This will shock the reader, I know. The above stunning pink metallic leather chicken purse was on sale. I paid one thousand Yen for it... Approximately $8.11. I mean, really. This is why we are here. Purchases like this one. It also comes with a chain shoulder strap that is well, somewhat like a metal leash. I will be doing with out the strap. When I saw it at the Matsuzakaya near us (like a mini-JC Penney with a grocery store in the bottom), I could not believe my eyes. How had this sat there unclaimed for so long?
OK. That is all I have. Carlos has been waking a few times a night for some reason, so we are exhausted.
I read in the New York Times in a 2004 article that "in 2002 people found and brought to the Tokyo center $23 million in cash, 72 percent of which was returned to the owners, once they had persuaded the police it was theirs. About 19 percent of it went to the finders after no one claimed the money for half a year."
Walking around Nagoya, you can see that most Japanese take the idea of lost and found quite seriously. On any given day you can see ownerless items propped up against walls and hung on trees or fences. On many days, those things are my things... dropped while dealing with Carlos trying to crawl out of his stroller. Usually, I don't even know that I lost them until I see them draped across something.
To the left is my straw hat. I knew I lost it, but had no idea where until the other morning when I walked down the stairs from our apartment towards campus and saw it dangling in a branch - weathered from the rain and misshapen from the 50 scooters and bicycles that probably ran over it in the street. I am keeping it there for now. It reminds me to check for my hat.
This is a Snoopy doll someone must have dropped. You would think it was a child's but, given the Japanese obsession with cuteness, it could have been an 80 year-old male physics professor.
And speaking of finding things in trees... I found something very special in two trees by our apartment the other day... MAGNOLIA BLOSSOMS. I was so happy to see the Magnolia trees I almost hugged them. Here are two not great photos of one of the trees and its blossoms. It was like a secret fairy flew all of the way from New Orleans just to tell me to have a nice day... and I did.
So, Mr. Choocherberg (aka Carlos) got up at 4:00 this morning... and guess who got up with him? I tried to let him cry, but David is sick, so I got him out of his crib and tried to get him to sleep with me. No such luck. So, we got up and played and went to get coffee at our funny smoky diner we go to every morning where Carlos ate his yogurt and huevo (you get a free hardboiled egg and toast with your coffee) and I attempted to read the newspaper while pretending I didn't see Carlos flinging his huevo onto the carpeted floor.
Above are his new froggie boots. They turned out to be too big, so we replaced them with duckie boots. Unfortunately, the duckie boots do not go with the froggie rain coat. Please do not mention this to Carlos as he has not noticed it as of yet.
So, I am headed to bed. I'll leave you with some funny things that Carlos says:
"Arigato, everybody" "Carlos, where are you going?" (he says to himself as he takes off in some direction) "Wanna cracker/cookie?" (meaning that he wants one) "No, thank you" (In response to me asking if he wants to go to school or take a nap) "Bye, bye!" (said forcefully to the babysitter basically telling her to pack her stuff and get out of his sight as fast as possible) "You ok, Carlos?" "No biting! Good boy!" (insert whatever it is he isn't supposed to be doing, while he is doing it) "Good Job!" "MUY (pause) GUAPO" (when we put on his froggie or duckie rain boots) "Comiendo milk" (he is eating his milk) "Now, THAT's a penis!" "I sorry!" After I accidentally pinched him while changing his diaper. "That's crazy!" "Oh my gosh" "Oh, Shit!" and "Crap!" and "Jesus!" (he must have learned those at school!)
Japan seems to have a love affair with childhood fun and simplicity. Everyone loves children (in some weird ways, too). When we take Carlos on the train all we hear is "Kawaii, Kawaii!" ("Cute, Cute!"). Most restaurants are very family-friendly and bring a little bowl and spoon set for Carlos to eat with. And every department store, beauty salon, car showroom, etc. has a play area for kids, and grocery stores offer crazy meal-time paraphernalia to make your child's meal like a trip to Disneyland.
Take the fish cakes I just bought at the store. You know those white rubbery fishcakes you get with noodle soup at Japanese restaurants? They are white with neon pink borders? Well, nothing so boring for my child who loves (and requests) fish cakes. At the grocery store you can choose between Anpanman (click word to see link on wikipedia) and Minnie Mouse (see photo below) fish cakes. Wanting to raise an open-minded, doll-owning boy, I bought him the Minnie Mouse ones. Unfortunately, we had to cut her up in small pieces for him to eat her. Oh well. Then there are the toys. So much more fun than boring US toys.
The Japanese toy stores have the most creative interesting toys. We just bought Samurai Guy (we named him that) this weekend... and we think he is quite handsome (or "MUY GUAPO", as Carlos would say).
Below is Carlos' Anpanman scooter with the Keroro Gunso (Sgt. Frog) riding him. (Who says we don't party since we had a kid... this is a party!) Our friend Glen explained that Anpanman is a superhero who saves people by letting them take a bite of his head that is made of cake and he goes back to the factory to get a new head when he needs one. I think that is what David does at work. He gives people new heads.
And then there are the play areas. We found several in Tokyo where you pay 5 dollars to go into a giant play area complete with play zones for kids Carlos' age to about 10 years old. Little block areas and kitchens with fake food. Jungle Gyms for the bigger kids. The big department stores also have fabulous play areas. Carlos likes to ride the little Anpanman rides, but they have video games and train sets and a whole area that you can just check your kid into while you shop (we don't do that... David stays with him). Below is a train car that is for kids (we haven't been on it, I just found it online)
And of course you cannot forget... KIDDIE BEER!!!
They even sell kiddie beer at Toys'r'Us. Why not turn your sweet little boy into a dirty old man that gropes women on the subway and lusts after 13 year olds now? Why wait 'til he is a businessman in Nagoya reading cartoon porn while slurping noodles all alone at a table? Get 'em drunk early and often. OK. This probably doesn't have alcohol, but it is a little strange...
And finally, don't miss this Japanese toilet training video...make sure you get to the #2 (sorry, mom... it is pretty funny)
ANYWAY... if you want to see a cute video of Carlos laughing really, really hard... click here.
Hey, Japanese Men! Pantera called and they want their look back! The style for young men in Japan is Gay-Male-Hairdresser-On-The-Way-to-A- Pantera-Concert-In-Lawrence-Kansas-Circa-1983.
The two gentleman above have pretty typical Nagoya male hair and outfits. While we did see some pretty outrageous looks in Tokyo, the Nagoya look has its own Iowa Beauty Pageant sort of feel to it.
Men's hair here is (a)hideous; (b)clearly takes a lot of time to do in the morning and maintain all day; and (c) extremely feminine. If I were to guess, the men take much more time getting ready in the morning than the women. Even the nerdy scientists that buzz around the Nagoya University campus on their way to the chemistry lab have a hair-do.... they all have some kind of hair-do. Not all of them are as elaborate, but they have worked on their hair for at least half an hour in the morning with a mid-morning, lunch, and afternoon puff up. Lots of product.
The first two looks, below, and the last one, are the styles we see most here. The third one more conservative, but the bleached orange hair is very in.
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Many young women also look like they are headed to the Pantera concert, perhaps with their hairdresser friend. And although there are far more elegantly styled women here than men, in my opinion, there are still some pretty tacky get ups. I'll get more into those another day.
ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT TOPIC.... Mr. Choocherberg (aka Carlos) got some new rainboots, a new raincoat, and a new pal - all with a froggie theme. He put them all on when we got home and, after checking himself out, said slowly, clearly and with lots of feeling... "Muy" (pause) "Guapo". He said it about 10 times. Here are some photos. Have a nice weekend. Big kisses to everyone.
Well, it wasn't our favorite Taqueria Corona in New Orleans, and my beautiful friends were nowhere to be found... but David and I got a babysitter and went out for dinner tonight. Los Tacos restaurant in Nagoya is a little taco "joint" (hate that word) that was simultaneously depressing (because it was not the immediate escape to Mexico we were thinking it might be) and fabulous (guacamole and chips... ahhh). The waiters still spoke no English (or Spanish), the television perched above the entry door had some ridiculous Japanese game/talk/variety show on that was right out of Lost in Translation.. There was some salsa playing overhead, and the margarita that tasted nothing like a margarita tasted a whole lot more like a margarita after I got to the bottom of it.
Carlos is asleep in his little room not ever knowing that some random student who may or may not have the qualifications to babysit watched over him for the three hours we were gone. "Oh your major is infant torture? Great! You are hired!" As I have to get up with him at the crack of dawn... I am going to bed too.
So, the Pepsi Ice Cucumber soda has arrived in Japan. The drink has been flying off shelves since its debut several weeks ago. The drink is a mint-colored soda meant to keep Japanese cool during the hot and steamy summer.
The Japanese Elegant Wine Society(JEWS) has issued its reviews of the beverage. The reviewers were all highly qualified with advanced degrees in cucumber growing and soda/wine making.
The first reviewer is Carlos Kutz of the Deluxe College of Importantness and Luxury in Beverages. His tasting was blind. He was not able to see the Pepsi Ice Cucumber bottle or the maker. And his sample was poured into a blue plastic Winnie the Pooh glass.
His review is as follows:
With a core of blackberry and black cherry fruit that is fully ripe but still bright and not at all chunky and sweet (as is distressingly true of many sodas from Japan), this is a winner even before you get to the accent notes of tobacco leaf, cedar, spices, and graphite.
Sampling the nose
Swishing
Rejecting, but requesting more five minutes later and having a complete tantrum when a refill is declined by the committee.
The second reviewer is Dr. David Kutz, of the Kutz School of Refinement and Fancifulness in Libations
His review is as follows: Even though it's tightly wound, a lemony creaminess combined with minerality comes through, initially on the nose, but then also on the palate and finish. Well focused, this wine should develop well for a decade or more.In other words, he thought it was rather bland.
Excellent nose.
Gurgling the green liquid in his throat, letting it splash the tongue.
Deciding that it has no taste, either offensive or pleasant.
And the final reviewer is Jennifer Anne Ramo, Esq. of the Academy of Luxury Liquid and Fancification.
Her review is as follows:
Nasty. If Pier One made a cucumber scented candle soda, this is what it would taste like. Mix some Dawn dishwashing liquid, mouthwash, and soda water and you have Pepsi Ice Cucumber Soda. Just the fact that it is green is troublesome. I would not give this to my dog... who is dead...It is that bad.
Checking the legs
Swishing on the tongue
Trying not to throw up
All in all, the reviews were not so positive. Carlos only liked it because it was time to go to bed and he thought that asking for something, anything, might delay his bath.
OK Player Haters... stop hating on my freezer art.
So, today, the very hip GenArt (an organization whose mission is to bring to light the most cutting edge, up and coming, cream of the crop talent in fashion, music, design, and film) sent out an email about Japanese anime figures. I have wanted some of these figures for a long time and waited for the opportunity to buy them here. They direct people to a site called Kid Robot that sells such stuff. And WHAT does this site sell? FREEZER ART
You mocked my 10 Farrah Fawcett heads neatly lined up in my NY freezer. You mocked my Luke and Leah swinging across the freezer. Well... now who is mockable?!
OK. Enough of that. Let's talk about Italy! For those of you that don't know this... we were lucky enough to take a quick trip to Italy a few weeks ago. Not only was it quick (it took only 30 minutes to get there), it was really small... and filled with Japanese people.
Here are some lovely photos of our trip.
One of the more bizarro tourist destinations in Nagoya (probably in Japan), is this mini-Venice at the port of Nagoya. There are canals, a miniature David sculpture, bridges, and Italian market (which is actually great), and lots of Japanese people dressed up taking photos, "artists" with their easels painting the scenery. Italian gondoliers paddle (is that what they do?) and an Italian orchestra plays. The whole experience was quite strange, especially being a foreigner to begin with and having all of the faces be Japanese. Not sure we'll go back, until we run out of fresh Parmesan, that is.
In the early part of the Edo period (1600-1800), the Hamamoto family, who began the now famous chain of restaurants called "Hamamotos" realized that they could not attract enough customers to dine in their restaurants merely by posting the menu on the door in front. Words alone would not entice diners or stoke their cravings enough for them to tie up their donkeys, put down their barrels of pickled radishes, and come in for a meal. So, they decided to put samples of what they were serving outside in a glass case. Each day, Mrs. Hamamoto would cook one of everything that was on the menu and place it in the case for passers by to see. Within minutes of doing this, Hamamotos was filled with people slurping their noodles, gnawing on their eel jerky, and swishing down the red bean pudding. There was just one problem. The flies. They too liked Mrs. Hamamotos cooking. So, poor Mrs. Hamamoto had to remake the dishes every two hours. As the restaurant was open for lunch and dinner, this was quite a task. For over three hundred years they had to make nearly twenty meals per day to place in the case.
And then came plastic. In 1952, plastic came to Itsamuyama, where the original Hamamotos stood. Hiroku Hamamoto, the black sheep of the family who wanted to be a chemical engineer and not run the restaurant, decided to see if he could use plastic to make something that looked like food. He took some plastic and some food coloring and his father's noodle maker into the wooden storage hut behind the restaurant and went to work. Lo and behold... he made pasta that looked just like real pasta, but was plastic. It glistened with "sauce", yet it would not go bad.
OK. I just made that up. I have no idea why there is so much plastic food in Japan, but it is insane. Everywhere you go, there are the most realistic plastic replicas of the food. Most of the replicas are great, but some are pretty Junior Varsity... like the restaurant went all out and bought the most expensive barbecued eel, but saved and went for the cheapo green tea cake. I do kind of envision dueling plastic food manufacturing families like the Montagues and the Capulets in Romeo and Juliet. Their children fall in love and kill themselves by eating plastic sushi.
This is a blog/piece on plastic food, if you are interested...Below are some photos of some of the plastic food I've seen. The motherlode is at the Kyoto train station... where they have like 50 cakes that look unbelievably real and are very detailed. So... enjoy the show.
We had a restaurant all to ourselves. The tiny Aronia de Takazawa is a one table restaurant in Tokyo where the chef creates the most complicated, interesting, shocking, and deliberate dishes. Each bite is thoughtfully crafted and each dish has a joke to it. There were seven or eight (or nine) courses, but some courses were just one bite. We had a terrine of 20-something vegetables that looked like a mosaic. Each vegetable was cooked in a different broth. There was one bean and one large crystal of salt on top of the mosaic. The chef placed the terrine on a small spoon/spatula and you put the whole thing in our mouth.
Every course was like this... a little gem that was not only beautiful, but the most delicious thing you have ever eaten. He made white coffee ice cream by soaking coffee beans in milk for three days. He made "volcanic ash" from himalayan salt and a "piece of charcoal" from a potato. Everything looked like something you thought you knew, but turned out to be totally different. It is as if all foods and spices were elements (like carbon etc) and he remade a whole new crazy world using those elements. It was quite easily the best meal I have ever had in my entire life.
Check out the website. www.aroniadetakazawa.com. It is mostly in Japanese, but if you watch the little video and look through the photos you can see his art. And as great as the meal was... it was even better to have a babysitter!
So here is a little secret... i didn{t like Tokyo. It is massive. It feels like 10 Manhattans with hundreds of downtowns and millions more people. The size and the architecture are something I am glad I did not miss. But it was just all shopping all of the time. Roppongi Hills is one of the more famous places in Tokyo... and it is just a giant mall. Every neighborhood was filled with stores I either could not afford or wanted nothing to do with. We did find a vintage kimono store with beautiful vintage obis (the tie that goes around the kimono). And, given that my mom paid for them, they were a great bargain. Other than that... the hotel was beautiful and cost more per night than our monthly rent. It had these cool automatic blackout curtains. With the push of a button, you could not see your hand in front of your face at 2pm.
OK. No more typing. Two people are puffing away at what seems to be sixty cigarettes in each of their mouths given the amount of smoke floating my direction. Sorry for the typos... the Japanese keyboards kill me.
Tomorrow... literally the most incredible meal I have ever had in my entire life. Everything I have eaten before this is slop. I kid you not.
For reasons I don't quite understand... KitKat candy bars are huge here. Not physically huge, but a big deal. They make them in tons of different flavors. There are seasonally produced KitKats, such as cherry flavored for the cherry blossom festival. There are white chocolate with Hida milk (Hida is an area a few hours from here... they have Hida beef, but no Hida beef Kit Kat that I have seen). There are green tea KitKats, lemon, cantaloupe, coffee, mint, bitter, wine, read bean, pumpkin, cappuccino, milkshake, strawberry, dark chocolate, banana, fruit parfait, baby and petit, orange and creme and, of course the original. I'm sure there are others, but I have not found them.
I have tried about five or six of them. The lemon tasted like lemon cheesecake, the white chocolate tasted like white chocolate but gave me a stomach ache. The cantaloupe tasted like throw up (in a good way!), the regular ones are regular, banana was nasty and green tea was delicious. I am on the lookout for the rest of them.
Everything is sweet here. If it doesn't taste like soy sauce, sea weed or curry, it is drenched in sugar. They sell this bread here that is essentially a loaf of white bread soaked in brown sugar. Mmmm. Animal crackers have chocolate in them. Pancakes at the Denny's equivalent come with a little pen of chocolate to make designs on your pancakes with. We bought caramel corn puffy things to eat while watching a movie (see below) and they were really just small hard cotton candy pellets with caramel and corn flavoring. I did eat the entire bag, though.
Mix two cups sugar with one part socialized medicine and what do you have?
Which is exactly what the three of us will have in six months. Yuck (and yum).
3Yen magazine, an online japanese culture magazine, has a funny bit on the new Cucumber Sprite coming out in a few weeks. It actually sounds great to me... kind of like a Pimms Cup. Make sure to read the part quoting the ad content that makes no sense in English.
