Tuesday, July 01, 2003
Missed posting on Monday due to network problems at Ninomiya House. Well, that coupled with the copious amounts of fermented beverages imbibed at dinner.
Dinner last night was awesome. A bunch of people from Meikei took me out to dinner at a true Japanese restaurant. This place was genuine Japanese. Real Japanese home cooking. The place seemed like someone's home, and it very well may have been, but made into a restaurant in the downstairs portion. We were at the only table in the joint and it required a deposit, I think. I don't know the name, can't read kanji, but it was just outside of Tsukuba in Tsuchiura, a neighboring city. First, the floors were tatami mats. You have to take off your shoes and sit on the floor. Not so bad after a while when your legs finally cease communications with the rest of your body. (just kidding, it was fine) The table was already set ablaze with food, ranging from sashimi to tempura. We also had some soup that had some small fish called a 'loach.' It is funny though, because they were saying 'roach.' I could tell it was fish and not insect so it was not a problem that I didn't find that out it starts with a 'L' until today. We also had some soup with rice in it and some fruit, like watermelon and canteloupe. But the food was only part of the experience. Keeping the nature of the restaurant I described earlier in mind, we stopped at the 'store' on the way in and they purchased an assortment of fermented beverages. Ok, I'll stop speaking in pseudo-intellect code, they bought a 3 liter big gas (or big ass, either way works, check out the picture below) can of beer and a 1.5 liter bottle of cold sake. We had six people actually drinking a measureable amount. That works out to approximately .75 liters per person, assuming it was split evenly, which it probably wasn't for reasons discussed later. Yeah, these guys know how to have a good time. It is definitely a change from home where most people have two drinking modes, not drinking and binge drinking. You might think it was based on the amounts I described, but we were there for almost 3 hours! Yes, a lot of socializing goes on at meals with the Japanese as well as a lot of eating and a lot of drinking. It was definitely an experience I would recommend even to my enemies.
Here are some pictures from the meal!!
A lively discussion
Check out the beer can and sake bottle. Both empty at evening's end.
Thank goodness forthe timer setting. Finally, my ugly mug in a photo!
Why are they blushing?
Let me explain the red faces in the last photo. From what I understand from multiple sources, some Japanese people lack the gene for making an enzyme that helps to metabolize alcohol. Alcohol in their system makes them turn red with even slight amounts and they may get really sick if they drink too much, not relative to how much a 'normal' person can typically withstand. If I am correct, it is actually common among East Asian people, not just in Japan. But still, they can drink, they just have to be careful. Probably advice we could all use. Luckily, most of the others and myself didn't seem to suffer from this condition, hence my comments from earlier. Don't get me wrong, the boys could still put 'em down.
There was a dangerous side to the evening, however. No, it wasn't choking on fish bones or enduring cartoon porn, it was a much more serious issue. Drunk driving. No, no one was stupid enough to drive a car while intoxicated! That would be stupid. Instead, I went straight for ludicrously insane status. What I'm trying to get to is that first, I'd like you to remember that my main mode of transportation is a bicycle. Then, take into consideration that we left from Meikei by car, not my apartment about 2-3 km away from Meikei. Then figure out how I got home. Drunken bicycle driving is seriously an exprience. Luckily, they have a separate bicycle road along the main road so I was in no real danger, other than from gravity and friction, had I actually had severe issues while biking home. And the increased heart rate was not helping matters at all. It would definitely make a much cooler Olympic 'sport' than ballroom dancing.
Learned some new kanji today. Well, I might be able to recognize them. I learned about how they name cities and regions. To describe all of Japan, you would say todofuken. After village, town and city, you get the bigger regions. To, as in Tokyo, means metropolitan area. Do means larger area, but not necessarily highly populated, like Hokkaido, the northern most major Japanese island. Fu, a larger area, but highly populated, like Osaka-fu, Kyoto-fu. And biggest of all, sort of like a "state," is the ken, also known as a prefecture. For example, the city of Tsukuba is within the Ibaraki-ken, or the Ibaraki Prefecture. Put them all together and you get all of Japan, or todofuken. Funny, that's something I like to-do, too!
And let me explain my pictures so far. What is difficult is capturing what I feel is the Japanese culture. It's very easy to take a ton of pictures, especially with digital storage and what have you. But what is difficult is capturing the culture. You can take pictures of buildings, signs, houses, trees, sculptures, art, and lots of other stuff like that, but I don't personally feel that displays the culture, at least not in its entirety. Those things are physical manifestations of the culture, but the culture is really the people, how they act, how they interact. It is really uniquely different from America in that respect but it's really hard to capture on camera. Most people have a natural tendency to change or exaggerate their behavior or they just look uncomfortable when someone points a camera at them. If you notice, I used stealth techniques I learned from a ninja on my rooftop to take some of these recent ones. Not perfect images of the culture, but getting closer than just buildings and statues. Please don't misunderstand me, those objects help to fill in gaps, help refine or redefine definitions, and in many cases they are, quite frankly, visually stunning.
Let me close this evening with an observation that was finally expressed to me from the correct perspective by my buddy in the shop-at-home-you-fat-lazy-good-for-nothing-American business, Mikey B. After all, he had better know about advertising if he's in the television industry!
Japanese advertising. It is...unique. Let's just say that there have a definite 'no strings attached' mentality when it comes to hawking their goods and wares. Nothing is subliminal. Mikey put it best when he wrote, "[Japanese advertising is like], 'You want pie? Pie is this much! Get pie here! All flavors! SUPER FUN YUM!'" I don't think I could have said it better.
Dinner last night was awesome. A bunch of people from Meikei took me out to dinner at a true Japanese restaurant. This place was genuine Japanese. Real Japanese home cooking. The place seemed like someone's home, and it very well may have been, but made into a restaurant in the downstairs portion. We were at the only table in the joint and it required a deposit, I think. I don't know the name, can't read kanji, but it was just outside of Tsukuba in Tsuchiura, a neighboring city. First, the floors were tatami mats. You have to take off your shoes and sit on the floor. Not so bad after a while when your legs finally cease communications with the rest of your body. (just kidding, it was fine) The table was already set ablaze with food, ranging from sashimi to tempura. We also had some soup that had some small fish called a 'loach.' It is funny though, because they were saying 'roach.' I could tell it was fish and not insect so it was not a problem that I didn't find that out it starts with a 'L' until today. We also had some soup with rice in it and some fruit, like watermelon and canteloupe. But the food was only part of the experience. Keeping the nature of the restaurant I described earlier in mind, we stopped at the 'store' on the way in and they purchased an assortment of fermented beverages. Ok, I'll stop speaking in pseudo-intellect code, they bought a 3 liter big gas (or big ass, either way works, check out the picture below) can of beer and a 1.5 liter bottle of cold sake. We had six people actually drinking a measureable amount. That works out to approximately .75 liters per person, assuming it was split evenly, which it probably wasn't for reasons discussed later. Yeah, these guys know how to have a good time. It is definitely a change from home where most people have two drinking modes, not drinking and binge drinking. You might think it was based on the amounts I described, but we were there for almost 3 hours! Yes, a lot of socializing goes on at meals with the Japanese as well as a lot of eating and a lot of drinking. It was definitely an experience I would recommend even to my enemies.
Here are some pictures from the meal!!
A lively discussion
Check out the beer can and sake bottle. Both empty at evening's end.
Thank goodness forthe timer setting. Finally, my ugly mug in a photo!
Why are they blushing?
Let me explain the red faces in the last photo. From what I understand from multiple sources, some Japanese people lack the gene for making an enzyme that helps to metabolize alcohol. Alcohol in their system makes them turn red with even slight amounts and they may get really sick if they drink too much, not relative to how much a 'normal' person can typically withstand. If I am correct, it is actually common among East Asian people, not just in Japan. But still, they can drink, they just have to be careful. Probably advice we could all use. Luckily, most of the others and myself didn't seem to suffer from this condition, hence my comments from earlier. Don't get me wrong, the boys could still put 'em down.
There was a dangerous side to the evening, however. No, it wasn't choking on fish bones or enduring cartoon porn, it was a much more serious issue. Drunk driving. No, no one was stupid enough to drive a car while intoxicated! That would be stupid. Instead, I went straight for ludicrously insane status. What I'm trying to get to is that first, I'd like you to remember that my main mode of transportation is a bicycle. Then, take into consideration that we left from Meikei by car, not my apartment about 2-3 km away from Meikei. Then figure out how I got home. Drunken bicycle driving is seriously an exprience. Luckily, they have a separate bicycle road along the main road so I was in no real danger, other than from gravity and friction, had I actually had severe issues while biking home. And the increased heart rate was not helping matters at all. It would definitely make a much cooler Olympic 'sport' than ballroom dancing.
Learned some new kanji today. Well, I might be able to recognize them. I learned about how they name cities and regions. To describe all of Japan, you would say todofuken. After village, town and city, you get the bigger regions. To, as in Tokyo, means metropolitan area. Do means larger area, but not necessarily highly populated, like Hokkaido, the northern most major Japanese island. Fu, a larger area, but highly populated, like Osaka-fu, Kyoto-fu. And biggest of all, sort of like a "state," is the ken, also known as a prefecture. For example, the city of Tsukuba is within the Ibaraki-ken, or the Ibaraki Prefecture. Put them all together and you get all of Japan, or todofuken. Funny, that's something I like to-do, too!
And let me explain my pictures so far. What is difficult is capturing what I feel is the Japanese culture. It's very easy to take a ton of pictures, especially with digital storage and what have you. But what is difficult is capturing the culture. You can take pictures of buildings, signs, houses, trees, sculptures, art, and lots of other stuff like that, but I don't personally feel that displays the culture, at least not in its entirety. Those things are physical manifestations of the culture, but the culture is really the people, how they act, how they interact. It is really uniquely different from America in that respect but it's really hard to capture on camera. Most people have a natural tendency to change or exaggerate their behavior or they just look uncomfortable when someone points a camera at them. If you notice, I used stealth techniques I learned from a ninja on my rooftop to take some of these recent ones. Not perfect images of the culture, but getting closer than just buildings and statues. Please don't misunderstand me, those objects help to fill in gaps, help refine or redefine definitions, and in many cases they are, quite frankly, visually stunning.
Let me close this evening with an observation that was finally expressed to me from the correct perspective by my buddy in the shop-at-home-you-fat-lazy-good-for-nothing-American business, Mikey B. After all, he had better know about advertising if he's in the television industry!
Japanese advertising. It is...unique. Let's just say that there have a definite 'no strings attached' mentality when it comes to hawking their goods and wares. Nothing is subliminal. Mikey put it best when he wrote, "[Japanese advertising is like], 'You want pie? Pie is this much! Get pie here! All flavors! SUPER FUN YUM!'" I don't think I could have said it better.
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