Dougy Mak’s Blog

We went to Shobu Matsuri which is a flower festival well known here at Higashimurayama. The flowers were grown in a paddy field. It was like a big mud puddle. The flowers were nice, but I was really more excited about the wild life. The water had a lot of water striders running around. There were also a lot of spiders right above the pond with their webs spun between flowers. These spiders were HUGE and gross. Long butts and long legs *chills*. I saw a spider spinning a fly on its web and crouched down and watched it for a bit. While I was watching the spider spinning the fly, it just so happened that a fly landed right next to me. I blew that fly into the web. I continued on to look at other things and I saw a child holding a chop stick with a string with a dried squid tied to it. My my girl friend told me that the kid was fishing for crawfishes. I was like WOW, that is awesome. I began seeing more children carrying fish nets, and plastic cases for craw fishes. I wanted to join them, but I did not have the gear! I went on to look around to find some though, and found a dead one. After a while of searching, we decided to leave. On our way to the bicycles, I checked out the spider again and it already finished BOTH of the insects. My girl friend’s mom also found an alive craw fish and I was pretty excited. That thing was pretty big for a craw fish, and I wish I could have brought it home. We also saw some little fishies swimming around the murky waters. There were also turtles in the pond, but I think those were just placed in there by humans. My girl friend’s mom also found a frog, it was sticking its eyes out of the water and it was pretty far and pretty hard to see, but we took a picture and zoomed in to confirm it was a frog (thank you Nikon D40). The dragon flies are freaking huge, well, not as big as the one I saw once (5 inches or something!). The dragon flies were fury and were colored black and white.

In every restauraunt that I have ate at so far, they give you these hot towels or wet towelletes to wipe your hands. I think it customary here. We went to a local restaurant today, it was a family owned restaurant. My girl friend and her family are really good friends with the people at the restaurant.  The place was empty today (which was surprising to my girl friend and her mom) because of the World Cup (soccer is really popular here).

I could not read the Japanese, at least not fast enough to keep people from waiting, so I asked my girl friend’s mom to order me something. I had Ten Seiro Udon for dinner today and it was delicious! Tenpura (The tenpura shrimp was HUGE!), udon, mentsuyu and green onions. The whole dish was a new thing to me, so when they first delivered the Ten Seiro Udon and placed it in front of me, I was not sure how was I supposed to eat it. Usually, I would just wait for someone who seems like they know what they are doing begin first and then follow, but I just asked my girl friend and her mom. You dip the udon into the mentsuyu and then you eat it.You dip the udon into the mentsuyu and then you eat it. Adding wasabi into the mentsuyu tasted even better. I really enjoyed the dish a lot. The dish was really balanced. What I mean is, there are some foods where its tastes stacks as you continue to eat it, for example, eating more and more ice cream builds up an overwhelming sweet taste in your mouth. This can apply to any taste, especially the salty taste.The ten seiro udon did not have the building taste which is why I thought it was really balanced.

When we were eating, I was listening to my girl friend’s mom eating because she was slurping really loud. It was distinctly noticeable because the restaurant was empty. At first, I thought it was really odd since it is well mannered to NOT slurp in America, but because she slurped so loud, I realized  it was well mannered to slurp in the Japanese culture. I think slurping shows your host that the noodles are good (I will double check that ).

After finishing everything, you pour sobayu (it is the water they boil the noodles with) into the Mentsuyu and you drink it like a soup. The sobayu’s role was for texture and the combination of the two was really good. I enjoyed the experience and the food a lot, I definitely want to eat there again before I leave.

I had a chance to sit in a classroom of a Japanese University today. Classrooms here are different. The professor spoke through a microphone, and the lecture hall had 4 projectors and a huge blackboard. The classroom was huge! The classroom was pretty much divided into 2 sections. The front was for students who wanted to learn, and the back was for people to talk. Honestly, when the professor began speaking, it was like no body cared that the class started. People in the back continued to talk anyways and they talked loudly too. It was like they were trying to give the professor a hard time by ignoring him. It honestly felt like they did not care, but the speakers was loud enough to drown out most of the chatter. At the room entrance, there was a little scanner for you to scan your student id for attendance. Everything at the university was pretty modernized because it was built like 3 years ago. They also had another campus blocks away which held the gym and the more athletic facilities.

Today, I met a total of three English speakers, my girl friend’s friend and two professors. The two professors I met were at the athletic facility. They were both pretty cool, and they both had been to California before. One graduated from Long Beach State and had a good American English, and the other just stayed in LA for 1 year to train. I had a pretty good conversation with both professors and it was pretty interesting to speak in English because when we were speaking in English, all of my girl friend’s friends literally came out of a room to observe us. What is more interesting to me is that the Japanese language has keigo (polite form) which is used to speak to pretty much everyone else except for your close inner circle. For example, someone who is younger would have to use keigo to speak with a senpei (a peer who is older). It’s nice that you respect older people, but man, it sounds annoying to have to do that all the time. Some people would feel insulted if you did not use keigo. To me, the idea of keigo seems self-degrading where like you have to use keigo, it is like saying you are inferior. In English, there’s no such thing as a polite form, and there is none of this social pressure. Obviously, you have to be well mannered when speaking to certain people, but there’s a lot less to worry about. It also feels like you are more equal with the person you are speaking to when speaking in English.

Stayed home, watched glee, and went out to the super market to buy 40% off sushi for dinner. The super markets try to sell all the sushi before closing, so they drop the prices as the store is coming to a close. The sushi was bland though. I think my taste for sushi has improved. That is all.

We stayed home today and took a break, but we went out to eat dinner with my girl friend’s friends. The girls came to pick us up at around 6. All of them were riding a bicycle which was cool since a lot of the girls I know do not even know how to ride a bicycle. On the way to the restaurant, we picked up another one of the girls. The experience was kind of fun because we were all riding bicycles together and talking. Her friends were really nice, and I really wish I could have talked to them more, but the language barrier was tough. I tried my best to communicate and understand everything, and their body language was a big help for me to understand everything. The night was boring since it was mostly girl talk, but I am glad I took the chance to meet my girl friend’s friends.

It can be so hot here. It is becoming incredibly difficult to keep myself from sweating. There are times when I go upstairs to get something and come back downstairs sweating. The heat is only making it harder to blog. Went to Harajuku today and enjoyed the nice blazing sun beaming on my black shirt sucking the life out of me. Harajuku is a district within Shibuya. Harajuku was shopping district filled with tourists and young people. We walked on Takeshita street which was a narrow pedestrian only street and a hot spot for the young. Most shops there sold female merchandise. The merchandise here was pretty cheap. The products are not top brands or any well known brand at all for that matter, but they looked very nice and they were very affordable. Unlike here, everything in America revolves around popular brands and popular store franchises. Walking down the narrow street, I noticed a lot of One Piece products (One Piece is an anime series). One Piece is really popular here, and you will probably feel like an outcast if you do not read the series or know about it because EVERYONE knows about it. At Takeshita (and most of Tokyo), many people are paid to hold signs and promote sales/deals outside of the store. Speaking of which, yesterday at Tokorozawa, I remember one girl’s head dressed up as a beer mug. It was funny because she looked so ridiculous. Anyways, back on Takeshita douri (douri = street), many Jamaicans (maybe Nigerians??) approached me trying to sell me fake merchandise. One guy said, “Why don’t you take a “, before he even able to finish, I said, “No thanks” and I walked away.The street was short and so was wait at the closest kaiten sushi. The kaiten sushi places here have self-serve tea. Each table has a set of cups and a little jar with green tea powder. There is also a hot water dispenser that dispenses hot water on push at each table. I remembered very clearly that this place had a lot of English speaking foreigners, which probably means the sushi sucks and probably means it is expensive. The sushi here was tasty, but not the best; Above average. It was not as cheap as the other kaiten sushi, but it was still pretty decent; The cost came out to around 3,000 yen ($30) between the two of us.

We were supposed to go check out the rest of Shibuya right after Harajuku, but my significant other was not feeling well, so we just visited the meiji jingu (meiji shrine) and went home. The shrine was nice! Before walking through the gates, we had to clean our hands of filth. There was this little fountain of water with wooden spatudles (spatula and ladle following the spork concept) outside of the gates where you cleanse your hands. You just scoop the water and pour it over your hands. When walking through the gates, you have to step over the gate’s hump. I cannot exactly explain it, but there is this hump for the gates to align with when being closed. You cannot step on it because your feet are dirty. Inside, there was a huge empty courtyard. To the outer right corner, there was a tree. It was surrounded by many ema hung by people. On the ema, people write down the wishes and desires that they want fulfilled. Some of them were really cute and funny as they were written by elementary children asking for Legos. We added our ema too! We bought an ema (500 yen; $5) and wrote our wishes down on the ema and hung our wishes in the highest row.

My first day in the rain in Japan. Today, I made use of my NorthFace jacket and it was actually a little cold outside. We were originally going to Harajuku today, but postponed it until tomorrow since it was raining. Instead, we went to the next train stop (Tokorozawa) and looked at some stationary supplies. They have a Daiso here! Passed by a lot of taito arcades again, and we even tried one today. The rule was only $10, but we ended up spending $11. These machines are really addicting and money intensive. Before playing, you can always ask the employees to reset the toys, so it could be more fair. I went ahead and asked the person working there if she could reset the prizes for me in English while pointing to the machine and gave my thanks. She said something to me in Japanese and did a little bow with her head and walked back over to her co-worker which is when I caught them both looking back over at us. Probably because I spoke English to her.

For lunch, we had McDonalds. They had a slightly different menu here and the price is very much the same. We ordered two burgers to share: one ebi burger, and one teriyaki burger meal. The teriyaki burger was different and tasted okay, nothing too special. The ebi burger was pretty good though. Its patty is similar to the filet-o-fish patty, they deepdeep fry the shrimp patty. I liked how it was crispy on the outside and the shrimp was soft on the inside. I also liked my medium size grape Fanta. The size was pretty nice. It was really big! It was a little bigger than an American small drink at McDonalds. The McDonalds here also had a play ground, except it was indoors. It was SO small though, but I guess small people do not need big places like my obese country. Recall from yesterday, I mentioned that there were many categories for trash here in Japan and you have to separate all your trash. Well here at McDonalds, they granted us the luxury to practice that. We got to separate our trash into their rightful bins! It  was not hard since there were only 2 categories (thank goodness), but I asked my girl friend to do it anyways. Different people, different tastes, different size, and different practices.

I am getting pretty familiar and comfortable with my surroundings now. I noticed, I am skipping steps on the way up the stairs to my room, I am helping myself to the refrigerator, I can get around Tokyo on my own.. yeah…. Today was an ordinary day; A non-tourist day; A day with a Japanese family; A day with my girl friend and her family. We had sushi for lunch. Price was similar to San Francisco, but still a little cheaper. Today, I had kujira (whale sushi). I initially thought there was some really special taste; The whale sushi tasted like any other fish. The texture, however, was different. A little chewy like a slimjim. Just so you know, whale is not sold at every sushi restaurant here. They do not purposely hunt whales for food. In America, there is a lot of media attention around whale hunting and they do not really shed much light on the whole scenario, so it’s always up for interpretation. Some people believe the Japanese hunt the whales solely for food. Well, I was told they hunt the whales for research and use that same whale for food instead of putting it to a waste. Speaking of waste, the trash system here is very different. Instead of compost, recycle, and waste, the Japanese go further. They separate it into many categories: burnable trash, plastic, newspaper, magazine and other kind of papers, plastic bottles, glass bottles, cans, and hazardous. It is cumbersome. I want to help out by taking care of my own stuff, but I cannot even figure out where my trash belongs. It sounds easy, but let me go into detail. For a bottle, we have to take off the cap of the bottle for the plastic bin, take off the plastic cap ring of the bottle for the plastic bin (they have a handy scissor for this), take off the logo wrapper for plastic bin, and then the plastic bottle goes into the plastic bottle bin. One time, when my girl friend threw something away, her mom ended up taking it out of the trash and throwing it away in the proper place. Now, we save my girl friend’s mom from doing extra work by just placing the trash on the counter next to the sink. Every city is different though, some cities follow the compost, recycle, and waste system while others follow the cumbersome one.

A day in Ginza. The place was nice since it was a lot newer. The buildings were nicer and streets were cleaner. Shinjuku was old. Well technically Ginza is older, but Ginza is more modern and updated. Ginza had a lot more foreign people and younger people. It’s a tourist city with big brands like Chanel, Burberry, Tiffany & Co, Guchi and various American stores such as Forever 21, Abercrombie & Fitch. American products are really popular here. There was a line to enter Abercrombie & Fitch. In America, it is just whatever and is not a big deal. We walked around Chuuodori. At Chuuodori, they blocked off the streets so people could just openly walk on and through the streets. They also placed patio umbrellas and tables in the middle of the streets for use (they do this every weekend). The streets were also pretty wide. I enjoyed walking around Ginza in this type of atmosphere. We went to the Apple store. There was a lot people there at the Apple store playing with the new iPads (iPads are sold out here). People here love American products, seriously. We had kushi katsu for lunch which is basically various deep fried food. The food tasted great. We sat at a sushi bar.  At the sushi bar, there would be a little counter above where I eat where they would place a plate in front of each person. The chefs would deep fry the food and immediately serve the food as they finished deep frying each item.  They would serve you by placing it on the plate on the counter. Kushi katsu was delicious. I had deep fried salmon with shiso (shiso is a type of japanese herb), mushrooms with some kind of cheese, brocolli with cheese and pork wrapped around it, chinese mushrooms with pork wrapped around, shrimp, scallop, tofu, and much more. I felt like kushi katsu really brought out the natural tastes and flavors in the food. I specifically remember them deep frying an onion. The onion was a size of a super bouncy ball (bite size). I love onions, and this was one of the best deep fried onion I had ever had. The taste of the deep fried batter with the high quality sweet juicy onion together was extraordinary.

There are a lot of stationary shops here. Stationary stores are always interesting. It’s like a bigger Daiso with more stationary products. I remember buying a 0.30mm Pilot pen from Japan Town for ~$4.50 and these same pens cost around ~$2 here. There are some really interesting things to see at stationary stores though. They have like animal shaped paper clips, very big rubber bands, band aid memo pads; They have many things. We went to a nice dessert place as well. They had many sophisticated mouth watering desserts. The designs were quite expensive too. A macaroon parfait cost 1525 yen (~$15). I had a hedgehog for dessert. I love eating exotic animals! It looked really cool! At its inner core, there was raspberry sorbet. Next was a layer of vanilla ice cream and then covered with a layer of chocolate while using the chocolate to create the hedgehog’s spikes (I will upload a picture later). I think food here is less expensive for its quality. It does not really bother me that the portions here are smaller because the quality compensates for it. I would (and have) order more if I am hungry, but most of the time I just finish my girl friend’s dish, so it works out pretty well.

Recall, the other day, I said there were vending machines about every 3 or 4 blocks. Well, today on the way to the train station, there were actually a lot more vending machines than what I had said before. There seem to be vending machines on every block. Anyways, today was the day I finally got a haircut since the Spring semester began. Today, we headed to Shinjuku where my girl friend’s stylist resided. We left the house around 10AM and the trains were still pretty full, but we managed to grab a seat anyways. Seeing Shinjuku for the first time, nothing was what I had imagined. A hybrid between Time Square New York and Hong Kong. Like Time Square, Shinjuku had wide intersections and big streets with many stores and restaurants. Like Hong Kong, Shinjuku had a lot of alleys filled with stores and hole in the wall restaurants. The combination of the two was quite neat to see.

While I can distinguish a Chinese person with a Japanese person, walking down the streets of Shinjuku is not much different from walking in Hong Kong. The people are similar in many ways such as style. The people in Shinjuku are actually pretty old. Well, there are young people of course, but there are just more old people. My girl friend told me, I would see more young people in Harajuku or Shibuya though. Our hair stylist was actually pretty young, I think. He looked cool though and I swear he changed his inner t-shirt after he finished cutting my hair to a “I <3 SF” shirt, maybe my girl friend gave it for him in the past. My experience with this salon was pleasant, and it was also impressive. First of all, the place was pretty nice. Simple, and clean. Big mirrors from the floor up and in front of individual white arm rest chairs. A dark area in the back for cleansing hair with light emitting from a row beneath the glass floor next to the wall. Slightly shedding light into the room enough to see while maintaining a dark room enough for the eyes to easily doze off and relax. Well, he cut my hair. He used a pair of expensive scissors and took his time to shape it the way he visioned. This next part was great, and it was different from salons I have visited before. These type of places usually give a nice head massage, but that’s not what I want to share. After he washed and massaged my head, he sat me up and put his hand on my shoulder to instruct me from leaving (we had a language barrier). He handed me a wet towel and said “face towel”. A FACE TOWEL. It was so simple, but so effective. I wiped my face thinking it was supposed to refresh myself after a long sitting session, but as I pulled away the towel from my face and opened my eyes, I saw all this hair on the towel. It was to clean my face of all the little hairs from my hair cutting session. I never experienced that! Well that is not all. We walked back to my chair and I sat down telling my girl friend how I got a face towel. He put his hands on my shoulders and started groping it. He started giving me a massage. “Does this come with all haircuts?”, I said to my girl friend. Well, the stylist finished the session with a little wax and I proceeded to  fall asleep while waiting for my girl friend to finish.

After paying, they led us outside where they thanked us for the business. I was really hungry by this time and we ended up eating at some Italian restaurant. This restaurant had a smoking section. This kind of thing is extinct in American restaurants. Oh, also, Shinjuku (or possibly all of Japan) has smoking areas where people must stay in to smoke otherwise a ticket will be issued- suckers. The Italian restaurant had some small portions, actually Japan has small portions. I ordered 2 dishes while my girl friend ordered 1. The restaurants here have a button at each table which you press for a waiter. I pressed the button and the waitress arrived shortly, I asked her “Can I have some Parmesan cheese?”  At this point, she just looked confused and stood still. My girl friend resumed her by translating. Oh man, speaking of people in the restaurant. I always hear how everyone is skinny in Japan, they are not that skinny. How is it even possible with these small portions? Later we went to walk around at a department store, and I noticed something different about Starbucks. The drinks, the cup size was small. It was smaller than America’s tall size. At the department store, there was a lot to see, but I am going to skip that and move on to the arcade. It was a place with many prize winning machines like the ones where you grab a stuff animal with a claw. My girl friend and I stood there for half an hour observing players. These claw machines were interesting. At first sight, it would natural for anyone to try to grab the prize with the claw. This does not work. These claws are weak and cannot pick up a fly. By the time you figure out how to really use these claws, your pockets would probably be empty. People used these claws to push and knock prizes over into the hole. Sounds easy, but it is tough. We were watching people spend 2000+ yen ($20) to get prizes. I do not think anyone could grab a prize with just one try, because it takes at least a few times to push the prize to the edge. The arcades jobs are also interesting. The employees that monitor these machines are often asked to reposition the prizes to make it more fair or very commonly open the machines to adjust prizes or reorganize them or reposition them. What a neat city.

Woke up in the morning around 5:30AM JST to a new ceiling. Realizing I was in Japan, I went over to my girl friend’s room to wake her up. By now, the dogs were already awake. I could hear them barking like they want me to come downstairs. My girl friend’s parents were waking up as well as they are very early people. We (my girl friend and I) went downstairs and I noticed her mom was cooking. I didn’t really care, but my girl friend called me over to show me something. The yolk of a tamago here is orange which was interesting because in America, the yolks were are yellow. She told me they had yellow ones here too though, but the orange one was probably the default (or more used) since all I have seen on TV were the oranges ones being used. We gathered around the table where a home cooked meal was in its last stages of preparation before we could dig in. There was miso soup, mentaiko, tamagoyaki, nori (dried seaweed), hakusai no tsukemono, gohan, and tomato. “Itadakimasu”, I followed my girl friend saying. The combination of mentaiko, gohan, and nori was great. Every family has their own style in foods, and her family’s miso soup was very light. There was less miso, and it had cabbage.

By the time I finished eating, everyone pretty much left for work already. My girl friend and I went to the bank for currency exchange. We found out the rate of the day was not going to come out until after 10AM, it was 9:50AM at the time. To pass the time, we went to the grocery store nearby, so I could buy more snacks and drinks. What I noticed different about their grocery store is, they had electronic price displays. Unlike our paper price displays, they could efficiently change prices. Their employees (and all employees) are very welcoming too, well this applies to all the Japanese businesses. They all greet you with “Irasshaimase”. No exaggeration, every employee that I came close to greeted me. Fast forward – we went back to the bank for an exchange and I was surprised with the rate they were offering. I did an exchange anyways, since I needed the money, but only for $200. It is really hot over here and these vending machines are probably making loads of money during this time of the year, at least off of me. Fast forward again – My girl friend’s grandma and aunt came to pick us up for lunch. We had sushi and it was great! We ate at a kaiten sushi place. The system was interesting and fun. It was basically a sushi boat kind of concept, but instead of running tracks around an oval table, the tracks would run through the kitchen and out to the booths. Each booth had its own electronic touch screen display where you would order the sushi of your choice, maguro, ikura, uni, sake, and even takoyaki… umai. I did not hold back, but I was concerned over how much I was eating. So on your display, you would order the sushi and then it would be delivered on the track. When your order was near your booth, the display would let you know that this order is for you. In America, the plates would be picked up by an employee, but it was all automated here. They had a system where you could just insert the plate into a slot in your booth, and I guess it would go back into the kitchen. The system also served as a game. For every 5 sushi plates you insert, you get to play a mini game on the display. If you win, you could get a YoYo that lights up when spinning (we got one). What a great idea! By offering mini games and mini prizes, they are able to incentivize eating sushi. If you ate only 3 plates, would you want to eat 2 more just to get a free game? Probably right? When I was finally full, the bill between us 4 came out to be 3000 yen (~$30). It was so cheap! I had never has such great sushi for such a great price! In America, this stuff would be way overpriced where $30 could never fill up a group of four but maybe a party of 1 or 2. Technology is definitely utilized a lot more here, and in a better way.