nen-matsu

【年末】nen-matsu, end of the year.

alas we've come to the end of 2014. after the tinsel and glitter of christmas -- and i do mean RIGHT AFTER -- japan turns into nen-matsu-mode with traditional japanese music everywhere you turn, decorations like shime-nawa and kagami-mochi (like the one pictured above).

this is actually my first year to put up an actual kagami-mochi, which is pounded mochi rice that they shape into two rounds, a big one on top and a small one on the bottom, with either mikan or daidai at the top (the little clementine looking guy). now buying it is all well and good, but i had no idea WHEN to actually put it on display, so naturally i decided to ask my husband since he's, y'know, japanese. 

"hey," i says to him, "so when do we put this thing on display?" the kagami-mochi is sitting in a vacuum-sealed piece of plastic at this point.

"uh... the 31st...?" 

clearly he's making this up and has no clue.

"oh really?" i says, pulling out my iphone, "let's see what google has to say then."

according to the internets, kagami-mochi is traditionally set on display on the 28th, because 8 is a lucky number, and then it's taken down and eaten on 1/11 (having all those 1s in a row is apparently auspicious). so after boiling the mochi in its plastic packaging, i set it on a piece of white paper with red edges (red and white as auspicious as well), and then bought a bag of small mikan with their leaves still attached and balanced one precariously on top. and voila! 

now all that's left to do is to wait until the 11th and either boil or broil it to crispy mochi perfection!

hope everyone has a great new year, and look forward to more posts in 2015!!

stuff you miss

it's been a long time since i had thanksgiving at home.

so long, in fact, that i can't even remember what year it was -- though i recall it was at my aunt and uncle's house in missouri. i think. this is before i went back to japan for work, so already pushing 8 years ago.

i won't lie -- i miss thanksgiving. it was one of those holidays that i really enjoyed. getting up semi-early to help my mom in the kitchen, making stuffing, sweet potatoes, and hoping that this year the turkey would come out perfect. i never got the chance to ask my mom her recipes for thanksgiving before she passed away, and when faced with the chance to make not a turkey, but a roast chicken, i really wish i had. 

so i made a roast chicken today for the first time. i found i reliable site to help out with chicken prep, but i couldn't find just the right stuffing recipe. 

scrolling through pages on my phone, i started to piece together fragments from that kitchen in columbia. raw turkey wrapped in white paper. boiling the neck to make broth. lots of cubes of bread. mushrooms. onions. sewing up the turkey. butter. taking snapshots of memories and turning them into a patchwork movie. and then i got to work. 

since we always have baguettes in the store, i took the leftovers from that day and cut it up into cubes, then let them sit out overnight. heaven knows it's so dry in hiroshima you could probably make beef jerky overnight, i figured they should be good and dried out by the morning. my plan worked perfectly. by the time the lunch shift ended, i was ready to prepare the stuffing. chop up an onion and some mushrooms, sautee in butter, then add the bread cubes. since the chicken was coming in later in the afternoon, i had to make due with chicken broth, adding in a little at a time til the consistency was like i remembered. salt, pepper, and some herbes de provence for good measure. surprisingly, it tasted a lot like i remembered.

turkeys are massive -- that's about the only thing i could think when the chicken arrived that evening from our meat guy. turkeys take 4-6 hours, whereas chickens take 1. i'm fortunate to have a gas oven since y'know, own a restaurant, so i at least have an easier time baking chickens than your average japanese electric oven. 

one of the other snapshots that sticks out in my mind is sewing up the turkey at the end. it's such a bizarre image -- i mean, it's a turkey, not a pillow, right? but it's also really fun. and so after cramming as much filling into the chicken as i could, it was time to finally bake the thing and see if my hard work had paid off.

oh yeah, it did. i also made way too much stuffing, so i baked the rest separately.

 

the whole time the chicken was in the oven, i couldn't just stand around watching, i had to like peek in every 10 minutes, brush some more olive oil over it, and then peek in again. it just made me so happy to have this pseudo-thanksgiving going on in the kitchen. it brought me right back that kitchen i loved so much, waiting for the turkey to finish.

and when i finally cut into the chicken and took a big bite of stuffing, it was like coming home. it tasted EXACTLY like the remembered it, even if it wasn't baked in a turkey. 

it's things like this that i find i miss the most. stuffing used to be the november norm, something you could count on like clockwork. and then you move to another country and that clock stops. i just happen to be fortunate -- i'm in a situation where i can get whole chickens year round from a great distributor, and where i have a reasonably large oven to fit it too. 

but i won't ever be able to have turkey and stuffing that my mom made again. or any of the meals that she used to make either, for that matter. 

that's what i miss the most. 

so for now, i'm just going to have to try and recreate them in my own way. and i'm pretty sure my mom would like that, too.

momiji-gari and miyajima

omg, how long as it been since i last posted?
wait, nevermind, i don't wanna know.

hey-lo there everyone, i'm back (sorta? for now?) and i've got a picture-filled blog for you today on momiji-gari and miyajima! hooraaaaaaay!

so, what's momiji-gari? 

well, it literally means "maple leaf hunting" but before you picture bands of japanese armed with hunting rifles against snarling maple leaves, let me tell you it's a little less exciting than all that. it just means hanging out and looking at the pretty foliage that lasts about 2 weeks or so (if you're lucky). hiroshima has some gorgeous foliage this time of year and i finally got to head out to miyajima to capture some of it.

wait, what's miyajima?

it's a small island off the seto inland sea right next to dear old hiroshima prefecture and it's home to the itsukushima shrine (world heritage site, what what), wild deer, oysters a-plenty, and momiji manju (maple leaf shaped cakes). it's also got a lotta nature and a lotta foliage, making it a prime place to go huntin'.

so this is the giant torii gate that towers before the itsukushima shrine -- it's like the most cliche picture i could have taken, but this is like THE sight to see when you come to miyajima. see how little those people are? fuckin' HUGE. the tide was out so i was able to walk right on up to it too! 

here's those wild deer i was talking about. they're...pretty tame for being wild, but they will follow you around if they think you have food. this kid was pretty chill though.

 this is the 5-tiered pagoda which is on the hill next to the itsukushima shrine. also fuckin' huge.

but i digress. 

the purpose of my visit wasn't the deer or the shrine, it was maple leaves and foliage, so without any further ado...

whew! these were mostly all taken at the momiji-dani (maple leaf valley) park behind the itsukushima shrine. they were all taken with my olympus PEN SLR and i definitely finagled with the colours.

if you're ever in japan in november, really recommend going to hunt some foliage down -- but avoid going on a weekend. i was there on a tuesday and it was pretty jam-packed, so i can't imagine what the weekends are like, sheesh. 

hope you guys enjoy this little bit of fall from me to you! 

review: haagen-dazs "nagomi azuki"

because i haven't done enough reviews or blogging lately:

haagen-dazs' newest flavor, nagomi azuki!
 
nagomi azuki? the heck's that mean?

azuki is "red bean" and nagomi is like...ugh..."relaxing" or something but i'mma just call this ice cream "red bean ice cream" because they're just trying to make it sound cooler than it is.

which isn't to say that this ice cream isn't AMAZINGLY good because IT IS.

let's have a look. 

pretty packaging, check.

azuki ice cream base with swirls of sweetened red bean paste and actual whole red beans? check.

oh haagen-dazs, you GET me. lightly sweet with that slightly thick, grainy taste of azuki -- i could eat this all year long. even people who are all "ewww red beans~" (not to name names or anything, but you know who you are) will find themselves wondering why they ever doubted the ways of azuki. it's THAT good. 

A＋＋＋ MOAR

typhoon

【台風】taifuu

it's typhoon season (well, okay, it's been typhoon season since like september) and that means one thing for hiroshima: rain, rain, and more rain (three things?).

so what's up with typhoons? well, they spin the opposite direction of hurricanes and have names like bad sci-fi villians (vongfong, phanfone, kalmaegi...? bad sci-fi, that is). they also bring nothing but rain and strong winds and typically tend to destroy okinawa first before moving on to the rest of japan, so okinawa is kinda like florida.

in fact, there's a typhoon here now. it's actually the biggest typhoon to hit hiroshima in like 7-8 years. but you won't see me panicking. why? well, because even though hiroshima is pretty near the storm, all we've gotten is a bunch of rain and some gusty winds -- it's nothing more than a really rainy day. i'm not complaining, mind you, but i do sorta feel like if we're going to have a typhoon, then we should have a fucking TYPHOON, y'know? hiroshima's got that maryland thing going on where everyone on TV will say "OMG GOING TO SNOW" "OMG GOING TO STORM" and then like nothing happens except for like this:

we do tend to get some sideways rain.

oh, and to top things off, today is a national holiday (sports day...? i dunno) and a monday, making it the last day of a three day weekend so basically this typhoon wrecked everyone's weekend (not that it matters to people like me who don't get three day weekends but...). we actually had a typhoon barrel in last week too (though we didn't get nearly as much rain), so it's just been fabulous weather these days.

the moral of the story?

don't visit japan from september to october.

unless you really love typhoons, then by all means you should head to okinawa.

kaiki-gesshoku

【皆既月食】

kaiki-gesshoku otherwise known as "full lunar eclipse" happened tonight.

to be precise, from about 18:30 to 19:30 the moon slowly turned rust-red, and from 20:30 it started to turn back to its usual colour.

now this all happened during my dinner shift, but that wasn't going to stop me from going to see it. i would step outside and scope around, but being surrounded by buildings, i couldn't see a thing. i was about to resign myself to an eclipse-less night when one of my regulars came in to buy the rest of the cookies we had. he's all excited when he asks if i saw the moon, to which i replied that i hadn't. he points down the street and says "but it's right there!" and so of course, i had to go see. down the street, i can see about 6 people gathered, all looking at the vacant lot where there used to be 3 different houses (all demolished last year). there's a perfect view of the moon, silvery white on the top and rust-red on the bottom. 

gathered there are our neighbors (they own the fresh fish store), the ladies from the korean bbq place across from us, and more keep coming. strangers that happened to be on their way home from work see us all gathered there and come to join us, making polite conversation. one of the korean bbq ladies asks, "will we get to see the moon come back tomorrow?" to which the fish market husband replies, "it's not like soccer where you get to see them tomorrow if they win! it's just tonight." the korean bbq lady presses on, "so you mean we can't see this tomorrow then?" fish market husband chuckles, "no, just tonight." they all start joking about how they gotta see it now 'cause who knows if they'll be alive to see the next one (they're all 60s-70s) and our group grows to about 10 or 11. there's another group on the other side of about 8 or 9. 

it's a chill autumn night and the good people of dobashi are watching the lunar eclipse.

it's funny how things like this can bring perfect strangers together. i can't remember the last time i really talked to my neighbors more than just saying "good morning" or "good afternoon" -- the moon turns completely to rust and i have to get back to the store -- by the time i return with my camera it's about 20:30 and the moon is peeking back out again, but the crowds are gone.

sashi-ire

happy monday!

typhoon 18 is causing havoc across the kantou area (which includes tokyo) but not to worry! hiroshima only got some rain and occasional gusty wind. hiroshima really misses all the weird weather it seems -- much like maryland actually. but that's not what i'm here to talk about today. today is all about sashi-ire.

so, sashi-ire  (sa-shee-ee-ray) is basically something that someone brings for you. so like say i'm going to a friend's house, then i would bring her something sorta as a way of saying thanks for having me over. the "something" is usually food (snacks, sweets, etc) but it can also be drinks, magazines, comics -- most anything. so like when our friends were revamping their restaurant (by hand), we brought them energy drinks as sashi-ire. 

i kinda feel like being a foreigner entails you to slightly more sashi-ire than your usual japanese guy/girl -- i get stuff from people i haven't even met before. okay, wait, that sounds really sketchy. lemme rephrase. so i'm on instagram, and some of my followers live in hiroshima and they'll come to my store for the first time, usually with some kinda cookie-type thing. i haven't met them before per say, but we've "met" on instagram -- yeah, that doesn't make it less sketchy, but they're all like 20-30 year old women so... less sketchy? i dunno. anyway!

sashi-ire is one of those omotenashi things they do here -- omotenashi basically means being a good host or visitor. and hey, everyone loves free food, right? 

P.S. i totally got some sashi-ire today, which reminded me to write a blog about it. the sashi-ire came from the mother of a (former) regular customer who came by for the first time in like...a year today, with his mom and dad in tow. the mother was so super sweet -- actually, the whole family was. anyway, when they get up to pay the bill, the mother hands me a small bag with these guy inside:

score! odango from my beloved momiji-an! from left to right, mitarashi (sugar, soy sauce, good stuff), spicy peanut, and isobe (soy sauce-dipped with seaweed on top -- i LOVE isobe). odango are made of rice flour and water, rolled into balls, and then boiled until chewy and soft before they roast them. if you're lucky to get one freshly roasted, they're AMAZING. not that they're horrible if they've been sitting around -- they're still awesome, but oh man, freshly roasted odango are like getting a freshly baked pizza, y'know, with the cheese still bubbling and stuff? heaven.

quirky japan: episode 3 "bitansan"

it's that time of the blog again -- that's right, quirky japan!

this time it'll be short and sweet because i'll be talking about bitansan （微炭酸）.

bee-tawn-sawn.

three little syllables that take all the fun out of carbonated drinks because bitansan means something like "lightly carbonated" -- so it's like drinking flat soda even though you just opened the bottle.

i honestly don't know why it exists -- most people who enjoy sodas ALSO happen to enjoy that fizzy-dizzy goodness known as carbonation. i mean, it ceases to even be soda at this point. it's just...really sweet juice with a flat-soda bite at the end. and it's not even a good bite. 

seriously bitansan, taking all the fun out of the soda game. and it's tricky too -- they hide the fact that's bitansan by writing it in itty-bitty letters on the bottom of the label, instead of putting a big fucking sign on it like they should that says BEWARE NEARLY-FLAT SODA DESU.

on the plus side though, sometimes they sell like SUPER carbonated soda which is like getting kicked in the teeth by a pressure cleaner -- now that's the kind of carbonation i can get behind.

bizarre crime strikes back!

back by popular demand (or something -- i dunno, my previous hanzai post got the most page views yet for this blog, so-- ), it's bizarre japanese crimes!

there have been a whole string of new incidents going on around japan, like this morning for example, there was a report on TV that started a little like this:

"it looked like money was raining down from the sky!"

last night at osaka station, what appeared to be yen notes came down from the skies by the hundreds, and while people gathered to claim their fortune, they quickly realized that it was NOT indeed money that was falling -- it was actually photographs. hundreds of them.

so what were they pictures of? you might ask.

a high school boy sitting in the priority seating area of a train, taking up another half of a seat. 

a man smoking inside a train station (stations are non-smoking).

simply put, the pictures were of various types meiwaku koui, a.k.a. people being assholes (okay, that might be a really loose translation but...) we're talking like smoking in non-smoking areas, looking at your phone while walking (and bumping into people because you're not paying attention), taking up more seats than you need on a crowded train, talking loudly on your phone on trains and buses -- stuff that is a nuisance to others.

lately there has been a rise in something called sarashi, which means like exposing someone or something. what it means in this context, however, is posting pictures of actual people being assholes online and then bashing them. actually not only pictures, but video too. there was a case where a guy saw a young mother scream at her crying kid before kicking them in the head in the middle of a train station -- really messed up, and really deserving of not just an internet bashing, but an arrest, but here's the thing -- the guy taking the video sees the crime happening and while filming, mind you, casually says, "i'mma call the police" which prompts the mom to grab her kid by the hand and take off, but the guy filming is the ONLY ONE out of the entire busy station that says ANYTHING to the mom. i don't know how you can stand by and watch blatant child abuse happen.

now i'm all for putting assholes in their place, but... not sure that the problem is really solved just because you put a picture or video up on the net along with your own two-cents. i mean fighting assholes by being an asshole is very much in character with the internet, but...you could just say something then and there. i guess it does provide evidence for cases like child abuse, but i digress.

this osaka station picture thing is like real life sarashi -- actual photos being flung out into the real world for people to see. but it's not like this really solves anything -- it was just sort of creepy. so far there have been no arrests made nor suspects found, and one can only speculate at their motives but...it seems more like a waste of money on printing costs than anything else.

last but not least -- a 38 year old man was arrested for strangling stray cats and beating them against the pavement. when the police stopped him, there were 4 or 5 dead cats in the basket on his bike, and he's also believed to be involved in the death of some 40 or so stray cats who had been fed poisoned cat food. the sick fucker had a pet cat at home too. seriously cannot stand this kind of animal abuse -- i hope someone bashes his face into concrete before strangling him to death too. you see a lot of stray cat cruelty from mutilation to murder. there are about 4 stray cats in my neighborhood -- all of which i've never seen cause a problem, in fact, everyone sorta takes care of them. i mean, they have just as much a right to live as everyone else, right? come on humans, get it together.

 

the perks (and not-so-perks) of being a foreigner

okay, first -- the recent lack of posts is mostly because i started a side project and it's really taking up my time. sorry. but i have good news!

i'm going to be featured by one of the local TV stations here, talking about the wonders of the seto inland sea! hooray! what's even better for you guys is that it's going to be a segment in ENGLISH and it's going to be on YOUTUBE so you guys can actually watch it! yay! *cue streamers and confetti* 

this is one of the perks of being a foreigner -- especially if you're a business owner and a foreigner. 

but i'm getting ahead of myself.

when a new restaurant or cafe opens up in hiroshima, you'll get calls from local TV and magazines asking to let them come and interview you, take pictures, compliment your food, etc, for free. new shops are featured all the time and it's really awesome because as a newly opened shop, you're generally pretty broke and ads are expensive, so getting free publicity is always welcome. so we too got the media welcome (4 different local TV shows, local radio, magazines, the newspaper, you name it) -- but you have to keep in mind, i'm a white chick that speaks japanese. you don't really see a lot of them around, let alone opening their own cafes. this means that my face is plastered on magazines and TV. you get this reputation as that white chick from cinnamon who speaks japanese. this means local media will start to call you up to be on shows that are about being a foreigner in hiroshima, not so much about your cafe.

this is how i ended up on a segment called "heart in japan" -- about 5 minutes where they interviewed me about coming to japan, things i found quirky about japan, etc. and this is also how i ended up getting the youtube gig too. it's pretty cool. not like i'm getting paid for it or anything, but it's fun to get the chance to see the TV industry, plus this time i'll be able to show you guys too! and they're filming it at the cafe! 

i will definitely let you know more when i can, for now though, we film on tuesday.

but there is a downside too. i have a pretty recognizable face living you know, amongst mostly japanese people, and so whenever i'm on TV, i get random strangers saying, "hey! you're that cinnamon girl i saw on TV!" even if i'm in the middle of lugging 20 kilos of groceries around on my morning trip to the grocery store or hurrying to get somewhere on time. in the age of instagram, it means that people i follow and who follow me (but i haven't actually met) will leave comments like "i saw you in such and such a place!" and i'm like oh. well. that's kinda. stalker-y? even though i know they don't mean it like that., you never know who might be watching you when you're in the city. 

it's like being a walking, talking billboard for the cafe too -- and you get people who stop you in the street on your day off to try and make a reservation (uh, hello? do i look like a phone?) or ask for directions to your store or when your day off is or...any other silly question they have (please use google, thanks). 

so while there are indeed lots of perks that come with being a white chick, there are also a lot of annoyances that come too, and you learn to deal with it. but hey, if i can get my 20 seconds of fame and promote the cafe while i'm at it, then yeah, definitely down for being on TV. 

review: unagi ice cream

it was just another day.

my husband was out running errands and comes back with a small tell-tale konbini plastic bag in his hand.

"i got you something for your blog!" he exclaims placing the small bag down on the counter.

"oh really?" i replied, examining the contents.

unagi ice cream.

"...serious?" oh god, i think.

"yeah!" he's serious.

so here goes.

eel ice cream, ladies and gentlemen.

now okay, some of you may be aware of japan's...odd ice cream flavours. most of them are like locally produced omiyage type things (like wasabi or beef tongue or...whatever) and not really the type of thing you see at konbini. but maybe circle K is an odd kind of konbini, because there it was.

maybe it's like unagi pie, i mean, that's delicious, right?

maybe it's just got like a hint of unagi sauce, which is just like soy sauce and mirin...so like sweet and salty? 

this could work.

i'm optimistic as i pry the lid off and take a big scoop off the top.

AND IMMEDIATELY REGRET IT BECAUSE OMG THIS IS SO NOT GOOD.

it's nothing like unagi pie because unagi pie is actually edible, enjoyable, downright delicious in fact. this is the COMPLETE OPPOSITE. 

it's sauce overkill. the ice cream is already flavoured with unagi sauce already, but for whatever reason they decided that wasn't enough and put in these broad ribbons of straight up sauce in there too for maximum saltiness impact. it's just bad. it's doubleplus bad. it might be the first time i've ever thrown ice cream out. ugh.

review: japanese chestnut häagen-dazs

häagen-dazs is holding out on you guys back home.

seems like every month there's some new limited edition flavour that i'd never seen in the US.

cafe au lait.

white peach and raspberry.

lemon ginger float.

pumpkin (which i need to review!)

and today, i'll be reviewing the latest fall addition: wa-guri (japanese chestnut).

it's essentially chestnut flavoured ice cream with swirls of chestnut paste -- not like in the marron sense, but in the "i boiled some chestnuts in sugar and made 'em into a paste" sense. it's got a great natural chestnut taste to it -- not too syrupy sweet, just buttery and rich chestnut. i only wish that there was more of the chestnut paste in there. come on, it's like...the width of human hair, give me MOAR!

these guys generally show up at konbini first and then move on to grocery stores, but you can bet i'll be buying it again. seriously, häagen-dazs needs to get their game together and give the US some of these flavours too. 

unless i'm wrong and you do get them? i dunno, someone fill me in.

review: ajiwai marron pino

okay to be fair, i warned you that tons of limited edition snacks come out in the fall, so... i hope none of you are surprised by how many reviews i'm doing.

and besides, i wrote a quirky japan blog last night too, so it's not like i'm...shirking my blog responsibilities or...whatever.

anyway!

first things first, pino (made by morinaga) is another one of those standard japanese snacks. it's little bits of ice cream covered in chocolate, and they bring out LOTS of limited edition flavors throughout the year, so you'll definitely be seeing these guys again.

because it's fall, we have the ajiwai marron which i'll loosely translate into just marron, since it's pretty much saying like "tasty marron"...

look at the fall colours~ 

look at the giant chestnut~

the box boasts using "fragrant italian marron" in the ice cream, which sounds really promising.

until you take a bite.

... *closes eyes and waits for the "fragrant italian marron" to kick in*

... ... ... *still waiting*

... ... ... ... yeah okay, i got nothing.

i wouldn't even know it was marron-flavoured if i hadn't have bought the damn things myself -- there's hardly any marron flavour at all. it's not like it tastes gross or anything, it just tastes like vanilla.

and pino usually does a mildly good job at these limited edition things too...

i guess you can't have a winner every time.

but don't worry, in about 1 or 2 months, another flavour is bound to crop up. so until then!

quirky japan (episode 2)

it's time for another edition of quirky japan!

this time i'll be discussing yuru-kyara!

short for "yurui kyarakutaa" or "loose character (mascot)" --

wait, what? loose character? what's loose?

right, see, yurui is one of those words that's hard to put into english. it can mean, of course, loose like "this screw is loose" but it can also be used to describe things like music, atmosphere, character designs...

for example, the darth vader theme played by an orchestra is NOT yurui, but the darth vader theme played on an ocarina? that's yurui.

guitar? not yurui. ukulele? yurui.

starting to get it?

in this case though, it almost takes on the meaning "shoddy" -- let's look at a classic example of yuru-kyara, the beloved funasshi.

funasshi. the unofficial mascot of funabashi-shi -- he's apparently a pear spirit (funabashi is famous for pears) and he can talk (which is rare for yuru-kyara). he tends to end his sentences in "-nasshi!" so like..."nice weather we're having-nasshi!" 

notice the shoddy stitching, the stained fabric, and...all around lack of craftsmanship? it looks like someone's mom made it. the zipper is completely obvious in the back, and the stitching on his feet looks like it's not going to hold. and that's what makes it yurui.

since the advent of yuru-kyara about 3 years or so back, most EVERY city in japan has their own. they even have a yuru-kyara grand prix every year to vote on the best yuru-kyara in japan.

like this guy!

barii-san! hailing from imabari in ehime! (imabari is famous for towels and you can get there by boat)

kumamon! hailing from kumamoto -- this guy is ALSO responsible for the yuru-kyara craze AND he's been sanctioned by kumamoto. you can see his face on stuff everywhere from ramen to candy to folders to keychains... he's a marketing wizard.

even hiroshima has their own (disgraceful) yuru-kyara named "bunkakkii" they smashed together the words for "culture" (bunka) and "oyster" (kaki) and the design is oyster + maple leaf + the hiragana ひ (hi)... yeah, i mean i know hiroshima is famous for oysters and maple leaves and all but... it sounds like "bukkake" to me and if you don't know what that means, goog--- wait, on second thought, don't google it. anyway, YURUI.

but my favorite yuru-kyara is this little guy, sobacchi! from iwate prefecture. he's not famous by any stretch of the imagination, but he IS an adorable bowl of wanko soba (little cups of soba noodles that you eat in succession, famous in (duh) iwate!) just look at him! the cuteness is overwhelming. 

so if you're ever in japan, you're bound to run into one of these guys.

but watch out for this guy:

creepy. as. fuck.

aki-bare

aki-bare 【秋晴れ】 fall clear

ah-kee-bah-ray -- literally "fall sunny day" or "fall clear" 

it tends to get more cloudy and dreary in the fall and winter in japan, so they have a special word just for beautiful autumn days. and that, is aki-bare.

so enjoy my little piece of aki-bare -- this is what it's all about.

review: fall wagashi (or momiji-an never fails)

it's becoming more fall-ish everyday. 

the humidity is less oppressive, the cicadas have finally stopped their incessant chirping, and the stores are filled chestnut and sweet potato flavoured snacks galore.

it's 食欲の秋 (shokuyoku no aki) -- loosely put, "fall is for food!" and you can bet i'm making the most of it by going to my very favorite local wagashi-ya, momiji-an!

let's have a look at their fall line-up: kuri daifuku, tsukimi ohagi, aonori ohagi.

kuri daifuku 【栗大福】 chestnut daifuku

a small, rounded daifuku made of soft mochi with a chestnut (boiled) and koshi-an inside. usually you see these with a sickeningly yellow chestnut inside (kanro-ni -- basically they boil chestnuts in sugar and likely add yellow food colouring) but not so with momiji-an. they give you the chestnut almost as is -- boiled until fluffy and slightly sweet. these guys only come out once a year, and you can bet i'll be back for more.

tsukimi ohagi 【月見おはぎ】moon-viewing ohagi

tomorrow is actually the traditional day for moon-viewing -- it's always held in september when the full moon is its brightest. it's more an excuse nowadays to eat tsukimi dango (moon-viewing dango, little rounded balls of rice flour or mochi) and drink, but i digress. this ohagi is mochi rice wrapped in sweet potato paste (see? it kinda looks like a glowing full moon!) the sweet potato is so smooth and creamy with a great natural sweetness to it. to contrast, the mochi rice inside is slightly salty to balance it all out.

aonori ohagi 【青海苔おはぎ】 green seaweed ohagi

okay, i was skeptical. i mean, look at it! it's frickkin' green! but being a HUGE fan of aonori, i couldn't pass it up. tsubu-an wrapped in mochi rice, rolled in fluffly aonori -- the aroma of the aonori hits you first -- it's...hard to describe how it smells. but it's kinda of like the green grass smell that green tea has, but with a salty tang. that salty tang works so well with the thick sweetness of the tsubu-an inside and i'm in love with this ohagi at first bite. aonori is usually used on more savory things (okonomiyaki, yakisoba, takoyaki...basically if it has sauce on it, it's usually got aonori), so i was surprised at how well it worked with sweet things too. 

hanzai

hanzai 【犯罪】crime

japan's got some weird crime.

hmm...maybe weird doesn't cover it...

fucked up? 

yeah, that works.

they have segments on the morning news about stupid criminals or outrageous car chases abroad (mostly the US) but you could EASILY do the same on US news shows about the messed up crimes here. you could call it "fxxked up! crime in japan"

here are some cases that have made the news in the past year that were especially disturbing (and unfortunately close to home).

"she's my wife"

kurashiki, okayama (one of hiroshima's neighboring prefectures) -- an 11-year old girl goes missing. she never came home from school and her parents contacted their local police, who then put out an alert on TV, asking for information. this is actually relatively quick for missing person cases -- for whatever reason, most of the time you start seeing news like this 2-3 days after said person goes missing. it's a relief to see that there are still sane (and fast acting) parents out there. after the alert on TV, the news switches to a live press conference with the okayama police chief regarding the details of the case.

the girl called her mother after school, asking to be picked up. however, her mother was taking her little sister to the doctor's and couldn't come get her that day, leaving her to walk home. not a very long distance, mind you, about 15-20 minutes.

but she never comes home.

however, the plot is about to thicken. 

it seems that girl had complained to her mother about being followed home from school by a silver car several months ago. the same car was seen parked in the girl's neighborhood everyday for months, with a man sitting behind the wheel. her mother, distressed, took down the license plate number and consulted the police, who advised her to drive her daughter to and from school.

it would appear the stalker had made his move. 

3 days after the girl goes missing, there's a break in the case. they found the silver car that has been stalking the girl. the stalker had put a different license plate over the original one (the one that the girl's mother had written down) to throw the police off. once they identified the car, the police break into the man's house, only to find the missing girl in pajamas watching anime on a futon on the floor while the stalker watched from the bed. 

the girl was unharmed, puzzled about the police barging in, but unharmed (this is exceptionally rare for these kidnapping cases). 

the stalker (late 40s) merely looked at the police and said, "this is my wife."

he had recently renovated his house to include a windowless, sound-proof room painted black. he also introduced himself as an illustrator and bragged to the police about his works of art -- all illustrations of young girls that plastered the walls of another room in the house. he apparently wanted to raise her into the ideal wife.

yeah.

fucked up.

he was of course arrested. the girl is likely in therapy.

haigamine

kure, hiroshima -- a 16-year old girl is found dead in haigamine (a forest in kure). the next day, a girl (also 16) turns herself into the police for killing her -- but it wasn't just her. 

there were 7 minors involved in the beating, and subsequent murder of the girl, arrested the next day. why? she owed them money. like $20. some of the kids didn't even know the girl.

the main criminal (16 y.o. girl) invited her to hang out, and she and 6 minors (plus a 21-year old driver) piled into a van with her where they kicked and punched her, burned her with cigarettes, and then strangled her to death before dumping her body in the mountains. they stole her ATM card and all the cash she had on her.

the minors were all sent to juvenile hall, and the 21-year old is currently on trial. he's pleading not guilty.

"i couldn't stop myself"

sasebo, nagasaki -- a 15-year old girl is found dead in a friend's apartment after going missing. "dead" is actually putting it lightly -- she was strangled to death before having her head and wrists severed with a saw and her stomach cut open. she was murdered by her classmate, another 15-year old girl.

the murderer was living by herself in sasebo -- she came from an exceedingly rich family, but had a history of what could be considered psychiatric issues from violent ups and downs to poisoning school lunches. her mother died in 2013, and her father remarried months later, which of course, didn't sit well with the girl, and she decided to express that by beating her father with a metal baseball bat while he was asleep, denting his skull (but not killing him). things only got worse at home, and her father took her to see a psychologist who said "the way things are going, she may kill someone" and recommended they hospitalize her.

however, her father instead moved her into an expensive apartment in the city -- and i reiterate, by herself. 

she started to mutilate stray cats (they found several in her freezer) and then she invited her classmate over to hang out and murdered her. her reasoning?

"i wanted to dissect a body. i couldn't stop myself -- it wasn't like she was my enemy or anything, it didn't matter who it was." no remorse, no apologies, nothing. it was like she had just dissected a frog or something.

so uh...what were YOU doing when you were 15?

the worst part of this whole thing is that it could have been prevented if her family had taken the doctor's advice. 

...as you can see, a good deal of the messed up crimes in japan happen to young girls. 

you see stuff like this in the movies, not real life. 

come on japan, really?

fucked up.

 

eating grapes

eating grapes 【ぶどうを食べる時】

okay, i know what you're thinking.

grapes? you're writing a blog about eating GRAPES? how hard is it??

yeah, i know, but hear me out.

the first time i had grapes in japan, i was hanging out at a friends' house. she brought out grapes for dessert, and i promptly popped one in my mouth, like usual, and began to chew without thinking too much about it.

my friend, however, looked at me like i had just stuck a grape in my nose and started dancing around the room.

horrified, almost.

no, no, she hastily explained, you don't eat the skin! (you silly foreigner! sidenote: same goes for apples too)

that's right, here in japan, you peel grapes before eating them.

first of all, grapes are much bigger than their american counterparts (at least the ones i remember), ranging from 1～3 inches. this also makes the whole 'eating them whole' bit kinda hard.

these are hakata pione -- big and sweet!

for the sake of size, this is your average spoon. pretty big.

so the best way to go about these guys is to first cut them in half.

pinch the skin-side with your thumb and middle finger and the grape should pop right out! 

and THAT my friends, is how to eat grapes in japan (without getting weird looks).