A trip to the coast

Henrik had arranged a water rich Saturday for us. We packed the car and drove for 1½ hours until we reached the Pacific Ocean on the east coast of Japan.
Here we were in the densest populated city in Fukushima, in a place called Iwaki. The place is famous for its spas, its reasonably priced sashimi restaurants, its beach and an aquarium with numerous kinds of fish found in the Japanese waters.


We started off at the aquarium where a gigantic walrus, garden eels and jellyfish startled us the most. To see all these fish, we went hungry for… yes, fish, so we passed the local fish market where fresh squids hang everywhere and found our way to a seat in one of many sushi restaurants, where we had to leave an un emptied plate for the first time since we arrived in Japan behind, as the portions where huge.


The plan was next to head for the marine tower and then to take a walk along the beach. As we rolled into a parking lot, the weather got grumpy and it looked like it would start to drizzle any time soon. We found it better to stay in the car for…half an hour. We can say we in that way have become veeeery Japanese. Often we pass young couple chatting in cars, middle-aged woman eating their bento in the car, men emailing by phone in the car while the wife is shopping – or like we did, people who take a nice nap in the car.

Half an hour later we woke up only to find out it was still raining, so we decided to do another very Japanese thing. We went on a vending machine hunt, which lead us to 7-11 where we bought each a can (!) of nice hot coffee for us to enjoy in the car, before we headed home to Koriyama.

Chigiri-e & Maki rolls

This week Barbara joined her second chigiri-e class. The picture she made shows a warrior’s helmet, but something got lost in translation (again), so this warrior’s helmet is pink… Anyone thinks it looks frightening? The helmet is one of the symbols of the Boys Day, the 5th of May.
The class also opened the door to the Japanese kitchen. Together with the chigiri-e group, Barbara prepared lunch. It is invaluable to get some local insider information about how to use ingredients like tororo (a kind of sticky yam), kampyo (a kind of gourd) and konnyaku (a kind of potato), - and Barbara can finally say that she knows how to make maki rolls. Now that also the cookbooks arrived with our ship freight last week, there is hope we will stop dining out, stop bringing precooked food home from the supermarkets, and start to face the challenges of the Japanese kitchen.

The best thing about the Chigiri-e class is that the handicraft aspect is added many other things. This day it was the cooking class. Next month we will drink the Japanese tea as made in tea ceremonies where you whisk the tea powder in the hot water, and in May it is the plan to go hiking in the mountains, to see if we can find some wild bamboo shoots for eating. The people are all very nice, friendly, open and happy to put up with Barbara’s curious questions and to share their culture with her. Also, they all carry a hearty laugh with them. The greatest laugh, Barbara discovered, are brought in front, when she acts like a parrot and repeats something one says in Japanese. They laugh and laugh and laugh. Probably not meant as a compliment. A little payback it is to make them say ‘rødgrød med fløde’ and ‘Henrik’ :-D. It always works.
At the end of the day, the whole group decided to make a bento (Japanese lunchbox) for Henrik, for him to try the yield of the day’s hard work.

Earthquake

This morning we felt our sofa vibrating, the dining table lamp was dangling from side to side and our closets were making strange sounds. Automatically we listened with tension to hear if we had made a huge mistake by putting all our crystal glasses on shelves, as we felt our first real, though relative small earthquake.

We cannot say it felt dangerous, but there is some sort of excitement to the virgin feeling of a shaking sofa beneath you. We got a vague feeling of being bystanders incapable of preventing it from happening and of being bystanders to the destined consequences. The only thing to do was to wait until it was over.

The Japanese do not use the Richter scale to measure the earthquakes; - instead they use the JMA scale, where Shindo 7 is the most powerful and damaging earthquake and the Shindo 0 impossible to feel as a human being. (Read more about the Japanese earthquake scale here.)
A little surfing on the internet led us to a huge earthquake that took place by the coast west of where we are living (see picture) just the same time as we felt it here. This earthquake was at the top end of the JMA-scale with a shindo 6 (and 6.9 on the Richter scala according to Danish Newspapers: http://politiken.dk/udland/article271548.ece), which means that it is impossible to move during the earthquake unless you crawl. The epicentre was located 353 kilometres from Koriyama, reducing the earthquakes effect to a shindo 2 for us.

Building a home

Imagine picking up, every single item in your home, relate to it and decide where it should live. You would be surprised how much history and how many memories each little item have captured for you. In the everyday life, the significance of the things tend to blur away on an unconscious level, but when you receive 126 collies of you personal stuff ( = nearly all your belongings) you have not seen for month and some cases years, you can not avoid to turn sentimental.

This Monday, all the leased furniture was removed so we spent the night at a hotel. Henrik had chosen Hananoyu. The hotel has several onsen (public baths), which we enjoyed both after dinner and again before breakfast. The men’s baths was located on the 10th floor with huge windows revealing a view of the snow-covered mountains. The women’s bath was on the ground floor, both inside and outside – and there were plenty of them. Ordinary pools, pools with natural stones, wood tree baths, very deep baths, and Barbara’s favourite, a huge ceramic pot, that only fitted one person and which was partly out side, so the snow landed on her cheeks while her body was gently heated by the steaming hot water. As always we stuck out of the crowd, so a private bath is nice.
The night at Hananoyu, was a break from reality and even though we first arrived there 7 o’clock in the evening and left again 7.30 the next morning, the time was plenty for getting this ‘holiday – away-from-it-all-pampering-feeling. Guess it is highly because of the baths.

The picture shows part of the dinner at Hananoyo...steak to eat with chopsticks!

Tuesday morning was a return to reality. Our ship freight arrived a little past nine and six hours later all 126 collies was opened and scattered around the apartment. One big mess! But a good mess though. Only some fragile lamps were damaged – and our Brazilian alcohol and French wines are missing, the rest was in good shape and it was a great feeling having our history in the hands again. :-D

Two days have passed since the stuff arrived, and everything is still a mess. We need to build shelves for the books etc, but we are facing a few challenges; like the battery for the drilling machine from Denmark needs several days to charge because of the 100 V in Japan versus 220 V in Denmark; how to find a new television set with an English menu system; and the language difficulties when we want to buy materials for building the shelves.

We hope the weekend will bring us a lot closer to the target. Henrik has taken the day off Friday, so by Monday we should have something that reminds of a home again. Including a guest room, should anyone wonder.

Weekend lazy

Another weekend just flew by. We stayed home for once and enjoyed the tranquillity of not doing much, but had a lot done anyway. Letters were written, delayed birthday cake made, new shopping centres discovered, video watched and Nintendo DS played.

In the city, we were, once again, amused by the numerous signs of Denmark around us. We can’t figure out, if they are there, because we seek them, or because little Denmark is quite popular here… It can’t be, can it?
So what can we add to the list...? We have found a Danish bakery “The little mermaid”, a display of the productions of H.J. Wegner in the furniture department, our national football t-shirt in the sports shop, Rosandal products and the year-plate from Royal Copenhagen in the chinaware assortment.

We also had time to visit the Planetarium, for the sake of the view. On the 22nd floor, you have a pretty cool view of the Shinkansen train as is speeds its way through the landscape emerging from under the building – a must see.

Sunday we slept in, splashed in the bathtub and then went for a walk. We visited a big Buddhist temple, not far from our apartment. All the pictures are from there. A local tried to explain some origami figures to us. In Japanese, of cause. Something with wings. We guess a bird? Later we could hear him tell his family about some Gaijins. That we understood ☺



We found a new favourite Italian restaurant/coffee shop and a French restaurant we are bound to try any day soon. And that's about it. It is still snowing on and off every day, so the cherry blossoms are still on hold.
One last shot of part of the temple:

The words actually start to look like words and not small pretty drawings

Japan has three alphabets; Hiragana and Katakana, which are the two small Japanese alphabets of 'only' about 2 x 48 characters, and Kanji, the Chinese alphabet with tens of thousands of characters.
We have been studying Hiragana since we started Japanese lessons in Brazil, which meant that we quite fast learned that again here, and this week we have almost learned Katakana.

To show you how Katakana differs from Hiragana, here are our names (Katakana is the official way of writing them, as this is the alphabet used for foreign words):

Barbara, written in Katakana: バーバラ
Barbara, written in Hiragana: ばあばら

Henrik, written in Katakana: ヘンリック
Henrik, written in Hiragana: へんりっく

Learning Katakana has been a very positive revelation for us. This week we have actually been able to read and understand several words in the myriad of signs always present in the city, like hotel, laundry, tiramisu and other non-Japanese-origin words.
The next weeks we will enjoy this, before we start to study the last alphabet, Kanji. Officially, you need to know 1945 kanji-characters for everyday use, but to be able to read a newspaper you need to know between 2000-3000 characters! Even the Japanese has difficulties reading Kanji. This will most likely be the challenge that we will never overcome...

Ganbatte kudasai!

Waiting for Spring

With all this talk about cherry blossoms, we thought the spring was just around the corner, but yesterday we woke up to icicles, snowflakes and minus degrees, and people saying that the winter does continue for quite a while here.


Having spent the last two winters in the Brazilian sun, the warmer weather is surely missed. It doesn't get better seing all the beautiful pictures of the Spring that has made its way to Denmark.
Please go to Nyhavn and enjoy a beer for us, or go for a long walk in the Danish forests. :-)

The good news is that our goods from Denmark will arrive on next Tuesday. We can't wait to turn our apartment into our own personal space.

Our first encounter with a ski slope, ever

In Koriyama the inhabitants have two favourite sports; during summer (and many times winter) they play golf, and during winter they ski. We have never tried either, but when some of Henriks colleagues invited us to join them on their yearly ski trip, we didn’t hesitate to say yes.

It takes less than an hour to drive to the resort by car, so to go there and back in one day is pretty normal, but we were introduced to a way better way of ending the ski trip as we will tell you about later.

The trip up to the Gran Deco resort was a nice ride through the hills of sleeping rice fields, and passing a beautiful lake with many groups of Mute swans that probably had found their way to Japan from Denmark, just like us. The snow fell gently outside, but only until we arrived. Perfect; Fresh snow, still wind and a clear sky. It was the perfect day for a skiing-challenge, for both us, and the Japanese-only-speaking-instructor. "How do we close our boots?", "How do we click on the skies?" The rest of the group went to seek greater challenges on the ski slopes while we moved on learning simple manoeuvres like how to break, how to turn and how to do both in one time. For a newbie that can be really difficult!














Just before lunch, the group came to check our progress, hoping we would be ready to join them on the real slope. We looked at the instructor. He meant we were up for the challenge, so we just needed to go the 30 meters down the beginner’s slope once more and we would be by the lift. On the way down the beginner’s slope, Barbara completely lost control. She luckily succeeded to lift up a 5-year-old Japanese boy in her arms on the way, before her skies would have knocked him to the ground. He got a huge chock and wept for several minutes afterwards. Barbara felt like doing the same, having all Henriks colleagues watching her stunt. They pretty quickly agreed that it might be better we stayed on the beginners slope a little more, before we joined them on the lift to the top of the mountain, so we went on a long lunch break, for Barbara to find the courage to hit the beginners slope once more…

Practice does pay of, and in the afternoon, when we got a new invitation to join the rest of the group, we went for it. The trip up, on the lift, revealed a beautiful view of the slope and the surrounding mountains.

The slope we were about to ski was two kilometres long.


We were told it would be flat – but that was only half the truth. Barbara’s effective self-developed skill of throwing herself in the snow whenever speed had gone beyond her breaking abilities became handy whenever the slope got too steep.

Some how it did get better, and the last kilometre down the slope went quite well for both of us. Starting the day without even knowing how to click on the skies, to actually being able to control both speed and turns in the curves, make us pretty confident that during the next three years with easy accessible ski resorts open from late November to early May, we will master the sport to a degree where we actually relax while doing it.
We hope.

So, what is the best way of dealing with the weariness and pain in your body after a long day of skiing?
Our suggestion must without a doubt be to take a bath in a hot spring (onsen) and afterwards enjoy a wholesome meal accompanied with cold beer and sake in the company of friendly people.
After driving 45 minutes down the mountain towards Koriyama, we arrived at the onsen, Hakkeien, located only 13km. from Koriyama.
We were all really tired and could feel the pain in the knees and legs, so before going to dinner, we entered the revitalizing onsen: http://www.hakkeien.com/bath/index.html
In this case, the onsen was public, which means that we went to the lady’s and men’s onsen respectively and shared the onsen with Henriks colleagues. This was yet a challenge that day, since the Adam and Eve costume is not what we usually wear in public.
Actually, it really doesn’t matter; When you enter the bath and immediately start feeling the healing effects of the water on your tired body that is all that counts.
Within 15 minutes, you feel so revitalized that you almost are ready to return to the ski slopes. Almost.
After the bath, dinner was set in traditional Japanese surroundings. The dinner consisted of an uncountable number of plates and included delicacies such as miniature steaks, fried mackerel, whole marinated mini-octopus, sashimi of tuna and white fish, cubes of smoked salmon and cucumber, different types of unknown Japanese vegetables and pickles, fresh tofu, crab tales salad, miso soup, deep-fried shrimps and asparagus, boiled egg, rice, pudding, and several undefined things. A colleague supplemented the feast with his mothers home made Mochi.
Mochi is a kind of sticky rice balls, very popular to eat on New Years Eve. They can be quite difficult to chew and several people loose their life every year as they choke on the rice ball. (A 70-year-old man, was once saved by his daughter, who used a vacuum cleaner to remove the Mochi from his throat.)
Anyway, the dinner was great, and in the companionship of Henriks friendly colleagues, an ice-cold beer (one of the best in our lives) and warm sake, life seemed perfect. The only insignificant hassle was to sit on the floor, with sore legs after the day’s activity, but that's part of the deal.

That night we gladly slept on the futons on the tatami floor in the simple, yet aesthetic decorated Japanese room, and the next morning we gladly had another dip in the onsen before our fish-rich breakfast was served in the evocative atmosphere of the restaurant. The Japanese hotel (Ryokan) really oozed of a down-to-earth and friendly staff that even served coffee for us, after we had paid our bill. With this level of hospitality in Japan, we can only encourage you to come and try!
See you soon.

Sakura

The Cherry trees are just about to start blossom and the excitement is in the spring-like air. Everybody are talking about picnics under the trees and the local supermarket hands out brochures about the cherry trees in the city. On the internet you find daily close ups of the blossoms for example in Tokyo, so that you can follow the exciting progress.
To see more: http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/seasonal/sakura2007/

We will let you know, what the fuss is all about, as soon as we have been to our first ohanami – the flower viewing parties held in the shadow of the blossoming trees.
The picture is a map of our city from the brochure mentioned above. The pink flowers are the cherry trees. The red box is our apartment’s location. The name of our road is Sakura Dori, meaning the cherry blossom road. :o) (click to enlarge).

See you under the cherry trees for a beer or a sake :-)

Newest buy

In the department stores you can find fashion shows (!) only for mobile phones and each of the leading phone companies throw 10 new models on the market in every collection.
This one we picked from Au's spring collection. It has a 800x480 high resolution display with a 170-degree viewing angle and can be used for television, web surfing (it comes with an email address), playing the preinstalled Final Fantasy or even for advanced navigating via GPS.
More odd is the barcode-reading functionality. Via the camera, the phone can scan barcodes on posters and in magazines and reveal or transfer web addresses, email addresses or phone numbers directly to the phone. Or, what about this one: By holding up the phone to a speaker – the phone is able via databases to identify the song and tell whatever album we need to buy... probably over the phone.
Of cause it also substitutes a credit card at some convenience stores and vending machines.
Unfortunately many of these applications are in Japanese, so it might take a while before we get around them all.
The beauty of the beast is the draw back. Phones on steroids, strong and heavy enough to carry all the newest revolutionary-technology-rocket-science-gimmicks have replaced the tiny elegant designs in Europe.

Hinamatsuri

Hinamatsuri means Dolls festival and is the day where parents set up beautiful doll displays as a manner of praying for their daughters growth and happiness.
The display pictures the emperor and the empress of the Heian period (794-1185) and their servants, besides smaller symbolic items such as different kinds of food, peach blossoms and miniature furniture.
A good colleague of Henrik invited us home for dinner this day, which gave us a chance to see one of these displays on close range. They are beautiful! It was also a great way for us, to be acquainted once more with the Japanese hospitality.

Earlier, we have mentioned that we thought our biggest challenge in Japan, would be to feel integrated, as the Japanese are known as reserved people with a very different culture. We must correct these thoughts. We feel truly overwhelmed by the Japanese people warmth and ability to make us feel welcome. Everywhere we turn, people are ready to go out of their way to help us, in a very polite friendly way that can only inspire us.
We do not feel alienated (except for when we look at our Alien registration card title) and any questions we might have are always answered with respect, even though they must seem silly to Japanese. We sense by now, that our time here in Koriyama will work out just fine.

The visit to the colleagues' house was our first visit as guests in a traditional Japanese home, so therefore it was quite exciting to see how it would all turn out. We were very relieved to find out that it was really relaxed and we had not needed to worry at all. We had a lovely, relaxed evening and really enjoyed the company of Henriks colleague and his wife. We had many inspiring conversations about travelling as they both seem to love travelling just as much as us, and they kindly gave us some good advices according to life in Koriyama (We can find the vegetable market in Koriyama now, yeaah).
We had a feast of a dinner with many different starters, a tasty meal of sushi and finally a delicious Hinamatsuri-cake. We also tasted some of the special small cakes traditionally eaten for Hinamatsuri: tamagomata made with egg and sesame and sakura-mochi which is bean paste-filled rice cakes with cherry leaves.

A big surprise was is, that we actually felt more at home at the colleagues' house, than we do in our own apartment. The reason was many Danish things and designs decorating the living room, and the fact that our own things are still wiggling on the waves towards Japan.

By the way, if you ever set up a display for your daughter during Hinamatsuri, be sure to take it down right after the 3rd of March, unless you want your daughter to marry late.

Painting with paper

Sitting in a very Japanese room, on a pillow next to a low table. There are sliding doors made of rice paper, tatami mats covering the floor and a traditional huge pot filled with charcoal is keeping the water warm for the green tea.
On the walls hang beautiful paintings of chigiri-e and calligraphy. In the corner is an extra stable of pillows – or chairs, call them what you like. Torn pieces of coloured Washi (rice paper) cover the table. Five Japanese women are also seated.
The woman of the house, and sensei-san (teacher), is a woman with grey-scaled hair in a tight knot. Her posture is rank and graceful. Her wisdom spreads respect in the room. She practises the ceremonies, and teaches the public how to cook, arrange flowers and how to make chigiri-e.
When she sat down next to the rice door and showed how to open it correctly by never sliding it passed you shoulder, we all gasped aaah. A way of acknowledging her knowledge. Then we all learned how to make the perfect bow while seated.

A Japanese woman had invited Barbara to join her in her Chigiri-e classes once a month and today was the first day. It was a great experience offering so much more than "just" chigiri-e. It was a window into the Japanese culture.
In Japan, the women in many cases stop working as soon as they have given birth. One reason is poor day care possibilities, but other reasons could simply be culture and tradition.
A fact is it, that the Japanese value the art of making beautiful things, and groups like this can probably be found in many scales and variations all over the country, getting together practicing Japanese art craft like Origami, Ikebana, Calligraphy, water color or as here, Chigiri-e.
It was a whole day experience, which was felt in the legs – but stubborn as I am regarding fitting in, I declined the many kind offers to bring me a normal chair. I really enjoyed the time there and valued the many inputs on Japanese culture. The day opened for many conversations about things such as the Japanese masks, the use of kimonos, buying of yukatas, food habits and the amusement of the fact that men actually cook in Europe:-).
The woman that invited Barbara to Chigiri-e speaks fluently English, and she kindly translated as the rest only knew few English words.

The next time sensei-san will be teaching both how to make chigiri-e and how to make nori maki (maki rolls with seaweed). The group seemed to sense Barbaras desperate urge to learn how to cook Japanese.

By the way, - the picture is the result of the Chigiri-e. It pictures the Emperor and the empress because of the upcoming Hinamatusuri.

Chigiri-e is a way of "painting/collaging" with torn pieces of rice paper.

Language challenges

A Monday afternoon at Kalmia, this was handed out to everyone. Time for a song. Eeeeh...anyone wanna take the lead?

The song is a childrens song, used during Hinamatsuri (Doll's festival) - a celebration held on Saturday the 3rd of March.

Temples and Teens

As the two latter days had been all about browsing we wanted to dedicate this day for typical must see places. We started in Asakusa, which used to be the "Yoshiwara" for Tokyo, the red-light district. Some how, this area of Tokyo has succeeded keeping a historical atmosphere intact. For us this place is very different from what we so far have seen in Tokyo.



The most famous tourist attraction in Asakusa, is also the most visited attraction in whole Japan: The Senso-ji Temple.
To reach the temple we walked through three impressive gates. After the first gate, we found our selves at the Nakamise shopping street. Here is full of life from the many little shops and the many visitors on their way to the temple, believers and tourists.
In the many small shops we found endless rows of Asian souvenirs, like decorative fans, various kinds of rice crackers, samurai swords, Hello Kitty mugs, colourful kimonos, miniature ninjas and the 2-5 toed stockings. It was all a bit too overwhelming for someone finding Japanese souvenirs soo kaiwai (cute), but in the end – too much of it all. We enjoyed some freshly made ningyo-yaki (pancake batter cakes with fill of bean paste), and bought a few items before heading to the temple, leaving the rest of the shops, for the next time.

The Senso-ji temple was built to honour the goddess of Mercy, as a small golden statue picturing her, was found in a nearby river a thousand years ago. We forgot to see the statue this time, but due to the size of the temple, it must be very special.

At the temple we used all the options we could find to enhance life.
After watching the native Japanese having their fortune told, we wanted to try for our selves. We rattled a container until a stick fell out and we matched the character written on it, with those on the drawers.



Barbaras fortune was not very good, so she tied it to a rack, so that the wind would neutralize it.
We also wrote a wish on a wooden stick. We were told that the priest would burn it during his prayers the following morning. Lets see, where it takes us.
Finally we purified our selves, first with smoke and then with water, and entered the temple.

We bought a shuin-cho, which is a pilgrimage book. On the front is written our last name (the small characters on the left). Inside the book, a calligrapher wrote the name of the temple. In every temple and shrine we visit from now on, we can have the place’s name written with calligraphy. Beautiful. Isn’t it? (Our Japanese teacher cant read it – so we doubt we ever can too)

Next to the temple is the Asakusa Jinja Shrine. It is quite small compared to the temple, but turned out interesting as a couple was getting married.

Afterwards we were up for something completely different, so we went to Harajuku bridge. It is not the bridge itself that makes the Harajuku bridge a must see. It is the people standing on it. Teens and young women dressed up in gothic Lolita looks or like manga figures. Why? Hmmmm. Let us know if you have the answer.
We had a rather ambiguous feeling, watching all these girls. Even though there were other tourists, we felt like the odd ones being watched…

We completed the day with an o bento hunt on the Tokyo train station…. It's a hunt, because so many places sells o bentos, and they are all different, so you want to find the best one, to enjoy on the train ride back to Koriyama.

Getting old in Shibuya

What a day to wake up: A sunny spring like Saturday in Tokyo.
In Denmark you have a saying "If the weather is great on your birthday, it meant you have been a good girl" :-)
The day we dedicated to shopping and browsing. We never made it to half the places we wanted to go to. Tokyo is way too big. We did made it to Tokyu Hands, where we stumbled over things like CD holders that blink according to the sound in the room and tea-kettles in the shape of giraffes among the largest selection of handyman stuff we have ever seen.
For lunch, we went to Paris, as we passed a good French place. How to tell it was good? Well, there was quite a line in front of it. In Japan it seems perfectly normal, that you have to wait an hour or so to get a table at a well reputedly place.
It was all worth it. The restaurant was located on the first floor of a patisserie and decorated like a classic brasserie. For a couple of French food lovers like us, we indulged our selves in foie gras, lamb and red wine while we enjoyed the jazz-tones that filled up the room.
Celebrating your birthday in Tokyo, but feeling like in Paris is kind of neat!

After lunch we went people watching you never get tired of that in Tokyo. Just to give you an idea of the diversity of the Tokyo citizens, the guidebook lists 13 different kinds of types to look for. All types you don't seem to find any where else.

The nights restaurant hunt, resulted in a great place in the Shibuya district. We were seated in the bar with perfect view to the action of the sushi chefs. Someone ordered Fresh slices of mackerel. The chef grabbed a fishnet and went for the fish tank. Back he came with a twirling mackerel.
The mackerels friends were staring from the fish tank as the chef quickly filleted the fish. While the chef arranged the fresh sashimi, the fish was still twirling even though it was naked right to the bone, literary spoken. Now, that is fresh mackerel!
We went for something less alive, accompanied with something as great as six different kinds of Sake!

Afterwards, we took a stare at one of the karaoke palaces and said hmmm...next time...

We know it was not much of a birthday in the traditional way of gifts and cake and family get together - but that is one of the many prices you pay for living abroad, - and a little adventure in the big city is an ok drug to cover up the fact that we miss being with you all.

A Friday in Tokyo

Very conveniently Henrik had some meetings in Tokyo Friday morning, leaving us no excuse for not celebrating Barbaras birthday with a Tokyo getaway.
We have been to Tokyo briefly during our pre-visit but due to its 12 million people, these to be found in many curious categories, there is so much to see here – with out even looking at the sight and museum lists.
Tokyo can seem as quite a big mouthful, especially for someone who should be wearing glasses but isn’t, who could get lost in Copenhagen after having lived there for 10 years and who easily get distracted by fun little details. It took Barbara less than 15 minutes to get lost…in the rain…. And less than 5 minutes more to find a Starbucks, where she thought she could get a grip of the situation.
From there, she pretty fast found her way to the Ginza area, which is the glitzy glamorous shopping district of Tokyo and where you find the Worlds top designers represented. But to find a specific shop in Ginza was more of a challenge.
Looking at the map, looking in the guidebook, trying to find landmarks, readable signs. All while it was raining. No success.
Eventually a helpful man, Mr. Makoto came to her rescue. He invited her for a cup of coffee and a sandwich at a nearby coffee place, showed her where to buy a cheap umbrella and walked her all the way to the lost shop. If that is not sign of the Japanese’s kindness. What is?

Later we met up in the local Illums. We stocked up on our Danish cutlery that have been taken of the Danish market and went to the Shibuya area. Shibuya has its contrasts. One part of it is the embassy neighbourhood filled with French restaurants etc. Another part of it is the hip youngsters paradise. The energy is bustling with the centre being a huge crossroad, where thousands of people cross every few minutes with their super cool hair, high heel boots, glitzy mobiles, trendy bags, miniskirts, funky suits and well dressed dogs. All the buildings are plastered with huge plasma screens, and the neighbourhood counts several Karaoke palaces, noisy Pachinko places, mobile phones sale stores, gothic jewels and clothes stores, huge music shops and endless many cafes, bars and restaurants.
Whenever we went for a stroll there, we completely lost our breath and stopped talking to each other. The environment had us enchanted.

We found a hotel, and went restaurant hunting. As you might have noticed earlier, finding a restaurant and figure out how to order can be quite a challenge.
Somehow we ended up at a really cool place and somehow we managed to let the waiter know, that he could decide what we should eat. He brought us Teriyaki Chicken, Eggs and Daikon (Japanese radish) boiled in some sort of black thing and he brought us beer and Sake.
Normally you get a small cup, or as we have tried in Denmark and Brazil, we get a square cup made of lacquer ware and you know you should drink of it. This time the waiter first put a lacquer ware cup on the table. Then he put a glass inside it. He poured in the Sake in the glass, eventually it worked as a fountain and filled up the lacquer ware as well.
Two glasses in one. Had never seen that one before!

We ended the nice evening at the 40th. floor of the Cerulean Tower. We had a couple of cocktails and a snack (turned out to be little dried whole fish) while staring out the huge windows giving a perfect night view over Tokyo’s endless skyline.

Welcome Dinner

One of the things that make us feel very far away from home is the unfamiliarity of everything and everyone. As tiny an issue it might seem, it does make a difference to know what kind of environment your partner takes part of – and with who.
Though Barbara did have some brief encounters with Henriks colleagues during our pre-visit in December, it was really appreciated that Sato-san, Henriks manager, had arranged a welcome dinner for us. It gave us both a chance to get to know Henriks closest colleagues better.
The evening took place in a traditional Japanese restaurant and turned out to be a really good – and exciting evening.

A traditional Japanese dinner usually includes between 5-15 different small dishes. They mainly consist of fish, but made with such creativity that the menu seems very varied. Amongst the dishes we enjoyed this evening was jelly cubes filled with flowers and blowfish.
Some people call eating a blowfish the gourmet version of playing Russian roulette. Parts of the blowfish contain an extremely strong paralyzing poison, which is about a thousand times deadlier that cyanide. Due to very strict rules in Japan, blowfish can only be prepared by specialized cooks, therefore the chance of being poisoned is very small, but yet it is with a pinch of excitement you take the bite. Eating blowfish is actually considered too dangerous for the Emperor, to whom it is not allowed to serve blowfish, and one blowfish is said to have enough poison to kill 30 persons.

Blowfish or not, the cubes were delicious, though the flavor of the blowfish is not really strong, but then again, they say it is because of the texture and not the taste, that Blowfish is regarded as a delicacy. You would feel the poison within minutes, so we know we made it this time – and we are....most likely... up for tasting it again if we get the chance.

The evening was pleasant and very relaxed, and everybody was talkative and friendly. We had interesting conversations about Sakura (cherry blossoms), safety in South America, blowfish (!) and wedding traditions.
Henrik also got a nice surprise as he found out almost everybody spoke English, which had not been revealed at work.

P.S.
There is a saying going on here. ”Those who eat fugu soup are stupid. But those who don't eat fugu soup are also stupid.”. Fugu means Blowfish in Japanese…

The Japanese waste handling system

The Japanese have a highly controlled and organized waste handling system. We have received a big poster explaining what we have to do with our waste and we finally got a hang of it­ but it is very time consuming!


Just to give you an idea of it: Everything made of plastic, you need to rinse (!) and then put in the waste bin for plastic products. If it is a plastic bottle, then you only add the rinsed plastic lid to that waste bin, as the bottle goes in a separate waste bin for plastic bottles (you rinse and squeeze the bottle before you throw it out). Is there a plastic item you cannot rinse (like a bag of soy) you put it in the waste bin for burnable products. Newspapers you need to separate from magazines, which again you separate from other kinds of paper. You bundle everything neatly. Even the Tetra Packs, which you should not squeeze but cut open according to a drawing on the poster, then you rinse them and bundle them with the special string you have bought for bundling garbage. Aluminium and steel cans of cause have their own waste bin and you should rinse them, but NOT squeeze them. You find similar rules for glass bottles, gas sprays, batteries and everything else you can think of.

We have bought five waste bins, where we organize the garbage after we have rinsed it, as well as we have three piles of different paper products stacked up in different bags -and we constantly have 2-4 full bags on the balcony waiting for the right day for it to be carried down at the right time. Some types of garbage we must place in front of the building at eight o'clock, other first at nine o'clock.
Did you loose your breath yet?

P.S. We do feel lucky though... Had we been living in Kamikatsu, we would have had 44 different waste categories.

Globalization

So, what do we do when we miss Denmark?
We go shopping! Here in Koriyama, we can buy plaids from Royal Copenhagen, shoes at the local Ecco store and 12 different kinds of Danish cheese at the local supermarket.
We can also get English breakfast tea, Haribo gummy bears, Indian Madras Curry, American Chocolate Cake Mix, French goat cheese, Canadian marble syrup, get a good cup of coffee at the local Starbucks or visit our local Harrods mini store if we are missing known western products.
The world definitely seems closer to Koriyama, than it did to Montes Claros. However, we sure do miss picanha and feijão tropeiro.

Our view from the balcony. If you double click it, it looks much nicer, because you can see the snowcapped mountains in the background.

Weekend in Aizu-Wakamatsu

The 11th of February was the day the very first Japanese emperor was crowned; therefore this date is named the National Foundation Day (Kenkoku Kinenbi) and has become one of many national holidays derived from a prior emperor.


Since this day falls on a Monday this year, it meant a long weekend for us, so we packed the car and went to a onsen hotel in a city called Aizu-Wakamatsu. Spending time in an onsen is THE most popular way to spend your vacation here in Japan, and everybody does it several times per year.
So, what is an onsen? An onsen is a hot spring, which there by the way is many of here, due to the volcanoes. The onsens are either public or privately owned by a hotel like the one we went to.
The most important thing is that you go to the onsen to relax. It is pure pleasure – and it is said that the water, depending of its contents of minerals have healing effects on you. The baths are often separated gender wise - and the clever ones enjoy an ice-cold beer or cold sake as they soak them selves in the often unbelievable hot water.
This sounds super nice. There is just one tiny catch. You have to skinny-dip! Bathing clothes (often also tattoos) are strictly forbidden. For a shy, tall, Scandinavian girl – it can be a challenging limit to cross, to share these baths nude with several tiny Japanese women.
Anyway, this time, we paid us out of it. I mean, you need to start somewhere! We arranged a hotel room (well helped by Henriks Japanese interpreter) where we had our own private bath. Now we are talking! Not only did we have the privacy, and the benefit of sharing the bath instead of being separated in man and women baths – we also had none stop access for 24 hours to the most gorgeous steaming hot pool with a view to the mountains! If that isn’t what life is all about, what is?

Well actually we must admit, that this is not something we could just jump in to. We did try though, but jumped out of the pool even quicker than we got in. Damn it is hot! You can feel you skin reacting to the hot water, your nails tickles as if they are ready to jump off and after few minutes in the water, you prefer to sit next to the open balcony door, even though it must have been freezing cold as it snowed out side...
During the day we could gradually extend the time we spent in the bath pr time, but we honestly never got really familiar with the hot water. Anyway, we are sure, this will be an appreciated luxury way of spending many of our weekends here in Japan.

As we had one of the better rooms at the hotel it meant we had our own private garden instead of a hall! The garden had gravel to symbolize water, and bigger stones as sort of a bridge. In this context the bridge symbolized a change of mindset. You walk from your stressful normal life outside the room, and arrive at a place where it is all about finding peace and harmony in your thoughts. So neat!
The room we entered was spacious and in typical Japanese style with tatami mats at the floor, flower arrangements, green tea and legless chairs, meaning you practically sit on the floor. And then there was a really nice surprise: a super advanced electric massage chair! Did we fight over it, or what?
There were also yukatas for us, with is a kind of cotton kimonos, which is the proper dress to wear at a place like that...also at the restaurant...!

There was no place to sleep though…strange! Giving it no further thought, we went to the restaurant area for dinner. Once more, we were impressed by the creativity in the Japanese kitchen. Several dishes were lined up for us in our private booth, inclusive a fruit cocktail, we thought. The cherry turned out to be a tomato, and there were raw octopuses mixed with the fresh pineapple pieces. We also had a big bowl of boiling soymilk, to fry our chicken and shitake mushrooms in, and we had a hot stone, where we could fry scrimps and pieces of an octopussy. This was all new to us. We also had a little of the more common things for us like sashimi (raw fish), tiny whole squids and of cause we ordered beers and a bottle of sake. Campai!

When we returned to the room, the low table had been removed and our futons had been made up! A futon is basically a semi hard thin madras put directly on the floor…and it is no cliché that you need to be costumed to sleep on a futon, before you can really enjoy it. We are still in the process :o)

Aizu-Wakamatsu is not all about onsens. During the Edo period it was home to a Samurai clan, and there are several traces left behind to tell the (hi)story, like a five-floor castle, that used to be the headquarters of the clan, the mountain where a group of samurais committed suicide, and Saigo Tanomos villa named Aizu Bukeyashiki.
We went to the latter as it was on the way from our onsen to the center of Aizu.
Saigo Tanomo was a master of martial arts and a skilled military strategist. He was the retainer of the Clans chief and his Yashiki (villa) is quite impressive with 38 rooms and tons of stuff dating back to the Edo period. We passed the many different drawing rooms, the room where Tanomos wife and children committed suicide, and the lavatory secured against ninjas.
We passed samurai armors and spears, drawers and kimonos and Henrik almost bought a Samurai sword while Barbara figured out what some of Dads things really are for, like the inros for carrying medicine. The place had quite many signs in English, so we did pick up a few details about the Edo-period, but we both feel like reading up on the subject, probably starting with Shogun.
We could easily have spent much more time there than we did, but it was freezing, and as you should take of your shoes as you enter the un-heated villa, you kind of hurry through the place. We are pretty sure though, that we will take another look at the place during the summer, as well as we would love to see the other sights in Aizu...as soon as it gets warmer.

We also spent some time in the center of Aizu, where we tried a couple of restaurants and went shopping for lacquer ware.

One place we ate at was Takino. It was a very traditional place, where you have to sit on the floor to eat. This place did not have a hole under the table to stick your long legs into, as we have had all the other ‘traditional’ places we visited… nope – this was just a pillow on the floor! After trying to sit in the formal position for few minutes, we gave up and tried to sit in other positions…kept changing them, could not find a position that really worked for us – reckon we need to practice the floor sitting thing.
At Takino we had a local dish called Wappa meshi, which is steamed fish over rice, cooked and served in a round container made of tree bark. It tasted really good and special, as the food takes taste of the bark. We also got a couple of surprise side dishes... - One was horse meat! That was a new one for us.

Another restaurant we went to was Mitsutaya. We really wanted to go there, but we couldn’t find it and it was freezing cold. To get warmer, we went into a shop for browsing, and who would have imagined that we would find the restaurant in the back of the shop! We guessed that the sign outside probably told us that, but if you cant read the signs, what good does it?
We were happy that we stumbled into the place by coincidence. The restaurant was set up in a former bean-paste mill. Bean paste is very popular in Japan, as it is one of their key seasonings called Miso.
The line for the place was huge, but Henrik had us added to the waiting list anyway and we found a place to sit and wait for a table. We thought about shopping some of the many delicacies at the shop, but dropped the idea knowing we would have no clue what to do with them. A man approached us on his way out, handing us a brochure – in English, explaining all about Miso. Nice guy!
A little hour later, we got a table at the ‘bar’ and ordered the set menu, consisting of 7 different kind of Dengaku, which are bamboo skewers with grilled tofu, fish or veggies. Great taste!

We arrived back in Koriyama Monday afternoon after three nice days in Aizu, feeling we have learned quite a bit more about the magnificent place called Japan…we still have a long way to go though. Luckily!