Hibernation

I feel guilty complaining about winter here because the weather is never cold (it never gets below zero for sure), and it just about never snows. The air is clear and dry, and sunny days far outnumber cloudy, rainy ones.

However - shorter days and chillier mornings do not lend themselves well to morning (or evening) activity. No bikes rides so far this year except on the weekend, and I've been blowing off my running companions for the past four weeks. Pretty soon they're going to stop inviting me. I'm also finding myself driving to the local supermarket recently rather than walking; and I seem to prefer basking in the warmth of our kerosene heater and watching streaming TV shows online to any other form of activity.

Hibernation, it seems, has hit. Nothing to do now but sit back with a good book, a bottle of wine and fluffy slippers...

Weekend in Matsuzaki

Tracy and I found a great hotel last year during a tour of Izu; because we were planning to camp then, we hoped to come back and stay another time. During following popular seasons we tried to make reservations, but they were always booked. (The hotel is just across from the port at Matsuzaki; the clientele is fish-catching and -eating enthusiasts, rather than beach lovers.)

This weekend we decided to visit Izu (now is the not-at-all-busy season), but as it was too cold to camp comfortably, we called again. Success!

The room was 10-jou (count the floor mats), featuring a 13" TV (color!), a pot of hot water and a room heater. Perfect for a quiet evening in:
















Of course the real attraction is the bath and the meals, so we arrived early enough to make the most of both. The baths were on the roof, and open-air to make the most of the view. Men and women were separate, but we compared notes and they seemed equally nice. Here is the men's side..
















And even a shot of me in the bath... the water was probably 42 degrees, and the air 4 degrees (C), for a decent contrast!
















After baths and a cold beer in the room, we were ready for dinner across the road. The restaurant was affiliated with the hotel, so we could dine wearing the hotel robes. While we weren't the only patrons, the other diners were quiet and friendly.























Our meal was of course fish, as we were at the port market. We had complimentary minnows to start:
















And then grilled fish:
















And finally fried fish (actually fish, squid and shrimp):























All delicious!

After dinner we strolled about the town. Although barely 9 O'clock on Saturday night, fishing folk were already asleep. So peaceful!























The warm glow of our hot baths faded soon, though, so we made our way back in the frosty air. Before rewarming ourselves on the roof, we visited the 'fish gallery' in the lobby: dozens of specimens were on display, including the name (species, proper and common in Japanese) as well as the preferred depth range of each. I wish I'd 'caught' more of these with my camera, but here are the ones I did:





























































































We finished the evening with hot baths, hot sake, corny television and completely blissful sleep!

Lemongrass - Asian Restaurant at Gotemba Kogen

To celebrate my birthday, Brian took me to a nice Asian Fusion restaurant that we'd never been to. It is not far from us – just in Gotemba, at – yes, you guessed it – the Gotemba Kogen Beer Hall / Resort. There are three onsens, at least six restaurants, a cheese shop, a cake shop, a soccer field, three or four hotels of various styles. In winter, one of the main draws of the Kogen is the “Illumination” (which I think I posted photos of somewhere...).

Of course, when we go to the “Kogen”, we're really just after their micro-brew German beer and all-you-can-eat and drink feast at the Mugibatake. But on Tuesday we thought we'd like to try something a little more refined, and found ourselves at Lemongrass.

The atmosphere was really nice - quiet and Romantic - and the food, which for us consisted of spareribs, Thai Curry, Vietnamese spring rolls and a Taiwanese salami, was great. We also were not deprived of our German beer since it is served in all the restaurants on the Kogen grounds, and we even had a bottle of wine to boot.

Verdict: We'd go there again!

Here are some pics that Brian took with his D40x (18-200mm vr lens) and SB-400 flash:

Thai fare...in Gotemba:


Spring roll and Thaiwanese Salami:

Firsts and Lasts

This morning we woke up to see a light dusting of snow coating the fields and treetops of little Susono city. The first snow of 2008, the first snow, in fact, of the winter. Life is good...it's even better that the snow melted before sunset and we probably won't get much more than this. Only a Canadian from the frozen north could really appreciate the value of "a little" snow.

So today was a first snow. It was Monday - the first day of the week. But it was also my last day of being in my "mid-thirties", as tomorrow I turn 36 and I'd say that might classify as being in my late thirties. Ah, well...

We went out tonight to a small, local izakaya called Daiki. Unlike our frequently visited Ryoba, Daiki is NOT a chain, and so still has a lot of small-town local character - from the middle-aged "waitress" wearing a house-dress and apron right down to the Enka playing through the speakers. The service, of course, was excellent, and the food was really good too. A nice way to see out the last of my 35th year:-)

Next post: Probably will include my apologies to my mother for not emailing her more frequently:-)

The Mortal of Small Things

I'm basing my title on that great novel The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy), which I read about ten years ago and which was one of the best-written novels in ages....

Anyway, that's not actually what this post is about. It is, in fact, about how small everything here in Japan is. And really how small it has to be given the sparsity of space in this long and narrow country.

When we met Vaughn in Tokyo, he laughingly mentioned how he was again surprised by how small the hotel rooms were; now, keep in mind that he was staying at the Prince Hotel where the rooms are bigger and brighter than the business hotels where the average Joe (i.e. me and Brian) stays and even where the average Joe lives.

Then, of course, there is my own keyboard - which I love, but which is, actually, quite small just to make room on my "desk" for other things. I have a Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite - it's really great, makes for easy typing...but yes, it is small, and numbers have to share their keys with the function keys.

The roads here are quite narrow, parking spaces are tight (and expensive) - however, we've become much better drivers for the experience, and I'm sure that I can now park even a behemoth of a vehicle in a space the size of a matchbox.

Clothing sizes are smaller...it encourages me to lose a bit of weight so I don't look like a little sausage stuffed into the pants here:-) As for Brian, he doesn't have it so easy and has taken to buying custom clothes from Mysuitshop.com.

Well...I suppose this has been a rambling post. If anything, I really do hope that you read The God of Small Things....

More Photos of Bali

Yesterday - Monday - was a national holiday here called Seijin no hi or Coming of Age Day. This is a day to celebrate all young people who are turning 20 years old sometime during the year. Usually there are festivities and traditional dress.

We however didn't get out to see any of the festivities; we spent some time riding our bikes and catching up on projects.

One project involved putting more photos of our recent trip to Bali into a web album, which can be found here: http://www.japanrider.com/Albums/TripsTravel/Bali2007/index.html

Tsukiji Fish Market and Akihabara

After our Friday night out with Vaughn (who I hope was not unpleasantly hungover for his morning flight to Hong Kong), Brian and I stayed in the Toyoko Hotel a few subway stops from the famous Tsukiji Fish Market at Tsukiji-shijo station. Below are a few photos, but we've posted more in the web album here: http://www.japanrider.com/Albums/Japan/Tsukiji/index.html

This market has been a bit of a tourist attraction for years but we'd never gone. There are huge tuna auctions early in the morning which apparently is quite a sight. However, we got a bit of a late start on the day and didn't get to the market until 7:30 in the morning. We may have missed the auction, but we still had a really fun morning looking at all the other fish for sale. We thought about buying some nice fresh fish to take home, but neither of us really wanted to walk around Tokyo for the rest of the day carrying raw fish.

Hurrying through the market:



We did at least get a wonderful taste of the wares when we went to a sushi shop in the market for breakfast. Of course, sushi isn't perfect unless you have a little atsukan (hot sake) to enjoy it with.

Atsukan and Sushi for Breakfast:



This tuna was so fresh it just melted in our mouth:


Sushi Chefs at Work:



After breakfast and a little more market touring we went to Akihabara (a.k.a. Electric City), which is famous for its Otaku (geek) culture and Maid Cafes. We spent a few hours walking around all the shops, looking at the newest and most interesting gadgets, but didn't buy much other than a new PC fan (with LEDs).

Akihabara got its start in light bulbs:


Gotta love the brands around here:

In Touch with an old Friend

I've been on Facebook for nearly a year now; love it or hate it, Facebook does play an interesting role in social networking. I'm more aware of who my niece and nephew are as people now, and am back in touch with people I haven't seen or spoken to since high school.

About a month ago an old high school friend tracked me down on Facebook - he noticed I was in Japan, and said he'd be here on business in January. So Brian and I duly made plans to meet Vaughn for dinner and drinks in Shinjuku.

This was the first time I'd ever met up with someone after 19 years of non-communication. That's nearly 2 decades! But the years between us seemed to just disappear - some reminiscing, some of "whatever happened to Billy-whatsisname?", and lots of actual normal conversation about what we do, things we like, and just general stuff.

We went to an izakaya - this is probably the most authentic Japanese experience, I think - and it was my first time to encounter an electronic-touch screen ordering system!



Having our first beer together since 1989:


Outside Shinjuku station:

Mindful Cooking, Mindful Eating

I've blogged in the past about the joy of cooking. No, not the book - rather, the simple, relaxing, calming feeling that cooking can bring. Don't mistake me - I'm not much of a cook. I still remember that when I first came to Japan, it was the first time that I wasn't eating frozen dinners or something my mother had cooked. I decided to do something with chicken and my first foray into the supermarket resulted in me staring at lots of packaged raw meat, and having to stop some poor Japanese woman working at the supermarket and ask her which was chicken! She kindly pointed out the chicken, then went further, showing me which part of the chicken each package contained.

I've come a long way since then as I am now semi-literate and can read the packages. No, seriously, I get a very real, simple satisfaction from cooking and spent many of our remaining holidays cooking stews, soups and curries. It takes focus. You have to peel the vegetables, slice the carrots, chop the onion, crush the garlic and grind the ginger...sounds rather violent, but allows the mind to be consumed with a simple process. The key is mindfulness - pay close attention to the food, to the process, and savour the time it takes to prepare the dish. Don't wish you were doing something else...

The follow up to mindful cooking, which is good for the soul, is mindful eating. This is something I will have to be more careful about putting into practice since I've got an extra three kilos to lose! Mindful eating - pay attention to your food, and only to the food. Enjoy it, savour it, appreciate it. Do not eat while watching TV, standing at the kitchen counter, or net surfing. I'm guilty of the latter, and eat much more than I should without even noticing, and certainly not appreciating.

Food is a wonderful thing, so perhaps one of my New Year's goals is to eat mindfully.

Bike Ride in Susono

Our last weekend of freedom we spend for a little bike ride here in Susono with a friend. In this photo, I've got her bike and Brian's got mine:



All our days off were great, and it was sweet justice that our first day back to work was also the first day of rain.

Too bad I'd just washed my car....

O-Soji

New Year, or O-Shogatsu, in Japan is one of the biggest and most important holidays of the year. One might say that the festivities begin in December with many Bonenkais - "Forget the Year" parties. From December 29th or so, families then prepare for O-Shogatsu by doing an extensive top-to-bottom house cleaning, which typically includes changing all the light bulbs as well. This big clean up is called O-Soji (Big Cleaning), and is done to prepare to start the year fresh, cleaning out the bad spirits and welcoming the good spirits of the incoming year.

We were, as usual, several days late with our O-Soji, and we didn't change our light bulbs, but we did do a big cleaning and, seriously, there is nothing so conducive to relaxation, creativity and peace of mind as a clean and organized space in which to work and dwell. I really think we should do this more often!

But we don't have any days left to bask in the cleanliness - we're back to work today and will surely be busy tackling 2008!

Barrels of Monkeys: Japan and Bali

We spent New Year's Eve on a very comfortable JAL flight from Denpasar airport and arrived back home (in our apartment) on New Year's day in the afternoon, where we shared a bottle of red wine in recognition of the start of 2008. We then promptly fell asleep, and have been leisurely enjoying the rest of the holidays since our return.

Part of our leisure, of course, included a couple of slow, pleasurable bike rides around Susono, where we were once again lucky enough to come upon a field of wild monkeys. Brian quickly (but steadily) snapped a few photos with our "biking" camera.

A Japanese macaque in Susono (wild, of course). Brian took this photo on Jan.2.


We also had more than our fair share of monkeys in Bali. One day we took a day trip to Ubud where we visited the "famous" Monkey Forest. Of course, Bali has a plethora of monkeys, and when we rented a couple of motorcycles to get around, we passed through our own private monkey forest just about 2km from where we were staying!

This was taken in the "real" Monkey Forest of Ubud:


And these little guys were hanging around in the forest and roadside in the mountains near Candidasa. We rode our motorcycles past a bunch of monkeys several times on our way to and from the white sand beach:



Frankly, I think the little Balinese guys are cuter, but the Japanese macaques are a bit more rare and therefore perhaps a more valuable sighting!

Back from Bali!

Whew!

We scrambled and found a flight to Indonesia during the busy Japanese Winter Holiday Season. Compromises included the shortish one-week stay and the departure was from Osaka instead of the nearby Tokyo. It was definitely worthwhile, though, so we're glad to have seized the tickets!

We left on Christmas Eve, and arrived at about midnight in some heavy rainfall. Luckily we had arranged a driver to pick us up and carry us the 2 hours to our bungalow in Candi Dasa on the East Coast of Bali island.

The first two days found us 'housebound' due to the relentless rain, but we had electricity to read by and, surprise!, hot water for showers! Once things dried out, we ventured out to look around. Our bungalow is the (best) one, on the left facing the pool and the Indian Ocean:



















Here is a view from the seawall... ours is the room on the right:



















While the beach here was nothing special, we quickly found a white sand beach about 6 Km away called Pantai Pasir Putih. This stretch of fantastic surf and sand is pretty far down a rocky steep path through terraced fields and jungle, but a few locals had set up 'warungs', offering iced beer and parasols. Here I am negotiating both on our first visit:



















The waves against the cliffs were amazing:



















We came here a few afternoons in a row, after sweaty motorbike trips to nearby villages. A mackerel meal here was under $2, grilled over coconut charcoal with Balinese spices and fiery sambal:



















The beaches and food in Bali were great, but we actually packed a lot more into the few days we had.. stay tuned for more photos and recollections!