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Road trip to Fukui and Kanazawa

A younger, very social, Japanese colleague of mine recently got his driver’s license AND a car. It isn’t cheap or easy to get your license in Japan, especially if you’ve never had a driver’s license. I wrote extensively about it, as has every gaijin with a blog who bothered to get their license. Araki-san invited me and some others to go on a bit of a road trip to visit the 百万石祭り (hyakumangoku festival). The hykumangoku festival commemorates Lord Maeda Toshiie’s move to Kanazawa castle. But it always seems like it is the journey, and not always the destination that is what the trip is about. Indeed, we had a good time on the journey.

Hyakumangokudori

 

We met around Nagoya Station early on a Saturday morning. Well, not that early but 8:00 am felt early after a nomikai the night before. Until this weekend, Japan had special rates on their highway system – you could get on and off for only 1000 yen, and I believe it was twice in one day. It was set up for economic stimulus. We were able to take the tollway the entire trip.

This was how we rolled.

 

Japan has a number of SAs, or service areas, so you can take a break along the way without getting off the tollroad. We even had a guide to the service areas along the way so we could understand the specialties that each service area would have. We didn’t expect one of the service areas to have special sauce for ice cream like miso. According to one of the signs, “it taste’s like caramel!” Why not just get caramel instead?

Typical service area.

 

Soy sauce and Miso ice cream topping.

Why not chocolate?

Why not caramel?

 

We did get off the tollroad for an excursion into the mountains in Fukui prefecture to enjoy some delicious soba. Rice was being planted by hand across the street from the restaurant. The menu was simple.

Inaka soba restaurant

 

The extensive menu

 

Too arty of a shot of soba

 

Araki-san

 

Outside the rice was getting planted.

Rice planting

Rice planting

 

Continuing back on the highway, there was another big SA right by the sea of Japan. We could even walk down to the water.

Sea of Japan

 

When we got to Kanazawa, we decided to “Park N Ride” because we knew the city center would be crowded. We hustled to the bus stop, and got on the bus the attendant told us to board. Araki-san is from Kanazawa, but about 5 minutes in to the ride I had to say, “Are you sure this bus is going the right direction?” Araki-san replied, “I am starting to wonder …” So leave it to the gaijin would had never been to the city before to figure out we were definitely going the wrong way! But honestly, since I can’t really read anything in cities in Japan (of course I can but it is more dramatic to say I can’t), I probably rely on more intuition than if I was Japanese. We showed a giant act of defiance and refused to pay for the bus. I’m not sure if I am allowed in Kanazawa again, but we were rebels (and grabbed a taxi instead – and with 4 people it cost about the same).

The taxi dropped us off at the edge of the Nagamachi Samurai district, and we wandered through the area until we got to the parade route.

Nagamachi Samurai District

 

Nagamachi Samurai District

 

Nagamachi Samurai District

 

We followed the parade route up to the castle, and spent a little time hanging around the castle grounds and having unhealthy festival food. I had karaage of course and my stomach hurt afterwards, but how can you refuse karaage at a festival?

Kanazawa Castle

 

Kanazawa Castle

 

Araki-san showing us his home

 

From the castle, we went to 兼六園 (kenrokuen), one of the three best gardens in Japan. The famous gardens are 後楽園 (kouraken) in Okayama and 偕楽園 (kairakuen) in Mito. I have already been to Kairakuen when I lived in Mito. I’m lucky to have been to two of the three best gardens! Unfortunately, Kairakuen is closed after the Great Eastern Japan.

Kanrokuen

 

Kanrokuen

 

Kanrokuen

 

Kanrokuen

 

After the garden, we were able to watch the parade. It had the requisite bands, parade queen, but had a few elements that you do see in parades in the US. For example, firemen performing acrobats on ladders erected in the middle of the street by a team of firemen, or samurai walking down the street. Fun.

Hyakumangoku Parade

 

Hyakumangoku Parade

 

Hyakumangoku Parade

 

Hyakumangoku Parade

 

We had wanted to visit a gold leaf shop as the area is famous for gold leaf but unfortunately the shop was closed because of the festival. Ooops. We surprised Araki-san’s parents, especially since they didn’t even know he had a car, failed at visiting a sushi restaurant (too long of a wait) and headed home.

It was a really good time and I am thankful that I was able to spend the time with good friends

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You’ve got to look good – always

A few weeks ago, a group of colleagues loosely formed around my Japanese teacher decided it would be a good idea to see a soccer match. I’ve described the Nagoya Grampus in my previous post. The only problem was that it was occurring basically at the same time the remnants of a typhoon were blowing through. It didn’t make for the best weather walking to the stadium.

Rainy day

 

But, in typical Japanese fashion, even if the winds are destroying umbrellas, and you are reduced to a red poncho, it is important to have the Louis Vuitton front and center.

Fashion Sense?

Why carry a Louis Vuitton bag in such a mess? I hope it was a knockoff.
 

The soccer match was fun, and the Grampus won. I think the final score was 5 – 2. Maybe it was 4 – 2. We all emjoyed it.

The true fans

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Wait for it …

Sitting inside on a rainy day listening to my elementary, junior high, and high school classmate Byron Schenkman play Haydn. Even have a little tea brewing.

It is nice to have this rainy day to get caught up on some things. Like, for instance, a darn blog entry. It has been a long time since my last entry. I have two other entries in my head but have been unable to shake them out onto paper. But anyway, I do at least have one entry for May.

It seems that rainy season, or 梅雨, is upon us. It hasn’t been officially declared as far as I know, but the weather certainly would indicate that.

Time to build an arc

 

I guess this is my fourth rainy season here in Japan. It is traditional that I highlight each one in my blog, like I did here, here, and here. Judging from the previous entries, I may be a bit premature declaring rainy season. I’ll be sure to let my blogosphere fans know for sure. And true to form, a typhoon is on the way. This is the second of the season for Japan, but typhoon 4W, Songda, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Typhoon 4W, Songda

 

Go GrampusSometimes its nice to have a really rainy day to just stay in, read, write, study, clean, nap, etc. Tomorrow though, I have a late afternoon soccer match with a bunch of friends. No, I’m not playing. I’m going to see the Nagoya Grampus (Japanese site here) play in Toyota-shi (豊田市). The stadium is partially covered, but I’m not sure if they can close the roof if it is too windy. It could be a very unique soccer experience.

What is a grampus, you might ask? It is apparently a killer whale, which the Nagoya Grampus home page says adorns the top of Nagoya Castle. I always thought they were dolphin on top of the castle, and the official Nagoya castle website calls them dolphin. The Grampus website refers to them as killer whales. You be the judge.

A mascot family

The team used to be the Grampus Eight which was always confusing to me. It made me think they were a rugby team and not a soccer team because I thought there were 8 players on a side in rugby (but actually there are 13 in rugby league, 15 in rugby union). The “8” comes from the official symbol of Nagoya, which is the kanji for 8, 八, which I have as the little icon for this blog. I can see why they dropped the Eight – quite confusing.

Let’s hope the typhoon fizzles out and the match goes on without too much difficulty.

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たこ焼き – hp3

On March 19, I had a plan to have a たこ焼きパーティー (takoyaki party) with the Fuji Rock crowd, and Tomo was going to come as well and a good time was to be had! That was the plan.

After the earthquake and the issues at Fukushima, I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate or not to have the party. I was writing an email to one of the main protagonists and was typing, “Well, unless something bad happens I plan to go ahead …” and then an M6.4 earthquake hit Yamanashi and Shizuoka and I felt it in Nagoya. I got quite the adrenaline rush and I think my body tremors actually caused more motion in the building than the initial quake.

Things settled down, and nobody cancelled or suggested that I do cancel, so the show went on. And what a show it was. It was quite fun. Takoyaki is basically breaded bits of octopus cooked into a little ball. Sounds great, huh? It’s actually really good, and you can put other foods in there too. And we did.

For this house party, I decided I wasn’t going to supply everything and let things evolve like a more traditional houseparty – in other words people pitch in for the materials that were purchased for the party. I still spent a gob of money on the beer, but other folks brought the takoyaki ingredients.

What was hard for me was to completely turn over my kitchen (and subsequently dining room) to others as they prepared the food. All I could do was step out of the way, find the occasional tool they needed, and take pictures.

Prepping in the kitchen

Prepping in the kitchen
 

Tomo’s mom made beautiful chirashi sushi.

delicious chirashi sushi
 

I was surprised at how takoyaki was made. I always thought the perfectly round balls of mouthing burning goodness came out of a mold. I was wrong. You fill a half mold with ingredients, and the pan is sized such that there is additional batter around the half molds. Then, at the precise time, you somehow use a little stick to gather up the overflow batter and form the other half of the ball and rotate the whole thing in the mold and let it continue to bake. I have NO idea how to make it. As I said, I just gave up my kitchen to the experts. There were three takoyaki “machines” though, so an extension cord was stretched to the dining room table, allow more people to demonstrate their proficiency.

Party time

Party time
 

Not only was it a takoyaki party, but three people’s birthdays were within one week of the party, so we had a birthday cake and celebrated.

Not his birthday
 

Of course, the party went so late that most people missed the last train and found various ways and places to sleep. Although I had several futons pulled out for people to use and still had the couch, not everyone could get a comfortable resting place. That didn’t bother some people.

Sleeping anywhere

Sleeping anywhere

Sleeping anywhere
 

At around 7 or 8 am, I shooed most people out of the house. As the host, I felt like I couldn’t sleep (although I did somewhat). One friend who drove stayed a little bit longer to make sure the alcohol wore off before driving home (athough he said he was good to drive and I know he wasn’t). He crashed in the guest room, which is like a cave, and instead of waking up at 9ish, he rolled out of the guest room around 12:45 pm. We wrapped things up by road-tripping to really good ramen in the countryside. A fun time again. Although Tomo suggests I start the next house party at Noon!

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The past few weeks

Sorry to all for the lack of posting. On 3/11 the earthquake hit and I was good initially at using social media and my blog to let people know how I was doing, and then obviously I just stopped. There are multiple reasons for that, and just the general energy that each day took following the Tohoku earthquake and the uncertainty associated with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant kept me from blogging.

First thing to report is that I am hardly impacted by the earthquake and by the ongoing issues at the power plant. Radiation levels in Nagoya are at background levels. We are on a completely different power grid so even if I conserve energy it has no impact on the people who are going through the power outages (conservation is good no matter what, don’t get me wrong). For the technically minded out there, Nagoya is on a 60Hz system, and TEPCO and northern Japan use a 50Hz cycle. So the cost of conversion between the two systems are high. The biggest impact I’ve felt personally is that my favorite yogurt is currently unavailable. That’s a small price to pay.

At the beginning though, it wasn’t so clear exactly what was up. My colleague decided on Saturday night, after the quake hit on Friday, to evacuate with his pregnant wife and young son. Other gaijin were also considering leaving as well. My company had no official policy immediately following the events either. Of course I received lots of encouragement from around the world to leave Japan immediately. Apparently the entire island was going to be destroyed in the eyes of some people.

On Tuesday following the quake, my company offered voluntary home leave for expatriate employees and families in Tokyo, but not Nagoya. That didn’t go over too well with the Nagoya-ins, and eventually on Thursday that offer was extended to expatriate employees in Nagoya as well.

I continued to pay attention to the news, plus we were privy to good technical data and analysis of worst case scenarios. Also, we found various links to real data that included radiation levels in Nagoya, a colleague of mine built a little radiation dosage spreadsheet, and I quickly realized that if I did choose to stay in Nagoya, I would have plenty of time to evacuate if things really did get bad.

So I stayed. The general panic and exodus of the expatriate community did not go unnoticed in Japan, and those that left are being called “flyjin”, which is a play on the word “gaijin,” which means foreigner. The media is reporting that there are plenty of business relationships that need to be repaired as those that left slowly come back.

There is a difference, though, between how a local and how an expatriate should react to this situation. For the locals, this is their country, they have their ties, and it is their government who ultimately will be responsible for controlling the situation. They were being told everything was OK, so with some skepticism they accepted it. For the foreigner, given a choice to hope the information was correct and to believe they were not in danger or given the option to return to their homeland, the choice was pretty easy. A lot of my colleagues ended up sending their families home as they stayed on and continued working. The company’s policy all along was that it was safe and remains to be safe, but life in Japan is different than it was before the earthquake.

I am glad that I stayed, and so far I feel like it was the right decision. The period was pretty stressful though as information was fluid and the truth was hard to figure out. I really felt similar to the way I felt post 9/11 in Los Angeles. We were not directly impacted in LA, but definitely impacted as two colleagues were killed on one of the planes (I didn’t personally know them), and my brother lived in New York at the time. There was a general heaviness in the air all the time, and nobody knew exactly how to behave or the expectations on their behavior. That kind of stress is omnipresent and it takes a while to process everything that is going on.

Over time, the amount of thought and energy associated with the events reduce, and life becomes more normal. Of course, for people in Nagoya that happens much faster because most of us are not faced with any real hardship. What continues to be hard for me now is knowing how to help. I’ll have more on that in a later blog entry.