tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31967261367331970562024-03-14T04:13:11.542-04:00Tokyo NightsA Canadian's look back at living in the farthest land.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-15411877208748838042015-08-13T14:47:00.000-04:002015-08-14T14:52:44.748-04:00Fukugawa Hachiman FestivalSince it's the time of year for this festival, I thought now would be a good time to share photos.<br />
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The festival is usually held around the 15th of August at Tomioka Hachimangu shrine, which is near Monzai-Nakacho station on the Tozai line. Every 3 years they hold a bigger version of the event, with over 120 large and small portable shrines, and over 50 giant palanquins. It's huge, crowded, and a lot of fun.<br />
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Another name for the Fukugawa Hachiman Festival is 水掛け祭り (water throwing festival), and the best part of the festival is that you can get soaked! When it's in the high 30s to low 40s with 80% humidity, a cold shower of water feels great!<br />
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A priest from the shrine blesses water, which is then sprayed over the teams carrying the massive portable shrines through the streets. Anyone watching from the sidelines tends to get soaked along with shrines.<br />
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The year I went was rather cold, so I actually didn't enjoy getting wet, but this year would be a good one to go. My friends in Tokyo have been complaining about the weather for weeks now, so a refreshing shower with 'purified' water sounds perfect!<br />
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There are usually events all around the shrine before the parade starts, so I recommend going early and checking things out. We saw some amateur kendo matches, archery, dances, and plays. There were also a lot of good eats, and a LOT of people!<br />
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The festival usually starts with some event on the main street. The year I went they had these awesome taiko drummers doing a show.<br />
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When the actual parade started, there were a few groups of neighbourhood oba-sans doing traditional dances in colourful costumes. There was also a group campaigning for the 2016 Olympic bid in Tokyo. LOL.<br />
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The flag says "It can be done, because it's Japan. A new Olympics!" Well, we all know how that bid went. I think many Tokyoites were heartily relieved when Tokyo didn't get the bid. The commute to work would have been a nightmare. Tokyo is already a very crowded city. Toronto is also after the Olympic bid, and although it's disloyal, I pray we don't get it. We have the worst subway ever, so getting to work during the Olympics would be a nightmare!<br />
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After the blessing of the water and the dancers, they set up these huge fire hoses at intervals along the street. It wasn't long before the portable shrines began to appear.<br />
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Some of the shrines weigh over 5000 lbs, and are supported by huge grids of wood carried by a team of about 40 plus people. Every so often the leader would give a shout and they'd actually throw it up in the air! I thought it was super impressive.<br />
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That 'rain' you see is actually from these guys:<br />
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It seems like all the teams are having a good time, despite carrying such a heavy burden. Most of the teams were joking, egging on the people throwing water, and laughing.<br />
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The festival is slated to start tomorrow, and end on the 16th. If you're in the Tokyo area, check it out. It's one of the top 10 festivals of Tokyo, so you know it'll be something to remember!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-59432149555095909042015-08-04T17:09:00.000-04:002015-08-06T20:31:02.745-04:00Last Trip to Kyoto - Part 2Once I'd arrived in Kyoto, I had to find my way to the local train lines in the station. Up until now I had never used the regular lines in Kyoto. I only used the shinkansen and buses to get around, or I went on foot. I knew where the goddess was (a.k.a Starbucks), so I grabbed my usual summer drink of iced caramel macchiato, and headed off to find my train platform.<br />
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For those of you who are planning a trip to Kyoto, my advice is to plan out all routes and make note of train lines, bus numbers, etc. If I had done my last trip in a 'fly by the seat of my pants' fashion, I would have gotten lost. I'd also have wasted an enormous amount of time. If you know what temples or other sites you want to visit, look them up on Google. A lot of them have English sites now with "access" maps that show you what train lines and stations you need to go to.<br />
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It turned out that the line I had to take (Nara line) wasn't even in the same station as the shinkansen line. I had to go outside the station and walk for a few minutes. Luckily I'd researched that ahead of time. It was really close and not hard to find once I got the right exit from the station. Kyoto has a lot of signs up to direct you to trains and subways, so it's not a big problem. Here's a map to my first stop:<br />
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As you can see, it wasn't that long of a ride, and it only cost me 140 yen.<br />
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Once I got off at the station, I had to walk a fair distance. At first I got a little lost, because the station is a small one inside a town. I got turned around several times trying to get out of the town and onto the path that leads you to the temples. Thank goodness for GPS!<br />
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The rest of this post is very picture intensive, so I've added a break. Click on to continue.<br />
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Once you get off the main roads, you walk down a road that is heavily forested with trees. It's a lovely area, and there are temples galore for you to look at. I was curious about a few places, but I had a strict timetable to work with, so I kept going. Here's a map of the area you have to walk on foot. I accidentally cut off part of the station name. That's Tofukuji station, and the blue line shows where you have to walk.<br />
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I got caught in a short shower about 5 minutes from <a href="http://www.tofukuji.jp/english/index.html">Tofukuji</a> Temple and I had a little panic attack, because one of the main things I wanted to see at the temple was the sand gardens. I was worried that the rain might have ruined the patterns. I'm very lucky that the rain cleared up within a few minutes. The deluge was to come later (spoiler alert!).<br />
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I was beginning to wonder if I'd missed a turn off to Tofukuji, because I'd been walking so long. Some temples are pretty far off the main road, and the signs aren't always well posted. Luckily I knew what I was looking for, and as I was crossing a bridge, I saw the famous view of Tofukuji that has been immortalized in a lot of paintings.<br />
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I think the view must be spectacular in the fall. There's a print by a hanga artist I like called <a href="http://www.hanga.co.jp/shopbrand/002/003/X/page1/order/">Teruhide Katou</a>. He did a fall print that I intend to own eventually.<br />
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I crossed the bridge and made my way around to the main gates. It cost me 1000 yen to get in, which gave me entrance to 3 of the temples on the grounds. I made my way straight to the Honbo gardens, which are the famous moss and sand gardens of the temple.</div>
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I heaved a sigh of relief once I'd entered the gardens, because the rain hadn't damaged the designs in the sand too badly. It was still really overcast, so my pictures turned out a bit dark, but you can still see the careful designs.</div>
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After taking a few shots, I hurried on to my next location, because I only had one day to fit in everything I wanted to see.<br />
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Next up on my list was <a href="http://inari.jp/">Fushimi Inari Taisha</a>, which is famous for its thousands of torii gates. Torii are those big gates you see outside temples. They can be any colour and made from any material, but Inari's are all that gorgeous red/orange. It's a famous view that I always wanted to see, and only a short walk (roughly 20 minutes) from Tofukuji. Here's a map:<br />
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There is a train stop really close to Fushimi Inari, so you can go there directly from the Kyoto station stop if you want.<br />
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You know you're getting close to the temple when you start seeing torii gates cropping up. You'll also find a million souvenir shops. This is by far one of the busiest tourist traps in Japan. You are forewarned. I'd put this on par with <a href="http://www.shokoku-ji.jp/k_access.html">Kinkakuji</a> (the Golden Pavillion) or <a href="http://www.kiyomizudera.or.jp/">Kiyomizudera</a>. It's also more visually impressive, in my opinion.<br />
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The biggest downside to its popularity is how hard it'll be for you to get any pictures without a million people in them. If I had gone here first thing in the morning, I'd probably have been better off. It was around 11 a.m. when I arrived, and PACKED with people.<br />
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I did manage to get a few good shots in, so I'll add those here:<br />
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Above in an ema, which is a type of prayer board. You write your wish on it and hang it up at the shrine. It's a fox, which is the symbol of the goddess Inari. I thought they were super cute. I ended up buying another charm for studies in school and general good health, because Inari has such unique designs!<br />
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Now, you may be wondering, how did the temple get so many torii gates? Is the temple loaded with money? The answer is no, it's not rich, but companies who donate the gates are! How much does it cost to donate a gate to the shrine (and get advertising out of it)? Glad you asked!<br />
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Depending on the size of the gate, the princes go up significantly. They start at around $1750 and go up to $13,020. Well, the exchange rate is probably more now, because the Canadian dollar is so low. =P<br />
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If you go back and look at the torii pictures I posted, you'll see writing in black down both sides of the pillars. Those are the names of the companies that donated a gate to the temple. So, it looks like they are being charitable, but they basically get advertising out of it.<br />
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Last up on my list of places to go for the day was <a href="http://www.shimogamo-jinja.or.jp/">Shimogamo Shrine</a>. I caught the train at Fushimiinari station, and took the Keihan main line to Demachiyanagi station. It cost me 270 yen, and took about 30 minutes.<br />
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From the station I then had to walk about 10 minutes to get to the main gate of the forest where the shrine is located. This is where I hit a snag, because I got turned around twice, and then the heavens opened up and dumped water on me.<br />
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The problem was that the train station exit was kind of in the middle of nowhere. I got out near the Kamo river, but from there I couldn't see the entrance to the forest. Good ol' GPS came into play again, as I had to cross the bridge, walk around a large corner of the forest, and go down what looked like an ordinary street to find the gates. Every time the GPS brought me to that ordinary street, it said I should be at the entrance, but I couldn't see it. Turns out it was a few minutes down the street. I kept doubling back to look for another way in, and wandered into different paths of the forest, only to end up back on the main road again.<br />
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When I finally made my way in, I had a long walk to go through the forest. It was beautiful, and very old, but I was wearing a maxi dress and flip flops, so walking on pine cones, pine needs, fallen branches, etc. was a bit difficult. I have no one to blame but myself, because I should have researched the temple more before going. All I could think of was the history and super cute omamori (good luck charms) they had.<br />
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I got to the little shop where they sell their charms and goods just in time for the heavens to open up. I haven't been caught in a rainstorm that bad outside of a typhoon before, and I wasn't prepared. I only had my tiny fold up umbrella, but the rain was pouring down like someone was emptying a bucket, and the wind was driving it on a slant. I hung around the shop buying charms for as long as I could, but the shop was getting more and more crowded with people trying to get out of the rain. I eventually got tired of being in the crush, and darted out into the rain. Every spot that was shelter from the rain was full of people, so I decided to give up on photos of the shrines and ran back to the station.<br />
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I wish now (hindsight being 50/50) that I had dressed better for the weather. The rain was coming down so hard that there wasn't time for it to drain off the streets. I was wading up to my ankles in water (wearing flip flops), and thanks to my thin maxi dress I was soaked to the skin from the waist down and had trouble walking. Also, a lot of the pamphlets and gifts I'd bought were soaked in my non-waterproof bag. I had known they were calling for some rain in Kyoto, but I didn't know it was going to be so severe. The lesson here is always prepare for the worst weather when you travel!<br />
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Even though it was only 4 p.m. by the time I got back to Demachiyanagi station, I was so exhausted from not getting any sleep in the last two days that I decided to go home. There is no direct link between Demachiyanagi station and Kyoto station, so I took the Keihan main line as far as Shichijo station, and then a bus to Kyoto station. The train from Demachiyanagi to Shichijo took about 9 minutes and cost 270 yen. The bus cost around 270 yen and took 14 minutes. My only other choice would have been to go back down the Nara line to Tofukuji, and then back up to Kyoto station.<br />
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Before I got on the bus, I bought myself a really beautiful fan from <a href="http://www.maisendo.co.jp/">Maisendo</a>, which is a really famous fan shop in Kyoto. I wanted a really fancy one made of paper, because I'd received several cloth ones as gifts over the years. I picked out a purple one that would match my new yukata.<br />
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Once I got back to Kyoto station I stumbled around for a bit looking for souvenirs for my coworkers, and then made my way back to the shinkansen. It was around 14,110 yen by the Tokaido/Sanyo shinkansen to get back to Tokyo, and it took about 2 hours and 10 minutes.<br />
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Speaking of souvenirs, if you're in Kyoto, they came out with a new flavour of Kit-Kat that I'm crazy about. Its flavour is based on Yatsuhashi, which are a famous sweet in Kyoto. I don't like the soft ones, but they make a cinnamon flavoured rice cracker out of it as well <a href="http://www.yatsuhashi.co.jp/mind/yatsuhashi.html">井筒八ツ橋</a>. So basically, it's a cinnamon flavour Kit-Kat. SO delicious! I highly recommend them. They beat the soy sauce flavoured ones from Tokyo hands down!<br />
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I didn't eat anything between 7:15 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. because of my busy schedule, so while waiting on the platform to go home I treated myself to a very luxurious sandwich. The shop, called <a href="http://www.matsusaka-projects.com/mdeli_JR_web/mdeli_JR_web.html">Matsusaka Gyuu</a>, is fairly famous down south for the quality of its beef. They only have shops in the JR stations of Kyoto and Shin Osaka, so I figured I'd better grab my chance to eat something from the shop. Japanese sandwiches are notorious for being skimpy on the meat, so I felt quite happy eating this! I was super hungry, so I splurged and bought the whole sandwich, instead of a half. It cost me 1210 yen!<br />
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I'm glad I went back to Kyoto for a farewell visit, but I was really disappointed in the weather. Can't have everything, I guess. I'll be doing another post about my earlier trips to Kyoto, which include Maiko sightings, so stay tuned!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-60042270321785450942015-07-31T00:34:00.000-04:002015-08-02T17:19:34.361-04:00Last Trip to Kyoto - Part 1My last trip to Kyoto was planned for July 13-14th, 2013. I originally planned to take the shinkansen down to Kyoto, but my old coworker J (also a Canadian) was driving down as far as Kobe with his friend and offered me a lift. I gladly accepted, since this would save me at least 5,000 yen. Thus began a real adventure!<br />
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All of us were working Saturday, so we met up just after 7:30 pm at the train station and took off for the Kansai area! ...or so we thought. Turns out J's GPS had us going north instead of south, and we had to turn around and drive back through most of Tokyo. I can't remember what time it was when we finally left Tokyo, but I do remember us going through Kikugawa-shi in the dark. That's a city in Shizuoka. <br />
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I'd been super jazzed about this road trip, and had prepared a bunch of travel tunes organized by decade. J and I used to sing old songs and watch video clips at work all the time. A lot of my best memories of him involve singing along to something. In the car we had the 80s tunes blasting, and J belted out his special rendition of A-ha's Take on Me. Nobody can hit the high note like he can! We also gossiped like old ladies about work. No one understands the plight of an English teacher quite like another one!<br />
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The rest is after the break.<br />
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We made one quick pit stop for gas and food about halfway through the drive. J has a 2 door car with a tiny back seat, or ledge as I like to call it, and J and I were crushed against the dash so his friend could sit behind us. It was painful unfolding ourselves each time we got out. I'm sure his friend was so relieved to get out and stretch his legs! We just grabbed some junk food and hot pocket style things we could heat in the microwave, because we wanted to get to Kobe as soon as possible.<br />
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I have no memories of anything interesting besides the truck stop area we hit on the way down. The Tomei Expressway goes by a lot of small towns, but they all look the same. I originally tried to memorize the names of the places we passed, but gave up. None of them really stood out.<br />
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By the time we made it down to Kobe it was around 2 or 3 in the morning. We ended up at the <a href="http://www.kobe-kua-house.com/">Kobe Kua House</a>, which has a lot of cheap plans for accommodations and using the onsen (hot springs). They are totally cool with foreigners, by the way. Something you don't find in every ryokan. It's also just a 15 minute walk from the shinkansen station. I think the plan was about 3,100 yen for the smallest room. Unfortunately, all the women's rooms were booked up, so I had nowhere to sleep. I was told I could just pay a small fee for using the onsen (about 950 yen I think) and sleep somewhere on the women's floor. I made my way to the women's side and found it mostly empty.<br />
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The facilities at Kua are really nice. They have large lockers with keys to store your personal belongings in, a lounge with TVs, bright mirrors and hair dryers, and lots of fully stocked washing stations. Kua also has really nice baths, which are of course the most important part. I tried all of the ones they had, and found them to be relaxing, but not as interesting as other hot springs I've been to. All of the pools are tiled, and fairly comfortable to sit in. It was also really clean in there, which I appreciated.<br />
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I originally intended to sleep on one of the short sofas in the lounge area when I arrived, but it was so bright, and there were women using hair dryers or watching TV, so I just couldn't drift off. I ended up trying out the massage chair near the lockers to relax, which was the worst mistake I could have made. I'd never used one of the chairs before and had no idea how strongly they pummel you. I have pinched nerves in my back and I felt like someone was trying to paralyze me. The worst part was that the chair tilted back while it beat you, and I couldn't get up. I must have looked like a turtle on its back while I was trying to escape the chair of pain!<br />
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Totally sleep deprived and tenderized, I skirted my way around the staff on the floor to enter the baths. I have to be careful, because I have two tattoos, and most onsen flat out refuse to admit you if you have them. I haven't been busted yet, but I've had two friends tell me stories of getting refused at the door or even kicked out of the onsen after they'd stripped down because they had tattoos. People ask me about this all the time, and the best answer I've been able to find is that in the minds of the older generation, tattoos = criminals. I think Yakuza gave the tattoos a bad image to start with, and that's what they're still associated with. A lot of younger people don't feel this way, but none of them are running onsen yet!<br />
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I'm sure most of you know how the onsen works, but for those who don't I'll explain the steps;<br />
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1) When you go into the pool/shower area, you should be naked. You can wrap a towel around yourself up to a point, but you have to lose it before you go in. Your towel would just get soaked, anyway. Usually they have some kind of shelves or baskets outside the shower area for you to leave your towel. This took me the longest time to get used to. I'd never done public nudity for more than a brief strip down in a locker room before, so walking around naked in front of strangers for hours freaked me out. It doesn't help when you're foreign and everyone STARES at you. They stop eventually. Promise.<br />
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2) Go on in, try not to stare at all the naked oba-sans, and find a spot to sit down in front of one of the shower heads. You get a little plastic seat to sit on. DO NOT stand up to shower. It's bad etiquette, because you might splash your neighbours. Wet yourself down, and give yourself a good wash with the soap and shampoo they provide. You can use your own if you want, but usually onsens provide pretty good stuff for you to use. You can hose off with the shower head, or fill up the plastic basins they have and dump it over your head. Once you're done, hose off the stool you sat on, empty any water out of the basin, and try to put everything back the way you found it.<br />
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3) Time for the hot springs! I suggest easing yourself into the pools slowly. Some of them are extremely hot, and you could end up crying if you jump in. I've only discovered one pool that I couldn't dip more than a toe in during all my time in Japan. That was up at <a href="http://www.kinsenkaku.jp/">Kinsenkaku</a> in Fukushima (my favourite hot spring!). Most of them feel super good to me, but I like my showers burning hot, too. Also, if you aren't used to soaking in super hot water, don't stay in too long the first time. Try sitting on the edge of the pool to cool down, and then get back in. You don't want to fall asleep in the pool, and you don't want your body to become so weak that you can't get back out. It hasn't happened to me, but I've been warned about it by several people.<br />
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4) Once you're done, pick up your towel and go to the lounge area. They have all sorts of things you can use like Q-tips, cotton pads, combs, brushes, hair dryers, face creams, etc. Most onsen tend to sell products made from their waters or local minerals. You can usually sample these in the shower area and in the lounge area. I love trying all the different products, and usually come home with a few. It's so nice that they provide all these things, because if you're only visiting for the day to use the onsen you don't want to carry all your own stuff around with you. At Kua I tried a special soap called <a href="http://www.feel-kobe.jp/_en/shopping/spot/?sid=364">美肌石鹸 </a>(beautiful skin soap) that was quite good. They had a nice hand cream by the same brand. It's made from the local waters, which are rather famous. I didn't really find them that special. I'll put up another post soon about my favourite hot springs. I've been to some really cool ones!<br />
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As for mixed baths, something I also get asked about, Kua doesn't have them. The men are on a totally different floor from the women, so you're safe enough. I've only been to one mixed bath, but I'll save that story for another post.<br />
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After sitting in the chair of pain, going through all the pools twice, watching TV, and drying my hair, I had killed about 4 hours. I knew the shinkansen were starting around 7, so I decided to pack up my belongings,head out for some breakfast, and walk to the station. I figured at this point it was useless to try and get any sleep, because I wanted an early start to hit all the spots in Kyoto I had planned.<br />
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Trudging like a zombie, I grabbed a breakfast sandwich from a convenience store, because there were no restaurants open in the area, used Navitime (the best app you will ever use in Japan), and found my way up to the train station. From Shin-Kobe to Kyoto took me 28 minutes and a grand total of 2,810 yen to get there. A bargain compared to what I'd have paid if I journeyed from Tokyo!<br />
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Part 2 of my Kyoto trip coming up next!<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-32026462083897906782015-07-29T00:32:00.002-04:002015-08-02T20:44:44.778-04:00Two years later...So I haven't blogged in a long time, you may have noticed. I left Japan in 2013 and moved home to Canada. It was rather sudden, but I don't regret it.<br />
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I'm now finishing a degree to become a law clerk, and I'll be starting at an immigration law firm at the end of August. Lots going on, but I haven't forgotten my time in Japan.<br />
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I've decided to overhaul the blog and change it into a 'memories of Japan' blog. I still have hundreds of photos and stories to tell about my time overseas. It felt like a waste just leaving the blog as is.<br />
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I'll also share more about how I studied Japanese, and also about playing the shamisen. I got asked a lot of questions about both, and I never posted my photos and experiences from my shamisen concerts. I have kimono pics and everything to put up.<br />
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I'm also going to start a blog for my Korean studies. I'll document my attempts to learn the language, and some thoughts on Korean culture. It kills me that I didn't get interested in Korea until AFTER I moved home to Canada. What an opportunity I wasted while living in the country next door!<br />
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Long post just to say thank you for checking my blog. Thank you for continuing to read it even after I disappeared. Please look forward to more posts in the future.<br />
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Next post: My last trip to Kyoto: Tofukuji, Fushimi Inari, and Shimokamo Jinja.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-28898904851225305402013-05-10T13:31:00.000-04:002015-08-14T22:16:00.613-04:00Visit to a Host Club #2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Hd0sinOSv-6uzipnzK6lZSTV8JYby1JApDnn83Y0Iqjnd8BYqDGKO8INfh-sTTPkgr8zAPqH8tVnloa_N8OTVwe4376nRalt8MlD6jOvonqkOf_SjsAbHMBr4ThBVujbq7q-DnRf9NEP/s1600/banner2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Hd0sinOSv-6uzipnzK6lZSTV8JYby1JApDnn83Y0Iqjnd8BYqDGKO8INfh-sTTPkgr8zAPqH8tVnloa_N8OTVwe4376nRalt8MlD6jOvonqkOf_SjsAbHMBr4ThBVujbq7q-DnRf9NEP/s640/banner2.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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Yes, it was my second foray into the glittering, mirrored world of host clubs.<br />
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Several months ago I read an article in some financial magazine (maybe Forbes?) in which Reiji, the "king of hosts" gave an exclusive interview after opening his club (<a href="http://www.clubdios.com/contents/index.html">Player's Club Dios</a>) in Roppongi. The club sounded pretty good, so GEG and I went there to check things out.<br />
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This club is by far the cheapest one I've seen (for first timers). If you mention you saw the home page, you get two hours for only 3000 yen. (Update: It now seems to be 2000 yen) Quite a steal considering this includes a huge bottle of shochu or brandy and a parade of hosts. Most other host clubs cost a basic 5000 yen. The inside was MUCH higher class than <a href="http://www.club-acqua.net/">Acqua,</a> with lovely seating, tasteful decorations, very high tech video screens, and a disco ball that comes down from the ceiling! Even the "man menu" was much more exciting. They were all portable touch TV screens with internet access. Acqua only has beat up paper menus. <br />
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The place where Dios met its downfall was the hosts we were given. I am sure they have many wonderful hosts, but we didn't spend most of our night with them. The guys who came to our table for the majority of our time there didn't seem to know how to talk. There was no scintillating conversation. No sex talk. No compliments. What there was a lot of was awkward pauses, blank stares, and slack jaws. This was not due to the language barrier, as almost all conversation was done in Japanese.<br />
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More after the break...<br />
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I found myself uncomfortable and bored with almost every host we got. We got one who spoke English and had studied in America for two years, but he lost points immediately when he joked in Japanese to a coworker about getting a "free English lesson" from us. My friend and I were not amused. We're there to be entertained by YOU, not to be a free Eikaiwa class! This also screwed his later attempts to get my contact information and become Facebook friends. He pressured me all night claiming he'd just moved back to Japan and "didn't know anyone in Tokyo." You can imagine how well I bought that story.<br />
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I suppose we brought our fate of boring hosts on ourselves. We could have requested a host off the menu, but we just decided to let whatever host was free come to our table. Pictures and blood types aren't really enough to make such an important decision on. If you've read <a href="http://tokyofashionheaven.blogspot.ca/2012/09/hot-boys-alcohol-and-rats.html">my earlier post </a>on host clubs, you'll know that once you designate your host, you can't go back and ask for another one.<br />
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The floor show on Friday and Saturday nights more than made up for the lack of host skills, in my opinion. We had a hilarious show with choreographed dances to J-Rock and J-Pop. I laughed out loud when a rather rotund host stripped down to his skivvies and dances to X-Japan's Kurenai. They obviously put some time and effort into these shows, so I recommend trying to catch one if you want to go.<br />
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Near the end of our night Reiji himself came to our table and asked us to pick a host. Neither GEG nor myself had really been impressed with anyone we saw, so we just pointed at whoever was next to us. It's a shame that it wasn't until the very end of the night that we got anyone interesting to talk to. We ended up evading requests for our cell phone numbers, and promised to text using the business cards we were given. We ended up with about 5 hosts seeing us out, which was nice, and we ran off to catch the last train of the Hibiya line for the night.<br />
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As far as I can tell, only one host we got had been there for over a year. Their business cards gave it all away.
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This leads me to my theory (one of many) on host business cards: the longer the career of the host, the more bling the business card. Let us look at two examples expertly "photoshopped" (in microsoft paint) by yours truly:<br />
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Now the first one obviously belongs to a new guy. Do you know how sad it is to get a handwritten business card here in Japan, the ultimate capital of business cards? Think the business card scene of American Psycho and you've pretty much summed up Japan. This guy is obviously new. And while some may see that as the reason for not having printed cards, let me remind you this is Japan and you can have new cards printed up in a matter of minutes. You don't have to order them weeks in advance. This guy is on PROBATION. Until he proves he's a money maker, he won't get his own unique printed cards.<br />
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This card is obviously the belonging of a popular host because it fairly bursts with the bling. Not only is his picture on the back (the others just had a map), but it has this trippy holographic design all over it too. Fantastic! These are the kind of cards I wanna get all night! Unfortunately, it was hard to photograph the design, but I think you get the basic idea.<br />
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<b><u>So, to sum up: </u></b><br />
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<b>plain card</b> = boring host or really new guy who cannot make good conversation. Sometimes the guy just doesn't have the flash host personality. From experience I can tell you he will be no fun.<br />
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<b>flashy card</b> = the money! He will ooze charm, talk dirty, wipe the condensation of your glass, and whip out a lighter the moment you even think of lighting up a cigarette. He is the kind of man every girl wants when you go to a host club. He will be an expert at wooing you and you won't want to leave at the end of the night. He may even talk you into buying him that $8000 bottle of champagne, or paying off his student loans.
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I'll just do a quick recount of the Dios experience by numbers.<br />
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<b>Number of boring hosts:</b> 7<br />
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<b>Number of interesting hosts: 2</b><br />
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<b>Number of very risque, hilarious floor shows set to Japanese music and done in tights or bikini underwear by sweaty men:</b> 1<br />
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<b>Sightings of the "King of Hosts":</b> 1<br />
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<b>Rats:</b> 0<br />
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<b>Number of times I wished we'd picked another club (after seeing the floor show):</b> 0<br />
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So, if you do decide to visit Dios, try to go on a Friday or Saturday so you can enjoy the hilarious dancing and singing show. Don't be afraid to ask for another host if the one you have during the trial period is boring you. Remember that once you designate a host, you're stuck with them. I still think Dios gives you a better overall experience than Acqua (more professional, they actually dress up in nice suits, etc.), and I think it's a good bargain for someone who just wants to give host clubs a try. Give it a whirl, but don't say I sent you. There is an eager little English speaking host just waiting for me to put him on my Facebook friends list. It will never happen.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-84143588499088152692013-05-07T12:57:00.001-04:002015-08-02T17:20:20.841-04:00Ashikaga Flower ParkOn Sunday I finally made it out to <a href="http://www.ashikaga.co.jp/">足利フラワーパーク(Ashikaga Flower Park) </a>out in Tochigi Prefecture. The reason I say finally, is that I've been planning to go there for over 4 years now. Every year in May I say I'm going to go, and every year I wait too long and miss the window. The window being; the wisteria.<br />
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If you want to visit the flower park, but are worried about missing out on the wisteria, don't. A few of the purple ones are still in full bloom, the double flowering version is at its peak now, and the yellow variation of wisteria will continue blooming until the end of this month. Also, the park has a lot of other flowers like roses, irises, exotic waterlilies, etc.<br />
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Getting to the park from Tokyo turned out to be somewhat of an ordeal, so I hope you can benefit from my hard-earned experience. First of all, prepare to get up early. I left my house at 7 a.m. and didn't get to the park until 10:45. I got to Kita-Senju station around 7:50 and planned on taking the next train, only to discover I had just missed one. The next train wasn't until 8:49. When I finally got out to Ashikaga-shi around 10 a.m., I found out the shuttle bus wasn't a quick 5 or 10 minute run like I thought. It was 45 minutes.<br />
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I planned to be the early bird and get amazing photos by being first in the park. Instead, by the time I got there, about 8 huge bus loads of people had already arrived. Basically, my only thoughts at that point were, "Bugger. Why did I come here again?"<br />
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Is it worth it after all that bother? Let me show you a few photos and you can decide for yourself. I would go again in a heartbeat. The smell alone was worth it.<br />
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About 90m of white wisteria. It was beautiful, even if it was chockabock full of people!<br />
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End of my day with a wisteria and vanilla soft serve ice cream. It was a wonderful way to finish my trip!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-54250806334988492652013-03-04T03:34:00.001-05:002015-08-14T22:35:04.979-04:00Quick Random Photo PostSince we're right between the end of one fiscal year and the beginning of the next, tax season, end of school, etc. I've been rather busy. I haven't had much of a chance to go anywhere or do anything. I'm hoping to head out to Kyoto at the beginning of April to see the Miyako Odori, and I'll be sure to post it if I do, but other than that I have nothing going on.<br />
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So, rather than just leave this blog with no updates, I thought I'd do a quick photo dump of things I've seen or like recently.<br />
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<u><b>#1 Starbucks during Cherry Blossom season</b></u><br />
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I am crazy about the Sakura Chiffon Cake that Starbucks puts out every year around this time. It's delicious! They used to marble the cake, and have white and pink marbled chiffon with salted cherry paste blossoms, but this year it's a uniform pink. The taste is still the same. It's got a cherry flavor and on top you get a salted cherry blossom. </div>
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This is the cake from last year...and my pj pants. lol</div>
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They also do cute cups.</div>
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<b><u>#2 Graduations equal Furisode</u></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdZv1tV9jy-wP35NSf3UAA5EsnbIM8rmmUe8rWmULONYzMDIuk46djTNSBrR6BrIyrKgff_W6Ianw62wJSAkuqO3DRPf-RFr_cI_8DvaVOS5UqoF8ccYWAQV9xasrjLkeB57WT6lZRuPi/s1600/017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTdZv1tV9jy-wP35NSf3UAA5EsnbIM8rmmUe8rWmULONYzMDIuk46djTNSBrR6BrIyrKgff_W6Ianw62wJSAkuqO3DRPf-RFr_cI_8DvaVOS5UqoF8ccYWAQV9xasrjLkeB57WT6lZRuPi/s640/017.JPG" width="308" /></a></div>
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We're now getting into graduation season. This means more furisode and hakama! The best time is usually Seijinshiki (Coming of Age ceremony), but this year it snowed in Tokyo, so many people either didn't wear furisode, or stayed indoors as much as possible. I only saw one or two girls running off with their sleeves trailing behind them, leaving me no time to snap a photo.</div>
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<b><u>#3 Dean & Deluca - Shinjuku Store</u></b></div>
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I don't often go to places like Dean & Deluca because they are overpriced (in my opinon) when it comes to groceries. But, lately some of their pastries are comparable in price with other shops, so I've been popping in every once in a while to grab a quick breakfast. I love their latte art. =) </div>
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<b><u>#4 Personalized Messages on Coffee Cups</u></b></div>
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Lately I find that the odd time I buy a cup of coffee from Tully's or Starbucks, I get a message written on it. This is super cute, makes my day, and I'm always excited to see if I get one. Mind you, when I see other people getting them and my cup sleeve is blank, I have major message envy. =P</div>
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If people are interested, I'll try and update with photos more often, instead of waiting until I have something interesting to talk about. =P</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-31701317445860006332012-09-11T22:13:00.003-04:002015-08-14T22:40:05.481-04:00Hot boys, alcohol and rats<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">A few years ago, my friends and I decided to find out what this whole host club business was about. For those of you outside Japan who've never heard of them, host clubs are where (supposedly) handsome young men pour your drinks, wipe the condensation from the glass for you, light your cigarettes, flatter you, and basically make you feel like a princess.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The clubs are quite popular with lonely women who have no boyfriends (or neglected housewives), and can be somewhat dangerous if you get in too deep with a host. If you go to these clubs, try to remember that the guys are in it for the paycheck. Never forget they aren't sincere, and they're just trying to part you from your money. If you can keep that in mind, you can have a fun time.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm of two minds about host clubs now, because one of my ex-boyfriends was a host in college. The routine, according to him, is to meet a girl the first time and get her number and email. He will then get in contact with her and say that he wants to see her outside work. It'll be all, "I don't want you to be a client! I want to date you as a man, not a host!" They will start dating, and all dates are actually paid for by the club. After a few weeks or more, the guy will ask the girl to start visiting the club to "keep him company." You have to pay to have a host sit with you, so this costs the girl a lot of money. She must also buy her own bottle of alcohol to keep in reserve, so for one night you could be looking at $400+. The hosts also drink alcohol from your bottle, so you need to buy new ones quite often, and they aren't cheap. This is another way to get a lot of money out of the patrons. After the girl has been visiting the club for a while, the boy will come up with a story like, "I'm so close to being number 1 this month and getting a big bonus, but I'm short by $500 bucks. If only one of my customers could buy that special bottle of brandy/champagne/whatever...." and the girl, so in love by this point, does it. Sounds horrible, right?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I can't really throw stones, though, because hostess bars do the same thing in reverse. Can I slam the men for scamming women when there are women out there doing the same thing? The only argument I have is that the clients of hostess bars are usually successful business men, not lonely housewives or part time workers. They usually have more money to spend than the women in host clubs do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My friend H had researched some clubs, and she picked one she thought another friend and I would like. We wanted the full on host experience. I wanted a club lit up like a UFO, the host haircuts on proud, mullet-like display, crazy suits, and expensive bottles of champagne set out in glass cabinets like expensive jewelry. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">On our way to the chosen club (</span><a href="http://www.club-acqua.net/" style="font-family: inherit;">Acqua</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, if you're interested), we had to walk up the main drag of Kabukicho that is riddled with about 50 host clubs. The club next to the one we had chosen had very aggressive hosts who tried to pull us in, but we had already made the choice to visit one specific club so we kept going.</span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The front of the building is really amazing with a huge, lit up sign, and pictures of the most popular hosts. The downstairs entrance also seemed quite impressive with a sliding door and lots of lit up cases of expensive alcohol.</span>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is where the glamour stops.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">The club is in a basement, and it looks like it. The ceiling was a bunch of pipes and rafters that were extremely dirty looking (big mistake painting them white if they aren't going to clean them occasionally). Also, within the first ten minutes of our stay we saw a huge rat climbing a door frame where the hosts come out of the back rooms. It was about a foot and a half long. Halfway up the door frame it fell down to the floor and disappeared behind some tables. Our girly screams echoed over the music of the club and all the patrons and hosts turned to stare at us. Seriously. They spent so much money on the decor at eye level, I couldn't understand why they wouldn't fix the ceiling (and any holes that the rats are apparently using to get into the club).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When we walked in, we were met with nervous faces (Oh my God! Foreigners! What do we do?!?) and were asked for our gaijin cards (I.D. for foreign people living in Japan). We had to sit down on a bench and wait for them to give us the okay. They asked us about parking, did we understand where we were (pfft!), and if we would be okay to talk in Japanese.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Eventually we passed whatever criteria they were after and were brought to a table. An extremely nice host (who I later designated -- let's call him pouty lips, cuz that's what he has in his picture at the club) explained the system to us and asked if we'd like to choose someone right away. We wanted the whole parade of hosts, so we said we wanted to meet them all and would choose later.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When you go for the first time, you're given a special price of 5000 yen (approximately 50 dollars) for 2 hours. You also get a bottle of either Shochu or Brandy to drink at your table. D and I chose brandy while H chose shochu. The bottles are fairly big, so you can get a good 12 to 15 drinks out of it. About 85% of the hosts also drank H's shochu, so our bottle of brandy lasted a really long time. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The hosts came in groups of twos or threes and stayed for about 10 to 15 minutes each. Some were extremely funny and witty. Some were shitfaced or on drugs and were unintelligible. The conversation ranged from Canada to Japan to movies to sex. It was really hilarious.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One host, with the most perfect host hair, was so wasted that his eyes were practically rolled back in his head. He slurred his words badly and the only thing that was said clearly was his joke about his "big dick" which was said in English. Yah, I wasn't too impressed with him. He had blue (?) contacts in, and the dim lighting made his eyes seem white. The whole experience with him freaked me out. His teeth were also almost transparent. I guess that's what happens when you constantly have to go throw up in the bathroom so you don't die of alcohol poisoning.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is him here, if you're wondering:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQr9gZc6CsGckrs70XulONRgejD2uSe7oQhj0uxlTDxU-4bJ8_IrQqVtDjGvNLuRNbcn5AR6Yihd4Hrbn2TAUmuA8-jPy6BTjq6ZqLqF1kE14B6Tgm0eHJhfm7Fedved7MstzQBW5o7f43/s1600/6a010535b1dbb0970c010535ab46ac970b-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQr9gZc6CsGckrs70XulONRgejD2uSe7oQhj0uxlTDxU-4bJ8_IrQqVtDjGvNLuRNbcn5AR6Yihd4Hrbn2TAUmuA8-jPy6BTjq6ZqLqF1kE14B6Tgm0eHJhfm7Fedved7MstzQBW5o7f43/s320/6a010535b1dbb0970c010535ab46ac970b-800wi.jpg" width="212" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">There were a few bright spots, though. Two or three hosts were very witty and seemed "real". Talking with them made the evening so much fun. Of course, one of them was from Osaka. I LOVE Osaka people. They are open, friendly, and don't beat around the bush like Kanto area people.They weren't the most good looking hosts, but their personalities really made them shine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After the first hour and a half, we were asked to select one host to accompany us for the rest of the evening. I was a little put out because there were a few more hosts we hadn't met yet. I really wanted the host to stop hovering and waiting for us to choose someone, because I wanted time to think about it and discuss it with the girls. As it was, I felt pressure to pick someone in a hurry. D chose the funny Osaka guy and H chose another hilarious host I'll call Mr. Personality. I didn't really know what to do, so I chose pouty lips that had explained the system to us at the beginning. He was pretty nice and I hoped we could have a good conversation.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's pouty lips' headshot:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhgcTGMxm8lXjnj0GWjMlKFthq4vEnP_wAwP9leFCRJjt3BrTV8voY9Ga-Jpea_0JKfUuExm0hCidp2P1FpDmQiQZ_irqJ05q5YtCT3kQbYfZDl4H6qQXBHf0G8oeajoXzvVTHWH_X8IA/s1600/6a010535b1dbb0970c010535b235f3970c-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBhgcTGMxm8lXjnj0GWjMlKFthq4vEnP_wAwP9leFCRJjt3BrTV8voY9Ga-Jpea_0JKfUuExm0hCidp2P1FpDmQiQZ_irqJ05q5YtCT3kQbYfZDl4H6qQXBHf0G8oeajoXzvVTHWH_X8IA/s320/6a010535b1dbb0970c010535b235f3970c-800wi.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly, I was disappointed in pouty lips. He chatted with me about various topics, but his attention kept wandering, and as a result so did mine. He also laughed at a mistake I made in Japanese and repeated it to all the other hosts. I thought it was rude to ridicule me when I was making an effort to speak in his language. H and D seemed to be having a really great time with their boys, so I had host envy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When our time was up, Osaka, Mr. Personality and pouty lips carried our purses for us and led us back up to street level. They politely thanked us for the evening, but only Osaka made a point of telling D he wanted mail from her. I'm wondering if the other two just assumed we wouldn't return, or if they were put off by the fact we had boyfriends.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I had a really good time for the first hour and a half, but if I had to go back again and pay nearly 30,000 yen to sit with the same host, I wouldn't enjoy it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I think the key to enjoying a host club is to only go for the first time. You get to meet a large assortment of boys, drink lots of booze, and only owe 50 bucks at the end of the night.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Out of curiosity, I emailed another host from the club that had given me his business card. I told him that pouty lips and I hadn't really gotten along and that I was curious about going back to the club and choosing a different host. I was told it was "very difficult" (translation: not done), but that if I had VERY strong objections to the host and still wanted to come back, I should talk to pouty lips about breaking off my relationship with him and seeing if it would be okay to continue with another host. I loved the way he worded it. I pick pouty lips for less than 30 minutes at the end of the night, don't exchange numbers, and we're in a 'relationship.' I doubt many women try to break it off with their chosen host, because you'd have to see that host glaring at you from across the room every time you went. It's better just to leave that club and choose another.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I visited another club in Roppongi called Club Dios, and I'll put the post up for that sometime in the near future.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-40825554814042368712012-08-27T04:04:00.001-04:002015-08-02T17:22:14.002-04:00高円寺阿波踊りThis past Saturday and Sunday was one of the biggest festivals of the year: Koenji's Awaodori. It's estimated that about 10,000 people participate in groups called 連 (ren) and over a million people come to watch. This year the event was held from 5 to 7 p.m. (although it ran over and ended closer to 8:10), but some years it's held in the middle of the afternoon.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Dancers preparing to start the parade</span></div>
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<b>What is Awaodori?</b><br />
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The dance originated in Tokushima prefecture, which is in Shikoku in the far south of Japan. It's approximately 400 years old and one of the three biggest summer dances, along with Nishimonai Bon-odori (西馬音内盆踊り) from Akita prefecture and Gujou Hachiman Bon-odori (郡上八幡盆踊り) from Gifu prefecture. Bon-odori is a kind of festival dance done in summer. You often see it at various events in Japan. The Awa odori is somewhat unusual in its dance moves. It is believed to have derived from Noh theatre.<br />
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The groups of dancers are accompanied by taiko drums, shinobue flutes, shamisen, and bells. There are two types of dances: those for women and those for men. The women wear a type of dance kimono, which is very tight with distinctive hats. They dance on the tips of their geta sandals with their hands in the air. The men wear happi coats or short yukata (summer kimono), shorts, and a type of tabi sock with a thick sole. Their dance is crouched down and often performed with a fan, lantern, or uchiwa (the round fans that don't fold). Women may also perform the men's style of dance, but men do not dance the women's style.<br />
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Sounds a bit boring, but the groups don't just dance in place. The drums get rocking and the men's groups start going crazy. There was running, big jumps in the air, insane freestyle moves, etc. This event is totally worth seeing!<br />
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Here are some examples of the women and men's costumes:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi09QTO0_Mhk_OomIlmiY7vT7_FrKYK8AO_Og-pnLcnepRO78pumYoMkSv3epc7N-lBhgwAa3C28_9-RZZx5604T_nupkPC2RhbJ2y4MdNgUTYlQAezcYpUBFJvq1fTKuKKAPXZLGVVX-Es/s1600/IMG_0097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi09QTO0_Mhk_OomIlmiY7vT7_FrKYK8AO_Og-pnLcnepRO78pumYoMkSv3epc7N-lBhgwAa3C28_9-RZZx5604T_nupkPC2RhbJ2y4MdNgUTYlQAezcYpUBFJvq1fTKuKKAPXZLGVVX-Es/s400/IMG_0097.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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Young girl wearing the traditional hat, called 鳥追笠 (torioigasa) or 編み笠 (amikasa), which is a type of sloped hat made from grass. It is sewn together and often has a lovely contrasting colour border and strap.</div>
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Woman wearing the traditional happi coat, shorts, tabi socks, obi and head towel of the men's dance. She is carrying a dance fan called 舞扇子 (maiogi), but the dance can also be done with uchiwa (round fans that do not fold) or lanterns.</div>
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Women's Dance Style:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkIIJ2HzxpXnL3hqHWR3Hx8UVqkRB9U7-dN-JNv9YycK9FJasZg3gdc2PxvAwSEXJzFrZ_UUiacYJUrns0RYa7Mbs0skYaogFaPKxWJ2YSQB4TXsVUymhBKFz-x11wZv_CyJKNO1O59BJ/s1600/IMG_0026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgkIIJ2HzxpXnL3hqHWR3Hx8UVqkRB9U7-dN-JNv9YycK9FJasZg3gdc2PxvAwSEXJzFrZ_UUiacYJUrns0RYa7Mbs0skYaogFaPKxWJ2YSQB4TXsVUymhBKFz-x11wZv_CyJKNO1O59BJ/s400/IMG_0026.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The dancers usually start in a crouching position, awaiting the signal to start dancing. The signal is the band leader hitting a sort of cymbal that sounds like a bell. This is a good signal for you to get your camera ready, too.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitGfNODXQGUfonC7Cw66ogiepBHgTsZ1EYQ4JKp_OY1Ph0R1dwdOLDu1hwcSYcuou5YZ4N_9oI9FYW_lNd4N1cKo2sFQIl20DV67NV9C3rIS7idfJs2KmLQJ9X5MdnlpAN950sNNr3NPCI/s1600/IMG_0042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitGfNODXQGUfonC7Cw66ogiepBHgTsZ1EYQ4JKp_OY1Ph0R1dwdOLDu1hwcSYcuou5YZ4N_9oI9FYW_lNd4N1cKo2sFQIl20DV67NV9C3rIS7idfJs2KmLQJ9X5MdnlpAN950sNNr3NPCI/s400/IMG_0042.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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The women make small, mincing steps on the tips of their geta sandals (heels do not touch the ground) and make a sort of high kick in the back.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghTQYw2n6AqRxRJ-hkE3Qx6lC4EEFG5uaoJS3ZH87T4ZyYaaRqIwUFalyCBMyt0KjNWW8sBYYk6shLakUhGjKEm2FpeVoX2uz0AbAM2ciGPxeA65hKjCGf6AuT3eTMfN9yLZDDR7o4B_0Q/s1600/IMG_0067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghTQYw2n6AqRxRJ-hkE3Qx6lC4EEFG5uaoJS3ZH87T4ZyYaaRqIwUFalyCBMyt0KjNWW8sBYYk6shLakUhGjKEm2FpeVoX2uz0AbAM2ciGPxeA65hKjCGf6AuT3eTMfN9yLZDDR7o4B_0Q/s400/IMG_0067.JPG" width="300" /></a></div>
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Here you can see the height of the kick in the back. This must have been a bit scandalous dance back in the day, showing so much leg!</div>
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Here is a close up of their feet:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMNprgQvCdNUkikdZ1dcFDaRvnTfDjJpsIldj5BMpWsjjHmkQHmgBwTXpmJTttXV3TK_h9dk6_HpD1_EyDOmXVhxRumAQJ0JYVzwB-pm3qtILm0fxbfTWMmtn5sH0I4YZC76hbmiGXd_a/s1600/IMG_0251.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyMNprgQvCdNUkikdZ1dcFDaRvnTfDjJpsIldj5BMpWsjjHmkQHmgBwTXpmJTttXV3TK_h9dk6_HpD1_EyDOmXVhxRumAQJ0JYVzwB-pm3qtILm0fxbfTWMmtn5sH0I4YZC76hbmiGXd_a/s400/IMG_0251.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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The men's dance is also quite difficult, as it requires the dancer to stay in a crouched position, putting all his weight on his thigh muscles (rather like doing squats at the gym), moving his right hand and foot forward, with toes pointed down. He then makes a sort of triangle movement in the air with his hands and flicks them at the wrist. The leg is crossed over and down and the movement repeats with the left hand and foot.</div>
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Although Tokushima is the origin of Awa-odori, and undoubtedly the best place to see it, not all of us can afford to go down to Shikoku, so Koenji's festival is a good alternative. It's large, boisterous, and performed on several streets around the station, so you can be guaranteed of a good view.</div>
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I recommend getting there a bit early, if you want a good view. I arrived around 4, and immediately made my way out to one of the starting points of the dance. A good place to be is just past one of the yellow arches that have 読売新聞 (Yomiuri Shinbun- a sponsor of the event) written on them. Those are the starting points for each group to dance. If you're just on the other side of it (opposite the side with writing), you'll have a fantastic view of the dancers as they come through. </div>
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Pick a spot you want to stay in, because as the festival goes on, the sidewalks fill up until they're three or four people deep. This makes it hard to move around and you may not get another good viewing spot. The farther out you are from the station, the less people will be there, so try to choose one of the locations at the end of the main street. Helpful people with pamphlets and fans (great souvenirs, as they're free!) will help guide you and give you a map. </div>
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Don't worry about bringing a snack. Street stalls are set up every foot or so along all the main streets, selling drinks and various snacks. You can get everything from Japan's favorite summer drink, Lamune, to beer and Bacardi Mojitos (you can drink alcohol on the streets of Japan, so don't worry). Food varies from traditional festival food like yakisoba and okonomiyaki to hot dogs on a stick and gyoza. I guarantee you will find something you like. There are also a plethora of convenience stores, on the off chance you don't like what the stalls have to offer.</div>
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Here are a few more shots of the festival.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zM5XWkEagg3dvYN9SiMv-8_jLCRGrQG-wAVFzgvrw3r9yZMAbqfuvhFRhYSEpwNi0pdyfUvAzXPq_DQbDmQe5gbAWwTkSutyty1LZag66SKP9wK5ogNe8Li68sd-vjkGXBRpidVwEjuo/s1600/IMG_0035.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_zM5XWkEagg3dvYN9SiMv-8_jLCRGrQG-wAVFzgvrw3r9yZMAbqfuvhFRhYSEpwNi0pdyfUvAzXPq_DQbDmQe5gbAWwTkSutyty1LZag66SKP9wK5ogNe8Li68sd-vjkGXBRpidVwEjuo/s400/IMG_0035.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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For more information on the festival and more pictures, please visit <a href="http://en.koenji-awaodori.com/">Koenji City's website</a> that is dedicated to the event. You can also find information about buying goods from the festival.</div>
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Hope to see you all there next year!</div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-39229602536864731622012-05-28T06:04:00.000-04:002015-08-02T17:24:36.333-04:00Pariya AoyamaFor about a month now, my friends and I have been planning to hit up Pariya in Aoyama. This restaurant is rather well known for it's homemade gelato flavors and cupcakes. They also have a cafeteria style area with salads and pasta dishes. We went for the desserts.<br />
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Pariya is a nice little restaurant located between Omote-sando and Shibuya. It's closer to Omote-sando, so I recommend getting out the B2 exit there. Walk down the street until you pass the really big Kinokuniya and turn right immediately past that building. Go straight and turn left at the next street. Pariya will be the restaurant on the left-hand corner. It has glass windows all down the front, so it's easy to spot.<br />
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From what I understand, Pariya mixes up their flavors of cupcakes and gelato every so often. When we went, the flavors were mostly fruits, with a few standards thrown in. I didn't think to list all the flavors, but the gelato flavors I remember are milk chocolate, fresh milk, salt milk, melon, orange, kiwi, lemon, tomato (not a typo!), and coconut and honey. There weren't that many cupcakes available the day we went, but we got about 5 of them to split between the three of us. We ordered Mandarin Orange, Raspberry Chocolate, Plain Buttercram, Carrot Cheesecake and Pistachio Chocolate.<br />
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Here we have our three (or in my case, four) gelatos. From the left are coconut-honey, milk chocolate and fresh milk, and melon. You can also see two of the cupcakes in the back. The gelato are melting because instead of just putting all our cupcakes on one tray, the guy had to put them each on their own plate with a separate napkin and fork. Nice, but hardly needed with just three of us!<br />
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The carrot cheesecake cupcake was by far the most moist of all we tried. It also had a subtle spice of cinnamon and cloves. The icing wasn't really cream cheese, or if it was it didn't taste much like it, but it was a good butter cream and not too sweet. The crumbly stuff on top was supposed to be the graham cracker crust of a cheesecake.<br />
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The mandarin orange cupcake was another favorite. The icing was just a bit tangy and the candied orange peel was a nice touch. The cupcake itself was a bit dry in texture, but still had good flavor.<br />
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Unfortunately, I don't have individual shots of the other three cupcakes as my companions were getting really impatient to dig in and our gelato was melting. Back left is the plain butter cream, back right is the raspberry chocolate and the front one is the pistachio chocolate.<br />
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Taste testing. =)</div>
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The raspberry chocolate was my personal favorite. The icing was tangy, not overly sweet and had a strong, natural raspberry flavor. The pistachio came in second place with it's fantastic icing and pistachio nuts. All of us disliked the plain butter cream. The icing tasted like unsalted whipped butter with zero sugar or flavor added. Gross.<br />
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Overall, the cupcakes were good, but dry. These aren't the lush, soft cupcakes I'm used to from back home! I recommend letting them warm up to room temperature before you eat them. We found the first few bites rather dry, but after they sat in the sun for a bit, the flavors deepened, the cake became more moist and the icing seeped into the cake. The only one that did not improve at all was the plain butter cream.<br />
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For five cupcakes, two regular gelato and my double scoop gelato, the price was just over 2000 yen. Very reasonable! I'll be popping back in there for the odd gelato to go from now on! <br />
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I recommend this place for a hot summer day. The gelato was refreshing and although I didn't sample their salads or pasta dishes in the cafeteria section, they looked fresh, healthy and delicious. The menu is very reasonable and the staff friendly. It's also in a great location, surrounded by small, trendy boutiques. Doesn't get much better than that!<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-36638060366182406032012-04-16T12:08:00.002-04:002015-08-14T22:47:42.793-04:00NY Food FairOkay, if you have time in the next two days, get yourselves down to Ikebukuro's Seibu (7th floor) asap and check our the NY Style Fair that's going on now! It finishes at 5 p.m. on Wednesday (Tuesday it's open until 9), so get over there quick!<br />
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I heard about this fair through a co-worker who's stationed at our Ikebukuro office. She has a predilection for red velvet cupcakes, so when she saw them at the fair, she sent me a text to tell me I'd better get my butt down there. I'm so glad I did!<br />
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I actually went twice. lol Once on Saturday night, where I just bought stuff I wanted to take home, and then again on Sunday to have lunch with GEG. Mochi will show you what you could be missing if you don't go.<br />
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There are the expected cheesecakes and bagels, of course. I also found deli-style sandwiches, pickles, buffalo wings, barbecue sauces, Johnsonville sausages (which I don't need to buy since the local supermarket stocks them), pretzels, etc. I kind of laughed when I saw the cheesecakes from Junior's, because I'd seen them the day before at Queen's Isetan for about 700 yen MORE than the fair was selling them for.<br />
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Now Mochi, can you recommend some goodies to us? What should I buy?<br />
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Bagels? Check! Ess-a-Bagel was high on my list of priorities.</div>
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Cupcakes from Billy's Bakery and brownies from Fat Witch? Done and done!</div>
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What, everything? Um, Mochi, let's not get greedy! If I buy all that how can I afford to keep you in gourmet cat food?</div>
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There's also a wine and cheese section at the fair, but considering how commonplace that stuff is in Tokyo these days, I didn't even bother browsing that section. I walked away with some great stuff from the fair! Let me show you what you could be chowing down on!<br />
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Oh yes I did! I also bought an original one with no walnuts, but I forgot to take it out of the bag when I snapped pictures. I sampled one yesterday at the fair and it was AMAZING! The caramel is good, but I think the regular or walnut versions are the stars. They also had a red one, which I assumed meant red velvet or something similar, but turned out to have dried cherries in it. Not my kind of thing, but it may be yours. Check them out.<br />
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Cupcakes from Billy's bakery. Clockwise from top left hand corner: red velvet with cream cheese icing, vanilla with butter cream icing, chocolate with butter cream icing and chocolate with chocolate butter cream icing. The vanilla one was phenomenal, but my chocolate ones were burned on top! They looked super dark to me when I got them home and sure enough, they were black under the icing and dry as a bone inside. Gross. I'm sure I just got a bad batch, because my co-worker said the red velvet was out of this world and she's really picky, but buy with caution if you decide on chocolate!<br />
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Sigmund's pretzels came with the option of various dipping sauces for an extra 32 yen, which I thought was very reasonable. I chose the honey-mustard sauce to go with my salt pretzel and it was awesome! I really wish I'd gone back on Sunday to buy more!<br />
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Mmmmm. I love pickles. These were especially welcome since I spent rather a lot on a big jar of pickles from Queen's Isetan the other day that were packed with garlic and dill and for some reason have this weird, sweet taste like bread and butter pickles. These pickles from Brooklyn Brine Co. are exactly how I expect dill pickles to taste.<br />
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I'm not from NY, so I'd never heard of this chocolate brand before, but the samples I tasted were all so good! I'm a huge fan of sweet and salty, so this black salt caramel bar intrigued me. I haven't touched it yet because it was so pricey and I'm thinking of saving this for a chocolate emergency. lol Er, ignore the fluff on the carpet. Mochi is shedding big time since it's getting warm here and I can't keep up with the fur.<br />
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I also bought several bagels, but forgot to take pictures before throwing them in the freezer.<br />
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I didn't get a chance to try them, but several other things that looked good were the lobster rolls from Luke's Lobster, the whoopie pies from Ciappuccino, the cookies from Soul Snack Cookies, the beer from Tail's ALEHOUSE and the ginger ale from BCGA.<br />
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If you're in the neighborhood, and even if you're not, run right up to the 7th floor of Seibu and check it out! I promise there's something for everyone!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-84798712584407951172011-11-29T11:45:00.000-05:002015-08-02T17:23:13.397-04:00Christmas Is On The Way!Just a few pictures of illuminations around Tokyo for you today. No major ones, I'm afraid, but I'm planning to go shoot some pictures in the next two weeks of some bigger ones.<br />
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Sadly, some of the largest and most beautiful light displays in Tokyo will not be held this year. Both Takashimaya Times Square and Ebisu (both famous for Christmas lights) have decided not to do them. I didn't find out why, but I assume it's either because of the earthquake, power saving or money issues. Too bad. Those were two I always look forward to.<br />
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Times Square may be out of the running, lights wise, but the Southern Terrace still has some lights on display. I shot this one the other day.<br />
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The theme seems to be Tanabata and...penguins. Perfect fit. Um, yes. There's also this lighted up archway near Krispy Kreme where you and your significant other can embarass yourselves in front of strangers by holding hands under the arch and touching these two sensors (one on each side of the couple). If you're meant to be together and get married, it starts to glow white or pink and you hear wedding bells. If you aren't, well a red light shines and you hear "wahh wahh wahhhhhh" music. Romantic, innit?</div>
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Still in the vicinity of Shinjuku station, I shot these pics over at Mosaic Street near the Odakyu line (southern exit of Shinjuku Station).</div>
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Not a huge display, but the lights are still nice. It closes down after 10, though, so if you show up after the shops close, you won't see anything but a white barricade blocking the trees. Voice of experience, here. There's also a cute little Christmas display window as you go down the hill towards the west exit.</div>
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I also went out to Roppongi Hills (now that I live a stone's throw away) and took some pics of the annual Artelligent Illumination, or whatever it's called. It's beautiful, but they've done the exact same illumination for like, 3 years or more. Let me illustrate. This year:</div>
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And the same thing in 2009. The only difference is the lights on Tokyo Tower.</div>
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They're still beautiful to go see, especially when it rains. It makes for a nice walk down the hill back to Azabu. I recommend it to anyone who hasn't been. Another shot of the hills.</div>
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And finally, even small stations are doing illuminations (why oh why isn't Times Square? *cries*).</div>
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I may be far from home, but the spirit of Christmas finds me even here.</div>
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Next week when the huge illumination/sound experience that is Shiodome's light show starts up, I'll run over and snap some pics for the site. I went last year on a whim and loved it. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries after about 6 shots and 30 seconds of video. I didn't want to stay another 30 minutes just to see it all again. </div>
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If you're interested, from December 6th, Shiodome Caretta will have it's annual illumination set to music composed by some famous violinist I'm too lazy to google. It's all choreographed so that the lights and music affect each other. Lasers, smoke machines and much more await you every half hour from 5 p.m., I believe. Let's all go out and enjoy!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-57439075432914075582011-11-14T10:10:00.000-05:002015-08-14T22:50:55.444-04:00I'm Not CoolThis was originally posted on Tokyo Night's Typepad account. I was unable to import my whole blog, so periodically I will add old posts here as "filler" for when I"m busy. This post first appeared on June 9th, 2009.<br />
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I'm not cool.<br />
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I know this. Whenever I try to act cool, I fall on my face, or get too excited when talking and spit on myself (or the unfortunate person standing near me). I gesture with my hands when I talk, and send glasses of wine flying into the laps of my table companions, or even into their handbags!<br />
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Yes, I'm not cool.<br />
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Usually I'm fine with that. Who needs to be cool? I'd rather be intelligent, or funny, or any other admirable characteristic.<br />
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But I wish to GOD I had been cool on Saturday.<br />
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I was out with my friend E at a great vegetarian place in Azabu called Eat More Greens, dipping into the fantastic hummus, when I saw this tall man walking with another man and a woman. They were coming closer to our table and I noticed he looked familiar to me.<br />
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Who was it? <br />
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Could it be? <br />
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OH NO!<br />
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It was Matsuda Shota. The gorgeous Matsuda Shota I'm always raving about. The reason I put up with a whole season of Jotei (crap hostess drama) on Television just so I could watch him in it. Matsuda Shota walking by when I'm shoveling my face full of hummus like a greedy pig.<br />
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What would a cool person do?<br />
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I have no idea, because I was so excited to tell E what I was seeing that I choked on my hummus and made a right spectacle of myself.<br />
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I'm not cool.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com3Azabujuban, Minato, Tokyo, Japan35.6559123 139.7355535000000435.6532273 139.73283800000004 35.6585973 139.73826900000003tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-4169564079011875482011-11-08T11:29:00.003-05:002015-08-02T17:25:48.680-04:002011 Tokyo Ramen Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It was a gray, rainy, miserable day, but people still lined up around the block to get into the Tokyo Ramen Show. The ramen otaku were out in full force with their impressive cameras, polished ramen spoons hanging from a chain around their necks, their "No Ramen, No Life" t-shirts straining over their large bellies... It was a sight to move the soul and bring one to tears.<br />
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Behold the hordes of ramen faithful:<br />
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How to: When you arrive at the park, you should line up to buy tickets for ramen (as many tickets as the bowls you want to eat). My friend and I thought that the ticket for one bowl of ramen was just a bonus of the entry fee, but it turns out you needed a ticket each time you went up to a ramen stand. We learned that only after we had waited in line, got to the front, and then were denied heavenly noodles because we were offering cash only. We know better for next year!<br />
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Another thing that brought me to tears (besides the careful taste testing and photographing of our future ramen otaku overlords) was how woefully unprepared or under-stocked some of the competitors were this year. Knowing full well that the competition doesn't end until Sunday, why were some competitors completely sold out of toppings or ramen itself by 1 in the afternoon? The show didn't end until 8, so I was surprised they didn't last longer. Weak men giving in early was how it looked. Vay, vay disappointed. Luckily, some of the competitors were true professionals and either brought enough supplies to last well into next week or else just had the foresight to ration their supplies each day. I got the best and the worst coming up!<br />
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<strong><u>The Best</u></strong><br />
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潤×東横×なおじ~新潟麺魂伝承会~ with their ramen creation "Neo-ginger chashuu ramen"<br />
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I had read about this ramen on other blogs and on the official website, so I was excited to try it. I enjoyed watching the owner of Naoji tossing noodles in his signature hat! That man has been wearing the exact same style of hat (in two colours) for YEARS. I hope he gets them dry cleaned....<br />
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The ramen was EXACTLY what I would expect of a competition. The broth was light, perfectly balanced and had a nice hint of ginger at the end that wasn't overpowering in the least. They also didn't skimp on toppings. Five huge slabs of pork, lots of menma (which I don't eat, but realize is an important part of ramen), eggs, nori, etc. <br />
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There was a pretty long line to get these noodles, but I understood why when I took my first mouthful. When you slurp the noodles up, that ginger flavor really comes out in the delicious broth. Cleverly done, boys! <br />
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There were fingerprints on the lense of my camera from nearly losing my grip on the bowl, my umbrella and camera simultaneously. There wasn't a table to be had and I had to stand the whole time while juggling two or three things per hand in the rain. Please forgive. Feast your eyes on my poorly photographed bowl of heaven! The bowl was bigger than it looks in the photograph, closer to the actual size of a regular ramen bowl.<br />
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<strong><u>The Worst</u>:</strong><br />
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麺屋こうじグループ with their ramen creation "Kizuna" shoyu ramen<br />
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This group gets "the worst" mention from me for two reasons. 1) That they didn't ration their toppings to last the five days of the event, or didn't care if Sunday people got anything, and 2) they didn't put up signs that they were out of toppings and took our tickets without asking if it was okay.<br />
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Okay, so some competitors ran out of toppings or ran out of ramen (amateurs!) early on Sunday. Most had the courtesy to put up signs saying they were out or had the people working the line inform customers. The Koji group did neither and even had a man taking tickets from us in line and marking them with marker so we couldn't use them anywhere else. When I got to the front of the line sans ticket (they had relieved me of it five minutes before) and was given a plain bowl of ramen with some paper thin chashuu thrown on top, I was pissed off. Where were my wontons? Where were my thick cut pieces of pork?!? With no appology, I was told "we're out." when I asked about toppings and had a bowl thrust into my hands. How rude!<br />
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I was supposed to get this (notice the wontons in the upper left hand corner and the appetising tea-smoked eggs on the right):<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKqZAGkpAhhen-sKxwqEl3qAKd_AHZo0Cw_2sUGOzegFX9qLXx2iB7nrWHRv_Ly2Jm4n9bV7n3xVuoinBmzcbx8lbPjTER96m5LqQfxZJRyV-ee95dyFsD8EVcjVWzz0tqjuldj8upvU-/s1600/4ramen.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKqZAGkpAhhen-sKxwqEl3qAKd_AHZo0Cw_2sUGOzegFX9qLXx2iB7nrWHRv_Ly2Jm4n9bV7n3xVuoinBmzcbx8lbPjTER96m5LqQfxZJRyV-ee95dyFsD8EVcjVWzz0tqjuldj8upvU-/s320/4ramen.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Instead, I got a messy bowl of slop:<br />
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Sad, isn't it? I could have bought that at the ramen shops on my street. The worst part was the taste. It had a chemical, processed taste that fresh ramen broth shouldn't have. I thought it was crap and ended up throwing it away after a few bites.<br />
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Luckily, the hilarious guy from 次郎長 × 大心 × えん楽 (Hokkaido) cheered me up in his plucky little squid hat.<br />
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Adorable, right? <br />
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After the event, my pal and I hit up a local restaurant for a pitcher of beer. Perfect end to the day!<br />
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Despite the rain and the Koji group's selling of ramen under false pretenses, I had a great time. I recommend this event to everyone next year. It's a bit more pricey than just buying a bowl at your local shop, but the high level of quality (for some...*cough cough koji group cough*) makes it worth it. I'll be thinking about that Neo-ginger bowl the next time I'm hungry for ramen. <br />
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It's true what they say....<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-46844886268947280372011-11-04T12:21:00.003-04:002011-11-17T12:04:04.084-05:00Prepare to burst!Yours truly is heading on down to the 2011 Tokyo Ramen Show! I don't think I've ever documented my love of ramen on the blog before, so now you get to hear about it in detail. I'll be going this weekend and I've already got a list of ramen I can't wait to try!<br />
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1) 潤×東横×なおじ~新潟麺魂伝承会~ <br />
I read over at <a href="http://www.ramenadventures.com/">Ramen Adventures </a>that the ginger is quite strong in this one, but that's fine because I LOVE ginger. Vay, vay excited.<br />
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2) 次郎長 × 大心 × えん楽<br />
I'm a fan of shio ramen. My first love will always be miso, but shio comes in second place. A traditional looking shio ramen is just what I'm craving in shoyu-overload Tokyo.<br />
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3) 麺屋こうじグループ<br />
I'm curious about all the toppings and the chicken stock base. Not too impressed that the toppings are sold separately, because I believe those wontons will be pricey.<br />
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4) 秋田成ト会<br />
A lot of talk about using 100% special ingredients only. Wondering if those fancy ingredients taste any different from those of the three ramen places on my street. Yes, three ramen shops on my street. I do indeed live in paradise. They do fresh, handmade gyoza, too. I like to twist the knife a little. =P<br />
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5) 五福星<br />
If it's good enough for ANA first class, it's good enough for me! And I support a Tohoku ramen shop! I'd support the "Fukushima Syndicate" ramen shops as well, if their entry looked better.<br />
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6) 鳥取牛骨ラーメン応麺団<br />
I've never had ramen made from beef bones rather than pork. Plus any extra コラーゲン to make my skin look younger would be an added bonus.<br />
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We'll see if my eyes are bigger than my stomach! Going with friends ensures that between us we can sample pretty much all of them.<br />
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The full list of collaborations for this year is available on the Tokyo Ramen Show's website <a href="http://www.ramenshow.com/ramen/index.html">here.</a> Japanese only, but you can see the pictures of all the ramen. Some look a little radioactive...no cruel jokes at Tohoku's expense intended.<br />
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Will be posting pictures and reviews next Monday!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-81527138663277775602011-10-25T11:27:00.007-04:002015-08-02T17:44:36.955-04:00Six Degrees of GaijinForeigners are a small community here in Tokyo and bad news travels fast. How many degrees am I separated from you?
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<br />
As someone who always likes to plan for the "what ifs" in life, I was pondering something that may be the most tactically difficult situation ever; cutting a friend out of your social network.
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This all came about after a talk with a friend who was a little fed up with someone she knows. Her acquaintance is sometimes rude, childish, and an embarrassment to be out in public with. She asked me, "What would you do?"
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<span class="binding">This isn't an easy question to answer. Even in your home country cutting someone out can be tricky, and it's rendered even more difficult in Japan because we have such a small foreign community. If you haven't noticed on the trains by now, we are seriously outnumbered.</span>
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<span class="binding">Let's talk a little bit about relationships in Japan.</span>
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<span class="binding">Spending time with sexy Japanese people is nice and all, BUT sometimes you feel lonely for native English conversation. You want to chat with someone about Tim Horton's, or the Simpsons, or how George Strombolopoulus was the hottest thing to come out of Canadian TV, and Canadian heritage commercials where you can quote, "Doctor, I smell burnt toast!". Eventually you want to be with someone who doesn't keep asking you to clarify cultural statements every two minutes.</span>
<span class="binding">There will come a day where through chance meetings, or even Internet assistance, you meet a few cool people in your area. Like osmosis, you then join their various groups of friends until you have quite a network going for you. Everyone is friends with at least one of your other friends.<br />
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Herein lies the dilemma; if you want to stop being friends with one of these people, what do you do? You're all related through this web. If you cut off one friend, the other mutual friends may take sides. And if you are the newest friend to the group, you may lose out to seniority.<br />
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Now, if you are a strategic planner, and kept all your groups of friends separate you may only need to cut about, say, 5 to 7 people from the net. If you made the rookie mistake of introducing them all, you may lose an entire friend ecosystem. This would be a tactical error of epic proportions since all those foreigners, by some method or other, know all the other foreigners in your area (think the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, but for foreigners in Japan). If you cut out the whole network of friends, you may be blacklisted and no other foreigner will have you. This is especially true in smaller cities.<br />
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Let's kick it up a notch, shall we?<br />
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You live in Tokyo, which has a population of approximately 12.369 million </span>people in the core. 353,826 of them are foreign residents, as of the 2005 census, only 25,628 are native English speakers. Seems like a lot of numbers, doesn't it? You would think with over 25 thousand English speakers in Tokyo that meeting them would be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. Unless two of you are stuck waiting in the same line, sitting next to each other on a return flight from somewhere, or hook up through the internet, you are shit out of luck because foreigners in Japan rarely acknowledge each other's existence.<br />
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So, in reality the max amount of native speakers you will probably run into (including friends' networks) is more in the ballpark of about 1500 people. That may seem like quite enough people for anyone, but you still have to think of the six degrees of gaijin relationships.<br />
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My theory is that every foreigner in Tokyo knows each other by approximately 6 degrees of separation. Friend A may not know friend K, but A will know K's friends H and B which means that indirectly they have a relationship with K. If you cut K out of your network, you will lose all friends from A to J (possibly the whole alphabet), as well as any future relationships with their friends and acquaintances.<br />
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Most people give up hope after considering the 6 degrees and just decide to put up with the annoying/backstabbing friend until one of them leaves the country. Others, in a banzai suicide rush, cut out everyone and try to start afresh. The wisest people slowly put up a wall between them and the offensive friend. They keep in contact less and less, using work or other social obligations as an excuse until that person is no longer a part of their lives. If you have a very large social network, this is an extremely satisfactory way of ridding yourself of the undesirable. Unfortunately, if your network is on the smaller side, other friends may rat you out unintentionally by mentioning that no, you aren't that busy, and were in fact dancing on tables in Roppongi just the other night.
Here is my suggestion guide for limiting the effects of the six degrees of Gaijin relationships:
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1) Be a naturally sweet person everyone loves and never fights with. Okay, this one is impossible for like, 90% of the earth's population so lets just move on.<br />
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2) Do not introduce one group of friends to another. First off, this doesn't even work well in your home country. Different groups share different interests and bringing them all together can blow up in your face. Just because we all live in Japan, doesn't mean we came here for the same reasons.<br />
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3) Try not to majorly offend anyone. If someone is out on the hunt for your head, it will be harder to avoid them.<br />
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4) Don't assume that just because Tokyo is huge, you won't run into people you dislike. If someone was an ex-friend, they know your hunting grounds. They will run into you eventually. I recently ran into an ex-friend in my home subway. Turns out she just got a job teaching at a school RIGHT BEHIND MY APARTMENT.<br />
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5) Don't have a Facbook page, or at least don't update it with what you're doing or where you are. Stalkers will use it as a tool to track you down.<br />
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6) If you have a blog, don't get too detailed when talking about people. If you have an irritating friend, having them read through your blog that you dislike them won't make it easier to faze them out. You will just open up a big can of shit disturbing that you will have to deal with later.<br />
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7) Learn Japanese and just start hanging out with Japanese friends more. You will have the added bonus of more insight into a foreign culture as well as a much, much larger network where the six degrees no longer apply.<br />
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Those seven steps should help with the damage control in times of trouble. If all else fails, I hear teaching English in Korea's quite profitable these days. Maybe you should consider moving there?
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-78790765560618995802011-10-22T10:40:00.003-04:002015-08-02T17:50:26.765-04:00Sexual Language PredatorsThis post appeared first on the original Tokyo Nights blog on Typepad. It was published Jan. 22nd, 2010.<br />
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Before Facebook was a household name, I admit that I made a MySpace page back in the day. I made the MySpace page when I moved out to Fukushima, because I craved contact with people who were not other English teachers (my views on the male English teacher in Japan are well documented on this site).<br />
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I didn't use it all that much, but over time managed to build up a fairly big list of friends. Then the ex and his stalker came along, and I deleted my account. I did start up another one eventually, but just found it so boring I couldn't be bothered to update it much. I mean, MySpace can't hold a candle to the FarmVille application, right?<br />
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To be fair, I have met some nice people in Japan through MySpace that have become good friends. We go for dinner, go to clubs, watch concerts, etc. It's pretty nice. BUT there is a dangerous animal on MySpace that you have to be careful of when you start adding Japanese people to your friends list. This organism preys on foreign people in the city with only one objective in mind: free English lessons.<br />
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It will start out very innocently, of course. You will connect on MySpace somehow (you search them, they search you, a friend recommends them, etc.) and you send a few emails. At first it's all generosity on their part, with invitations to show you around the city, introduce you to new places you haven't seen before, etc. Excited and touched to finally break through the exclusive clique that is Japanese society, you agree. Remember you are just looking for friends, not a relationship.<br />
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Before accepting any of these invitations you should have the following:<br />
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1) Your excuse to leave early. My favorite is to have a friend call me with an "emergency" or "forgotten plans"<br />
2) Your cell phone. Otherwise #1 will be useless.<br />
3) Your escape route, complete with train schedules. Otherwise you may be trapped in whatever place they choose to bring you.<br />
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If you're really lucky, you'll get the hybrid. This is an organism that not only wants to practice their English with you for free, but is also willing to sleep with you, should they be lucky enough to get you inebriated.<br />
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<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Let me give you a case study to further illustrate my point:</strong></span><br />
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Girl A (who in no way resembles me. *cough* ) unwittingly met a hybrid on MySpace. On the surface he seemed friendly and interesting, if somewhat eccentric, and she agreed to go out for karaoke. Now, Girl A is no fool, and she chose a very public area for their meeting. She also had prepared all 3 suggestions on the list above, and therefore considered herself safe enough. They met in Shibuya (his choice, she hates the Hachiko meeting place with a passion), and they wandered off to their destination. <br />
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Only 5 minutes into their night out, Girl A realized she'd made a mistake of epic proportions. <br />
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Eccentric did not even begin to cover the behavior of the hybrid, as he sang with more passion than necessary, stamping his foot on the floor (off the beat, no less) for emphasis during emotional parts of the lyrics. He also had a tendency to sing with his eyes closed, throw his head back, and was the most off key singer she'd ever had the misfortune to cross. Trying not to giggle, Girl A downed as many tequila sunrises as she could during their two hour stay and sent hilarious play by play texts of the hybrid's antics to her friends on her cellphone.<br />
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When they exited Karaoke, Girl A wanted to escape, but tenacity is the hybrid's most outstanding feature. He suggested an Okinawan pub up the road, coaxing Girl A with tales of delicious island cuisine and Orion beer. Within 5 minutes of sitting down, the hybrid laid out the first part of his agenda: He wanted to improve his English. What does he suggest? Why nothing but a STUDY SCHEDULE that Girl A could partake in to teach him English. During and after the Soki Soba and Goya Champuru, the hybrid continued to suggest study aids he would like Girl A to bring and the "benefits" (wink, wink) that she could enjoy if she helped with said studying. Girl A never ate so fast to get out of a restaurant in her life.<br />
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After leaving the bar, the hybrid changed tactics and went into phase two of his agenda: sleeping with a foreigner. Pathetic attempts to grab Girl A's sympathy ("I came here from Yokohama. There's no more trains, and I'll be stuck here overnight") were put into play with little effect. When the whole "let's get naked in a love hotel, we're not far from the hill" ploy failed to gain him access to Girl A's panties, he tried to get her to take him home to her apartment. <br />
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At this point, Girl A was feeling tired, disillusioned, and a fiery wrath backed up by delicious tequila. She looked him straight in the eye and told him to fuck off. It's a crude, but effective way of getting rid of the hybrid. She left him to find his own place to stay for the night/way home and returned to her apartment in a huff. Though she was tired and somewhat drunk, she also took the time to block his ass from her MySpace page.<br />
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The story should end here, but didn't I say hybrids are tenacious? Soon the hybrid discovered one of Girl A's friends on MySpace and began using that person as a method to get information on Girl A. He also kept changing his cell phone email so that he could bombard her with text messages even after she blocked him. Weary of his ways, Girl A finally had her boyfriend call up the hybrid and threaten him with bodily violence if the hybrid did not leave his woman alone. And there ends our story.<br />
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The moral of this story is that MySpace is no longer just the home of angsty tweens desperate for strangers' approval through photo comments or people from third world countries looking for VISAS by marrying foreigners. It is now home to several types of predators that are on the lookout for innocent whiteys in Japan. Men are as vulnerable as women, although I believe men encounter more hybrids than women do. Use MySpace at your own peril!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-79892145021384828812011-10-19T12:33:00.002-04:002015-08-14T23:02:29.488-04:00Tokyo Brunches and Sweet Little ThingsToday I'm writing about great places to have brunch or buy treats in the city. Trust me, with more Michelin star restaurants than Paris, Tokyo has lots of good places to eat!<br />
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Here are a few of my favorites:<br />
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<strong><a href="http://www.le-bretagne.com/j/lebretagne.html">Breizh Cafe Creperie</a></strong><br />
Shinjuku Takashimaya 13F<br />
5-24-2 Sendagaya<br />
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo<br />
03-5361-1335<br />
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This wonderful restaurant is owned by the same group that bring you Le Bretagne (a famous creperie that has branches in Omotesando and Kagurazaka). I normally don't like to eat in restaurants that are located in large shopping centres because of the crowds, but since the Takashimaya in Shinjuku has dozens of restaurants to choose from, you can usually find a seat.<br />
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Breizh Cafe Creperie is located on the 13th floor and has indoor seats and outdoor seats on the patio, with a small garden in the center. It's a perfect place to sit outside and enjoy the weather while you eat some buckwheat crepes with yummy fillings and drink either their regional cidre or one of their numerous teas. <br />
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I apologize for cutting into my crepe's egg before taking a photo! It was too delicious to wait!<br />
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I've been to Le Bretagne in Omotesando and I have to say that location-wise, Takashimaya's Breizh is far superior (anything not smack-dab on a street corner where people sitting outside can touch the cars is an improvement). It also has more seating and isn't super crowded with trendy foreigners. If you don't show up during peak hours, you're pretty much sure to find a seat. I've never been to Omotesando when it wasn't packed to capacity and requiring either a 40 minute wait (on the street) or a reservation.<br />
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For my lunch, I had the confit d'onignons au cidre crepe (kind of a sauteed onion jam done in cidre; the apple cider of Bretagne) with eggs, ham and cheese. I beg your pardon for cutting into my crepe and starting to eat it before I took the picture. I was hungry and had no self-control. =) Needless to say, it was delicious. I also ordered the small green salad and a cappuccino. At the end of the meal, we were enjoying the weather and peace and quiet of the garden so much that we ordered some of the teas they have to prolong our stay. I had the ceylon tea with lavender honey. The lavender honey was so lovely and fragrant! For any tea lover, I recommend it!<br />
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From the delighted sighs and constant photo snapping from a group of Japanese ladies behind us, it seems the dessert crepes are also a huge hit. I've had the crepes suzette at Le Bretagne and it was quite good, so I'm sure Breizh has some decadent ones, too.<br />
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Price wise, I found a lot of the crepes to be anywhere from 300-900 yen cheaper than the crepes at Le Bretagne. Service was also faster and the staff were very polite. They also have a lot of set menus you can choose from, if you want a large meal or want to try more than one crepe. <br />
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Feel like shopping for regional goodies from Bretagne? You can buy cidre and caramels au beurre sa<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.2000007629395px;">lé</span> (salted butter caramels) or some of the local pottery at the shop. You can also purchase regional items online from the website above. Just click on the restaurant name.<br />
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<strong><a href="http://www.chayam.co.jp/restaurant/isetan.shtml">Chaya</a></strong><br />
Shinjuku Isetan 7F<br />
3-14-1 Shinjuku<br />
Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo<br />
03-3357-0014<br />
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Chaya is a healthy restaurant sent from heaven. <br />
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While I love food and often like to experiment by trying new things, I am a picky eater. It's something I'm ashamed of, but forcing myself to eat foods I dislike has done nothing to curb this problem and has sometimes led to unpleasant results. Chaya, which frightened me with it's label of "macrobiotic" and images of eating wheat chaff or weird vegetables slathered in vegemite, turned out to be a pleasant surprise. More than a surprise, it was an epiphany. Healthy food can taste like this?!? Did I mention it was cheap? Yah, that doesn't hurt either. =P<br />
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Let me walk you through my first meal at Chaya:<br />
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I sat down with a nervous look at the menu and decided that the dinner set menu didn't seem to have anything offensive or on my long list of foods I dislike, so I ordered it. The food doesn't come out looking like stodgy hippie food that's all brown or mushy, but rather elegant French fare. <br />
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My first course was a starter of red quinoa (do you know how long it took me to learn how to pronounce that right?) and beets. I LOVE beets! The salad was light and refreshing and made me a quinoa convert immediately.<br />
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Second course was a lovely fillet of white fish (sorry, I forget which one), done in a carrot and orange sauce with seasonal vegetables. Everything was light, well seasoned and satisfying. It came with three different breads made in house with rice flour and a butter substitute. The cranberry nut bread was my favorite and everything tasted like it was baked that morning.<br />
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Dessert was the best part, because no dessert at Chaya exceeds 300 calories! No, I did not miss a zero! Can you believe it? I had the tiramisu and I would never have known it wasn't made with mascarpone cheese! All desserts at Chaya, in keeping with the macrobiotic diet, are made with no white sugar and no milk products. Natural sweetener like maple syrup is used along with tofu or soy milk. I know that makes it sound like the desserts won't be decadent, but believe me when I say that there wasn't a crumb left on my plate!<br />
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Chaya's menu is available to look at <a href="http://www.chayam.co.jp/restaurant/isetan.shtml">here</a>. The meal I had was "Chaya Dinner".<br />
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Chaya is also a great place for lunch or just coffee and dessert. The last time I was in there with a friend, I had tea and their pistachio nut torte seen below. Keep in mind that all food at Chaya is seasonal, so the menu is subject to change.<br />
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<strong><a href="http://www.dalloyau.co.jp/menu.html">Dalloyau</a></strong></div>
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Ginza 6-9-3</div>
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Chuo-ku, Tokyo</div>
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03-3289-8260</div>
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I seem to be on a French kick today. This is the third place I'm introducing that serves French cuisine. This particular place is where I go when I need a pick me up. You know what I mean. When I'm super depressed, hate my life, hate my waist size (in retrospect I should steer clear of this place when I'm dieting), and just need SOMETHING to make me feel like life is worth living, I come here.</div>
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Overkill? Think no place or food can achieve that feeling and it all comes from working on yourself? Oh, honey. Obviously you've never had an opera from Dalloyau. Or their chocolate macaron, which is like, the fudgiest, richest macaron ever made. Seriously, it's like biting into the darkest chocolate fudge brownie that is still dense and moist in the center because it's straight out of the oven. Actually, it's better. You have to try one to understand. Their framboise (raspberry) macaron is no pushover, either.</div>
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I used to make a pilgrimage to the Ginza flagship store whenever I needed a fix, because it was on the train line I used. No longer must I trek through thousands of tourists and shoppers on a weekend to get my fix. Fate has been kind to me. The station near my current job has a Dalloyau shop inside the station's shopping centre! It doesn't carry the full array of the Ginza store, but now whenever the limited edition macarons come out, I can try them if I'm interested. This goes far to ensure my internal goodwill towards man, let me tell you!</div>
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Here's a pic of a few I bought for New Year's Eve. I got framboise, green tea, cassis, vanilla, and chocolate.</div>
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Not only does Dalloyau have delicious cakes, cookies and candies, but they also do great breads. Some of the branches also have restaurants. Seriously, you can't go wrong with this place...unless you're on a diet. </div>
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I was there right before I moved in September to buy some cakes for a "goodbye old apartment" party. A few friends and I gathered at the old apartment to eat cake and drink obscene amounts of wine. It was a great night. Of course, a few macarons made their way into the bag I brought the cakes home in. I couldn't leave without buying a few favorites. =) Here are some of the cakes I bought. </div>
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Price-wise, Dalloyau isn't any more expensive that any other fancy pants patisserie. Most of the cakes run from 350-600 yen and the macarons are usually around 200 yen or so. <br />
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I'm constantly going to new restaurants when I'm not financially debilitated, so in the coming months I'll be sure to update with more suggestions on my favorite places to go! If you have any that you'd like to share, let me know. Bon appetit!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-8392524971784302252011-03-18T08:33:00.000-04:002015-08-14T23:04:53.627-04:00Aftermath of EarthquakeSo, as most of you know, Japan suffered an 8.9 (or 9,0) earthquake on the 11th. It caused large tsunami of up to 10 meters high that pretty much smashed and destroyed whatever the earthquake didn't get first. Then the temperatures dropped and it snowed heavily in the worst affected areas near the quake epicenter. NOW we're worrying about the heavily damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima and whether Fukushima will be the next Chernobyl. It's one large sh*t storm in Japan right now, my friends. BUT Tokyo Nights isn't going anywhere.<br />
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I did consider skipping town and taking a prolonged vacation (read running away) down south somewhere like Nagoya, Osaka or Kyoto, but I'm in the middle of changing jobs. If I leave now, I'll miss out on the chance to get out of my teaching job and into something else. Let's just say a very good position (albeit for a lower salary) has become available with a prominent company and yours truly has just been for the 3rd interview. One more interview to go and that job is mine. I'm really gunning for it because the job has great benefits, and if I get the job I promised myself I could buy that Prada bag I've been ogling for the last few weeks. =) <br />
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The biggest challenge faced in Tokyo right now is all the idiots in a panic. Food will not stay on the shelves for more than an hour or two and I've been unable to buy milk or bread for the last week. It got so bad that now there's a rule in my supermarket that you can only take one of any kind of item with you to the cash register; so one carton of milk, one frozen food item, etc. This has meant that things stay on shelves a bit longer, but has also encouraged the people who are certain we're about to get nuked like yesterday's pizza to be more inventive. Now they bring their whole family to the supermarket and each member has their own cart piled high with food. Not amusing. If I can't have milk in my morning coffee I am not a pleasant person to be around. I had to settle for powdered cream substitute the other day. It wasn't pretty.<br />
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This is what I'm dealing with:<br />
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Scary stuff. I think the hoarding by some has caused panic in others who worry about food availability, which has in turned caused more hoarding. It's the selfish, food domino effect. I can't wait for all of this to finally go back to normal. <br />
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With water contamination now becoming an issue, people are stocking up on bottles of water as well. I manged to get two large bottles before the rush started, but a friend of mine had to make tea with Perrier, because she couldn't get anything else, and was afraid of radioactive contaminants in the water.<br />
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Will keep on with updates about the "crisis" and how it goes, if I don't end up drinking black rain.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-54114233073782773792011-01-28T10:40:00.000-05:002015-08-02T17:49:26.269-04:00Hairy DilemmaI wanted to have a little chat about hair in Japan. Namely, finding a hair stylist that doesn't make you feel suicidal.<br />
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In my nearly 6 years in Japan I have been to countless salons. I tried going to salons that were really just for Japanese clients, "Foreigners accepted" but staff are only Japanese, English or Japanese service with multicultural staff, and finally a "by foreigners for mostly just other foreigners" salon.<br />
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Up until last year, every salon I went to in Japan was an utter disaster. My hair often looked like a freakshow and I spent a lot of time crying myself a river. I realize such things can happen even in your home country (good stylists seem to be a somewhat rare animal anywhere), but I find the ratio can be much lower here. Let us examine the things you need to think about before you venture off to hunt that elusive being; the fabulous stylist.<br />
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<u><strong>#1) Your hair type</strong></u><br />
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If you are of asian extraction, or tend to have very thick, coarse hair, you are in luck. The stylists in Japan tend to use techniques and dyes that were meant for that hair type, NOT the more delicate caucasian hair. This doesn't seem like a big deal (I mean hair is hair, right?), but it can spell DISASTER depending on what's done to your head.<br />
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<strong>My hair disaster story その一:</strong>My first trip to a hair salon was about 3 months after I'd arrived in the country. I was studying at a small, but rather famous language school and decided to be adventurous by getting a haircut in a Japanese salon. Having only been in the country for 3 months and having little to no grasp of Japanese language, it probably wasn't the smartest idea to mess around with my hair. Hindsight...20/20, yadda yadda.<br />
The stylist I was assigned to was a very hip looking young man in his early 20s who looked like he moonlighted as a host -- don't they all? He did his very best to speak slowly and use any random English words he knew (ex: "SUTAIRUお決まりですか?), but most of what he said was totally lost on me. Luckily -- or so I thought -- I had brought a few magazine photos with me to show what kind of cut I wanted. The young man scrutinized the pictures for all of five minutes (Ah! Berry, berry cool! Good sutairu!) and began to cut huge chunks of hair from my head with a scary looking razor. Given that I'd wanted a light trim with a little layering around the bottom, this wasn't good. I couldn't explain that he wasn't doing it the way I wanted, and had to sit there in miserable, English silence until he finished. And ladies and gentlemen, that haircut wasn't cheap.<br />
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I had no notion at the time that styles suited to asian hair wouldn't work with mine, so I had no way to know that the layered look I'd picked out of a Japanese magazine from the supermarket would make me look like Sideshow Bob. The stylist treated my hair like Japanese hair -- sure, it's all he knew -- and feathered my hair with a razor. This caused my hair to frizz up like I'd been electrocuted, and damaged my hair to boot.<br />
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<strong>Advice?</strong> If you are a whitey like me with fine or curly hair, make sure you choose a salon that has staff experienced with cutting foreign hair before you commit yourself to the chair (just speaking piss-poor Eikaiwa English isn't enough). Also, don't assume that any styles you see in Japanese fashion or hair mags will work with your hair type. Japanese hair is very straight and usually coarse, so it tends to look good with lots of texture, layers, etc. These styles do not work on western hair (usually) unless tons of products like anti-frizz, straighteners, thickeners, texturizers, etc. are used in daily styling. Do you really want to go through all that prep each morining when just getting out of bed for work requires superhuman effort?<br />
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<strong><u>#2) Japanese hair dye</u></strong><br />
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After a few bad salon experiences on the cutting side of things, I decided to try this salon I'd seen reviews for online. The salon, which to be kind I will not name here (ask me by email if you're interested!) has both Japanese and foreign stylists. It advertises as a great salon for expats, since non-Japanese speaking people can get their hair done with an English speaker. It also claims to be very reasonable price-wise and boasts a large selection of foreign brand hair dyes. Kay, this was true about 5 years ago, but the salon has since suffered several changes of staff (and if rumor is true, an owner change) along with a multitude of other problems. Right now, in my opinion, the only thing keeping that place afloat is their old reputation and loyal customers who just tough it out when they have a bad experience there.<br />
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<strong>My hair disaster story その二:</strong>I had been in Japan for about two years before I finally moved to Tokyo. Big city! Lots of foreigners! I was sure that in Tokyo, a place famous for cutting edge fashion, I would find a ton of salons to suit my needs and could pick and choose. The time had come not only to venture back to a hair salon for a cut, but to get a color as well! <br />
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I researched a few salons that had English speaking staff (was NOT going down the "berry berry cool" road again) and found a salon I shall refer to as "XXX". I was still a little worried about what kind of job XXX would do, but a foreign friend told me she'd been there a few years ago and had a really good experience. I made my reservation by phone (which despite their claims to bilingual service, I could only do in Japanese) and the next weekend, off I went!<br />
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The salon, which is tiny, is not too far from Harajuku and Omotesando. I walked there in the blaring heat on a muggy summer day and arrived sweating like a pig. My stylist, who was fresh off the plane from Australia (literally. She'd arrived maybe a day before and I was her first client), was unfriendly, and worst of all, overbooked. The entire time she was working on my hair, she'd leave me for 20 minutes at a time or more, to cut other people's hair, or do their colors, etc. The salon had decided to only have one stylist work on a Saturday and the poor girl was alone with a wall of back to back clients. <br />
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I told Aussie girl that I wanted to go back to the same shades of red I'd had in college. I'd brought a picture to show her. I was willing to spend the cash to have the same two shades of red in my hair and even the blonde highlights, if she had time. The girl rudely said it was impossible to do it all in one day (not true) and she was going to give me a red that would match the brighter shade in the photo. She then disappeared for over 30 minutes while looking for a suitable dye to match. Turns out they didn't have a red in the "foreign dyes" that came anywhere close and she was going to use a Japanese made dye instead. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have run screaming out of the salon right then.<br />
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She slathered my hair in the dye, but some plastic on it, and proceeded to leave me long past the setting time of the dye (the alarm on the timer she'd set went off a good 10 to 15 minutes before she came back to check on me after cutting other people's hair). The burning/itching sensation of my scalp was really bothering me before she finally came to check how the color was setting. With a slightly panicked expression, she sent me off to the hair washer guy and asked him to put a special conditioning mask in my hair after washing it. When I got back to the chair and she began to dry my hair, I saw to my horror that my brunette had turned to Ronald McDonald red. Literally, my hair was a primary color. It was all I could do not to cry.<br />
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The biggest slap to the face came when it was time to pay up and leave. The website of the salon clearly states the prices of every treatment they do and I was charged about 9,000 yen over anything quoted on the site. When I asked them about the extra money, they said they'd given me a conditioning treatment (which was NOT requested -- it was to counteract the damage done by the Japanese dye being left in too long, and that was the stylist's fault) and also because the Aussie girl styling me was their new "head stylist" -- as of 8 o'clock that morning -- and therefore cost more than a junior stylist. None of this was discussed beforehand. <br />
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<strong>Advice? </strong>There is a reason foreign salons advertise that they have foreign brand hair dyes. Japanese dyes were meant to be used on coarse hair that is naturally BLACK. It is the strongest stuff you can imagine and very damaging to fine hair. It also will not come out or fade unless you go to a salon and have them actually strip all the color off with a chemical process. Since I have very fine hair, that was not an option for me. Do your homework. If the salon doesn't mention foreign dyes on their site, call and ask. And if the stylist says they don't have the shade you want, don't settle for the Japanese substitute. You will regret it. You should also discuss prices for anything you want done beforehand so you don't get a nasty shock at the end.<br />
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<strong><u>#3) Don't believe that "cut hair in the states" = a good stylist for foreign hair</u></strong><br />
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After the Japanese hair dye disaster, I tried everything to get that red dye out of my hair. I was afraid to go back to a salon, so I tried lots of home remedies to lighten my hair. When none of those had much effect, I said, "Screw this bullsh*t!" and went out to buy some foreign hair dyes at the pharmacy. Japan now carries a selection of box hair dye from home like Feria, L'Oreal, etc. I figured those were tried, tested and true (my high school pictures are a series of mutating colors) and that I would just cover up the damn red by going back to dark brown. I must have used five boxes in a row in gradually darkening shades of brown, and the red showed up like clockwork after about the third time I washed my hair.<br />
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I decided I needed a master colorist, someone who knew foreign hair and how it reacted to dyes. For about four months, the search seemed hopeless. Then, one day I read a review on someone's blog saying this stylist in Tokyo had lived overseas and cut hair in the states. He spoke English and apparently did a really good job on things like haircuts. I was sure he was my man, so after a quick English reservation process, I was off to ****.<br />
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<strong>My hair disaster その三:</strong>I met with the English speaking stylist, Mr. K, and consulted him about my hair situation. He agreed that the razors, Japanese dyes, etc. were all totally wrong for my hair, and he understood why I was having a hard time finding a good stylist. "Japanese stylists just aren't used to foreign hair and don't know how to treat it," he said.<br />
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I told him I wanted to get rid of the red and go lighter...maybe strawberry blonde? Impossible, I was told. My hair was too fine to strip. It would all break off. Bleaching my hair all at once would also have terrible results. "What I can do," he suggested, "is put in tons of blonde highlights and just keep increasing them over time until your whole head is lightened." It sounded like a plan, so I agreed. And then Mr. K pulled out an antique monstrosity known as the highlighting cap. For those who were born after the 1950s and have no idea what I'm talking about, Imagine a rubber swimming cap (or tight shower cap) covered in little holes. The stylist puts that on your head and then proceeds to use the equivalent of a crochet hook to pull strands of your hair through those holes. I don't think I need to tell you how painful it is. Or that you shouldn't use it on people with longer hair (which I had at the time). It was like someone was tearing all my hair out by the roots, but only one or two strands at a time. I think it took the man about an hour and a half to get all my hair through, by which time my nose and eyes were miniature Niagara Falls.<br />
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He applied the highlighting dye and left me to my own devices. The smell was incredible. It was like huffing bleach right out of the container. I was certain the walls of my lungs were going to melt from the fumes.<br />
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The next best part after getting my hair through the holes in that cap? Pulling it off. It was like someone was tearing all my hair out by the roots, but this time all at once.<br />
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After the wash and conditioning, he began to cut and style my hair. I will be fair and say Mr. K isn't that bad at haircuts, so if all you want is a trim, he's a safe bet. Just don't let him come near you with his rubber cap that belongs in a beauty antiquities museum.<br />
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My hair after he was finished still looked patchy and red, but now with lots of blonde highlights to almost make it look orange. My hairstyle and opinion of stylists in Japan were taking heavy blows.<br />
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<strong>Advice?</strong> Again, just because a stylist speaks some English, it doesn't automatically make them a good stylist for your hair. Also, when getting reviews from people, make sure that they got the same treatment you want. I mistakenly thought an excellent experience with a haircut meant he was a good all-rounder stylist and that my dye job would go off without a hitch. Even if they do get the same treatment, take it with a grain of salt. Maybe what works for them won't work for you. Also, don't trust old Japanese stylists who basically have the life philosophy and vocabulary of a Santa Monica surfer circa 1994.<br />
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<strong><u>#4) If you want it done like they did at home, get someone from home!</u></strong><br />
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I basically gave up on stylists and getting my hair done for a year or so after Mr. K and his rubber cap of pain. I think I only got a cut once because I was doing a shamisen concert and wanted to look good for my photos. I ended up with bangs so short I looked permanently stunned.<br />
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It wasn't until last year that I asked my friend where she gets her hair done. I noticed her color and cut always seemed to be quite good. She's blonde, and a very natural, lovely blonde, so I had physical proof already that her stylist does good work. She was a bit reluctant to tell me at first, I think because she was afraid of what would happen if I hated the work of her stylist and rained sh*t down all over the salon, but in the end she made good with the name and address. After speaking to a fab sounding Aussie on the phone (Tokyo is crawling with Aussies, isn't it? So fun!), I was in.<br />
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The salon is near Azabu, and while small, is an excellent place. The two main stylists are both foreign, so you don't have to worry about language barriers when trying to explain what you want. They also do a great job with dye. I'm pleased to say my hair is now a lovely, rich brown and that horrible red is just a distant memory (and a few photos). My stylist is funny, shares a lot of the same interests as I do, and is someone I enjoy talking to. He also cuts a mean bang and I never stop getting compliments on my "Devil wears Prada" hair.<br />
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<strong>Final words:</strong> Use the gaijin network (didn't I tell you we're all connected by 7 people or less?) and find someone who's had a recent good experience at a salon getting the same treatment (cut, perm, dye job, etc.) that you want. Ask detailed questions about their experience. Don't just settle for, "the stylist did a good job." <br />
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Also, if you have damaged or delicate hair, it makes sense to find a foreign stylist, even if English speaking Japanese ones are available. They know hair like yours and are used to dealing with it. Going to an inexperienced Japanese stylist can lead to disastrous results. Another word of warning is be prepared to pony up the cash. Most salons in Japan will set you back between 4000 to 10,000 yen for a haircut. Dye jobs will set you well over the 10,000 yen mark. This runs true for both Japanese and foreign owned salons. I suggest shopping around online to see what the price ranges are like. Also, since my experience at XXX a few years ago, I sometimes print up the price menu of the salon off the internet and bring it with me when I go in. That way, if anyone tries to overcharge me, I can just whip the page out and show them I know exactly how much it costs. <br />
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If you have any funny stories of bad hair experiences in Japan, send them in! I'd love to read them!<br />
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Next post: DIY gel nails!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3196726136733197056.post-14336373862527471682010-07-12T08:14:00.001-04:002011-10-19T12:48:13.554-04:00MovedI decided for several reasons to move Tokyo Nights from Typepad to Blogger. I won't go into all the details, but let's just say this is a much better fit for the kind of blog I want Tokyo Nights to be.<br />
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In keeping with the fresh start of the blog, I've decided to go in a different direction. I found I'd let my blog go from an outsiders look at living in Japan to a bitter rant about my life. It was never my intention for the blog to be a place to vent. I don't need to do that online because that's what other jaded foreign friends are for! Just kidding. From now on Tokyo Nights will focus on the following; fashion, places to go in Tokyo (and sometimes other places in Japan), and any current events that catch my fancy.<br />
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Hopefully this blog will turn out to be informative for people who are interested in coming to Japan or Tokyo, or that are major fashion lovers/shopaholics, like me.<br />
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For those interested in all my old posts, which unfortunately I can't figure out how to move here, you can read them at the old site<a href="http://tangledchopsticks.typepad.com/gwen_im_being_ironic/"> here</a>.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09473364044446995764noreply@blogger.com0