Sick

It was only a matter of time before I got sick.  I did think I'd make it passed the two month mark (today, by the way) before that happened, but what can you do?  So I woke up on Monday morning feeling like death.  This was particularly  unfortunate since I don't get paid sick leave for 3 years.  Definitely not in DC anymore- I miss you, federal government benefits!

I tried to fight it with lots of sleep and Advil.  By 3:00, I knew I wasn't going to make it to work that evening.  So I called out.  Unfortunately, my supervisor was already making the schedule for the next day, so I had to tell him about then as well.  It didn't seem like death was ever going away, so I said to count me out for then too.  The problem is, two consecutive sick days requires a receipt from a doctor.  What the heck?  Everyone knows I hate going to the doctor.  But, it had to be done.  Lucky for me, there were two English-speaking doctors within walking distance.  Plus, my personal translator/interpreter was home for Winter break.

Despite the scary bowl of red liquid that he washed his hands in and the cold metal tongue depressor, it was fine.  He was a jolly little Japanese man who had funny English.  He asked me to lay in the "supine position."  I don't know why I find little old Asian men so cute, but I do.

Can I just say this?  National Health Insurance is amazing.  President Obama, if you are reading this- please take note.  It's the bomb.  I walked out of there paying only $15.  I had gone to the ATM beforehand and taken out $100, worrying it wouldn't be enough.  That $15 not only covered my visit but five, count them- FIVE kinds of medicine!

Four kinds of tablets and a strange powdered substance

Now, I'm not crazy enough to take all those drugs, but it was pretty cool to get them all!  Luckily I came with my own personal medical cabinet, so I just stuck to good ol' Costco-supplied drugs.  But still- 15 bucks!  What a bargain.

So with my receipt in hand, it was back to work tonight.  Thank goodness I have the next 5 days off for New Year's.  Hopefully, I'm back to normal tomorrow. 

 

Christmas FAQ

I've been getting a lot of questions about Christmas in Japan.  They are all very good questions with interesting answers, so I decided to do a FAQ post to address some of them. 

What is Christmas like over there?

Japanese people are very into Christmas.  I'm not sure any of them really know what the holiday is actually about, but they love the commercial aspects of the holiday.  Department stores play Christmas music, Starbucks has their red cups (of course when I finally got my first cup of Starbucks last week, they were out and I got a regular white cup), and illuminations are everywhere.  Illuminations are what Japanese people call their Christmas light displays around town.  Some are very simple- a few strings of lights in some of the trees along the streets.  Others are much more elaborate.  They go up around the end of November and you see them everywhere.  Here are a few we've stumbled across:

Pretty blue trees in Toyosu

A floating tree in Roppongi Hills

Christmas tree made of recycled bottles in Shinjuku

Are the Santas in Japan Japanese?

This is a harder question.  I never saw a Santa in the mall or anything, but I did stumble across this article about a real authorized Santa who is Japanese.  So there you have it.  Plus, on Christmas day I came across these guys on the sidewalk:

Japanese kids handing out candy on the street

As they passed by me taking a picture of them, the smallest kid said "Melly Chreestmas," and gave me three pieces of candy!  It was so cute.  I think they were part of some charity organization. 

What do Japanese people eat on Christmas?

My favorite questions, of course.  It turns out there is a Christmas dinner tradition in Japan.  It doesn't involve turkey. ham, or goose.  Although if you are searching for that kind of meal, many restaurants offer traditional western Christmas dinners.  If you want to do like the Japanese do, then you eat fried chicken.

When I first heard that it was customary to eat fried chicken on Christmas, I thought my coworkers were pulling my leg.  Most of them have lived in Japan for much longer than me, so I'm a pretty easy target when it comes to these things.  But it's true.  Do you know how I know it's true?  CNN.  If CNN says it, it must be true.  I managed to catch that link just a few days before Christmas.  I wanted in on this!  Now everyone knows, Popeyes is far superior to KFC.  But since Popeyes is about two hours away, we decided to hop on the McDonalds bandwagon.  After calling ahead to ensure they wouldn't sell out, we walked the ten minute walk to get our iCon box.  Don't ask me why it's called iCon.

Behold- our 2010 Christmas feast awaits

Mega fries, 2 shaka shaka chickens, 2 boxes of strips, 2 boxes of nuggets, sauces and seasonings

It was quite tasty.  I couldn't eat my chicken strips, so I brought them home to eat later (cold of course).  In case you are unfamiliar with shaka shaka chicken, it's basically a piece of flattened chicken breast that is fried and placed in a small paper bag.  You open the top of your shaka shaka chicken bag, and add in some seasoning.  We had the choice of pizza, black pepper, and cheese seasonings.  You then close the bag, and shake to your heart's delight.  The end result is a coated piece of chicken.  I opted to eat mine plain, but i did dip a bite or two into the pizza seasoning to see what it was like.  Not my cup of tea.  McDonalds here tastes exactly like back home.  But I did miss my sweet and sour sauce.  Much to my dismay, the green sauce packet was actually sour cream and onion.  Oh well.

So in the end, we had a very authentic Japanese Christmas meal.  It was interesting, but maybe next year we'll start a new tradition.  Christmas sushi?  Christmas burgers?  Who knows? 

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas back home!  What did YOU eat? 

Internship

To state the obvious, internships are kind of a big deal in DC.  There are many famous stories about interns that I don't need to mention here.  Internships are a big reason why people come to DC in the first place.  Walk around any of the Georgetown bars in the summertime and you're bound to run into a bubbly west-coaster bragging about their UC-DC experience.  In fact, one of the reasons I hate DC in the summertime is because of all those darned interns.  They fill up all the nice restaurants and stand on the wrong side of the escalator.  Plus summer is way hot.  But that's not the point.  The point is, internships are a big part of DC life.

Internships are important here too.  Especially recently!  I'm very proud to announce that my baby is an intern!  All jokes aside, this is great news.  The company is Flutterscape, and I think the concept is fabulous.  Check it out when you have a minute.  Basically, people in Japan can sell cute and strange things to people all over the world.  You can pretty much sell anything you want.  He's already trying to sell sneakers, of course.

Congratulations!  I hope this is just the beginning of your amazing Japanese business career.

Good things come in small packages

Restaurants in Tokyo are tiny.  For dinner my first night here, we ate at a neighborhood ramen shop that probably only had 8-10 stools around the counter.  Space is hard to come by around here, so people make do with what they have.  This is fine with me- as long as they food is good.  Some of my favorite restaurants back in DC are small as well.  A few weeks back, we went to Yarakucho in search of food stalls.  We had read that there were tiny restaurants underneath the subway.  That visit was unsuccessful.  We found a food hall under the station, but the restaurants were sort of fancy.  We tried again the other night and found it!  Just under the overpass for the JR line are several small restaurants.  You can tell the area is very popular, and we could smell the charcoal-grilled meats as we rounded the corner.

A few restaurant stalls under Yarakucho Station

You have to hand it to these guys.  They really make use of all their space.  Some of the cooking is done outside the actual restaurant.  You can see a guy making soup in the photograph above.  All that separates you from the cold is a thin piece of plastic, kind of like a shower curtain.  We made two or three loops around before we settled on a yakitori place.  I was slightly intimidated by the large table of business men with red faces, but we decided that was a good sign.  As usual, I can't read the menu.  But luckily, I can read the prices (numbers are the same in Chinese)- and they are cheap!

Each skewer of meat is about 150 or 160 yen.  Drinks are about 390 yen.

  We order a good variety of mostly chicken skewers and two big beers.  Most of you know, I've never been a huge beer drinker.  But there is something about Japanese beer I really like.  To me, it kind of tastes like carbonated rice.  Beer-y rice.  Anyway, I love getting a draft beer here.  There is rarely more than one kind available, so you just order a draft beer and you get what they have.  One thing I can't get into is the foam.  Japanese people love extra foam on the top of their beer.  Bartenders back home would never dream of giving you these.

Extra foamy beers

I usually wait a few minutes to let the foam settle before I drink mine.  If no one is looking, I sometimes take a chopstick and push the foam out of the way!  There is something really refreshing about a nice cold beer while sitting under the subway station, partially in the cold.  I can't explain it, but it works.  You know what else works with beer?  Skewered meats.

Our first round off the grill

The chicken wings and meatballs were juicy and savory.  My personal favorite is the skewer with the cartilage-y pieces of chicken.  I know some of you think this is bizarre, but if you've ever seen me eat wings, you know I always clean those bones dry.  The cartilage is the best part!  I live for that combination of soft meat and tough crunch.  Yum.  The skewered leeks are a nice balance to all the chicken.  That was someone's idea of ordering a vegetable.
 

Tiny fish from a tiny restaurant

The little fish- we love the little fish!  The skin gets nice and charred from the grill.  You eat them head first, and they have such a simple flavor.  Sitting here eating these fish reminded me of being at Solomon's with my family.  We always hope for crabs, but sometimes these little fish hop into the crab traps.  Of course we don't throw them back!  They are so yummy, I sometimes enjoy them more than the crabs.

All in all, it was a very fun and tasty dinner.  It's such an interesting experience to sit in this tiny space and watch the food getting cooked.  I admire the families who run these stalls.  If you can make all this good food in such a tiny space, what can't you do?  Here is a picture of the chefs in action:

Tiny kitchen big enough for two

There isn't any meat on it, but that is the grill in the bottom of the picture.  You can see the wood and charcoal burning in between two pieces of metal.  Can you smell the deliciousness wafting off the screen?

Expensive

A few months back, I started telling people that I was moving to Tokyo.  I almost always got the same response:

"But Tokyo is so expensive!"

I wasn't too worried.  I had been here before!  Sure there were some outrageously priced things, but I would find the cheap stuff.  I have always prided myself in finding good bargains.  A good friend of mine once joked that she could give me only $5, and I'd be able to buy the world.  This was an exaggeration of course, but I did find some good deals.  Black Friday outlet shopping at midnight?  Check.  Yard sales, flea markets, and craigslist?  Definitely.  Day after Christmas sales at 3 or more Targets?  Absolutely.

These bargain opportunities are not available here.  Sure, I found a 100 yen shop that has decent snacks, nail polish remover, and other home goods.  But it's quite hard to be CHEAP.  And I like to be cheap.  I'm sure as time goes on, I'll stumble across more ways to be frugal, but so far it's hard.  I have gotten to the point where yesterday I nearly giggled with joy as I found a bunch of bananas on sale for a little over a dollar.  Oh, how I miss Trader Joes and their 19 cent bananas!

To help you understand a little of what I'm dealing with, I'd like to share something that you can find almost anywhere here.

A beautiful gift cantaloupe

  This gorgeous melon is available for around $105 (much more b/c of the bad exchange rate).  Isn't it cute with it's attached piece of stem and accompanying gift packaging?  These bad boys are for sale in almost every department store and supermarket.  I have not seen anyone buy one just yet, but clearly people must be.  This is one of those Japanese things I just won't understand.  If I see someone buy one, I'm going to grab their hand and explain to them about places like H Mart and Grand Mart back home.  What is so special about this cantaloupe?  I love cantaloupe.  Is this one filled with magic?  Maybe.  I'll never find out, because I'll never buy one.

While this is an extreme example, Tokyo really IS quite expensive.  But, I'm considering this all just part of the challenge.  I will continue to search out ways to be frugal!  I will stay true to myself!  I will never pay over $100 for a piece of fruit. 

Spin me right round baby

I've been talking about food a lot.  Tokyo has lots of amazing food that I got to try back in 2003 and couldn't wait to try again.  Takoyaki?  Yes please!  Ramen?  Dinner my first night!  And then there's sushi...  Did you know I used to hate sushi?  I'm embarrassed to admit it.  It's true.  I was here for 10 glorious days 7 years ago, and I didn't eat a lick of sushi.  I couldn't stand it.  Who in their right mind would want to eat raw fish?  I had tasted it many times back home, and I just didn't understand the appeal.  It had no taste.  The texture was weird.  It was just gross.

That was before real sushi.  Some would argue that you can't find real sushi in DC.  The next time someone says this to you, send them here.  The sushi available at that back counter will make them cry.  They will complain about the price, until the boxes come out.  In fact, tell them I sent you.  While Chef Nobu will probably stare at you blankly, I like to pretend we are BFFs.  But, I'm getting off topic.  The point is, I became a sushi addict a few years back.  When I found out we were moving to Tokyo, I got all giddy with the idea of sushi all the time!  But wait- it's expensive.  And sometimes, it's not good.  This is just unacceptable.  I wanted to make sure I got the good stuff.  How do you know where the good stuff is?  Pay attention.

Recently, we were walking around the restaurant floor of a department store.  Yes, you read that correctly, department stores have entire floors devoted to restaurants.  They also have entire floors (sometimes two) devoted to selling food.  More on that later.  Back to the restaurant floor.  It was lunch time and we couldn't decide what to eat.  Divine intervention struck.  What is that giant line for?  Why is there a man with a sign?

A very blurry picture of a restaurant bouncer

That man with a sign was telling you where to stand if you wanted to wait in line.  What were these people waiting for?  Everyone knows if people are standing in line, it must be worth it (unless of course you are anywhere near Georgetown Cupcake, in which case- don't bother.  The cupcakes are delicious but no cupcake is worth a two hour wait in the rain.).  We decided to investigate.  I could feel the excitement brewing.  Wait- do those tables have ipads?!?!

A very happy Japanese family at their ipad-clad table

Good googly-moogly, they are ordering SUSHI from an ipad!  Yes, that was my exact reaction.  As starving as I was, I demanded we wait in the line.  So we did.  I was so distracted by the ipads, I didn't even notice the sushi itself was moving on a conveyor belt.  This concept isn't foreign to me.  I have eaten at all TWO of DC's conveyor belt sushi restaurants.  Both leave much to be desired in terms of quality.  But we're not in DC anymore.  This is Tokyo.  And there was a line bouncer!  It had to be good.

As we slowly approached the front of the line, I could see the sign with the prices.  In true Japanese restaurant style, there were excellent pictures to guide you.  How could this be?  The prices seemed too good to be true.  Could you really get good sushi for 100 yen?

So many possibilities!

My friends, it was glorious.  Sadly, you had to have 3 or more people to sit at a table with an ipad.  I almost threw a fit, but I decided sitting at the counter and watching the chefs up close was more important.  If any of you come to visit, we'll take you and get another chance at those ipad tables.  Back to the sushi.  It was amazing.  The portions were generous.  Those chefs were masters with their knives!  We ate, and ate, and ate, and then we ate some more.  It's hard not to be gluttonous when you're grabbing small plates right in front of you.  Some eye candy for you:

Perfect salmon.  There were 2 here, but someone ate theirs before the picture was taken.

Super duper toro.  This fatty tuna was so fatty, it was like tuna flavored butter on rice.  Yum!

Beautifully butterflied scallops- a new favorite of mine.

Last but not least, the uni (sea urchin)!

 Of course, none of these were actually only 100 yen, but I swear the cheap ones were yummy too!  We could have sat there and ate all day.  But, our wallets and our stomachs stopped us.  We still did pretty good for ourselves though:

Huge stack of plates = good meal

One of the coolest parts of the meal was when we were ready to pay.  I thought they would come by and sort our plates by color to add them up and figure out our total damage.  Leave it to the Japanese and their crazy technology.  The dude came over with a scanner gun and just ran it down the side of our stack.  Boom- here's your total.  I still don't know how that worked, but we went with it.  We managed to get out of there only 3800 yen poorer.  Not bad at all.  We'll be back soon for another spin soon.  

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden

What I am about to say may come as a shock.

Tokyo is not very pretty.  There- I said it.  There's no taking it back.  The city is a whole bunch of large skyscrapers.  Some cities of the world sweep you off your feet with their good looks (I'm looking at you Paris).  Don't get me wrong- Tokyo is an amazing city.  It's clean, modern, and extremely unique.  But pretty?  Not so much.  Tokyo looks best at night, when you can't see all the gray of the dull concrete.  The bright lights of all the ads give everything a festive look.  Like most people in Adams Morgan bars, Tokyo looks best in the dark.  

But yesterday, I found a whole lot of pretty- right in Shinjuku.  Shinjuku is famous for its red light district.  The station is probably the craziest one I've been to, and the amount of people passing out ads for new cosmetics or cat cafes are endless.  I've been several times and never seen much that took my breath away.

Thank goodness for the Filipinos!  The Filipinos planned a potluck picnic for Friday's lunch.  We headed to Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden to feast on tinola, adobo, and a whole lotta rice (with spoons of course).  The food was obviously delicious, but I was taken aback by the natural beauty of the park.   

Here is some of what I saw:

Looking up at the sky through the trees

An unusual plant in the French Rose Garden

Gorgeous fall leaves just over the pond

A walkway towards the traditional Japanese garden

There was so much beauty all around me.  I took 71 pictures just on my phone!  It was such an amazing day.  That morning, we woke up to pouring rain beating down on the balcony.  After a few hours, the sun came out and it ended up being 72 degrees.  In December!  I know you are jealous back at home.  It was December 3rd, and I was outside with no coat, smelling the roses.  Literally.

It turns out Shinjuku is quite beautiful, if you can just manage to walk a bit past the crazy.  Don't worry- it's worth the 200 yen entrance fee.  Now you KNOW you're not in DC anymore when you pay to go into a National park.

Thanks for a wonderful lunch and a beautiful day!  I'll be back in the spring for the cherry blossoms.    

A taste of home

I will never get tired of trying new foods.  I could probably eat something different everyday here.  That's the beauty of Japanese food.  There is so much variety- sushi, tempura, ramen, udon, soba, yakitori, katsu- it goes on and on and on.  I have loved every bit of it.  But sometimes, you just want a taste of home.  This is especially important when you are feeling lost.  Maybe that day you got overconfident.  You attempted to make small talk with someone in Japanese.  What were you thinking, you can only say two things!  That ended well.  Or maybe you overreacted to a very small earthquake that everyone else thought was nothing.  On days like these, you need something familiar- some comfort food.  Thank goodness that isn't too hard to find here, if you know where to look.  Luckily, I am pretty good at my food research.

Case 1:

One smell of this took me right back to the Book It program

In case the pan crust didn't make it obvious

Pizza Hut.  Now, I'm not a huge fan of this back at home.  I much prefer Papa John's.  But that's not really an option here, so I'll take what I can get.  It was a little difficult to not get distracted by all the toppings.  Octopus balls in your crust?  Mayonnaise drizzled over your pizza?  Seaweed sprinkles?  No, thank you.  Today I will have the American version.  I even want pepperoni, and I NEVER want pepperoni.  Delicious.

Case 2:

Ba, da, ba, ba, ba- I'm lovin' it!

Give me back that filet-o-fish!  Give me that fish.  Golden delicious french fries.  Enough said.  This one is everywhere.

Case 3:

This is not what you think

Rice, beef, salsa- must be Chipotle!

Burritos.  Fajita Burritos.  I know someone back home who can't go very long without Chipotle (you know who you are!).  Alas, there is no Chipotle here in Tokyo.  But this place was pretty darn close.  It's called Frijoles.  They don't give you quite as much rice, and your burrito doesn't feel stuffed to the maximum.  These are both fine with me.  It definitely satisfies the craving!

I don't have to have these things every day or even every week.  In fact, I've begun to crave some new foods as though I've been eating them my whole life (see more on onigiri later).  But on some days, when you're feeling a little misplaced, it's nice to know a taste of home isn't that far out of reach.  

Earthquake

It happened.

They told me it would happen eventually, but I didn't think much of it.

And then the building shook.

I was halfway through my last lesson of the morning.  I was teaching my student about health, and we had just started talking about things that cause stress.  "What are some things that you find stressful?" I asked my student.  He just stared wide-eyed at me.  I thought this was because he couldn't think of anything.  But, it was because he felt it first.  There it was- a weird sensation of movement.  Oh.  My.  God.  What do we do again?  Hide under a desk?  Stand in a doorway?  Stop, drop, and roll?  I had no idea.  But it was over as quickly as it started.  Lucky for me- I had no plan.

"I find earthquakes stressful!"  What?  Oh, right- very good.  Earthquakes are stressful.  Right- back to class.  And just like that, my first earthquake in Japan was done.

Talk about feeling lost!

A Tokyo Thanksgiving

I'm no stranger to small kitchens.  My condo back home and my old apartment both had notoriously tiny cooking spaces.  But they never stopped me from trying to make big or special meals.  I figured the same was true for our ridiculously minuscule kitchen here in Tokyo.  So as Thanksgiving approached, we began to plan our feast.  This proved to be harder than I thought.  Every recipe online was for 6 people or more.  And, the grocery stores weren't exactly overflowing with traditional Thanksgiving items, so I consulted my favorite cooking blog for help.

With my work schedule being a little rough on weekdays (I get home around 10pm Monday-Thursday), we decided to celebrate on Saturday evening.  As I suspected, the readers of The Kitchn pulled through.  We got a great scaled down recipe for mashed potatoes and some excellent suggestions for places to shop.  We bought what we needed, and we were ready to go.

The prep

And so it began.  As expected, things proved to be cramped.  We were determined to make it work- so what if we had to use the top of the washing machine as extra counter space?  The window sill made an excellent spice rack!  We prepared our little chicken as best we could for its unknown fate in the toaster oven.  We stuffed it with garlic, onion, lemon, rosemary, and thyme.  We rubbed it inside and out with EVOO, salt, and pepper.  It was ready.  Inside he went, and we turned the timer as high as it would go (this would be repeated a few times).

The chicken awaits.  As you can see, the toaster oven has no temperature control.

 While our chicken started roasting toasting, we worked on the mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and green beans.  Most of this was fine.  Our gravy got infused with some extra things to make it yummy.  If I do say so myself, I think it looks really cute simmering away in this traditional Japanese pot.

Store bought gravy gets jazzed up

Naturally, there were a few bumps in the road.  What's that smell?  Oh great.  The top of the chicken is browning too quickly.  No problem- cover it with foil.  No foil.  Okay- cover it with another pan.  Done.  What's that other smell?  Oh no- the bottom of the stuffing is burning.  No problem.  Don't stir it too much, and we'll just eat the top part.  Okay.  Let's heat up the cream for the mashed potatoes.

Cream that is 47% something- maybe fat?

The Kitchn says you can just heat up the cream in the microwave.  That's a good thing because both burners are in use at the moment.  Pop that bad boy in.  Is it okay to have both the toaster oven and the microwave in use at the same time?  Sure, I do it all the time...

Famous last words.  Darkness ensued.  For a good 30 seconds, we just stand there in shock.  Now what?  Quick- run into and grab the flashlight.  Thank goodness those friends of ours who gave out flashlights as wedding favors were such geniuses!  Now what?  Where is the circuit breaker box?  Is it that thing above the door with the switches?  Just click one and see what happens!  I stand holding my breath, praying we don't have to spend 3500 yen on Pizza Hut. 

And then there was light.  Hallelujah!

Back to work.  The potatoes got mashed, the green beans got sauteed, and I'll be damned- that chicken was cooking!  Things were falling into place.  Let's set the table.

Our feast!

 Everything worked out.  The chicken was juicy, the mashed potatoes were fluffy, and there was enough stuffing that wasn't too burnt.  The gravy tasted wonderfully of rosemary, and the beans were crisp and just green enough so we didn't feel too guilty about everything else.  All in all, it was a beautiful meal.  It may not have been our tastiest Thanksgiving ever, but it will certainly become one of our most memorable ones.  After dinner we made bread pudding and listened to some Mariah Carey Christmas music.  What a wonderful night!  

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving to all those back home!  Thanksgiving is such a special holiday.  I obviously love it because it is a day dedicated to food.  But more than that, Thanksgiving is the only holiday that all Americans celebrate.  It doesn't matter what your religion, culture, or background is- chances are if you are in the U.S., you're eating some turkey today!  Whether your turkey is served with a side of canned cranberry sauce, mango chutney, or kimchi, I'm sure it's delicious.  And that's why I love this day.  It brings us all together as Americans.  Even Americans in Tokyo.  We'll be having our own thanksgiving dinner this Saturday.  Stay tuned to see if a small chicken can actually be cooked in a Japanese toaster oven with no temperature control.

I'm not so sure about the story behind Thanksgiving.  How likely is it that the American Indians actually wanted to sit down and have a meal with the pilgrims after they took over their land?  I don't buy it.  But I do love that we take the day to reflect on what we are thankful for.  So I thought I'd share what I'm thankful for on this day:

So young!

So little!

While these pictures are not exactly recent, this is sometimes how I think of my nieces and nephew.  I know you are all older now, but it wasn't that long ago you were small!  I'm thankful for my family- in all it's parts.  I'm especially thankful for the next generation.  I can't wait to see what you become!  Enjoy your canned cranberry sauce tonight- have an extra bite for me.

What are YOU thankful for?

Harry Potter- Partu One!

Some things are the same anywhere.  I don't care where in the world I am, I am going to see the new Harry Potter movie on opening day.  In fact, for the past several years I've had the privilege of watching at midnight.  (Dork alert: I feel perfectly at home surrounded by pimply kids who draw lightning bolts on their foreheads and carry around a chopstick as a magic wand.) 

This year, I was not so fortunate.  For one, the movie theaters don't show midnight shows.  How can this be?  The grocery store is 24 hours but I can't watch a movie at midnight??  Because the blasted subway system stops running at 1:00am so all the moviegoers would be stranded until 5:00am when the trains start running again.  Fine by me- just point me in the direction of some fast food and I'm good to go!  But no- this was not an option.  So I had to settle for Friday afternoon instead.

It was worth the wait.  The movie theater was beautiful and there was a STORE selling HP merchandise!

HP merchandise for sale

 The movie was great.  I have some beef with how much was covered and some details that were left out, but this is always the case.  I will say this.  It was odd not watching it at home.  The movie was the same, but the experience wasn't.  We didn't all "ooh" and "ahh" together.  In fact most of the time we just laughed out loud by ourselves while the rest of the audience stayed silent.  Did they not get the jokes?  Is it not okay to react aloud in the theater?  I'm not sure.  The weirdest thing was at the end of the movie; everyone sat through the credits.  I thought, maybe these guys know something I don't- maybe they are going to show something extra!  Not the case.  Just a big waste of about 15 minutes that I'll never get back.  And for what?  I still have no idea.  I guess that's what you do here.

Cultural norms aside, it was a great experience.  I can't wait until Partu Two!

Street food and religion

From what I've observed so far, Japanese culture is full of conundrums.  What is considered professional work dress is so conservative that I'm limited to the same 6 outfits all the time.  To even have your top button unbuttoned is considered a no-no.  And yet, it's not considered shameful for business men to be seen coming out of a scandalous shop.  They don't even try to hide what they've just been looking at!  Love motels advertise freely.  These are ironies I may never understand.

Another example of this can be seen in the festival we stumbled across last Friday.

As we got our tickets to Harry Potter I noticed a row of tents across the street.  Did Shinjuku have some sort of farmer's market on Friday afternoons?  Maybe it was a flea market?  We decided to check it out (after ensuring we got tickets to the 3:20 show of course).  As we crossed the street I realized- they were all street vendors!  It was tent after tent of glorious street food.

Bags of cotton candy

                                       
Now we have street vendors back in DC.  In fact, food trucks are becoming more and more prevalent in and around the city.  But this was serious business.  No hot dogs or soft pretzels here.  I'm talking really good food that sometimes required some pretty specialized equipment.  With every few steps I was more and more amazed at the variety of offerings.  Unlike DC food trucks where one truck offers multiple menu items, most of these vendors tended to offer one specialty.  And they made that one thing REALLY well.  

Skewered and grilled meat

Charcoal roasted fish

Spiral cut fried potato dipped in different salts

Japanese "pancakes"

Obviously, we ate as much as we could.  We tried a little bit of everything- my favorite way to eat.  This is where simple really is better.  That little charcoal roasted fish was just amazing.  crunchy on the outside and perfectly tender on the inside.  I know some of you back home are shuddering at the sight of that whole fish, but it was delicious!

Now, why were all these amazing street vendors here?  Just to celebrate food?  That's good enough for me.  But the further we walked into the maze of tents, we realized there was something else going on.  People were carrying these bamboo flower arrangements.  They looked like the type of thing you might put on someone's grave.  We walked along and came across a surprising sight:

Now, I still don't understand exactly what was happening.  But this is definitely some sort of shrine.  And that is definitely a long line of people waiting to go inside.  I imagine they were there to pay respect to their lost loved ones.  I couldn't believe it.  Here we were gorging ourselves with fish on a stick, and we came across this seemingly very religious and spiritual event.  I felt ashamed.  I stopped in my tracks.  It didn't seem right!  But I looked around and sure enough, there was a guy selling Wii games right next to the darned temple.  So I guess it was all okay.  I guess Japanese people like to get some good street food on their way to honor the dead.  Just another irony I may never understand.

But I don't have to understand.  That's what being lost is all about.  Sometimes you just have to observe what is happening around you, and accept it.  I will say that it was quite beautiful.  Past the temple there were stalls selling the flower arrangements.  Every time someone bought one, the employees of the stand would do a sort of chant and bang on instruments.  I imagine they were thanking their customers and maybe blessing the arrangement to ward off evil spirits.  Who knows if I'm right, but I liked the way this sounded.

So after standing there with my mouth open for quite some time, I did what anyone would do.  I ate more street food!  We found a wonderful little stand in the back that had some stools.  We sat down and had some of the simplest food I've ever had.  Just one huge prawn and one huge scallop grilled before our eyes.  No fancy sauces, no microgreen garnishes.  They were amazing.  The scallop was perfectly charred on the outside but the inside was still raw.  It was the kind of food that makes you close your eyes and make a little noise.  So good.  They left on all the good bits of connective tissue too- my favorite!

Scallop in all it's natural glory.  No, that is not bacon.

So after an hour or so of amazing food, we walked away very happy.  Happy as a scallop, if you will.  As we made our way back through the entrance we passed the shrine again.  The line had grown even longer with people waiting to honor their loved ones.  And while it still didn't make complete sense to me, I felt a little better about it.  Maybe it was the giant prawn in me talking, but I understood it a little more.  Good food makes people happy.  And who am I to say you shouldn't be happy before you go into the shrine to pay respect to the dead?  One conundrum down!  Now if only I can figure out the dress thing...
 

We're not in DC anymore

Konichiwa America!

Welcome to my blog all about being lost.  Yes, lost.  So much of what Americans know about Tokyo came from the movie Lost in Translation.  A lot of what we saw in that movie is true.  The feelings of being alone, not understanding this new culture surrounding you, feeling a little crazy and lonely- all true.  But a lot of it is just good movie making.  My experience is bigger than just living in a city all the way on the other side of the world from home.  It's about new food!  It's about a new job.  It's about new adventures with my main squeeze.  We'll be here for a short period of time, and who knows what kind of trouble we'll get ourselves into.  This is a transitional period in our lives.  We are here to discover ourselves!  This blog is so that all of you back home (or wherever you are) can follow along as I get more and more lost in transition...

Thanks in advance for coming on this journey with me.  I hope to feature regular pictures of crazy things I come across so prepare yourselves.  Here is one I like so far:

    Just a man going down the escalator at the Shinkjuku Picadilly movie theater.  No big deal. 

Check back soon for a spread on a street festival we stumbled across by accident.  This is just one benefit of being lost.