Okonomiyaki

This is the place setting for okonomiyaki. The metal sheet in the center of the table is a grill. This is one of those foods that you cook for yourself. Even if it sounds a bit odd it's quite pleasant. Especially while you're drinking.











Here's one of the bowls they bring to you. You can see meat, the cubes are cheese flavored mochi (very tasty), and some filler that I didn't quite catch.














First you pull the meat from the bowl and start it cooking. You've gotta cook it out a bit before adding the other ingredients.















Here's a shot of the second bowl. Only took photos of the first two we cooked. I was too busy eating the rest of the time. : )















Here's a shot with the rest of the ingredients cooking.
















Here's a picture of the first okonimiyaki getting flipped. It's a very difficult operation at best.















And here's the finished product. Yum, yum, yum.

Street fair

Summer is the time for festivals in Tokyo. Here is a bit from a tiny street fair in Kichijoji.
You can see the paper lanterns and crowds of people. Although a small area, it was quite packed. There are booths for toys, shooting games, balloon games, and lots of food.










Although we didn't get to try any (the cooks weren't so good), here's a shot of some guys cooking takoyaki. It's a fried ball of dough with an octopus tentacle in the middle. I believe they're a speciality of Osaka, but they're all over the place in Tokyo. I've been wanting to try them for a while.











Here's Madoka taking a go at a balloon game. You get a paper string with a metal hook at the end. The balloons in the pool have a rubber band attatched with a loop on the end. The trick is to hook the rubber band with your hook while keeping the paper string dry. The balloons you're trying to pick up have a bit of water in them which makes them impossible to pick up if your string is wet.







Here you can see a vendor selling children's masks. I would have gotten one for myself, but they were a bit too small.

Kamakura: my first tourist trap

So I went and visited Madoka's family in Yokohama, and they took us to Kamakura. Kamakura is a famous destination for tourists. It was the capital city for the first Shogun of Japan. Located here is Kenchoji Temple. The temple was built by a Chinese monk in 1253 and is still completely intact (and in absolutely perfect repair). Most of the pictures taken are of Madoka's family, but you can see some nice pictures of it here or just google for it (which is what I did *blush*).
The tree you see here existed when the temple was built. It is over seven hundred years old. It was quite impressive standing next to something that lived through the Middle Ages. The Shintoists say the tree is the god of the place. I think it's nice having gods you can actually meet.


Next up was the Kamakura shopping district. I saw more gaijin there in one day than I've seen since leaving the airport a week ago. It was nice to hear strangers speaking English again. There are all kinds of shops there selling clothes, snacks, shoes whose soles are made of tatami, baubles and knick knacks. The little guy in the photo here is Baiki Man (which means Cootie Man). He's a character from a popular classic animation call Ampan Man. He was outside a comic store if memory serves. You can see one of the Kamakura signs which littered the place behind him.

To finish off here's a photo from the lotus garden at Kenjoji Temple. I think it captures the spirit of the place quite nicely.

Kichijoji at night

If possible, I think Kichijoji is even more crowded at night. We met up with a couple of Madoka's friends from work. We headed off to an arcade to kill a little time while some people were finishing up work before eating.












Here's one of Madoka's friends beating the hell out of Tekken. We watched him beat the whole game on one coin. It was very impressive.







Rhythm games like this taiko drumming game seem pretty popular. Watching the people playing was enough to dissuade me. It looks extremely difficult.







Grabbing games are also very popular. Half the arcade was filled with them. Unfortunately pictures were hard to get. All the flashing lights were hard on the poor autofocus.





We spent about an hour in the arcade and then headed to a restaurant. I'll get photos next time I'm there. Everyone sits around a low table in between two benches. There's a hole in the middle of the table in which a waiter drops a bucket full of hot coals. He then lays a metal grill on top of it. The food consisted mainly of raw marinated meat and vegetables which you're supposed to drop on the grill and cook yourself. We also had salad and sashimi(raw fish). This is a slow way of eating, and is intentional. While you wait on the food to cook, you drink. This makes heavy drinking quite endurable, since you're constantly getting food to offset the effects of the alcohol. My favorite for the night was definitely tako wasabi. It's small pieces of raw octopus soaked in a sauce of wasabi and soy sauce. It's extremely good.

Internet cafe

Internet cafes here are freaking cool. Expensive, but cool. While waiting for Madoka to get off work I spent an hour in the cheapest booth I could find where I could smoke. I could only snap a couple photos for fear of disturbing the other occupants. The whole place is kept very dark. Here's a picture of the hallway. My booth was the last on the left.



My booth contained a PC, a television, and a dvd player. It cost about five dollars an hour during the daytime. After midnight though, you can rent a booth for six hours for about nine dollars. So, if you miss the last train home you can spend the night in an internet cafe. The more expensive booths contain computers high specced enough to run Lineage II, a PS2 and a TV and dvd player. The price of your booth includes the run of shelves and shelves of manga, dvds, PS2 games and free run at the drink bar. You can get hot tea/coffee, iced tea/coffee and fruit juices. Didn't see any soda, but I'm sure some places have them.

To finish off here are some screenshots from the computer I was using.

Kichijoji by day

Two train stations towards the center of Tokyo is Kichijoji. Kijijoji is a hub of young artistic types. Most of the major and many of the lesser animation studios in Japan are located in Kijijoji. Ghibli, Gainax, Studio 4C, and Production IG are all located here.



Kichijoji is packed with lots of shops, restaurants and coffee shops. I've hardly scratched the surface of it myself. The press of humanity here is rather intimidating so I haven't been coming here much by myself. Madoka is still having to babysit me in places like this where it's very hard to get a handle on all the details.



I am looking forward to further trips here since it's going to be one of the first places I start exploring in depth. Given how close it is, and its small size compared to the very heart of Tokyo it's a natural pick.

The apartment

Here's a bit about our domicile.


As you come in there is an island for shoes. As we all know, you don't wear your shoes in the house.















Here you can see the doors to the washroom and toilet. They are separated in Japan. I think the rationale is why would you want to clean yourself in the same place you defecate. Makes sense to me. No pictures of the insides yet. The washroom in particular deserves a post of its own.










Here's the kitchen, bare as of yet of appliances. Japanese apartments do not include major appliances. Incoming are a refridgerator, microwave and gas range. If you look carefully behind the towel to the right of the sink you can see one of the gas nozzles.



This is the largest room in the apartment and will be the bedroom. The doors on the left are closet space. This is considered a large apartment in Japan.





Here's the room we're actually living in until we furnish the place. It will be office space once things are settled. You can see the futon I've been using as an easy chair rolled up on the side there.













Finally, two shots of the street outside from the windows. The roads can be pretty noisy, especially in the afternoon. Upcoming will be a recording of the music the garbage truck plays as it makes its rounds. It's very soothing. : )

First days in Musashi Sakai

So I've just recently arrived in my new home town, Musashi Sakai. Musashi Sakai is a suburb of Tokyo, about a half hour's train ride from the center of town.

I'll document the place a bit with photos and explainations where appropriate.


First a look at the main road between the train station (which is the main hub of the town), and my apartment. It's about a 15 minute walk between the two.
The first thing I noticed is the bike parking lot just outside the station. There are a lot of freaking bikes in here.

The roads are very narrow here. This is one of the main roads through town and it is shared by cars, bikes and pedestrians. Fortunately the cars are very narrow too, but it still feels a bit pinched at times.

Sidewalks are somewhat hit or miss, although I'm beginning to find routes to the train station that have them.

Most of the buildings here contain stores and a couple restaurants. Prices are high here compared to closer to Tokyo since there's less competition. Emission laws are very strict in Japan. Cars seldom make it ten years and remain usable. This is good because in these narrow spaces heavy exhaust would be unbearable. As it is, there is no smell at all. If the 20 year old coal burning trucks that everyone hates to get stuck behind in US exist here I haven't seen them.