Natto

Finally got the courage to try some Natto.
Natto is according to wikipedia - its the traditional Japanese food made
from fermented soybeans, popular especially for breakfast.
For some, nattō can be an acquired taste due to its powerful smell,
strong flavor, and sticky consistency.

Didn't like it one bit.

Capsule toys

I will admit I am addicted to capsule toys. What are capsule toys ?
When you either put in ¥100 coin(s) in a round-shaped vending machine,
turn the dial, and out comes a small sphere plastic container,
containing a tiny capsule toy. They are basically toys in a various themes,
from figurines of anime, video games to weird crazy stuff.
They cost 200 to 400 yen depending on the object. Its kind of a gamble too
coz you are never sure which character you end up getting and if you go
to the same machine, you might end up with the same character again.
Here are how the machines look -



Here are some of my toys -



My favorite ones -


This one is from the Miyazaki classic - Lupin III -The Castle of Cagliostro


Here is my team mate Ben assembling his collection -

My teammate Sean has a more "interesting" collection -



But my absolute favorite find, which I must say is very rare and I had
very pieces only was - Poop on a stick that... lights up !


Now if Poop on a stick with a sad face that lights up wasn't weird enough,
it also comes with an extensible antennae to hold it up high(?) !


Now who would want to buy something like that seriously ?
Err..My teammates and I of course bought it as part of "cultural study"
but why would anyone sane wanna buy poop on a stick that lights up ??

Btw, good article on PingMag about capsule toys here.

TEN

Last 10 days in Japan...alas.

Where the hell is Matt ?

Matt Harding is a 32-year-old videogame designer who quit his job in 2003 to travel around Asia. Along the way, he recorded and posted a short video of himself doing an elbow-intensive jig in Hanoi. That clip got passed from one person to the next and eventually got the attention of Stride Gum, which decided to sponsor two more of his trips. In his latest video, Harding visits 42 countries over 14 months and invites the locals to join in the fun.

I want his job. I am ready to dance silly.


Where the hell is Matt ?

Maid cafes

I mentioned about Maid cafes in my post about my Tokyo trip and finally
found time to write about it.
So what exactly is a Maid cafe ? Maid cafe is in its core essence a cafe
where you can have coffee, tea and etc beverages and snacks like a regular
cafe but ...wait for it......you get them served by pretty girls dressed
in French maid uniform and they refer you by “My master”.
Moreover paying them extra you can get your photograph with your favorite
maid or for the desperate people out there, paying them extra you can play
card games and have a conversation with your favorite maid.
That exactly is how one would describe a Maid cafe.



So when my teammate Ben, who has now being living in Japan since a year,
suggested we go out to check a Maid Cafe in Tokyo as a part of
our “cultural study”, I was intrigued .
So a bunch of us headed to “@home” a very well known Maid cafe.
Entry in the cafe is on basis of entry fee per person(around 700 yen,
that is about $7 or Rs 350) and a time limit of 1 hour. You get in ,
take a table and a maid will be assigned to serve your table for your
allocated one hour. The cafe we went into was almost tastefully decorated,
more like a cross between modern and Japanese traditional décor.
No photography allowed inside. There were quite a few female guests
too at the place, unlike what I had imagined. Our menu had a list of
beverages and snacks and choices like we would like to have a photograph
taken with our favorite maid, or play a game with one. or just chat with
them(all for extra cash of course).We ordered our tea and coffee and
our “maid” came with the tray, she made the traditional Japanese green
tea for my teammate Sean, mixed sugar into my Latte and stirred it well,
in short, the services of a maid. After making the beverages, now this is a standard gesture in all maid cafe, the maid made a heart shape sign with
both her hands and said something like “moi moi”,the meaning of which I still haven't quiet been able to get, since it doesn't have a direct English meaning,
but it's suppose to mean something like-“lots of love/passion/devotion to my master”.But in short thats what a maid says every time she serves you your drink.
We had a nice time drinking our beverages and checking out other maids,
each of them having their own unique style of dressing and styling.
We were of course keeping an eye on the time since its just limited to one hour
or we get to pay extra.

At the end of our one hour, each of us were given a card, which had
our name behind, and after a specific number of visits (in the range of hundreds)
we could get free drinks and snacks. As I was wondering who would actually
visit this place so many times, it was announced that a guy had just had his
200th visit in this maid cafe.Everyone chapped for him and all the maids in
the cafe posed for a photo with him. Wow.





I also eventually visited another maid cafe in Osaka, this one was more classy and themed like a wizard school, where all the maids were training in magic, on the lines of Harry Potter.

My take on maid cafes ? Well again I would say something like this can only
exist in Japan. When I first heard the description of a maid cafe before
visiting it...well...it sounded not very classy....more like a place for
guys to visit. But in Japan, where you have Karaoke and Cos-play as something
very common and normal,this too is one of the designed entertainment activity.
But to me personally, they were more of like a themed restaurant found in any
of the amusement parks, something I would probably visit once or twice just
to take in the entire experience. But as a substitution for say a regular
cafe place like Starbucks, maybe not, first ,since it turns out to be a bit expensive and secondly, regular visit to the place would not be able to
sustain the amusement factor or the charm for me.
But on the whole this is one unique experience everyone visiting Japan must go through once at least.

Fugu

Osaka is of course famous for its Octopus delicacies, but it also known
for its “Fugu” or Blow fish.
As its known, only licensed restaurants can serve Fugu fish,since
there is a specific technique of cutting the fish or else the poison
from the body of fish can spread all over and result in the death of the
person eating the fish. Most restaurant serving Fugu have huge paper
Fugu fish outside there restaurant like this -

Now this is one fish who keeps the possibility of revenge open, I must say.

On another note, found this picture which will make me more unpopular
with my sushi loving friends -

Gojira

The original poster for the iconic monster's first movie appearance.
Unfortunately I have not yet been able to acquire one for my poster collection.
This photo is of the poster up at Sharp Corporation HQ in Japan.

My Apartment

So I have been allocated a great apartment on the 11th floor, all to myself.
It has living room, kitchen, bathroom with shower/tub, a separate toilet
room,a western style bedroom and a tatami room.
Now Japanese apartments are a little bit different in few aspects.
First rule, no shoes inside the apartment, change to your slippers
when you enter the apartment.
Second rule, Japanese bathroom are a bit different, you have the shower
and the tub, but you never put bubble bath or any kind of
soap into the tub. You take a shower first, clean yourself,
go into the tub (which according to Japanese style should have very hot
Water), soak in it, then come out and use the soap in the shower.
Traditionally, the hot water in the tub should not get dirty since
the same water is supposed to be used by other members of your family (!).
The toilet is awesome, I will need to do a separate blog entry for it,
but for starter let me tell you -it needs to be plugged in.
If you want to see the state of the art in toilet systems visit Japan.
It has temperature control for the seats, various systems for water
sprays and flushing etc. And of course you can do all this using the
touch sensitive interface panel on the side.I have 2 bedrooms to choose
from – a western style room and a tatami room,which actually is the
traditional Japanese room with Bamboo mats on the floor and a sliding
screen door.



I am using the western style room since the smell of the mats kind of
bothers me And also the western style room has a attached balcony .



Things I can do with the spare Tatami room (things suggest by my friends
actually) – meditate for spiritual enlightenment,practice samurai sword
fighting, do Yoga (since I am an Indian, and all Indians go Yoga of course).
Well....lets just keep it empty for now.

Well that's all about my apartment, Oh, and one minute thing, many apartments
have good views from their balcony, you know like greenery, parks or the
beach.

The view from my apartment ?

A state of the art artificial speed boat racing arena stadium !!
Yes ladies and gentlemen, I can look out of my balcony to see
speed boat racing tournaments...absolutely free...great view.



For example:
Hmm I have no movies to watch on my laptop-let me see some Speed boat racing.
Hmm...I am eating a banana ..let me watch the speedboat race and eat the banana.
Hmm...I have no work to do-let me watch some speedboat racing.
Hmmm...I have lots of work to do - let me watch some speedboat racing anyways.
Etc...etc...you all get the point I hope.

Pantone Pups

This ad for Softbank to feature the range of colors for their mobile handset
are all over Japan -sign boards, hoardings, subways.

Which pup do you find the freakiest ?

I would go for the red one, but on second thoughts, the red pup with the
fluorescent green pup racing towards me would be the stuff my nightmares
would be made of.

Pricey

Yes Musk Melons cost about 10500 yen in Japan or about
Rs 5400/- or about $108 US dollars each !
Should have got lots of them from the US and sold them
here.

License to live

So I just realized that I have the permit to live in 3 countries –
India, US and Japan(the most awesome countries, of course ).
It's just like those movies where the police
searches the mysterious guy's hotel room and they find a series
of passport of different countries with his fake identity.

My case is just as cool but very very legal.

AKB48

No I am not discussing about the latest in machine gun technology.
AKB48 is one of Japan's popular girl band, having – hold your breath,
48 members ! Yes and therefore the name.
Although they all don't perform together but in groups of just 12-15.
So when we heard that they were performing in Osaka we decided to go
for our very first Japanese pop concert.
The concert was on a Saturday at 11 am.
Why have a concert at 11am ? God knows.
So we figured out if we want to get in, we need to get up at 6 am
to stand in the line for the tickets ! 6 am ?? me ?
The earliest I woke up to stand in line was at 5:30 am
to heard Steve Jobs at the Macworld conference this year.
Hmm...might as well get up. So I got up at 6 am, we got ready
and reached at the place at 8:30am and were greeted by a long line. Nice.


I was surprised by the audience. I had assumed it was more tweens
and teens but I saw a lot of older guys.
Its a girl band and its Japan, of course.
One guy ahead of me, who must be standing long in the line actually
was carrying this bike(cycle), dismantled/folded up in a huge bag
on his shoulders. I could see he had Hello Kitty themed stuff on his cycle.
And he must be at least 25-27 years. Only in Japan.

So after standing 1 1/2 hours in the line, we discovered people
who had bought the special sticker from AKB48's latest CD would
get preference, and d'oh, apparently everyone in the line owned the
latest cd. Ah, well at least we would get in .

Photography was prohibited so I'll describe it.The show started 10 mins
late which by Japanese standards is horrific late taking in consideration
the fact that they measure train efficiency in seconds.
The crowd was overall very well behaved and I am tempted to say dull,
comparing the audiences in concerts in US and India.
There was just one group of crazy fans who had their posters and were
dancing in their own little group. This group of AKB48 had 10 members.
They came up on stage,looked very pretty and cute, sang very cute, danced
around cute in their mini skirt uniform sort of theme dresses.
Conclusion : Overall it was nice concert, every 15 year old boys dream concert.
And all the 25-30 year old Japanese audience enjoyed it a lot.

Grocery shopping

Let it be known that it is very disturbing for a pure vegetarian like
me to see Octopus tentacles heaped up at my grocery store.
Very very disturbing.

Pepsi White

Pepsi White, originally uploaded by Kunjel _.

Anyone up for Pepsi and Yogurt flavor ?
I actually liked it.
Only available in Japan of course.

Aboard the bullet train.

Aboard the bullet train., originally uploaded by Kunjel _.

Directions behind each seat on the bullet train.
The train had vending machines.

Tea Ceremony and Ikebana

So now its been my second Diwali(Biggest Indian festival) away from
home and India. Luckily all my Diwali away from home have co-incidentally
been eventful. Last year at Diwali I went Off-road driving in a
hummer at a resort and was taking part in a cardboard boat making
competition. This year it was no less. I got to attend an Ikebana
workshop and take part in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony.

My Japanese language sensei, Masako Terahara, invited her Master
Yonekura sensei to demonstrate and teach the team the traditional
arts of Ikebana (flower arranging) and Japanese Tea Ceremony.
Yonekura sensei is a very senior and respected teacher and has been
studying Ikebana and Japanese Tea Ceremony since she was a teenager.
Terahara-san now studies both arts under her tutelage.

So we all got dressed into traditional Japanese costumes,I was given
an apprentice Kimono to wear,since I was a student under training.
I have a wait to qualify to wear a real Kimono as of now.

There are many schools and styles, of Ikebana, the first of which
was founded by Buddhist priest, Ikenobo Senke in the 15th century
as an expression of the beauty of nature.

Ikebana is an art that emphasizes the Japanese appreciation of natural
beauty following specific rules that uses asymmetrical form and empty
space to create a harmonious whole.

Yonekura sensei taught the style of Moribana the most basic structure of
Ikebana, arranged in a shallow vase secured by a kenzan or metal-pronged
holder. The arrangement begins by creating a triangle...the first formed by
three branches of different heights and width.Tai is the main and tallest branch
and the foundation of the arrangement.
The middle branch is called Yo and the third and shortest branch of the triangle
is called Fuku. The triangle is again repeated with the main flower,
in our case, beautiful chrysanthemums, with the supporting stem completing
the arrangement.


I was lucky enough to get 5 flowers in my pack of flowers verses
the three that everyone got. Wow, the small pleasures of life.
Although my arrangement must have not strictly followed Ikebana principles,
it didn’t look that bad either (ya, ya I know flowers put any how would
look good, but gimme some credit for a change will ya ! )


Tea ceremony

Next we headed to set up the tea ceremony. Now the Japanese take
their tea very seriously. The Japanese emperor had a special tea room
all made of gold just for the ceremony.Tea ceremonies have to go in an
exact way and there are schools and “Tea Masters” who are well
learned in this art. We got a 6 page instructional manual with
pictures to make sure we got it right.

Japanese Tea Ceremony or sado “the way of tea” is strongly influenced
by Zen Buddhism…and is a formalized way of making and serving tea.
The host or hostess in this case, wears a kimono and for this event
all the ladies dressed accordingly.

Masoko Sensei preparing Tea for us.

Matcha or powdered green tea is scooped into a bowl with a special
tea scoop, chashaku and hot water is then ladled into the bowl and
the mixture whipped until foamy with a wooden wisk, chasen.



The ceremony has many aspects, here are just some instructions for it –

1.Bow when you receive the cup of tea which is called a chawan.

2.Take the chawan with your right hand and place it in the palm of
your left hand.

3.Turn the chawan clockwise three times before you take a drink.

4.When the tea is gone, make a loud slurp to tell the host that
the tea was truly enjoyed.

5.Wipe the part of the chawan your lips touched with your right hand.

6.Turn the chawan counterclockwise and return to the host.

You get the idea how complicated or precise it has to be.

Prior to the drinking of the somewhat bitter tea, each guest is given
a Japanese sweet to eat. After all have been served, the utensils, bowls
and lacquer tea caddies are admired as part of the ceremony as they
can be very antique, priceless and irreplaceable.

The brave among us decided to sit in seeza position(sitting in the
Japanese style), while others sat on benches.
Although being an Indian you would think one could manage the
Japanese style- no way, it’s really painful after a while !




Anyways then I got to try making Japanese tea in the traditional way !
And I sucked at it ! Mixing green tea powder with a bamboo brush is
not as easy as it looks.



All in all it was a great Diwali for me !
I will always remember my Japanese Diwali !
Arigatou Yonekura sensei and Terahara sensei !!

Sweaty drink

As I mentioned before, Japan is full of vending machines at every corner.
I have 5 vending machines just around my apartment.
You find vending machines even inside the premise of a Zen temple !
Some vending machines give you the drink in a hot or cold option for e.g.
if you select hot coffee, it pours hot coffee in a cup and gives you.
The same machine dispenses cold coffee or a pack of chips.
But what amazes me the most is that every time I see a vending machine it
seems to have different brands of drinks all the time !
I bet Japan has like hundreds of drink brands.

But this vending machine had the well known and popular "Pocari Sweat".
Anything with a "sweat" in its name could never appeal to me, even if it
gives me all day super energy.

Caution

By http://skyestarweaver.deviantart.com/art/CAUTION-89160652

Currently reading

From sushi and karaoke to martial arts and technoware, the currency of
made-in-Japan cultural goods has skyrocketed in the global marketplace
during the past decade. The globalization of Japanese "cool" is led by youth
products: video games, manga (comic books), anime (animation), and cute
characters that have fostered kid crazes from Hong Kong to Canada.
Examining the crossover traffic between Japan and the United States,

Millennial Monsters explores the global popularity of Japanese youth
goods today while it questions the make-up of the fantasies and the
capitalistic conditions of the play involved. Arguing that part of the
appeal of such dream worlds is the polymorphous perversity with
which they scramble identity and character, the author traces the
postindustrial milieux from which such fantasies have arisen in postwar
Japan and been popularly received in the United States.

More info at amazon.

All things cute and nice

Everything in Japan has to be cute. Now it doesn't matter if it is subway
tickets or election posters. I have seen 40 year men in business suits
carrying mobiles that have soft toys attached to it. It is kind of nice to
see that anything being cute is not associated with age or maturity but
the fact that anything being cute only makes that thing that much nicer.
Here is a dinnerware scrubber that also has to be cute.
Yes I got it, will probably never use it. Why ? Its too cute.

Indian plastic food

So one day I really wanted to eat Indian food and my team was also enthu for
having some Indian lunch. So we go to this Indian restaurant near our office.
Now going to Indian restaurants in Japan has big advantage for me, its the
only place you are sure to find vegetarian food.
So we go to the place and order food.
The foods is good, first time I was offered chopsticks with an Indian thali
(there is rice in it, how else do you eat rice ? ).
They were playing hindi music too (althought Sridevi laughing in the
Chandini, Chandini song was a bit irritating I must confess. )
And of course the highlight for me....Indian plastic food.
Now all Japanese restaurants have plastic food, that is the exact replica of
the actual food outside the restaurants so people can "see" the food they
are buying and decide. Now this amazes me coz they are really exact perfect looking.
The plastic nan looked really good and so did all the curry.
I really want to go check out the fake food factory to see how they make it.
Really want to.