On Thursday night I was about to start cooking dinner -- well, actually I had already started by chopping the onions and capsicum and putting them on the stove, but the pan hadn't even warmed up yet -- when the power went out. Our whole apartment block was in darkness. Interesting the sort of things that bring a community together. We stood out on the balcony and could see and hear people running up and down the corridors and stairs, jabbering at each other and shining torches, or just standing around doing nothing. Having no idea how long this situation would last I said to Craig "D'oh! I guess this means we're going to have to go out for dinner."
Craig agreed that this was a burden we'd have to bravely shoulder, and said "So, what would you like?"
"Something not Japanese," I replied.
"Indian?"
"Yep."
So we wandered down to this nifty little Indian restuarant called Aladdin we had found on our first night in Numazu. As well as having typically delicious Indian flavours (and when they say something is hot it actually is! That's something else I've really missed here in Japan; they simply Don't Do Spicy), this restuarant serves the most enormous pieces of naan bread you ever did see. So for a decent price, apart from their imported Indian beers which I really didn't care about anyway, you get a great meal which you didn't have to cook yourself. Love it.
And on our return home, the power was back on.
***** ***** *****
ETA: I guess I should explain the location of this restuarant for anyone who happens to find themselves in Numazu one day and wondering what to eat. Um, I haven't learned the names of the streets around here. But you walk up that main street north and slightly west of Numazu Station (the one that leads to Ishibashi Plaza), and take the second street on the left. It's about four shopfronts along on the north side of the street. (Just look for the sign saying "Aladdin".) Less than five minutes walk from the station.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Taiko drums
I have mentioned before that there is a park across the street from us. Last weekend it was the site of some sort of cultural festival. Not sure exactly what, but on Saturday night we could hear lots of music and voices over the loudspeaker, so we decided to wander down there and check it out. They had set up a temporary stage, and when we arrived there were four old women dressed in traditional kimono with fans, performing a dance (didn't think to get a photo, unfortunately).
When their number was over, a large group of teenagers dressed in what looked to us like black karate outfits started preparing for their act. This involved putting drums of varying sizes in specific locations on the stage. When they rolled out "the big one" (it took two kids to carry it, and was set up on a stand of its own), we figured this was definitely going to be interesting enough to stick around for.
The performance was an extremely impressive display of high-precision, choreographed drumming. Craig struck up a conversation in English with a man standing next to him who turned out to be the students' teacher; they were performing on traditional taiko drums.
I haven't done a lot of research into taiko, but it appears that they have existed for centuries and are associated with Japanese martial arts. Perhaps that would explain why the students were dressed the way they were; they even had rather warlike white belts tied around their heads. Later on all the boys took their shirts off which kind of added to the "look" -- although maybe that was just to cool down because the drumming was pretty vigorous (too bad for the girls!). In more recent decades, taiko performances of the sort we witnessed have become very popular. And no wonder! They are really, really cool.
When their number was over, a large group of teenagers dressed in what looked to us like black karate outfits started preparing for their act. This involved putting drums of varying sizes in specific locations on the stage. When they rolled out "the big one" (it took two kids to carry it, and was set up on a stand of its own), we figured this was definitely going to be interesting enough to stick around for.
The performance was an extremely impressive display of high-precision, choreographed drumming. Craig struck up a conversation in English with a man standing next to him who turned out to be the students' teacher; they were performing on traditional taiko drums.
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Kore wa nan des ka? (What is this?)
In the interests of being culturally enlightened, I bought this vegetable at the supermarket.
This is what it looked like inside. The outer green section was watery and
crunchy, a bit like the white flesh of a watermelon just before you get to the pink bit. The inner white section was slightly spongy, like raw zucchini. The seeds reminded me a lot of pumpkin seeds. I had no idea if you were meant to eat it raw or cooked, but I figured I'd try raw first and if that was horrible, cook it to see if it improved. The verdict? Scroll down.
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Pah! Amazing Cassia sucked on it as long as she did (long enough to get this photo and that was it). About the bitterest thing I've ever tasted.
The inevitable conclusion. And no, cooking didn't improve it.
Curiously enough, we found it at the smorgasbord restaurant we went to last week, cleverly disguised as a tempura (deep fried in light batter) vegetable. It was still revolting.
And it's called a goya, by the way. Apparently it's an acquired taste.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Food, glorious food
The food is really different here. I could write a book about it. But I'll try to keep this post to the essence of it.
First up, they don't do items in bulk. With perhaps the exception of rice which you can buy in 10kg bags (still nothing to get excited about; you can find 20kg bags in Asian groceries in Australia), and sake which you can buy in 3L bottles. But honestly, who wants three litres of sake?
To demonstrate what I mean, bread comes in packs of 3, 5, 6 or 8 slices. That's white bread, by the way. The only wholemeal bread I have found so far comes in packs of 3 slices. For $1.15 a pack.
Secondly, they don't do cheesem, rolled oats or beans in a can. OK, they do cheese. The individually wrapped slices of plastic stuff (6-8 slices per pack), or tiny blocks of plastic stuff for almost $20 a kilo. And beans are virtually unheard of. I really, really, really miss my beans. And my oats.
Fruit is insanely expensive (about $1 per item) but veggies seem to be pretty cheap. I must say it is nice to get a packet of bean sprouts for 49 cents.
Fish, pork and seafood (i.e. shellfish and all those revolting slimy things that make me want to vomit on sight like octopus) are their staple meats. We don't do pork or seafood. Incidentally, many, many seemingly unrelated products such as noodles have seafood flavour bases too. Bleurgh. We're not big fish eaters either, although that's probably going to change over time.
They love their chicken, so there's some respite for us.
They do beef, but it's expensive and fatty. Inedibly so. They don't do lamb.
Curiously, their love of fatty meat works to our advantage. The cheapest cuts of meat are the leanest. I had the amusing experience yesterday of finding one tray of diced beef that was $10 a kilo cheaper than all the others around it. It actually consisted of pieces of meat. And breast is the cheapest cut of chicken. Can't complain.
The other night, being the third of the month, we went to a restuarant for dinner. It was a smorgasbord place, with Western food. Ohhhhhhh! I loaded my plate with pasta, bean salad, thick cut potato chips and tomato sauce, more pasta, Mexican-style chilli, etc etc. It was sooooo good. Not a grain of rice to be had. (I actually don't mind rice. But not for every meal.) We also hoed into the steak, until Craig saw the chef rubbing the hotplate with pork fat. D'oh.
Anyway, we're slowly making adjustments. I have cooked fish three times since we've been here. That's three more times than I'd ever cooked it before. We eat with chopsticks a lot of the time. Um. OK, that's the extent of our changes. The rest of the time we're sticking as closely to our old diet as we can (minus a few much-loved items) so we're a bit slow on the uptake with this one. We might get there eventually, like maybe by around the time we come home again.
First up, they don't do items in bulk. With perhaps the exception of rice which you can buy in 10kg bags (still nothing to get excited about; you can find 20kg bags in Asian groceries in Australia), and sake which you can buy in 3L bottles. But honestly, who wants three litres of sake?
To demonstrate what I mean, bread comes in packs of 3, 5, 6 or 8 slices. That's white bread, by the way. The only wholemeal bread I have found so far comes in packs of 3 slices. For $1.15 a pack.
Secondly, they don't do cheesem, rolled oats or beans in a can. OK, they do cheese. The individually wrapped slices of plastic stuff (6-8 slices per pack), or tiny blocks of plastic stuff for almost $20 a kilo. And beans are virtually unheard of. I really, really, really miss my beans. And my oats.
Fruit is insanely expensive (about $1 per item) but veggies seem to be pretty cheap. I must say it is nice to get a packet of bean sprouts for 49 cents.
Fish, pork and seafood (i.e. shellfish and all those revolting slimy things that make me want to vomit on sight like octopus) are their staple meats. We don't do pork or seafood. Incidentally, many, many seemingly unrelated products such as noodles have seafood flavour bases too. Bleurgh. We're not big fish eaters either, although that's probably going to change over time.
They love their chicken, so there's some respite for us.
They do beef, but it's expensive and fatty. Inedibly so. They don't do lamb.
Curiously, their love of fatty meat works to our advantage. The cheapest cuts of meat are the leanest. I had the amusing experience yesterday of finding one tray of diced beef that was $10 a kilo cheaper than all the others around it. It actually consisted of pieces of meat. And breast is the cheapest cut of chicken. Can't complain.
The other night, being the third of the month, we went to a restuarant for dinner. It was a smorgasbord place, with Western food. Ohhhhhhh! I loaded my plate with pasta, bean salad, thick cut potato chips and tomato sauce, more pasta, Mexican-style chilli, etc etc. It was sooooo good. Not a grain of rice to be had. (I actually don't mind rice. But not for every meal.) We also hoed into the steak, until Craig saw the chef rubbing the hotplate with pork fat. D'oh.
Anyway, we're slowly making adjustments. I have cooked fish three times since we've been here. That's three more times than I'd ever cooked it before. We eat with chopsticks a lot of the time. Um. OK, that's the extent of our changes. The rest of the time we're sticking as closely to our old diet as we can (minus a few much-loved items) so we're a bit slow on the uptake with this one. We might get there eventually, like maybe by around the time we come home again.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Fuji-san from our north balcony
This was the first time we got to see it. We'd only been here a few days. There had been a bit of a storm, and then the clouds cleared. Pretty cool, hey?
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Guidebook of how to put out garbage (photo added; scroll down)
The following is quoted entirely from the English section of a little pamphlet helpfully provided to us by the Numazu City Office.
Got that?
I'll spare you the rest, which is "garbage that cannot be collected by the city" -- what we'd call hard rubbish -- and "information".
Oh, and apparently one of the most common complaints amongst Japanese people about gaijin living in Japan is that they're useless at putting out the garbage.
***** ***** *****
Addendum
Tomorrow is Recyclable Garbage Day, and everyone's preparing for it by putting their stuff out this evening. It's a remarkable event, as I suppose it should be given it only happens once a month. There's a man down there who seems to be a self-appointed waste disposal manager. I was rather scared he would berate me publicly for tying my cardboard items together with brown string instead of white (yes, every other bundle I saw down there was tied with white string) so I made an effort not to make eye contact with him as I dumped my boxes. Don't tell him the shoe box was actually full of small cardboard items I hadn't squashed flat. And when I went back down for my second trip, this time with all my paper products stuffed randomly into the largest paper bag I could find, I held it all behind my back and just quickly chucked the bag in the skip while he wasn't looking. Well, I guess I'm not sure what he's really doing down there, as most people seem to know exactly where to put their stuff, so perhaps he's just using the opportunity to chat to the locals. Rubbish obviously has a way of bringing the community together around here. And I did end up asking him where to dump my used orange juice cartons when I made my third trip, and he seemed not to mind that I hadn't a) flattened them, b) tied them together, c) rinsed them thoroughly. Maybe he didn't look all that carefully. Or maybe the Japanese really are as tolerant and forgiving of stupid gaijin as the books say they are, to the gaijin's faces, at least.
I'll probably get better at this as we go along.
All families in Numazu City are now requested to separate their garbage and trash into four categories in order to reduce volume and improve the efficiency of recycling.
Basic Rules of Disposal
1. Date for disposal... Confirm the respective dates for disposal in The Annual Collection Schedule for Trash and Garbage then put out garbage and trash by 8:00 am.
2. Place for disposal... Be sure to set out garbage and trash at the station designated for your area.
3. Type of garbage to be separated... Be sure the type of garbage or trash in this table is designated for that day.
The Annual Collection Schedule for Trash and Garbage is available any time at the Information Desk of the Numazu City Office. A collection station for your area is designated by your area. A neighbour can tell you its location of each different categories.
All garbage and trash shall be put into bags designated by the city. Please Do Not Use bags approved by the city for items like recyclable garbage and also other garbage (destined for landfill garbage) which are only burnable. Convenience stores and other shops use the city designated bag for your shopping, so you can use them for disposal.
Disposal of garbage or trash in a river or canal, on the roadsides, in landfills, or an open area, etc. and such offense shall be punishable under city law.
Burnable garbage
Days for Collection: 2 days in a week
Place: Designated collection station for Burnable Garbage
How to: Using Numazu approved city bag.
* Kitchen garbage
* Paper
Paper, carbon paper, wrapping paper, etc.
* Baby diapers, Sanitary napkins
Soiled diapers shall be rinsed and excrement shall be disposed into toilet before disposal.
* Other burnables
Cloth gloves, wooden chopsticks, cigarette butts and ashes.
* Items of personal hygiene
Toothbrushes, toilet cleaners, old clothing (socks, underwear, etc.)
Plastic containers, packing
Days for collection: 1 day in a week
Place: Designated collection station for Plastic containers and Packing.
How to: Using Numazu approved city bag.
* Cases and wrapping made of vinyl or plastic, if they are unclean, should be cleaned first then, can be recycled. But the other ones with the dirty are to be set out with burnable trash.
* Bottles, cups, etc.
* Plastic bags, wraps
* Styrofoam materials: cups, shock-absorbent packing materials, etc.
* Plastic netting, etc.
Recyclable Garbage
Days for Collection: 1 day in a month
Place: Designated collection station for Recyclable Garbage
How to: In each category set out as they are or bundled
* Cans
Empty and place into a collection bag.
* Electrical cords, cigarette lighters, etc. also to be placed as above.
* Glass Bottles (Only bottles that have contained food or beverages)
Empty them first and clean. Transparent bottles, such as clear bottles and coloured bottles shall be separated and placed.
* Metal items
These include metal items and items mostly composed of metal. Items that are partially metal should be considered metal items.
* Dry batteries
These must be put into the collection can.
* Used paper
These items shall be divided into four categories: 1) Newspapers and leaflets, 2) Cardboard, 3) Beverage cartons, 4) Magazines and cardboard. Each group shall be bundled with white paper string. However, carbon paper, thermal paper, silver wrapping paper must be put with Burnable Garbage. Beverage cartons should not put out on a rainy day.
* Clothing
Theses items shall be bundled with string. Soiled clothing shall be put out with burnable items. Clothing items shall not be put out on a rainy day.
* PET bottle
These items include all beverage containers (soft drinks, sake, shoyu.) marked as "PET" containers or labels shall be put into a collection bag set by the city. How to prepare PET bottles for disposal: Remove cap and label. Rinse the bottle with water. Step on the bottle to flatten it. Place the bottle into a collection bag. The removed caps and labels (or items without caps and labels) shall be put out on the day of the plastic containers, packing.
Other Garbage (Destined for Landfill Garbage)
Days for collection: 1 day in a month
Place: The collection station designated for Other Garbage.
How to: Refer to the applicable Category below for directions about how to prepare such items for disposal.
Ceramics, glass. (Category 1): Place items in a city approved bag. This category include items that cannot be incinerated such as items covered with aluminium foil, rubber goods, disposable pocket warmers, etc.
Burnable Large Garbage. (Category 2): Do not place such items in a bag. If the item is large, it should be broken into smaller pieces for incineration. The pieces should be shorter than 1 meter. Mattresses, blankets, and carpets should be bundled with string.
Thermal recycling Plastic Garbage (Category 3): Please place such an item in a city approved bag and mark the bag with a 3. The goods made from plastic or made of leather and small electrical appliances covered with plastic cannot be put into a bag and can placed out as they are.
Fluorescent lights. DO NOT BREAK. If the fluorescent light is already broken, it shall be set out with Category 1 Items above (ceramics, glass).
Got that?
I'll spare you the rest, which is "garbage that cannot be collected by the city" -- what we'd call hard rubbish -- and "information".
Oh, and apparently one of the most common complaints amongst Japanese people about gaijin living in Japan is that they're useless at putting out the garbage.
***** ***** *****
Addendum
At the bottom left of the photo are all the crates for glass bottles. You have to separate your bottles into clear, brown and coloured, and put them in the appropriate crate. At the bottom right, along the diagonal section of the fence, are all the bundles of flattened, tied-with-city-approved-white-paper-string cardboard. (If you look really carefully, you can see a shoebox on the top of the pile, behind the spare tyre of the 4WD. That's my shoebox!) On the right about halfway up the photo is the giant blue skip for paper products, and directly above that are all the crates for aluminium and steel cans. And opposite the crates for metal, lining up along the fence, are all the crates for PET bottles. I didn't crush mine, although I saw people down there who were. But I noticed lots of uncrushed bottle in those crates and thought "Gah, forget it."
Tomorrow is Recyclable Garbage Day, and everyone's preparing for it by putting their stuff out this evening. It's a remarkable event, as I suppose it should be given it only happens once a month. There's a man down there who seems to be a self-appointed waste disposal manager. I was rather scared he would berate me publicly for tying my cardboard items together with brown string instead of white (yes, every other bundle I saw down there was tied with white string) so I made an effort not to make eye contact with him as I dumped my boxes. Don't tell him the shoe box was actually full of small cardboard items I hadn't squashed flat. And when I went back down for my second trip, this time with all my paper products stuffed randomly into the largest paper bag I could find, I held it all behind my back and just quickly chucked the bag in the skip while he wasn't looking. Well, I guess I'm not sure what he's really doing down there, as most people seem to know exactly where to put their stuff, so perhaps he's just using the opportunity to chat to the locals. Rubbish obviously has a way of bringing the community together around here. And I did end up asking him where to dump my used orange juice cartons when I made my third trip, and he seemed not to mind that I hadn't a) flattened them, b) tied them together, c) rinsed them thoroughly. Maybe he didn't look all that carefully. Or maybe the Japanese really are as tolerant and forgiving of stupid gaijin as the books say they are, to the gaijin's faces, at least.
I'll probably get better at this as we go along.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Feeling hot, hot, hot!
It's been in the mid-30s (Celsius) with about 240% humidity. Now, lest you think from one of my recent posts that I'm a huge fan of these weather conditions, let me clarify: I like hot weather. I love warm weather. I dislike cold (and wet) weather. I hate, loathe and despise very cold weather. So which do you think I prefer: mid-30s with 240% humidity, or frost on our windscreen? There you have it.
Yesterday we went on an all-day excursion to Tokyo. We expected it to be just as hot and humid there, so were rather shocked on arrival to discover it was almost cold! Which meant we were underdressed for the occasion too. And it rained – a LOT – and we didn't have umbrellas so we got drenched. (Fortunately it wasn't really cold, only comparitively so.) So not only did we stick out for being a head taller than everyone else and white-skinned, we were also the stupid tourists without umbrellas, looking like used mops. But for the record, there were some other people without umbrellas too – all gaijin (foreignors) of course. Stupid tourists.
Anyway, this week is forecast to be in the mid-high 20s in Numazu, which is about my ideal, humid or not. Today, indeed, has been the first day I haven't used the air conditioners, and I've had the windows and doors open all day long to try and cool the apartment down. It's been lovely, really. You get a nice breeze on the ninth floor. (Can you tell I still find being on the ninth floor a novelty?)
Yesterday we went on an all-day excursion to Tokyo. We expected it to be just as hot and humid there, so were rather shocked on arrival to discover it was almost cold! Which meant we were underdressed for the occasion too. And it rained – a LOT – and we didn't have umbrellas so we got drenched. (Fortunately it wasn't really cold, only comparitively so.) So not only did we stick out for being a head taller than everyone else and white-skinned, we were also the stupid tourists without umbrellas, looking like used mops. But for the record, there were some other people without umbrellas too – all gaijin (foreignors) of course. Stupid tourists.
Anyway, this week is forecast to be in the mid-high 20s in Numazu, which is about my ideal, humid or not. Today, indeed, has been the first day I haven't used the air conditioners, and I've had the windows and doors open all day long to try and cool the apartment down. It's been lovely, really. You get a nice breeze on the ninth floor. (Can you tell I still find being on the ninth floor a novelty?)
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