Random Pictures

These pictures were all taken last Saturday after the plum festival. We went to Asakusa and meandered around. I like the guys above. They're just randomly perched on the buildings.

Here's me at lunch. We walked sown this street with bunches of tiny open-air restaurants. The one we stopped at had 2 tables outside, 3 tatami mats, and a counter for 5 people inside. The food was tasty. We had ginger pork, shumai (steamed dumplings), yakitori, and grilled squid.

Gen thinks maybe this couple just got married. They were so fancy. I barely got the camera out of the bag to get this shot. There are a lot of rickshaws in this area. Gen thinks they're silly, but I want to go for a ride on one.

Gen tried to make me pose in here but I said no and wouldn't let go of the camera. There's this cartoon here that revolves around a superhero soccer team. Gen loves it, so I thought this pose was more fitting for him.

Plum Festival

Here are some shots from the plum festival from last weekend. The trees have just started to bloom. I bet it's going to be really gorgeous in a few weeks. This is one of my favorite pictures.

They performed tea ceremonies at a little stage. Unfortunately I couldn't get very close.

These are miniature plum trees that were for sale. All of the booth proceeds went to charity. We didn't get a tree (customs may have a problem with that) but we got some wooden kitchen utensils and olive oil cooking spray from Spain.

Another shot of the temple. The wooden plaques are prayers. You can buy the prayers at the temple store and then write on them, then you hang them on the wall. At this particular temple the prayer cards had the signs of the Chinese zodiac on them. If you look closely you can kind of see. This year is the year of the bull. Most places don't have the wooden plaques; they normally use slips of paper and then they're tied onto some string or wire.

A close-up of some of the temple detail.

Festival Food

On Sunday we went to a Plum Festival. The plum trees are starting to flower already, believe it or not. This festival continues into March, but there are several others around the city. I got the camera away from Gen and took some pictures of the food I've been talking about. The first pic is grilled squid on skewers. You know you're in Japan when you see little kids walking around with squidsicles instead of ice cream cones.

This is the takoyaki (octopus balls)! Gen said I need to stop saying octopus balls because I'm scaring people. Octopus fritters, then? All the ingredients are laid out in front, then they make the batter and form it into the round shape with a long toothpick.

This is yakitori, skewered chicken. We went a little early so we weren't really hungry yet. I didn't take a picture of this, but we got rice that had been formed around a skewer, brushed with sauce, and then grilled. It was a tasty breakfast.

Then we got some of these little cakes. They were basically meringues that had been brushed with caramelized sugar. It was good, but really sweet. You really only needed a couple of bites. The best thing we had was mochi (pounded rice cake) filled with sweet red bean paste. They were steaming them on site. I have had a cake like that before, but never hot and it was delicious. Hands down the winner of the day.

Oji Inari Shrine

We like to go to festivals on the weekends, so we looked up the festival calendar, but it led us astray. We thought there was going to be a festival here, but it was totally deserted when we showed up. Either we looked at an old calendar without realizing it or the festivals are only held on Sundays (this was a Saturday). Anyway, the shrine was pretty so I took some pictures.

This was in the middle of an older residential area, so I got a lot of white girl double-takes.

I think the dog with a bib is a shiba inu, Gen's new favorite dog (besides Nelly, of course). Inu means dog in Japanese. Shiba inus are very popular here, along with dachshunds, chihuahuas, and poodles. Basically purse dogs. And you should see how people dress these dogs. It's hilarious. I've seen doggie kimonos, turtleneck sweaters, jean skirts...

Apartment (Part Two)

Here are some more pics of the apartment (manshon in Japanese). This is the front hallway, looking toward the rear of the apartment. There's a little entryway where you leave your shoes (shoes inside Japanese homes are a no-no). There are floor-to-ceiling shelves to the right where we keep clothes and shoes.

This is the kitchen, obviously. Your eyes do not deceive you, there are approximately 12 inches of counterspace. The microwave is actually a microwave/oven combo. It's the coolest thing, although it took us about 3 weeks to figure out how to work it. There's a 3-burner gas stove and a little broiler that we were told was only for fish. I don't know the reason for only fish, but I use it for toast too.

This is the bedroom. I had to stand in the closet to get this picture. The closet is actually a good size walk-in. We have plenty of space even though it's so small. There are cubbies everywhere and we actually room left in some of them. Of course, our last 2 boxes haven't arrived yet, so I might be singing a different tune in 2 weeks.

Here's the bathroom. The shower/tub is through the frosted door. I love the tubs here. They are super-deep, so you can get in all the way up to your chin. And it's so snazzy- the water heater in the tub is automatic, so you set your water temp and it holds the temperature for as long as you stay in the tub. Plus, when it's finished filling up it plays a nice little song and a pleasant lady's voice tells you your bath is ready. Japanese custom is to shower first to get clean and then use the bath more as relaxation.

Remember how I said we live close to the sumo area? Here's a sumo wrestler biking down our street. I took this pic from the balcony.

Apartment (Part One)

So here are some pictures of the apartment. This is the living room/dining room/kitchen area. To give you an idea of the size, I took this picture while standing about 3 feet outside on the balcony. And it's zoomed out as far as it will go. The kitchen is behind the white wall.

Here's the view from the hallway. Gen hates the color of the sofa. It actually looks pretty washed out in that picture. It is shockingly lime green. The contraption in the upper left-hand corner is the AC/heater. We have a separate one for the bedroom and each has its own little remote control.

This is my stunning "view." Lovely, isn't it? We're on the sixth floor of a 15-story apartment complex. It was built just one year ago, so it's really nice and clean.

This is looking down onto our street from the balcony. The white building on the left is a pachinko parlor. Pachinko is huge here. I don't really get the appeal, but I don't understand the rules, either. Basically it looks like pinball. The parlors are really crowded, noisy, and smoky. The blue storefront on the right is a hostess bar. Hostess bars cater to salarymen (white collar businessmen). From what I understand, you pay an entrance fee which sometimes includes drinks and the hostesses (usually foreign model-types) sit with you, pour your drinks, and talk to you. It seems like it would be really uncomfortable and awkward, but people must like them. Each bar has a man stationed out on the street. It's his job to accost the salarymen and try to entice them up to his bar. They don't talk to Gen when he's with me, but he says walking home from work can be like trying to run the gauntlet. Our neighborhood is sort of a melting pot, so you see a lot of Russian, Filipino, and Chinese hostesses.

Osaka

Here we are in Osaka, where Gen's family is from. Gen had a business trip in the area, so he left on Wednesday and I met him on Friday. I took the bullet train (shinkansen) all by myself! It was really nice. It looks like a plane without wings. The trip from Tokyo to Osaka took 2 1/2 hours. Unfortunately it was raining.

We were so excited because they filmed in this area for Tony Bourdain's show No Reservations, which we love. We wanted to try to find the exact restaurants he ate in, but no dice.

I think this crab restaurant is part of a chain. We didn't eat here because it looked really expensive. Also, Osaka is famous for takoyaki (octopus balls) so we had to try some! Gen's cousin met us and took us out for a takoyaki feast. I never knew there were so many types of octopus balls. We had shoyu (regular soy sauce flavor), fried, cheese filled, and tako croquettes (fried with potato filling). Gen's favorite was the cheese filled. I liked the fried and the croquettes.

These pictures were all taken at a restaurant row. I can't remember what the angry chef up there was selling. Maybe yakitori (grilled chicken skewers).

This is me with Gen's cousin, Sho. We got along swimmingly, despite his lack of English and my lack of Japanese. He's a terrible influence on me. He took us out after dinner and I was completely useless the next day. I blame peer pressure.

Sumo!

We live one station away from Ryogoku, the location of the sumo arena and museum. Tokyo has 3 big tournaments per year in January, May, and September. I think we need to go to a match for the experience.

These pictures were taken on the second-to-last day of the tournament. Sometimes you can get tickets the day of, but they were all sold out when we got there. We watched some of the matches on tv. I don't really understand everything, but basically whoever gets pushed out of the ring first loses. There is a lot of pomp and ceremony during the tournament. The referee is dressed like a Shinto priest. Even the traffic cop outside was all dolled up in fancy gear.

Can you believe how big these guys are? Since we live so close to the sumo area, we get to see some of the wrestlers out and about near our house. They always wear the yukata (never western-style clothes) until they are retired. I very nearly got run over by a very large sumo man on a bike near our train station.

Here's the only picture of Gen I could get. Poor Gen was very sick this day. We didn't realize it, but he had a fever of 102! He stayed in bed the next day. This statue is located between the train station and one of many chanko restaurants. Chanko is the traditional meal of sumo wrestlers. We haven't tried it yet, because you really need a big group. There's apparently a lot of food involved.

A good souvenir

A couple of weekends ago we went to a street festival and found our first souvenir. There was a tent set up with some of the most beautiful kimonos and obis. We bought an obi (sash for kimono) to hang on the wall of our brand new North Carolina house.

We got the black on with gold embroidery that's in the middle of the picture above. Gen bargained, so we got a good price. I really liked the top obi. You can't really tell, but it has a gorgeous scene of a tree and creek embroidered on it. But it was significantly more expensive, plus Gen liked this one better. I let him win sometimes.

Sengakugi and Roppongi

This is Roppongi Hills, a fancy area where a lot of expats live. It seems like this is where to go when I get homesick. There are a lot of Western stores and restaurants and a big movie theater. We saw an Outback Steakhouse and TGI Friday's. And no, we didn't go to either. I may want to in another couple of months but right now it's still fun exploring all the different restaurants. Last week we tried a Thai place around the corner from the apartment that was really good. Great red curry with chicken.

This is the Sengakuji Temple. We didn't take many pictures here, but it was really interesting. It's famous for the Ako Incident, which took place from 1701-1703. Briefly, there was a disagreement between 2 feudal lords, resulting in the death of one, Asano. Asano's samurai (technically ronin- leaderless samurai) vowed to avenge him. They attacked and killed the other lord, Kira, and cut off his head. The head was then presented to Asano's grave. There's a little museum on the premises that has a recipt for "one head." The ronin then committed ritual suicide. The museum also has wooden statues depicting all of the samurai and Asano. Good story, huh?