OK, again a while since the last update. Last week, I was actually feeling really out of it, as my tinnitis was acting up and it was really hard for me to concentrate. This week, it’s been slightly warmer and I’ve been able to run more frequently and sleep more, so I’ve felt a lot better. So here’s a synopsis of what’s been going on in my Japanese Blog, plus some other random observations.

On the 22nd, I went to go see Acid Mothers Temple here at Tokuzo in Imaike. It was the first show I’ve seen in Japan (apart from the many free shows in Central Park and near Osu). It was absolutely my favorite kind of show. There couldn’t have been more than 50 people in that little room, and the entertainment was spot on. One of those shows where I really lived in the moment, thinking “This is exactly where I want to be, experiencing these very sensations.” Some of the features of the show: Really really long beards. Percussion using various kitchen implements and religious artifacts (like Tibetan singing bowls played on the guitar’s pickup), a broken guitar string that didn’t matter because the artist was so entrenched in the performance, and a little ditty about Japanese convenience stores. These pictures taken from my keitai don’t do it any justice, but in a way it’s ok. It’s a kind of performance that has a life of its own in my memories. Oh, I also realized that I missed Bob Log III there just two weeks before :P

Tokuzo

Sunday the 24th was my birthday. There was no big party this year (mostly because I didn’t tell anyone about it), but it was still fantastic just the same. My favorite person in Japan took me out for a fantastic sushi dinner. She also spent a lot of time making me wonderful cakes and candies. 広美さん、本当にありがとうございました！

２００８誕生日

Other than that, I went to a meeting of people who want to learn to speak French. Of course, it was more Japanese practice for me, but I think I’m going to be spending a lot more time speaking French than I ever thought I would.

At work, I’m in charge of the music, so when the boss is away we have a good time listening to things like 80s music, Persian, and J-pop. And at home, I’ve just started getting into this 80’s J-pop station on USEN.

And my final guilty pleasure I’ve been getting into is Days Of Our Lives. I’ve watched that show since I was, like 8, and it had been like 15 years since I’ve watched it. But it took me all of two episodes to get right back into the storyline, since it moves so damned slowly. Lots of things to wonder: Why did Chris Kosichek turn into Roman Brady? How many times has John Black had his memory wiped? How is it that Patch still has the same unknown checkered past that he had 20 years ago? Does anything ever change on this show? Inquiring minds want to know!

OK, I guess it’s been a while since I updated this English blog, hasn’t it? So here’s a little update. All of this is on my Japanese version, which of course you can always see using a translation tool, if you like.

Let’s see… I’ve been making a lot of nabe and going out to eat nabe too, which seems to be what to in the winter. Including motsunabe. Motsu is basically innards, like intestines and stuff.

I ordered this kanji game from amazon.co.jp that took a long time to arrive because apparently the delivery service is incompetetent or something. I mean the address is correct because it’s the same one I’ve used for other services before, but I guess they couldn’t figure it out. Anyway, the new software is fantastic, but I have to start again from zero on this version, whereas I had been up to 1450 kanji on the previous one. But it’s not bad to go back and review, anyway.

I tried another Taiwan ramen place, not so hot, but ok.

It snowed heavily last weekend for the first time I’ve been in Japan. The snow only lasted one day, but I did take a lot of nice photos.

雪

I registered the domain daikoke.com. I was surprised such a short domain was still open. “Daikoke” is basically my name (Gross = “big” = “dai” (could be another reading, but after discussions with a friend, this seemed to be the best) Moss = “koke”). Haven’t done anything with it yet, but we’ll see.

I ordered pizza for the first time by myself in Japan.

The valentine I got for Valentines Day was from the boss’s little daughter. A really cute card and some cookies.

Friday night I went out with a couple former students and a husband of one of them. Later on had really good conversation the likes of which I hadn’t had in a long time.

炭やき鳥ぼう家

Tonight, we had a little goodbye party for the last remaining Aeon member of Team Gaijin, basically the group of us who all were in the same training group who started back in March ‘06. Wow, amazing how time flies. We had a great time and talked about words like twunt and the dogs bollox.

goodbyejoanne

When I don’t know what to do, I’ll pick a random city on the map of Japan and make a short visit. Today, I went to Handa, a short trip down the Chita peninsula. Apparently, the only thing this city has is a vinegar museum and a sake museum, both of which were already closed by the time I got there. Oh, and I guess several scenes from Akira Kurosawa’s first film, “Sugata Sanshiro” were filmed there. That’s ok, the weather was perfect Icelandic weather - overcast, with a slight hint of rainy mist. I really love this kind of weather, because you can see in every direction clearly without the aid of sunglasses. Around the Mazkan vinegar plant you can really smell the vinegar, of course.

On the way home, I took some pictures of the love hotels I see every time I ride my bike home from work.

Oh, and today was Setsubun, so I celebrated by eating a piece of uncut makizushi facing the lucky direction for the year, south-southeast.

半田

My friend Dan Zoot who lives in Aomori recently started a blog about tantanmen, so I’ve been thinking about it a lot. My perception of tantanmen is that it’s a spicy ramen similar to Taiwan ramen except that it’s been around a lot longer and the soup is much richer and tastier. I think the last time I had it was when I was in Yokohama, which is apparently the motherlode, so I’ve been ready to try it again.

There happens to be a place just a two minute bike ride from my house, next to my grocery store, that I’ve been meaning to try for a while now. Tonight was too cold to run around the castle, so it seemed like a good opportunity to try Dandantei, which doesn’t stay open late.

The place has a really nice feel to it, it’s non smoking and has lots of nice colorful and well-written signs all around. Strangely, the tables are just a bit too high for the chairs, making it a bit uncomfortable to sit down. I ordered the black sesame soup, which was 50 yen more, because I had never had it before. The color and consistency was identical to black bean soup, but the flavor was definitely sesame. Really disappointing, though was that the spiciness was exactly zero. I don’t know if that’s the way black sesame tantanmen is supposed to be, though, because to tell the truth, I don’t know that much about the stuff. Anyway, the noodles were decent and the flavor was not at all unpleasant. Next time, though, I have to try the white sesame, which just has to be spicy, I would think. I mean lots of the signs talk about spiciness and garlic, so I’m sure there’s something good here. Anyway, until next time.

By the way, one thing that really took this place down a notch was how obsequious the proprietor was, and especially the line “Wow, you’re really good with your chopsticks!” I really really really hate it when people say it. In fact, I think it’s the number one thing I hate about Japan. Number two is probably old men riding their bikes smoking a cigarette going willy-nilly in all directions on the sidewalk, completely oblivious to any other biker or pedestrian who wants to get by. Ah, but I see that I’ve digressed.

If you’re interested, you can see the (much shorter) Japanese version of this review here.

As for a Henry’s project. I don’t think Misen will work out too well for that, because it seems like they change the menu a lot. What I need to find is a place with a nice set menu that doesn’t change very often, and has, maybe 50-100 items or so. If anyone has any ideas, oshiete kudasai.

As you can see to the right there, I’ve started doing some twitter. I can even do it from my phone (but by the web only - SMS doesn’t seem to work for some reason). We’ll see how it goes. Oh yes, and if you think I haven’t been posting much on the blog, you’d be wrong - check out my Japanese blog. Some of the highlights of the last few weeks:

• I bought this jacket that turned out to be a completely different color than what I thought it was. I suck as a shopper.
• Started watching movies on DVD where I can see the Japanese subtitles. It’s a great way to study.
• My local grocery store started selling non-fat milk! (And as a side-note - today I see they have nonfat yogurt too. If they start selling non-fat cottage cheese, I may never need to go back to America.)
• It took me a long time to learn a phrase at my Japanese lesson.
• Much, much more!!!

So if that kind of reading floats your boat, my advice to you is to start boning up on your Japanese.

Today I finally went to Misen to try their Taiwan ramen. Now, many of my students had recommended this place to me back when I was a teacher. I’ve tried to go a couple of times before, but for various reasons (It was closed a few times, the line is often really long) I hadn’t made it yet. Boy, was I remiss.

It’s like this: Taiwan ramen is one of the many foods Nagoya is famous for. It originated here and not in Taiwan. (In fact, as I have just learned now writing this, it originated at Misen.) I’ve had some fantastic bowls of the stuff elsewhere in the city already, so I didn’t think it was that important to go there. In fact, there’s even a nice place just around the corner from my place that specializes in the stuff, 味園 (ajien). (This person here reviewed it). And a couple of weeks ago I went to this fantastic place (如水　Nyosui? I’m not 100% sure of the reading) with a really laid-back atmosphere that specialized in a tsukemen version of it. (Tsukemen is where the noodles and soup are separated, and you dip your noodles and other gu (ingredients) into the soup manually).

But Misen is on another level altogether. It’s a really brightly lit place with a very Chinese style. Very loud with lots of small tables, but neatly arranged and clean. There are five or six folks standing in front of the kitchen counter ready to heed the call of a customer who wants to order or pay their bill. As soon as you sit down, you get a nice big glass bottle of water, which you’ll be needing. The Taiwan ramen itself comes in a rather small bowl for ramen standards, but it’s chock full of noodles and so the soup volume is a little bit meager. But that’s ok, because the flavor makes up for it. Taiwan ramen is characterized by spicy soup with moyashi (bean sprouts), negi (big long Japanese green onions) and minced pork. What made this a heavenly bowl was a) the perfect level of spiciness and b) the noodles’ texture. It was hot enough that I needed the whole bottle of water, and the noodles were probably about 1.8mm, and my favorite consistency, just like Hakata noodles. This is a noisy place, and so not a good place to sit and think, but this I did, and I started to consider doing a Henry’s on this sucker. I counted the number of items on the menu on the wall and came up with 92, so it’s about the same magnitude. I think I’ll do a few more exploratory missions before I commit to something like that, though.

As a post-script, in writing this post I found that the original Misen isn’t in fact the one I went to in Oosu, but it’s in Imaike, which is a little closer to my house. So I’ll have to try that one.

Also, I found this site of this person who did a bunch of ramen reviews in Nagoya. I’ve only been to like three or four of the places he’s reviewed, so it looks like I have my work cut out for me.

Finally, I want to mention that I’ve updated my Japanese page, and I intend to try to say something on it every day, to practice my Japanese, so if you can read Japanese, please take a look and, most of all, please fix my mistakes if you get the chance!

I’ve been tired of Engrish since I moved here, since I see it so much and it’s not funny anymore. But the other day a friend of mine saw this sign in a jewelry store which pretty much epitomized the way I think my Japanese must sound to Japanese people when I talk to them:

Oh, and the other thing I wanted to say is that I made a grilled cheese and red miso sandwich. And it was damn delicious too. I had to have a tomato in there to help cut the saltiness, but that didn’t diminish its deliciousness.

For my first post in quite a while, I’ll talk about my short trip to Nagahama, because I have pictures for it. It was, for the most part, pretty uneventful, but it was just what I needed. I chose the destination for just one reason, and what better reason is there besides ramen. The thing is, I don’t think there really is such a thing as ramen from Nagahama. What I mean is, there’s a really great noodle shop near my house that serves something called “Nagahama ramen”, and so I kind of assumed that it was some kind of famous food from this town. (What Nagahama ramen is from this place is a nice white tonkotsu soup with fine Hakata noodles and it seems to be characterized by whole sesame seeds, but that’s really beside the point). So I just went to Nagoya station, bought a round-trip ticket to Nagahama, and took off.

Nagahama is in Shiga-ken, which allowed me to add one to the number of prefectures I’ve experienced. It’s also on Biwa-ko, the largest lake in Japan, something I was looking forward to seeing. Like most “small” towns in Japan, Nagahama is still pretty large, with a population of 80,000. To compare, the town where I grew up - Elmore, Ohio, has had a steady population of around 1300 for many years.

On the way there, I spent the time doing what I’ve been doing in all my spare time for the last 8 months or so - playing my Nintendo DS kanji game. Last week I surpassed the 1300 kanji mark, but this application is relentless, in that even after you “get” a kanji by making a correct answer, if you get asked the same kanji again in any other test, you lose it and have to earn it back. So I’m hanging out around 1275 at the moment. That, and listening to random music from my 12,000 songs and various Japanese lessons. Anyway, I took the JR line through Gifu to Maibara, where I had to switch trains. I found out the train I had to switch to was sitting there early - a rare treat, so I was able to grab a window seat and chill out for a while. Of course, it’s never as nice as it first appears, because of course when another train arrived, this one filled up, and left me at my nice window seat in the middle of the train, realizing I needed to fight my way through a crowd of people in order to debark at the unpopular stop at Nagahama. It’s not really that big a deal, I guess, and I see sumo wrestlers all the time, but having to ask one to move aside in such a situation is a little disconcerting. Luckily, there was no violence involved.

As for Nagahama itself, there isn’t much to say at all. There’s a tiny castle there, maybe a tenth the size of Nagoya Castle, but with the same kind of fish on the roof. There wasn’t much in the way of interesting restaurants, so I didn’t even bother to eat there. (To be fair, it’s the New Year’s Holiday, so nothing is open). It was nice to get away for a bit to a quiet place on a waterfront, though.

That’s about all I have to say. Happy New Year everyone!

nagahama

Last year, I didn’t really get a chance to see kouyou, or the autumn leaves of Japan. This year, my friend Hiromi and I were able to go to　香嵐渓, a place here in Aichi, about 2 hours from Nagoya where we could really see the full brunt of it. Yes, it was really crowded with a lot of people taking pictures, but it was still really pleasant, and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. It’s stuff like this that I’m really lucky to be in Japan for.

2007 紅葉

In Japan, there is a holiday called Kinrou Kansha no hi (勤労感謝の日), which is something like “Labor Thanksgiving Day”. Although it’s a national holiday, there isn’t anything special most people do for it. However, just like last year, John-sensei had a wonderful big meal, where we all ate way too much and enjoyed great company. Once again, you outdid yourself, John!

2007 Thanksgiving