I managed to walk all the way from the flat, into the centre of town, then to Cowcaddens (China Town), St George’s Cross (Where I used to live as a student), Byers Road (aka. Bryoz road) and down to Partick.
Grabbed a few groceries and headed home. I thought that after a couple of years, the west end would have changed dramatically, but it seemed to have just been a little run down, with a few of my local shops having closed. No doubt another area affected by the economic crisis.
So I made a mah-see-voh dinner for Sian, Gayle and Tina. Was fairly impressed as I managed to prepare everything together quite nicely, without burning anything. Although I was only really preparing the main course, the girls brought side dishes and desert.
It was a really pleasant evening, which was rounded off with some weird youtube videos, such as the one below.
One of the biggest things I miss about being in Japan, is turning on your TV at 3am to random things like this.
Rillettes is a preparation of meat similar to pâté. Originally made with pork, the meat is cubed or chopped, salted heavily and cooked slowly in fat until it is tender enough to be easily shredded, and then cooled with enough of the fat to form a paste. They are normally used as spread on bread or toast and served at room temperature.
Rillettes are also made with other meats, goose, duck, chicken, game birds, rabbit and sometimes with fish such as anchovies, tuna or salmon.
Here is a light and healthy recipe made with shrimps!
Shrimps Rillettes!
INGREDIENTS:
-Shrimps/prawns: 250 g (black tiger if available)
-Olive oil: as appropriate
-Brandy: as appropriate
B Butter
-Butter: 125 g (1/4 pound)
-Salt: a little
-Cayenne pepper/Chili pepper: as appropriate
RECIPE:
-Fry the shrimps/prawns whole with their shells in olive oil until their insides are cooked. Flambe them with Brandy. Once compeltely cooled down, extract the flaesh out the shell and mince the flesh very finely.
-In a pan drop the A butter and all chopped vegetables and fry until soft. Pour the tomato juice and stirby hand. Let simmer over a weak fire for 20~30 minutes.
-Pass the shrimps and vegetables through a sieve/chinois to obtain a paste.
-In a bowl drop the B butter and let it warm up to room temperature. Add sieved shrimps and vegetables and mix thoroughly until you obtain a smooth paste. Check taste. Add salt and cayenne pepper as appropriate. Leave inside refrigerator for at least a couple of hours.
-Before eating it, bring it back to room temperature and serve with thin slices of French bread. There should be enough for 10 people (as an appetizer!)
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Please check the new postings at: sake, shochu and sushi
I just tried to call my Japanese friend. Of course… she didn’t answer. Two guys passed the phone back and forth trying to figure out what I was saying to them. They didn’t know much English and I don’t know much Japanese. FAIL.
Of course this is a lot harder over the phone. I wasn’t able to rely on my charades to help me communicate.
I just wanted to tell her that I am going to be staying a few days longer.
WT2010 – JAPAN
Day 9/10 – Nozawa Onsen
[On the iPOD] Arctic Monkeys / M83
Waking up sore and tired is never a good sign before a big day of snow boarding. The word around the lodge was it was snowing up top and it was sunny, an awesome combo. I kitted up and set out early to find rock hard ice on the first slope without warming up I went straight up the cross lift to get to the centre mountain gondola only to find yet more Ice.
I’m still only a beginner/Intermediate and Ice seriously psyches me out, especially when you have to go down a 4m wide pass with a sheer drop off with no barrier. I had a few stacks and got in a grumpy mood from the on-set. Perhaps it was because I’d skipped breakky but I headed to the top only to find a nice small covering of snow covering a frozen solid ice underneath. Crappy crappy conditions. I struggled around for a bit but it was just no fun on this hired board, which is a little short hence not wide enough for my boots which causes your boots to catch the snow if u try and get a sharp edge for grip on ice.
I went for a long lunch and rest and was cheered up by one of the chefs at the station at mid-mountain Japanese courtesy and service wins again. After chilling out for a bit with some beer and ice cream. I lulled myself into confidence again and went for a few more runs down the right side of the mountain. It was a little lighter here and things started to pickup. I didn’t have much energy though perhaps due to getting up 5am the day before and traveling + boarding and getting to bed at 1230am.
I decided to stop on a nice bend in the middle of nowhere and build myself a little “kicker” jump into some soft powder off the track. It took me a good 15minutes of effort and I was buggered afterwards but It worked pretty well. I’d built it off a slight drop so I could practice landing off some good air. I did this about 4times and had enough, legs were giving out and it was near the end of the day.
So I decided to head back with one goal; walk as little as possible to my lodge. There was a pass I’d traveled the day before but I took a wrong turn near the end and had to walk a little. I was certain if I carried enough speed I could reach the lodge (there were a lot of flattening out areas where you’d stop if you weren’t going fast enough leading up to them)
So I went down the rest of the home run and made it to within 30metres of the lift to centre-right mountain. Technically you can get to here from the top of the mountain. It’s about a 3km run. I got off at the lift and gunned it, down and across and then across a the downhill centre slope at top speed aiming for a gap in the trees to a connecting path. The track connected to another and another and then finally the final turn which looked like it was out of bounds or something. I didn’t know I couldn’t read the sign. I didn’t care and gunned it and the track wound steep and narrow through some trees (tight s bends) and then opened up towards a carpark.
I skipped off to the left and continued to the home straight with enough speed. Making the final turn I was headed down a ‘driveway’ towards the road where cars fly past and pulled up right on the edge of the snow, sitting down, my board hitting the tarmac. Unbound and walked 100m to my lodge. Utterly amazing really. Technically you can ride the length of the mountain down the opposite side of the lodge and catch ONE lift and get to your door. A good 6km+ of winding awesomeness!
I decided to stop playing hermit at the lodge and the Australians who run it had it smelling like home in no time; a BBQ out front with Japanese beer, cool. I got to know a lot of cool people with some eye-opening stories. Everything from traveling around the world on a surf adventure in the 1970’s! to working 4months a year on a farm and then spending it all on holidaying around the world snowboarding the rest of the year. These people have their priorities in order!
After dinner we all headed to the main foreigner bar in town; next door and downstairs is a little bar called ‘STAY’ the vibe of this place is everything I dream about what a local pub should be. It’s about 10metres long by about 5metres wide, has a drum kit and guitar/bass/amps/pa in the corner, a bar and two tables and is covered wall to roof in a variety of local and international music regalia. We don’t a few local beers and then headed to karaoke joint up the hill. Some old locals were already in there but the 6 of us or so ordered yet more drinks and destroyed some classic songs. A bunch of 80’s tragics mostly but the Karaoke system was two touch screen wireless pads with a huge selection of modern songs across all categories, this is Japan after all.
Headed back to the lodge nice and early; walking through the pin-drop quiet winter cold town; the only sound was of running water; the village has a big system of under-road covered gutters which let the melting ice flow through it. I got in just before 2am. Had to be up early to hit the slopes and was hoping for a better day.
Up nice and early but intent on not rushing things on the Thursday morning incase conditions were like yesterday; a nice big breakfast this time which sent me jogging and skipping towards the first lift. I decided to do a warm up run on the first lift slope rather than take the cross mountain lift. It was mildly soft and was utterly brilliant down low. I did one run and then decided I’d do another upon which I decided I’d do a few more runs practicing riding goofy.
Up and down, rinse and repeat until i felt an entire level more confident riding that way, the odd stack had me looking sideways down the run. I somehow had completely missed a seperate track built that morning down the side of the mountain; it was a bunch of mini slopes leading into a set of kickers down 3/4 of the slope! So I decided to practice some jumps. Starting slowly and landing only one and aborting the last two “big” ones.
By the end of the day I was utterly buggered and had landed 7 consecutive airs including the last one; which has a lot of dug out snow after the kick; you probably get a good 2metres off the lip of the jump. Later; lodge-mate Arwin said one of the guys he runs with lands back-flips with a twist off it! I wasn’t going to try that just yet.
Somehow I was having way too much fun just trying to get better on this simple course on the first slope of the mountain and just like that it was all over, approaching 5pm.
But before I left there was one thing to try for the first time; A local Onsen (that’s a natural hot-spring public bath for those unawares) I’m all for public nudity, just as long as it doesn’t involve me. At least that was my view before I went in. It was full of locales and dads bathing with their sons. Once you get your kit off it just kinda feels right, you get the vibe of it and relax. When in Rome!
Funnily enough though a few minutes later one of the other lodgers turned up; also an Onsen virgin like myself. I think the locales where either totally amused or bemused at our faces when we got into the boiling water. Unknown to me was I got in the hot-end of the spring where there was only one older dood and most of the people were in the other end. They either thought I was crazy getting in that end or thought I was a wimp making ‘ouch’ faces as the water burns every part of you.
Theres a strict method to entering and a system you have to go through before you get in; first you take off your shoes to get onto the wooden slatted area with ‘lockers’ and take your clothes off, put them in the lockers. Take a small wash towel and bucket and soap over to the wash area. You have to sit cause splashing people is rude. You soap up and wash down making sure you have no soap on you at all before getting into the water.
I eventually caught on and moved over to the cool end where it was bearable, I was convinced my knees had sustained 3rd degree burns… but if the old guy could take it I thought whack the heck. Whilst ‘chilling out’ in the ‘cool’ (which was still burning me) I got splashed on purpose by a little 5 yr old kid, I thought it was pretty funny actually but the kids dad promptly hit him on the head with a bucket and told him how rude it was. Respect is primary here; even to silly foreigners like myself. I’ll definitely be doing it any chance I get now. In a town with natural hot-spring water, why waste energy heating water (taking a shower) when you can get it for free? It’s a way of life.
I was already thinking about boarding the next morning after checking out of the lodge! But it wasn’t to be out of cash for a lift pass which means I’m headed back to Tokyo as I write this on a Friday morning.
I’m actually really peeved about leaving here; the lodgers are all great and some have been here for months or are here on second and third visits; so they know all the jaunts in town and all the local characters. Even more worried about leaving the snow and all the cool people, in the back of my mind is leaving Japan in four days. I’m starting to regret I haven’t stayed longer.
I’m thinking this won’t be the last I’ll see of Nozawa Onsen. Farewell!
*Unfortunately no more photos the last two days, I have a lot taken from the LOMO which is Film, so no uploading them. Conditions were just too harsh to use the DSLR (Snowing both nights and freezing!) I will try and get out this morning to take some final shots of the town in full light. Don’t think I can get up the mountain without a pass though!
I like music and I’m pretty sure you guys do too. Since we all enjoy music to varying extents, I thought I would share my preferences with you. But this isn’t a one way street in which I only recommend artists to you. Please feel free to share your favorite artists which are similar in style to those that I post. That way, I can learn from you and you from me. Cool eh?
When it comes to J-Pop, the amount of artists I know are quite limited. I’m coming across new singers/groups all of the time and the biggest reason I am doing this is so I can be exposed to more through your feedback. If you don’t like an artist I present, that’s cool, just be sure to comment on who is even cooler. I just want to expand my musical awareness, yah, musical awareness. hehe
Though, I won’t solely focus on J-Pop and other Japanese genres. I’ll be sure to throw in some of my personal favorites from varying places around this crazy world. In fact, most of my favorite music comes from the très chic France.
Alrighty, lets get on with my favorite J-Pop group.
I’ve been meaning to write about Perfume since I started this blog, but just never found the time to introduce them. I figured they would be the best one to start with since Perfume was the first J-Pop group I started to listen to. My friend told me about them about 3 years when I asked him “What are some good J-Pop bands/groups with a electronic feel?” He only mumbled one word, Perfume, and that was all. I asked him if there were others, but he remained quiet. I guess not. So, when I got home later that night (making sure not to forget their name), I searched up this group and the rest is history. I’ve been addicted to their music ever since.
Perfume consists of 3 members:
かしゆか (Kashiyuka)
のっち (Nocchi)
あーちゃん (A-Chan)
These photos were taken from the new Natural Beauty Basic commercial featuring Perfume’s new single ナチュラルに恋して (Love Me Naturally). The photos can be found here and the commercial can be found here.
I could go on and on explaining Perfume to you, but the only way to ever know how good they are is to simply listen. I must note here that their music is created by the awesome Nakata Yasutaka. So if you like Perfume, there will be a good chance that you’ll like his other projects.
Below, I will provide you with 3 music videos. I’ll take one song from each of their albums starting with their earliest and ending with their latest. Enjoy!
Hopefully you enjoyed those as much as all Perfume fans continue to do. I just wanted to end this “Totally Rad Tune Tuesday” by giving a shout out to Perfume City. It’s a fan site dedicated to all things Perfume and anything that you would want (seriously!) is there. I encourage you to check it out if you have the slightest interest in Perfume or just J-Pop in general. Plus, if you want more music, you are bound to find it there.
If everything works out and this post doesn’t become a total fail (not sure why it would, but you never know), I hope to continue TRTT on a weekly basis. And please, if you have any music recommendations, please leave a comment below. I will make sure I check out each suggestion that I receive.
Thanks for tuning in everyone!
ps 16 High-Fives to the first person who guesses my favorite Perfume member.
The noun “onore” meaning oneself sounds classical. Jiko is a more familiar word having the same meaning.
What do people do with jiko (themselves)? Here are some examples:
To take a good look at oneself … jiko wo mitsumeru
To know oneself … jiko wo shiru
To affirm oneself … jiko wo kōteisuru
To deny oneself … jiko wo hiteisuru
To analyze oneself … jiko wo bunsekisuru
Jiko often becomes a suffix meaning “self-.”
Jikokanri means self-control.
Jikokansatsu means self-observation.
Jikogisei means self-sacrifice.
Jikokettei means self-determination.
Jikoshōkai means self-introduction.
Jikotōsui means self-absorption.
Jikohitei means self-denial.
Jikohihan means self-criticism.
Jikoanji means autosuggestion.
… and so on and so forth.
Self-centeredness is “jikochū shin.” It is abbreviated as “jikochū,” of which the chū is written in katakana. We do not use the slang “jikochū” on formal occasions.
Draw the hook on the top.
Draw the horizontal stroke.
Draw the U-shaped curve. Make it narrower at the end. The first curve is rounder than the other. At the second corner, you can stop a little to change the direction of the brush.
WT2010 – JAPAN
Day 5/6 – Harajuku & Roppongi
[On the iPOD] Initial D 4th Stage / Animal Collective
Well I really had to dig deep to go out Saturday night, after spending allday inside being sick and JUST managing to keep food down at 10pm I headed to Shibuya to a tiny rock club called Rock No Cocoro. I think it was ‘birthday night’ or something. Sitting there listening to Japanese people sing happy birthday in english was funny. The bar started to get a bit packed and by about 1am and once again, kids moshing without shirts to punk songs and Japanese rock.
Odd music selection. Greenday followed by Ricky Martin for example. Whack. (Yes I just said whack) But there were some good tunes in there too. The club is across the road from a band rehearsal studio, it’s a pretty rad area. Everything is so accessible here. I can’t think of one rehearsal space in Sydney remotely anywhere near anything let alone dead centre of the city surrounded by rad bars.
I then decided to somehow circa 1am muster the energy to go looking for two other clubs I knew of. One had closed permanently by the looks of it. Whilst the other looked like it was converted to a restaurant bar, at least as far as I could tell. So I decided to have an early one, home by 2am.
I felt the need to makeup for saturday so I was aiming for Harajuku in the morning. I got there about 10am, the bridge linking meiji-jingu (a huge shrine park area dedicated to Emperor Meiji) and the other side of the train station known as Harajuku is known for the cosplay scene kids showing up on weekends for photo ops. Cosplay is great though i’d never do it, the dedication these kids have to manga and anime characters is great I think. I don’t know if it was the fact the shrine area is a large tourist attraction or if the area has been bastardized by westerners purely thanks to a certain ex No Doubt singer talking about Harajuku girls has ‘hers’ thus thrusting cosplay into the mainstream but I felt very ‘Tourist’ when standing on that bridge.
It’s something I’m trying to stay away from on this trip, I cringe even having a camera around my neck because it instantly puts that label on me, but I need to document all this and lets face it. I guess I was playing tourist today. With no cosplay kids around as yet (10am) I decided to head to the shrine Meiji-jingu. It’s like 70 acres of park built by volunteers with trees donated by people all over Japan all in reverence of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken. It’s quite an amazing feet. I got to the main shrine building and there happened to be a few weddings taking place. This was a huge tourist draw card. I’ve never actually witnessed a Japanese ceremony or at least the lead up to one. Quite enthralling.
I then checked out the treasure museum which holds collections of past emperors, no photos allowed though but the main building literally had paintings of every emperor side by side since 700ad to present day. It was odd staring at 1300 years of family line in the face, also interesting to note the style of the emperors was completely unaffected by foreign influence until the mid 1900’s.
Walking back I headed to the gyoen (lower park area) to hear some bands busking. Entire bands play, drum kits and powered amps and all. One group had drums/guitar/bass coming through one P.A and somehow it sounded ok. There were other musos setting up most interesting of note an older bunch of rockabilly or classic 50’s styled rock guys (think leather jackets with studs and elvis/james dean hair cuts) By this time it was like close to 1pm and I’d decided to aim for Mori Art Centre in Roppongi hills (about a 2.5km walk) followed by Suntory Museum of Art. Walking along the way via backstreets I stumble on some mind blowing stores. I’d reken girls who have never been here would absolutely lose the plot shopping in Harajuku.
I’d promised I would only spend $70 a day in Japan sticking to some form of a budget. This has gone out the window of course but more so when I saw the worlds most amazing jacket for like 14800yen ($180) after speaking to the guy and me explaining I was Australian he offered it to me for 9800 ($115) I replied KYU SEN?? 9000yen ($100) and he looked at his store attendants and said fine. How can you not buy stuff in such a place anyway.
Walking on through Omote-Sando There appeared to be some Irish-Japanese solidarity parade featuring bagpipes and large hounds dressed in clothes. The street was closed off and a huge crowds. I wasn’t sure why this was going on until I checked online, oh thats right. St Patrick’s day, apparently it started here in 1992 for the purpose of Introducing Ireland to the Japanese people.
Somehow it was like 3pm and I STILL hand’t eaten. I was looking for a sushi place, something which you’d think would be analogous to hitting water after falling out of a boat but I couldn’t for the life of me find one. I’d even skipped breakfast for it. Eventually had to google it and running through backstreets towards the closest place on the way to the Mori Art Museum I got there to find it closed! I settled for ramen and gyoza and the next available place. Still haven’t had sushi in Japan, hmm.
Mori Art Museum is in the Roppongi Hills complex in a large tower which is also an observatory. You can buy a ticket that gives you access to both. I took some photos high above the Tokyo skyline, you can pretty much see everything obviously. Odaiba bay is pretty big even from afar.
I’ve never laughed out loud or stood so long at certain pieces anywhere as I did at this Mori Art exhibition. It was modern art and design, something which I normally stray from. No photos allowed unfortunately but I’ll do my best. Upon entry theres Instructions on the wall features Nintendo DS’. Yup thats right, rather than having long-winded captions under art works which limit artists to a word limit this exhibition simply had the Artist and piece name and a Nintendo DS outline with a number. You bring along your DS and type in the number and connect to the remote system and select a piece number and you get all the info as well as Artist info. Great idea.
There was a 3metre wide white canvass which was painted with black ink, a scribbly mind-explosion style with uber high detail spanning from left to right and then I noticed something. The Artist, barefoot was on the right hand side, ink felt and ink bottle in hand. Drawing it LIVE! I’d hazzard a guess It started as a blank canvass on day one of the exhibition and he’d come in from opening to closing drawing his work from scratch with all to view. He was on the far right of the work when I was viewing it but it was utterly inspiring, there were still a few blank spots open. Who knows when he will consider the work done.
Further on to a design section. Hows this for an idea; A Jacket that turns into a tent. Yes a camping tent, it was so utterly out of nowhere I laughed when I saw the design sketches, as did others. It was layed out pegged up on faux grass and was totally functional as both a one person tent which folds and zips up to a regular looking jacket, amazing.
Other works were a seemingly inconspicuous draw that folds out a 2metre long table in mini-sections. The craftwork that went into this was mind boggling. It was like origami from wood.
Kids toy lines, animations and yet more art. It was all kind of refreshing, but just like that it was over. And it was 5:15. So much for the Suntory Art Museum. Checked out a small park right near the building and then wandered on to get invited into a small gallery featuring works by disabled artists. Usually painting with brushes in their mouths, or sometimes feet. All I can say is wow, I couldn’t paint half as well if tried using a steady hand let alone a paintbrush in my mouth. It’s amazing how much determination some people have.
Roppongi is the upmarket part of town. I’d discerned this from seeing no less than six, yes six Ferraris fly by me in an array of colours, then a Corvette Z06 and a race-spec 911 GT2 and finally an R35 GTR. Whats more the streets had gone from standard uber clean Japan to eat off the floor / inside of your house clean. Apparently its also home of the red-light district in another part and home of many a Yakuza member.
I caught a train back to Harajuku to check out what it was like on a Sunday night. No major cosplay gatherings unfortunately but most of the shops were still open at 9pm. Does this city ever sleep? Lured by the distant and faint sounds of a nasel-whaling Johnny Rotten I wandered into a (literally) underground Punk & Goth clothing store and was met with ‘no photos’ before I even got down the stairs. Weary of people ripping off their designs was this shop owner. I was just browsing having already spent too much that day but they did have some gear I’d never seen anywhere. Maybe you’d have found them in Mclaren and Westwood’s stores in the UK in the 70s, or at least I was getting that vibe. The store owner explained she’d been open for 28years and a lot of Aussies go there. Wow, didn’t I feel like a tourist.
I saw a girl carrying a bag she’d bought and I tried to ask where she’d gotten it (I’ve been looking for something similar as a gift) only to find that she spoke absolutely no english and my Japanese wasn’t working and then her boyfriend turned up and it got seriously awkward. Time to head home I think.
