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