Tim’s Ramblings

Just a short post this time. Just some additions to the food post from the other day.

Today is my last day on my own here in Tokyo, at least for this trip. I check out of the hotel tomorrow morning and head over to my parent’s place and spend the night there, then I take off for Cleveland Sunday. My luggage has already been sent ahead of me to my parent’s place via “takuhaibin” which is like a much more convenient door to door delivery service here in Japan. Even my luggage that weighs close to 50lbs. was only $15 and was there in a day. Now…my package I sent back to the US filled to the brim with books and gifts and such….well…that cost a hell of a lot more…like waaaaaaay more than 10x more… But that’s a different story…

Anyway, so today, after work, I decided to have some sushi for dinner. But I wanted a more casual relaxing meal so I headed out to an everyday kaiten zushi.

Yup. The “sushi on a conveyor belt”.

Good stuff. The fish is decent. Not top class but certainly better than…you know…most Cleveland places :) The ikura (salmon roe) is manmade (you can tell since the little orange ball inside floats in the fake ones) but of decent quality. And it’s comfortable. I had a beer, a bowl of miso soup with stock made out of tiny clams, and about 9 dishes and it all came out to a bit over $20. Not bad.

Meanwhile, on the way home, I walked by a game center and realized I never took a picture of the seasonal crane games. Here in Japan, it is the hot humid rainy season. I stress the humid… And in another month, the humidity will go away but then it will just get hot. Sizzling hot. So, to help with the heat but also make some cash too, new sets of crane games come out during this time of the year.

The Ice Cream machines.

To maximize profit, 4 can play at a time. And it’s not some crap ice cream either. Very good quality stuff. But while I was watching, not one person won one. Ha.

Meanwhile I, myself, won a cool Dragonball floor mat. Woo.

Anyway, food post. Right. The final 2 pics are once again, a very typical sight here in Japan but still cool. It’s one of 100’s of dessert stores.

Mmmmmmmmm.

They are all sold in individual sizes. The first pic shows a whole bunch of different puddings and flans as well as some jello. The second are the individual cakes, cheese cakes, and other pastries.

So. Pretty. And really good too! When you buy some, they will individualy box them for you and everything. Almost too pretty to eat. Almost.

Anyway there you go!

(^_^)

Yup. Another food post. Though this one is 100% dedicated to food. Not expensive food. Not overly unique food. Just…food. For some of you, this is new. For some it’s old news. But hey, it might be interesting to some :)

Oh, and see? It’s not just faw fish and sea weed in Japan! I know most of you readers don’t think that way but…well…some of you might…

Most pictures are behind the link below. And as usual, I will be rambling on and on and on in my typical fashion. Feel free to skip my text if you want.

So. On with the pics!

We start off this post with a shot of a typical Tonkatsu Teishoku!

A “teishoku” is basically a “set” like a dinner set or lunch set. You typically get the one main dish (okazu) and a bowl of rice. 9 times out of 10, you also get miso soup and some other small dish. In this case, above the miso soup you see some Japanese style pickled veggies and above that a small bow of grated daikon radish. It’s a nice meal and at least at this place, you can ask for more rice and the grated cabbage is also an all you can eat.

Tonkatsu, as you may have guessed from looking at the pic, is deep fried pork. Think Japanese style weiner schnitzel but with pork instead of veal and with Japanese style breadcrumbs typically called “panko” in the US. Much more coarse and crunchy. The pork is also pretty fatty compared to the lean pork you get in the US. Of course, this means the meat comes out juicy and very flavorful since, after all, pork fat IS tasty. You eat it with tonkatsu sauce which is like a a thicker slightly tangier worcestershire sauce. You can also put some Asian mustard on it too which is hot, but not like chili pepper hot but like wasabi hot. Yummy stuff.

Continue Reading »

Today was shopping day. And it was a nasty nasty day for shopping. It was hot. Actually hot is an understatement. It was f’ing hot. And humid. Ridiculously humid. And crowded (it’s Tokyo after all)… And even the buildings were all radiating heat. Blaaaaaaaaah.

So my job was to try to stay indoors as much as possible. It didn’t last long but I did get to do some shopping at the Yodobashi Camera in Akihabara. Nicely air conditioned and with tons of electronics. I don’t know what it is… But I do feel kind of nice when I am in this store surrounded by so much gadgets :)

Some of you have seen this place with me. Some of you have seen pics of this before. But once again, here are more pictures of stuff!

It’s the rows and rows and rows of…stuff. Lots of stuff.

More pics after the link!!

Continue Reading »

…and the Power Rangers and anime and manga and Yu-Gi-O and Digimon and most video games….

Yes. Japan has exported quite a bit to the US. I always joked that Pokemon and the Power Rangers were our way of taking over the US from a younger generation. Mwahahahahahahahahahaha.

But…I was wrong. The US is not going down without a fight. The US is fighting back with an export of their own!!! NOOOOOO!!!

Scary….so…so…so…scary…

But, do you think her dad makes her sing “Achey Breaky Heart”?? Because that’ll just be creepy… Like that would be taking the whole “parents reliving their prime through their kids” thing to a whole new level….

*shiver*

…for 2 totally different reasons…

Example number 1!!

Behold. The Haishasan!! Or translated, The Dentist.

Yup. You got it. A DS game where you get to be the dentist. You get trained. Then various patients come in. You have to find the cavity. Drill it. Fill it. And all the time making sure the patient doesn’t freak out. Various types of characters come in and they each have a different problem. Time to pull out the drill and get to work!!

Yeah. I don’t like the sound of the drill as it is. Do I really really really want to listen to it through headphones through a game?? Really???? Though deep down inside, being only $25…I almost bought it. Almost…

(^_^)

And now. Number 2!!!!

And I repeat. This will never make it to the US for a TOTALLY different reason.

Behold Duel Love!!

The subtitle states “A Maiden in Love is a Goddess of Victory”.

Rated 15 and over, this is one of those “only in Japan” dating sims. Though this one is directly aimed at the girls. As you can see on the cover there are various guys (yeah…those are guys…) in your school who are doing various sports including boxing, basketball, and…well…I have no idea what the hell the dude on the left does…. Anyway, you learn their traits, their likes, their dislikes, and you do what you can to help them win the big one!! Wooo!!!

Yeah…

Girls get to live out the soap opera-ish storylines to those shojo manga (comics for girls) with all the effeminate guys with big sparkling eyes and the rival girl who’s out to ruin your chances at love with the captain of the (insert sports here) team.

I know game companies in the US are trying to get the teen and tween girl’s market. Something tells me though…this won’t really fly in the US. Though in Japan, it’s pretty much accepted and it’s no big deal. In the US? I can see the conservatives going crazy. The feminists going crazy. And frankly, though I don’t know much about 15 year old girls (ok…I know very very very very very very little), I have a feeling this won’t sell anyway.

(-_-;)

Happy 4th everyone!

Mine was spent working… Woo…

But it’s ok. Not much you can do and I AM in a foreign country so…eh. Though I will have to admit…it’s about has hot and humid as some years in Cleveland. Though I wasn’t in a suit walking around with a laptop then! It’s nasty humid today. Ew…

Funny thing about the heat though. The G8 Summit is next week here in Tokyo as I have mentioned before. But I found out today on the news that for some reason, whenever the G8 is here, the spouses of the world leaders tend to bow out from coming. Even this year about 4 of them dropped out with various excuses. Looking back at who came when, it seems Japan is far from the world leader spouse’s top list…

So naturally they had the “experts” chime in on why they think that is and the popular opinion is, “it’s too hot”… Nice… Needless to say we’re a bit miffed about this… Just a bit… :/

Ha.

Anyway, besides working, I had a tasty dinner at a popular Chinese diner (rice, authentic style sweet and sour chiken, and gyoza). It’s one of those tiny places where you are crammed in at a counter and the food comes out in like 2 minutes. But damn it’s good. But damn was it HOT. Truly one of those places where, it’s good enough to sweat through the dinner :) Then blew money at the arcade where I had NO luck today…couldn’t drop a damn thing… Did some shopping (new Vampire Hunter D volume came out and I needed to get a few boxer briefs since I miscounted…oops…and a travel bag so I can take my laundry home tomorrow) and stopped by the 7-11 for snacks and a drink.

So, I will drink to the birth of the USA with a can of lemon chu-hi and peanuts and rice crackers. Mmmm.

The chu-hi is basically Japanese gin (shochu) with real lemon juice and a dash of soda. So kinda like a Zima. But tastier. I think at least. Only about 6% alcohol so it’s just a nice drink while watching TV.

The one great thing about tonight is that since it’s the 4th back in the US, I can go through the night without fear of any nasty e-mails I need to deal with! Of course it’s 7:30pm on a Friday and I am still getting e-mails from Japan like it’s the middle of the day in the middle of the week (these guys are insane…INSANE) but at least I can sleep without any anxiety. Happy about that.

Hope all of you readers in the US have a great holiday weekend and for everyone else a great weekend none the less!!!!

(^_^)

Yup. Some of you may remember one from a while back.

We’ll do it again.

Once again, it’s a shot of me in the middle of translating for a presenter at, this time, an insurance seminar. I have no idea what I was saying or when this was taken by J…

So. The person that comes up with the best caption wins something unique from Japan :D Of course the judge is me…soooo yeah. Fair? Probably not. But eh. At least I’m willing to look at my own pic and go “what the HELL was I saying??”

(^_^)

Been a while since I last posted. Why? Because this trip, as with most other trips, is kicking my sorry ass…

One thing after another after another…no time to worry about jet lag…actually, the jet lag helps since that means I get up earlier which means I get more work done during the day…which also means it’s draining me…blaaaaaaaaah.

Also, I totally forgot that next week is the G8 Summit here in Tokyo. Tons of police at stations. The lockers can’t be used at all. And there are possible delays and such with the transportation. Dammit. All I really care about though? That I don’t run into any protests between me and where I need to be…

Of course it just took 1.5 hours to write this much since in between I got a bunch of phone calls and work e-mails that was urgent…fun times…fun times…

HOWEVER, throughout all this there is a silver lining.

I got some pictures :) It’s the typical “picture tour” of the normal, weird, and yummy.

We will lead it off with a buttload of bicycles. For the rest, make sure you click on the link to see the rest!

This isn’t anything strange or unique here in Japan and probably in most other Asian and European countries. You don’t see it much in the US though. This is along the side of a narrow street and went on forever and every single one of the spaces were taken. That’s a lot of bikes. And since the street is too narrow, the bikes were all up against the wall. This went pretty far back behind me (about a 10 minute walk) and went all the way to the station. I have no idea how you find your own in this… I have enough problems finding my car in a parking lot…

Continue Reading »

Sounds like a punchline to a really bad joke…

But in fact it’s the entire premise of a new manga (Japanese comic) that has gotten pretty popular the last few months. Volume one is already out with volume 2 supposed to come out sometime this month. I was out with mom buying her a new stereo with my points and stopped by a bookstore to pick up the last 5 volumes of Berserk (I’m caught up now…woo) and picked this up too.

The name of the comic is “Saint Oniisan” which literally translates to “Saint Young Guy” (or “Saint Young Men” as it says on the cover…). “Oniichan” has a few meanings including “big brother” and “a young male” (most of the time in your 20’s and it’s a sad sad sad day when someone calls you an “ojisan” which is a middle aged guy…and yes…I have been called it already…but in my defence it was by a very young child so…I guess to him I’m old…dammit…).

Anyway, the comic follows Jesus and Buddha who decided to take a few months off and come down to earth on vacation. They get a small cramped apartment in Tachikawa (a town on the outskirts of Tokyo) where they have to save up money to pay the rent and is surprised by various things in on earth, mainly in Tokyo. Jesus gets crammed into a rush hour train only to get yelled at by a drunk guy when his crown of thorns pokes other people in the head… Buddha finds out the hard way that the dot on his head really hurts when people push it… Jesus gets really happy when he goes to a convenience store and a few HS girls think he looks like Johnny Depp. So on and so forth.

It’s not laugh out loud funny but it’s still imaginative and at time kind of endearing. The two of them are portrayed as very good friends with Jesus being the more brash and outgoing of the two while Buddha is more quiet and naive. The author admits he really didn’t know much about either religion or the actual characters other than what you hear and learn just in general but it’s still nice without being insulting (well…to most people).

So I made it safely to Japan despite the plane from Cleveland to Newark being turned around due to “an emergency light in the landing gear but nothing to worry about”…and we had to switch planes and go back to Newark only to find out the plane from Newark to Narita had to also be swapped out to do a mechanical “issue”… Eeesh…

Rained all day today. It’s humid…not too hot but sticky…blah. Tomorrow work starts. Gonna be a long week. Packed. Blah….

But the important thing is, mom got a stereo, a new tiny iRiver MP3 player, and a charger for my old Canon camera that she got fixed. I also handed over the paperwork to renew my passport. Tonight I plan on watching some dumb TV, getting with J later to talk about work, and then go to bed early. Yahoo.

So, back to TV :)

For godsakes…

Not a direct hit but it is POURING and some major winds. It’s due to the swirling clouds on the edge of the storm that is passing over eastern Japan… The poor reporter standing in the middle of Tokyo live said that it is like standing in the middle of a waterfall and you can’t really even open an umbrella…

Guess where I’m going this morning?

Nope. Not Tokyo. Yokohama.

Where is Yokohama? RIGHT on the shore. Oh. My. God….

Trains are delayed.

Horrid rain.

But I’m going! I will survive!!! Though they are saying that the peak of commuter time is going to be the peak of the storm.

Fun.

I can’t win….

Wish me luck….

At least by this afternoon it’ll be past us… Though I’m going to be indoors from 1 to 5. So yeah. Didn’t matter then….