. I therefore thought perhaps I should tell you about my daily routine, just in case you are insane enough to consider coming to Japan and teaching English and/or doing karate, or are just curious. So, this is my average day:

6.30am (6.20am every other day, for hair washing!)
Crawl out of my futon, usually aching, and get into the shower.

6.45am
Emerge feeling marginally better. Put away futon. Make and eat breakfast - fruit, yoghurt and granola, coffee or green tea, maybe porridge, miso soup, rice or eggs.

7.00am
Get ready, prepare mid-morning snacks (usually carrot sticks and a boiled egg, or rice crackers and instant miso soup)

7.10am
Run down the street to the station which, despite being a mere two minutes away, I always end up running to. I usually see the same guy standing under the tracks doing his morning exercise. I say good morning and he replies whilst laughing at my on-going struggle to get somewhere so close on time.

8.10am (approximately)
What time I get to school depends on which one I am at (I teach at three), and the transport time to get there. There is usually a cup of green tea on my desk, given to me by the OL. The OL is the "Office Lady" (I think that's the literal translation), giver of hot drinks, server of lunch, do-er of general admin and cleaning, and the most important person in the staff room. Get on the wrong side and you're doomed to small portions of lunch, no cups of coffee and a life of misery. Get on the right side and you can expect extras for lunch and snacks at break times. Last year the OL used to drive me to the station on her way home, shaving a good 20 minutes off my journey! When I arrive I double-check my schedule, which changes with alarming frequency, do any prep that I haven't done yet, surf the net on the iPhone or do some embroidery at my desk till lessons start.

8.50am
First period. All lessons are 45 minutes with a 5 minute break between.

10.30am
Morning break. Time for coffee and snacks - woo! By this time I am ravenous. A bit more crafting or surfing then it's time for periods three and four.

12.30pm
Lunch time - double woo! Exhausted by this time, and lunch is a chance to relax, although that is difficult for the first part of it, given that I have to eat with the kids! It's normally good fun though, and we chat in simple Japanese. Since I'm at new schools, I've not eaten with all the grades yet and still have to endure the kids looking into my blue eyes and proclaiming them to be "sugoi" - great, cool, amazing.

1.10pm
Return to the staff room, wash my tray and chopsticks. Sit and chill at my desk. At this school, which I am only at for one day a week, sadly, I have been furnished with a laptop at my desk - bloody brilliant! Can finally catch up on some long neglected blogging. Normally I either read news and blogs on the phone, or do some embroidery (posts on that to follow soon-ish).

1.45pm till 3.20pm
Fifth and sixth periods. If I don't have class I prepare lessons for the next weeks lessons. I write my lesson plans in Japanese, photocopy them and give them to the teachers, so they are clear with what's happening. If I don't know the Japanese I draw little pictures of stick men to demonstrate :) If I have nothing to do I try and use the time to study Japanese and work on my kanji.

2.30pm to 4.15pm
Home time! The time I can leave depends on the school - once I week I can leave at 2.30pm, since I have nothing for sixth period, once a week I have to wait till 4.15pm to have meetings with the teachers about the next weeks classes, and the other times I can leave at 3.30pm.

5ish
Get home. The journey takes about an hour, including stopping at the supermarket or local store, and I immediately start making dinner as I'm again starving by this time. Then I relax, watch some TV on the iPhone (have got addicted to Glee, which I watch on in00b.com, an excellent site that streams .mp4's directly to my phone. Don't use it unless you have unlimited data though).

6.20pm
At this point most people would start winding down, but I can't do that too much as it's time to head off to the dojo. On Mondays and Thursdays I train in a big sports hall. Class starts at 7.30pm, but I normally arrive between 6.30pm and 6.45pm to warm up and practise. It finishes at 8.45, and I'm usually home by 9.30pm.

On Tuesdays and Fridays I train at the main dojo, which is smaller but more atmospheric. The size means its better suited to kumite (fighting) drills and partner work, so the practise is usually a lot more hectic! Training starts at 7.30pm, and because it's immediately preceded by the kids class, and the dojo is too small to accommodate extra adults, I usually rock up at 7.20pm. It doesn't finish till 9.20pm, so I'm not normally home till 10pm.

Wednesdays are my only night off, and reserved for exciting things like cleaning, laundry and food shopping.

Late
Grab a shower, read a book, try and wind my body down. I frequently suffer from insomnia - both my mind and body don't really stop - so drink some chamomile tea and try to stop thinking about anything that requires concentration or causes excitement or stress, which especially rules out karate!

Weekend
The only thing I do regularly at the weekend is karate on Saturday mornings with the Chukyo University team at 10.30am - mercifully not too early. Although the training is quite hardcore, the fact that I'm doing it with handsome young students makes it worthwhile ;) I used to study Japanese on Sunday mornings, but stopped as I didn't want to commit extra time, and also I was just too tired to take in any new information. Spend the rest of my time hanging out with friends, walking in Nagoya, eating out and shopping, or monging out in the flat.

And that's about that. Hectic but rewarding.

Kyushoku - Thursday 20th May

2010-05-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

Am trying to make a point of only posting lunches that are different from the ones already covered, and, after nearly a months absence, yesterday's fitted the bill!

Clockwise from the hakkonyu:

The hakko what?! Yes, in a rare break from the norm we weren't given milk, but something that they call "boxed milk" (hakko is "box", nyu is "milk"). It is some kind of thick sour milk drink which is disgusting, and in another break from the norm (the first time I have ever done this with any part of my school lunch), I didn't drink it. This caused some surprise, and utterances in Japanese about the foreigner who didn't like the sour milk.
A packet of five small nori sheets. Nori is the dried seaweed used to make sushi rolls.
Asukajiro - a mild miso soup with tofu, pork and potatoes.
Rice with pickled something (yep - still haven't got that menu yet!)
Tuna that has been simmered with sweetened soya sauce and ginger.

You make your own rolls by putting rice, pickles and tuna on the nori and rolling it up.

Rating: 4/5 (would have scored higher if it weren't for that pesky hakkonyu!)

[Edit: Thank you to Nagoyan, who commented below to say that hakkou isn't a box (in fact it seems that hako is) and actually means "fermentation" - thanks for the correction!]

Booker books

2010-05-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Periodically, I go through phases of voracious reading, usually when work and training don't occupy all my waking thoughts. Recently, I read the most excellent White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, and was surprised to see it was a Booker Prize winner. I don't consider myself a particularly high-brow reader; in fact if books are critically acclaimed it tends to put me off, still scarred as I am by enforced reading of various "classics" at school, hence the surprise that I had inadvertently read something that is considered to be a solid bit of literature.

It was indeed an excellent book. I like books with a "message", in this case a compelling story entwined with a commentary on the state of relationships between the developed and developing worlds, and it pulled it off without either sacrificing one side, forcing the other down your throat, or being patronising. The latter I find a particular problem with Paulo Coelho's books. They are enjoyable, and the story and message are both good, but he deals with the latter by spoon-feeding the reader in an altogether unnecessary manner, as if we're not capable of inferring it ourselves.

Anyhow, it made me wonder what else was a Booker prize winner, and was pleased to find that one of my favourite books is on it, the vibrantly lush The God Of Small Things. And thus was the start of a new plan - to read all the Booker prize winning books.

Approaching the task was made relatively straightforward by the fact that the English-language library in Nagoya obviously doesn't have all of them, so it was a case of searching their computers for the relevant titles, and reading what they have. I don't really like writing about books in a review-y kind of way - it makes me feel like I'm writing for the Daily Mail, or that I'm a member of the Richard and Judy Book Club; I know little about literature, and lack the necessary terms to authoratiatively explain what I mean so feel like I end up coming across as someone of a merely adequate intelligence ;) But hey, here is a paragraph on the books I've read so far, and I'll update as I make progress:

Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist
Now, I can appreciate what makes critics like a piece of literature, and whilst this book ticks a lot of those boxes, I found it one of the most miserable, cold-hearted and downright boring things I've ever forced myself to read (and force myself I did). The main character, Mehring, lacked anything I found I could relate too - he was a weak and drifty dreamer, floating through his rather pathetic little life with dreams of becoming one with the land, man. The descriptions of the South African countryside were good, and you got a real impression of its vastness, and that feeling of space, emptiness did echo Mehrings place in life, however this was offset by the nothingness of the story as a whole. The book was published in1974, when presumably the political situation in South Africa made it all the more controversial, but all the talk of the "picaninny" black farm workers made me realise that really, black rights haven't moved forward in that country for the last 40 years. The book has a two-and-a-half star rating on Amazon, which I guess goes to show how polarised the views are concerning it.

Keri Hulme - The Bone People
This is a truly outstanding book, and a total contrast to the one that preceded it. Full of endearing characters and vivid descriptions of the enchanting Maori culture and New Zealand landscapes. Despite dealing with some of the darker sides of human emotions, and the way people approach their troubles, it never lost its warmth. I could really gush about it, I enjoyed it that much, but I will just recommend you read it, buy it from Amazon, or better yet, your local bookshop.

J. M. Coetzee - Life & Times of Michael K
Through some strange coincidence, all three of these books deal with physical and mental isolation. Perhaps my subconscious is trying to tell me something, what with living thousands of miles from my friends and family... It's set in South Africa, but that fact plays no real part in the story, apart from providing an appropriate setting. The story follows one man as he struggles in his attempt to simplify his life. It's a bit bleak but very compelling, and I found it worryingly easy to empathize with Michael, but perhaps that's the point.
Amazon link.

My next book was to be the epic Midnight's Children, by Salman Rushdie, but life business conspired against me and I ended up having to give it back to the library only a few chapters in. Being the Booker of Bookers winner (the best winner from the time the prize has been awarded - about 40 years) I felt it deserved more attention than I could give it. What with New Projects, Karate and work, I fear it will be some time till I make a second attempt, or indeed read anything too heavy.

I have just stepped off the Booker train and am reading a book that a friend, Naomi Alderman, has written - The Lessons. It's her second book after Disobedience, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction. By some stroke of luck a friend works for her publisher and kindly sent me a copy to Japan. I'm really enjoying it so far - it's a book that if I was a reviewer for the Daily Mail I would probably use the words "fun" and "romp" in whatever I submitted to my editor. Luckily for you, that's not the case.

Successfully concluded project

2010-05-07T19:18:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned, here is a post about my Last Big Project...

For a while now I've been considering re-training as a garden designer. This has meant lots of research into colleges, as well as into garden design itself. I recently read about a competition run by the British newspaper The Telegraph to design a garden, and thought it was a good chance to get a bit of experience designing something, and using some of the knowledge I'd acquired during my reading.

As part of creating the design I taught myself how to use SketchUp, an impressive piece of 3D modelling software, and created my design in that and submitted it along with a hand-drawn planting plan and some background information and photos. I have to say that from start to finish the whole process took ages. At first there way my indecision to contend with - cycling through various ideas, discarding some, starting again, getting frustrated - then there was the fact that I don't own a computer, so had to install the software on the school computers and sneakily use it at work, and finally there was the usual procrastination problems to overcome! But with a big effort over one weekend (spent in the library - the only place I am actually able to get work done it seems) I finally finished it and sent the hard copies over to England, safely ensconced in a big A3 envelope.

Well... I found out last week that my design was a runner-up! Woo! How cool :) The prize is a 50% reduction on a course run by the Oxford College of Garden design, worth 2500GBP. I'm not sure whether the course is right for me, but frankly the value of winning something beats the value of the prize anyway. Below are a few screen-captures of my design, taken from SketchUp. What is hard to capture in the software is the lush feel I was trying to capture (I included some photos to try and convey that to the judges), so you will have to imagine the garden as being quite over-grown! If anyone out there uses SketchUp and wants the files to look at, just let me know in the comments :)

Exciting news!

2010-05-07T19:10:00.000-07:00

Right, sorry to leave you all hanging last week, but I've just nipped into the internet cafe for a quick bit of blogging (and several cups of coffee) before heading off to do some shopping.

The exciting and completely wonderfully awesome news is that my younger sister, L, is pregnant! Yay! I am so thrilled and excited for her to be a mum, and for me to be an aunty :D Even though L's made me promise not to teach it rude words, I will at least be able to teach it karate and turn it into a lethal fighter by the time it's five years old ;) This news is actually kind of old - she is due in September - but I just haven't told anyone beyond my friends over here so thought it was time to share the news with the world. Or at least the very small slice of the world that reads this blog!

L, my other sister A, and I all know the sex of the baby after a scan on Tuesday, but Mum and Dad don't want to know, so we are all endeavouring to keep it secret from them. Quite how sucessful this will be I don't know, but as long as it's not me who says something stupid and gives the game away, I don't mind! I have to say that I will be amazed if they don't know by the time of the birth, but we will all do our best. Ganbarimasu!

I keep sending L article on baby-related things, and am worried it will get annoying, but I think we're on the same wave-length as the last one I sent, about meditation and breathing instead of pain relief, was met with the reply "oh, I just got a book about that from the library!". Phew! L and I are both hippies ;)

Apart from it being very active, there isn't much else to report about the baby, but if there are any more exciting developments I will tell you, and also will update when we have decided on a good code name for it so Mum and Dad don't get wise to the sex!

暑い！

2010-05-04T21:51:00.000-07:00

Or in English, "hot". Really hot. 28 degrees worth of hot, to be precise. A little annoying after the not-so-good weather when Mum and Dad were here, but given I've had a three day public holiday to enjoy it, I won't complain! Was planning to go to the internet cafe, but it's much to nice a day to be sitting in a dark window-less room. Instead I am in my apartment, balcony and front doors open, in shorts, a vest and bare feet, relaxing after my sunbathing session in the park and healthy "detox" lunch (more on that in another post), about to continue working on my Next Big Project. Which reminds me that I still haven't posted about the Last Big Project, which I really must do as it yielded rather pleasing results. There is also Big News that must really preceed any discussion of the Next Big Project. But until this weather goes, or I get sick of it, I'll be staying out of the net cafe for the forseeable future, so both will remain undisclosed for now.

(As a side note to any new readers, or people not paying attention ;) I don't have a computer here, and use my iPhone for day-to-day surfing, emailing and short blog posts. I wrote the rice post the other day on the iPhone, but that's really as long as I can handle - obviously there's the typing issue, but also embedding photos and links is quite a laborious process. For that reason I tend to save up more substantial missives for the net cafe, and hammer them out in one caffeine-fueled burst.)

"Off to buy rice. In Japan, a true test of ones decision-making skills."

2010-04-30T22:06:00.000-07:00

That was my latest (admittedly banal and self-indulgent) Facebook status update, but as I wandered down to the supermarket it occurred to me it could be a potential blog post. As you can imagine, shopping in a country in which you don't understand the language can frequently yield funny/frustrating/disgusting results, and whilst buying rice isn't filled with the risks that some other items are (clear white-ish liquids being one - vinegar? Mirin? Cooking sake? Sugar syrup? Something else entirely?!), it is still nice to be able to get something tasty. This time, I had already decIded to get brown rice - something that isn't at all popular here (in fact it's associated with being poor) - which automatically eliminated about 90% of the types on offer. Which was good, given just how many types are on offer...

This is the main aisle for smaller bags of rice, unusual kinds of rice, and rice "additives" (will talk about these below)

These are the shelves on the far end of the above aisle

Finally, there were four stacks like this, each with several brands heaped on top of one-another, but by this point, on a busy Saturday afternoon, I was starting to feel self-conscious about taking photos, so stopped

Whereas at home we get lots of different types of rice that you can normally distinguish from eachother, Japanese rice mainly looks the same to my untrained eye - it's white and short-grained. All the varieties you can see are Japanese rice - no Thai, Basmati, Arborio, wild or American rice for you! Some varieties are suitable for making sushi, whereas the others are all multi-use. The only type they have that differs vastly is mochi rice, a stickier starchier type that is used mainly for making puddings. Here is a free factlet for you - Italian Arborio rice actually originated from a Japanese variety.

Since white rice is low on both fibre and nutrients, a range of products is sold to be cooked with rice to put these back in. There are three main types of these - brown rice which has been soaked in warm water for a period of days, after which it starts germinating. This makes it more nutritionally dense, and takes away the hardness common in brown rice. It is normally cooked with rice at a ratio of one part germinated to two parts normal. Barley is another thing that is cooked like this, and is designed to bulk up the fibre content. The other product are sachets of mixed seeds, grains and nuts that are cooked with the rice. They have things like millet, sesame seeds, barley, and sunflower seeds in, and are actually very tasty.

To end this post, the type I bought was a brown Koshihikari (コシヒカリ or こしひかり or 越光 if you are here and want to buy some) rice. It is one of the most popular all-purpose varieties, and the brand I got is in the first photo, end section, third shelf down on the far left. Delicious :)

Kyushoku - Tuesdsay 27th April

2010-04-29T20:23:00.000-07:00

Another day, another delicious lunch. Anti-clockwise from the gyunyu:

Fish with miso sauce
Cucumber with sesame dressing
Gomokugohan - go is "5", moku is "eye", although in this case it means "ingredient", and gohan is "rice".
PURIN! - As you probably won't be able to figure out, the word purin is the Japanese version of our word "pudding". And this is one of their most loved Western-style deserts, and can be bought at any cornershop or supermarket. It is basically creme caramel, and is delicious.

Rating: 4.5/5 (the purin added the extra half mark)

Shodou - follow-up

2010-04-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

As a follow-up to this post, here is a photo of my finished shodou, which was presented to me before I left Minami Kasuya in March.

It's badly done, but good to have. The headmaster gave me a piece of paper with a translation: "Laugh and grow fat". Sounds like a damn fine idea to me!

Kyushoku - Wednesday 21st April

2010-04-29T19:54:00.000-07:00

New schools = new lunches! Woohoo! After a terrible start of an awful meal comprising cat-food like chicken, potatoes and a bread roll (didn't get a picture), things were much better the next day with this meal. You will notice that the milk at this Board of Education comes in cute glass bottles - yay! Sadly I haven't managed to get hold of a copy of the Japanese menu yet, so for now you will have to put up with my approximate guesses as to what things are.

So, anti-clockwise from the gyunyu:

Mugi gohan - this is rice with barley added, for extra nutritional value and fibre
Supuun - a spoon. Seriously. This BoE doesn't give out chopsticks with lunch, but instead just a spoon. Very strange. Buying more chopsticks to take in with me next week.
Chiizu - processed cheese in the shape of a crab. Nuff said. Mum and Dad - abominations like these are why I asked you to bring me proper cheese.
Chinese-style mixed vegetables, ginko nuts, fish and meat
Canned fruit with little mochi (pounded rice cakes)

Rating: 4/5

New schools

2010-04-29T19:38:00.001-07:00

Last week I started at two of my three new schools, the third being still to come next week, after the week-long holiday I am currently enjoying (in their wisdom, the Japanese have placed four public holidays, on either side of a weekend, just after the start of the school term!). It was a fairly uneventful week, as for the most part I now know what to expect, although it will still take a while for the kids to get used to having a foreigner around, and to stop chattering to their friends about my blue eyes and blonde hair whenever I pass!

The classes were easy, since I want to lull them into the false sense of security that English classes are enjoyable and something to look forward too. Actually, I'm kidding - that the kids have fun, whatever their age, and don't find it stressful, are my two main priorities when planning a lesson. I want them to continue to want to learn English when they are older, so I endeavor to make it a positive experience.

It being the first week also meant I could indulge in one of my favourite classroom activities - Question Time! I'd imagine English kids could come up with some pretty entertaining questions, but the chance to question a foreigner always results in some good 'uns. Like whether we have pigs in England, how many plates can I eat at the kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi restaurant and the slightly could-lead-into-bad-territory "what surprised you most about Japan?". Well... There are so many things, most of which I lack the Japanese skills to clearly express, and most of which I couldn't really say anyway. In the end I said how clean and rubbish-free everywhere was, but I briefly toyed with sharing the very surprising thing I saw in the convenience store the day before... I went in with Sharifa after work, and noticed something strange about the man in front of us. He looked a bit scruffy, as many old men in my neighbourhood do, but wasn't a tramp, didn't smell and didn't look drunk. What he did have, however, was a pair of boxer shorts around his right ankle. Dirty boxer shorts. With enourmous skid marks. Sharifa looked appalled, a fact not helped by my crazed giggling and pointing, but for this toilet-humoured girl it was a funny end to the day.

Bye bye Mummy and Daddy!

2010-04-29T19:31:00.000-07:00

Mum and Dad were due to fly home on Tuesday the 20th, but due to the volcano were stranded like many other Brits, and didn't manage to get on a flight until Monday the 26th. This in itself was an achievement given that the airline originally said they would have to wait until May 5th! But Family Ninja are good negotiators and so luckily they managed to get on an earlier flight. For some of the days they were in Nagoya, which was great as it meant I could spend extra time with them, and continue to eat nice meals out! However for them it meant cancelling of various appointments back home, living out of a suitcase, being stuck in an air-conditioned hotel and of course having to spend lots of money on meals and entertainment. But now they are safely home, back to the house, garden, and their friends. Sadly, for mum it was also back to the dentist - boo! It was fantastic having them here, though, and showing them around all the places I love, and doing (and eating!) the things that make Japan such a great place to live. They both admitted they didn't really know what to expect when coming over, but said whole-heartedly that it exceeded their expectations. I thought it would be fun to do a post-holiday "interview" of sorts, so watch this space for that. (And if you have any suggestions of questions, do post them in the comments!).

A sunny day in Tokoname

2010-04-29T19:05:00.000-07:00

It has to be said that there is not a great deal to do in Nagoya itself, although it is very well placed for excursions to other parts of Japan, being centrally located and on the shinkansen line. I'd ear-marked two possible places to visit with Mum and Dad - the pottery village of Tokoname or the walk between Tsumago and Magome, both of which I'd been to before, most recently with Hitomi to Tokoname. Since Dad balked at the idea of "hiking", we opted for Tokoname.

The area was the centre of the pottery industry in Japan, and everything from water pipes to sake jars to cups and plates was made here. These days mainly just the latter are still made there, but the village is still a forerunner in the pottery industry, and attracts a lot of potters from both Japan and overseas. You can still see old furnaces and their high chimneys, although a lot were lost as a result of earthquakes over the years, and the streets and walls are made from pottery odds and ends, like pipes and pots.

The weather was good - one of the best days of the whole trip - and we had a lovely day meandering through the small streets, stopping to look at the shops and studios. We even met an English man, who was a potter and lived there with his wife, who invited us in to see his studio and shop in their traditional Japanese house.

We also had one of the best meals of the trip there - locally caught fish and locally grown vegetables which we ate on a pretty little patio in the sunshine.

Food glorious food

2010-04-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

Kyoto is the foodie capital of Japan, and Nishiki Market is probably the foodie capital of Kyoto. It's a covered market with many stalls selling local delicacies as well as fish, vegetables, knives, sweets and souvenirs for the many tourists who pass through.

The city is famous for its pickles. They are not like the vinegary ones you get in the West, but often cured with different types of salty things, like miso paste or soya sauce:

You can taste all of them too. Below you can see gobou, daikon, aubergine, bamboo shoots, ginger, cucumber and different types of green vegetables:

Eel. Yum:

Things made from shaped and flavoured fish paste (sounds nasty, actually delicious):

Dried squidses:

Various fishy things: cured, dried or cooked in sweet soya sauce. Again, sound nasty but on the whole very tasty, especially atop rice or as a snack with a beer:

This machine turns big hunks of dried katsuo into a mound of light fluffy flakes of katsuo bushi, or bonito flakes as they are known in England:

After all that walking we were hungry, and sat down to a delicious lunch of tempura, chirashi soba (soba noodles with various ingredients scattered on top), pickles, rice and tea:

In the evening we went for some katsu - various things that are breaded, deep-fried and served with a sauce that is not a million miles from HP brown sauce:

Being a tourist in Kyoto

2010-04-23T22:53:00.000-07:00

Having my parents over has been awesome (note, I didn't say "was" - more on that later!) - been far too long since I saw them, and also it was really cool to have them here and to show them the things that I love about Japan. Also, it enabled my to be a tourist again, albeit in a bit more of a Tour Guide role, and cleared my head of the fog of work and the relentless routine of early-rising, hard training and late nights! Kyoto is one city that, despite spending six days in, I didn't feel I knew that well, nor that I had really seen fully. Bu that was soon rectified - Dad, who is a Planner Extraordinaire, had come up with an itinerary that not only ensured he and Mum would get to see everything they wanted, but also fitted in their seeing the things that I had already seen on the days when I wasn't there. Result!

We stayed in a little house in Gion - close enough to walk to many of the temples and sights, as well as to restaurants and shops. It was nice not to be in a large air-conditioned building, as we were in Tokyo, although I must confess to missing the buffet breakfast ;)

Of course, the trip was another chance to take more photos (as this is another chance to show them off!) and feel overwhelmed by my camera. One thing you will notice I struggle with is the focus... I did think the aperture setting was entirely related to how much light comes in the lens - in low light you have a bigger aperture, more light gets in and so your picture is better exposed, for example. It turns out that what I didn't know is that it also affects the depth of field you get. For most of these pictures I used a relatively wide aperture (which corresponds to a lower f number - confusing) which is what results in the blurry background. Whilst this is fine for things quite close, when you use it for landscape shots or for things far away, it sometimes means they come out blurry. Doh. Lots to learn, and a whole host of confusing phrases and concepts to get my head round, including my favourite "the circle of confusion". When I'm back in the UK I will have to look into doing a course, but for now it's more reading for me!

Anyhow, enough of this wittering on - here are some photos. To see everything I took in Kyoto, click here, although clicking any image below will also take you to Flickr where you can see more.

No temple is complete without a vending machine:

Playing around with focus at Nanzen-ji:

Mum and Dad at the garden of Nanzen-ji:

Gion by night:

Enjoying life river-side:

Sadly the weather in Kyoto wasn't very good, but those moody skies sure do make good photos!

These last two photos show off one of the cool things about the camera - the ability to choose where it focuses:

Tabi slippers!

2010-04-23T22:42:00.000-07:00

Tabi, the traditional Japanese split-toe shoes are awesome - I own two pairs now, having had to chuck one away due to its aged and tatty disposition, and they are supremely comfortable, as well as stylish (unless you're my sister, who thinks they make your feet look like they belong to a camel). You can imagine my delight when I came across a shop in Kyoto which sells tabi slippers! How wonderful. The fact that it's now warm, and that I was about to send my slippers, and all my winter clothes, back to England, meant that I couldn't really justify buying them. One day, maybe...

New photo format

2010-04-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

Just to let you know that I am changing the way I post photos to this blog - you will now be able to click the picture and go to the page where the original is stored on Flickr, and see it in higher resolution if desired, as well as click to see all my other photos (or, indeed, the rest of the site). It was just taking you to the JPG, with no other navigation options. Should have done this ages ago, really :S

Shinjuku Gyoen

2010-04-23T21:52:00.000-07:00

After seeing my parents to the Shinkansen for their trip to Kyoto (and the chance to have two nights to themselves before I joined them!) I thought I'd make the most of a day in Tokyo before heading home that evening, and since the sun was shining and the sakura still out in force, headed to Shinjuku Gyoen, a National Garden in Tokyo, and arguably one of the cities best parks. It was completed in 1906 for use by the royal family, and became open to the public in 1949. Mainly done in the traditional Japanese style, it also has traditional Western style areas amongst its 60 hectares.

One of my primary aims for the day was to take lots of photos, which I certainly fulfilled (the whole set is here). The new camera is great, though my understanding of it is still lacking. In fact, the more I use it the more lacking I feel it is, but hey - it's good to have something new to study. The below shots were all taken with the same lens mentioned previously - the Canon 50mm 1.8mm - as I have skinted myself for the forseeable future and am unable to buy a new one ;)

Everyone wants photos of the cherry blossoms - even salarymen on their lunch-break

This beats my previous Best Camellia Photo!

These are root growths from a small grove of bald cypress (taxodium distichum) trees. This one was about 40cm high. They reminded me of meercats!

A couple of street shots of Shinjuku:

Sometimes less (training) is more (progress)

2010-04-16T06:37:00.000-07:00

For the past two weeks, I've done less than half of my normal amount of training - just two classes per week - since I've been spending time with my parents in Tokyo and, most recently, Kyoto. In Mondays class this week, the first after five days in Tokyo, and today's (Friday), the first since Monday, I've really noticed some improvements in my karate. My body has recovered, new muscles having been built from the mounds of good food consumed, and I've had a chance to think about the techniques I want to improve on and the adjustments I want to make. I spent three quarters of the two hour class today working on Kushanku - the kata which I guess you could say is the "culmination" of the five that proceed it (the pinan, or heian, series), ironing out little glitches but also trying to work on my body movement as a whole. Specifically, thinking about stopping techniques smoothly and with control; rather than throwing a punch and have your hand shake because you used too much power and stopped it so abruptly, actually controlling your fist so it stops exactly where in space you want it to. Maybe other karateka will know what I mean by this. Anyhow, it is one of the things I have been thinking about recently, and it was good to get back in the dojo (amazing that three short days feels like so long!) to put that theory in practice. Sometimes I guess less is more, even if you don't realise it at the time.

East(ern family) meets West(ern family)

2010-04-15T06:38:00.000-07:00

The below was written a few weeks ago, but what with spending time with my parents (and extra time, due to volcano-related-enforced-stuck-in-Japan-ness) and starting the new term, internet access has been sketchy so it was never finished. Going to try and clear a bit of a back(b)log on this rainy afternoon, on which, for some unknown reason, no school was scheduled.

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The past few weeks have been filled with a leg-ache-inducing amount of sightseeing, and barely any free time to devote to my lovely blog. *sniff* But whilst I'm uploading some of the gigabytes of photos that are the result of New Camera Excitement, I figured I'd do a quick post with some pics of the dinner we had with The Suzuki's on Friday.

The Suzuki's (aka. Suzuki No. 1's) are the family that I spent a month living with when I first came to Tokyo in 2008. I've kept in touch with them, and since the 'rents were over, a night of dinner, drinks and introductions seemed logical. In case you've forgotten, the Suzuki's are: Kosei, husband and Shorinji Kempo student; Yukiko, housewife and cook extraordinaire; Kentaro, seven, wannabe girl; and Daijiro, six, and wannabe kick-arse Shorinji student.

We went to a chanko nabe restaurant in Monzennakacho. Chanko nabe is a simmered pot of various ingredients (mainly meat, minced chicken balls, cabbage, daikon and tofu) eaten by sumo wrestlers (along with huge amounts of rice to get all that weight on). When they retire from competition many of them start their own chanko restaurants serving their secret recipe for this delicious stew. It looks a bit like this:

After sashimi, tempura and a few beers, we got stuck into the stew and some conversation, leaving the boys to play with their electronic games and eat some of the Smarties we had brought over from England.

Here is Yukiko:

And Kosei, with funny-face Daijiro:

And a poorly-composed shot of all of us (sadly missing out Dad entirely!), taken by the waiter:

After dinner, Kosei and I bid everyone goodnight, and headed off to the Shorinji dojo to say hi to everyone. Hatsuno Sensei, who is now 80, looked super-genki (he was ill last year, so good that he is back to full-health) and was really pleased to see me, chattering away and asking how I was. It was cool to be back and reminded me of many good times.

We picked up Hiyashi, Izumi and a few others and went to a local bar for more food and some Shochu, Japan's vodka. Izumi's wife joined us later, which was great as I really like her. Izumi was happy as his antiques business has picked up recently due to doing a deal with the Chinese government. He speaks Japanese, Chinese, English and Hindi! He can even do amazing impressions of Indians speaking English.

Last time I saw Hiyashi, pictured below, he was very much the bachelor, living alone and eating too much konbini fast-food, which had given him a case of gout in his leg, not a good thing to be struck down with when you train! But, he met a wife through a dating agency and they married recently. He is much less shy and, dare I say it, even looking quite handsome!

After a very fun night I ended up getting home rather late, and rather more full of alcohol than I would have liked, so spent the next day lounging around the hotel room, leaving my folks to do some exploring on their own!

New schools

2010-04-12T22:07:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, The Company lost their contract with the Board of Education I was working with last academic year. Each year the contract for the company that provides ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) is opened for bids, and whereas in some areas they have the sense not to base the selection on price alone, unfortunately in ours that is exactly what they do, and The Company was beaten by one of their (arguably shoddier) rivals. It's a stupid system which is disruptive for the teachers, kids and us, as the benefits of the previous years teaching, relationship-building and general settling in are thrown away in favour of saving a few yen.

The upshot is that I'm being moved to a new BoE in an area to the North East of Nagoya called Kasugai. I will be teaching at three elementary schools, and yesterday went to meet one of them. Despite being a big school (five classes per grade) they were lovely, sitting me down, plying me with coffee and rice crackers and asking me loads of questions. Managed to speak quite a bit of Japanese, which went down well, although nerves killed it a bit when I had to give an impromptu speech in front of all the staff!

Term doesn't start until the 19th, so I can spend more time with my parents, whom I am currently on my way to see in Kyoto.

I'll leave you with a photo of the ducks who have made their home in the school pool, which will they will have to themselves until June.

Neti pot

2010-04-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Jala neti is the yogic practise of cleaning ones sinuses with a warm saline solution by use of a specially designed pot; the titular Neti Pot. The process can supposedly cure many ills, from various ENT problems to improving vision and even aiding the cooling of the brain, thus making you a happier hippy. The best article I've read is this PDF, which gives a thorough overview of the benefits and methods, and has an FAQ explaining why on earth you'd want to tip water up your noes with what is essentially a mini watering can. I bought my pot from Shop Holistic, who were cheap and had great customer service, and my parents carried it over here for me. I've had sinus problems and sore throats since I was a child and am hoping that with a bit of dedicated effort I can finally clear them up. I'll let you know how it works out in a few weeks time.

New camera yays!

2010-04-09T00:55:00.000-07:00

After a lot of pondering, procrastinating and preparation, I finally purchased (ok, I'll stop that) a new camera. It's a Canon EOS 50D SLR, and I love it.

However, the learning curve is immense, and I'm not ashamed to say that I was baffled about a lot of the terminology before I bought it, and I remain quite baffled now. A fact not helped by the fact that the instruction manual is in Japanese.

The lens selection was even more baffling, and with most of them costing more than the camera body, I wasn't about to leap into a hasty decision. In the end I went for a Canon 50mm 1.8 lens; what they call a "prime" lens, in that it is a fixed length with no zoom. It had monumentally good reviews, and given it only cost 9,700 yen (67 GBP), was an easy choice. Cameras are one thing that are cheaper in Japan than in England - I got the 50D, body only, one year old but in perfect condition, sold boxed as new, for only 72,500 yen (505 GBP).

My favourite thing about the lens is that you can set it to have a very shallow depth field (as far as I know, this is related to having a low aperture setting and fast shutter speed) to create bokeh, which is the name given to the blurred background. Although this lens isn't as good as some of the more expensive ones, you can make images with a soft dreaminess, which results in even ordinary shots of food looking like porn:

My parents are actually in Japan with me at the moment, and here are a few more from our days sight-seeing:

Expect lots more flower shots too :)

Next step is learning how to accurately manipulate the shutter speed and aperture to get the most vibrant colours whilst remaining focussed on the subject (slow shutter speed + no tripod = blurriness). Then perhaps I'll work on my ability to take photos of people when they have their eyes open!

For now, though, I must dash, for tonight we are having dinner with The Suzuki No. 1's (my homestay family from Tokyo in 2008). Exciting!

Lucky... or just stupid

2010-04-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

In an older post, I alluded to going on a bit of an adventure... Well since I am doing a Big Blogging Blowout, I thought it was about time to tell the story...

It started in Nagoya, when I boarded a train to go home. Only the train didn't go home, it went past home, and directly on to another station another 20 minutes down the line. It was the last train of the night.

Bugger.

And that was how I found myself stuck in Otagawa, along with another two gaijin who had made the same error, and a random smattering of Japanese people, presumably similarly afflicted. We all got chatting, and as time ticked on, I figured I should get myself a taxi back north towards my bed.

This is where I encountered Problem No. 2... In Japan, ATM's have a nightly shut-down period, generally around the hours when you really need cash to get your arse home. Therefore I had no way of getting a taxi.

I had been chatting to a couple of Japanese guys, I guess they were about my age, decked out in sports wear having been out for a few drinks after work as firemen. One of them said I should just come back to his place and stay in his spare room until the trains started again. Being a sensible girl, I resisted this, but it became more and more apparent that if I didn't go somewhere, I'd be stuck outside in the cold from midnight until 6am.

So... we got in a taxi to go to his place, stopping at the convenience store to buy: a few cans of beer, some snacks, o-nigiri (rice balls) for breakfast, a toothbrush for me, and a can of coffee for our taxi driver. Onwards to his place, which was a lovely family home (his wife and two kids were with his mother-in-law), full of toys and drawings and a real family feeling. We stayed up drinking beer and chatting until 3am, communicating mainly in Japanese and using a little white-board to communicate harder concepts with pictures and kanji! He gave me a tracksuit to sleep in, I brushed my teeth with my new toothbrush, and was sent off to the main bedroom for the night (he insisted on sleeping on the spare futon!).

Come the morning, I appeared bleary-eyed and hungover at about 9.30am. He explained that he'd left his car at the fire station and would cycle over there to pick it up, which would take about 30 minutes. Thus I was left home alone to watch TV whilst warming my toes on their glorious under-floor heating and eating my breakfast.

By the time he got back, I realised that I'd left my phone in the taxi (or lost it!) so he made some phone calls, located the phone, and off we went to pick it up. Phew! I thought at this point he would drop me at a local station, but he actually drove me home. All. The. Way. Home.

Unbelieveable. I would honestly say this was one of the nicest men I've met in Japan, and also one of the coolest random experiences I've had. Taking risks is... risky, but if you don't do it you miss out on good times!

Pizza for kids and junk-food freaks

2010-04-05T19:08:00.001-07:00

Wow, without school, and without much to say on the karate front, it seems all I write about is food. Some things, however, have to be shared with the world, and this is one of them.

You may remember my last post about Japanese pizza delivery, which featured bread bowls filled with pasta. Well, Japan has just out-done itself in amazing pizza overkill...

Imagine you asked a seven year old to come up with their perfect pizza... What do you think it would have on it? I suspect in some cases it would look something like this:

Yes, that really is a pizza with chips, sausages and tomato ketchup. And all for the small price of 20 of your Great British Pounds. A bargain, no?!

And what if you asked a junk-food addict what he'd like on his pizza? Do you think he'd like one with breaded fried prawns, sausage, slices of breaded fried pork cutlet and, to finish it off, a good squirt of mayonnaise?

Because for a mere 22 pounds, all that could be his! (Both prices for L-size 35cm pizza)

This is the menu. The third pizza features Korean-style beef on cress. On pizza.

I don't think I need to say any more!

How do you eat a baked potato and tuna mayo without any cutlery?

2010-04-05T01:43:00.000-07:00

You turn it into a hotdog, of course!

Already-baked sweet potato from the convenience store, two small cans of tuna with low-fat mayo plus a good dousing of chilli-sauce = a protein-packed meal fit for a Karate Queen ;)

Sugar-tastic

2010-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

I entered a competition on the Nagoya International Centre website to win tickets to the Nagoya Sweets exhibition. Having forgotten about it, I was surprised to open my mail box and find two tickets inside. Yay! I invited Sharifa, who shares my love of all things baked, fried and sugary :)

Although quite a small show, we did manage to sample lots of delicious things (as a result of going around several times), but seeing as we were the only foreigners here the stalls caught on to this pretty quickly! We bought a few things to eat (battered and fried mochi - yum!) and also looked at the amazing exhibition of sugar sculptures. I guess it was a competition for professional pastry chefs from all over Japan. Some of the entries were astonishing - the below are all made out of sugar:

Sorry for the rubbish photo quality - my camera died so had to use the iPhone.

O-Hanami

2010-04-04T20:02:00.001-07:00

On Saturday Hitomi (aka Kato-san) and I went to check out the cherry blossoms at Iwakura, a town just north of Nagoya which is famous for having a river which is lined for several kilometres by chery trees on both sides. This weekend was the sakura peak, and Iwakura held a festival to celebrate. Although it was busy, there was still lots of space to sit and chat and take in the beautiful flowers. The day was made even better by Hitomi telling me that there had been a meeting between the Aichi (my old schools prefecture - I have been moved to different ones for this academic year - more to come on that another time) teachers about their English teachers. It was apparently agreed that not only was I the best teacher (I would dispute that, but hey - it's nice to hear!) but that I was the only one who had really improved their Japanese, and that was really interested in Japanese culture. I was definitely happy to hear that - I do work hard at my Japanese, and I do love the culture here, so it was cool to have that recognised. In all honesty, I think a big part of it is my enthusiasm for food!

Anyhow, here are a few pictures of the sugoi kirei (really beautiful) cherry blossoms:

Krispy Kreme comes to Nagoya

2010-04-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

Although the new Krispy Kreme Donuts shop in Nagoya Station has been open for a few weeks, at 10.30am on a somewhat dreary Monday morning, this was the queue:

It started here - you can just see the security man who was managing all the people in the cap at the back.

It then went round the corner, to a second cordoned-off bit (the gap being to allow people in and out of another shop)...

..and finally finished here, at the store itself. The back of this queue doesn't even show the start of the queue in the second photo.

Bonkers!

Fresh donuts for 200 yen

2010-04-04T19:28:00.000-07:00

My blog-friend Krysten, who introduced me to the marvel of fresh-egg-in-porridge, shared something in Google Reader about donuts. As a comment, she mentioned something about making donuts from cookie dough in a can (she's American - we don't have such delights in the UK, sadly!). That got me thinking about how I could make donuts so easily, and I settled on instant hot cake (thick fluffy pancakes) mix.

Off I went to the 100 yen store, and returned with a pack of Morinaga hot cake mix and a small bottle of oil.

Amazingly, they actually had instructions to make donuts on the back of the packet, so I followed them, albeit by looking at the pictures. Essentially it involved adding just an egg (no milk) and a spalsh of water and mixing to make a thick dough.

I heated the oil in a small (15cm diametre) saucepan, dipped a teaspoon in oil (to make it non-stick) and carefully fried small lumps of dough. If you are trying this yourself, you might want to test the oil before you start with a tiny bit of dough. Too hot and the outside will be dark and the middle raw (too-too hot and the pan will set fire, so be careful), too cold and they will cook slowly, not colour, and absorb a lot of oil.

Amazingly, they came out brilliantly, and I managed the whole execerice without covering my kitchen in dough. It did, however, end up smelling like one of those fairgournd donut stands - sweet and greasy with a hint of vanilla!

I made plain ones, which I covered in cinammon sugar, sesame seed ones, which I drizzled with honey, and a couple with banana in the middle (very difficult to make with the sticky batter!).

The mix made about 12 small donuts, and I gave three to Sharifa (as pictured above). I intended to keep a few of the rest for the next day, but they were really evil donuts and despite the loving care that had gone into their creation, insisted on taunting me. So I had to eat them to shut them up.

Shinden staff party

2010-04-04T19:19:00.002-07:00

Here are a few snaps of the end-of-term party for Shinden. We went to a restaurant and had a beautiful multi-course meal with all-you-can-drink beer and sake for 90 minutes. As you can imagine, everyone got quite drunk. They also lost their inhibitions, and I was inundated with people coming to chat to me, many of whom I had barely spoken to all term. It was great! Afterwards a few of us headed to a local bar for a few more drinks before making our way home.

At the bar... The guy next to me in this photo is one of the special needs teachers, who I hadn't spoken to much all term, but who spent the evening telling me how he wants to move his family to a foreign country to experience a new culture, but that his mum is ill so he can't yet.

The two guys on the far right of the below picture at the Vice Principal (glasses) and the "No. 4" - the class scheduler. They are both moving to work on a school on a small island south of Nagoya. A few feathers have been ruffled as Yokoi Sensei (No. 4) is jumping up two places to No. 2 (Vice Principal), but since the two are good friends it's not that surprising they'd move together. I think they're going to have a fun and easy life there!

Aichi Prefectural Open Karate Tournament

2010-04-04T19:19:00.001-07:00

On Friday evening we went for a few drinks after training, and, as I was getting into Sensei's car to get a lift to the restaurant, noticed him struggling to fit a large box onto the front seat. It wasn't so much of a box as a trunk - about one and a half by one foot big and covered in red leather. Of course, I had to ask what it was, and it turned out that it was the Kumite Champion cup from last years Aichi Open Karate Tournament which he was returning to the organisers in
time for it to be won by another worthy competitor on Sunday. A good omen, I thought, for the competition being a successful one.

So today I, and most of the rest of the dojo, headed out to the Biwajima Sports Center to compete in, or in some cases, to watch the tournament. It was a big event with clubs from all over the Aichie region - kids and adults, eight mats, kata in the morning and kumite in the afternoon.

From an entirely selfish point of view, the thing I took away from the day was the realisation is that our dojo is actually very good. I've said that before but this time I mean it in a different way... It's difficult being a foreign female white-belted adult in a class mostly full of skilled black-belted Japanese kids! If you are inclined, as I am, to be quite hard on yourself and to always strive to be as good as everyone else, being surrounded by such talent can be a little daunting at the best of times. Although it does push you to try harder and go faster, sometimes I have to dig deep into myself not to get disheartened. I know karate is your own journey and you shouldn't let yourself get bogged down by others, but hey, we all have egos sometimes! But seeing some of the other competitors, especially some of the other blackbelts, made me realise that I'm not all that bad, and that I should relax and stop stressing that I won't ever get my black belt as I'll never be as good as those in my own dojo!

Anyhow, everyone did really well, coming away with several medals and trophies for both kata and kumite, as well as... the big cup! This was won, as it was last year, by Sensei's son, Shintaro. Shintaro is lovely - one of those people who gives off a really good vibe. He's always smiling and happy, without a trace of ego or superiority (sadly not something I can say about everyone in the club) so it was really cool to see him win it again. And of course Sensei was really proud :)

Here is a video clip of one of the heats for the girls middle school kumite tournament. The girl in red (at the top) is Judi-chan, who is on the Wado Kai Japanese national team. She went on to win, needless to say. This will give you an idea just how fast she is!

Retro gaming shop

2010-03-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

Readers in their late 20's and older will remember the truly wonderful days of the NES, or Nintendo Entertainment System. In Japan, it was called the Famicom (family + computer = silly abbreviation that would never work in the West!). I walked past this old shop today, which is called Famicom Ya-San: ファミコン屋さん. "Ya" being a shop, and "San" being an affectionate name suffix. I guess it would translate to "The Famicom Man's Shop". The red kanji underneath say "buy!" and "sell!". Sadly it's Sunday, so I couldn't tell if it's closed for the day, or permanently.

The NES has lots of happy memories for me - playing with friends and my sisters, especially the excitement over Super Mario Brothers 3, and it's cool to see Mario still kicking it in his racoon suit, and even cooler that amongst my student the latest Mario game is one of the must-have titles on the Wii.

Friends and chicken wings

2010-03-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday we had something of a goodbye party for Tyler, who left yesterday to go back to the States. We started off in the Oxo, a "British pub" in Kanayama that has good happy hour deals. Afterwards we moved onto Yama-chan, a Nagoya institution that is famed for their chicken wings (tebasaki - themselves a Nagoya institution) where we continued to drink lots of beer and eat chicken wings. Jacob, who despite his extensive Nagoya Knowledge, had never been before, and is now a convert. Some snaps from the night:

Tyler's happy with his wings

Meaghan and Kim

Jacob about to drink tororo - a thick stachy concotion that for some reason is often served with raw fish.

Our new drinking buddies

We started playing a Japanese drinking game which involves saying a word, clapping twice, and then the next person has to say a word that starts with the next letter. This went surprisingly well, although it was obvious we were all teachers, since we tended to rely on words that were mainly used in the classroom!

Funny faces

Final photo

My night didn't end when we left here and everyone went home, oh no siree. I ended up going on a rather mad adventure, but I'm saving that for the next post so you'll have to wait till then :P

Spring Holidaze!

2010-03-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Finally, the Spring holidays have arrived. They actually started on Wednesday last week, but I was busy finishing my entry to a competition (email if you're curious) which took up quite a bit of time and required a lot of work on my part (in fact it's been ages since I concentrated so hard - made a nice change!) and attending various work- and friend- related functions. The past two days I've finally felt like I can relax, and have been lounging around in my apartment reading, cooking some wholesome food and generally chilling out. Will get round to doing some more blogging this week though, as getting a bit of a backlog again. Todays plan involves going for a run after this (the free coffee at the internet providing the fuel) and then possibly an experiment in making donuts with instant pancake (the fluffy kind) mix. Watch this space!

外忍者 - gai.ninja

New websites and blog

First! Prize! Wow!

Finale - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Episode 5 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Photography competition

Episode 4 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Episode 3 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Please technically support me

Experiencing work

Episode 2 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Sneak preview

Riots

Episode 1 - The Knotweed Diaries / エピソード１:イタドリの日記

Just a reminder...

You vs. The Rest Of The World

So...

Merry Christmas!

Origins Craft Show

Making and baking

A far-away time...

Nagasaki - Day 2

Nagasaki - Day 1

Hiroshima

Miyajima

Jet lag woes

Back to the start

Longest train journey evar!

Tomonoura

Naoshima

Kurashiki

Korakuen

Travels

Wado World Cup 2010

*drumroll*

Belts and trousers

My apartment

Busy busy busy!

Mochi machine

Photos of pretty things in the 'hood

Photos of festival food

Gomi rules

Gadgety greatness

Bullet pointed weeks (and weeks and weeks)

24 days to go

Karate is like...

Kyushoku - Friday 16th July

Last day

Clothing special!

Tenki : 天気 : weather

It's all hot air

Time to go

Mail order mushi

Dieting, Japanese-style

Killing in the supermarket

A great day out

Bullet-pointed weeks

Interview with Richard Amos

Magazines

Happy 500th!

Smoking makes you big and strong

Onegai!

Two cool foods for hot weather

Bullet-pointed week

Appropriate advertising fail!

NSFP: Crafty work

Day-to-day

Kyushoku - Thursday 20th May

Booker books

Successfully concluded project

Exciting news!

暑い！

"Off to buy rice. In Japan, a true test of ones decision-making skills."

Kyushoku - Tuesdsay 27th April

Shodou - follow-up

Kyushoku - Wednesday 21st April

New schools

Bye bye Mummy and Daddy!

A sunny day in Tokoname

Food glorious food

drumroll

Tenki : 天気 :　weather