Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Mexican Everday In Japan

I had been mouthing off how I like to cook mexican food here for a while. By the way, there isn't mexican food in Japan. They know of 'Tacos' but don't really know what they are. They have something here called 'Tacos Rice' (yep, with an s at the end of taco) they put ground beef on rice, then lettuce and cheese. It's kind of like a burrito with no tortilla and sticky rice. It's pretty good. I figured my new love for cooking and love for Mexican food would provide a lucky family with a Japanese meal. Yoko, the helpful lady in town, asked me to cook for her and her family. Since she cooked me a number of HUGE meals aaaaand she basically saved me from going crazy here that I at least owed her a meal to say 'Thank you.'

Hilary and I planned well in advance what we wanted to make. Guacamole, Acapulco shrimp cocktail, chipotle (not the fast food chain) tortas, salsa, and maybe some other random thing we could think of... nachos? I wanted to make one more dish, tacos. Not ground beef Old El' Paso tacos, but more legit tacos. Steak and softshell tortilla tacos. Well here was the problem, there are no mexican spices here. We found cumin, paprika, chaynne pepper, black pepper, salt, and garlic powder. Thats about it. That wasn't going to cut it. We needed to take a trip... to mexico! So we did. Hilary and I booked a ticket to go to Mexico and flew there. We flew into Mexico City and went to a couple different shops. We spent two nights there and went back to Japan. When we got back everything was confiscated at customs. We were back where we started... but with nicer tans. (If you haven't guessed, I didn't really go to Mexico.) So we drove to Nagaoka, a city about an hour away that had two import stores. The first one we went to had taco shells and taco seasoning by, of course, Old El Paso. I bought them as a back up. We got a decent selection of spices including chile powder that wasn't chaynne... but it didn't say way it was. We then went to the second import store and struck gold with pickled jalapenos (there are no raw ones in Japan, I swear.) and CORN tortillas mmmmm. We also found chipotle Tabasco sauce which would be handy for the shrimp cocktail. We eventually headed back to do a test run of tacos. We couldn't find steak so we got ground beef. It left us with almost no chile powder left. We made some decent tasting tacos... but I wasn't statisfied.

The next morning (the day before the dinner.) I did a second test run of tacos with pork and a rub recipe by Rick Bayless that would work for tacos. It was declious but we accidentally used up the rest of our chile powder... the good mysterious dark one... not the chaynne. I went to all the local stores hoping to find another bottle of spice... no luck. The Old El Paso tacos mix was laughing at me from the shelf "YOU WILL COOK ME!" it said "They will think that I taste like mexican food!!!" It laughed again. "NO!!! NEVER!! I NEVER WILL!!! YOU ARE EVIL!!!" I screamed. Hilary asked me who I was yelling at. "No time!" I explained. I hopped in the car and drove to Jusco (the Walmart of Japan) ...there MUST be an answer and JUSCO!

There was no answer at JUSCO but there WERE steaks. I got 4 small steaks, and 4 chicken breasts.

Sunday morning, the morning of the feast... I woke up to someone beating on my door. "OPEN UP! IT'S THE POLICE!!!!" They yelled. "WE HAVE REASON TO BELIEVE YOU WERE ENGAGED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES!!!" I opened the door, it was a mail man. He laughed and said "GOTCHA!!! Now, sign for the package" I gave him a high five for his hilarious joke (none of that dialogue actually happened). And as if by an act of God (my mother) I opened a package filled to the brim with Mexican spices, dried peppers, canned jalapenos and various other things that I have never seen, smelled, or probably tasted before. It was a SUNDAY, no one get s mail on a SUNDAY except for ME!!!! At the bottom was the cookbook "Mexican Everday" by Rick Bayless, my chef-idol. Anyway, I opened it up and went through picking out recipes that I could now cook! In the end we made the following feast for Yoko and it was AMAZING.

Acapulco Shrimp Cocktail
Steak Tacos
Chipotle Chicken Tortas
Chicken Tortilla Soup
Guacamole

There was soooo much food. I think we blew Yoko and her family away. The son and father especially liked it. I think it may have been a bit too spicy for Yoko, although I warned her well in advance that it might be too spicy... she tasted everything, but in the end ate lots of tortillas filled with only guacamole. Although I think she liked the tortilla soup. Maybe she just wasn't hungry. Anyway, she said she loved it and they kept all the leftovers.

Here's a photos of the meal...

The Nagoya Trip

I had planned a nice trip to Nagoya. It was to be Hilary and I, the open Japanese highway system for 7 hours, then wonderful beautiful Nagoya. We packed up and left on friday afternoon after I got out of work. I ran a few errands first, but we were on the road by 2. The highway tolls were to cost about 100 bucks each way which isn't bad considering the bullet train costs 140 dollars each way per person. Japanese highways aren't particularly confusing but they aren't nearly as convenient as America's highways. American highways are typically, in my opinion, easy to use. It's not that the Japanese ones are hard to use but it's most that they are just strange when you are used to America's highways. A lot of the highway here was one lane and every so often there would be a 1 or 2 kilometer stretch of two lanes so you could pass people if they were going slow. This wasn't THAT bad until I got a flat tire. You can't just pull over to fix it since there is one lane and no shoulder, it's kind of like driving through a pipe or something. I had to wait until a rest area, Once there I performed my first car-tire-switch which was ultimately quite underwhelming. We had a long way to go until Nagoya, about 130 kilometers and the spare said we shouldn't do more than 80km but there was occasionally gas stations along the way.

The rest areas on Japanese highways are quite different. The way the highway works is, when you get on, you get a ticket saying where you got on. When you get off, you give them your ticket and they charge you your fee. It's a pretty solid system, I guess. It offers less possibilities for rest areas with multiple attractions though. For instance, I am used to driving and seeing a sign for an exit offering 10 different places to eat, 5 different gas stations, the Mars Cheese Castle, and a maybe picnic area/park that no sane parent would ever let their children play at. If this doesn't suit your fancy there will surely be another area like this offering a dozen other gems of the road just a few miles away. Ah, America, the land of options!

In Japan there are rest areas but they are different. They consist, typically, of one building. It has bathrooms, lots of vending machines, an area with some maps, and then a restaurant of some sort. Sometimes there is a gas station. They are cute and fun. Typically cleaner than what you find in America.

We made a number of stops on our way to Nagoya, each one had a gas station, each gas station didn't sell or fix tires. I was warned by one of the gas station men that since my car was uneven due to the spare (it would have appropriately fit on a hotwheels car) that I shouldn't go too fast. I already had trouble pushing 100km/hr with my car as it was, now I had to stay around 80. Since the highway was mostly one lane, it made for an uncomfortable journey. I have found that Japanese people have absolutely no problem tailing your car to let you know you are going too slow. They get close enough that you can no longer see their headlights in your rear-view mirror. You can almost smell their breath. It is sooooooo uncomfortable. No one is a crazy driver... except for when they get insanely close to your car. Anyway, the last two hours was uncomfortable, to say the least.

Once we got into Nagoya things got even more confusing. While the highway is clear regarding where exits and stuff are... big cities aren't really. Rarely are streets labeled so it's hard to find what street you are walking on. Intersections, sometimes, don't have either street name or anything on them. I am used to city driving, no big deal, but Japanese city driving is a whole other game. Hilary and I got lost and then more lost and then more lost and then more lost. We drove to every corner of that city. We were yelling at each other...though never blaming one another. We were just pissed. It was late, no food places would be opened. We stopped at a convenience store and they woman wouldn't even look at a map to tell us where we were. As soon as we said 'We are lost' in Japanese she was all 'I cannot help you. sorry.' and would walk away. I no longer shop at Lawson Station Convenience Stores... or should I say INconvenience stores! (OOOOH! Take THAT! ...weak.) Anyway we finally made it to our parking lot and parked. We looked up a place to get a new tire and went the next day.

NAGOYA, aside from the journey there, was wonderful. I got to eat everything that I wanted to eat, I got to see some old friends and my old host family. I got to visit some places I hadn't been to in years and I still knew my way around quite well... oooh I miss it. It was so nice. The few days we were there went by very quickly.

When we got back in the car to go home, I must admit, I was sad to leave. My car must have known this because the battery was dead. It was a sign... I needed to stay. (un)Fortunately, the hotel offered to jump my car and everything worked after that. There was a light on somewhere or something... perhaps I subconsciously knew it'd kill the battery and I might be able to stay longer.

Anyway... that was Nagoya.. I recommend a visit if you're ever in Japan. Tell them Mike sent you. They'll have no idea what that means... but just say it anyway. It'll be funny, maybe.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Type A

There is a man sitting next to me. In front of him lies a bunch of circuit boards with small chips and components soldered into it. He has little white gloves on, a bottle of compressed air, some oil, and some other small tools. He has been sitting since lunch time (about 4 hours ago) taking small pieces out of this machine and cleaning them. It took me until now to realize what this machine was. Not because I'd never seen one before, but because I had never seen one in a million pieces layed out all over a desk before. It is a typewriter. Not an old classy author-typing-away-furiously-in-a-large-wood-paneled-office-with-a-cigarette-handing-from-their-mouth type of typewriter. It's one of the just-before-the-computer typewriters. The kind that now falls into the big closet of embarrasing dated gadgets. A clost that includes enormous 1989 cellphones, walkmans (or do you say walkmen?), gameboys, carphones, an 8 track cassette player and maybe an early laptop that is larger than most desktops now.

The man is working furiously at cleaning it and slowly putting it back together. I feel a large amount of sadness looking at this take place. I want to say "That machine doesn't need to be fixed. It doesn't WANT to be fixed." It's probably true. There are 10 computers in this office, all brand new. Why on earth did this school pay this man to come for hours to repair a typewriter that probably hasn't been used in 10 years. Is he the jobless typewriter cleaning Uncle of a teacher who badly needed a job because the typewriter business has gone under? Did the purchase the typewriter off of Yahoo Auctions (they don't use ebay here) just so this Uncle could have a job to do? Does he think there is still a market for a typewriter cleaner or has he convinced himself infrequent calls to the office are a result of the bad economy... no one can afford getting their typewriters fixed.


UPDATE: The man noticed me staring at him. I asked if that was a typewriter. "Yes," he said, "I haven't touched one of these in about 12 years! They asked me to fix it for some reason..." Apparently he's one of the science teachers here, either that or a man lying about being a science teacher here. He tells me he majored in electronic engineering in college and now gets his kicks fixing random machines like this... I minored in Microelectronics... I really hope my future isn't full of fixing typewriters. If it's depressing to be in one's 60s fixing a typewriter in 2009... then to be in one's 60s in 2050 fixing a typewriter...

Japan has me down today. I can't wait for my next vacation.

I will update you with info on my Nagoya vacation soon as well as my Mexican food fiesta!

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Nagoya, Here I Come.

I planned a trip to Nagoya this weekend and, like all things in life, it ended up being quite a difficult thing. Japan has a ton of random national holidays. They usually fall on random tuesdays or thursdays but sometimes line up nicely. Every year they have 'Golden Week' where vacations line up for a few days in a row so there is a 5 or 6 day weekend in May. This year we have GOlden week and the mighty and rare 'Silver Week' which is a series of holidays in September. Golden Week occurs every year, but SILVER week. That is a rarity. I took this as a cue to get out of town for a few days. I wouldn't have to use my paid vacation hours from work... it'd be great. My first choice for a desitnation is my old friend Nagoya. I studied there for 5 months, it's where this here blog STARTED. Anyway, I found a hotel to crash at with Hilary and reserved it. We had to do it early, though, these Golden and Silver weeks are travel heavy times.

I looked up Bullet Train tickets. It appeared it would be 9000 yen each way. Which is about 90 dollars. I say it 'appeared' this way because when I went to buy them at the station it rang up around 70,000 yen (700 dollars) for both tickets round trip. Surely the tickets weren't 35,000 yen round trip (350 dollars... have you figured it out yet? just remove two zeros and it's dollars) I didn't buy them. We did more searching. There are cheap highway buses but they are all booked up. What could I possibly do? Car.

I am not too worried, the highways here aren't that difficult. The most annoying part is the tolls. To drive from Niigata to Nagoya takes about 5 hours and costs 9000 yen in tolls. Yes, 90 dollars. Each way. My mom drives 4 hours from Michigan to Chicago from time to time and I think it costs like 4 bucks?

Anyway, it's time for my first major Japanese road trip. I hope I get to see cool things like Japan's largest ball of yarn or Japan's largest pair of chop sticks along the way...

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Toasted

So I had my 21 kilometer (13 miles) walk yesterday. I had a choice between hiking Mt. Hakkaisan (a big pretty mountain here), or doing a half marathon walk for KJ. The 3rd year students hike the mountain, the 1st and 2nd year students do the half marathon walk. Teachers are supposed to do it with the grades they teach and since I'm technically a 2nd year teacher (even though I teach all levels) I decided I'd do the half marathon walk. I figured it'd be good bonding with my fellow teachers that don't really seem to give me the time of day. They actually seemed happy when I said I was going to do it with them so that was really nice. I finally felt I was going to get "IN" at school.

A teacher picked me up at 7:40 am on monday. We parked and walked. There was a big opening ceremony thing then 500 people, including all of KJs first and second year students started a walk. I wasn't sure WHERE we were walking to, but I knew we'd end up where we started. Then I realized that all of the teachers weren't doing it with me. They were just standing on the sides watching and cheering. Why the hell did I have to do this? The vice principal told me I had to... but WHY? Along the way I found one other teacher, my supervisor, and he didn't really want to walk with me. So I walked with a bunch of first year students and came across a few second years along the way. We walked up and down a mountain a few times. It wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. The weather was great for it. Unfortunately I didn't put on any sunscreen and below you will see the results. The best tan I've ever gotten in my whole life. Did I say tan? I mean burn.

After the walk I asked one of the teachers what I was supposed to do, there was word of a free lunch. He said "there's a free lunch over where we started." so I wandered around looking for it for about fifteen minutes and never found it. I also couldn't find my ride there so I walked home. It wasn't that far, about a 30 minute walk. But after 21km a half hour walk isn't particularly appealing. I got home and ate lunch and stretched and watched a whole lot of 30 Rock. Then Hilary and I decided for dinner we'd like to make some mexican food. We drove to JUSCO, the big grocery store a town over, they have tortillas. We drove and parked, ran in, got some veggies and tortillas. Hopped back in the car and... and... and... and... it didn't start. This isn't the FIRST time this happened. Less than a week ago I was driving and stopped for a second the CD player died and then the car died. Luckily I was stopped at a gas station. I bought a new battery for the car and it was fine. I drove home. This time was more problematic because I wasn't anywhere near a train station and the bus that runs to the train station stopped running. I would have walked it... but my legs were a bit sore and the thought of walking for 45 minutes to a train station wasn't really appealing. I called Yoko and talked to her about it and she came and picked me up and drove me home. On the drive home she asked if why I hadn't gone to the enkai (the teachers only food and drink party) after the half marathon walk and why I didn't partake in the free lunch and free onsen (bath house) deal. I realized now, more than ever, that my school is really pretty bogus. They didn't tell me about any of these things at all. Well, the Mexican food was tasty, at least.


The photos came out looking actually more tan than burned but trust me... it's a burn...

The arm, not TOO bad...



Yikes...

Friday, September 4, 2009

New Ice Cream

I got yelled at for being late today. Know how late I was? 30 seconds. I missed the first 2 seconds of morning announcements. I can admit that I shouldn't have been late, it was slightly irresponsible, especially since I woke up an hour earlier than I usually do... but the vice principal said THIS to me...

VP:Please don't be late, again.
Mike: I'm sorry, I should have left earlier, I drove slowly because I am scared driving here since we drive on the opposite side of the road in America. It's very different. I apologize, I will leave earlier.
VP:Yes, I understand. I think you should not be late again because when you are late, everyone stares at you. They stare at you.
Mike:Hate to break it to ya, BUT everyone in this whole country stares at me even when I'm not late. Ya dig, Vice Prince?

The last line didn't actually happen. But I thought it.

Anyway, after work I ran some errands and then decided to get some ice cream at my favorite strange-flavored ice cream shop "Yummy" today I got another scoop of Tiramisu Ice Cream. I bought a small cup of mango sherbert for later and I managed to convince Hilary to buy... Hakkaisan Sherbert. Hakkaisan is a local Japanese Sake. At the ice cream store it says "If you buy this you absolutely cannot drive home." It was serious too. She didn't eat it there, it's in our freezer now. I'll update you later on the taste. Apparently it's really strong according to the lady at Yummy who makes it.

We'll chat more soon...

More photos are up at www.flickr.com/ohmalarkey

-Mike

CUBED

The following story isn't meant to bash Japan, it's mostly just meant to show you how difficult it is to get things done here sometimes...

I bought a car. It's a 1998 Nissan Cube. It looks a lot like a refrigerator on it's side... with wheels. It's nice though, clean. Getting a car in Japan couldn't be harder (unless of course you had to catch a unicorn and deliver to the DMV yourself) and it couldn't be more ridiculous.

First, getting the car was difficult because I had two options. Take a train for over two hours to this guy for a 30 minute meeting to look at cars that I could lease for 300 bucks a month, then take the train back home. THEN one week later take the train BACK out to him to get the car, then drive two hours to get back. OR I could do a one time, hour long drive to a guy nearby and BUY a car for $2,000. CLearly, I went for the second.

I was leaving work on a friday and I got a text from a local lady who is helping me. It said 'you need to drive to city hall and get a special sheet to buy the car, then you have to drive to Muikamachi (one town over) and go to the police station and get more papers. We can pick up the car on sunday if you do this.' I really wanted this car. I didn't have much going for me. So I walked home, and then I got a second text saying 'YOU MUST COME OVER NOW! RUN! THE POLICE STATION CLOSES AT 4:00! I WILL DRIVE YOU' It was about 1:30. So I walked to this ladies house, it was now 2:00. She explained what I needed to do and that I would have to borrow her car to do these things. I drove to city hall. Filled out obnoxious paperwork then I was stuck. I didn't have a hanko... they wouldn't let me put the car under my name if I didn't have one.

*a brief note on hanko. A hanko is a name stamp. Instead of signing for things here, you hanko for them. Signing, in Japan, means nothing. It's no good. You have to get this stamp and register it with city hall and keep it on record. Then they can check against their scanned version of your hanko. I was supposed to have a hanko made and registered for me when I got here, apparently. But my school not only didn't have it ready for me when I got here, but they didn't make one at all or mention that I needed one.

Back in action:
Luckily the local-lady appeared out of nowhere at the city hall with her husbands hanko. She put the car under his name and then put me as the primary driver. I was saved. Briefly. Then she said 'YOU MUST LEAVE NOW FOR THE POLICE STATION IN MUIKAMACHI!!!' So I get back in her and drive myself to Muikamachi, it takes about 20 minutes to get there. At this point it was 4:00 when we arrived. Apparently they don't customers after 4:30 because "they are very very mean" according to Yoko (the local lady who is helping me... I shoulda just told you her name earlier). So we get to the station I ask for the paperwork. They look at me for a second and then are like"You can't get that here... it's at a different building now. I'll take you there." So we walked a block down and I go into this other building. There are a bunch of people just sitting there. This is, basically, the DMV of Japan. They stared at me. I asked for the paperwork and they did the rude *Siiiiiiiiigh* kind of thing and then helped me. They gave me the stuff and were like "By the way, we CLOSED at 4:00" It was 4:15. They helped me anyway... even though they actually closed at 5.

On the papers I had to fill out my name and address and all this other random info. Then I came to a page that said I had to draw a map. Actually, two maps. One showing a map of how to get to my apartment. The other, a map of the parking lot where I will park. I went to Yokos house that night and we filled the stuff out. I drew a map of Urasa and marked where my apartment was. It was a fine map. Detailed. Not amazing. But you could definitely find the apartment on it. The parking lot map was fine too. So I gave it to Yoko and she said 'This may not be good enough... but maybe its ok... we will see' My first thought was "Why don't they just copy a REAL map and I'll highlight where my house is. OR why don't they just use google maps and I'll show them where I live. Why did I have to draw this map anyway?"

Sunday, I picked up the car and gave the dealer the papers. He looked at them and cringed. "These won't be good enough." We went over them and said MAYBE the map of Urasa would be good enough, but the parking lot one wasn't good enough. It needed to be relative in scale. If 4 centimeters = 2 meters then it needed to all over the whole thing. I was pissed. This was stupid.

The reason I needed to do this was to prove I had a parking space because there is no street parking in most of Japan, especially Urasa. He said he'd try and turn it in but wasn't sure. I literally spent between 30-45 minutes drawing these maps. First in pencil. THEN over it in black ink.

I drove the car home. It had temporary 3-day insurance. I needed to, first, get new insurance, then bring the car back to the dealer and he's register it and give me my new license place.

So yesterday I got an urgent call, my temporary insurance ran out. I needed to get new insurance THAT day. So during my 40 minute lunch break I drove to the insurance company where Yoko anxiously waited for me. I sat and we talked about insurance with a guy for 20 minutes. It was decided that I couldn't get insurance because... I didn't have a hanko. So I left, I had to go back to school. Yoko got insurance for the car under HER name and I just had to pay her for it. Let me just step back and take a look at what Yoko has done for me so far... she purchased a cellphone for me on her family plan, she bought a car for me under her husbands name, and now she bought car insurance under her name. This woman needs an award. Seriously. I'd be phoneless and car-less without her.

Friday I was going to the car dealer to get my new plates. But as it turns out... my maps didn't go through. So he redid them himself and I have to go monday.

This is getting to be a bit ridiculous.

On a side note: I was just informed that this weekend is a walking festival that I am required to partake in. I have to walk a half marathon with my students and other teachers. In a giant loop. Faaantastic. I do, however, get a day off of school for doing it. (I walk on sunday and don't come to school on monday. Probably because I won't be able to walk.)


Here's the "Cube"
(It looks like a minivan but it's a bit smaller... it's closer to a Scion)