I found myself on the longest road in Japan the other day. Somewhere near Togoshiginza station. It seemed kind of fitting for the evening that followed. My frisbee team had an End-of-Year party (Bonenkai) and a lot of the team plus a few new faces showed up. One or two of the new faces were co-workers of Jei and Kerry, both employed by Wall Street Associates, a recruitment firm. One of the new faces was none other than the ex-President of AJET, the main support network and social branch of the JET programme. it's a big position. She had moved from the top of the JET programme to Wall Street Associates and was soon to return to the States to work in the State Department under Hillary Clinton.
A few weeks ago, I finally took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, for which I stayed in Japan. I happened to pick up full-time employment in a kindergarten / international school for Japanese kids whilst looking for enough to survive until the test and now that's what I do. I moved on from teaching English in the countryside, to teaching English in the city, and I can't help but wonder where did it all go wrong?!
Thursday, 18 December 2008
Sunday, 14 December 2008
二郎 Ramen Shop
Co-workers Kei and Kuni working in the Tavern pub keep a book, 'Uwasa no Ramen', or 'Gossip/Rumour Ramen' that Kei picked up in a second hand bookstore. It's kind of my bible. Kuni pointed out his recommendations, including the guide's no.1 ramen shop (at least, 2007's no. 1), just down the road from me. Jiro.
I thought maybe I'd gone too far but then I saw a couple of men queuing outside the doorway of an establishment. The first good sign. The second good sign, though I didn't realise it immediately, was a big barrel of a man with a squint in one eye and a greasy t-shirt on, loitering beside the customers sat at the counter. The third and final good sign was the lack of options at the token-vending machine. Many ramen shops use vending system, rather than burden the ramen chefs with cash handling and the machines usually display a good two dozen options of size, soup and toppings. Jiro had 6. There was no distinction between miso, soy or salt-soup ramen. You know a ramen joint means business when they don't even identify their soup. It's not miso, soy or salt, it's just meat broth.
Once a couple of customers had vacated their seats and hurried on, I took a place and the second good sign came good. A space had been created at the counter and the man with a squint starting passing over plastic sacks of meat. The good stuff. When my bowl of noodles and meat broth arrived shortly after, it was topped off with a chunk of meat the succulence of which I have rarely tasted in a ramen joint. And the final touch, a fistful of chopped garlic tossed on top. I didn't eat again that day.
I thought maybe I'd gone too far but then I saw a couple of men queuing outside the doorway of an establishment. The first good sign. The second good sign, though I didn't realise it immediately, was a big barrel of a man with a squint in one eye and a greasy t-shirt on, loitering beside the customers sat at the counter. The third and final good sign was the lack of options at the token-vending machine. Many ramen shops use vending system, rather than burden the ramen chefs with cash handling and the machines usually display a good two dozen options of size, soup and toppings. Jiro had 6. There was no distinction between miso, soy or salt-soup ramen. You know a ramen joint means business when they don't even identify their soup. It's not miso, soy or salt, it's just meat broth.
Once a couple of customers had vacated their seats and hurried on, I took a place and the second good sign came good. A space had been created at the counter and the man with a squint starting passing over plastic sacks of meat. The good stuff. When my bowl of noodles and meat broth arrived shortly after, it was topped off with a chunk of meat the succulence of which I have rarely tasted in a ramen joint. And the final touch, a fistful of chopped garlic tossed on top. I didn't eat again that day.
Thursday, 11 December 2008
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
Absent
It's been a while.
I moved. Still no internet in the house yet. Lots has happened and I've been itching to write, to tell all.
There have been happenings at school.
A few things, a couple of ideas have crossed my mind.
I've been on a couple of fun outings.
And then there's the sorry tale of how I was cuckolded. Well, I guess strictly speaking I wasn't cuckolded. But it's still a rather amusing tale. It'll have to wait.
I moved. Still no internet in the house yet. Lots has happened and I've been itching to write, to tell all.
There have been happenings at school.
A few things, a couple of ideas have crossed my mind.
I've been on a couple of fun outings.
And then there's the sorry tale of how I was cuckolded. Well, I guess strictly speaking I wasn't cuckolded. But it's still a rather amusing tale. It'll have to wait.
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Thethemodelmasherandme
I got sick and it knocked the stuffing out of me.
The traditional remedy of temporarily over-eating and steering straight did not have the desired effect. Throwing coffee and willpower into the mix seemed to only exacerbate things. So I fell back on on super foods and sleep and it's worked the magic. I'm back.
Friday afternoon in between waves of pounds and skull throttlingly painful headaches (mayeb I'm exaggerating) school finished up and I did a superman, sprang into my suit and dashed off to the Canadian Embassy to open the front door for people, for the most part, with far too much money and far too few manners. Actually that's a lie, it might have been a 60-40 split between the good the bad with the ugly nowhere to be seen. There was one especially attractive lady who strode through the door in ankle boots and a mini skirt and turned out to be the Japan entry for the Ms Universe competition. There were also a few ambassadors and some other smug young twits from Blighty, all swilling back expensive wine and bidding 10s of thousands of yen (er, actually not as much as it sounds) on cases of wine in live auction. It was a fund-raiser for a charity/English and many other language speaking helpline here in Tokyo. I thinkit worked out ok for them. I tucked into the free gourmet scraps on offer backstage in the volunteers room and gazed out on the view across Aoyama-Ichome, the rich district.
Anyway I wasn't feeling top of the world then, but now I'm back, as I said earlier. A parcel arrived from England, containing a masher, amongst other things. I take mashed potatos pretty seriously. And this is one serious potatoe masher. Knowing it was on its way across the world, I've refrained form buying one. And boy was it worth the wait. It's a beaut. All of my strength flooding back, I ground and mashed the life out of half a large sweet potato and several rubbery old Jaga Imo, plain old potoatos tonight. Mash mash mash, the power, the power....
The traditional remedy of temporarily over-eating and steering straight did not have the desired effect. Throwing coffee and willpower into the mix seemed to only exacerbate things. So I fell back on on super foods and sleep and it's worked the magic. I'm back.
Friday afternoon in between waves of pounds and skull throttlingly painful headaches (mayeb I'm exaggerating) school finished up and I did a superman, sprang into my suit and dashed off to the Canadian Embassy to open the front door for people, for the most part, with far too much money and far too few manners. Actually that's a lie, it might have been a 60-40 split between the good the bad with the ugly nowhere to be seen. There was one especially attractive lady who strode through the door in ankle boots and a mini skirt and turned out to be the Japan entry for the Ms Universe competition. There were also a few ambassadors and some other smug young twits from Blighty, all swilling back expensive wine and bidding 10s of thousands of yen (er, actually not as much as it sounds) on cases of wine in live auction. It was a fund-raiser for a charity/English and many other language speaking helpline here in Tokyo. I thinkit worked out ok for them. I tucked into the free gourmet scraps on offer backstage in the volunteers room and gazed out on the view across Aoyama-Ichome, the rich district.
Anyway I wasn't feeling top of the world then, but now I'm back, as I said earlier. A parcel arrived from England, containing a masher, amongst other things. I take mashed potatos pretty seriously. And this is one serious potatoe masher. Knowing it was on its way across the world, I've refrained form buying one. And boy was it worth the wait. It's a beaut. All of my strength flooding back, I ground and mashed the life out of half a large sweet potato and several rubbery old Jaga Imo, plain old potoatos tonight. Mash mash mash, the power, the power....
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Taking the fish
Back in Yamagata. Only for the weekend mind, but I spent the entirety of that cycling around on my mate Justin's spare bike gawping at the mountains, or staring at them from the back of his lady friend Michi's car. Saturday was a crisp blue day and we could see as far as the first snow to have settled on the Asahi Machi range, way out west.
Saturday night, dinner and drinks with the teachers I used to work with from Nana Chu Junior High School and my replacement, Jamaican Tamara, was really rather lovely. We went to Aramasa, an izakaye (Japanese pub eaterie) we used to go to a lot when i was there. The master is hilarious. He once showed me pictures of him asking for directions to the hospital when he got sick on his holiday to England. I guess he had nothing else to take pictures of.
We had some very typical Yamagata fare, in the shape of Imoni, an autumn taro potato stew. There was also purple chrysanthemums with soy, chunky pork rib meat with negi, a kind of Japanese leek, skewered and grilled and the house special, horse meat sashimi (raw horse meat). Hello tape worms. He also brought out a caraf of Jyuu Yon Dai, Yamagata's finest sake, a very smooth blend that is reputedly very difficult stuff to get hold of. But the headlining act on the table was the fish head, sliced in two down the forehead (do fish even have foreheads?), and served on two massive presentation dishes.
Now, I had reservations about how Tamara would cope at Nana Chu. More so, how she'd get there in the first place. I rode a bike every day, over rutted ice banks and through deep snow in winter and under oppressive temperatures by summer, 8km there and 8km back on the commute. Tamara can't ride a bike. But on this showing, she's doing just fine. I hadn't heard the Caribbean saying that people will take the bones for themselves and throw the meat of a fish to the dogs, such is their passion for it that they'll suck those bones dry of marrow. Which is exactly what she and the lovely Yoshida Sensei set about doing.
I thought the fish was done with once we'd eaten as far as the jaw line, but they continued. Tamara ate both eyes, spitting out the hard, 'eye of the eye' that collects in a hard little ball when an eye is cooked. The best bit, she claimed. I'll stick with chicken medallions thanks. Then she and Yoshida Sensei shared the jelly around the eye sockets and scraped clean the meat from the bones, and cracked them open and sucked them clean as a primitive whistle.
Thankfully my appetite wasn't affected and I happily devoured 4 donuts (I know, as disgusting as the fish demolition job) in a post dinner sugar search.
Saturday night, dinner and drinks with the teachers I used to work with from Nana Chu Junior High School and my replacement, Jamaican Tamara, was really rather lovely. We went to Aramasa, an izakaye (Japanese pub eaterie) we used to go to a lot when i was there. The master is hilarious. He once showed me pictures of him asking for directions to the hospital when he got sick on his holiday to England. I guess he had nothing else to take pictures of.
We had some very typical Yamagata fare, in the shape of Imoni, an autumn taro potato stew. There was also purple chrysanthemums with soy, chunky pork rib meat with negi, a kind of Japanese leek, skewered and grilled and the house special, horse meat sashimi (raw horse meat). Hello tape worms. He also brought out a caraf of Jyuu Yon Dai, Yamagata's finest sake, a very smooth blend that is reputedly very difficult stuff to get hold of. But the headlining act on the table was the fish head, sliced in two down the forehead (do fish even have foreheads?), and served on two massive presentation dishes.
Now, I had reservations about how Tamara would cope at Nana Chu. More so, how she'd get there in the first place. I rode a bike every day, over rutted ice banks and through deep snow in winter and under oppressive temperatures by summer, 8km there and 8km back on the commute. Tamara can't ride a bike. But on this showing, she's doing just fine. I hadn't heard the Caribbean saying that people will take the bones for themselves and throw the meat of a fish to the dogs, such is their passion for it that they'll suck those bones dry of marrow. Which is exactly what she and the lovely Yoshida Sensei set about doing.
I thought the fish was done with once we'd eaten as far as the jaw line, but they continued. Tamara ate both eyes, spitting out the hard, 'eye of the eye' that collects in a hard little ball when an eye is cooked. The best bit, she claimed. I'll stick with chicken medallions thanks. Then she and Yoshida Sensei shared the jelly around the eye sockets and scraped clean the meat from the bones, and cracked them open and sucked them clean as a primitive whistle.
Thankfully my appetite wasn't affected and I happily devoured 4 donuts (I know, as disgusting as the fish demolition job) in a post dinner sugar search.
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