Liz Connection

A nice day in Ebisu Garden Place

2007-05-20T23:11:00.000+09:00

Hiroshi and I spent the day together at Ebisu Garden Place. The main purpose of going there was to hit ecco to buy some shoes. Hiroshi wanted some dress shoes, but he has enough of those already, so we ended up buying sandals. Yeah, I had to get some too.... I'm a woman, I love shoes. Actually, the sandals are really great - they support the foot like a runner does (they have the same technology as their running shoes) so they are perfect for walking around all day. Unlike flip flops which are comfortable, but only good for walking on the beach or dashing to the store quickly.

We then went to the Sapporo Beer Museum. I have been to Ebisu Garden Place hundreds of times, but have never been to this museum. Which is silly because it is free. It has lots of old beer making equipment and what I liked best was the art work on the walls made of different parts from beer making machinery. They also had a beer tasting area. For 400 yen you can get 4 small glasses of beer and some crackers. This is actually quite reasonable. Hiroshi and I both had one, but we could have easily shared one. That might have been the better option actually - taste all four and then get a glass of the one you like best. I think the glasses were only about 200 yen or something. Cheap anyway. Then of course, a museum wouldn't be complete without a gift shop (especially in Japan), so we picked up some soap made from hops (I think), a t-shirt for Hiroshi, and some beer caramels.

Unfortunately, by the time we finised at the beer museum it was too late to go to the photography museum. There is an exhibit we both want to see. Ah well, we can go next week or something. So, we went up to the 38th floor of the office building to "Top of Ebisu" which is two floors of restaurants. You can get a great view of Tokyo from the windows, and we were luck to see the sunset. It was a beautiful red sky. It is also beautiful at night with all the twinkling lights. I took a ton of sunset and skyline pictures. Actually, I am quite pleased with how they turned out. You can see all the pics for the day (including our Thai lunch) at my Flickr account.

Tokyo Midtown

2007-05-16T23:21:00.000+09:00

Went out to Tokyo Midtown tonight, the new shopping area development in Tokyo. It has a very nice, modern design with Japanese influence. Everything is done in blonde wood, with lots of open, airy spaces and light, and it uses metal as an accent in railings, etc. Even 7-11 has modified it's sign to fit in with the decor, rather than having the normal bright red and green colours.s

Actually, we (me and friend Cal) ended up there fairly late, and it was great to wander around without all of the people. It allowed me to appreciate the architecture of the place. One of the things that I hope to do in the future is go to Coppola - a restaurant that serves Coppola wines (yes, the famous movie Coppola). They have fun names like the Skywalker Ranch Chardonnay. You have to go just to say you drank that!

The best, and most amusing store in the entire building has to be the dog store. It includes the "dog deli" serving such things as ostrich and fish, a dog beauty salon, and an assortment of organic dog food for sale. Yes, not just one brand of organic dog food, but several. Of course, the store wouldn't be complete without the wall doggie outfits. (You can find pictures of all of these on my Flickr account).

While the complex was really nice to wander around, I can't say that I would do any regular shopping there. The tenants offer extremely pricey goods, and about the only thing interesting for me was the food stores in the basement (got a wide variety of tofu to try, including some that had karashi spice in the middle of tofu balls) and an aroma therapy shop in the "spa" corridor.

The aroma therapy shop was great actually. They have these little plastic envelopes of essential oils that release scent gradually over about a week. You can put them in your pillow. They smell wonderful, and I found that I am sleeping better with the night time scent.

The other interesting store in the spa corridor was the men's skin care store with attached spa. For "only" 14,000 yen (I think that was the cost) you can get a hair cut and a shave in this super-padded, bright red barber chair in a private room. You can then relax in a room with subdued lighting while perusing one of the many men's magazines... including a wide selection of business themed ones. If you want to make it day, you can always get the manicure / pedicure and massage done as well. Who knows how much that costs! Actually, it was really interesting. We got to take a tour of the facilities because no one was in there at the time. So, as a woman, I suppose I got the secret insight. It was nice to see - essentially all spas cater exclusively to women. This is "the" place to go for metrosexual men wanting to spend a day getting beautiful too.

New pictures on flickr!

2007-05-14T23:17:00.000+09:00

I have finally gotten around to uploading pictures from the end of last year (link to my flickr page is in the side menu). So there are some more pictures of Beppu, most notably a bazillion pictures of monkeys (cute!!), as well as some from New Year.

Well, the monkeys are technically Japanese macaques, but to me they are still monkeys. I had to rush to catch my fligth back to Tokyo after seeing the monkeys - I stayed much longer than I should have, but couldn't stop chasing after the little babies and oooo-ing and ahhhh-ing.

Hectic Week

2007-05-11T22:59:00.000+09:00

This week has been absolutely crazy. Everyone enjoyed their time off last week and spent time thinking up new projects to implement right away. I've been in the office until 10 or 11 every night. Of course I don't mind so much. I am really enjoying my new job and am on salary - if it gets busy, it is kind of expected that you stay late sometimes.

Anyway, I am pretty much defining my own job (English Development Leader) and deciding on what projects I want to tackle with my own timelines. Everyone is much friendlier in the office than what you would think. I am at a consulting company that is notorious for being snobby. I seem to be settling in though, and know quite a few people already from being their teacher in the past. That makes it much easier because I already have a social network. I just think it is great to be challenged and doing something new!

My new brother-in-law

2007-05-04T23:30:00.000+09:00

Hiroshi's sister Keiko "found a husband" recently and they came up to Tokyo today (with mom) to meet us. Well actually to meet Hiroshi since he is head of the family and they will be living in the family home. I say "found a husband" because she went through an omiai service. Omiai is an arranged marriage; however, in Japan there isn't really much arranging any more. It is more like a glorified dating service. Essentially you say what you are looking for in a spouse and the service will try to match you. This is quite popular in Japan - keep in mind that many women either marry a school sweet-heart or someone who joined the company at the same time they did (the woman quits when she gets married - and yes, some Japanese companies are notorious for hiring "pretty" women so their male employees have a good choice of potential wives). So, unless you are working for a major company, there really aren't that many places to meet people.

So, Keiko and her husband seem happy. Yes, they already got married. This was news to us. They haven't had their ceremony yet though. In Japan, you register at the city office and have a ceremony separately, unlike in Canada where you sign the marriage certificate at the ceremony itself. You can take either day as the date you got married. (Hiroshi and I chose the day we registered). He seems quite nice, albeit shy, and mom adores him so that is good - especially since they are all living together! Neither Hirohsi nor I think he'll have much influence or sway over Keiko, because he is so quiet, but that's ok. Hiroshi wants Keiko to be a bit more "Japanese" and is hoping her husband will push her in that direction. I mean, basically she wasn't going to introduce her fiance to Hiroshi at all and only did so because mom and him were yelling at her. (It was a pretty bad breach of etiquette).

The last couple days have been a bit stressful getting this all organized. They were supposed to come up Sunday, but decided to come up today instead. I think one of them has to work tomorrow, so it would have been a hectic weekend if they didn't come today. I don't really care about the timing - I just have to deal with Hiroshi being stressed out.

We made a reservation at Grand Central Oyster Bar in Shinagawa for lunch. The shinkansen (bullet train) stops there, so it is easy. Actually, it was quite funny. Hiroshi's hometown, Hamamatsu, has a population of about 700,000 people, so I think of it as being quite metropolitan. However, it is not metropolitan by Japanese standards, and I was a bit taken aback by the "wow!" attitude at first. I didn't expect the "the big city is so exciting" reaction! They were taking pictures of everything and seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by some things.

Anyway, while Hiroshi was waiting at the ticket gate to meet them, I went up to the restaurant and preordered. I got some raw oysters, then salad and steamed veggies and fish as the main course. The fish was absolutely divine. I was so happy with myself because I made healthy choices (it is so easy to cave in and get the fried oysters!) and they ended up being awesome. Even more important because this was a fairly serious occassion, and you want to make a good impression. The fish entree was red snapper on top of roasted vegetables, and the vegetables had balsamic vinegar drizzled over them. I am definitely going to try to make this at home, because it looked so impressive, but the ingredients are really quite simple. It was a big hit with everyone.

After lunch we went and had a coffee at Dean and Deluca and waited until their return shinkansen was leaving. It was a nice, albeit short, visit. Personally, I'm just glad that Keiko has met someone nice. I know she has been worried about getting married for a long time. She is 35, and in Japan you are termed "Christmas cake" when you turn 26. Yeah, you know the kind - the one with dried fruit and nuts that nobody wants.

The married thing should prove interesting of course. I can't wait to go down to Hamamatsu next time. Keiko is totally spoiled by mom - she doesn't eat dinner with the family or even at the table. Mom brings a tray up to her room! Now that she is married, not only will she have to eat dinner with at least one other person, she will also be responsible for cooking. I think it would be nice to have a dinner with all of us sitting down together... and think it would be a great bonding experience for all of the women to cook together. I like learning how to cook Japanese and always feel uncomfortable having mom do all the cooking and cleaning all the dishes by herself (she's 73), so I often ask her to show me how to cook, so I can sneakily help out.

The camera upgrade

2007-04-30T23:06:00.000+09:00

The camera I bought a couple years ago in anticipation of our world trip has been upgraded twice since then. I have wanted to newest one ever since it came out, and of course got to drool over it today at Bic Camera. Just so happens, Cal is also on the lookout for a new camera, and since Sony has decided to change their memory card type (to something that is still non-standard in any other camera as far as I know), he wasn:t particular on brand.

This of course gave me a brilliant idea. Since Cal was humming and hawing over a pre-DSLR (which my camera was) I offered to sell him my old one, and then use the funds towards the new fz50. We reached a deal that was agreeable to both of us - a much better price than buying one new in Cal's case, and me not have to worry about finding someone to buy the camera on Yahoo auction or whatever.

Essentially it is the same as the old one, except that the lense doesn't extend when zooming. This makes me feel much more comfortable about taking the camera to places where sand can get into moving parts. It also has a new teleconversion lens that I had to get... I mean, come on it brings the 12X zoom up to 21X zoom. How else am I going to get my kick ass nature and animal shots in Tanzania? Not to mention spy on people hehehe.

As we were wandering around, I was checking out the sales and was shocked to find 120GB Lacie portable harddrives for 50% off! Combined with the fact that they have really come down in price from a couple of years ago, this was a steal. Now I can do a full backup of my MacBook Pro -- those of you who have read about my previous drive failures and loss of data will understand my obsession with having full backups.

Anyway, I now have new toys to play with. I hope to get out and take some pics with the new camera soon... speaking of which, I definitely need to update my Flickr page. Has been ages since I've uploaded stuff there. Yes readers, that means new pictures are coming soon!

Whehoo! new places to shop

2007-04-29T23:33:00.000+09:00

This week is Golden Week - a week full of holidays here in Japan. Basicaly I only have to work on Tuesday and Wednesday. I spent the last couple days relaxing and today went to my favourite Thai restaurant for brunch with Hiroshi and Cal.

The Mango Tree is located in Marunouchi (the east side of Tokyo station) on the 35th floor of the Marunouchi Building. The Marunouchi Building opened a year or so ago and has restaurants, office space and stores. The Mango Tree has a great lunch buffet for about 2500 yen. Of course I always get a mango juice or coconut smoothie or something, so that adds another 800 yen into the bill, but believe it or not, 3300 yen is pretty decent for ethnic food. The restaurant has a modern decor and floor to ceiling windows, which offer a great view of the city too, so it makes for a nice lunch place, with good food that you can eat your fill of.

On the way to the restaurant we realized that the Shin-Marunouchi building is now open (it opened a couple days ago actually). Shin essentially meaning new. This is one of the newest buildings in Tokyo (there are several new complexes that have opened recently) and there were tons of people walking en masse to get in. My first instinct was to avoid going there at all costs, cuz, really, who wants to go shopping in an environment that resembles Disney Land on a busy day?

Of course that was before I read the list of shops that were there. Turns out the Marunouchi Building and the Shin-Marunouchi Building produce a joint listing of stores and restaurants. In addition to the international food store, I found a store that I have been looking for for ages - Molton Brown.

When I was in Thailand two years ago getting LASIK done, I stayed at the Penninsula hotel and they had Molton Brown shampoo, soap and lotions. Absolutely loved the stuff and wanted to buy some. Of course, I haven't been able to find a store in Japan, and really didn't feel like paying a ton in shipping on top of the already expensive prices by buying online. Well, now there is a store in Tokyo and I am in heaven. My bank account is under duress, but I am in heavenly scented bliss. I have magnolia hand lotion, ginger lily body wash and a bunch of other stuff too. (Of course now that I look at the Worldwide rather than the UK site, I suddenly find a bazillion stores that sell it in the Tokyo area).

There are some interesting stores in the building other than Molton Brown, but it was so nuts in there, that we just kind of wandered with the crowd. I'll have to go back another day after the opening crowds disperse. Ths makes Marunouchi a great place to shop now though. The oazo building has the best (in my opinion) book store in Tokyo. I never seem to be able to get out of there without spending at least a hundred bucks. Gessh. Funny how you go in for a magazine and come out with bags of books. I am not the only one to suffer from this problem either. Now add in Molton Brown, American Pharmacy, 2 international food stores, a really nice brunch place and a Bic Camera in walking distance and I am in shopping heaven. Hiroshi just thinks it is dangerous now. LOL

Of course, that is why when Cal and I hit Bic Camera tomorrow, Hiroshi is staying at home, and all my shopping will remain a secret. ;)

Let's try this again...

2007-04-12T23:18:00.000+09:00

Seems like I never did get back into the swing of blogging last year. So, I am going to try this again. I have been keeping up with my book review blog - check out the links on the right if you are interested. My current book is taking me forever to read.
I have changed jobs and that is going well. It means I can get home at a normal time, make dinner and get stuff done. For some reason I don't seem to be getting much stuff done though. You know the saying that if you want something done, give it to the busiest person you know? I think that holds true. I suddenly have a ton of time on my hands in the evening and I don't seem to be doing anything. Weird.
Well, going forward I hope to keep this blog up to date, and upload a bunch more pictures to my flickr account. I haven't added anything interesting to that page either in a long time. So stay on the look out for new stuff!

New 7 Wonders of the World

2006-11-26T23:59:00.000+09:00

You can vote on the modern 7 Wonders of the world here. There are definitely some interesting choices.

Extreme Ironing

2006-11-25T00:10:00.000+09:00

Now, this is ironing. I am not quite sure I am up to carting an ironing board up the side of a mountain, but it appears to be a new sport in Japan. Extreme Ironing... the new way to combine exercise and housework at the same time. I only question how the iron gets hot without a power source.... but then again, this is Japan, so it is probably a cordless / rechargeable one.

Book reviews

2006-11-23T00:45:00.000+09:00

I have started a second blog for book reviews... mainly to try it out and see how it is compared to Blogger. Anyway, the link is in the sidebar on the right. I have got a ton of books that are piled up waiting for me to read them, so there should be several reviews over the coming weeks. Maybe it will give you some ideas for your days off over the holidays, or if you are giving books as gifts this year.

What happened?

2006-11-21T00:50:00.000+09:00

I took a couple days off blogging, and suddenly it is a month later! Have lots of things to catch up on. Hopefully will get the chance to update lots of things in the next week or so. Just came back from Beppu on Monday and have some good photos (link at right). Will get a post up about that soon!

Interesting Article: Roots of Human Family Tree Are Shallow

2006-09-27T21:33:00.000+09:00

Here's an interesting article I found a while ago. It basically looks at human ancestry ... I wanna do the DNA test thing from National Geographic, but is it really worth like two hundred bucks? Maybe not, but it would be cool to find out.

I was on vacation!

2006-09-25T21:14:00.000+09:00

Ok, it looks like I took the summer off from blogging. But, I am back, albeit not with daily posts. Have a backlog of stuff to post about, so will do it as I have time... including some pics of my trip to Kyoto.

I found the Log Driver's Waltz

2006-07-16T11:15:00.000+09:00

While surfing the net, I found my favourite Canadian content animation commericial thing. I'm sure all you Canadians will remember the Log Driver's Waltz well. Can't get that song out of my mind :)

I also found another site containing Canadian animation shorts. Enjoy!

George Carlin's View on Aging

2006-06-29T23:20:00.000+09:00

My mom sent me this by e-mail, so if you are on her mailing list you may have got it already, but I thought it held a lot of truth. Enjoy.

George Carlin's Views on Aging

Do you realize that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids? If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.

You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead. "How old are you?" "I'm gonna be 16!" You could be 13, but hey, you're gonna be 16! And then the greatest day of your life . . you become 21. Even the words sound like a ceremony . . YOU BECOME 21. YESSSS!!!

But then you turn 30. Oooohh, what happened there? Makes you sound like bad milk! He TURNED; we had to throw him out. There's no fun now, you're just a sour-dumpling. What's wrong? What's changed?

You BECOME 21, you TURN 30, then you're PUSHING 40. Whoa! Put on the brakes, it's all slipping away. Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone. But wait!!! You MAKE it to 60. You didn't think you would! So you BECOME 21, TURN 30, PUSH 40, REACH 50 and MAKE it to 60.

You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70! After that it's a day-by-day thing; you HIT Wednesday! You get into your 80s and every day is a complete cycle; you HIT lunch; you TURN 4:30; you REACH bedtime. And it doesn't end there. Into the 90s, you start going backwards; "I Was JUST 92."

Then a strange thing happens. If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. "I'm 100 and a half!" May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Crappy DaVinci Code Exhibit

2006-06-27T22:30:00.000+09:00

In my big update, I forgot to mention the DaVinci Code Museum thing I went to. Cal mentioned that it was on and it sounded interesting, so decided to go with him. We hit it on the last day of the event... with a fair number of other people as well.

That is one thing that drives me nuts about museums and exhibits in Japan. There is no such thing as crowd control. If they limited the number of people it would make the experience so much better. Personally, I am not good with crowds and in museums I want to just go from display to display as they catch my eye. Well, that is pretty much impossible here because you have to wait ten minutes until you can get close enough to see anything over everybody's heads. And what kills me is that poeple will crowd around stupid things (as in only worth a minute.. 30 seconds?... of viewing time) and spend 10 minutes looking at them. Drives me nuts.

Anyway, this was no different in terms of people. The exhibit basically showed some of the scenes from the movie (in the Louvre and the chateau's living room) and the famous paintings on giant televisions. Now, would it surprise you to know that Sony sponsored the exhibit? In other words I think I paid 1500 yen to see Sony's new televisions. Nice TVs but I could have gone to Bic Camera and seen them for free.

So, my overall review is that it sucked. I think even if there were no other people, it would have merited some interest, but not 1500 yen worth. I think Cal found it much more interesting than I did, however, he has not read the book yet so got a bit of a storyline from going.

Oh, by the way, the movie sucks too... read the book. It is a quick and entertaining read. Don't expect brilliance - it is entertainment, which is exactly what I want from a book. The book gets a thumbs up from me, but the movie and the DaVinci Code exhibit get definite thumbs down.

update

2006-06-24T15:04:00.000+09:00

So, I have finally gotten around to putting up some entries. I had been holding off because I have an entry about the new IKEA that opened back in April... only I haven't gotten around to actually writing it. So I haven't written anything on the blog. I figured I had better get back into it, and I can post the IKEA thing later.

I suppose the big news is that I have moved into my office part-time. This was supposed to make my schedule less hectic, however, I seem to as busy as I ever was. Something about having a couple free mornings or afternoons a week which seem to be taken up with other work projects at the moment. I am surprised at how little energy it takes to work in the office compared to teaching. I had no idea I used so much energy during my lessons. It is nice to have a bit of both worlds actually because I still like teaching... but the regular hours of working in the office are also great.

Japanese lessons are coming along slowly. I am actually studying between lessons (as opposed to doing my homework just before class) and it is helping a lot with remembering words and speaking a bit more fluently. Things are starting to click a bit better, so that is good. I still can't have anything more than simple conversations, but that's ok.

I had to renew my alien registration card this week. Five years have gone by since I moved into this apartment. WOW! I was surprised at how easy it was. I stopped into the city office, filled out a form and was out of there in 15 minutes. I was wondering what was wrong, because I was expecting to spend the whole afternoon there... then I remembered it was just the city office and not immigration. Immigration being hell on earth because there is only one office for all of Tokyo area now. The city office is a dream in comparison. So that was a relief - I hate bureaucracy.

World Cup is in full swing and everyone is walking zombie in Tokyo. Well, a lot of people are, myself included. The games are on in the middle of the night here so staying up to watch certain teams play is a killer. Everyone is sad that Japan is out of it now, but no one really expected them to make it anyway because of the strong competition in that group (Brazil for one).

So that is the update. Will try to write more often ... and get the IKEA entry up!

moving 3D picture that I can't see

2006-06-21T15:04:00.000+09:00

You know those 3D pictures that were popular about 10 years ago... the ones that are a bunch of colours with a random design that when you make your eyes go out of focus turn into a 3D picture? Well, I could never see them. When they had them in the comic section in the Saturday paper, I would sit for hours with the picture close up to my nose and slowly move it back, and I might have been lucky one in ten times and seen the actual thing... after trying forever. Well, apparently there are moving 3D pictures now. You will either jump up and down at how cool it is, or want to scream because you can't see a darn thing (like me).

Happy Birthday to me

2006-05-26T23:49:00.000+09:00

Well, I am 33 today. I feel old. Well, only when I think about it. Normailly I feel like I am still in my 20s. Time is flying by! In Japan, 33 for women is a bad luck year. Although apparently it isn't just 33 like I though, but the year preceeding and after it as well... so if I were superstitious, I could say, that that explained a lot of things.

This is the first birthday where I didn't really care that much though. At least I wasn't totally depressed about it - turning 30 took a couple years to get over you know LOL Hiroshi got me a necklace (he's learning!) and we had cake and that was pretty much it. Fine with me. As I have been telling everyone, I am turning 29 again... and the 5th time round at that.

addicting pictures in pictures in pictures

2006-05-25T00:50:00.000+09:00

You can zoom in on this picture (pictures?) forever... be careful beacuse it is addicting.

pigs are flying and hell has frozen over

2006-05-06T22:34:00.000+09:00

Yes, prepare yourself for the shock... I ironed tonight! For those of you who don't know, I despise ironing and it usually sits in a pile for months on end (like 6 or more). I have taken to pullling shirts out of the dryer immediately and shaking them out as a (pretty crappy) alternative. Actually, in the seven years that I have lived in Japan, I think I have ironed twice. Yes, you read that right.

Well, my new 1200 yen ironing board from IKEA is a great incentive to actually do it. Before we literally had an ironing board. A square piece of wood that has the heat resistance padding, but no legs. Most Japanese boards, if they do have legs, are meant to be used while sitting on the floor, hence the legs are about 3" in height (ie useless). My new ironing board folds up to the correct height of right around my waist.

Of course I might just iron my own shirts from now on - I showed Hiroshi one of his cotton shirts that I ironed... and I must point out spent quite a long time ironing because cotton is a pain compared to blends... and he couldn't even tell that there was a difference between it and the shirts that were just pulled out of the dryer. Geesh.

The scariest part of this whole exercise was that I actually found ironing relaxing. Next thing you know, I'll be ironing pillow cases like my mother!

20 years ago today...

2006-04-26T23:50:00.000+09:00

For all the terrible things that came out of the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, one good thing has happened. Wildlife is thriving. Apparently by evacuating all the people, animals have been able to run free in a natural, albeit contaminated habitat.

Inside Chernobyl @ National Geographic Magazine

2006-04-25T22:48:00.000+09:00

Here is an interesting set of photos from Chernobyl.

20 years since Chernobyl

2006-04-24T22:55:00.000+09:00

April 26 marks the 20th anniversary of the nuclear accident in Chernobyl. It is really sad how the radiation has affected a whole generation with birth defects, cancer and the like. CNN has outlinesd some of these health issues in this article.

The placenta mask

2006-04-22T23:34:00.000+09:00

Holy cats! My student gave me a box of placenta masks a couple months ago as omiyage (souvenirs) from Hong Kong. I haven't been too much in the mood to do beauty treatments the last couple months, so I just used one for the first time today. I was skeptical.

The translated description on the package says: "Placenta Collagen Mask can dissolve the dark pigment and balance the water and oil production within the skin, nourishes the underlying tissue and accelerates cell effectively. Frequent use of this mask can improve skin texture elasticity and strength in aging."

Well, it really does dissolve the dark pigment... all the red blotchiness across my cheeks is gone! My skin pretty much has even colour across my face. I was shocked when I took the mask off. It really is amazing.

So of course I tried to find where I can buy it online... and the only place seems to be some dodgy unknown sites. And let me tell you, I'm glad I got this as a present because it is 600 yen (6 bucks) PER mask! So 3000 yen for a package of 5. Yikes! It really does make a difference though. I am going to try it for the rest of the week (the pacakge says to start with doing it every day for 5 days) and see if it makes a difference, and if so I will try to order some more for maintenance purposes. Who knew placenta would work so well???

Haircut and a party

2006-04-21T23:59:00.000+09:00

I went to get my haircut this afternoon. I decided to go even shorter this time round. Hiroshi wants me to cut it really short - ie 1 cm sides and curly on top. That is a bit too drastic I think! Last time I cut it from midback to shoulder-length. This time I went from below the shoulders to bob lenghth. Just by my jawline.

It is a lot lighter, let me tell you! I liked it - I even got my bangs sweeping across my forhead to oneside instead of straight across standard. When I went to the birthday party event tonight everyone said how great I looked. Hiroshi's comment - it makes your face look round. So now I don't like it. It isn't supposed to make me look fatter! :( I told him he was mean, and he insists that he is just being honest. I think he should lie when it comes to new haircuts.

Anyway, the party. Two of my coworkers had birthdays in the last few days, so a bunch of us headed out to TGI Friday's for dinner and drinks, and then on to karaoke afterwards. I actually did pretty good with the food. They had a party menu set thing. I had one fried mozerella piece, 2 chicken wings, 1/4 of a club sandwich and a ton of salad with hardly any dressing on it. i was pretty impressed with myself - there are so many yummy things to eat there that are bad for me! I also limited myself to two drinks for the entire evening (rum and diet).

Karaoke was fun as always, but there were 13 of us in one room. That's too many. If there are any more than about 8 you really need to get a second room. The party room is a great concept, but you can't sing! If you are there for an hour, basically everyone can sing just one song when there are 13 of you. It was still fun though. Everyone got to joke around and socialize, so it was good. It was nice to go out and do something... and I even got home before 12 midnight! Living in central Tokyo definitely has its benefits - you don't have to leave the party early (as several others did) in order to catch their last trains home.

Happy anniversary mom and dad!

2006-04-20T23:21:00.000+09:00

Today is my mom and dad's anniversary. I'm pretty sure it is their 29th one. Not that it matters if I am wrong, because as the rest of the family will attest to, the actual date of the anniversary changes every year. In fact, every year it changes because they have checked the wedding certificate, "remembered" from last year, or whatever. All I know, is it is pretty darn confusing on my calendar where I mark birthdays and the like! Of course whether it is the 20th or the 22nd (two of the most common date choices) 29 years is still pretty impressive.... congratulations mom and dad on still being able to put up with each other ;D

Queen's 80th Birthday

2006-04-19T22:22:00.000+09:00

April 21sst is the Queen's (of England) eightieth birthday. You can learn some interesting facts about the Queen here .... 80 of them actually in celebration of her birthday.

Running feels great!

2006-04-18T23:28:00.000+09:00

I went for a run tonight for the first time in ages. Let me tell you, it is a heck of a lot more pleasurable when it isn't near freezing outside! I haven't been recently because the pollen count was too high (I normally wear masks this time of year to cut down on sneezing and sniffling). Of coures it felt so good, I totally pushed myself and I can already feel my musscles starting to seize up - love that feeling :) Of course when I try to get out of bed tomorrow morning I might not be so enamoured with it LOL

The azeleas are out

2006-04-17T23:51:00.000+09:00

Suddenly all the azeleas are in bloom. They are really pretty - the seasons first big splash of colour. I was surprised to suddenly see them out. If I can remember, I will take a photo to post here. In the meantime, here are some cherry blossom photos courtesy of Hiroshi because I was too lazy to get my own camera out to take pics this year.

Being productive

2006-04-16T17:54:00.000+09:00

Wow, today I am being super productive. I did a huge bathroom cleaning job, including scrubbing mold and soap scum away. Ick. Then I attacked the appliances - cleaned the crumbs out of the toaster, the splatters out of the microwave and the spills and finger prints on the fridge. Then I wiped down all the counters and cleaned the sink as well. This is more cleaning than I have done all year (Hiroshi is usually happy to do it, so I let him go crazy - why clean if someone else is willing to do it for you!).

I've also got some chicken and meat defrosting so I can cook up some meals ahead of time for next week. I eat properly when it is just a matter of grabbing something out of the fridge. Hiroshi will probably die of shock too, because not only have I cleaned, but I also pulled some salmon out of the freezer to cook for dinner. I haven't cooked dinner in eons either. Can you tell that I am not the world's best homemaker? Good thing I work LOL

I guess this will qualify as my spring cleaning. I just need to dust in the bedroom and air out the futon... but it is raining today, so that will have to wait until later in the week.

Wow, it's Easter

2006-04-15T19:42:00.000+09:00

Apparently it is Easter weekend. Japan, being a non-Christian country, doesn't celebrate it, so I have been spared the chocolate extravaganza's in every store.

Hiroshi knows Easter as the holiday where you die eggs. I think the first year that we were together, my mom sent an egg dying kit over and we had fun making the eggs wild and crazy colours. I mentioned that it was Easter weekend and he asked if we (westerners) ate turkey... I had to explain ham, hot cross buns, chocolate egg hunts and the like.

I could make a ham and do the Easter thing, but that would require finding one - and then I'd have to search for hot cross buns, or more specifically a recipe for them. Then I'd be baking all weekend... because there are other family breads and stuff that are traditional at Easter as well. So, no chocolate and no ham for me. Luckily Hiroshi has now forgotten about Cadbury cream eggs, or he'd be whining about wanting them. Personally, I'd kill for the Cadbury mini-egg things with the hard outer coating.

Could you pass Grade 8 in 1895?

2006-04-14T23:40:00.000+09:00

How many questions can you answer in this 1895 Grade 8 exam? I couldn't even decipher some of the questions!

Everything is green!

2006-04-13T17:30:00.000+09:00

Spring is here and everything is blooming. Just seeing the trees lush with bright green leaves kinda makes your day that little bit better. I always love that feeling in spring when everything comes to life and you can smell "newness" in the air. The cherry blossoms are mostly gone now but there are still alot of camelias blooming. One of the things that I love about Japan is that there are always flowers blooming. If memory serves, after pointsettias at Christmas, the first flowers that you really see are daffodils.

Did you miss me?

2006-04-12T23:43:00.000+09:00

Wow, I can't believe it has been two and a half months since I last blogged. Where the heck did all that time go? This year has just flown by. Two weeks from now is Golden Week (a week with a bunch of holidays in it).... I haven't made any plans to go anywhere, so I guess I am staying here. Good way to save money I guess ;)

The cherry blossoms are finally fading away here. They actually lasted a full two weeks. There are only a few remaining petels on the trees now... although there is the odd tree of a different type that still has blossoms. In Tokyo the trees tend to be mainly one type of cherry tree though. I had my hanami (cherry blossom viewing) party on the weekend. We had a touch of rain in the morning, but otherwise the weather was great. Sunny and 20C so I got a bit of sun on my face. It felt great to be outside in the fresh air. Although, I am really starting to feel old... just sitting around all day totally stiffened all my hip joints, and I could hardly walk in the evening, let alone the next day. Add that to the fact that I get tired really easily if I have a heavy/long day at work and I am starting to feel older and older. Whatever happened to staying up all night partying and then going to work the next day? Oh yeah, that was like a decade ago. Scary.

Not much has been going on in the past two and a half months. Just working. My job will be changing a bit in the next week or so (but I'm still with the same company) - hopefully my hours will get a bit more regular. The only exciting thing I guess is that Amazing Race is back in its original format and is worth watching again.

I am hoping to get back into the daily blogging thing, so stay tuned.

Finally, an earthquake

2006-02-01T22:56:00.000+09:00

I was commenting to a co-worker the other day that we hadn't had an earthquake in a long time. Last night, for some reason I knew there was going to be one. Just a feeling. And then just after 8:30 last night a 5.1 magnitude quake hit. Actually it was two quakes together. The first oen jolted upwards - the whole apartment popped/banged - and then the second one went side to side. That one lasted a while.

Other than the shaking though, no damage here. I'm just glad the plates are releasing pressure. Small quakes every so often are good.

Is obesity contagious?

2006-01-31T19:48:00.000+09:00

Wouldn't that be a good excuse! Well, apparently it is being researched - scientists think obesity might be caused by a virus because it has spread like an epidemic and you find obesity in people in areas with limited food. Interesting anyway.

everyone is hanging out at the clinic

2006-01-30T22:54:00.000+09:00

I stopped into the clinic today to get some stronger medicine... only to find that everyone in Tokyo had the same idea. Everyone really is sick! There were like 30 people in the waiting room, and a line of people going out the door - all of them waiting to be seen. It took two and a half hours of waiting to see a doctor.

I did the whole appointment in Japanese - yay me! I even managed to do the hose machine. I don't know what this thing is, but after the doctor sees you, they send you into a room with this 1970s looking box with several hoses coming out of it. You put an attachment on the hose, press a button on the 1970s looking panel, and some kind of medicine infused mist comes out. You are supposed to breath this. Usually I end up in coughing fits and they just tell to forget about it. Today I was actually able to sit there and breath for the whole time. I'm not exactly sure what this does, but every ear-nose-thraote clinic I have ever been to has one of this medicine mist machines.

I even managed to communicate well with the pharmacist. There was only one point I was confused on - I blame it on fever. She was saying something about pills and my response was about me not being able to take powder (Japanese like medicine in powder form, but it makes me gag so I always ask for pills). Well, it dawned on me as I was walking out the door that she was probably saying the antibiotic would interfere with "the pill". That would be why she looked at me funny -
Pharmacist: "This medicine will make the pill ineffective"
Me: "I can't take the powder, so I always get pills"

Pills are called capsule in Japanese... and the birth control pill is called pill. Everytime I hear pill I think of tablets though. Note to self for next time eh?

I made chicken!

2006-01-29T22:11:00.000+09:00

On Friday I picked up a whole chicken from the international food store and I cooked it up tonight. It was my first roast chicken ever! I forgot to take a picture though.

I was actually going to buy another Turkey, but then remembered I didn't like the quality of the bird so much when I found whole chickens about the same weight and about 30% cheaper. So chicken it ws.

I cut up some potatos and threw some mushrooms around it (got those at the international food store too - whole bunch for cheap). Then I just popped it in the oven and OD'd on yummy roasting chicken smell.

It came out perfectly. Hiroshi hates chicken, so the whole bird is just for me :) I picked off a bit of skin - the best way to eat it, and then threw the rest of it out with the carcass. I grabbed all the meat off the carcass and had about as much as the turkey yielded at Christmas time, so that is good. Lots for meals over the next few days. I froze the drippings too after skimming off the fat. Figure I can use them for chicken broth in a soup or something if I get motivated to make one. Or I can make up gravy one day.

So, now I have made a roast, a turkey and a chicken in my little oven. What should I do next? There were some nice cuts of lamb at the store... although Hiroshi would probably hate it because it isn't fish. But, lamb is an idea...

An alternative to traditional burial

2006-01-28T19:51:00.000+09:00

After you die, if you don't want to be buried or cremated, you can always convert yourself into a diamond. There is something appealing about this. Of course generations from now, heirloom will take on a whole new meaning - insead of "this is grandma's ring" it will be "this is grandma".

still sick

2006-01-27T22:51:00.000+09:00

I finally gave in and went to the pharmacy to get some medicine. People were saying "That doesn't sound good" whenever I started coughing... and Hiroshi was complaining that I was keeping him up all night.

I was happy to note that my Japanese is finally good enough that I can have a conversation with the pharmacist about which medicine to get. Granted I can't understand everything, but enough to make a real decision about what to buy (instead of eeney-meeney-miney-moe-ing it).

This explains everything!

2006-01-25T22:04:00.000+09:00

I now know why I am so scatter-brained sometimes. Or oblivious as the case may be. It boils down to intelligence. Apparently smart poeple ignore irrelevant stimuli and pick out what is most important. So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Different ways of measuring time

2006-01-23T21:11:00.000+09:00

I found this article on how we measure time. It is quite interesting and explains the differences between astronomical and atomic time. I didn't even know there was an alternative to astronomical tiem.

Snow!!

2006-01-21T22:27:00.000+09:00

I woke up this morning and big, fluffy, giant snowflakes were floating past my window! It was so pretty! It looked so peaceful - the big snowflakes don't look as cold as the small one that the wind dashes on an angle to the ground. They just float peacefully down.

It was beautiful all morning and afternoon... then around mid-afternoon the snow started to pile up and the sidewalks got all slushy. Yuck. No longer pretty at that point! THen when the sun went down it all iced up. It is so much nice looking at snow when you are inside!

I don't have to shovel or drive in it though, so it is all good. I won't mind in the least if it all melts by tomorrow though!

everybody's sick

2006-01-20T21:25:00.000+09:00

... including me. Hiroshi went to the doctor to get medicine today. I am starting to come down with a cold / sore throat... and all my colleagues and students are hacking all over each other. Oh, don't you love winter? Apparently the flu is going around Hiroshi's office, so I'm glad he got medicine. I don't want it! It is a good excuse to laze around this weekend though... although I have to work tomorrow.

Hurray! Packages!

2006-01-19T23:23:00.000+09:00

I finally went and picked up a pacakge that was waiting for me at the post office. My mom sent me xmas cake and some cookies. Actually I think she sent a card and the package at the same time ... only she sent the package slow mail. Funny thing is, the package arrived the day before the card did! That was one fast boat!

The cookies arrived in pieces, but they still tasted good. I decided to have one piece... only five seconds later they were all gone. Yum yum. They were broken though, so the calories must have been broken too, right? That's my rationalization and I'm sticking to it!

We'll break into the xmas cake on the weekend.

Chinese lunch

2006-01-17T22:20:00.000+09:00

Today I met with my older women class for the first time this year, so we had lunch together. Isn't that great? I get paid to go and eat lunch... and they pay for the lunch. It was nice to see everyone and I got some small presents which was sweet of them all.

The Chinese food itself wasn't that great - it was all in goopy sauces. And spiced down for Japanese tastes. You know how Chinese food sits heavy in your stomach too.

Afterwards we walked over to the mall though and sat around in the food court and had coffee. It was nice to catch up with everyone... and relaxing! I couldn't drink any coffee though because I was so full from lunch.

work got crazy

2006-01-16T23:18:00.000+09:00

Fun, fun, fun - I get to do stay up until 2am doing development work. Now this wouldn't have happened (probably) if I had done something over the holidays... when I was sleeping and relaxing. Work has hit full force after the holidays. It isn't fair. I wanna be a housewife. Or get paid for showing up and looking pretty ;)

I'm paying for my fun

2006-01-15T15:16:00.000+09:00

Ugh... hung over. I don't drink anymore, so I am really paying for last night. Guess I'd better start drinking water... what I really want to do though is just go back to bed! Does this mean I am getting old? Because I never used to get hangovers.

Living it up

2006-01-14T23:53:00.000+09:00

Tonight was my friend Shirin's going away party. Her husband to be got transferred to Fukuoka (Japan's southern island) so she is off to a new life. The party arranger chose a really nice restaurant called Tableaux . We had our little party in the lounge, which was absolutely perfect. The walls were lined with book cases and the chairs were all leather. There was live jazz music for most of the night which created a great atmosphere.

We ordered some nice wines. The first one we ordered was pretty good, but wasn't all that balanced. This was the wine the waiter, who spoke limited English, recommended. I don't think he was all that competent. Later in the evening a woman came over and helped me order (I was in charge of ordering) - I asked about a wine that originally intrigued me, and she said it was very good wine. Glad we ordered it - it was excellent. Very interesting flavours. Usually you get that oak aged flavour in whites, but this was in a red, and combined with a berry undertone made the wine really different from anything I have tasted before. (Mom and dad if you can find it - Costers del Gravet 2002 Capcanes Spain Montsant Denomin acio d'Origen)

Of course as the evening wore on, the cost of all this stuff seemed irrelevant. We ordered a second round of fois gras because it was so good - it was served with persimmon. One of the guys tried to order dessert and Shirin and I instantly complained because he had ordered one dessert for four people to share. We set him straight! The desserts were just as good as the rest of the meal and we were in sweets heaven. After dinner we all ordered a cigar and port - 2000 yen a glass didn't seem like that much after a bottle of wine a piece. Funny how alcohol encourages spending.

The cigars were nice though, and the port was awesome. At one point I looked at my watch and had a minor shock - it was 2 am. We were having such a great time, we didn't even notice. This was bad because it was well past last train. So we just stayed around gabbing and relaxing until 4 am and took taxis home.

Overall it was a really nice night. It brought back some good memories for me of previous nice nights out, and it was really great to go out somewhere nice. Yes, the bill for the evening was a shocker, but definitely worth it. We always go out to izakaya which is like going to a bar for a going away party. This was classy, and something I haven't done enough here.

Of course... tomorrow I might regret all the drinking... I think I drank more tonight than I did all last year.

I want a new toy!

2006-01-11T20:29:00.000+09:00

Apple - new MacBook - I want! The rumour mill on the internet says to wait because something even better will be coming out, but I want this... now. Anyone got 250,000 yen they can give me? Dual core sounds nice and so does the speed... not to mention the built in camera and updates to software. It will supposedly dual boot Windows too... not that I care to use Windows anymore, it is just cool. Oh, I want new toys.

Work is hard - is sleeping a job?

2006-01-10T23:27:00.000+09:00

Work is so draining. It is unbelievably draining. Makes me want to quit and become a housewife... a housewife that sleeps in! Maybe I'm just getting old. I am definitely paying for relaxing so much over the holidays though.

Diet - Day 1

2006-01-09T20:25:00.000+09:00

New Year's resolution - eat healthier and workout more. Today was Day 1 of my diet. I've decided to take up running. This is easier said than done... especially when it is only 4C outside. I have new found respect for those people that run all winter. Trust me, even running really hard, you still freeze your butt off. I'm hoping that I'm burning more calories because my body must be burning something in order to keep me warm out there!

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Japan struck by deadly snowdrifts

2006-01-08T22:41:00.000+09:00

There is lots of snow in Japan - record breaking amounts. Everyone is talking about how there hasn't been this much snow since 1947. Some towns even have markers showing where the snow reached in 1947 so they can compare how much snow they have in comparison this year. Unfortunately, several people have died and it is getting quite dangerous in some areas as this BBC news article outlines.

Stupid Jumbo lottery

2006-01-07T20:32:00.000+09:00

I was convinced that this was my year. I have bought Jumbo lottery tickets every year for the past few years... and have only won 300 yen once. That was last year when I figured out you need to buy a full book of 10 tickets to guarantee you will win 300 yen (they are in order so you are guranteed to get the last number on one of your tickets).

Jumbo lottery tickets are offered three or four times a year and they have really big prizes. Usually the lotto tickets here have fairly low payouts. So lots of people buy these. I always get the ones that come out at New Year in hopes that I will start the new year off as a millionaire.

Of course I was shafted again. Someone picked the wrong number because it wasn't anywhere close to the numbers I had. *sigh* Maybe I should stick to the casino.

I love sleeping

2006-01-06T20:21:00.000+09:00

Second day back at work... and I'm exhausted already. I came back from my only class today, which started at the horrible hour of 7:30 am and went back to bed... only to sleep all day long. See, work is bad for me. It must be hard if I need 14 hours of sleep after 1.5 hours of work LOL

Back to work - yuck!

2006-01-05T20:19:00.000+09:00

Today is my first day back at work... luckily I only have one class to teach. I enjoyed sleeping late and then having naps in the afternoon! I don't want to go back to work. This is worse than having been on vacation. On vacation you go out and actually do things - I just lazed around for a week and slept!

Year in review

2006-01-04T15:29:00.000+09:00

2005 - I actually did quite alot in 2005. That is probably why it flew by so quickly!

I opened the year in China visiting my aunt Jan. It was nice to visit her again although it was quite cold! From her place I moved on to warmer climates in Hong Kong and Macau, thus visiting three places at the beginning of the year.

At the end of January, my mom and aunt Joan came to visit. We did some sightseeing and lots of visiting... and discovered the calming effects of colouring!

February brought the death of my hard drive and general panic when I realized I had lost all my contact data and lots of work data. Lesson learned - back up, back up, back up. Of course, this lesson wasn't quite learned because when I had a major system crash in December that prevented the computer from reading my hard drive, I lost data again. So the new mantra is backup often, backup often, backup often.

March came in with record high pollen counts and therefore horrible allergies. I discovered that the eye drops that are supposed to make your eyes stop itching, are at the expense of making them feel like someone threw sand in them.

The cherry blossoms bloomed in April, but I didn't do any cherry blossom parties this year. Too busy. Hiroshi and I just went for a walk to enjoy them. At the end of April I went to Thailand and had my LASIK done. So I am now fully sighted without glasses, and aboslutely love it! It was totally worth getting done and I can't ever imagine going back to glasses again!

I spent the beginning of May recouperating on a beach in Phuket - lovely! Rainy season was late, so the weather was perfect... to bad I couldn't go swimming because of the eye surgery. I did do a lot of shopping though! The other event in May was turning 32, but we won't dwell long on that.

June and July was another trip, but this time to Canada for the first time in three years. My sister Jen got married, so it was a good occassion. I got to be a matron of honour (that sounds old!) and see lots of family. Of course I went to the casino while I was home. I won some money, but promptly spent it all on new clothes and makeup. Shopping, shopping, shopping!

August was our four year anniversary - yeah, we've been married that long??!! No we still aren't planning on having kids yet - the freedom of being kid-less is too enjoyable!

Nothing happened in September, except the Aichi Expo ended. I had great plans to go but the news kept talking about record attendance and three hour lines to get in to pavillions and that was enough for me to give it a pass. Should have gone earlier in the year. Nothing much happened in October either except I got an oven! After living in Japan for 6 and a half years, I can now cook hunks of meat and bake stuff... which was the exciting news in November because nothing happened then either.

The year ended with a fair bit of excitement... or lack thereof. I made my first ever Christmas dinner and it was a big success. I also finally made it to Kyoto - I've wanted to go for a long time but it has always been cheaper to go to Thailand or somewhere else. It was a great trip, adn was actually the first time Hiroshi and I had been somewhere on vacation together in two years! The year ended with the lack of excitement - sleep! Which was the perfect way to end it for me because I was pretty tired out!

Hope you all had a wonderful 2005 and will have a great 2006!

New Year's cards

2006-01-03T20:12:00.000+09:00

My New Year cards arrived today. Japan Post does a great job of making sure everyone gets them right at the beginning of the year. Imagine trying to deliver ever Christmas card you receive the day before Christmas!

One of my former students wrote me a "note" that was just odd. Well, downright weird. He says:

Long time no see! How have you been?
I'm really fine but already elderly...
The lady next neighbour always speaks loudly. She really bothers me. Should I call the police?
Don't I have to do it? I can't stand it any more.
Let's talk about daily routine. The first thing I do after I wake up is go to the toilet. How about you?
Once I've eaten lunch I sometimes take a nap. How about you?...

I have to say, this definitely takes the cake in terms of the weirdest mail I have ever received.

Off to see the Emperor

2006-01-02T23:16:00.000+09:00

Today we met up with Yosuke to go and see the Emperor give his New Year's address and hit some museums. All the museums in Ueno were free to enter today, so it was a great chance to go and check out some of the ones we had never been to before.

We started off early and hit Bic Camera on the way to the Imperial Palace so I could buy a tripod. I found a really good deal - I got 71% off! Of course it started to pour rain, so so much for my idea of using it to take pics of the Emperor that weren't fuzzy.

As in previous years, we just walked right in. There is a bit of a line-up to go through when they pat you down and check your bags, but airport security in the US is tighter so it didn't take too long. We actually timed it really well because we only had to wait about 7 minutes once we were in the viewing area.

When the Emperor and Empress and Princes arrived everyone waved their Japanese flags. A lot of people didn't put their umbrellas down, which Hiroshi said was really bad manners. I managed to get some good pictures, but you can see the raindrops falling down!

As usual the audience was about 30% foreigners, which the Japanese always find a bit shocking. Probably because we all hang out in Tokyo during the holidays instead of heading back to our hometowns as the Japanese do. It seemed like there were a heck of a lot more people this year when everyone was rushing towards the gates to get out - but that may have been the umbrellas. It seemed like last time I was there the walk out was much more leisurely though.

After that we spent over an hour trying to find a coffee shop where we could get something hot and dry out a bit. Eventually I just suggested we head up to Ueno near the museums because I was not happy and walking around in the rain was less than fun.

We found a place to grab some lunch in Ueno and sat in there and warmed up... our bodies and our moods. Of course, by the time we got to the museum area it was mid-afternoon so we didn't get to see much. We did wander around for a bit though and I was happy to see the decorated Japanese panels, which are my favourite.

After that we headed back to Shinagawa for Outback Steakhouse, but before dinner we decided to go to the new aquarium. It is actually pretty good. We saw the dolphin show, which was so-so, and the seal show, which was funny, and the penguin feeding, which was very educational. The feeder explained a lot about the penguins and how they were different from each other while throwing fish to them.

There was a big tunnel where the sharks and rays were swimming. Since it was late at night, barely anyone was there, so we had the tunnel practically to ourselves. It was cool to see a big ray swim over top of you. In this tank there were also some sawfish wich were also cool.

After the aquarium we just wandered over to Outback and had a huge dinner. We were stuffed! We got Hiroshi some ice cream for his birthday - I was nice and declined the singing. I figured he wouldn't be too into that. And then we all waddled home for bed beacuse we tired from walking around all day!

Happy New Year!

2006-01-01T23:29:00.000+09:00

Today is osechi ryouri day... or New Year's food day. We bought a whole bunch of stuff at the grocery store yesterday and now have a feast of special foods. You can see all the food here, but here is one shot of the main box:

If you click on individual pictures at the link above, there is an explanation of what everything is.

I basically hung out in my pyjamas all day - it was heavenly! In the evening, Hiroshi's friend Yosuke decided to come over, so I had to do a mad dash to get showered and dressed before he arrived. Then we all just sat around eating osechi and watching this super athlete show. I forget what it is called, but basically there are a bunch of strength, speed and agility competitions. In one of the competitions they jump over a gymnastic horse (I think that is what it is called) that increases in height - they get as high as 3m!

So that was my New Year's day - spent perfectly by relaxing all day!

Last day of 2005

2005-12-31T23:56:00.000+09:00

I can't believe 2005 is almost over. This year has just flown by. I went to the store earlier to pick up some special food for tomorrow (called osechi). On the way to the supermarket, I didn't see anybody - Tokyo is empty! It is weird. Of course once I got to the store, I found out where they all were ... inside shopping! It was nuts. The stores all close for a few days so I guess everyone was stocking up.

We bought a bunch of different New Year's foods to eat tomorrow. I also picked up some tempura (lightly fried things) to put in our soba tonight. Soba (buckwheat noodles) are eaten in Japan on New Year's Eve. The tempura was basically a bunch of veggies formed into a circle - a common soba topping.

After getting all the groceries home I cooked up the soba. We also had some sashimi - the tuna we bought was delicious, although it didn't look that nice. I have never cut sashimi (raw fish) before (you buy it in a block). I understand why many people do it when it is frozen now. Tuna is very mushy, and just by holding it, you squash it. So my pieces didn't look that nice. Oh well, they tasted good!

Then we watched K1 fighting on tv. Not that exciting. I actually fell asleep. Apparently this is one of the most popular ways to pass the New Year in Japan (watching K1 not sleeping). We had planned on going to Milenario, a big light display up at Tokyo station, but the lights were on from 12 - 3 am, and we just couldn't bring ourselves to go out in the cold at that hour. So our New Year's was very uneventful!

Good bye 2005!

Phew!

2005-12-29T22:07:00.000+09:00

After spending more that 20 hours finding and restoring data, it looks like I have got most of my pictures back. What a total pain. Unfortunately I lost about 10 Kyoto pics. I also lost a bunch of emails and probably some other data that I haven't thought about *sigh* Serves me right for not doing a backup in a while. I should have backed up immediately after uploading my pictures. Lessons learned:
1. Never buy a Logitech drive - they are complete pieces of garbage
2. Back up your data more than once every couple of weeks

So everyone, go and backup all your files now. Trust me, it will save you hours of frustration in the future.

Stupid computer!

2005-12-28T22:00:00.000+09:00

Argh! My computer died today. I'm so ticked. I hate my harddrive (this being the harddrive that has been replaced three times). I'm not sure exactly what happened but I had a binary tree error - whatever that is. All I know is that all my data disappeared. Luckily the drive is readable through some disk recovery programs. Disk Warrior can't fix it unfortuantely - that has worked in the past when I have had performance problems or glitches.

Luckily I found another program which does seem to work. Of course it costs a hundred bucks. It appears that Data Rescue is able to find all my lost files. I just have to manually find them and restore them. What a pain in the ass. This wouldn't be such a problem except for the fact that all my Kyoto pics were on that drive... and I haven't had a chance to back them up yet. I am not happy right now. If I don't get my Kyoto pics back I'll die.

It is almost the holidays!

2005-12-27T21:58:00.000+09:00

Tomorrow is my last "official" day of work. Of course, I'm a work-a-holic so I am not done for the year quite yet - I work all day Thursday and a bit on Friday. I am looking forward to some days off though. It will be nice to laze around and do nothing! I'll have five days to sleep in and rejuvenate. Can't wait!

Flickr photos

2005-12-26T21:55:00.000+09:00

I've been playing around with the Flickr site (link to my photos under "Links" on the right) and looking at other people's photos and am amazed at the quality for some of them. They must be professionals in a lot of cases, because the pictures are great. I put all my photos up unedited - there is no Photoshopping, no cropping, nothing. It just takes too much time to adjust all the pics I upload. Even if it is just balancing the colour. However, looking at all the great photos at Flickr I am almost embarrassed into doing it next time!

Kyoto Day 3

2005-12-25T23:11:00.000+09:00

Merry Christmas! It doesn't feel like Christmas here because we are running around sightseeing, and other than a tree in the lobby flanked by a huge floral arrangement, there aren't many xmas decorations.

We slept in a little bit this morning and decided to eat snacks that we had bought for breakfast with some green tea. Then we packed everything up and were off to do our final bit of sightseeing. We left our luggage at the hotel and went across the road to Nijo Castle.

There are actually two castles on the grounds. The main one unfortunately didn't allow photography inside. We took our shoes off and walked in and experienced the nightengale floor. It was built so that it squeaks when someone walks on it, thus alerting people to any intruders. The squeak was really pretty actually and not irritating in the least. It really did sound like birds. Inside there was room after room after room - all with tatami mats. Most of them had golden sliding doors painted with birds or pine trees or whatever. They were simply gorgeous, and I really, really wish photos had been allowed. I would die to have some of them in my house.

After walking through the main castle area we went outside and walked through the garden area. There were lots of pine trees on the grounds. Then we walked into another area that had another castle, but we couldn't go in that one either. From there we walked out over the bridge across the moat and wandered back to the entrance. I was surprised how big the castle grounds were - it took us twenty minutes walking along the moat to get back to the entrance area. (You can see lots of castle photos here)

From the castle we went back to Kiyomizudera temple - not to see the temple itself, but to find Sannenzaka and Ninenzaka which are two streets lined with old Japanese houses which have souvenir shops and stuff. We finally found them down a little sidestreet - no wonder we missed them the first time when it was dark.

At the end of the slopes (zaka means slope or hill in Japanese) we found a little shop that sells laquerware. It was just beautiful and was surprisingly inexpensive. We ended up getting miso bowls and some chopstick with stands as souvenirs. On the way out I saw this absolutely beautiful plate though... and we went back to the cashier and bought two of them two. The plates are just beautiful, and while we will use the soup bowls and chopsticks regularly, I'm going to save those for special occasions. (You can see more pictures of this area here)

After that it was time to go back to the hotel and get our luggage and make our way to the train station to get the shinkansen (bullet train back). Our timing was good because the shuttle to the station came shortly after we picked up our luggage. We had just enough time to buy souvenirs for people back in Tokyo (namely my students) before catching the train. There were no major events on the way home - in fact, both of us fell asleep.

Then as soon as we got home we unpacked all the stuff and pretty much went right to bed. It was a great weekend but tiring! I'm glad that I have finally made it to Kyoto - I've been in Japan long enough! I got to see everything I wanted to as well. There was one thing I would like to see if I ever go back, but it wasn't on my list for this trip. Oh, and if we ever do go back, we are going to go and get some more laquerware from that shop. We are kicking ourselves for not getting 4 of each!

Kyoto Day 2

2005-12-24T23:16:00.000+09:00

We woke up this morning relatively early considering it is Saturday. The hotel is sooo dry - even with the humidifier in the room going full blast all night long, it still hasn't gone over 30% humidity (the minimum setting). The shower felt wonderful this morning - just because it hydrated my nasal passages again.

Anyway, we went downstairs and had breakfast in the cheapest restaurant in the hotel. It was something like 2000 yen a person for breakfast. Yes, that was the cheap one! It was a buffet and they had bacaon and eggs and other stuff. It was ok - not worth 2000 yen though. We both read the paper over our coffees and finally headed out for sightseeing around 11.

Our first stop was Ryoanji, which is the temple that has the most famous zen garden in Japan. There is a huge pond at the temple that has a whole bunch of ducks. Apparently the temple used to be called mandarin duck temple because of all the ducks that visited. It was cold out so the pond was just starting to freeze. We walked along the walkway up to the main temple area, but took a quick detour over a stone bridge out to a small temple on an island in the middle of the lake.

Unfortunately, the wall surrounding the rock garden is under construction, so there is a big white tarpaulin all around the gardin. It kind of distracts from the view. The temple opened another garden that is normally closed though for people to see. The rock garden was pretty much deserted - there were only two other couples there other than us. It was perfect for viewing! While we were looking at the garden, it started to snow and it was sooo peaceful. We sat on the wood balcony of the temple, which had gorgeously painted sliding doors and tatami floors and just contemplated the garden.

After view the garden, we walked through the rest of the complex. Suddenly I saw a white stupa and I was thinking it looked rather Burmese, and low and behold it was. The Burmese had donated it in memorial for all the Japanese who had died during WWII. This was just outside the garden that was specially open during the renovations. The garden wasn't all that exciting - probably looks much better in spring or fall - but it did have good balance with trees and open space. After seeing the garden we walked around the rest of the pond. We saw some more ducks and the lake was starting to freeze up - it was really interesting because it was forming all these circular designs as it froze. (To see pictures of ducks and other parts of the temple, go here)

From Ryoanji we went to Kinkakuji, called the Golden Pavillion in English. We just hopped on the bus and went two stops... and suddenly all the tourists we had excpected at the other temple surrounded us. We walked into the temple entrance, and as we did so, the sun came out. It couldn't have been better timing. We turned around a corner, and BAM there was the Golden Pavillion shining as the sunshine hit it. It was beautiful!

I had seen pictures of it before, but my jaw still dropped. The grounds themselves are also laid out perfectly because it was really easy to take pictures of the temple without getting any people in the photo.

We walked around in awe (and enjoyed the warmth the sun gave!) and took a bunch of photos. I suddenly saw something sitting out on some rocks in the pond surrounding the temple. At first I thought it was a bird, but then though maybe I was seeing things. As it turns out, I was right. There was a beautiful heron standing on one of the rocks... and we were the only people who noticed it!

We followed the path up a bit of a hill which overlooked the temple, and there was a small pond and then further along a tea house and a shrine. We got our fortunes at the shrine. Mine was only so-so. We just tied them onto a piece of string with all the others (you leave it for the gods to take care of your fortune).

All in all, Kinkakuji is an excellent site. It wasn't that expensive admission wise, and it is really well designed. I would definitely recommend seeing it if you have the chance. (To see more photos of Kinkakuji, click here)

From Kinkakuji we hopped on the bus again to Daitokuji which is actually a series of temples in one complex. One of my students had recommended a restaurant here (he is a Kyoto native) that serves shoujin ryori, which is vegetarian temple food. We found the restaurant just outside the temple and were really disappointed to see that it was closed - especially since we had made the trip specifically for that. Since we were already there, we decided to go inside the temple area anyway... and it was free too. Well, lucky thing we did! There is another branch of the restaurant inside and it was open!

The restaurant is called Izusen and the food was amazing! Also much cheaper than last night's kaiseki LOL All of the dishes are served in laquer bowls and presented beautifully. The first course was matcha (tea ceremony tea - thicker than normal green tea) and warabimochi which is a rice dough covered in a flavoured powder. This was followed by plum wine, stewed daikon (Japanese radish) and a vegetable in a creamy tofu sauce. The third course was my favourite - there was a tempura (lightly battered and fried) plum that was soooo delicious. Plums in Japan are usually pickled so they are salty and sour, but this one was very sweet. Yummy! There was also a slice of lotus root, a carved root vegetable (I forget what it was!), mochi (rice dough) on a stick and a small dish of stewed mushrooms.

The fourth course was a piece of vegetable sushi and a soup which had turnip, greens, carrot and tofu. The fifth course was sesami tofu and tofu sashimi (raw tofu). It came with some wasabi set on top of a piece of cucumber and it was hot! The sixth course was mountain pototo, yuba (tofu skin), tofu ball, a mochi flower and snap peas. This was followed by rice with burdock in it and some pickles.

By this time we were already stuffed, but there was more! The eighth course was soup. It had a lovely yuzu (citrus) smell and had broccoli, tofu and a shiitake mushroom in it. The ninth course was tempura - it was beautiful. There was okra, mushroom and I think tofu (I forget and can't tell in the picture - too many things to remember!).

Finally, the tenth course came and it was dessert! It was green tea babaloa (not exactly Japanese) with small bits of orange sherbert and a sector of very sweet orange. We were sooo full afterwards! The food was amazing and all that food was only a few thousand yen each. (You can see pictures of all the courses here)

After eating all of this we waddled through the temple complex and saw two more zen gardens. The first was quite interesting because the temple actually had two gardens. The temple was founded by a man who was originally Buddhist but converted to Christianity later in life. As such, the temple has two gardens - one traditionally zen and one that is zen but the rocks are in the formation of a cross. The zen garden was really neat because the pebbles were raked to look like waves.

After viewing this garden, we saw one more within Daitokuji. The temple actually had several gardens in it - the smallest zen garden as well as a garden showing male/female, positive/negative, etc. in addition to the main large one. It was really interesting to see how the pebbles had been raked underneath the balconies into designs. Great attention to detail! This was my second favourite garden of the day (after Ryoanji). I think I liked this one better than the previous one with a wave-like pattern because these were more geometric in design. Ryoanji just had an incredible peacefulness about it and it seemed to cause internal balance - it was really weird how relaxing and calming it was. So Ryoanji was my favourite overall, but this garden had great patterns in it.

After seeing all of the gardens there were still more temples to see, but we decided to leave and go to another area of town. (You can see all the Daitokuji pics here) Actually, Hiroshi wanted to go home and take a nap, but I had more things I wanted to see, so I dragged him out to Ginkakuji

Ginkakuji is the Silver Pavillion. It was more expensive to enter than the Golden Pavillion, and I walked inside, looked and said "This is crap". Unlike the Golden Pavillion, the Silver Pavillion is not covered in silver leaf. It has two unusual mounds of sand that reflect moonlight, but the gardens and the mounds had been marred by a bird hopping through them and destroying their perfection. (You can see the mounds and more photos here) Hirohsi dragged me up this huge hill, which I wasn't thrilled about, but at the top we at least had a decent view of the temple where I could appreciate the architectural beauty of the building. It still doesn't stand up to the Golden Pavillion though.

By the time we finished walking through the Silver Pavillion it was dusk, so we headed out to Gion in search of Geisha. It took us a while to find "Gion" in the sense of old buildings because the main strip is a modern shopping arcade. We eventually wandered down a side street and found the old buildings, along with a tea shop where we drank more matcha and had some Japanese sweets. It was nice to just warm up! (You can see Gion photos here)

After tea we walked past the kabuki theater and then crossed the river and walked down a street called Pontocho... which was rumoured to be a good place to find Geisha, but we didn't see any. So we froze looking for them and never found any. Oh well. At this point we were so cold, we just wandered on back to the hotel. It was back to the cheapest of the expensive restaurants for dinner again - they had a Christmas buffet on. Actually the buffet wasn't bad, but there were so many screaming children who were all running around, it totally ruined it. Oh well. We went back to the room and drank some champagne and looked at the lights of the castle out our window and had a nice relaxing end to a very long day.

Kyoto Day 1

2005-12-23T20:22:00.000+09:00

We got up really early this morning to catch the train to Kyoto. It was really hard to get up - Hiroshi had server trouble and didn't get home until after midnight last night and by the time we got to bed, we only had about 2 hours sleep. Seeing as we normally argue whenever we go somewhere, leaving on 2 hours sleep basically ensured that it would happen again. So the start to the trip wasn't that great. In addition to being snappy at each other, it took forever to get a cab to the station (we had a big suitcase) which meant we were pushing it for getting there on time. We arrived about 5 minutes before the train left though, so all was good.

We got settled on the train and managed to stow our suitcase behind the last row of seats in the train (there is no space for luggage really). Even though the train left before 6 am, it was packed - we weren't able to get seats together. This actually worked out well because we were both mad at each other... so we could sleep and wake up in better moods LOL I didn't sleep so much on the train though. Since it is winter, visibility is quite good and Mt. Fuji is easy to see. We had a great view from the train and I was able to take several pictures. (See more pictures of Mt. Fuji here)

We made it to Nagoya and suddenly things got snowy! It was the first time (other than going to Nagano several years ago) that I have seen snow on the ground in Japan. But then things started to get even snowier... and in fact the train ran into a snow storm. Later we learned that the storm dumped 2 meters overnight in some areas. Since we were the first train of the day, our train went really slowly. I imagine because the tracks weren't clear and hitting a hidden obstacle on the tracks over a hundred km / hour would probably have derailed us. Anyway, it ended up taking an extra hour to get to Kyoto (normally it is just over 3 hours). This is quite unusual in Japan - the trains are never late, and especially not by that much. The snow did finally give me a bit of a Christmas feeling though. This is what it looked like out the window of the train. (For more snowstorm pics, look here)

Once we arrived at Kyoto station, we made our way down to steet level to get our shuttle bus to the hotel. Our timing was perfect because we got it just before it left, so we didn't have to stand around waiting. Surprisingly, there was very little snow in Kyoto, but it was cold outside compared to Tokyo. We arrived at the hotel shortly after and I tried to check in early, but we had to wait until 1. It was just after 11, so we decided to just have lunch at the hotel and lounge around in the lobby instead of going anywhere. We were able to stash our luggage with the concierge though for later.

We hit one of the restaurants for an overpriced lunch and took our time eating and relaxing... and drinking some coffee to wake up. The lunch wasn't that good, but the restaurant had a nice view of a waterfall through some large glass windows. After we finished eating, we hung out in the lobby for about 30 minutes and then checked in. They just gave us the key and took us upstairs - someone had already brought up our luggage from earlier.

The hotel we are staying at is the Zenniku Hotel, which is also known as the ANA Hotel, and is located directly across from Nijo castle. We were totally surprised to get a room facing the castle - when we booked, the travel agent said it was unlikely. So that was a nice surprise. The hotel is supposed to be a four-star hotel, but while the restaurants charge 4 or 5 star prices, it is not a 4 star hotel. The hotel only has like 3 double rooms in the whole hotel - meaning we got two single beds. Kind of kills the romantacism of a weekend away. I had brought my workout clothes to go to the gym, but you had to pay $15 a time to go! I think not. Oh well - the beds were comfortable, the bathroom had excellent amenities (lots of little samples of herbal shampoos and stuff), and we had a good view so nothing to complain about really.

As soon as we got settled Hiroshi decided he needed a "little" nap. This turned into a 2-hour nap. So much for a day of sightseeing LOL He did eventually get up and going and we headed out to Kiyomizudera temple, which is on the east side of town. It turned out to be a great time to go because we got to see the sunset with a great view of Kyoto.

Kiyomizudera is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is built into the side of a hill, so the main temple has a series of wood supports (like scaffolding) to hold up decks overlooking the city. There is a spring at the temple which has very pure water. After watching the sunset we went and made our way through the queue to drink some. There were cups attached to long sticks that you held out into water falling from a spout above you into a pool below. After drinking, you returned the cup to a sanitizer and moved on. For me, the water just tasted like metal cup unfortunately. (For more pictures of Kiyomizudera go here)

After walking through the temple compound we walked down the roadway to the temple and checked out all the souvenir and snack shops. As we were going out to dinner, we couldn't sample too many of the snacks, but it was interesting to see them. Then we walked down a big hill, that I thought was in the general direction of an old cobbled street called Sannenzaka, but we got totally turned around. We were supposed to come out near Gion, but ended up a 20 minute walk away from it. There wasn't enough time to go to Gion and make it to dinner on time though, so unfortunately, my quest to get a picture of a geisha was foiled.

We ended up just hopping in a taxi and going to the restaurant. The restaurant is called Hyotei and specializes in kaiseki which is gourmet Japanese food. It is a series of dishes prepared with the best ingredients and served with beautiful presentation. Kaiseki is extremely expensive - this was a once in a lifetime meal for us - so this was our Christmas present to each other.

We pulled up in the cab very early (not good) but a kimono-clad women came rushing out to open the door and to take us to our private tea hut. We walked along a pathway with beautiful gardens and enterred into our room. It was small, but for two people, you don't need a big space. It was decorated like a typical tea house with shoji (paper doors), an alcove with a scroll and seasonal flower arrangement and tatami floors. One thing I didn't think about when making the reservation was that it is cold! They had set up a heater in the room, so we were soon warm, but we couldn't open the shoji to look out on the garden (except for a quick second to take a picture). Seeing as it was dark out, we also couldn't see the garden very well - so my recommendation is go in spring or fall when the weather is comfortable and make a reservation during daylight hours so you can appreciate the garden while you eat. Despite not thinking about these two things, the experience was still great. I have never eaten in a private room before.

We got all settled and our server came in and took our drink order. We got shochu made from potato (you can get shochu made from different things - shochu is just a kind of Japanese liquor). It actually had a cool name - Dream Watcher. I'm not a big fan of shochu, but I can't handle sake (I get sick) and beer seemed a bit low-class for the occassion. The shochu actually grew on me as I continued drinking it though.

Anyway, our server left and we got up and took a bunch of pictures before she came back. It was kind of funny because we were peaking out the windows spying on a group walking by and trying to take pictures of the garden without letting in too much cold air... all the while at the ready to jump back to our places and look like we weren't doing anything. When our server came back with our drinks, she brought our first course which was tai (snapper) sashimi and a kind of herb with crushed pine nuts. The tai was so good - it was nice and firm and fresh.

Our next course was a white miso (unusual) soup with daikon (Japanese radish). This was followed by a mixed plate of appetizer like things.

It had some fish pates, which were really good, and two pieces of sushi. The sushi had a green garnish on top and was then wrapped in a thin film of something so that they didn't fall off. The presentation and attention to detail were amazing. There was also a soft boiled egg. Apparently when the restaurant first opened, eggs were served raw and they were the first to serve them cooked, so they are considered a specialty of the restaurant.

The fourth course was a soup with a few pieces of duck, mountain potato and spinach with yuzu (a citrus fruit) garnish. The yuzu on the potato was delicious. This dish had a great balance of flavours. This was followed by a piece of fish that had an incredibly shiny glaze on it and a piece of turnip carved to look like a flower.

The sixth course was another soup. It had turnip, a bit of carrot and what we though was a fish ball, but it turned out to be quail. This course came with rice and pickles, as well as a pot of tea.

At this point we were starting to get full, but it was time for the first dessert - fruit. We had two slices of pear that had such intense flavour, absolutely delicious. In addition to the pear there were a couple strawberries, and a black bean and some clear jelly as garnish. This would have been enough, but there was one more dessert, the traditional Japanese one. Our server brought in cups of macha (tea ceremony green tea) with a rice and bean dessert. The dessert was a little ball made to look like a snowball - it was amazing. The macha wasn't bitter like I have had before, and I enjoyed it. It prefectly matched the sweetness of the bean paste in the dessert.

And that was the end of the meal. We were totally stuffed! I was surprised because I had read some reviews where people said they were still hungry afterwards. I'm not sure how they could be - there was tons of food. After dinner we just relaxed and drank some tea and enjoyed the ambiance. Our server ordered a taxi for us and then took some pictures of us together (none of which turned out well, so you don't get to see them). When the taxi came, we were escorted through the gardens and got the bowing sendoff.

Overall it was a really nice meal, and everything was presented beautifully and the service was perfect. Eating in a private room was a great experience, as was having a private server. It was a lovely way to start our trip in Kyoto. (You can see pictures of all the courses here)

So that was our first day. We didn't do too much, but it was a great start to our weekend away. Just a couple more things to mention for this entry - one of the first things I noticed in Kyoto is how wide the streets are. It is also a planned city, meaning the streets are parallel and perpendicular to each other. This makes figuring out where you are so much easier. Secondly, I had a horrible time understanding anyone. The dialect is quite different, so even when people repeated things a couple times, I still couldn't get it. I suppose I was surprised that the language was that different.

I can see you

2005-12-22T23:25:00.000+09:00

I found this neat tool that uses Google maps to track where my readers are. If you click on the "Visitor Map via Google" link under the Links section (to the right) you will see a map of the last 20 visitors to my site. I am actually really surprised at where all the hits are coming from.

One little anomaly I found interesting - Windsor, my home town, is actually pinpointed in downtown Detroit. Mom and Dad, guess that means your server isn't even in Canada!

Washing Machine Repair Day

2005-12-21T23:44:00.000+09:00

The guy came to fix our washing machine today. Actually, it is the dryer part that was broken. There is grit or something in our water (due to the water tank on the top of the building - this is apparently a problem in only 2 areas in Tokyo... mine and the district next to me) which destroys one of the valves. The machine still works, but it just takes forever to dry anything... and since it runs on electricity, the electricity bill over a year will probably be much more than the 10,000 it costs to fix it.

I was a bit worried because I was going to be home by myself and my Japanese is not at the "deal with technicians / repair people and discuss problems" level. The repairman ended up being the same guy that came last time though, so I was relieved - I'm sure he remembered I don't speak much Japanese.

After he finished fixing the machine I offered him tea (as is custom in Japan) and we sat down to chat. This of course is the stressful part for me. After struggling to explain something for a bit, he said it was ok to say it in English. Turns out he speaks near perfect English. DOH! It is just as well that I was forced to try to communicate in Japanese, but why didn't he make it known that he could speak English earlier?? At least we were able to have a real conversation instead of a jolted attempt at communication. So after chatting for about 10 minutes, he was on his way, and my dryer now works in half the time.

My Christmas Tree

2005-12-20T23:40:00.000+09:00

When I was getting out my xmas table centerpiece, I found some xmas decorations... so I have a tree. Albeit a very, very tiny one! So this is the extent of my xmas decorating this year.

Recipe: Baked Butternut Squash

2005-12-19T23:35:00.000+09:00

This is the recipe for the squash I made for my x-mas dinner. It was really sweet and delicious. The recipe serves 8.

1. Split butternut squash and de-seed. Put in glass pan with 1/4 inch water, double cover with saran and microwave for 20 minutes. It is done when it is fork tender.

2. Drain and cool. Scrape off skin.

3. Mash with 1/4 lb of butter and salt and cinnamon to taste. Put in buttered oven dish.

4. Drizzle with a bit of melted butter (I skipped this) and sprinkle with brown sugar or maple syrup (I used maple syrup and it doesn't need much at all - it is naturally sweet).

5. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes until crust forms.

My first Christmas dinner

2005-12-18T23:27:00.000+09:00

So today was the big day - my first Christmas dinner ever! I woke up at 8 am and started cooking. First on the agenda was the pies. Now, the instant pie crust turned out really well. It was so easy... and it tasted much better than the frozen ones anyway. Which makes me wonder why I spent so much darn time wandering around! I made two pies - the first one I had the oven set on the wrong setting (no heat from the bottom) so it turned out a bit funny - wet crust - but the second one turned out absolutely perfect!

Then it was time to do up the potatos and squash. Yes the 900 yen squash. I made up both of them and set them aside to be baked later. Figured they could cook while the turkey was setting.

I should point out that I completely understand why my mom was always tired at Thanksgiving and Christmas - cooking is hard work! And do you know how many time I had to do dishes today?

Ok, everything was moving along, the turkey was being defrosted in the sink, and timing was ok. I made up the stuffing and stuffed the bird. At first I put cheese cloth in the bird because then you can just pull out the stuffing... but it took up so much real estate inside the bird, that it cut down the amount of stuffing I could stuff in by about 50%. So that came out. Stuffing tastes good, so I want as much as possible! I wasn't sure about the stuffing because it was the first time I had made it, and didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. Anyway, here is my turkey inside the oven, with a meat thermometer in the cavity (stuffing) to make sure no one got food poisoning.

So, turkey in oven, it was time to start doing up the hors d'oeuvres. I defrosted the shrimp, arranged the cheese and crackers and did up the prosciutto. Hurray! Finally, it is time to sit down. Just in time for company to arrive. Hiroshi's friend Masaaki came around 6. His other friend Yosuke was due around 7 and the turkey was supposed to be finished at 7:30ish. So things were good.

We sat around and caught up with Masaaki (haven't seen him in ages) and ate the hors d'oeuvres. The jumbo shrimp wasn't so great - I am disappointed. It wasn't very sweet. The proscuitto was delicious though and the cheese was good too. (How can cheese not be good?).

Around 6:30 I went to check the turkey and noticed it wasn't putting out many drippings. My roasting pan was essentially clean on the bottom. Actually, I really went to smell the space between the door and the oven so I could get a good waft of turkey smell! I decided to turn the turkey around because I figured the glass door side of my oven might mean the turkey wouldn't cook evenly (and I could smell it more if I opened the door). Well, the little red pop-up thing was up! My turkey was done! Holy cow! This was not good. Glad I decided to turn it around because otherwise I would have over done it. Here I was, all worried about undercooking the turkey... and I almost over cooked it! According to the 30 minutes per lb rule and all the websites I looked at, my turkey should have taken 4 and a half hours to cook. It was done in only 3!

This of course created great panic. I checked the stuffing thermometer and it was at the right temperature too, so the turkey was ready to come out of the oven... but Yosuke wasn't due for another half an hour! So I kept it in the oven on low and then began to panic because the great timing for the day was now off.

Yosuke came and I whipped the turkey out of the oven and threw the potatos and squash in to cook. Then I had to make up the gravy and the salad... only I didn't have anywhere to do this because people were sitting at the table, and the turkey was sitting on the only counter space that I have. Oh, and I couldn't do the gravy right away because I couldn't transfer the turkey until it had cooled enough. Help! I didn't think about available counter space when I planned out when to cook things! Hiroshi thankfully pulled out the table we have in the entrance to our apartment and wiped it off for me to use. Then I put him to work as the gravy stirrer. Of course he was completely tanked at this point, and getting a drunk person to stir gravy isn't a good idea because I think he was trying to slop more of it out of the pan than mix and thicken.

Anyway, everything eventually got on the table, and was still hot too. Phew! I finally got to use the Christmas centerpiece that I have been saving for six years (I'm not joking, my mom sent it to me my first Christmas in Japan, and I have never lit the candles in it). Everything looked good and my only regret was not having nice dishes (those special dishes come in handy if you are having a dinner party!).

Everybody ate and ate and ate. Boys like turkey. Everything turned out edible so I was happy and overall had a successful Christmas dinner :) So here's the run-down on the food:

Turkey - turned out great, but the bird wasn't that good. A lot of gristly, fatty stuff that you couldn't eat, so not much meat on the bird at all. The breast meat was good though.

Potatos - a big hit! Sour cream in Japan is like fancy restaurant thick stuff so they were a lot more sour than what my mom (Barb) makes. The guys absolutely loved them though and had third helpings.

Squash - this turned out great! It was so sweet! I just put a bit of maple syrup on top, but the squash itself tasted like it had been sweetened. I'll definitely make this again. I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

Stuffing - I don't think I put enough liquid in it because it didn't stick together very well. The bread was starting to go to mush though when I was making it so I stopped adding water... guess it could have used a bit more. Still edible and tasty though!

Gravy - didn't have much fat on the turkey, but I used the broth from boiling the giblets for my gravy. It was really tasty too. Hiroshi wants to know why it wasn't dark like my mom's though. Not sure which mom he is referring to and why my gravy was so pale. It tasted good though.

Ceasar Salad - the olive oil I bought wasn't very good so it gave the dressing a waxy taste. Mom (Rose) makes this best and mine sucked in comparison. The only thing I was disappointed with.

So here is a picture of the table before we started eating - with Masaaki, Yosuke and Hiroshi.

And this is what the table looked like post-feast. You can see the turkey carnage and the picture is a bit blurry because, well, we had all been drinking.

Of course, the menu review wouldn't be complete without dessert...
Pumpkin Pie - awesome. I even whipped up some real whip cream. It was heavenly. And I even have a picture to make you salivate in preparation for your own x-mas feast.

So that was dinner. It turned out great considering how worried I was! (Lisa, all those pics were for you!) Now I have to do all the dishes .... again! Isn't there something about the cook not having to do the dishes? Unfortunately Hiroshi is passed out from either alcohol or turkey sleeping chemical... or both... so I think it is up to me. Maybe I can reward myself with another piece of pumpkin pie...

The quest for pie crust and my prosciutto deja vu

2005-12-17T23:39:00.000+09:00

Tonight after work I ran around trying to find frozen pie crusts. I have come to the conclusion that people must not make pies in Japan because no one had pie crusts ... and I looked at every shop I knew over the course of 3 hours. I eventually just gave up and bought instant pie crust mix. I didn't really want to roll it out because I don't really have space to do it, but I don't have any other options at this point.

At one point in this search across Tokyo I even went into Dean & Deluca on the off chance that they had something - unlikely, yes, but I was desperate. They didn't have pie crust... but they did have prosciutto. So, a quick digression here before carrying on...

A few weeks ago I had this really weird dream. I was shopping for all kinds of things because I was putting on a big dinner, and I happened to be in a specialty store buying crusty bread, cheese, olives, etc. I was at the counter talking to the clerk and noticed the prosciutto... and was talked into buying some. Not wanting to skimp on the ham and appear cheap, I made sure that I had enough for everyone and ended up with a package of ham costing something like $50 ... on top of a hundred bucks of other stuff that I had bought. And I was suddenly worried and upset because the groceries cost so much and I had spent way more than my budget, but I couldn't lose face by telling the nice man at the counter that I couldn't afford the prosciutto.

Ok, so back to Dean & Deluca. I'm talking to the cheese guy about a nice cheese... and look over and see prosciutto... and get talked into buying some... and not wanting to skimp because it was Christmas dinner, I got 2 slices for each of us (8 total)... and ... it came to 2200 yen for those 8 slices. ($22 CDN). And suddenly that dream came back to me full force and freaked me out. Beacuse, what the heck was I doing spending 22 bucks on ham??!! I expected it to be expensive, but not 2200 yen worth! And of course I was too embarrassed to say, "oops, sorry!" Besides, figured it was a special thing and might as well splurge on something. I also found spices on sale while I was there, so I "saved" lots of money when I bought them ;) Anyway, I thought it was quite weird that I ended up having this prosciutto experience extremely similar to what I dreamt just a few weeks ago. (Christmas dinner edit: the proscuitto was awesome and everyone loved it - delicious!)

So, in my three hour quest for pie crust, I ended up with a bunch of cheese, some special crackers, 22 bucks worth or proscuitto and instant pie mix. All this time spent shopping means that we are just cleaning off the table now (Hirohsi needed some prompting to clean his side off) and I won't be able to start cooking tonight. Yikes! This means tomorrow is going to be a day of extreme time management. Speaking of which, my turkey still seems to be rather frozen. Unless there is some miracle defrosting overnight I'm going to have to go with the water dethaw. Things are starting to get stressful...

xmas shopping extravaganza

2005-12-16T21:10:00.000+09:00

Today was shopping day for all the xmas dinner food. I went to a specific international food store called Nissin (in Azabu-Juban) because last time I was there they had acorn squash. Well, they didn't have acorn squash today. This of course creates panic because I have to have squash. After wandering around aimlessly in the produce section for several minutes I finally decided on the 900 yen butternut squash... yes, that is like 9 bucks for a squash. I have never cooked butternut squash before - and for 900 yen, it had better be one heck of a yummy super delicious variety.

Then I got to wander around trying to find frozen pie crusts. No luck. This isn't good, because I specifically went there for both of those things. No luck on the pie crusts, so hopefully I can find one somewhere else. I later went to my local grocery stores (all three of them) and none of them had frozen pie crusts either.

Next on my list was seafood sauce for the shrimp ring... and you guessed it. They didn't have that either. After wandering and wandering, it finally dawned on me I should make it myself. Just throw horseradish and ketchup together... of course this depended upon the store actually having horseradish. And, hurray, they did have horse radish. So I'm set in the seafood sauce department.

I then had fun trying to get a roasting pan for my turkey. I didn't measure my oven, or the turkey though, so this was a little difficult. There was an absolutely huge one that was for a western style oven, and would clearly not fit in mine, and a small roasting pan. The small one looked like it was too small so I was searching and searching for a medium-sized one and even got the clerk to help me, but we couldn't find any. I ended up buying the small one... and that was a good decision. The small one fits in my oven exactly - it hits the walls of the oven. The turkey also fits exactly into the pan, so we're good for the turkey roasting dishes.

Anyway, I spent several hours shopping and picking everything up. Christmas dinner is expensive. Especially when you are paying 9 bucks just for the squash. I'm looking forward to making it though. I still can't believe the squash - it was grown in Japan! My turkey only cost 2000 yen. How can one squash be the same price as half my turkey? At least I hadn't had my heart set on turnip - they were 1500 yen for a teeny, tiny small one. Yikes!

Ok, I'll get off the squash rant. The menu for dinner is going to be:
Appetizers - cheese tray, jumbo shrimp ring
Meal - turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, squash, creamy potatos, ceasar salad, rolls w/ butter, beets
Dessert - pumpkin pie with real whip cream and coffee/tea

Of course, I feel like I am missing something (probably the turnip). Not sure what else to add in to the meal though, so I guess that's it!

Turkey times

2005-12-16T12:07:00.000+09:00

Thank goodness for double checking. I decided I had better check on the defrost times again for my turkey. When I did this before, the websites all indicated it would take about 12 hours for my turkey to defrost... today... surprise! 48 hours. Seeing as I needed to put the thing in the oven less than 48 hours after I read this, I am a bit worried about my turkey not being defrosted completely. It is in the fridge now though... I might have to resort to water thawing it if it is going to slowly. Hopefully 40 hours or so will be enogh.

Thankfully, AR8 is over

2005-12-14T23:04:00.000+09:00

... and the Weavers didn't win. What a horrible season. CBS - don't do that again! Please keep the seasons interesting... and give people clues instead of directions... and give them tasks that are challenging rather than have them do things like ride a golf cart. Not much to ask I don't think.

The good news... did you see the previews for the next season? They are coming to Japan! I saw Mt. Fuji and neon. Hurray! Hopefully they haven't filmed here already... maybe I can be a Fern. (Don't understand the reference, you are not a die-hard fan).

Christmas cards!

2005-12-12T23:56:00.000+09:00

I have started to get xmas cards. The first one I got was from my sister Sherri (did you do those up at the end of November? You are fast!) more than a week ago.

On Friday I got one from my cousin Lisa... it made noises when I moved it. Now, this creates great worry for anyone on this side of the family because a certain person thinks throwing confetti into cards is great fun... of course, no one else has the same opinion. This is not great fun because you are still finding bits of the damn confetti several months later. How many people do you know that have to open their cards like their is a bomb inside? Thankfully, it was just part of the card that made that confetti-like noise.

The other interesting card I got was from my tailor. I just have to say that to be snobby. Yes, my tailor sent me a card... this would be the guy I went to in Thailand to get some suit jackets made. I thought it was pretty funny. I've never received a card from a service person before. Of course, now I'm a definite repeat customer... I mean you have to go back to the guy who sends you holiday greetings right?

mmm brownies

2005-12-11T22:54:00.000+09:00

I made Hiroshi brownies today (have I told you recently that I love my oven?). Last time we were at CostCo we got a pack of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownie mix. All I can say is yum! Unfortunately, I am supposed to be on a diet. Hiroshi has to eat these things fast.... every time I walk past them I get a whiff of chocolate yumminess and I can hardly resist scarfing down another one.

Christmas party

2005-12-09T23:40:00.000+09:00

Tonight was my office xmas party. We had it an Italian restaurant and the food was pretty good. They (the restaurant organizers) swapped out coffee and dessert for an extra 30 minutes of drinking though (open bar). I think I'd have prefered the coffee or tea - I don't drink much anymore. Of coure, that didn't stop me from partaking in...well, I lost count.

I didn't win the dinner voucher that I was hoping to get - it would have come in handy for Kyoto! I could say Cal stole it from me, but he won it fair and sqaure in the draw... especially since I won the first prize up for grabs, a 3000 yen prepaid subway card.

After dinner a bunch of us went to karaoke. I haven't been in so long, so was looking forward to it. Actually someone suggested that the party be non-smoking so no one smoked during dinner and none of the karaoke go-ers were smokers so it was a stink-free evening. It was really nice actually. Usually at parties everyone is smoking and you just reek when you get home. (Japan being smokers' heaven)

So a group of us sang until the wee hours of morning. One of the office staff lives in the same area as I do, so she, someone who was crashing at her place, and I all shared a cab home - we left karaoke well after the trains had stopped. Thank goodness I didn't book in Japanese lesson for tomorrow!

I don't know what package we got a karaoke, but it seems like it was a party deal and we ended up getting all kinds of alcohol and snacks. We originally had two rooms and some of us left to catch last train so we moved down to one room. I grabbed their snacks and alcohol to transfer it over to those of us who were staying. I threw mini-champagne bottles in my jacket pocket, grabbed the super-sized bag of Japanese snacks and grabbed the bottle of sho-chu (kind of alcohol). Well, when we got into the cab coming home, I rediscovered the champage bottles. Ooops. So I made out with 2 mini-bottles of Freixnet. I'll bring them down with us when we go to Kyoto and we can have champagne on xmas eve now.

Brain exercises for old people

2005-12-07T21:34:00.000+09:00

Seniors in Japan are apparently purchasing computers in record numbers so they can play logic puzzles. Supposedly, in an effort to keep their minds fresh, they are playing logic puzzles and just a few minutes of play a day is said to keep your mind in shape. Is this trend happening in North America too?

At the risk of being swatted, I must say that I know some nearing senior people who do play computer games and it doesn't seem to be helping ... I won't name names because then I'll be in real trouble.

Sneaky bank

2005-12-06T22:29:00.000+09:00

My GST check had the hold removed today according to the date/time stamp in my bank book... of course when I updated my book I also discovered there was a 2000 yen charge. Nice. Thank you for telling me. *rolls eyes* 2000 yen is steep. I would have sent it to Canada to be cashed if I had known - the loss on exchange wouldn't have come anywhwere near 2000 yen. Oh the joys of not being able to communicate in Japanese... otherwise I would have gone to the bank to complain about the charge. As it is, it just isn't worth it. As any foreigner in Japan knows, you just have to resign yourself to being dinged on occassion as part of being here - when you only understand 20% of any conversation, it is part of the learning process I guess.

Uneventful trip to CostCo

2005-12-04T18:00:00.000+09:00

Decided to go out to CostCo today to get xmas cards and a pumpkin pie. I figured I could freeze the pie, and that would save me a lot of time in a couple weeks when I am doing the xmas dinner thing with Hiroshi and his friend Yosuke. Well, they didn't have either one! I was able to get a turkey though - forgot to measure how big my oven is, so might have a wee problem if it is too long or high or something. Ooops. Might prove interesting. It is 9 lbs which should be good for 3 people with lots of leftovers. Yum!

We actually left really early for the first time ever. Usually we don't even arrive out there until after 3 - we had finished shopping and were getting on the train to come home at 3:30, so that was cool. I have discovered that it is less busy earlier in the day, however, you don't really notice it. This is because, while there are fewer carts, there tends to be four kids hanging off each one leaning into the aisle... or chasing each other down the aisles. Too many young kids running around. Later in the day, it just seems to be clueless oba-sans (senior women). Not sure which is worse - children with parents who don't control them, or seniors with no clue how to push a large cart who get easily distracted by low cost items. So while it gave us lots of time to do other stuff for the day, it isn't actually a better CostCo experience earlier in the morning... despite my hopes that it might be!

After CostCo we went to Ebisu, with all of our stuff mind you, to get shoes for Hiroshi. I had promised him we would get some and figured might as well get all our running around done in one shot. I also picked up my xmas postcards - yeah, postcards. I'm sending Japanese New Year's cards as xmas cards this year, because I can't afford 300-400 yen per card. (Cal informs me there are 200 yen cards, but I'm picky about what they look like, and I have never seen 200 yen cards). Since Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas, other than going to KFC and getting a bucket of chicken and eating a white shortcake (no, I'm not kidding), they don't sell cards in packs like they would in North America. CostCo has always had them in the past, so I guess I must have missed them.

Anyway, after doing all that running, we just took a cab home. Too much stuff to carry! And we were zonked! Then I partitioned up all the meat - I hate deskinning the chicken. That has to be the worst job. I would probably pay double if they sold skinned breasts. Well, no I wouldn't because I'm cheap, but I wish I could buy skinned breasts that weren't crazy expensive (like at my supermarket where they want 300 yen for one breast - I can get 2 kg of breasts at CostCo for 700 yen, so there is quite a bit of difference there). Now I'm worn out, so I should be able to go to bed early and sleep well!

Planning my first xmas dinner

2005-12-03T18:13:00.000+09:00

I have decided to make xmas dinner in a couple weeks (weekend before we go to Kyoto). This should be interesting because I have never made xmas dinner before! I have never even roasted a chicken before, let along a turkey. Everyone kind of raises their eyebrows at me when I tell them this, but it's true. My mom always made the holiday meals... and in Canada I was vegetarian. I only stopped being vegetarian when I came to Japan and it is nigh on impossible to eat that way here (they don't think fish is meat... or pork broth... or multitudes of other products comeing from things with faces). Anyway, I never had the opportunity to make meat, other than grilling some salmon on occassion. Remember how excited I was when I made a roast last month?

So, I'm all excited about turkey and stuffing and cranberry sauce... oh yum! Not to mention pumpkin pie. My oven is being put to good use! I haven't figured out what the other dishes are going to be, but really, they are much less important. I just want my apartment to smell of roasting poultry. Excuse me while I drool.

When I was in Canada in June we had xmas in June dinner and it was awesome. I hadn't had turkey in about 3 years (due to not having been home in that time, not having an oven, and there not being that many restaurants that do an xmas dinner here). Anyway, I know remember what turkey tastes like - so I have to have it! I felt jipped at Thanksgiving.

Other than the turkey dinner, I am not doing anything for the holiday. I'm pretty sure I've already mentioned I'm not even putting my tree up. Although I must say all the shops are playing music and are all decorated nicely. This is slighly counteracting the warm weather effect - namely, it doesn't feel like xmas if it is warm outside - but then I think, if I want to see a tree, I should just go and look at some of the huge ones all over the city instead of my rinky dinky 2 footer LOL.

TV roundup

2005-12-02T23:25:00.000+09:00

So it is coming to the end of the season with all my shows. Biggest Loser was great. Very inspiration and the competitors look like totally different people! Awesome! Motivates me to get my butt in gear and get to the gym more often.

Amazing Race- the Weavers epitomize everything that disturbs me about organized religion. I believe faith can be a wonderful thing, but there are too many people like the Weavers out there who are hypocritical (and I am not going to say any more) and not enough people who lead by example (my late grandfather being a perfect role-model of the later). Anyway, I don't think I have ever felt this much animosity towards people on television before, and I hope they get eliminated soon. Not that that would improve this season. I seem to remember being disappointed last season and saying I would give the show one more chance. Guess that means I should stop watching. Of course, this season is just so bad, it has to be an anomoly. So, I guess next season will be the test. Please bring back real clues ("go here" is not a clue) and real tasks.

Survivor - not that impressed still. I'll finish the season out, but I'm not sure why all my relatives rave about this show... someone please enlighten me! (ie relatives please post a comment ;) ) The show is entertaining, but it just doesn't grab me and make me wanna cheer if you know what I mean.

Lost - still awesome. Best show on tv. Love it, love it, love it. I don't catch any of the little clues that other people see, but it is still really enjoyable. I like the background into each character. Looks like there won't be any episodes for the rest of December though! Are there xmas specials on every Wednesday or something? Strange that it would go so long without a new episode.

depositing a check at the bank

2005-11-30T22:01:00.000+09:00

Today I had an interesting experience at the bank. I finally received my GST rebate check in the mail from all the shopping I did in Canada. They nicely sent me a check in Japanese yen, which is totally NOT what I wanted. Oh well, most Japanese people wouldn't want a check in Canadian funds if they had claimed a rebate, so nothing to complain about.

Anyway, originally I had planned on sending it back to Canada to be cashed, but since the check was in yen I didn't want to get burned twice on exchange. So I ran down to the bank to see if they would cash it. My previous experience with cashing a check in Japan (a society that rarely uses credit cards - it is cash only here) was that it would cost more to process the thing than the check was worth. Albeit that was a Canadian funds check drawn on a Canadian bank, whereas the GST rebate was Japanese yen drawn on a Japanese bank.

So I arrived at the bank and went up to ask someone to help me. An interesting thing about Japanese banks - there are always people standing around, whose sole job is to welcome you to the bank, help you fill out forms or help you use the ATM. Seriously. So I asked one of these people for help and that was an interesting experience involving mime because I don't know the words for deposit, bank book, check, or "can I do this?". I guess she understood though because she took my passbook and the check and went dashing upstairs. Of course upstairs is the foreign exchange desk, so I'm not sure why she went up there, but who knows.

Eventually she came running back down and raced around talking to everyone working on the main floor... clearly depositing a check is not something they do every day. Finally I guess they figured it out, and the woman came back with this huge form to fill in. After doing that I just sat down while the helper woman grabbed a number (another difference - you don't wait in line at Japanese banks, you take a number from a number dispensing machine and relax on couches until it is your turn) and then ran my stuff up to the counter when it was my turn. Several minutes later I was called up to the counter and ta-da my check had been processed. Of course they put a hold on the funds until it would clear... and they knew exactly when this would be. Instead of the deposit code in my bankbook, there was the date... and the time!... when the funds would be available. How's that for Japanese efficiency?

beautiful leaves

2005-11-28T22:07:00.000+09:00

All the cherry trees along the river near my apartment have changed colour over the past few days. They are a beautiful, rich orange colour. Apparently because it is getting so cold at night this year (despite being unseasonably warm during the day) the leaves have more vibrant colours. It feels like fall! Of course it is almost December and one would think it should feel more like winter, but I'll take fall! I like fall! Especially when I see minus temperatures back in Canada and ... the evil word... snow.

Mr. Miyagi died

2005-11-25T23:36:00.000+09:00

How sad - Pat Morita, Mr. Miyagi of 'The Karate Kid,' died. Those movies were so great - the 80s were my decade of youth, and these movies are classics. Karate Kid (and sequels), Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science, War Games, Some Kind of Wonderful ... oh, I'm getting nostalgic.

Yippee! I'm going to Kyoto

2005-11-23T23:44:00.000+09:00

Hiroshi and I decided to take a weekend trip to Kyoto for Christmas weekend. The 23rd is a holiday here, so we can go for three days. I'm so excited because despite living here for almost 7 years, I have never been there yet. I found a really good deal that has combined shinkansen (bullet train) tickets and hotel for two nights for 35,000 yen per person. This is a great deal because the shinkansen tickets alone cost 27,000 yen to and from Kyoto... and we're staying at a 4-star hotel. So that is cool. 8000 yen for two nights in a hotel is cheap by Japanese standards - usually it costs 8000 yen per night for a business hotel. So that is cool.

Getting the package booked took forever though. I figured it would take 15 minutes and that would be it. Well, today was a holiday so the travel office in our station was closed, so we had to go to Shinagawa. Then we had to wait for more than an hour to be served... and then like and hour and a half to book the tour. At least Hiroshi and I went together so we had a chance to talk with each other (been busy lately).

Part of the problem was that I had my heart set on the Westin, but it was booked on the 23rd, so we couldn't stay there. So we are staying at a different hotel - but anyone who knows me, knows I am spaz about hotels. It has to be nice and in a good location for example. And to further complicate things we wanted a non-smoking room and a double bed. For some reason, two twin beds are standard in Japan... I guess couples don't sleep together when they travel. We narrowed the hotels down to two, but neither of them had double beds or non-smoking rooms. Oh well. I wasn't going to pay another 15,000 yen each to try to find a better hotel.

Then we had to decide when to take the shinkansen... only I didn't realize that the tour is so cheap because you have to take the shinkansen during slow hours. This means before 7am, between 11 and 3 or after 8 pm. So, we're leaving at 6:30 am! That is *early*! We can sleep on the train though. Unfortunately, we have seats that are separated - there weren't any other seats available. Again, not worth the extra 15,000 yen - I'm cheap. Also, 30,000 yen will get us an awesome kaiseki dinner while we are there. I've never had it and have always wanted to, so it will be a nice birthday dinner for Hiroshi.

So, the trip is definitely something to look forward to. We haven't been on a trip together for two years... I've been jetsetting by myself recently... so it will be nice to get away. I just hope the weather isn't too cold (despite being 500 km south of Tokyo, Kyoto is in a valley and is therefore colder in winter than Tokyo is) - I want to sit outside and admire zen gardens!

Track your packages with an RSS feed

2005-11-22T22:04:00.000+09:00

If you are like me, you are superspaz about checking the tracking sites for packages that are on their way to your doorstep via UPS or whatever. Well, now, you can get updates on your package status via RSS feeds. This is an awesome idea - it means you don't have to enter your tracking number fifty million times, or go to the site fifty million times only to be disappointed that your package hasn't moved from some package depot in a city you've never heard of before. Anyway, check it out if some nice person is send you stuff or if you are treating yourself to a nice x-mas present from an online store.

Add one second this year

2005-11-21T23:59:00.000+09:00

To keep time in line with the spinning of the universe, we are supposed to add one second to this year. It is explained in detail here but unless you must have the exact time down to the second, I guess it doesn't really matter. I figure this is much easier to understand than when DST starts in North America LOL

Harry Potter movie

2005-11-20T23:18:00.000+09:00

Ok, tonight was the big night - the movie that I have been waiting for for weeks. And the rating is: so-so. The CG are awesome, and the film has a great dark feel to it. However, the characters do not have much dialogue and there doesn't really seem to be any character development. The catty 'not talking to each other directly' stuff was done for a matter of 30 seconds. There was very little angst between Ron and Hermione and I seem to remember there being quite a lot in the novel. And, even though the preview shows a very awesome stadium for the World Quidditch Cup, they don't actually show any footage of it! Which makes you wonder what exactly was the point of showing it in the first place. And when the Death Eaters show up in the first scene, well, it just seemed lacking. I think the beginning of the movie could have been a lot better.

That said, it was still enjoyable. The movie had a good feel to it. I guess they have to balance special FX, character development and story. Definitely worth a see in the theater. I think the preview over-sells you though.

talk about dedicated

2005-11-18T23:05:00.000+09:00

There is a special preview of Harry Potter at the theater near my house tomorrow. I don't know why Japan is releasing it on the 26th when the rest of the world gets it on the 19th. Anyway, I remember from the last Harry Potter movie that the first showing was totally sold out, so I figured I would make a special trip to the cinema to get my tickets early. And, as luck would have it, I snagged two seats in the center of the theater. Excellent! :)

everything is Christmas-y

2005-11-17T21:28:00.000+09:00

All the decorations are going up around the office complex around my train station. I've also seen several Christmas trees up, and the carols are in full force in shopping center ambient musak. I find it really funny that Japan does all this decorating when they don't even celebrate the holiday. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to pull out the Japanese New Year decorations? I would love to see bamboo and the paper decorations they make.

big earthquakes but not near me

2005-11-16T21:06:00.000+09:00

There were two big quakes in Japan today. There was a 7.0 one this morning in northern Japan off the coast that created small tsunami waves. I didn't feel it, even though the news said it could be felt in Tokyo. Maybe because I was walking to work at the time. There was another 6.1 quake in the Japan Sea, but didn't feel that one either. That's fine. Actually, we haven't had any quakes around Tokyo recently (knock on wood).

off to the show

2005-11-13T23:54:00.000+09:00

We went to see the movie In Her Shoes last night. We tried to use our customer card which gives us $2 off, but they had expired! That totally sucked because I had a free premium seating ticket and Hiroshi had a free Imax ticket on his, and they are expired. Oh well. We'll have to reapply next time.... like for Harry Potter next week!

The movie we saw wasn't that great. It dragged and the characters were pretty shallow. Save it for video... and only if you have nothing else you want to see.

Nov 13 - have a pillow fight in TO!

2005-11-12T22:45:00.000+09:00

This sounds like so much fun! Apparently there will be apillow fight in Toronto tomorrow. If I were in Canada, I would totally be there. Someone please go and tell me how much fun it was!

ex-Christmas tree day

2005-11-11T22:59:00.000+09:00

I noticed that my supermarket is playing Christmas music today. My basic response was, "oh, for crying out loud, it is only November". This is actually kind of funny, because November 11th has always been my Christmas tree day. Part of the reason I'm not into it, is because the weather is still nice here in Tokyo - it is hard to think about Christmas when it is still 20C outside.

The other part of it is that I just don't celebrate it any more. They don't celebrate x-mas in Japan (well, they eat shortcake and KFC traditionally - I know that's aweful) and since I am not going home or anything, you just kind of get into the groove of not celebrating. Not being overly religious, the holiday has always had a family meaning to me rather than a religious one anyway. I find it interesting though that something that is such a big part of culture in North America, is something I am not really interested in anymore. I'm just looking forward to having a few days off around the New Year.