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Japanese Product Roundup

So I'm betting that quite a few of you are wondering what awesome crazy new electronic gadgets are on the Japanese markets these days and why I haven't shared my thoughts on them with you.. Well keep wondering, I'm not talking about those products today. What I am talking about is snacks. Super-awesome face-filling morsels of goodness (I may have actually seen that slogan on a pack of something somewhere, so don't laugh, or rather, please do..).

Our first contender is something that on first glance sounds both extremely disturbing and oddly intriguing at the same time..

Mitsuya cider's new flavour... with condensed milk?!? It may or may not be visible on your screen but the red text reads, "Cider Meets Condensed Milk", which is really weird considering this is a carbonated drink. I first noticed this on something like my second day in Japan, and I've had it once or twice since then. Unfortunately, it doesn't really taste much like condensed milk. For that matter, it doesn't taste much like cider. Maybe they both got confused enroute to the rendezvous point and two entirely different flavours decided to meet up: bubbles and sugar perhaps.

Continuing on the theme of condensed milk, there's a couple of really tasty ice cream bars that I've been frequently making a pig of myself on. The first is this chocholatey goodness bar (not the actual name) which as the picture shows is filled with condensed milk. The second, for which I don't have a pic, is like shaved ice on a stick. Picture a bar of strawberry flavoured shaved ice, surrounded by a layer of hardened condensed milk. But just when you think that's all there is, when you get to the middle, there's the same soft condensed milk as the chocholatey bar. Aaahh.. goodness.

And not to be out done, just when you thought that things couldn't get any more interesting, let me present to you.. chicken wing flavoured chips. Well more like a "Cheeto-esque" kinda thing, but it comes in a bag and is supposed to taste like chicken wings.. 'nuff said. When I saw these in the convenience store there was absolutely no question... I had to buy them.. They taste surprisingly ok, and even slightly like actual chicken wings (the dry kind with just seasonings and no sauce), so I was much impressed. The package says that it's apparently good with beer.

... to the East Side (so to speak)

Well, after much deliberation, calculation and counting of yen, I finally made the plunge and moved to a larger apartment. It's nice.. It's very nice. I've got a balcony I can actually stand in, a closet I can actually put stuff in, a washing machine and internet included. Only downside is that is an extra 5 minutes away from school, which brings my one way travel time to about 30 mins by bike every morning; good exercise though. Here's a few pics to compare and contrast..

First, my old place..

This is the room in general.. it has a very efficient rectangular shape, which means that once you put a bed in it, there's no room for anything else. The door on the left leads to the bathroom.

This is the "kitchen", which is in fact right next to the bed. The black box in the bottom is my fridge/freezer. The freezer was just large enough to hold one small ice cube tray.

The closet here is about 2 feet wide, so I was glad that there was extra storage under the bed. Still not the same as a nice big closet though.

And my balcony, which was pretty convenient for hanging my laundry to dry, but I couldn't use it for anything else. The shot you see is of where a hornet's nest used to be. One of my first tasks when I moved in was to kill all the hornets and get rid of the nest.. charming, no?

And now for my new place. Let me start by stating that my new place has two separate areas, and I'm exceptionally glad for that. The kitchen/bathroom area is separated with the main living area with a door.

The main living area has space for a bed (which I'm not using right now, because it's hard as a rock), as well as a small table and some walking around room..

My fridge and microwave do take up some space in the main room, but its very worth it. You can see here the doorway into the kitchen/bathroom/vestibule area

and lastly my kitchen with actual shelves to put my pots and ingredients in, and a real stove (no hot plate that looks like it came from a grade 10 science class)

And that pretty much sums up my move. George and Wheezy would be proud I think.

If you only go to one castle..

After many weeks of procrastinating, I finally made the hour train ride from Osaka over to the city of Himeji. Himeji is home to the only castle in this part of Japan that has never been bombed, burned, or blown-up, although it has been besieged several times. So of all the castles that you'd (or I'd) be likely to see, its the one that is most like the way it was back when it was actually used, back in the 1300-1500's. So rather than a museum inside the shell of a castle like Osaka castle is, its a real castle keep with only one floor dedicated to museum-esqe stuff and the rest is pure, old-style castle.

Like the title of the post says, if you only go to one castle in Japan, go to Himeji. Not only are the castle keep and bailey intact, but the city itself was built up from the old castle town, so it has a similar general shape as it did back in the day. On the left is the view from the top floor of the castle looking out towards the main train station of Himeji.
The right is what the inside of one of the hallways in the western bailey looks like. They're not all this nice and bright, but this one had the windows open and the wood was relatively new, so it had a nice golden colour as opposed to the standard "old building brown" that is common in so many temples and such in Japan.

Finally one last image of the castle from the outside. And a link to more pics here

Apartment hunting

I'm looking to upgrade.. My rental term in my apartment expires next month so I'm looking for something that gives me a bit more bang for my buck, since the place that I'm staying in right now is about 120 sqft and costs nearly $700 a month.. not cheap.. so I've waded into the arena of Japanese real estate agencies. But you may ask yourself, why does he need a real estate agent if he's not buying anything? Well, this is Japan and the old rules no longer apply. Apparently you need to go through a real estate agent in Japan. But wait, if gets weirder. The real estate agents are allotted apartments to rent by unit, not by building, so for a given apartment building, there may be 4 or 5 real estate agents all renting apartments out.. at different prices..
So what else could possibly be more confusing? Well the rents for one; I said that my place was about $700/mo, well that's not entirely true. My place actually costs about $500 a month.. Where's the extra money come from? Well, I need to pay about $200 for a "negotiation fee", $260 to the real estate agent for services rendered (which to date has consisted of filling out the contract, collecting my money and saving me $2 on a train ride by driving me here on my first day), add on $100 deposit and probably a cleaning fee, or lock replacement charge and voila, instant rip-off.
So I've decided to move, not exclusively because of the cost, because I knew how much it would cost before I came here, but more of the size.. I don't have space to put a desk in, which I would really like to, cause I'm tired of studying on the floor.
In any case, watch this space for more exciting adventures of the habitationally challenged.

Memory Lane

Now that I'm on summer break, I decided to take a little trip back to where it all started for me in Japan. In 2003, I spent 3 months studying Japanese in the relatively small (for Japanese standards) city of Okazaki. I still have a friend or two there, so I decided to go back for a visit. Not much has changed really; I mean it's only been 3 years. The grocery store I used to shop at is gone, and so are a few of the other things that were in front of the train station, but for the most part, its all the same. Which is good, 'casue no trip down memory lane is much fun if that lane has been turned into an expressway.

So my trip down the lane begins, where my trip from Osaka ends; at the Okazaki train station. From there, I met up with one of my former teachers, and now friend, for a stop off at my former school and a bite to eat. Miso katsu was the order of the day. So I'd imagine that most people are familiar with miso soup, well this isn't really like that, but miso is a main ingredient in both. The miso in miso katsu is miso sause as opposed to soup, and the katsu is standard tonkatsu, which is a deep fried piece of pork. Of course no dining experience is complete without a view flaming torches, so we went somewhere that provided that.

After leaving Okazaki, I headed towards Nagoya to find the capsule hotel that I had booked for the night. I manged to locate the place on the seventh floor of a buliding above a pachinko parlour, not far from the station. When I arrived at the reception, I was given a key to my locker, where I was to put all my stuff. Inside the locker, a change of clothes was provided. For an additional 900 yen (~CAD $9) I was able to use the sauna/public bath on the 4th floor of the same building and given a breakfast of coffee, juice, toast, and an boiled egg (man I could have gone for some Honey Nut Cheerios in there). Now the hotel consists of more than just capsules, there's a common area where everyone can sit around and watch TV (and smoke of course), and a vending machine area where you can buy anything from ice cream to fried rice. You can also, if you like play electronic mahjhong and pachinko right in the hotel (y'know in case you wake up one morning and find out that you're a bored salaryman).

The capsules themselves were actually a lot roomier than I expected. I was pleased to find that my feet didn't hang off the end or something. Inside the capsule, there's a TV, a radio, a mirror, and a few other knobs and buttons to amuse yourself with. The one downside is that since there are no doors (just curtains) on these things, if the guy 3 caps down decides he feels like cranking the volume on his tunes, you've got no choice but to listen to it. Still though, all in all pretty interesting. I would recommend it, not only for the experience, but also for the price tag, which at 3700 yen (CAD $37) for the evening, including the sauna and breakfast, is bearable even for a cheapskate like me. If you're going though, make sure that you pack a healthy supply of testosterone, since most of the capsule hotels in Japan are for men only.

Osaka castle

Now, it has often been said (by me), that if you've seen one Japanese castle, you've seen them all. I suppose I still stand by that assessment, but I suppose that I still can't deny the majesty of a 7 storey castle, moat and surrounding trappings. So on a 36C Osaka summer day, Son (my classmate) and myself set out to explore the wonders of Osaka Castle.


I think (but I'm not sure about this one) that Osaka castle is one of the biggest around this area, and there are quite a few in this area. Not only is the castle itself a good size, but the grounds are as well. Apparently its a really nice walk when its not hot enough to melt brimstone. Still, we struggled on. As I said, the castle has 7 stories (although the 6th floor is mysteriously missing, so they're numbered 1-8). From the top, is a view of the city. The castle is built on a bit of a mountain (think Blue Mountain) so, even though its not that tall, the view is still pretty good.

So one of the things that do distinguish some of the castles at least is the ornamentation. Osaka's is these big golden fish.

And of course, no Japanese castle would be complete without a very European building hanging around for good measure.

For the rest of the pics, click here.