a couple from tokyo from a few weeks ago

gate to meiji shrine


shinjuku crossing

Anamizu Oyster Festival

This past weekend was my 2nd real trip up to the Noto pennisula. This annual festival in the coastal town of Anamizu was a blast and really highlighted the differences between the comparatively big city living I experience and how many other JETs live in ishikawa.

women selling yakisoba with oysters

people park in very dangerous places in Japan as Chris investigates


basically, we arrived at our friend Christy's house late morning and walked over to her city hall where this was all taking place. Vendors were selling oysters by the plastic shopping bag full for a thousand yen along with the standard squid, onigiri, yakisoba, fried oysters etc etc. We then took our purchases over to the rows of barbecues the city had set up and we cooked our oysters ourselves. Actually, the Japanese folks there had to help us with the cooking and prying open of the oysters. These specific oysters we were told all had to be very carefully cooked as if eaten raw there is a fair chance of hepatitis.

cooked oyster. I think I can find things I enjoy eating more than this in the future.

the next day we drove up the eastern coast of the pennisula which is very different than our sandy beaches on the west.

i am a nerd

as the weather is still kinda crapy, and there is really no reason to leave my house other than to go to the gym, work and japanese class during the week, i figured i should try cooking some foods i miss. very high on that list in mexican food so last night i set off trying to make fajitas. i took this picture to see if i remember it tasting like somberos when i go home in april. After i put the picture on my computer i realized something that i was pretty surprised with. The ingredients for my dinner came from all over the world, and this meal would never have been possible even a few decades ago. The only part of the meal from Japan is the rice, which is from the Noto pennisula. The beef is imported from Australia since US beef imports have suspended again. The flour tortillas are from San Marcos, CA. Then the tomatoes are from South Korea, the yellow bell peper is from New Zealand, and the onion is from either Thailand or China. The avacodos are from either mexico or northern san diego county(they were hidden in a package to me from home) And my hot sauce is from Texas. I guess in the middle of freezing winter here not much of the food im eating is from around here at all. But i had no idea it would be from all over the world like this.



maguro negi maki, it is the left over parts of maguro, giant tuna that is extremly expensive that is ground up(negi) into an almost paste and made up into sushi. it might sound gross, but is actually really good. Real maguro is so expensive that two peices of it at a cheap sushi place might cost upwards of $5, its great, but ill eat the negi until i make more money.


so there you have it, you can see what my life has become here in the dead of winter in japan, analyzing where my food comes from. let me know if you're doing something more exciting.

please...

rainy evening blogging

tokyo sprall from Shinjuku


sometimes i wonder what the point of even trying to teach english to these kids is when we're teaching them sentences like these

snowy dawn from the yakuba parking lot on the way to work

planes, trains, and buses

after 11 hours on buses, 2 and a half on trains i have gone from uchinada to kansai airport south of Osaka and back in 1 long day day.

running through the rush hour traffic in Umeda station and down the street with the umeda sky garden building in the background to catch my bus after my connecting train was delayed. i got to the last bus back to Kanazawa with less then 3 minutes to spare.

there was an accident and partial derailment of the trains going to the airport so we hoped on a special express train run by a private company to get to the plane in time. my picture of the identical train came out with no detail so i stole this from a website.

couple more of tokyo

harajuku sidwalk

tokyo

ginza

gate to meiji shrine

shinjuku without the color

stadium for the 64 olympics

couple quick pics from tokyo

tokyo metro government towers. built during the economic bubble, cost over $1,000,000,000 to complete. but at least the view from the top is great

looking towards the imperial palace in the center of the city

asakusa gate


ginza street view

Kanazawa's acrobatic firefighters

We went this snowy morning to a display put on by the Kanazawa firefighters. As we're in the dead of winter the threat of fire is down, all of the firefighers from Kanazawa it seems were there. It began with a couple of speeches and playing of patriotic brass music over the PA, then each fire brigade put up a bamboo ladder for one man to climb to the top while the rest of their group steadied it from below.


once on top of the ladder, the firefighters assumed different seemingly life threatening positions and posses while more music played in the background.


after about 15 minutes or so of this, collected all the ladders and each brigade of firefighters set up their hose and sprayed it on full blast into the air while one member of their group ran the flag of the brigade out into the parade grounds into the falling water from the hoses(almost naked)

the city fire helicopter was just over the tops of the firehouses on full blast into the sky.

it was below freezing when this was all going on, and a lot of the spray into the air seemed to turn into a snowy slush as it fell down onto these guys. We thought it might be some form of initiation?

unloading the keitai

this is exactly the sight you want to see coming out of your building 5 minutes late for work already. It`s been cold here, in the mid 20s in the morning with some strong winds, i hate windchill. All of the streets have been covered in ice until around 1pm when enough cars pass over the ice to turn it into slush.

parking at school, i just drive my car into a pile of snow in the back of the school and call it a parking spot. It:s kinda fun to drive in the snow when there is nothing around that could do serious damage to my car if i ran into it. I think to get through this whole winter thing i need to keep a sense of humor about it.

Osaka towers and the umeda sky building from the highway coming into Osaka last week.

new years breakfast at my supervisors house. that is smoked duck and salmon in the larger plate in the foreground and a sashimi platter in the background. not exactly the food i would pick out to eat at 10 in the morning, but it was quite good.

2009 Dodge Challenger Concept vs my 72 challenger

look at my dirty car, the lines are so similar to the new concept






i know it's not about japan, but man, this is a good looking car, the design is almost a copy of a 70 challenger, but man, if the production car looks anything like this, ill consider it for sure.