Day Trip to Kamakura

Shelley and I haven't really discussed who's on our top 5 list of famous people that we could kiss if we had the chance. If I had to guess, I'm sure Matthew McConaughey would be right up there at the top - as would Carrot Top. But I never in my wildest dreams thought that my wife would have the hots for the Buddah. I guess I should have read into her getting into yoga with a bit more scrutiny than I did.


The Japanese can be very hospitable hosts. We certainly didn't expect to be welcomed to Kamakura with a sign welcoming the "Great Kannon." I admit I am flattered. Not to be a nitpick, but couldn't they at least spell our names right?

And finally, as Shelley said in her blog about our trip we happened upon a couple who were getting married in this very public place. On the one hand I felt excited to see this, but I also felt bad that I was opportunistically snapping shots of their special day. While I was taking these pictures, Shelley was watching Anthon, who decided that he wanted to just go exploring on his own. Well, that didn't see well with Shelley who went after and resulted in our son, who has a pretty good set of pipes, screaming all the way back to his stroller after Shelley caught up to him. Nothing like being the one with the screaming kid to disrupt a wedding ceremony. Like a good father and husband I pretended I didn't know them.




All of the pictures are linked to a page of photos I shot from the day. Or you can clik on the link to go there.

Amish Cooking in Japan

This post is brought to you by our new sponsor, Cafe Amish - for all your Amish food needs.

A great thing about living in Japan is that believe it or not, you can get pretty much any kind of ethnic food you want. Of course we love the Japanese food that we can get here, but we've been surprised with the level of quality of the hamburgers, the Italian food and we've even had very good Mexican food. As I've written about before, the Japanese are just foodies.

Well, for those of you who fear that if you were to move to Japan you'd have no outlet for your Amish cooking cravings, rest assured that we've found such a place for you in the tiny, rural resort town of Kamakura...about 90 minutes by train south of Tokyo. Taking a quick look at the menu, one realizes that perhaps the proprietors of this Cafe might be of a smaller, less zealous branch of the Amish. Maybe a more liberal, reformed version? I'll let you be the judge. Here's the menu:

Let's see we have such Amish staples as toast, lattes, 2 kinds of beer, and white cream & bean paste cakes.

Now I'm no marketing genius, though marketing is my job and I did study it in school, but I've never considered before using the Amish as some hip ploy to lure customers. I guess if you're going to differentiate yourself, you might as well REALLY differentiate yourself, right?

Masks

During the winter and early spring months in Japan it is common to see people walking around wearing what appear to be white surgical masks. These are worn for a variety of reasons, most notably by those who are either sick and don't want to infect others or those who aren't sick and don't want to be infected by those who are. No matter how stupid they make people look you find people all around town wearing these - from old guys to rather fashionable young women...at work, on the trains, walking around...everywhere.

To me wearing these masks is a very important statement about Japanese culture.
I really respect a culture where people by and large consider the feelings of others when they make a decision or a deliberate act. Certainly putting the group first over the individual has its downsides, but I think living in a city of 20 million people you have to make certain sacrifices just to get along in such cramped quarters.


There is speculation, however, that this is all one bizarre show of solidarity by millions of adoring fans of the one, the only, King of Pop. Certainly Michael Jackson has his legions of fans here in Japan. Or, could this be some trendy new fashion statement that could be sweeping the States come next fall? I hear gauze-padded surgical masks are the next fashion accessory to replace hand held Yorkies and Chihuahuas.

In the end, despite my desire to be Japanese, I can't quite get myself to don one of these masks in public. I think being a foreigner exempts me from a lot of societal norms - this being one of them. So much for my being considerate of others, my support for Michael Jackson or my keen, forward-looking fashion sense.

DIY Japanese Food

I think it can be accurately said that the Japanese are foodies. More than the average American, I think the average Japanese enjoys the experience of eating food more. I was reminded of this recently when I went out to eat Korean BBQ with co-workers who would literally ooo and aww at each tantilizing bite of food that they would eat.

I don't want to paint a broad brush here - I don't think that Americans' attitude towards food boils down to opening your mouth and shoveling it in as fast as you can...though I'm sure there is some of that...especially with me! I just think to the average Japanese, eating, especially eating out, is about more than just the one sense of taste.

It's because of that need for a multi-sensory experience, I believe, that in Japan there are many foods where, if you go into a restaurant, you have to cook your own food. I can think of at least three distinct types of wildly popular foods in Japan where you walk into the restaurant and pay for them to bring you your food so that you can then begin to cook it. They are Korean BBQ, Shabu-Shabu and what we had earlier this week, Okonomiyaki. Shelley loves Shabu Shabu, likes Korean BBQ, so I introduced her and Anthon to Okonomiyaki this week.

Okonomiyaki is essentially a Japanese-style pancake - batter filled with things like meat, seafood, vegetables, noodles and spices. You mix it all together and let it cook on a griddle in front of you. It looks weird, but it tastes good. The circular griddle with the spherical shaped holes are for something called taco-yaki - breaded balls filled with octopus. The griddle also has room for yaki-soba, fried noodles, like chow mein.

Even in a dive like this one, the experience of eating something new and cooking it yourself adds to the multi-sensory experience that I think Japanese foodies crave. I really think we enjoyed our food more because we cooked it than had the okonomiyaki pancake had just showed up for us to eat. So, maybe the Japanese are on to something there. I'm waiting for some bright business school grad to take this business model to the next level and have people pay to not only cook their food, but to also clear the table and wash the dishes.

Anthon has a mind like a steel trap

Shelley likes to say that she has a mind like a steel trap and while I'd like to contend with her on that assertion, I myself rarely remember any time that I could prove her wrong. Not that there aren't any, but my mind is definitely more porous...which is a shame because I can't blame it on drugs or hitting my head somewhere. I guess I am just that way.

So it comes at great relief to me, and no surprise to Shelley, that our son has a really good memory. He'll bring back obscure details of things that happened months ago...things that seemed really insignificant like who played tennis and who swam at the Tri-State Athletic Club in Evansville, Indiana during Christmas; or that he got upset when one of his babysitters took off his favorite pair of jeans to put his PJs on. This sort of thing comes up daily.

So what does this have to do with anything? Thankfully, Anthon has his mother's steel-trap for a mind and this allows him to memorize his favorite stories. He'll obsess over one or two stories for a month-long period and usually by about two weeks into it he'll have most of the words or phrases memorized such that if you were you to stop reading, he could tell you the next word or phrase.

He'll even pick up one of his favorite books and "read" it from cover to cover to you, knowing what to say only by what pictures are on the page. He'll skip a page and his story telling will skip with it. He's two, so it's not like he's James Earl Jones reading an audio book to you. So don't get too excited. But it is cute to see that a)he loves books; and b)he has a good mind.

Here's a video of Anthon reading his current favorite book supplied to him by my Mom. It's about a mouse, a bear and a red, ripe strawberry.



By the way, speaking as a father, I can honestly say that there isn't anything more fun that sitting on my son's bed and reading with him. He's not much a snuggler, but Shelley and I can usually bribe him to rest his head against us if we're going to read him a few books. We'll ride that pony as long as we can.

Picture of the Week: Wheelchair Acess

There's nothing like making sure those with disabilities can easily access the city's main park safely! Behold the large tree roots in the middle of this wheelchair ramp. I'm sure they are there merely to act as speedbumps. Can't we use some concrete to make it easier for those in wheelchairs, instead of forcing them to go offroading?

Family Night

One of my goals for 2008 has been to have family night (or just some family time) - something where we can have fun, even if it's just for a short period of time before Anthon has to go to bed. I think it's having the desired effect, certainly on me. I think I naturally fall into the mode of parenting Anthon, which means limiting what he does because I'm tired or annoyed or whatever. Certainly that doesn't make for a fun Dad. But in the context of family time I find myself being more patient, tolerant of Anthon being a little boy and the result is we all just have a lot of fun.

Our family outings have consisted of trips to the zoo, trips to cultural spots within Tokyo, dinners out and letting Anthon run around. We have a Mac and we decided to have fun with the Photo Booth application.

I broke the bed

I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I broke our bed twice last week. All I know is that when Shelley's on the bed, everything's cool. But when Tubby Tubberson (me) gets on, everything breaks down. Twice. The last time was in the middle of the night and I didn't do anything. Yet, it was my side that broke. The only real explanation is that my brain must be getting bigger...because I'm sure that I'm a getting a lot smarter. Either that, or it's large quantities of Korean BBQ that I'm eating.

Here's a nice picture of our bed in the corner of the room and the broken frame. Anyone know a good carpenter in the Tokyo area?

Picture of the Week: Tokyo has a Nudy Boy!

When we told friends we were moving to Tokyo, they asked us if Tokyo had stores that we were accustomed to, you know - The Gap, Costco, Trader Joes, etc. Well, if finding a Nudy Boy clothing store isn't validation that you live in a big, westernized city, then I don't know what is.

I'll be back in the States in April. Get your Nudy Boy clothing orders in to me early because space is limited in my suitcase.