Boil'em? Mash'em? Stick'em in a Stew?

I don't know what this is, what it tastes like or what I'm suppose to do with it. I'm open to any advice or information.

I have no idea.

We just bought some yellow watermelon with some yellow kiwis. Both had a strange honey aftertaste to them.

TOILETS! The Next Generation

One of the famous fables of Japan is the toilets. I've received many requests to outline this amazing phenomenon.

Toilets are one of those things that you thought could never get upgraded. Leonardo's idea of a toilet is pretty much the same thing as it is today. But in Japan they have gone much further. We've heard stories of singing toilets or heated toilets and I'm here to tell you that ITS ALL TRUE. In the Simpsons, they even had a toilet that thanked you for your...whatever.

Up until the end of WWII the Japanese used the hole in the floor concept for their toilet system. I personally have standards so I will wait until I find some kind of alternative. However girls usually don't have that kind of luxury. The balancing act that you need to pull this off takes practice. And to be honest, I would rather avoid the possible mess that can happen. In most places, today, you will find a western style toilet.

As you saw in my video from a few days ago, the Japanese, like Europeans, separate the toilet from the shower/bathroom. It would be more accurate to call it a Water Closet. Inside the first thing you will see are a pair of slippers. Usually made of a rubber material, they are toilet slippers. My guess is so that your feet don't get cold on the tile floor or some have told me its to avoid slipping on some water that may have splashed out of the bowl. Now, I've never seen any water on the floor but you never know. Maybe it's so that any questionable excrement that may be on the toilet floor is simply not tracked through the house.

Now, on the toilet itself, there is a sink. This sink has no taps on it. When you flush the toilet the water starts to to fill the toilet tank and you can wash your hands with it. At first, I did find it a little strange but if you think about it, it totally removes the need of putting in a sink in the room and saves space. We put a little soap dispenser near the sink and there you go.

On a side note, in Europe they have the big button and little button. I once had to explain it to someone so I'll explain it here. The big button is for big toilet experiences and the little button is for little toilet experiences, thus regulating the amount of water being spent. In Japan they have the same idea. They use the Kanji 大 for big and 小 for small. I have no idea why we don't have this in Canada.

Unfortunately, in our new place our toilet has not been upgraded to any of the modern conveniences. In our last place, the toilet seat could be adjusted up to 40°C. That was nice in the winter. If anyone wants to start a business with me selling these things to Canadians let me know. But this is nothing compared to some of the newer models. In Japan you have to buy toilet seats in electronic stores.

Now for some higher levels.
This first toilet is the first kind of basic upgrade to the heated toilet.









The options that this one offers is not only heated seat but cleansing. Cleansing means that when you press the button that looks like a little bum, a nozzle comes out from the back of the bowl and gives it a little shower. Now the stream is very exact and leaves you with a very fresh feeling. I think the idea freaks some people out but I personally hate the..not fresh feeling that one can get after a...you get the idea. Sometimes no further wiping is required. The lights on the side are for the options of energy saver, heated seat, heated water, and cleaning the nozzle.



This next toilet is one of the first series of upgrades to the standard one shown above. Rather than having the remote on the toilet, it's on the wall for better control of the options and deeper contemplation of what you want. This one offers a control for the intensity of the water cleaning you. One of the buttons is to clean your bum and the other is for bidet, which cleans the whole general area. Some toilets come with a drying option.

Other options vary dramatically. Some play music to cover the sound of anything you may do, others have proximity sensors that lift the seat cover when you approach. Ones with deodorizers are cool because they spray just a little bit of something that smells nice on your bum. Also, the latest models store the times when the toilet is used and have a power-saving mode that warms the toilet seat only during times when the toilet is likely to be used based on historic usage patterns. Some toilets also glow in the dark or may even have air conditioning below the rim for hot summer days.

On the news recently, they announced a new toilet with sensors in it to assess the quality of your urine based on blood sugar and other levels. Overall, toilet seats can run from $100 to $800.

Now these are not the only toilets I've seen in the world that were special. Last summer, I was in Switzerland in a place called St. Gallen and at the train station I found this.

Dairy KitKat

I've mentioned before that Japan has this thing for KitKat Chocolate bars. KitKat means good luck or luck or having luck.in Japanese. From what I've figured out, you can always find the standard red chocolate KitKat but they also have 1-3 seasonal KitKats. To date I've eaten about 10 different kinds!

I found this one on New Years Eve 2009. This is Cheese KitKat. I have no idea how healthy the cheese part was or how much Cheese was in it because I didn't get it from a refrigerated section. It was on the shelf right next to the chips. Thus, I'm guessing it must have had a crazy amount of chemicals in it.

The cheese part and the KitKat part was separated. The KitKat part tasted more or less like a regular chocolate KitKat but missing the sugary part that you would normally get. It was milk chocolate but without the extra sugar.

The Cheese tasted kind of like cheese curds or cheese string. Bottom line it didn't taste natural. It tasted very artificial. Unlike cheese string this so called cheese was harder more like the crust of a Camembert cheese.

The idea is to take a piece of the cheese and a stick of the KitKat and bite it together. Strange enough, it was pretty good. If you want to simulate this kind of taste try cheese curds and a regular KitKat. Somehow this one tasted saltier.

Rice Pixelation...Views from Above

Some people have too much spare time on their hands and figure if you're going to grow rice you might as well make it interesting. Well there are different colours of rice plants and they grow different kinds of rice, I guess. Today, one of my students gave me a bag of black rice and then told me what kind of recipes I should try with it. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, but it did encourage me to put up this posting of how a little bit of patience can go a long way. Enjoy!

Let's tell the Aliens were really smart.
It pays off when you get to the bottom.
What do you think?
This is not Photoshop.

The Old Place

As I mentioned before, we recently moved to a new place. I would love to show you all the details of the new place but I'm paranoid that having all that information on the Internet will bring unnecessary security risks. However, I do have another video to show you today.

Since I'm not living in the old place anymore, I can show you what it looked like. It was a much older house. Mostly made of wood. In the winter it was crazy cold and there were lots of holes in the house where you could feel the cold coming in. I have no idea how my old boss lived there in the state it was in. But I won't go into too much detail. This picture is of a window in the upstairs bedroom that I boarded up because the window that was there was so poor quality that it permanently kept the room cold. Before last winter hit, I made sure it wouldn't bother us.

I took this video on the last night we were in the house, March 29th 2010. We spent the better part of a week bringing our stuff by subway to the new place. This is the last suitcase of the trip. Yes, I bought a giant hippo. I'm a 10yr old I know. My boss flew in at 7pm and he was coming to stay in his house. We were trying to clean up, pack and get out as soon as we could. This video was taken at 8:50pm. I'm rushing (because I'm Russian..oh bad) because we wanted to get out before he got there.

It Sucks as it Cuts

One of the biggest fears I had living in France was getting my haircut. Language textbooks and general vocabulary don't prepare you to explain what you want done. And this is where cultural misunderstanding can get you some strange results. Since I got to Japan I've experienced some strange things when it came to haircuts. I'm all for getting a haircut to look clean and proper but I sometimes just dread going out because a haircut in Japan is "like a box of chocolates...".

Now when I mean weird I mean not the things I usually experience when I get a haircut. Every time I got a haircut in Asia, something strange happened.

Haircut #1
After being here for about a month and a bit, I finally came to the decision that a haircut was needed. We got out a sheet of paper and looked up all the words in the dictionary that I would need to say and went out to look for a place. In Canada and France I understand that a haircut for women can run around $50, but to be honest women only get a cut once every few months. Guys should have it done every month or so. Plus the job is not nearly as high, so it should be cheaper! As it turns out the cost of haircuts in Japan are CRAZY, about $40-$50 for men or women.

We walked around looking for a barber for nearly an hour. Two things, 1) I'm not that cheap but I refuse to pay $50 for a haircut, which I ended up doing anyway because we couldn't find a cheaper place. 2) Japanese must have some kind of hair fetish because they have salons on every street corner. I'm talking worse then Tim Horton's and McDonald's put together! For every major street there is a hair place every 10min by foot.

The cut itself was alright...

Haircut #2
End of January while in Taiwan, a group was holding some kind of charity sale on the side of a major road. And strangely enough they were offering haircuts. I just did it for the novelty of this picture because I've never had a haircut on the side of a road before. The wind felt nice. It was only a trim but it looked good

Haircut #3
This was truly a strange experience. The guy I found could not speak English. The hair models were all Japanese and, in my opinion, all had terrible hair in the pictures. I guess I don't get Japanese men's hairstyles. I mean look at this guy. Can you imagine a westerner getting a cut like that? He looks cool like out a manga or something, but on me that would just look queer.

My barber tried to impress me with his bad English and his interest in 24 and Keifer Sutherland. His phone even rang the way the CTU phones ring.

So what was strange about this cut? At the end of the cut, he gave me a quick back massage. I'm sure the expression on my face would have made this blog really great but it freaked me out. I'm sure he liked me but that was really strange.

Haircut #4
Turns out the whole massage thing is not that gay as a female stylist did the same thing. This time, a friend of mine took me out to somewhere Japan and did all the explaining for me. This woman was like a master swordsman with her scissors. It was cool to see but it took forever.
One interesting thing that happened at each cut, except for the street one of course, was that first they cut my hair and then shampooed it after. It was really nice. I defiantly approve of leaving a place with a completely clean head. They should do that in Canada.

Haircut #5
This week I found a place that charges $10. All I needed was a trim so I went in. Everything as as expected, massage, cut, but this time he did something new.
After cutting my hair he took out one of these and began to vacuum my head. Afterwards, he continued cutting like nothing happened. I know there is a Wayne's World "it sucks as it cuts" joke in there somewhere but it certainly did not suck. Surprisingly it felt really nice.

Not sure what will happen the next time I get a haircut. Not sure how much it will cost but even though I have the vocabulary down, this place still finds a way to surprise me.

You know you've been in Japan too long when...

Not all of these are true but I'm very impressed how close its is:

• you run for the JR line pushing people left and right, jump on the train holding the doors open to let your bag follow you on. Because you know there will not be another one for at least a minute.
  
• you bow to other drivers who give you the right of way.
  
• you rush onto an escalator, and just stand there.
  
• you don't hesitate to put a $10 (1000Y) note into a vending machine.
  
• you see a gaijin (foreigner) get on the train and think "Wow, it's a gaijin!"
  
• you have trouble figuring out how many syllables there really are in words like 'building'. (Bi-ru-di-n-gu)
  
• you get blasted by a political speaker truck and think "what can be done?"
  
• you think the best part of TV are the commercials. - THEY'RE AWESOME
  
• you develop a liking for black bean flavoured ice cream.
  
• you can't have your picture taken without your fingers forming the peace sign.
  
• you pull up at a gas station and wait for a bunch of Norman Rockwell type attendants to jump out and clean your windshield.
  
• you go for a drink with friends back home and start pouring everybody's beer.
  
• your idea of a larger home is an extra 10 square meters.
  
• you glance at the clock and accurately predict the next line of dialogue in the TV drama.
  
• you are not worried about speeding in the rain, because you know the cops are only out there in good weather.
  
• you think birds cry.
  
• you find yourself bowing while you talk on the phone.
  
• you think US$17 (1700Y) isn't such a bad price for a new paperback.
  
• you go to a coffee shop in your home country and order "American coffee."
  
• you are talking on the telephone to your parents and your father says, "Why are you interrupting my explanation with grunts?" - Grunt is a quick ok.
  
• you're talking to your mother on the phone, and she asks you what "Genki" means. (Happy, energetic,healthy) - I'm Genki.
  
• you don't think it unusual for a truck to play "It's a Small World" when backing up. - ITS NORMAL
  
• you think the natural location for a beer garden is on a roof.
  
• you think that you can impress foreigners by drinking Budweiser.
  
• you think "English literature major" is a polite way to say peanut brained bimbo.
  
• you find a beautiful way to eat natto (it look like vomit). -I CAN
  
• you start thinking canned coffee tastes good. -- IT DOES!!
  
• you wait for the first day of summer to wear short sleeve dress shirts.
  
• the first option you buy for your car is a TV set.
  
• you really enjoy corn soup with your McPork.
  
• you think the opposite of red is white.
  
• you leave your expensive bottle of Royal Salute with a sleazy barkeeper and don't worry.
  
• you pore over the hyperdia.com looking for ways to avoid riding the Shinkansen.
  
• you buy a potato-and-strawberry sandwich for lunch without cringing.
  
• you phone an English-speaking gaijin friend and somehow can't bring yourself to get to the point for the first 3 minutes of the conversation.
  
• you stop enjoying telling newcomers to Japan 'all about Japan'.
  
• you automatically remember all of your important year dates in Showa numbers. - Japanese Calender dates
  
• you think every foreign movie title contains the word 'love.'
  
• you have mastered the art of simultaneous bowing and hand-shaking.
  
• you think it's alright to stick your head into a stranger's apartment to see if anybody's home.
  
• you have run out of snappy comebacks to compliments about your chopstick skills.
  
• you think "white pills, blue pills, and pink powder" is an adequate answer to the question "What are you giving me, doctor?".
  
• you no longer find anything unusual in the concept of "Vermont curry". -IT TASTES NOTHING LIKE CURRY BUT ITS AMAZING.
  
• you think 4 layers of wrapping is reasonable for a simple piece of merchandise.
  
• you don't find anything strange about a city that puts a life sized, red-and-white painted Eiffel tower imitation in its centre, as well as a scale model of the Versaille palace for its Crown Prince. - TOKYO
  
• you are only slightly puzzled by "Melty Kisses."
  
• you get on a train with a number of gaijin on it and you feel uneasy because the harmony is broken.- Yup
  
• you ask fellow foreigners the all-important question "How long have you been here?" in order to be able to properly categorize them.
  
• looking out the window of your office, you think "Wow, so many trees!" instead of "Wow, so much concrete!"
  
• you think NHK is "the Japanese BBC".
  
• you think curry rice is food. - ITS DAMN TASTY
  
• in the middle of nowhere, totally surrounded by rice fields and abundant nature, you aren't surprised to find a drink vending machine with no visible means of a power supply and when you think nothing of it when that lonely vending machine say 'thank you' after you buy a coke.
  
• the TV commercials make sense to you.
  
• a gaijin sits down next to you on the train and you get up and move. You're not prejudiced, but who knows what they might do?
  
• you only have 73 transparent, plastic umbrellas left in your entrance because you have donated 27 to the JR and various taxi companies in the past few months.
  
• you have over 100 small, transparent plastic umbrellas in your entrance even *after* donating 27 of them to taxis and JR recently.
  
• you think rice imports should be prohibited, because Japanese consumers would never buy imported rice.
  
• you think one kind of rice tastes better than another kind.
  
• you rush home from work to catch the last few minutes of sumo.
  
• you get a "Nihongo ga joozu" and feel really insulted. "Your Japanese is very good, isn't it"
• you see a road with two lanes going in the same direction and assume the one on the left is meant for parking.
  
• you think Japan is the only county that actually has only four seasons.
  
• you pull out your ruler to underline words.
  
• in getting ready for a trip you automatically calculate for souvenirs and you leave just the right amount of space in your suitcase for them.
  
• on a cold autumn night, the only thing you want for dinner is nabe (hot pot food) and nihonshu (Potato Vodka).
  
• you return the bow from the cash machine.
  
• you can't find the "open" and "close" buttons in the elevator because they're in English.
  
• you think that coffee goes perfectly well with squid pizza.
  
• the Christmas music in the stores does not make you feel at all sentimental like it used to. - It still pisses me off
  
• you mention "Japan Times" and "objective" in one sentence
  
• you believe that the perfect side dish to eat with a juicy, deep-fried pork chop is a pile of raw, tasteless, shredded cabbage.
  
• it doesn't surprise you that a case of beer has the same per unit price as a single can.
  
• you think cod roe spaghetti with chilled red wine is a typical Italian dish.
  
• you start to recognize Background music as a meaningful genre of music.
  
• walking into a crowded bar full of non-Japanese makes you nervous, because they "look dangerous."
  
• you buy a Christmas cake on Christmas eve.
  
• you no longer pay any attention to what anyone does when you sit down beside them on a train.
  
• when you accompany your "no" by the famous waving hand-in-front-of-nose.
  
• you find yourself apologizing at least three times per conversation.
  
• when you let your car idle for half an hour while you go shopping.
  
• you find your self asking all your foreign acquaintances what their blood types are.
  
• you find yourself practising golf swings with your umbrella on the train platform.
  
• you take practice golf swings on the train platform *without* an umbrella in your hand.
  
• you buy an individually wrapped potato in the supermarket.
  
• you think that "Lets SPORTS yOUNG gAY CluB" is a perfectly normal T-shirt logo for a middle aged lady.
  
• you order a "bottle of draft" in a pub.
  
• you go to a book shop with the full intention to read all the interesting magazines and put them back on the shelf. - Wish I could.
  
• you're careful to specify a nonsmoking seat on the flight from Denver to St. Louis.
• you schedule your commute around the availability of seats on the train.
  
• you think sushi at a baseball game is perfectly normal.
  
• you vow to Gambaru before every little activity you engage in. "Do your best in whatever state that you find yourself in. The process is most important. The outcome is irrelevant but what matters is that you did not give up! You did not quit! You did not fall short of meeting your obligation. In whatever situation that you encounter do your utmost best."
• you say that one of your hobbies is "doraibu." (Going for a casual drive)
  
• you stupidly wait for a kampai at a gaijin party
  
• you think no car is complete without a tissue box on the rear shelf and a feather duster in the trunk.
  
• you ask a gaijin colleague who wears short sleeves in October, "Aren't you cold?"
  
• you draw a sharp distinction between "English" and "English conversation."
  
• you use the "slasher hand" and continuous bowing to make your way through a crowd.
  
• all of your December Sundays are reserved for Bonenkai (end of year party) hangover recovery.
  
• you are disappointed when Dominoes doesn't have corn pizza
  
• you forget about July 4th, but get all worked up over Tanabata (August 15th Star Festival).
  
• when it all seems normal.