It's alive!!! - and it really shouldn't be...

Okay, so I re-started trying to take Chinese herbal medicine, mainly in the vain hope that it will help with my ever ailing eczema, and also to help appease my mother who is threatening to come over to Japan and force-feed it to me if I don't do it voluntarily. Anyway, this stuff was posted over from Malaysia (using some serious international coordination: mum [London, UK] phoning aunt [KuanTan, Malaysia] who went to pick up my prescription from the doctor (whom we had failed to get hold of for the second time whilst we were visiting KuanTan HERE) and then had to post it to me [Tokyo, Japan]. Fun. eh? MMMmmMmmMMmmm

Anyhooo, it's been sitting in the apartment for a while, on the account of me stopping the herbal medicine ingestion on account of 1. the lack of time to boil the stuff whilst doing my experiments, 2. the negative effects it seemed to be having on my poor little stomach - which seemed to be under undue stress at the time, and 3. It really doesn't taste that nice. I've gone through the whole week drinking one pack, twice in one day, every other day, and tonight, in a very uncharacteristic show of forward planning, i picked out a bag of medicine to boil for tomorrow morning and pour the contents into the nabe pot to boil; only to find that dust comes out of the bag (usually the stuff looks like a bunch of dried twigs). This is NOT a good sign.

There are definitely holes in the big 'herb' (I bet you its just garden compost material) which resembles a sheet of yellow card in a kind of pear shape. The holes aren't meant to be there, and the dust now looks suspicously like the left-over munchings of BUGS!!!! OooOOoOOoh.

One bag i pulled out was particularly affected by this holy disease, and I didn't have to look hard to see some very happy larvae, who looked suspiciously well-fed.

MMmMMmmmmmm. tasty!

Three bags of the stuff (+ the unwanted guests) are now in the bin. And I'm awaiting further inspection of the other bags before I decide whether or not to throw them out too.

Yellow Leaves of Autumn

It's a beautiful, sunny autumn day and the leaves of the ginko trees on campus have turned a vibrant yellow (or golden - whatever you like to call it). So, here are a few photos from campus.

View of Tokadai (the clock tower of the University of Tokyo) from Seimon entrance [正門].

A view of the outside of my department, and the ancient ginko tree which stands outside.

HypnoDANCE!!!! the video.

Okay I should really work out how to edit videos. anyone have any suggestions? I would love to have his little dance put to some music. or a commentary. I guess you should mute the sound on this video too, otherwise you just get the sounds of Greg playing mario kart...



That is Mr. Fish performing hypnoDANCE. We won him/her/it (well YOU try sexing a goldfish!) at a local matsuri (festival) in Tokyo. He likes to dance his little hypnotic dance in the hope that we will feed him till he explodes.

Train ride through Japan

Something I found from a while back. It was just after the trip to Gifu for Lan's micro gravity tests and I was told to go to Midori to look at a old earthquake museum (story HERE)

Anyway the video is the scene from the window during a journey to Oogaki from Nagoya train station in Japan. beautiful paddy fields and mountains...and fresh air! (well maybe not inside the train

By the way, it's best to mute the sound. All you will get is static.

Oooooh! a prize!?

MMmmmmmmmmm, apparently my Professor laughed out loud at the presentation ceremony in GeoKanto, because I had won the prize for Best Presentation. One of the reasons for winning was cited as: Good English. mwhahaha. Anyway I think its cheating slightly. Looking asian but being British threw them off track slightly.

strange things

There is a strange creature living in the shaking table experiment area (and its not the mice who find it hilarious to use the control board of the shaking table machine as a toilet facility). It attacks my recording equipment and seems to have a particular fondness for the camcorder and displacement sensors. It weaves a sticky web, which looks suspiciously like gaffer tape... I call it the gaffer-spider.

monsieur fishy!

He's still alive and swimming around his tank in a manic manner - we think he is trying to hypnotise us to feed him more. We call it HYPNO-DANCE!!!!!

Novembers Manner...

Another month sees another Metro Manners installment. This time, I think they were hinting at last years overly raucous Yamanote line [山手線] - actually on JR and not on the TOkyo Metro - party which, until last year, used to take place yearly (Halloween time) on the said line. Basically, someone would organise a particular carriage and train, and people would turn up in costume with alcohol. The party carriage would do its loop of Tokyo and partying would be had.

This was all well and good until last year, where things got a little silly and (mostly drunk foreigners) over-enthusiastic/socially inept people managed to harrass innocent commuters and break stuff in the carriage. Anyway, the actions of some idiots managed to get JR very upset, and call in extra security to ward off any idea of a party on the Yamanote line this year. And it would seem that Tokyo Metro would like to point people in a similar direction.

GeoKanto 2008

It's GeoKanto time again! Last year, the Kanto [関東] regional gathering of geotechnical engineers was in Maebashi [前橋], my first Japanese [err... well, first ever] conference. This year, the conference was held at Nihondaigaku [日本大学], one of the largest Universities in Kanto, possibly Japan. They have a multitude of campuses across the Kanto region, one of which is not too far from Todai [東大] north of the Imperial Palace in Ochanomizu [御茶ノ水]. The one we were at was way out East on the Tozai line [東西線] near Funabashi [船橋].

Despite all the proceedings and 99% of the presentations being in Japanese, I and the other foreign students were presenting in English. So that was fun. I didn't understand any of the other presentations and mine was the only English one in my session, so I'm not sure anybody apart from the chairman (who was actually Yamada-san, our assistant professor), actually understood the presentation anyway.



I did notice that there were some undergraduates from other universities (Chuo uni [中央大学] I think) who were busy sniggering at any glitch in their fellow students presentation, which didn't seem particularly nice/helpful, but nevermind.

The campus seemed HUGE! and there was this, rather trendy looking building on the way to the venue. The weird tube shaped structure seemed to hold a oblong lounge. Nice design, but seemed like a bit of waste of space. On the other hand, It must be quite nice to design an interesting building outside of the confines of Tokyo.

Also, there were some very pretty Chrysanthemums just at the entrance to the campus. Again with the HUGE.

Foreigner swims naked in the Imperial palace moat

Some British dude decided to give reason to the general idea that foreigners are all weird, by going skinny dipping in the moat of the Imperial Palace, Tokyo.



The news reel says that he is Spanish, but he has apparently been confirmed to be British (BBC article). Go Britain.

Not only was he butt naked and swimming in the moat (which isn't particularly clean and full of hungry and curious carp) but he occasionally climbed parts of the palace walls - intentionally removing some of the rocks on this way. He was also seen to be throwing rocks at people who approached him in a boat and chasing after policemen (whilst still very naked) with a rock in hand. It does give the Tokyo police a bit of break from chasing a rouge monkey...but I don't think it gives them much credibility when they are running scared from a man just because he's holding a rock. Well, I guess naked gaijin's [外国人] are really scary.

This wonderful example of wackiness went on for about 2hours, and he was only finally arrested at 1pm.

Apprently, he has been released with out charge to his friend, on the account that he's nuts/mentally unstable. Although, I'm not entirely convinced that that is a good idea.

The truth about Bananas

I was browsing through the BBC news website, as you do, and came across this article about kosher phones. I never thought that phones could be kosher but apparently they can. 'How?', I hear you cry. Well, apparently, by only being able to make and receive calls; because SMS is evil and can lead to naughty text messages between males and females (which I can kinda understand - keeps all communication above board) as well as allow people to receive SPAM messages about 'secular' events - *shock*horror* okay, I know you are meant to be Ultra Orthodox, but surely you can delete them, like the rest of us? no? Just because you see an advert wont mean that you will immediately do what it says. It's like they are assuming everyone has brains made of jelly.

Anyway, aside from my horrendously prejudiced view on other peoples beliefs there is a far more important issue at stake. That is the issue of bananas.

The article goes on to talk about filtering of the internet so that only vetted material reaches the user - which is nice - even nicer is that one company is offering 'customised surfing packages' because of the sheer abundance of unsavoury information out there on the interweb. The chairman of this company claims that:

"If your kid puts 'banana' into Google, some of the first sites he'll get are porn,"

We checked. It's a LIE!

The first thing we got was wikipedia, and the rest of it was actually about bananas, no nudity or inappropriate behaviour anywhere to be seen. We even checked images, and the closest thing to porn was a photo of two bananas decorated to look like...well..this:

This led to the discovery of tattooedbanana, which is sheer genius; particularly when you look at the alien, the pirate and sharknana.

With a vague connection to the article I was originally going on about there was this photo of a 'kosher banana':

more metro manners

Octobers installment

...and then there was one :(

A mere two days after we got them, one of our little fishies past away. I thought it was the crazy one which was speeding up and down the tank. I woke up the other morning and spotted one little golden fish floating at the top of the tank, with one of it's eyes pointing upwards. It was very sad. But, it would appear that the crazy one is still with us, and is still swimming manically around his tank. The other weekend we heard some odd splashing sounds from his little tank, which turned out to be him jumping up on top of the seaweed.

The morning after we got the fishes, I went out and invested in a vase-shaped thing that they could swim through (or hide in) and some seaweed for them to feel happier. The pet shop also had some little red bridges and tori to furnish aquariums with which I was SOooo tempted to buy - but were far too big and would have resulted in very very little space for the fishies...the orange blur is our fish - at high speed.

He spends most of his time being very energetic and doing acrobatic fishy tricks, and very little time going anywhere near the vase-shaped tunnel ornament that I bought for him.

Invasion

Luckily, it's only an invasion by cute, humongously-oversized-headed, monsters.
The first one we spotted was in Ikebukuro [池袋] near Sunshine City [サンシャインシティ].

Then, on Saturday, we were strolling around Harajuku [原宿] when we saw another! but this one was walking - well waddling - down the road.

It's okay though, we've found their weakness - small children are able to stop the invasion through aggressive hugging techniques.

Gold fishes [金魚]

After seeing all the kids try fishing at the stall near the temple, I thought I would give it a go. 'can't be that hard' I thought...I was terribly wrong. The little paddle that you are equipped with has a surface made of paper, which is carefully designed to disintegrate in water, thus giving you a limited number of tries to get said fish from the pool in to your 'prize' bowl.

With my first dip, the paddle was broken...I guess because I was chasing the fish a bit too enthusiastically - they swim quite fast, dammit. Anyway, after 3seconds the fishing device as useless... so I gave up, and claimed my two consolation gold fish.

fishes!!!

They are now living in a little tub I bought from the 100yen shop, with some pebbles we collected from Brittany. They went nuts when I first put them in. I didn't realise that you had to wait for the tap water to be warm before putting the poor little things in. But they seem much more settled now. So we have fishes.

Koishikawa Matsuri

A matsuri on our very own doorstep. I walked up and down the road wondering what was meant to be going on. There were crowds of people hanging around ｔaiko [太鼓] and portable shrines, I could see about three separate groups, possibly from different companies or micro-neighbourhoods.

They all seemed to be preparing as opposed to actually performing. The kids were in their own little matsuri outfits, with some perched on the taiko kart randomly hitting the drum. Some of the older guys were trying to teach the kids the beat that they should be following, but it's far more fun just to whack the thing...so that's what ended up happening.

Portable shrine carried by small people

Another portable shrine, sitting in the play area just opposite our block of flats. possibly waiting for the festivities to get into full swing.

One of the taikos even wheeled right outside our house, they just seemed to be walking around the block with some kids perched on the kart to make some noise about it. Adults flanked the kart, protecting the group from traffic...

There were even food stalls set up in our quiet neighbourhood. They positioned themselves at the traffic junction closest to our house on the road leading up to the temple just north of the Botanical gardens. The guy at the takoyaki stall looks rather warm - and considering that he's in front of a hot plate with the hot weather, I don't envy him.

Takoyaki is a common snack food, especially for festivals like this - It involves a batter like mixture with some veg; say, cabbage, red ginger and what-not a peice of octopus [たこ] the batter is cooked into a little sphere with the veges and peice of octopus at the centre. Usually you get 6-8 little orbs in a tray, which is then smothered in a thick sweet soy sauce decorated with mayonase and sprinkled with some green dust (I still have no idea what this stuff is) and some katsuboshi [鰹節] (dried fish flakes).

Fishing for gold fish and the multi-coloured plastic version

Trying your luck with a paper paddle to catch little gold fish was very popular. 200yen for children, 300yen for adults and 500yen for a slightly different scoop to try and catch little turtles. Both the scoop and fish catching paddle were made of water soluble stuff to impede the amount of catching actually done. So it was quite a challenge added to the fact that the fish were fully aware of the whole catching situation. There were many different kinds of gold fish, fantails, telescope eyed ones, black ones, patchy coloured ones as well as small turtles a little catfish, shrimps and a miniature lobster.

Stairs to the temple itself

French crepes at the temple!

A little boy looks hopefully at his mum for the chance to catch some pretty fishes. Disappointed at her refusal, he goes back to staring intently at the pretty fishes.

Bonsai

Bonsai [盆栽] - potted plant on our window sill...blissfully unaware of the impending doom.

So, this our second attempt at keeping a bonsai tree. The first one that we bought came from a little flower shop [花屋 - はなや] down the road from the ryokan [旅館] that we stayed in in Kyoto [京都] (link to the post here). Anyway after leaving it with a carer whilst we were away in France and UK, April this year, the moss started dying...then the little pine tree [松 - まつ] started to demise slowly soon afterwards. Greg was mortified, considering that we had spent so long trying to find a nice little bonsai to call our own.

In any case, what is left of the trunk and the moss (which has actually regrown quite well) is now sitting on our larger balcony.

Last weekend we were idly scooting about on our bikes in the general direction of Ikebukuro [池袋] in the search of some form of sunday lunch and mild entertainment, when we happened across a old lady and her equally old husband who were sitting by the roadside opposite Otsuka [大塚] station selling various bonsais. They had normal potted plants in addition to two shelves of trees of varying types and sizes. They even had one medium sized bonsai laden with green cherries, some smaller ones full of red berries and an array of small evergreen bonsais.

The little old lady didn't really attempt to talk to Greg, and instead focussed all her attention on me, assuming that I would be able to 1. understand what she was saying, and 2. translate to Greg. I got the idea that some of the trees were deciduous and others were evergreen. She said the deciduous ones look rather sad in winter. As we had already killed one pine tree we decided against the same kind again, so we honed in on the evergreens. The little old lady was busy telling us the ages of all the various bonsais she had and in the end we chose this one because we liked the trunk and general shape better than its brother.

We were told to put some water in a plate and pop the bonsai on to the plate of water to water it. Watering from the bottom up. I am hoping that this one fares better than the last one.

Gas Leak at Todai!

I was vaguely aware of Yamada-san (our assisant prof.) walking up and down lab shouting something...so I slid one of the ear peices of my headphones off my ear to be able to hear what he was on about - my Sennheisers [PXC250] are very good at cutting out background noise, so I can keep my music low and still not hear people talking next to me...brilliant.

Apparently, there had been a (methane) gas leak in Engineering Building 14, which is just next door to ours, and the emergency services which had probably been hanging outside the building with lights a blazing added with the traditional safety guy on a loud speaker trying to warn people of the impending doom. Yamada-san was very kindly relaying what the loudspeaker dude was annoucing in a language I could understand and we were being advised that it would be wise to evacuate any basement areas. As Yamada-san reasoned that we were now on what he calls 'free time' we could leave if we wanted or stay, but he definitely recommended the 'leaving' option. 'Go home early', 'Relax', he said. So I did.

When I wandered outside there were a lot of fire trucks with their flashing lights on and a group of guys in safety gear loitering outside Engineering building 14, with a trolley in standby. On the grassy area near our ancient Ginko tree, there was a growing crowd of people who's curiosity had gotten the better of them and were flocking to the outskirts of the scene like moths to a light.

Sugo-san - our technicial/lab practical lecturer - saw me loitering very close the the building, and tried to coax me away...telling me where I was was 'more dangerous'. Which was probably true. If it were going to blow, I'd rather be far away.

Anyway, the emergency service guys were trying to cordon off the area using 'keep out' tape. The fire engines were blocking my usual route to Seimon gate [正門], but the gate itself was still open.

I had gotten half way home when I realised I had forgotten my wallet - which is not good when you need to actually buy stuff at the supermarket...so I headed back.

In the 10mins that I had been gone, the police had been busy closing off the main road, Hongo Dori [本郷道り] which runs just beside the University (and which building 14 happens to back on to) . They had also managed to whip up about 8 people with stumpy lightsabers to redirect cars. In front of my building, Engineering Building 1, a larger crowd had amassed - consisting of evacuated people from building 14, people who had decided that it was far more interesting to watch the free entertainment from the emergency services than work in their lab from the neighbouring buildings, and people who were on their way home but got distracted by the flashing lights.

The 'keep out' tape had also moved to claim much more ground and had swallowed the ancient Ginko tree.

I'm half hoping it will explode, so that I can have an excuse for a holiday...

Ochazuke [お茶漬け]

Ochazuke [ちゃつけ or お茶漬け] is another Japanese dish which is a bit strange but actually quite good. It's basically a bold of rice with some added condiments, such as; seaweed strips, puffed rice (just like rice crispies) and some salts with green tea (or soup stock) poured over it. When it was first described to me, by a group of very enthusiastic Japanese people who were all saying it was very tasty and good for lining the stomach for long drinking sessions* or for breakfast, I was NOT convinced. Green tea? on rice? errr no. That's just weird. No. I said 'no' many times...but they were insistent and were so convinced that I should try it they went and bought it for me.

They bought me a pack of Ochatsuke (pah - when you pronounce tsu it kinda sounds like zu here) sachets. The lazy persons (or fool proof) version - where you sprinkle the contents of the sachet on to some plain rice then pour on hot water. The sachet contains freeze-dried green tea so you don't miss out on the green tea.

It was very tasty - and kind of reminded me of congee (rice porriage zhou1 粥)　[おかゆ or お粥] but with nicer salts. So, the idea of green tea in my rice no longer reviles me (but I think MSG was involved...sneaky!)

*Apparently, it was/is sold commonly in Isakayas - the Japanese drinking establishment and the closest thing it has to the British Pub (a traditional pub mind...the kind that would sell good pub grub) but Isakayas sell more tapas like stuff. Small dishes where people nab the stuff they want to eat.

Ochawanmushi [お茶碗蒸し]

A savoury egg 'custard' steamed in a small tea cup. Usually and accompaniment to a meal (I often find it at kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi [回転寿司] places. When mum came to Japan, and we had one of these for dinner at some point and I was busy trying to explain to her what it was and she already knew. The Chinese have it too, but a little different as they - well mum - put a little minced meat into it too. Anyhoo the basics of it are; a whisked egg with a little soya milk or soup stock (generally called dashi [だし or 出汁] in Japanese) and a bit of salt or soysauce to taste. In to the tea cup you plonk a ginko seed and some thinly chopped veges such as carrot, corriander, shitake mushrooms (and a bit of minced meat if you like). Then pour the egg mixture in to the bowl. Steam for 15-20mins...or something like that. EAT. yummy.

photo from: Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chawanmushi