Unfortunately many of the shots didn’t come out so well… Anima photography is hard!! Like I told a coworker today, no matter how well you take shots of animals, 99.9% of the time, any shot that turns out well will either look not much different from a photo in a children’s animal book or at the very very best National Geographic. But ultimately, most will have children in them, something like a car or something in the background, or some part that’s blurry because they moved, or any other sort of flaw…

But whatever. I still had fun and a few DID turn out well so here you go! Each one is linked to one slightly larger (something close to 1024×768). Click on the like below to see the rest!

First we’ll start off with the one that turned out really nice.

We’ll just go with favorites first and then down the line.

I like to call his next one “Mmmm…LUNCH!”

The baby koala refused to come out from behind the leaves it was muching on.

You’re at the zoo! Gotta at least see some monkeys. Though some people, like M who I was with, has an unnatural facination… :)

There are some days that I wish I could be reincarnated as one of these…just utterly lazy…so lazy moss starts to grow on you…mmmmmmmmm….

The lemurs were all sleeping. Maybe you had to be there but they were really cute.

You’re at the zoo! Alongside monkeys, you gotta see the elephants!

And the rhinos of course (though a lady next to me was teaching her daughter that they were hippos…I fear for our future…for godsakes…)

An action shot of a green monitor lizard!

There were some real pretty flowers there too so I took some shots of them as well.

Hope you liked them!

Can’t believe it’s Sunday evening already. What happened to the weekend?

Oh yeah. Wedding on Saturday and today? Sleeping in and being lazy. Ha.

A friend from college is here until Wednesday so I took Monday off to spend time with her. Been too long! And I also really really needed the break. Seriously… It’s been a pretty rough and stressful (from a work perspective) month so, though it was nice not being in Japan this month, it was still managed to beat me up. So I was going to go to the West Side Market on Monday and then her and I were going to go to the Art Musuem but then, just now, I realized that they are closed on Mondays!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Damn.

I was looking forward to it too :( Guess we’ll find something else to do. But man…Art Museum then lunch at Tommy’s sounded so so so so good. Now I’m bummed out :(

A funny story to end this though.

On Friday I was at the rib cookoff at work when my a coworker came up to tell me that another coworker of mine, S, wanted me to call her back. I was then asked to do a pretty unique thing. She forgot 2 bottles of breast milk in a cooler in the company fridge. I was going to see her Saturday evening at the wedding reception so she wanted me to get it, keep it in my fridge, freeze the ice pack, and then bring it with me to the reception.

I asked her why should I if she can make more… But I was told that it’s just not how it works. Ok. Of course the obligatory “I’ll try not to put it in my coffee!!” joke was made. Then that joke was struck down with the response “…well…you can if you want. I tried it. It’s kind of sweet.” Right. No. At least not unless you’re my wife because otherwise that’s just weird even for me….

But this isn’t the main point I’m trying to make. A few people found out about this because either I told them or the friend who gave me the message to call S told them. And I was sort of intrigued by the reaction. When I was asked, it did feel a bit weird but I never thought “ew”. But it seemed the common reaction amongst my friends and acquaintances was “ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww”.

Really?

Why??

I mean…yeah, it came out of her but it’s not like it’s a urine sample for godsakes. It’s milk. Yes…she produced it. But her baby drinks it! You probably drank your mom’s too! Yeah yeah, some of you may drank formula. But that wasn’t YOUR choice. It was your mom’s. It even looks like milk. There’s nothing “gross” about it. It’s perfectly fine.

Yet it was a consistant “ew” response.

Weird.

Is it really yucky for me to transport 2 bottles of milk? Or am I just weird?

Though I have to wonder what my sister thought when she saw the two bottles in my fridge when she went to get a drink :)

Anyway, back to TV. For some reason I’m not really excited about the closing ceremonies… Oh well.

They’ve always been about dating and such. Once they had a dating thing for me about finding other hot guys. Um. No please…

But anyway, this particular one caught my eye.

Ok. First off….how can a test tell you any of this? Fine fine. It’s just an ad. Sure. Ok. I can let that pass.

But more importantly…what the HELL kind of a kiss is this?? I mean…goddamn!!

It asks if you ever screwed up a CHANCE to kiss a woman. Not if you ever screwed up a KISS with a woman. Not to mention the dude looks old enough to be the woman’s father but…yow.

Let’s take a closer look shall we?

Dear god…

She’s holding his head like she’s going to give him CPR. Even looks like she’s ALMOST squeezing his jaws open. Meanwhile he looks like he’s either about to take a big big breath or he wants to desperately tell someone a piece of food is lodged in his throat.

Come on…of all the pictures to pic for an ad about a stupid “30 Second Kiss Test”…eeeeeeeeeeeesh.

And that concludes Tim’s overthinking of stupid stuff for tonight…

Had a good time tonight at the Winking Lizard with 2 other Japanese people. One is a coworker and the other is a partner here to do a 3 month stint. Just shooting the shit. Stupid stuff while eating wings. Of course, I have a voice that carries and so does he and the coworker is not very quiet either (the coworker is a she). And of course we were talking in Japanese. I bet a few people at the bar were looking at us like “what the hell??” Ha. Good times though. I needed a night like this after such a long week already…

Conference call at 8:30 tomorrow night though. Wooooooo….. Bed or Olympics? Hmmmm….

Anyway, while I’m in my office chatting or, like now, blogging or anything else, unfortunately I can’t see the TV in the living room. And though I could use the laptop, the laptop gets really really hot and the couch is juuuust not at the right height for me to put the laptop on the coffee table and work comfortably…and the couch is too low or the TV tray is too high to use that too. So I’m in my office.

But no matter!! I have the slingbox!! Wooo! So here’s what my desktop looks like tonight while I do a bit of facebook-ing, chatting with a friend, and downloading some stuff and so forth. That in the corner there is my slingbox, and though it’s not the HD slingbox, it’s ok. It looks decent even on the HD channel. And the picture is smooth. There’s about a 1.5 second lag from the actual feed but no biggie there since I can’t see the original broadcast anyway.

So yup. With this combined with my little laptop and my TV upstairs in the bedroom, I got Olympics eveyrwhere!

Wooo!

….and no…this is NOT sad dammit! This is cool!!!

Right??

This upcoming week? …probably just as. But at least this weekend was quiet and nice. Was able to sleep a good 14 hours on Friday night to Saturday…well…afternoon and that was nice.

But yes. Olympics!! Started without too much issues and is going along swimmingly! And with the combination of my living room widescreen TV, my bedroom TV, and slingbox on my desktop computer (can’t see TV from the office) and also on my tiny Fujitsu laptop, I can be doing whatever and still keep up with the olympics. Like right now. I’m cooking (pasta is cooking so thus the post) so I have the olympics on my laptop going. I will cheer on the US team…except for men’s gymnastics and the dude from Japan swimming the 100 breast. Go Japan!

Anyway, why did it scare me? Not due to the atheletes. But more from the country itself. So I should say China scares me. 19,000 participants in the opening ceremonies. For godsakes. Perfect precision making things look computer controlled. If you didn’t see it, just take my word for it. It was both impressive and also kind of scary at what a country of 1.3 billion can do. Yow.

I would rather just take a vacation for the next two weeks and stay at home watching the games but…ah well. Gotta make a living right?

…on a TOTALLY different note…went to Costco and bought a 24 pack of Propel and they replaced my lemon flavor with grape. Arg. I liked lemon!! I don’t like kiwi/strawberry! Don’t replace my lemon! Damn you Costco!!!!

…boo.

Anyway, back to cooking and the olympics!

Not much has been going on lately. Been nice being home for a while for a change that’s for sure. And catching up with a bunch of friends from HS on Facebook too. Who would have thought that FB would be a mini HS reunion!

Anyway, to make up for it, here are some totally random pictures that I have taken with my camera over the past month. Why did I take them? Some are obvious…some? I was bored? Maybe? Anyway, no matter.

First off! New gum flavor from Japan!

The others are just chololates. Yup. Cola and Lime. I like them. Guys around me were not big fans though. It doesn’t TRULY taste like Cola but kinda what Cola gummis taste like.

Moving on.

Alas, now that my desk is smaller (since I’m not at the office as often) I had to take a lot of my action figures home… But a few remains! Including the 2 Ingrams from Patlabor and 2 Tachikoma figures from Ghost in the Shell. The Ingrams are Revoltechs so they have these cool joints that make them ultra poseable.

Yes. I’m almost 33. And I play with robots. So?? Hmmmm????

Moving on.

The best popcorn ever. EVER.

This is Dichotomy Popcorn from the West Side Market. Caramel popcorn with cheese. Dear god is it good. I can eat that whole bag if I wanted to in one sitting. Seriously.

Moving on.

The absolutely cutest puppy in the world.

That’s it. Just cute. CUTE.

Moving on.

Finally. For the last picture. Japan’s favorite condiment…though most of you have probably never ever heard of it before.

Kewpie Mayonnaise. Awesome. Every Japanese house probably has one. It’s the greatest. I swear it’s like a big national secret. Everyone thinks soy sauce…but seroiusly. This stuff is awesome.

It’s much smoother than the US variety and it uses apple cider vinegar and MSG so it’s sweeter too. But you can use by mixing it with soy sauce to make a paste. You can even just dip cucumber sticks in it and it’s awesome. Me? I just like it on toast. Just toast and Kewpie Mayo. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh, and yes…it’s just as loaded with fat as the US version. Just creamier. And tastier.

Anyway there you go.

More regular posts will start to come soon again…maybe… :)

Ha.

Not that she could give me an upgrade… But maybe I can use her to get my Continental frequen flyer status to bump up to plantinum (my miles are on NW) so I won’t lose my premium boarding and seating perks.

Made it to Newark. Flight back to Clevelad is delayed. Something about awaiting inbound aircraft. The good thing is the delay is not getting any worse…the bad thing is, due to this, I probably won’t get back home until 11pm… Feel kind of bad having my sister pick me up… Going to feel even worse when I have to drag my sorry ass to work… Even more worse when I have to wear a suit to work (president of one of our partners in Japan will be in the office…yes, I realize I was just IN Japan…but he was coming so…what can I do?).

Blaaaaaaaaah.

In the meantime I am wasting time in one of the cublicles in the lounge since the lounge itself is too crowded and there’s nowhere to sit. But still better than the standard terminal. :)

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!

(^_^)

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.

Switching to a more mundane everyday meal, we have a typical, found everywhere, bento box.

Most Americans first see the word “bento” at a Japanese restaurant. But there, it just means a bunch of little things in a box. Like a Japanese dinner sampler. But in reality, “bento” means a box lunch or a box meal. This is our form of take out. When it’s time for lunch, outside of all the major office buildings, little carts show up with home made bento boxes. They all have a few things in common. Most of the box is rice. The good ones are packed pretty tight with rice. Can’t skimp on that! On top of the rice is typically, like in this shot, an umeboshi or preserved plum. This is why a lunch of just rice and an umeboshi is called a “hinomaru bento” or “Sun bento”. Basically it looks like our flag :) Along with the rice are some veggies usually cooked in a broth and some meat, either fried chicken or grilled fish and the like. This one has a small grilled mackerel and 2 pieces of chinese pork. Yum. This was bought for dinner at a “depachika” or “basement of a department store” which always has a pretty good sized prepared food section.

Along with a bento, you can also find other dishes like these.

Mmmm…gyoza and shumai. Yum. The shumai had some really good pork in it too.

The beer helped it go down. All 500ml of it. Mmmmmmm….

Of course, there is always great stuff at the convenience store. I’ve been a fan of this one for a while. Great for lunch.

It’s a Japanese style pasta salad with grilled chicken. Basically it’s spaghetti with a half of a hard boiled egg, slices of grilled chicken and some veggies. It also comes with a ginger dressing. So you put everything together, pour the ginger dressing over it, and enjoy. It’s really good. Fresh and filling and great for lunch. So simple too and it only costs like $2.95. :) The bottle next to it is “namacha”. One of the many many brands of cold green tea. Love this stuff. Wish you could buy it all in the US. BUT, for anyone interested, Target is starting carry, in some select stores, pure unsweetened Japanese green tea! It’s even by Ito-En which started the bottled green tea industry in Japan. In the US it’s called “Tea’s Tea” and you can find it (if they have it) in the beverage section. Awesome. It’s in 2 liter bottles. I buy 4 at a time. :D

If you want a quick…no…make that VERY quick lunch if you find an “ochazuke” place, you can’t go wrong.

“Ochazuke” is basically a bowl of rice with tea poured over it in the most simplest form. Of course, this place being a “ochazuke” only place, they jazz it up a bit. They have about 12 types of ochazuke. Some with veggies. Some with different types of fish. Some with seaweed with and without fish. So on. I ordered (via a vending machine that spits out a ticket that you take to the counter” an “aburi tarako ochazuke”. Basically a seared cod roe ochazuke. Mmmmmmmm.

You give them the ticket, sit down, and in less than a minute this is what you get. Obviously the bowl of rice with 2 seared pieces of cod roe along with veggies and the rice is sprinkled with little balls of puffed rice and flakes of seaweed. You see the tea pot as well that contains plain green tea. Up top is cold tofu with a thicker soy based dressing and to the right is a small bowl of spinach and okra. Okra is typically only seen in the US as an ingredient for gumbo since it’s very slimy and most Americans don’t really like the texture. But in Japan, we like the slimy stringy stuff as much as anything else. Sooo here you go. It’s actualy really good. But yes. It’s slimy as hell. Anyway, to finish, in the middle you see a small plate of Japanese style pickled veggies.

All you really do is pour the tea on the rice and you have yourself a nice lunch of ochazuke.

You mix it around a bit. You also smoosh the cod roe to mix it into the tea and either use the spoon or use the spoon AND slurp it up. Yum. :D

Ochazuke was originally done so people won’t have to waste any rice. Day old rice can get clumpy and starchy and honestly not really good. But people realized that by pouring hot tea over it, it will rehydrate AND add some flavor as well. Over time, what was a dish for the poor became a standard Japanese dish. Actually most good food starts off like that. But I digress. Now, you can buy seasoning specially made so all you have to do is put it on rice, pour normal hot water over it, and you get ochazuke. You get the slightly more gormet ochazuke like this one. And at Japanese bars called “izakaya”, after drinking and eating fried and fatty stuff over the course of a few hours, many people will order an ochazuke as a “shime” or a closer. Something nice and starchy to help with all the alcohol you might have drank AND it seems to help you feel better if you’ve eaten too much oily stuff. Mmmmmmm.

Of course, sometimes, you just want something junky… This past Sunday during my shopping in Akihabara, I, once again, stopped at the kebob place for some good turkish kebobs. Mmmmmmmm.

I took a bite before I took the picture. Couldn’t help it. You can read more about the kebob place here: http://www.timarai.com/blog/2007/09/02/weekend-update-with-pictures/

Let’s move on to dessert!

First off, something more normal…well…relatively speaking.

What we have here is a “Hokkaido Cheesecake Style Steamed Cake”. Mmmmmm. You see an image of the northern island of Hokkaido on the cake. Hokkaido is known for their pastures and pure air and grass and cows and milk. Lots fo milk. And so, what we have here is a steamed cake with a very nice flavor of cheesecake. But like all things Japanese, it’s sweet but not sickly sweet. Great as a dessert, snack, or even breakfast. Love it. Unfortunately it comes and goes throughout the year. Like just today? No more… Boooo…

Now we’ll move on to something much more Japanese.

Taiyaki!

Some of you who have been to Japan with me and have gone to the Asakusa Temple may notice that this is very similar to the “ningyo yaki” that they make there. Basically a fluffy pancake-ish batter is cooked on a steel plate with, traditionally, “anko” or sweet red bean paste filling. A very traditional snack / dessert. Still made the old fashioned way, even at a mall. But this place had a twist where, not only did they have the red bean version but they also had a custard version and an “okonomiyaki” version which is much more savory with sauce, cabbage, ham, tenpura pieces, and such.

I got the traditional anko version of course. The cake is fluffy, the anko is not too sweet with a slightly lumpy texture where you can still feel the beans, and when you eat the two together…mmmmmm…so so so good. That with a bottle of tea and really…it’s hard to beat.

BUT, I have another favorite dessert which, alas, is typically not available in stores and I recently remembered that the mall right by the hotel has a small stand that makes these. What we have here is what is called an “ohagi”.

On the left is black sasame ohagi while the one of the right is the traditional anko version.

What are they? Ohagi is basically a ball of sticky sweet rice that is then coated with a sweet topping. It is traditionally served during festivals and during the summer months but these days? Screw it. It’s ohagi day every day. Wooo.

The black sasame version is actually my favorite. Slightly bitter. Strong sasame flavor. But with sugar as well so there’s this initial sweetness. Then you get the chewy sweet rice. Mmmmmmm.

Of course, the anko version is good too. And this place does NOT skimp on the anko. They pile this on. But again, not too sweet and it’s lumpy so you can actually feel the skin of the beans as well as the slightly firm texture too. Yum.

So there you go. Some of the more common foods here. Nothing special. But I’ve realized that most people who have never been to Japan wouldn’t know half of these things. Hope you enjoyed the trip (^_^)

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!!

So, this place is known for their excess. Most electronic stores in Japan have far far far more items crammed in the stores than the US ones in general. I think it’s the way the stores are designed. Best Buy in the US has no shelves taller than 5 feet I think. Most are far lower and it has a very open feel. Japan? Nope. Just rows and rows and rows of stuff with people crammed in the aisles and during the weekend and holidays, people screaming at you from megaphones about the latest sales. Crazy…. But kind of comforting….for me at least. :)

I mean…they have so much stuff here in Japan at the stores!! Most of the time, you only get a selection like this online!

For example.

Those are ALL different types of USB flash drives! You take the tickets and take it to the counter. You see 3 panels there but in fact there are over 6 or 7! All different types of keys. Different sizes. Different colors. Different materials. Just…every type you can think of and more! We love our USB keys here.

Of course let’s not forget the peripherals.

Mouse. Lots and lots of mouse. USB ones. Little ones. Big ones. Gaming ones. Ones that let you scroll both up and down and side to side specifically for people who work with spread sheets! Ones with characters on them. Different shapes. Everything you can imagine!!!

Of course with all these peripherals, you need a USB hub. You go to the US you may find 3 types. Over here??? Ha!!

Those are ALL USB hubs! You have square ones. Rectangular ones. Ones that have 4 ports. Ones with 2. Ones that swivel. Ones that swivel each individual port. Ones where the ports are on different cables. Just…too many…

Of course you can also find the hard to find items. Ones that most stores only carry via mail order. Prime example? The famous PFU Happy Hacking Keyboard.

This is the clear white version. About $250. This is a hit amongst the uber geeks. The keyboard angle can be finely tuned. The keys feel GREAT. And you can brag to your friends that you don’t need to see the letters on the keys and besides, the letters just distract you! Of course if you just don’t have the same elite skills but want to pretend…

The black one. With black lettering. Oooooooooh.

I will admit…the keys do feel great. It’s not too mushy. It’s not too clicky. It’s just right. I keep telling them…make me a contoured keyboard with the “Happy Hacking” technology and it will be the first time I pay more than $50 for a keyboard!!!!

Anyway, the floors go on and on. Cameras. Rice cookers. Even watch bands. All in ridiculous excess!

I love this place…

(^_^)