Things I've Purchased: Panda Donabe

When I first started perusing the kitchen supplies in local stores I immediately noticed an odd stone bowl with a lid like an upside down funnel.  They were everywhere, in all colors and styles and I didn't have the foggiest clue what to do with them.

I have since learned that they are donabes and at Thanksgiving someone explained to me how to use them.  Basically you put a little water in them with some meat and vegetables of your choice and put it on the stove top covered.  It steams the food.

With all this new information I decided it was time to give in and buy one.....my decision may also have been influenced by the adorableness of this particular brand, also available in a cat, a bunny, a fox and a brown bear:

it's hard to see from this angle, but the nose sticks up in a dome shape

But I still had to come up with what to cook in it.  Chad and I are both a tiny bit picky about food, especially vegetables.  My donabe came with a little recipe book with pictures but everything in it looked like most Japanese food, i.e. cabbage-y seaweed and fish.  Blech.

But then I had a moment of inspiration....meat and vegetables....steamed....that sounds to me like.....a low-country boil!

how's that for fusion?

It worked out just fine, but I had to make up my own seasoning with wasn't quite up to snuff.  If I can acquire some Old Bay I think it will be a hit.  I'm also open to suggestions as to what else to cook in it.  ;)

Happy Turkey Day!

Chad has been on a business trip in China this week and ended up flying back on Thanksgiving.  Fortunately, I received a kind invitation from some fellow American expats to enjoy a real American Thanksgiving with them.  They invited a few of their new Japanese friends as well and we made a night of it.   Considering where we find ourselves this year, I was very thankful to find myself surrounded by friends and American food.

FYI, the only way you can get a turkey here is to order it --- and it will be imported.  Turkey isn't a popular meat here at all, although I can get tiny packs of sliced turkey sandwich meat at the supermarket.  Cranberry sauce has to be ordered as well, and it must be done far advance as it will sell out.  I actually saw a box of StoveTop stuffing in the imported food store in the mall and you can order it as well.  Pumpkin, pecans and green beans are hard to come across here but potatos, corn and other vegetables are plentiful.  I contributed an apple pie to the festivities and made it from scratch (got a tub of shortening at the imported food store) as I didn't think there was any hope of finding a pre-made crust.  I was wrong though, during dinner I learned that you can get pre-made crusts here--the packaging is just a little different.  So it's a little harder to do Thanksgiving properly here but certainly not impossible.

And Chad made it home in time for us to see a little bit of the Macy's parade---at 11pm.  ;)

Neighborhood Shrines/Temples, Part I

Today is another national public holiday here, Labor Thanksgiving Day.  As the name would indicate, it is kind of a combination of Labor Day and Thanksgiving.  Minus the turkey and Pilgrims.  I was advised to stay away from the mall today so it appears as if shopping is again a popular way to celebrate, although I hear there are some festivals here and there.   Everyone is supposed to give thanks to one another and think about peace and productivity and so on....

Anyway, a long time ago it was just a harvest festival which leads me to the shrine part of the post.  A few days ago I was looking at our neighborhood on GoogleMaps.  I noticed that the mysterious Shinto shrine a block over from our house was actually on the map.  With a name and everything.   If you recall, Chad and I found it the first week we were here but at the time we just gaped at it cluelessly.  I photographed it, sketched it once and then forgot about it.

Japanese roof tiles are fun to draw

Before I continue, if you want to know more about Shinto, go here and read about the shrines, which I think is more interesting than the page about the religion in general.  In a tiny nutshell, it's heavy on nature worship and not big on proselytizing. 

At any rate, finding this shrine on the map inspired me to visit it again.  And after much mental exertion I managed to translate the name of it ( 賀茂神社), to roughly kamo jinja or rather "celebrate thick growth shrine".  Thus, I believe it to be dedicated to praying for, and celebrating, plentiful harvests.  For the record, I haven't ever seen anyone at this shrine and it looks a little unloved.  There is litter around and it's in need of some repair. 

it says the name of the shrine.....more or less

I think this is an empty temizuya, typically full of
water to clean your mouth and hands before entering.
and I think those are tourou, or stone lanterns, behind it

massha/sessha (extra mini-shrines) off to the side--
also notice the picturesque laundry in the background.

this warehouse looking building off to the side
doesn't look like part of it but this says (roughly)
"shrine duties place" so perhaps it is the admin. offices

I think this is a komainu (lion-dog shrine guardian)
on the roof although usually they are on the ground
by the entrance. 

this is the main building.  above the door is the name of the shrine again.  I
tried translating some of the green banners but my brain locked down before
I could make much of it out.

Oh, and I named this post "part I" because I intend to eventually explore a few others that I've discovered within bicycling distance of our house. ;)

Things I've Purchased: Anything With Totoro On It

I am a sucker for anything with Totoro on it.  Fortunately, I don't find such things very often.  For those of you who don't know who Totoro is, he's the big gray creature in the cartoon movie I posted about here.  He's kind of like Winnie-the-Pooh for Japanese children (although actual Winnie has made it over here too) and I enjoyed his trippy little movie.

"Hey, let's go, hey, let's go...."

As you can see, I have a fishing Totoro 2012 calendar, a Totoro keychain, and no, that is not a Totoro washcloth.  It is a tiny hand towel.  I had to go purchase a bunch of these tiny hand towels (you can find them everywhere) for both Chad and myself.  See, public restrooms here never have paper towels available and often don't even have hand dryers.  Instead everyone carries around their own little towel to dry their hands.  I just happened to come across one with Totoro on it.  And I'm not the only sucker---Chad bought us both T-shirts on the Internet that have the Neko Basu (cat bus) from the movie on them. ;)

a whole shelf of Totoro in the Shinjuku Tokyu Hands store

Feminist Weather

So the temperature in these parts is not all that makes winter cold.  The wind here during the day can be really strong.  This week I've heard it whipping around and I swear I feel the house sway sometimes (the previously mentioned flimsy construction is also designed to make them sway in earthquakes in hopes that they don't fall).

Anyway, our teacher warned me awhile back that the wind would get really bad when it got cold.  She said that Gunma was famous for it.  She also said that Gunma is famous because the women here have worked outside the home for a long time.  As you may know, Japan's past is full of subservient women.  But here there was too much work---I don't know what kind--- and the men just couldn't afford to keep the little ladies shut away.  So, to this day the women around these parts are known to be more independent than usual.  This had led to a well-known saying about Gunma---that is is full of "strong wind and strong women".

I wondered exactly how well known this saying was, so some time later I asked a couple of other local born-and-bred Japanese ladies if they knew about it.  They immediately started giggling and confirmed (proudly) that it is true. ;)

Even The Construction Equipment Is Cute

As in, tiny and pastel. 

Our neighborhood is a hotbed of new home construction.  All the homes you can see below have gone up (across the paddy fields behind us) in the last few months, and there is land cleared for more.

Another Ominous Sign

I'm pretty sure these are hot water bottles and cute
pouches to put them in....you know....at the foot
of your bed, to keep your feet from freezing off

Things I've Purchased: Dressing Table

This will be the first in a series of posts about any remotely unusual items I have purchased here in Japan. 

So, as I mentioned previously, we have to put a little effort into the heating and cooling of our house.  But no matter what we might do, our bathrooms are always the least comfortable rooms, temperature-wise.  So, I don't really want to spend a lot of time in there primping.  When I do have to look decent I tend to take over our computer desk and leave makeup and bobby pins all over the place.  For some reason, this really bothers Chad.

Fortunately, I had just the solution to his problem....I had recently seen a remarkable array of cute little dressing tables in a furniture store called Nitori.  Nitori is kind of a really small-scale Ikea-ish chain store.  I wish I had a photo of all the tiny dressing tables (maybe sixteen different ones) or that I could find them on their website but no such luck.

While purchasing one I discovered that the store didn't keep them in stock, but instead would deliver it (for free) to my house on a day I named.  Accomplishing all this in Japanese was a trick, but I managed. 



The actual process of having it delivered, on the other hand, was excruciatingly difficult.  I know how to say "please come in", "put it here please" and "thank you very much".  I thought that would be all I needed.  Instead, two guys showed up and started jibbering at me and handing me forms to read.  My neighbor wouldn't answer her door, and Chad (who has bilingual co-workers all around him) wouldn't answer his phone.  So the poor delivery man and I conducted almost the entire conversation on our cell phone translation programs.  Turns out, he had to inspect the walls in my house and point out every little dent and ding to me before he could bring the table in.  I had to watch him bring it in very carefully.  Then I had to inspect the table very carefully.  Then we had to go back through the house and review all the dents and dings and agree that they were the same ones as before. 

All while pecking on our cell phones and holding them up to one another.  Sigh.  I feel like I am making progress on speaking Japanese and reading Japanese but understanding a native speaker who is speaking natural Japanese at their normal speed is extremely challenging.

But I have a really cute dressing table now. ;)

Strange Fruit

A couple of months ago I started noticing some unfamiliar fruits sprouting on trees in our neighborhood.  By "unfamiliar" I mean things that I personally had never seen growing on trees before.  I deduced (by swiping one off a neighborhood tree and cutting it open) that one type were limes, as seen here.  (I thought they were avocados---they are really big and leathery limes.  And yes, now I realize that avocados are from Mexico. Duh.)  The person living in front of us also has an amazing lemon tree, which I have not at all whatsover contemplated stealing from.

By far the oddest and most common (seriously, they are everywhere) were a peach-y fruit that mystified me.  So I did some internet research and learned that they are Japanese persimmons (or kaki, as they are known here).  I also learned that there are American persimmons that are common, where else, in the South.  Who knew?  I  had no idea what these things were.  Apparently I am really out of the fruit....loop....sorry. :\

I also had no idea what you could do with them, if they were edible etc.  Then I encountered an enormous display of them in the supermarket.  At that point I mentioned them to our Japanese teacher and she brought one to class to eat raw, like an apple.  It was like a cross between a peach and a mango.  Pretty good, if  little bland.

P.S. The post title is intended as no reference to the song of the same name, past the first line anyway.

Night in Nikko

This weekend we went on our first Japan roadtrip.  We drove up to a mountain city called Nikko, which is an hour and half from our house and also happens to be home to a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  We had a rough start as we learned that our GPS doesn't update very quickly here and gets confused easily at exits.  But after going around and around several tollbooths, we finally got headed in the right direction.  On the way up we enjoyed several mountain tunnels and numerous signs warning of wild boars crossing the road.

We had been warned that Nikko would be very crowded and that there would be a lot of traffic since this is a popular time to go to the mountains and see the autumn leaves.  We left our house at 6:30am anyway---and managed to get super lucky and avoid any traffic.  When we arrived in Nikko we immediately went to the World Heritage site and actually had it almost to ourselves for an hour or so.  After that tour buses full of kids and seniors started arriving and it filled up really quickly.

Long story short: in the year 766 a high Buddhist priest climbed a mountain and founded a temple by the name of Rinno-ji.  Over time important warriors and such prayed there and more priests built more temples.  Around the same time a Shinto shrine called Futarasan was built as well.  The Imperial family got involved and the whole place became really popular as a center of Buddhism.  In the late 1600's a famous shogun by the name of Tokugawa Ieyasu was buried nearby (his ashes) by his family and a second Shinto shrine by the name of Toshogu was built. 

That is the history of Nikko, from experience I can report that there are a gazillion extremely ornate buildings on the side of a hill.  I had been told by our previous Japanese teacher that you can tell the difference between a Buddhist temple and a Shinto shrine because shrines are plain and temples are fancy.  However, every single building we saw was gilded to the extreme.  I didn't find an English guide book until right before we left so I had a really hard time keeping up with what was what.  I know we saw all of the Toshogu shrine but other than that I can't say for sure what we were gaping at.  I can say that it was quite the most impressive tourist trap I've ever seen.

five-story pagoda in the Toshogu Shrine area

the very famous Sacred Bridge, part of the Futarasan
Shrine---we only really got close to it at night

three monkeys carving---the origin of
hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil

Yomeimon gate in Toshogu Shrine area

protective charms for sale--Chad bought a tiny sword that is supposed to protect
your house, I bought a monkey that is supposed to protect you in traffic

Tokugawa Ieyasu's tomb

a "Sacred Warehouse" in the Toshogu
Shrine area

I never could figure out what this building was,
but it was one of my favorites (in Toshogu Shrine area)

We stayed the night but before we headed to our hotel we drove further up in the mountains to Lake Chuzenji.  Unfortunately we just drove through the area but it was beautiful and I'm hoping I can convince Chad to go back one weekend and stay in the little town there.  We spent some time shopping and walking around the town of Nikko and then turned in after a steak dinner at a place recommended to us by some fellow expats. 

our hotel was across from the Nikko train station which is one of the oldest
train stations in Japan and was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

driving up the mountain to Lake Chuzenji

By the next day I had realized that we had missed some shrines/temples so I dragged an irritated Chad back up the hill to hunt for them.   I finally realized that a giant ugly warehouse-looking building had a temple inside of it.  Not sure if it's a temporary situation or not.  We ended up stuck on a little tour (all in Japanese) of the warehouse temple which included a dude banging a gong periodically to signal that we were to pray.  We prayed to these impressive statues, among others (no photos were allowed, hence the link).  And then we headed home.  Check out Shutterfly for shrine/temple overload!

Sanbutsu-Do --I think painting a picture of the temple on the side of the ugly
warehouse around it was a nice touch

Update: Here is a really interesting and accurate account of Nikko written by a lady who visited in the late 1880's.  Also, the building I couldn't identify is the bell tower.

Culture Day

Today we are celebrating yet another national holiday, Culture Day.  Chad has the day off and while we aren't going to experience much culture today, he also took tomorrow off and we are taking a little trip to see some culture this weekend.

This holiday started in the 1800's as the then Emperor's birthday.  When a new emperor came along it wasn't a holiday for awhile, but then it was reinstated in 1927.  I'm noticing a real trend of renaming, moving and restructuring holidays in Japan.  Traditionally the day is full of art exhibits, festivals and parades. I went out briefly today and didn't see much going on....there were a lot of people celebrating culture by shopping in the mall. ;)

Brrr.

As winter is fast approaching, I thought it time to illustrate the situation in which we find ourselves here.  Namely, that we do not have central heating and air-conditioning in our house.  I don't think it's popular here.  Neither is insulation---in general, Japanese houses are constructed in as flimsy a manner as possible so that when an earthquake hits and your house falls on you, you aren't squished flat.

Nor do we have a fireplace.  (I'm not sure if they have those here either, come to think of it....wouldn't want a chimney falling on anyone either....)   But never fear, we probably won't freeze because our house came with an astonishing variety of contraptions to heat it up.  I'm trying not to see this as an ominous sign.

We have five air cons (two downstairs, three upstairs) that are expensive to run but do a good job.  We used them this summer to cool the house (they blow hot or cool air to adjust the temperature) and on all but the hottest days they were able to keep up.  We do only keep them turned on when we are actually in a room which is slightly annoying to keep up with.....and still might put us in the poorhouse this winter.

air con: they also have handy remote controls

We have two oil, correction, gas heaters downstairs.  We had to get a lesson on how to use them, but so far we haven't tried them yet.  Apparently gas is a little pricey too.

oil heater

We have three kerosene heaters which terrify us.  They are very popular here because kerosene is cheap.  And they are supposedly very safe.  Sure.  We also got a lesson on them, but if I know us, we will have to lose a couple of toes to frostbite before we resort to them.  Also, they stink.

death trap kerosene heater
(I can practically see the flames licking up the wall)

We have three wheeled radiator-type doohickeys.  Supposedly they are good to use at night in the bedroom.

doohickey

And just in case that's not enough, we have three small under-the-desk type plug-in heaters. 

heater miscellany

Joyful Consumerism!

Awhile back our Japanese teacher told me about this store called Joyful Honda.  (I'm still not sure whether or not it has anything to do with Honda cars---can't quite get a straight answer on that.)  Anyway, she gave me directions and said it was pretty far away from my house.  So several weekends ago I made Chad drive me out there to check it out.  It's about 35 minutes from our house and we didn't stay long but I resolved to return by myself as soon as possible.

See, here it can be kind of hard to locate good shopping centers but once you do find one....boy, oh boy.  I went back by myself this Saturday and pored over everything for several hours.

way far down out of the picture is a huge Home Depot-esque section, the top floor
of this building is like Micheal's and the bottom floor is basically a Garden Ridge.
plus: a supermarket, dollar store, shoe store and a food court for good measure

the endless Garden Ridge section

the Micheal's section (beads)

scrapbooking supplies (notice Mickey butting in on the right)

need some clay?  or a potter's wheel? how about a kiln?

I want one, but I have to figure out if it has English instructions. 
plus it's kinda crazy expensive.

You may be wondering exactly how much stuff I'm carting home from all these shopping centers I find....and the answer is, not much.  It's nice to know where to find craft supplies when I need them, but mostly I want to buy things that I can't find in the US.  Unfortunately, I don't find many.  Most of what's available here (in every category of goods except food) is the same stuff I find back home.  I do have some good information on where to find local-craftsman/traditional Japanese stuff in Tokyo, but I have to get around to making a trip by myself.  Meanwhile, if I pay attention I can find some different stuff in places like Joyful Honda, for example, near the scrapbooking supplies was a section of origami paper.  There were traditional flower-arranging supplies tucked in near the fake flowers and brushes for Japanese calligraphy alongside the regular paintbrushes.  It's like that in places like Aeon, and Cainz too....95% same old, 5% new and different.