The other week my girlfriend and I had a week off so we decided to head somewhere. We at first thought it’d be a good idea go to Hokkaido because it’s apparently quite nice there in the summertime but seeing as none of us had done much planning we ended settling for going to Sendai to stay with our friends family for a couple of days.

The trip up there was kinda interesting.We bought one of those JR train tickets that lets you go anywhere.It was a 9 hour trip with about for4 transfers on the way. Every time the train would pull up to a station where we needed to transfer there would be a insane dash to the next train with people scrambling to get a seat for the next leg of the trip. I ended up standing most of the way being unaware  of this wacky occurrence at the time.

When we finally got to Sendai we had a lovely ferry ride to a secluded island to visit our friend’s grandmothers house. It was really nice as had a real wafu (old school Japanese) theme to the place. We let off fireworks in the evening and had breakfast on the beach the next morning.

Life in Tokyo moves at a well-oiled clip, with an energy that borders on mania and an obsession with newness that seems to make all ideas quickly obsolete. Fashions begin to fade almost as soon as they are plucked from clothes hangers, and keitai (mobile phones) are traded up for each latest technological advancement. But even while throngs of tech-savvy, smartly styled Tokyoites trot through subway stations, there is a traditional side to this hyperurban cosmopolis, which may not be immediately evident.

Beneath the conspicuous consumption of its shopping districts and shiny façades of the latest architectural achievement, Tokyo throws out unexpected glimpses of its cultural core. At a Shintō shrine across town, a young man purchases a fortune and, after reading it, ties it to a strung frame whose many paper fortunes rustle like leaves in a breeze. In a neighbourhood sentō (public bath) in Asakusa, an old woman bathes with her tiny granddaughter, much as she once did with her own grandmother.

Tokyo’s unique vitality springs from this intertwining of the new with the time-honoured old. While it’s the wellspring of Japanese pop culture, it is also a place where the patrilineage of its imperial family is a tightly held institution. It’s the city to which Japanese nonconformists flee but where individuality is often linked to an older form of small-group identity. It’s a metropolis where the pressure cooker of traditional societal mores and expectations explodes into cutting-edge art, music and inventions like the ‘boyfriend’s arm pillow’. Even pop culture like manga, as it takes the world by storm, is rooted in the tradition of Edo-period ukiyo-e (wood-block prints from the ‘floating world’). And so, as its modern gears keep turning, the basic machinery of this intriguing city remains true to its origins.

one big changed I’ve noticed about myself since coming to Japan… I’m completely, utterly addicted to my cell phone. I’ve always like my cellphones… and I would text message my friends frequently even when I was in Canada, mainly due to the fact that I had a super addictive blackberry.. but my addiction has never been this bad!

I partly blame it on the long commute I have everyday. It takes about a hour to get to my work and another hour to get back from my work… so total of 2 hours everyday, I spend on the train, doing nothing but surfing the internet and sending e-mails to my friends… it’s really unhealthy.

But it’s not just me. I mean.. if this was in Canada, someone would have said something to me by now, but the truth of the matter is.. everyone in Japan is the same! If you look around while you’re on the train, every one is playing with a DS, reading a book or using their cellphones!!

Maybe it’s the design of the cellphone, you know, the super big screen, maybe it’s how easy it is to type in Japanese (it remembers the words that you use most frequently) or maybe it’s all those websites that you can browse through specifically designed for cellphone usage…

I think Japan is the only country in the world that has a Pachinko shop around every corner of the city.

I wanted to talk about Pachinko today.. because there is a Pachinko shop literally 5 seconds away from my house and I pass by it almost everyday on my way to work. Sometimes, I pass by the shop early in the morning, before the store opens and believe it or not… there’s always a line of people outside of it waiting to get in…

I mean… what’s the hurry? Aren’t all the machines the same? Don’t they all show the same chances and you’re all playing on the same probability? Well… after I read through a specialized Pachinko magazine at a near by convenient store, I was informed otherwise.

Apparently, there are definite ways where you can profit from a Pachinko. As long as you are well informed, you play smart and you don’t have an addictive personality, it seems that the chance of you winning a game and going home few few extra yen is highly likely.

Well, I’ve been pretty bored lately… maybe It’s about time I took up a new hobby.

Jokes aside, I’m amazed by how many Pachinko shops there are in Japan! What’s more surprising is that for one thing, Japan doesn’t allow gambling. Well, Pachinko isn’t technically gambling because your winnings are handed to you in the form of a chip, and you must go to a booth, outside of the Pachinko shop to exchange those chips for money. Weird eh? Another thing is that I’ve noticed many pachinko shops are attached to game centers… I don’t get it! My impressions is that game centers are for kids, and Pachinko shops are well.. for adults… how could you put these 2 together?? and The last thing is.. at any given time of the day, morning, afternoon, night… I always see so many businessman in the Pachinko shop… this makes me wonder… what about your job and your famiily?

but who am I to judge…

We woke up at 10am and headed to the other side of the island so that we could eat breakfast on the beach. It was nice being surrounded by nature then the concrete jungle of Tokyo for a change. The breeze was refreshing as the air was filled with negative ions recharging out worn out bodies. The next ferry back to the mainland was at 12.3o so we had to hurry back home.

It seems a habit of ours to rush things in Japan, we got home with only 15 mins before the ferry arrived and our housemates obasan insisted we had some watermelon before we left, only for the ferry signal to go off as we started enjoying it. We had to quickly gather our things and run towards the dock, which was luckily only a minute away. It was too bad that we had to have a rushed good bye to our housemates obasan after all the hospitality she had shown.

On the ferry home we fed the hungry seagulls, they swooped at our hands to pick up the chips we held. It was fun but a little scary at the same time as there was a chance for their beaks to miss the chip and nip our fingers instead. Dont worry, they didnt get that close this time round!

Once we landed back on the mainland we meet  our housemates father. And we started to drive south to their family home in Sendai.It seemed to take forever as we were still abit tired, the scenery was beautiful on the way there though. Rolling mountains and a plethora of rice fields. It was soo lovely…

It was my boyfriend’s birthday yesterday (8/27) and I wanted to write about my first birthday experience in Japan.

Well.. actually.. to tell you the truth, his birthday is on the 27th and I completely forgot about it and scheduled the whole day to work.. so we had to celebrate it on the 26th.

First, we went to Shinjuku to pick out his present. I haven’t sopped for a guy since I’ve come to Japan so it was a new for me. I realized that for all the stores and department stores there were  for girls in Japanese, there definitely weren’t as many for guys. It was really difficult to find good stores. We went around to Shinjuku, Shibuya, Aoyama, Harajuku and Omotesando. I stupidly wore super high heels and needless to say I had huge blisters on my feet by the end of the day.

I think everything in Japan is way over priced!! why!! What surprised me the most was the stores on Omotesando.. wow… if anyone has ever been there, you know what I’m talking about.

After walking around these places for more than 5 hours, we finally picked out a present.. and we went to a really nice steak restaurant near Omotesando. It was really delicious (this again…) I became a big fan was Japanese beef (wagyu)

next month, I’m going to Mie Ken <3. I’ll write more about that later!

I discovered the best thing ever last week.

Near my work in Kitasenju, there is  there is a outlet for every type of sweets you can imagine…

mmmm =).

I don’t know why I always end up writing about food… but you know that old saying?

“Some of us eat to live, and others live to eat”? Well, I’m definitely the latter.

Anyways, at this bakery, there are soooo many different types of cakes and other delicious Japanese treats for so so cheap!! But the quality is top class.

It’s actually really bad.. because it’s so close to my house, I often catch myself heading towards the direction of the bakery and before I know it, I’m at the cash register.

This bakery is usually always packed, and it’s like a war in there. You know how Japanese woman are usually pretty quiet and delicate..? not in here… everyone is an animal. I’ve had my foot stepped on a few times already.

Anyways, I’ve always like sweets, but in Canada, they always made it waay too sweet (and portion waaay too big) and it was often difficult me to finish the whole thing, or I would get really sick of it by the end..but the sweets (cake, chocolate, cookies) in Japan is perfect!! =)

My first real ramen experience came on my second day in Tokyo. Jet-lagged, heat-exhausted, disoriented and dazed, I stumbled into a friendly looking shop on a small street behind Hatagaya station. I was hungry and knew I needed something substantive to hold me over until I could work up the courage to walk into another restaurant. I can’t remember how I ended up ordering the chāshū-men (チャーシューメン) – standard soy-based ramen with plenty of fatty pork slices on top – but it was exactly what I’d been craving, without even knowing it. With true Japanese care for food presentation, the thin, delicate pork slices were hung over the bowl, glistening and waving me in. The broth was rich and wholesome, serving up plenty of umami goodness. And the toppings were simple, standard, and well-balanced: sliced green onions and menma (soft bamboo shoot slices) added just enough fresh energy to complement the pork.

The little ramen shop couldn’t hold more than ten people, and the tiny space held a cacophony of slurping sounds. Slurping is something I still hadn’t gotten the hang of: I was always afraid I was going to somehow inhale my noodles. Would I have to go to the doctor, complaining of noodles in the lungs? I was sure he’d have some cheesy quip ready for me: “You really just inhale your food, don’t you, noodlebrain?” I gave it a try anyway, and after one successful slurp, was unable to reproduce it. What I didn’t slurp ended up in other places, and I was forced to walk much of the rest of the day with grease spots speckling my shirt. Seeing as I only paid 700 yen for the best ramen of my life, I was still able to wear a smile along with the broth.

Ruined by ramen. The phrase acts not only as a tribute to all those ties and shirts I’ve lost in pursuit of the perfect bowl, but to the dish’s spoiling effect on my own taste buds. Call me simple, picky, or set in my ways, but these days, sitting down to beautiful meals or everyday fare, I often think to myself: I’d rather it was ramen.

Ramen. For most westerners, the word conjures up images of shrink-wrapped, dried noodles accompanied by a packet of salty dust and, if you’re lucky, some freeze-dried vegetables or a dollop of sesame oil. The real gourmet might drop an egg into the boiling broth a couple minutes before switching off the heat. As a kid, this was the food of choice when there were no adults around to cook something that required more preparation than boiling water. Basically, ramen was never anything to get excited about.

The problem was that I wasn’t actually eating ramen, but instead instant noodles, a product invented by Momofuku Andō of Nissin Foods in 1958 that caught on with such tenacity as to reshape the meaning of the word “ramen” itself in the West. Now that I’ve had a chance to sample the real thing, I look back at all those wasted, ramen-less years with self-pity. Don’t get me wrong, instant noodles were an important part of my childhood and college years, and if it weren’t for this easy-to-swallow introduction, I may never have sought out the real thing. But, I see now that I was eating Kraft Mac ‘n Cheese when what I really wanted was a Roman carbonara.

Thankfully – at least in my experience – ramen just keeps getting better and better. The variety alone that this seemingly simple food represents is enough to ensure that there’s something for every taste, and always a better bowl around the corner. Deeper than a Hakata-style tonkotsu broth, more richly varied than opinions on ideal noodle hardness, the variety of Japanese ramen never ceases to amaze me. Every time I think I’ve found the dish’s pinnacle achievement, I’m soon proven wrong by an even more daring, rich, or complex preparation.

From humble pre-packaged beginnings, I’ve gone from $0.25 Maruchan Beef, Chicken, or “Oriental” to more exotic, spicy Korean stovetop varieties to ramen shops in San Francisco and, finally to Tokyo’s unlimited expanse. At every step, I’ve been content with my experience, and pleasantly satisfied with what I thought was the final chapter in a tasty little book of broth and noodles. Only now that I’m in Japan do I understand that it’s no book in front of me, but rather an encyclopedia of endless volumes.

I’ve been in Japan for just over a year now, and I’ve found that learning the language is an essential part of making the most of my time here. Although I still haven’t gotten around to taking formal classes per se (I came to Japan with one university term of Japanese I under my belt, and later studied briefly through my employer, Berlitz), I’ve been able to pick up a lot from the streets: from chance slip-ups in my English lessons to the counter of the steamy ramen shop. Here’s the first installment of what I consider to be the most useful Japanese words and phrases I’ve been able to pick up.

1. “Nama biiru”: This is one of the first phrases I learned in Japan, and it means “draft beer.” I guess it’s only appropriate that, having arrived in sweltering August, I would have picked this up pretty quickly. The character for “nama” (“draft” or “raw”) is 生, and this was also etched into my mind early on, as it reminded me of a profile of a mouth (the diagonal line) touching a cold glass of beer about to be tipped back. Finish the phrase off with a “kudasai” or “onegaishimasu” (“please”) and you’ve got yourself a right proper way to order in any drinking establishment.

2. “Fukuro wa ii desu”: The Japanese are crazy for packaging. Almost anything you buy will be rolled up in plastic wrap or tissue paper, double bubble wrapped, and hermetically sealed in a bag two times larger than necessary. Stop the bag insanity with this handy little phrase that means, “I don’t need a bag.” It’ll stop the bag, but not the little length of tape they’ll still stick to the side, proving that you did indeed pay for this product.

3. “____ doko desu ka?”: Insert any noun at the beginning of this phrase to ask where something is. For example: “Toire was doko desu ka?” means “Where is the toilet?” Hopefully, you’ll be given an easy-to-decipher point in the right direction. Or, more common than you might think, a super-friendly escort from a total stranger. If not, you’re on your own for understanding the directions.

4. “Ikura desu ka?”: A shopping essential, this one means “How much is it?” It probably helps if you’re holding or pointing to the object in question. Understanding the answer means just a little study of Japanese numbers.

5. Krazy Katakana: Japanese has a special alphabet for dealing with foreign words called “katakana.” The amount of words the language has taken from English and translated into this alphabet is astounding. This means that you, as an English speaker, are starting off with a huge advantage – the trick is using it. Try to say any English word and you might be discouraged by how little people understand. However, say any English word with a Japanese accent, and you’ve just increased your vocabulary immensely. The thing is, katakana is a syllabic alphabet, meaning almost every letter makes two sounds: a consonant and a vowel which can’t be separated. Try tacking a vowel onto your English word here and there (usually “u” or “o”) and your success will increase. For example: “ticket” becomes “chiketto” and “bill” becomes “biru.” Studying katakana before coming will also help you greatly in deciphering menus and signs.