making friends in japan

Jeff and I are back from Kyoto and Kobe with a great deal to report! We're very tired, however, and are going to crash now (it's about 9:30 pm, Tokyo time).


Thought I'd post the photo above, however, to replace the one of Alison's feet. :-)


While visiting Kinkaku-jin (see the golden temple in the background), I was interviewed by three schoolgirls doing an assignment. They took turns reading aloud from a sheet of English phrases, asking me questions like, "What is your name?", "Where did you travel from?", "Where have you visited in Japan?" etc. and scribbling down my answers.


At the end of the interview, they asked if it was okay if their teacher took a picture of us together. I said yes, of course, as long as they let the teacher take a picture with my camera as well. :-) They said they were going to mail me a copy of the photo, and I gave them the URL these Blatherings as well.


I hope they check it out!


Report and tons of photos coming tomorrow...


Today's Poll: (courtesy Alison!)



Have you ever had altitude sickness?

guest blathering

(Note from Debbie: Jeff and I will be in Kyoto for a few days. If I find an Internet cafe, I'll post to Blatherchat.)


Guest Blather from Alison George


The last couple of days I have felt much like a Mom sending her kids off the their first day of kindergarten. Will they be all right? Will they get lost? Will they eat their snack? Will the other kids tease them?


Fortunately, my worries have been for naught, and as you can tell from reading Blatherings, Jeff and Debbie have been getting along with ease in Japan. I think much has to do with how they have assigned tasks. Captain Communications (Debbie) handles the language, Captain Navagation (Jeff) has been ably handling the subways. That leaves me with the simple role of First Officer Accommodations (or First Officer Procreation, another suitable moniker given my state, not because of any hanky panky).


My only disappointment is that I was unable to pursuade J&D to slurp their noodles properly during dinner. I definitely led by example, slurping to my heart's content, while they sat beside me, silently and politely spooning their ramen noodles into their mouths. I'm sure they were secretly disgusted by all the sounds eminating from my part of the table, but heck....noodles simply taste better with a big ol' slurp. Ask any kid confronted with a plate of spaghetti, and I'm sure he/she would whole-heartedly agree.





I have really enjoyed seeing Japan from J&D's perspective. So much is new and different here, and sometimes I forget that. It has become part of the norm for me....but listening to the recap of their day each evening has been so interesting. It's also wonderful to have someone to talk to over dinner! In fact, for the first time since June I was so distracted over dinner that I forgot to call my husband (JeffL) at our prearranged time! (8 p.m. my time is 7 a.m. in Toronto -- so I'm his alarm clock). I'm happy to report my Jeff was up and at 'em on his own accord...but I still can't believe I forgot to place the call.


Debbie has just informed me that my Guest Blathering may be the only thing posted tomorrow. Suddenly such weight has been placed on my shoulders. Perhaps I should try to find a harp to play for a few minutes to put myself in the correct frame of mind. Oh well....good news is she will be back in a few short days. They are Kyoto-bound tomorrow. It's tough for Mom to see the kids leave the nest....but I'm sure they will be fine. Debbie's lounging on the bed right now practicing her Japanese, and I just finished reviewing the Kyoto bus system with Jeff, so the Captains are suitably trained and ready to take on the world.


This is Captain Accommodations signing off.


-- Alison


Today's Blatherpics


- It's quite a feat -- Alison hard at work on her guest blatheriings.


- Alison's 36-year-old bear "Teddy". It's his third trip to Japan. It's no JeffL, but comforting, all the same.


Today's Poll: (courtesy Alison!)



In your adult years, have you ever slurped your noodles?

fish market (part two)

(Fish Market, part two...)


The entire place was crazy with activity and noise with auctioneers yelling, motorized carts zigzagging around men loading and unloading, crowds of wholesalers bidding as well as examining and buying fish. Jeff and I had to jump out of the way of various moving vehicles several times. Amidst the chaos, however, was a high level of efficiency. These people clearly knew what they were doing. I can understand the need for speed...fish is a highly perishable commodity, and deliveries would need to be made as early in the day as possible.





There were surprisingly few tourists around. Perhaps it was the early hour (though Alison said there were quite a few tourists when she and her Jeff went to Tsukiji on a weekend), perhaps it was because it was not a place where tourists were particularly welcomed, only tolerated. But if it's DEFINITELY a place I'd put on a "must do" list for anyone visiting Tokyo.


I loved the energy, the frantic activity, the magnitude of everything. Most of all, it was so different from anything else I've seen elsewhere.





Jeff and I wandered out of Tsukiji via the stalls, where we checked out more of the incredible selection of sea creatures. Jeff nearly got squirted when a shellfish on one of the tables we were passing shot a six-foot stream of water across the aisle.


Outside the covered market were rows of small buildings with sushi restaurants and small shops selling things like fish products, vegetables, and restaurant supplies. After seeing all that fresh fish, Jeff and I both craved some sushi. We chose a small shop which had a sign out front saying that the staff knew English.





We each ordered the cheapest sushi set meal, which consisted of 8 pieces of sushi, miso soup, green tea. We cringed a bit at the cost, which was 2100 yen per set (CAN$28), but according to the guidebooks, this was a pretty average price for sushi. It felt a bit strange to be having a full sushi meal at 6:30 a.m., but it seems that this sort of thing is normal around Tsukiji; there were a ton of similar restaurants in the area, and all of them had customers. Jeff and I figured that most of those who worked in Tsukiji had been up since around 3 or 4 a.m., so would be pretty hungry by 6 am after unloading or buying their fish. :-)


Not surprisingly, the sushi was wonderful. It turns out only one staff member knew some limited English, but that was still enough for us to get our questions answered about the menu. Served on a big leaf instead of a plate, there were several types of sushi that neither Jeff nor I recognized. I asked the sushi chef (using Japanese, since he wasn't the English-fluent staff member), but sometimes his answers didn't clarify things a whole lot. One type of sushi was called "arch shell", for example. Not sure what this type of sea creature is.





Ack, still haven't blathered about the last half of our day yesterday, which was pretty cool. I'll try to finish that later today. It's Tuesday, 11:43 a.m. here. Jeff is napping, but we'll likely be leaving soon to visit the Ginza area this afternoon. Tomorrow we go to Kyoto for two nights to stay in a traditional Japanese ryokan, so I doubt I'll be able to post anything until we get back (until the ryokan offers Internet access, which I highly doubt :-)).


(To be continued later today, hopefully....)


Today's Blatherpics:


- Jeff at the sushi place we visited after checking out the fish market, around 6:30 a.m.


- Octopus, I think.


- Something I bought on impulse from a vendor. It cost 100 yen (about CAN$1.35). It turned out to be some type of kameboko (sp?), a fish product I remember having as a child. Yummy!


- Sample of the kind of shop in the area just outside the fish market building. Lots of interesting vegetables I've never seen before.


- Grapes. These are the only type of grapes I've seen in Japan so far...pretty big compared to Toronto grapes. Expensive, too. The bunch you see in the photo cost 650 yen (CAN $8.75!!!)....and that's probably a pretty good price, considering that I saw a similar bunch selling for 700 yen a few stalls away. All the fruit here seems to be expensive.


Today's Poll:



Are you relatively fluent in more than one language?

fish market (part one)

Posted Tues. Sept. 4, 10:53 am, Tokyo time


Located on the edge of Tokyo Bay about 2 km southeast of the Imperial Palace, Tokyo's Tsujiki Fish Market is the biggest wholesale fish market in Japan, and one of the largest in the world; it handles almost all the seafood consumed in Tokyo. Boats begin arriving at 3 am and the auctions begin by 5 or 5:15 am. Every day, five million pounds of fish are delivered here, with over four hundred different types of seafood. The guidebooks we read all strongly advised tourists to arrive by 5 to catch the best of the action.


We woke at around 4:30 a.m. This would have been a tougher feat had we planned this day trip later in our visit, but with our bodies still somewhat confused by the time change, it was somewhat easier. Jeff and I tried to be quiet as we slipped out of the apartment, to avoid waking Alison. It was still dark outside, so we were surprised to see two cabs sitting by the sidewalk nearby. When we walked up to the first one, however, we saw the cab driver stretched out in the back seat with a pillow and blanket, fast asleep. Not having the heart to wake him, we went to the next. The driver was also asleep, but sitting up.





I knocked on the window, feeling guilty but also anxious to get to Tsukiji. He blinked awake and pushed a button that automatically opened the rear door for us. After getting in, I said "Tsukiji kudasai"; I couldn't find the proper cab phrases in my language book, so figured adding "kudasai" would make my request sound more polite. Later, I discovered that I was saying, "Give me Tsjukiji, please." The cabbie looked confused, so I showed him the kanji characters for Tsukiji in my Tokyo book. Nodding, he set off.


After a brief moment of panic when the driver asked us something in Japanese (we suspect he was asking us in what part of Tsukiji we wanted to be dropped off), we got off in a warehouse area with a number of stalls set up along a sidewalk, with large trucks parked nearby. Hm...no fish around. Jeff and I suddenly realized that we had no idea how to find the actual fish auctions, and I had no clue as to how to say "fish auction" in Japanese.





We decided to follow a couple of young men wearing backpacks...hopefully they were tourists like us. Or maybe (since they obviously knew where they were going), they were heading to the area with the fish auctions. Our tactic seemed to work, since we found ourselves in a gigantic hangar-like area filled with more than 1600 stalls displaying every kind of sea creature imaginable. It was incredible...I've never seen so many different kinds of fish and shellfish.


We seemed to be ignored, which was fine with us. Everyone was busy getting stalls set up. Men were rushing all over the place with wheelbarrows and carts, and we had to be alert to dodge the motorized mini-trucks that zoomed around at high speeds.





Following the perimeter of the warehouse as well as what looked like brighter lights, Jeff and I soon found the auction area. Here we found rows of frozen tuna which had been unloaded from the docks. Each was numbered and labelled with stickers indicating their country of origin and weight. I had no idea tuna were so HUGE. Holy cow. Apparently each tuna sells for between 600,000-1 million yen (about CAN$8,000-$13,500, depending on quality). The tails had been cut off and were also on display; Alison later told us that this was another way wholesalers could judge the quality of the fish.


There was a haze of mist rising from the tuna...not sure if this was simply because it was frozen, or because of dry ice. Whatever the cause, it gave the scene a surreal quality as wholesalers wandered through the aisles examining the fish. Each seemed to be carrying a white towel hanging from one pocket (probably for wiping their hands after looking at each fish?), a flashlight (which they used when looking inside the fish), and some kind of pick which they swung into the fish. Not sure about the pick thing; Jeff and I speculated that the feel of the pick hitting the fish might be giving the wholesaler an idea of the quality, or how frozen the tuna was. Then they'd scribble something on a piece of paper and go to the next fish.





Whenever there was an auction, someone would ring a bell. The auctioneer would start yelling something in Japanese which sounded remarkably like a North American auctioneer in terms of speed and rhythm. Some would add a lot of arm and body movement, almost like a dance. In the crowd of waiting wholesalers, sometimes hands would go up, stirring the auctioneer on to further yelling. At some point, the fish was sold, was marked and loaded onto wheelbarrows and carted away. We never saw cash exchange hands, only what looked like coupons or receipts.


Nearby, several trucks were unloading large blocks of ice. Sometimes an order was obviously for ground-up ice, and the ice grinding machine would go to work, spewing out a white river of the stuff which was collected in heavy bags and loaded onto the delivery cart.





(To be continued later today....)


Today's Blatherpics:


- Wholesalers examining tuna.


- Taxi ride just before 5 a.m.


- Eels.


- One of the many auctions that took place in Tsukiji.


Today's Poll:



Have you ever flown in a plane alone? (if you've never flown, please don't answer this poll, thanks...that way I can also find out how many people have flown at all)

Akihabara

(Sept.4 addition: Ack! The first time I typed this in, I was having a conversation with Alison and Jeff at the same time. I've corrected a number of typos as well as expanding somewhat...)


I am typing this while waiting for my laundry in the basement of Alison's apartment. Cost for a washer and dryer load is 100 yen each (about CAN$1.35). I'm on the wash cycle right now...the only tricky part was figuring out how to select warm water temperature rather than hot; the buttons are all labelled in kanji. I experimented a bit by poking different buttons and think I've got the right setting. We'll see how it turns out. :-)





A gray day with drizzling rain starting in the afternoon. We still had a great day, however...my dad had warned me that it rained a lot in Japan, and to always carry an umbrella. From what we could tell, every second store in Tokyo seemed to sell umbrellas. For cheap, too! We saw small umbrellas ranging from $2 and up. I suspect that some Japanese never bother carrying umbrellas with them since they can be easily and cheaply bought almost anywhere.


Sadly, the Imperial Palace grounds were closed today. Later, I discovered they are only open on Mondays and Fridays. I had a very brief conversation with the security guard (my first attempted conversation with a Japanese local!). Having Alison with us yesterday was wonderful...it must have looked odd to the locals, having a Caucasian woman be a translator for someone who looked Japanese. :-) Anyway, I did manage to ask the guard whether or not he spoke English (he didn't), and when the Palace grounds were open. His reply was indecipherable to me except for the Japanese word for Friday. I assumed this mean that the next day that the grounds were open was Friday, but it turned out later that he was telling me the grounds were closed every day except for Monday and Friday. Shows you how knowing a little Japanese can be more confusing than knowing a lot sometimes!





We walked through Kitanomaru park where I bought an interesting ice-cream sandwich which looked like a fluffy waffle filled with vanilla icecream. Yum. I also got my first experience with a Japanese public toilet (see above photo). The one in the Tokyo airport had Western-style toilets and sinks, but no paper towels on which to dry one's hands. My dad had warned me to bring handkerchiefs for this purpose, as other Japanese did. He also told me to make sure I had kleenex or toilet paper handy in case none was available (this advice also came in handy). Somewhat curious by these warnings, I actually did do some research online about Japanese toilets and how to use them. I'm glad I did, else I might have been a bit freaked by the unusual appearance. :-) There were copious written instructions in Japanese, but of course these meant nothing to me. For all I know, some of them could have said, "DANGER! Whatever you do, don't push the red button! Bad things will happen!"


The flusher mechanism took some figuring out. It seemed to have two settings; I took a wild guess and chose one, which seemed to work. I took a picture of the Japanese characters above each setting to show Alison; she told me that they represented the meanings of big and small, obviously to represent the amount of water flow I thought would be necessary for flushing.





We decided to walk up to Akihabera, an area packed with stores selling electronics. On the way, we stopped by any shops that looked interesting. And a TON looked interesting! One thing I love about Japan is that it is so completely different from Canada in many ways, making an ordinary stroll down the street pretty fascinating.





One area we passed was heavy on bookstores, including English books. Jeff and I are both nuts for bookstores, so we browsed many of these stores, even if we couldn't read most of the books. I was sorely tempted at one bookstore that had an excellent children's book section, with Japanese versions of Harry Potter titles, the Chronicles of Narnia, Tolkien books, and even Philip Pullman's Golden Compass series. Most were fairly pricey, however, and I knew it would take the rest of my lifetime to learn to read even part of these novels. Jeff suggested that instead we buy Edward Gorey's Gashleycrumb Tinies in Japanese. I'm a big fan of Gorey, and am looking forward to learning to read the Japanese version.


One of my favourite moments today was when I saw an elderly bike courier carefully laying out breadcrumbs in a straight row on a fence railing, whistling. After finishing, he stood still for a few minutes as two sparrows fluttered down and began pecking at the bread. Then he smiled and left with his package, blending again into the whirlwind of frenetic activity that is Tokyo.





We knew we had reached Akihabara by the sudden onslaught of competing audio-systems and displays packed with every kind of electronics imaginable. Lots of cool toys, but Jeff noticed that some were priced higher than they would have been in Toronto. We ended up doing a lot of fun window shopping (the sheer volume of electronics and electrical appliance shops was fascinating), but no buying. Akihabera accounts for one-tenth of Japan's electronics and electronic-appliance sales.


For lunch, we stopped at a small restaurant in Akihabara that had a plastic food display of a simple lunch that cost 850 yen (about $12 Canadian). We took our shoes off to sit in our booth, and eagerly examined the menu. It was all in Japanese, zero English (see below). I asked our waiter if he spoke English, and he shook his head. Uh oh. However, I found that like my encounter with the Imperial Palace security guard, it was quite possible to communicate via sign language and broken Japanese. I was immensely relieved when he understood that we wanted the set lunch. Hey, and I even asked for a glass of water and HE UNDERSTOOD, woohoo! He pointed out that we already had ocha (cold tea) at the table. I said this was fine, so he brought over two cups.





Lunch was a bowl of rice, two small breaded pork cutlets, grilled fish of some kind, miso soup, shredded cabbage, a small piece of soft tofu with some chopped green onion on top, and some kind of blue pickled thing (radish, perhaps). The waiter pointed out two sauces and then carefully indicated which sauce was to be used with which part of the meal. He was very friendly, and also kinda cute (Jeff agreed). Anyway, lunch was even yummier because of our triumph in being able to get the food we wanted despite the language barrier. And then I asked for the bill in Japanese and HE UNDERSTOOD ME AND BROUGHT THE BILL. (Debbie does a gleeful Snoopy dance)





After lunch, we visited the temple of Senso-ji as well as Nakamise Dori. More info about this (and photos!) tomorrow. I'm dead tired, and Jeff and I are going to crash early tonight so we can get up super-early tomorrow to see the fish market.


Hey, we got e-mail from the Fossil Guy in B.C.!



Hey Debbie and Jeff,

Thank you for visiting the fossil shack and sending over the

image. Visited yer website today and couldn't believe it, that I was

there. Hope ya'll are having a great time in Tokyo. Nice to meet

good people. Thanks again. All the best.

Cheers,

Bill



More tomorrow...


Today's Blatherpics


- Me with green tea icecream (in a cone! never saw that before) in Nakamise Dori. The icecream was VERY yummy, better than the stuff back in Toronto.


- Japanese coins. My favourite is the one with the hole in the middle (50 yen, I think).


- A Japanese public toilet. Definitely unlike Western toilets, and needs a bit of practice before getting used to. No toilet paper or paper towels are provided, so you have to carry around your own. Most Japanese seem to use kleenex and handkerchiefs. Handkerchiefs seem to be very popular here, not just for drying one's hands but also for dabbing one's face/nose when it gets hot. As a child, I used to always wonder why I got so many handkerchiefs as gifts from friends and relatives in Japan. I usually folded them up and stuck them away in storage. Before the trip, I took them out again and put them in my suitcase. :-)


- Display case at the front of a store that sold brushes. Every kind of brush you could possibly imagine.


- Western children's books that have been translated into Japanese.


- Jeff in Akihabara.


- Lunch menu. Unable to read it, we asked for the set menu instead (through sign language and broken Japanese).


- Subway commuters at rush hour.


Today's Poll: (Thanks to Alison for this suggestion)



Have you ever seen the original movie, "Godzilla"?