Blog d'Elisson

LIGHT

2008-05-09T13:55:00.000-04:00

A brief conversation upon leaving the Local Bagel and Smoked Fish Emporium this morning...

Houston Steve: Know why Manhattanites are always in such a bad mood?

Elisson: No, why?

Houston Steve: Because the light at the end of the tunnel...is New Jersey.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

2008-05-09T09:25:00.004-04:00

Is it Friday yet? Why, so it is!

And you know what that means. It’s time for me to post the Friday Random Ten, that curious assemblage of Musical Miscellany as horked up by the iPod d’Elisson.

Tomorrow morning, She Who Must Be Obeyed and I will set forth upon the interstate highway and journey down to Savannah, there to spend Mother’s Day Weekend with the Mistress of Sarcasm. Not only will we be celebrating Mother’s Day, we’ll also be tipping a glass or two in honor of Elder Daughter - my recent Traveling Companion - who celebrates the completion of twenty-nine circuits around the Sun on that selfsame day.

Meanwhile, let’s see what’s on the box today. Check it out:

Golden Shower of Hit - Circle Jerks
O Grande Amor - Stan Getz and João Gilberto
Pelko Antaa Siivet - Alamaailman Vasarat
Can’t Buy me Love - The Beatles
Act II, Scene 2: I Have My Brief - John Adams, Nixon in China
Señorita - Chick Corea and Béla Fleck
The Blimp (mousetrapreplica) - Captain Beefheart

From the legendary Trout Mask Replica album.
Little Wing - Derek and the Dominos
House Where Nobody Lives - Tom Waits
I Want You To Hurt Like I Do - Randy Newman

I ran out on my children
And I ran out on my wife
Gonna run out on you too, baby
I done it all my life
Everybody cried the night I left
Well, almost everybody did
My little boy just hung his head
And I put my arm, put my arm around his little shoulder
And this is what I said:
Sonny I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do

If I had one wish
One dream I knew would come true
I’d want to speak to all the people of the world
I’d get up there, I’d get up there on that platform
First I’d sing a song or two you know I would
Then I’ll tell you what I’d do
I’d talk to the people and I’d say
Its a rough rough world, its a tough tough world
Well, you know
And things don’t always, things don’t always go the way we plan
But there’s one thing, one thing we all have in common
And it’s something everyone can understand
All over the world sing along

I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
I just want you to hurt like I do
Honest I do, honest I do, honest I do

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

CHECKING IN WITH ’KUNA

2008-05-08T18:12:00.003-04:00

Hakuna is doing fine, thank you, and enjoying an unmolested rest on the ottoman in our family room. Unmolested, that is, save for my sticking a camera in her face.

Hassockuna!

Update: Friday Ark #190 is afloat over at the Modulator.

This Sunday, the Carnival of the Cats will rotate on over to BadKittyCats.com. Bad Kitty Cats they may be, but they are sure to host a Good Carnival.

BILTMORE BLOGGIN’

2008-05-08T00:59:00.004-04:00

I write this post from the bowels of America’s Largest Home™, AKA the Biltmore Estate, the country house carved by George Vanderbilt out of a blasted heath in western North Carolina.

Biltmore is the living legacy of Vanderbilt, grandson of railroad and shipping tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of the great 19th century American robber barons. Centered in Asheville, it occupies roughly one-third of the 52,586 square miles of North Carolina. The showpiece of the estate, Biltmore House, is a 7,246 room mansion set upon a promontory surrounded by over 12,500 square miles of carefully tended gardens and manicured azalea-laden forests, all of which were specially imported by Vanderbilt and planted by hand. Each of the 7,246 rooms - from the richest, most opulent salons to the lowliest of servants’ quarters - is decorated with rare artworks, the walls encrusted with precious stones.

Biltmore’s basement houses not only the working heart of the mansion - kitchens, laundries, even a small oil refinery - but numerous amusements, including five Olympic-size swimming pools, a bowling alley, shopping mall, and a prototypical late-19th century video game parlor that utilized lantern slides and electric lamps to entertain the Vanderbilt children.

Casual visitors such as my Corporate Colleagues and I do not get to stay at the Big House, of course. We are lodged at the Inn on Biltmore Estate, a handsome 1,875-room facility that was originally housed in the sub-basement of the main house before being relocated to its own dedicated location several miles away.

I shit you not when I tell you that it takes almost 30 minutes to make the trip from the Inn to the main house, using the estate’s own private fleet of Bullet Trains. This place is huuuuuuuge. It’s big enough to have its own weather. Hell, it’s big enough to have its own gravity.

After suffering through a day and a half of meetings, we all ran over to the Grove Park Inn on the other side of town, where we took advantage of the perfect weather and enjoyed a round of golf. One of the girls in the pro shop bore an uncanny resemblance to the Mistress of Sarcasm...freaky.

Dinner this evening was at the estate’s horse barn (really), where horses are (thankfully) no longer in evidence. A country-style buffet (all-you-can-eat bone-in ribeye steaks!), an excellent bluegrass group (the Whitewater Bluegrass Company), some half-assed Square Dancing, and it was time to head back to the Inn for some late-evening imbibing. MacAllan 12-year-old, Balvenie 21-year-old Port Wood, and (courtesy of the friendly barkeep), a few precious drops of $175-a-shot Louis XIII Cognac, and I’m more than ready for a few hours in the kip.

In a few hours, my limo will pick me up and navigate the multi-mile journey from the Inn to the exit gate. The great airlock doors will swing open, and I will leave the gigantic weatherproof dome that encloses most of the Estate. But my memories of Biltmore...my precious memories...will be with me always.

SOUTHERN LIT MEETS JAPANESE COFFEE

2008-05-05T13:52:00.004-04:00

Commenter Tbird takes a look at the Boss Coffee logo in yesterday’s post and notes that the gaijin dude on the Boss coffee can bears a striking resemblance to William Faulkner.

Why, Tbird, I think you’re on to something.

Lessee:

Here’s a pic of Faulkner (expropriated from here)...

Let’s flip it...

Now let’s rotate it a bit, move the pipe, jack up the contrast, throw in a circular vignette, and tinker with the colors...

Say, all we have to do is shine a bright light in his eyes and shoot the photo from a slightly lower angle, and we might get this:

Yep - Tbird, you’re definitely on to something! But Faulkner? Might make more sense if there was something stronger than coffee in them cans...

RATS

2008-05-05T12:00:00.003-04:00

Bedside control panel, Sunroute Hotel, Hiroshima. [Click to embiggen.]

I had so been looking forward to smorking in bed.

THIS SHOULDN’T HAPPEN TO A DOG

2008-05-05T11:41:00.004-04:00

But if you’re a cat, you may be out of luck.

Separated at birth?

As if this weren’t bad enough, here comes Gato Island, posting pictures of cats that look like Wilford Brimley.

One of the pitfalls of having a Distinctive Face, I suppose, is that eventually people will find ways to make fun of it. It’s an occupational hazard of being an actor or politician. [Wait, aren’t those the same thing?]

Why am I posting this? Because...

(wait for it...)

...it’s the Right Thing to Do.

ON THE FIFTH, KILL A FIFTH

2008-05-05T09:44:00.003-04:00

Let’s celebrate Mayo - today is the Cinco.
We can drink some tequila until we’re muy stinko.
“On the fifth, kill a fifth” - that’s the Holiday Motto.
A perfect excuse for us all to get blotto.

A STRANGE NEW WORLD

2008-05-03T05:53:00.004-04:00

Things that may seem mundane to the inhabitants of a particular place will glow with a Surreal Alien Light in the eyes of a foreign observer, a phenomenon that adds greatly to the joy of international travel.

And when you’re in a place that is Far From Home, those joys are multiplied. The Little Differences between home and away are fairly insignificant when visiting, say, a neighboring country like Canada, a land that (mostly) shares a common language with the United States...but on the other side of the Pacific, it’s a Whole ’Nuther Thing.

Herewith, below the fold, a few random observations from our ten days in Japan, in no particular order...

Japlish
It’s easy to enjoy a Cheap Laugh at mistranslated English, and I will confess to so doing. Some of the miscues arise, I believe, from an earnest attempt to capture something that just does not quite translate...and some are just plain bizarre. Translating Japanese into English brings to mind Dr. Johnson’s comment about women preachers, whom he compared to dogs walking on their hind legs: not that one expected them to do a good job, but that it was remarkable that they were able to do it at all. Nevertheless, from everything to ad copy to sweatshirts, Japlish rears its (often hilarious) head.

“Cause The Crowd All Joy Pulling Dolly By The Hair.” WTF!??!

Didn’t you always want to eat a cookie called “Tokyo Night Walker”?

“Do you walk at night of Tokyo? In the town of Tokyo, there is light like starry sky. Watching stars in the stars above and the city can be done.”

“Romantic fragrance began drift in tokyo. Be romantic as you please without minding public gaze.”

Interesting Business Names
Such as the “Tits Cafe” in Kyoto. Really.

Or this:

Must be a place where they sell Yayoi Zombie Food.

“The Glatt Noodle Factory.” Think this is glatt kosher?

Vending Machines
Streetside vending machines are everywhere in Japan, selling everything from tea and coffee drinks, soft drinks, beer and sake, and cigarettes. With no age restrictions on any purchases (anyone can buy alcohol or tobacco) and no crime to speak of, a machine will sit happily unmolested on a city street, supplying both hot and cold beverages. Hard to picture that in, say, New York or Chicago.

“Can coffee” - brewed coffee in a can or plastic bottle - is insanely popular. The two biggest brands are Coca-Cola’s “Georgia” (the market leader) and Suntory’s “Boss,” the logo for which is a serious-looking gaijin dude with a pipe in his mouth. Any time someone would ask me where I was from, I’d say, “Georgia...like Georgia Coffee.” Always got a laugh, although whether it was the kind of laugh reserved for Happy Idiot Foreigners, I will never know.

Boss Coffee. This dude looks serious about his Can Coffee.

Another vending machine treat: Royal Milk Tea, a combination of sweet tea and milk in a can, which was a big hit with both me and Elder Daughter. It was especially good with a...

Tokyo Banana

We first encountered the Tokyo Banana at a shop in the Tokyo Tower. I don’t know what appealed to me more: the logo, a beribboned banana that resembled Zippy the Pinhead; the Japlish copy that appeared on every package (“People gather to TOKYO from here and there with memories of their home. And then, Tokyo gets the everyone’s home town.”); or the idea of a banana-shaped and -flavored Twinkie, one without the armada of preservatives and artificial flavors with which we are familiar. Tokyo Banana sells a whole boatload of different pastries...the Chizu Usagi (cheese bunny) caught my eye on their website...and only my conscience (and the lack of luggage space) prevented me from buying samples of them all.

KitKat Exotica
For some strange reason, KitKats are very popular in Japan. Perhaps it’s because the Japanified version of the name (kitto katsu, “you will surely win”) is a phrase students traditionally use to wish each other luck during exams. But that does not explain the fact that Japan leads the world in the sheer variety of KitKat flavors.

Japanese KitKat flavors. Clockwise from top center: Cherry blossom, kinoko (soybean flour), Kyoto-style matcha (powdered green tea), mango, green tea. Center: azuki (sweet red soybean paste).

The “cherry blossom” flavor is actually a concoction of lychees and rose water (delicious); kinoko tastes like a combination of peanut butter and malted milk; and the mango version is only available on the island of Kyushu and in Okinawa. Too bad we can’t get some of these here in the States...the green tea versions, especially, are excellent.

Japanese Department Stores
I have already noted that the typical Japanese depaato (department store) is an entirely different animal compared with its American counterparts. We spent one morning wandering the Kyoto branch of Takashimaya, a place that made Nordstrom look like the Busy Bee Mall. Takashimaya, with outlets in New York and Paris, is a Big-Time Store where you can find pretty much anything...but the seventh floor (containing sixteen different restaurants, each specializing in a particular dish or cuisine), and the lower level (entirely devoted to food of all descriptions) fascinated me the most. This is where you can find hyper-expensive fresh fruit, gemlike in its perfection: a box of 16 strawberries for $45, mangoes ranging in price from $15 all the way to $115 apiece, grapes for $62 a bunch. This is where you can find beautifully packaged pastries and confections, each one a work of art (and some completely unfamiliar to the Western palate). This is where you can find bagels - yes, bagels - with alien flavors such as edamame and soy milk, white chocolate and cocoa, white chocolate and green tea, white chocolate and strawberry. There’s fresh fish, meat, produce, and an array of baked goods that would do the French proud.

Little touches, such as baskets on the floor in the restaurants to hold shoppers’ packages while they eat - and the almost surreal level of politesse displayed by the sales staff - make shopping in a Japanese department store a treat. Being a Consummate Consumer, Japan-style, is a Wallet-Lightening Experience....but fun.

Kabuki

The Kabuki-Za in Tokyo.

Elder Daughter and I managed to catch an act at the Kabuki-Za, an ornate theatre conveniently located two blocks from our hotel in the Ginza. Full performances last for five or more hours and tickets are expensive, but many people - even locals - will grab an o-bento (boxed lunch) and plump for the $10 one-act ducats, which give you a spot in the Fourth-Floor Nosebleeds from which to get a taste of Real Japanese Culture. And, to keep it real, we didn’t bother with the English-commentary headsets. Screw that, we thought...and we were right.

Despite its highly stylized nature - ritualized performance, exotic costumes and scenery, incomprehensible dialogue, and totally alien music - I found Kabuki to be a surprisingly affecting experience. The actors (all of whom are men, even in women’s roles) are skilled enough to invest a single facial expression with heartbreaking emotion even a Western gaijin can understand.

Cell-Phone Danglies
Which, for lack of a better term, is what I call the little charms that people - men and women alike - attach to their cell phones. They’re everywhere. Sometimes it seemed to us that all the recent advances in electronic miniaturization are solely for the purpose of creating ever-shrinking cell-phones, the better to accommodate ever-expanding dangly charms. Weird...but no weirder, I suppose, than grown people who walk around with clothing bearing the image of a Cartoon Mouse.

FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

2008-05-02T10:12:00.005-04:00

It’s been a while since I posted a Friday Random Ten, what with my intervening travels...but it is Friday, after all...the sun is shining, the birds are brightening the air with their song, and I appear to be over my Jet Lag at last. Believe me, it is no fun to be all farklockt, suffering from a whacked-out sleep schedule and having to deal with receiving Nature’s Calls at the most bizarre hours...

...but you don’t want to hear about that. No, what you want to do is to check out the latest Pile of Random iPod Spewage, and I am all too happy to oblige. Here we go:

Stagger Lee - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Harpies Bizarre - Elvis Costello
The Wedding Samba - Xavier Cugat and His Orchestra
Song of the Nile - Dead Can Dance
A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying - Bloodhound Gang

I was lonelier than Kunta Kinte at a Merle Haggard concert
That night I strolled on into Uncle Limpy’s Hump Palace lookin’ for love.
It had been a while.
In fact, three hundred and sixty-five had come and went
since that midnight run haulin’ hog to Shakey Town on I-10.
I had picked up this hitchhiker that was sweatin’ gallons
through a pair of Daisy Duke cut-offs and one of those Fruit Of The Loom tank-tops.
Well, that night I lost myself to ruby red lips,
milky white skin and baby blue eyes.
Name was Russell.

Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Well, I find it’s quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’

Well, faster than you can say, “shallow grave,”
this pretty little thing come up to me and starts kneadin’ my balls
like hard-boiled eggs in a tube sock.
Said her name was Bambi and I said, “Well, that’s a coincidence, darlin',
’cause I was just thinkin’ about skinnin’ you like a deer.”
Well she smiled, had about as much teeth as a Jack-O-Lantern,
and I went on to tell her how I would wear her face like a mask
as I do my little kooky dance.
And then she told me to shush.
I guess she could sense my desperation.
’Course, it’s hard to hide a hard-on when you’re dressed like Minnie Pearl.

Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Well, I find it’s quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’

So, Bambi’s goin’ on about how she can make all my fantasies come true.
So I says, “Even this one I have where Jesus Christ
is jackhammering Mickey Mouse in the doo-doo hole
with a lawn dart as Garth Brooks gives birth to something
resembling a cheddar cheese log with almonds on Santa Claus’s tummy-tum?”
Well, ten beers, twenty minutes and thirty dollars later
I’m parkin’ the beef bus in tuna town if you know what I mean.
Got to nail her back at her trailer.
Heh. That rhymes.
I have to admit it was even more of a turn-on
when I found out she was doin’ me to buy baby formula.

Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Well, I find it’s quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’

Day or so had passed when I popped the clutch,
gave the tranny a spin and slid on into
The Stinky Pinky Gulp ’n’ Guzzle Big Rig Snooze-A-Stop.
There I was browsin’ through the latest issue of “Throb,”
when I saw Bambi starin’ at me from the back of a milk carton.
Well, my heart just dropped.
So I decided to do what any good Christian would.
You can not imagine how difficult it is to hold a half gallon of moo juice
and polish the one-eyed gopher when you’re doin’ seventy-five
in an eighteen-wheeler.
I never thought missing children could be so sexy.
Did I say that out loud?

Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Well, I find it’s quite a thrill
When she grinds me against her will
Yes, a lap dance is so much better when the stripper is cryin’
Movie Pot - Mitch Hedberg
Act 3: Beginning - John Adams, Nixon in China
The Hornburg - Howard Shore, The Two Towers
Double Team - Tenacious D
Beggars’ Dance - The Klezmatics

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Dennis R. for coining the (strictly accidental, yet brilliant) faux-Yiddish word “farklockt,” indicating a state of Jet-Laggedness.]

A (CHERRY) TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

2008-05-01T14:08:00.004-04:00

[Being a welcome break from alla this recent Japan-blogging.]

Brooklyn has a lot going for it, aside from the presence of the most esteemed Erica and the fact that it is my Natal Soil.

It also can be downright pleasing to the eye...at least in certain spots.

The above is a time-lapse movie of the Cherry Walk at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. It was compiled from over 3,000 digital photos taken at three-minute intervals.

Bloomin’ amazing!

Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to Brandon Hoover of javajive for the link. Check out his site for some of the finest photography in the Bloggy-Sphere...and ponder the existential strangeness of my learning something about Brooklyn (my birthplace!) from a guy who lives in Indo-fricking-nesia.

GETTING INTO HOT WATER

2008-05-01T13:02:00.006-04:00

The Japanese worship the Onsen
Where you bathe whilst revealing your Johnsen.
The water is hot
So you know that you’re not
In a lake up in Eau Claire, Wisconsen.

Getting into hot water may mean “trouble” to an American, but to the Japanese, it’s Big Fun.

I’m talking here about that fine Japanese institution: the Public Bath. A perfectly understandable mania, when one considers the social value of a clean body in a crowded country.

Inexpensive public baths (sento) are everywhere in Japan, but if you want the true Hot Water Experience, you have to go to an onsen - a bath containing naturally hot spring water. Even better, go to an outdoor onsen - a rotemburo. There’s nothing finer than luxuriating in steaming water on a cool morning while surrounded by pine trees and cherry blossoms.

Bathing etiquette can be a tricky area for Westerners. The key point is to wash yourself thoroughly before getting in the tub. Onsen provide a washing-up area, along with towels and soap, and woe betide the person who immerses him- or herself without using it.

Elder Daughter and I stayed in several hot-springs resort areas while in Japan. The town of Beppu, the southernmost point in our journey, is famous for its onsen; the Hakone region, where we spent our penultimate day, is peppered with natural hot springs as well.

In both places, our hotels had excellent onsen and rotemburo facilities...but in Beppu, we also took a short walk over to the Takegawara Onsen, a venerable Meiji-era bathhouse that offered, in addition to the traditional natural hot water, a sand bath.

That’s right: sand. Hot sand.

When you check in, the attendant hands you a cotton bathrobe (yukata). You go to the changing room, put on your yukata, then go out into a huge room in which there is a wooden walkway surrounded by steaming volcanic sand. An attendant scoops out a shallow trench into which you lie down, your head supported by a block of wood. And then she shovels more hot sand on top of you, tamping it down until you’re completely encased. You then lie there for about 15 minutes, blissfully sweating, before getting out, heading in to the onsen area, and washing off all the sand. Then it’s time to relax in a tub full of steaming hot mineral water.

The famous Takegawara Onsen in Beppu.

As enjoyable as that was, our most interesting Bathtime Experience had to be at the Oedo Onsen Monogatari in Tokyo, a bizarre place that looks like something Walt Disney might have concocted if he had been born Japanese.

Oedo Onsen Monogatari translates roughly as “Honorable Old Tokyo Hot Spring Adventure,” and it’s nothing less than an Onsen Theme Park. When you visit O.O.M., you stick your shoes in a locker, check in and pay admission, and then pick out a suitable yukata (19 different designs, with samurai, geisha, and all of that Old Japan stuff). You then go into the locker room and change out of your street clothes and into the yukata.

From the locker room, you go to what can only be described as Main Street in Old Tokyo, a kitschy collection of arcades, restaurants, shops, bars, and even a capsule hotel. When you get tired of wandering around there, you can take a bath in what has to be the hugest collection of natural-water bathing facilities I’ve ever seen. There are mixed bathing areas, too, for which you need a swimsuit...but these were all closed (as was most everything else, since we had gone there in the dead of night). Alas, the sand baths were closed, as was a unique spot where you can have “doctor fish” nibble the dead skin off your feet. Really.

One caveat for the visiting Westerner: Sporting a tattoo will get you booted out of the baths at O.O.M. It seems tattoos are favored amongst yakuza members, and Management wants a family-friendly environment. [I don’t know if Body Art is an issue at other onsen.]

Oedo Onsen Monogatari was a surreal experience, a distillation of all that was Strange and Different about being in Japan. The whole adventure - walking there from our hotel in the Dead of Night, enjoying steaming hot baths and a cold beer at 1:30 in the morning, walking back - was like a strange dream. It was, perhaps, the perfect way to spend our last night before taking the Silver Aerial Bus back home.

NAVIGATION

2008-04-30T12:14:00.005-04:00

One of the delights of traveling in Japan is the amazingly efficient network of subways and trains. We found that finding our way around the various subway and train stations was not the horror story we expected. Most stations have plenty of English signage, so if you can read a map, you’re OK.

Not that reading the Tokyo subway map is easy, mind you. Check it out (click on the image to embiggen):

Tokyo: Just a wee bit more complicated than New York City.

The voice announcements on the Tokyo subway are - believe it or not - easier to understand than their muddled, half-garbled counterparts on the New York subway. And that’s the announcements in Japanese. In English? Even better.

As long as you can tell Asakusa from Akasaka and keep your Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Shimbashi straight, you can get around in Tokyo. The subway in Kyoto was even easier to deal with.

When it came time to travel from city to city, the superexpress trains, AKA the shinkansen (“bullet trains”), were a delight. Using our seven-day Japan Rail Pass, we had unlimited rides...all we had to do was show our passes at the ticket office to get reserved Green Car seats. Sweet.

On one memorable day, we employed no fewer than nine different modes of transportation, not counting our own two feet. Starting out in the morning:

Taxi from Hotel Ra Kuun (just up the road from Motohakone) to Motohakone.
Boat from Motohakone/Ashinoyu to Togendai.
Ropeway (gondola lift) from Togendai to Shouzen.
Funicular (cable car) from Shouzen to Gora.
Switchback railway from Gora to Hakone-Yumato.
Rail from Hakone-Yumato to Odawara.
Shinkansen from Odawara to Tokyo station.
Subway (Maronouchi Line - Ginza Line) from Tokyo station to Shimbashi station.
Monorail (Yurikamome line) from Shimbashi station to Daiba station.

All of this while schlepping our luggage, too, and without counting the evening journey from our hotel in Odaiba to the Asakusa Kannon shrine, Shibuya, and then back to Odaiba. Footsore? You betcha.

THE TWO TOWERS

2008-04-29T22:57:00.005-04:00

Houston Steve, with whom I share a certain bizarre Mystical Connection, was enjoying a Parisian vacation with his charming wife Debbie right about the same time I was gallivanting around the Land of the Rising Sun with Elder Daughter.

And once again, the Mystical Connection reared its head, for each of us found ourselves simultaneously drawn to strange-looking Metallic Towers on opposite sides of the globe.

Here you see Houston Steve posing in front of the Eiffel Tower, a piece of architecture reviled in its day but which has come to symbolize the City of Light itself. And you see me in front of the Tokyo Tower, an unabashed knockoff of the Tour Eiffel but which sports an uglier paint job (dictated by Japanese aviation regulations) and which enjoys a few extra meters height advantage.

The view is pretty snazzy, especially from the Special Observation Deck, 250 meters up.

And if you really want some Bowel-Clenching Fun, stand over one of the “Look-Down Windows” on the Main Observation Deck...and look straight down. Oh, don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe, judging by the enthusiasm with which little kids jump up and down on the glass.

(But why do those reinforcing wires put me in mind of a French-Fry Slicer?)

I WAS SO HUNGRY...

2008-04-29T10:31:00.004-04:00

...I could eat a whale.

So I did.

In my attempt to scale new heights in Politically Incorrect Dining, while in Tokyo I enjoyed an appetizer of kujira na beikon: whale bacon sashimi.

Whale bacon ain’t cheap. You can find it in food markets in various spots in Japan, sold in little packages at a price that works out to about $140 per pound. Not even Zabar’s offers deli that costly.

Whale bacon (center) at the Nishiki Food Market in Kyoto.

What does it taste like? Well, not like chicken. Or fish, for that matter. It’s a nice, dark-red meat with a sizable layer of tasty fat, bringing to mind nothing so much as pastrami. As I savored the delicate, raw slices, I wondered how it’d be served hot on rye with mustard. Probably pretty good.

Did I have moral qualms about eating one of the gentle giants of the deep? Not really. Whale is a traditional protein source in Japan, and my having three or four slices isn’t going to have an impact on the size of the annual whale harvest - a harvest that is, ostensibly, undertaken for the purpose of scientific research. Research into the question of how to make a tastier pet food, or how to sustain an ever-increasing human population, or how to turn blubber into biofuel - who knows? But I figure whales are probably about as bright as cows, and we eat those. I’ll have second thoughts when one of ’em learns to pick up a harpoon.

Hey, at least I didn’t have horse sashimi. That was on the menu, too. They charge extra for the mane.

TRADITION

2008-04-28T14:25:00.011-04:00

Room 33 at the Hiiragiya Ryokan.

We Jews are very big on tradition, the respect for which is one of the few things we have in common with the Japanese.

In order to experience traditional Japanese culture at its highest, most exquisite level, one must, when in Japan, stay at a Japanese inn: a ryokan. A night at a ryokan is generally more costly than a night at a comparable Western-style hotel, but there is no better way to get the flavor of staying in a Japanese home. And besides, breakfast and dinner are included in the price.

In the classic ryokan, your room serves as both dining room and bedroom. Dinner is served on a low table in the middle of the room; when it’s time to retire, the innkeeper moves the table aside and sets up a futon right there on the floor. Come morning, the futon is removed and the table replaced for breakfast service.

Shoes are an absolute no-no - you remove them as you enter the ryokan, donning a pair of slippers for walking the public areas. You remove the slippers before entering the room itself, the floor of which is covered with tatami (woven reed) mats. There’s a separate pair of slippers provided for use in the toilet - and only in the toilet.

We stayed at the Hiiragiya Ryokan in Kyoto, possibly the finest traditional Japanese lodging in the country. The Hiiragiya occupies a building that has stood since 1818; our room - previous occupants of which include Yukio Mishima (the ultra-nationalist Japanese author and actor) and Charlie Chaplin - was over 150 years old and contained decorative shoji screens painted two centuries ago. Modern touches include telephones, televisions, and electrically controlled curtains - the equipment is discreetly disguised behind cloth covers and operated by cleverly designed, unobtrusive remote control.

Our arrival was on a rainy afternoon, a perfect time to sequester ourselves after a morning spent exploring one of the local department stores. Japanese department stores, it should be noted, are an entirely different species than their American counterparts. The sheer variety of goods, coupled with the obsequious überpolitesse of the salesforce, makes Nordstrom look like a flea market. I could have spent the whole day in the lower level alone - a floor entirely devoted to food in all its bizarre Japanesical variety.

But we had a date at the Hiiragiya, so we extracted ourselves from the depaato and grabbed a cab. I should point out that my foresight in printing up a map showing directions to our ryokan in Japanese turned out to be a major help.

We showed up, removed our shoes in the foyer, and were greeted warmly by what appeared to be the entire inn staff. Within moments of arriving in our room, a kimono-clad server brought in a bowl of matcha (traditional bitter green tea), a cup of bancha (plain old green tea), and a paper-wrapped pastry elegantly presented on a minuscule tray. As rain pattered down on the carefully manicured garden visible through our windows, we changed into our cotton yukata robes. There is no need for street clothes anywhere in the ryokan, as long as you have your yukata.

At 7:30, the hour we had selected for our dinner service, the traditionally clad Inn-Ladies began delivering a lengthy procession of exquisitely-crafted little dishes: a true kaiseki banquet.

What was the food like? Suffice it to say that the menus I post every month or so from the Sommelier Guild don’t even come close to the kaiseki-ryori served at the Hiiragiya. Here’s what we had for dinner:

Aperitif (Shokuzen-shu)
Cherry blossom cocktail

First appetizer (Sakizuke)
Bonito, Canola blossom buds, Sticky soy sauce with Japanese pepper

Second appetizer (Hassun)
Sea bream roe in jellied broth
Hosta seasoned with soy sauce
Eel on tofu ball (crushed tofu, carrot, kikurage mushroom, pea, and egg)
Grilled mugwort tofu pudding
Duck, broad bean, ormer, dried sea cucumber belly

Sashimi Dishes (Mukouzuke)
Japanese spiny lobster
Sea bream
Tuna
Wasabi mizuna cress, yam, wasabi blossom, laver, wasabi leaves

Simmered Dishes (Nimono-wan)
Greenling, uguisuna-spinach, carrot, yuzu citrus

Grilled Dishes (Yaki-zakana)
Grilled trout
Miso wrapped in lotus root, ginger stick

Steamed Dishes (Mushi-mono)
Steamed sea bream in pea bun
Horsetail, bracken, ginger, sticky kudzu and bamboo shoot sauce

Simmered Dishes (Takiawase)
Bamboo shoot, wakame seaweed, butterbur, kinome (young leaves of Japanese pepper)

Deep-fried Dishes (Age-mono)
Fried sweetfish
Koshiabura (edible wild plants)
Gyozyaniniku (a type of long green onion)
Salt, tempura dipping sauce

Vinegared Dishes (Su-no-mono)
Firefly squid
Scallop, Udo (edible wild plant)
Chive, Japanese ginger, vinegared miso

Soup (Tome-wan)
Aka-miso soup with yuba (skin of soybean milk), wild rocambole, agarikusu mushroom, Japanese pepper

Rice (Gohan)
Rice, mixed bamboo shoots

Pickles (Kou-no-mono)
Kyousakura (turnip pickled with cherry blossom, cherry leaves, and salted plum juice), Japanese white radish, canola blossom buds

Dessert (Mizu-mono)
Gyuhi rice cake, mango, strawberry, mint

We washed all these miniature Works of Art down with liberal doses of bancha and warm sake. Yummy? You betcha.

Every window looked out on a tranquil garden with running water and happy, swimming koi. We had our own private Japanese-style cedarwood bath as well. Nothing like a hot bath after dinner to relax aching travel-worn muscles.

Outside our room, a Japanese garden.

As raindrops splashed outside and we relaxed in our little haven, the innkeepers came in to whisk away the remnants of our dinner and set up the futons. Ohhh, the futons. Who knew that sleeping on the floor could be like sleeping on a cloud?

After a restful night, with sleeping gear stowed away, we breakfasted in our room on the finest delicacies. I ate slowly, not wanting the morning to end.

Checking out was like bidding farewell to old friends. In the best of all possible worlds, I’ll be back one day.

More pix below the fold.

200-year-old shoji doors.

The table, all ready for dinner.

Now, that’s Turndown Service.

THE HONORABLE TOIDY

2008-04-26T20:58:00.001-04:00

Toiletry of Japan. Left: Western style fixture with washlet seat. Right: Japanese Squat-Pot. There’s a small basin on the far left for hand-washing. Note the special slippers for use exclusively in the toilet.

Jimbo, of Parkway Rest Stop fame, predicted that I would, at some point, write on the topic of Japanese toilets.

Of course, anyone who would include the term “Rest Stop” as part of the name of his Web-Log ought to have an interest in the subject...and I would not dream of disappointing a friend and Honored Guest. So here followeth Elisson’s observations on the Japanese potty, variously known as o-toire (“honorable toilet”), o-te-arai (“honorable lavatory”), or, in less polite company, o-benjo (“honorable hole into which one shits.”)

First of all, as with so many things Japanese, tradition and technology coexist side-by-side, creating situations that may be surprising to the Western eye. Public facilities (e.g., parkway rest stops) will often have Japanese-style toilets, consisting of a porcelain basin set into the floor with a drain at one end and a hood (and flush handle) at the other. One squats, facing the end with the hood, and lets fly. Elder Daughter, who had no option but to learn how to use one of these things, soon figured out the correct posture for Efficient Squattage, and decided that the Japanese-style toilet actually had advantages over the Western kind. But I took her glowing recommendation with a grain of salt, since (1) she is younger and far more limber than I, and (2) she never put her Squat Technique to the ultimate test, as it were.

Elder Daughter demonstrates the proper Squat Technique.

For gentlemen, the options include not only the Japanese-style squatter, but the honorable Urinal. No explanation is required.

Most places, in addition to the traditional Japanese facilities, will offer a Western-style toilet. The shinkansen (the Bullet Train), for example, offers all three options (Japanese, Western, and urinals for the gentlemen). Interestingly, the gentlemen’s booth has a window: you can see whether the room is occupied, but you cannot see the actual Act of Pissage. Not for the shy.

But it is with Western plumbing that Japan displays its true ingenuity and technological advancement. For, with few exceptions, Western-style toilets are not mere toilets.

They are Washlets.

Yes: Washlets. For each one is provided with a special device that, once one is finished with one’s Personal Business, one may activate, thus causing a stream of warm water to be squirted into the Strategic Location. The more advanced models even provide for aqua-massage and a stream of warm air with which one may dry oneself. And did I mention heated seats? Yowza!

This is all to the good. Japanese toilet paper is, in almost all cases, coarse, flimsy single-ply stuff, and the less of it one uses, the better. And it appears that the Japanese have decided that, rather than improve their toilet paper, it makes more sense to invest in hardware that renders it practically unnecessary.

Some models of the Washlet allow you to control the strength of the water stream. Merely by turning a knob, you can go from an anemic trickle to a full-blown blast with enough pressure to act as an effective (and convenient) Bagless Enema. Oh, boy.

In addition, many toilets (both Western and Japanese) have a useful water saving feature: the ability to choose between a small flush and a big flush - the latter presumably for what the Brits call “Big Jobs.” Why we Americans haven’t adopted this technology is beyond me - it makes way more sense than our stupid low-volume “water-saving” flush toilets that end up requiring 37 pulls on the handle to get rid of anything larger than a thumbtip.

All this Washlet business makes perfect sense in Japan, a land of fastidious people for whom personal hygiene is a matter of honor. She Who Must Be Obeyed has suggested that the flag of Japan - a red circle on a field of white - might very well be symbolic not of the Rising Sun, but of a Brown-Eye scrubbed raw in an attempt to achieve perfect cleanliness.

Indeed. Nippon: Land of the Rising Sun...and the Spotless Bung.

THE OFFICIAL BLOG D’ELISSON DICTIONARY, Volume 15.

2008-04-26T19:10:00.004-04:00

Yet more stuff that should be in the dictionary but isn’t.

Previous installments of the Blog d’Elisson Dictionary may be found in the Archives: Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9, Volume 10, Volume 11, Volume 12, Volume 13, and Volume 14.

Spootzle [shpoot-sl] (n) - Small, dumpling-like turds; the result of “dropping the kids off at the pool” with an Impacted Intestine.

“Last time I ate at that German place, I got all blocked up. Spaetzle in, spootzle out.”

[Tip o’ th’ Elisson fedora to SWMBO for coming up with this most useful term.]

A BRIEF DEBRIEF

2008-04-25T09:31:00.003-04:00

Tokyo, Japan is a wonderful town
Asakusa’s up and Odaiba is down
The people crap in a hole in the ground
Tokyo, Japan -
It’s a wonderful town!

Erisson and “Eruda Datta” go native in Kyoto.

Just two of the 847 photos we took during our ten-day sojourn in the Land of the Rising Sun, a journey that took us from Tokyo to Kyoto, Hiroshima, Beppu, back to Tokyo, to Hakone, and back to Tokyo.

We ate plenty of Interesting Foods, stayed in both Western- and Japanese-style rooms (with quality ranging from spartan-but-clean to magnificent), managed to get everywhere we needed to go, and (in one memorable day) used nine separate modes of transportation - not counting old, reliable Shank’s Mare. No small feat, especially considering that a map of the Tokyo subway system is enough to give the average New York straphanger a splitting headache.

We bathed in natural volcanic springs and even enjoyed a sand bath - being buried in hot volcanic sand for 15 minutes. Not for people with heart conditions, they say.

We stood at the hypocenter of the Hiroshima A-bomb and marveled at the city that has - literally - grown Phoenix-like from the ashes of World War II.

We were awestruck at the myriad contrasts between Old Japan and New, a place where tradition and technology live cheek-by-jowl, often creating bizarre juxtapositions. It’s the country that gave us anime, Godzilla...and Hello Kitty.

It was a perfectly wonderful Father-Daughter Trip...long enough to allow us to see and do many things... and long enough so that I was more than happy to come home to She Who Must Be Obeyed.

More pictures below the fold. Click on any one of ’em to embiggen.

The elusive Fuji-san, as seen from the Hakone Ropeway.

Along Shimbashi-dori in Kyoto.

At Tenryu-ji, a Buddhist temple in Arashiyama.

A sacred alcove at Tenryu-ji. Has Keesie been here?

Breakfast of Champions in Kyoto.

The Genbaku-Domu in Hiroshima.

Lanterns at the Asakusa Kannon Temple, Tokyo.

The famous Five-Roofed Pagoda at Asakusa, Tokyo.

Elisson enjoys a slice of whale bacon. Really.

BOB

2008-04-25T09:25:00.006-04:00

The above image is familiar to anyone who has spent time in Japan: Maneki Neko, or the Beckoning Cat. The damn things are everywhere you go.

According to Wikipedia, “To Americans and Europeans it may seem as if the Maneki Neko is waving rather than beckoning. This is due to the difference in gestures & body language recognized by Westerners and the Japanese, with Japanese beckoning by holding up the hand, palm out, and repeatedly folding the fingers down and back up.”

Supposedly, Maneki Neko is modeled after the Japanese Bobtail. I can believe it: While Elder Daughter and I were in Japan, every single cat we saw was a bobtailed cat. Here’s one at a shrine in the Kamiyacho district:

“Maybe in my next life, I’ll finally get a tail.”

Interesting. The Japanese look upon cats as bearers of good fortune - Maneki Neko is a Good Luck Talisman - while Europeans and Americans are more ambivalent, as evidenced by the various superstitions surrounding black cats. The Koreans and Chinese, meanwhile, tend to regard cats as a source of inexpensive animal protein.

Me, I think cats are the ideal Animal Companions. They’re lovable, cuddly, and they crap in a box. They’ve always brought me pleasure; if they bring good luck, so much the better.

LIVE FROM TOKYO

2008-04-22T07:32:00.003-04:00

Coming to you live from the Shibuya Apple store in Tokyo...Elder Daughter and Elisson on our last night in Japan!

Peace.... 3 years ago this spring.....

2008-04-21T20:53:00.003-04:00

... I had the windows open last night, most of the lights turned down.... I was enjoying the smell of the damp forest entering the house.. springtime is mild here in Tennessee, and an evening of rain had created the perfect night... a night for letting the sounds and smells of a new season creep into my home... I turned off the television, and began reading a book in the blogroom... The Wife was reclining on the sofa quietly devouring her latest booty - courtesy of the McMinn County library... and after a few minutes of quiet, we both became acutely aware of the outside noises... whippoorwills calling in the distance... the wind in the dogwood trees... even the dripping of rainwater from the damp leaves...

... the whole aspect was calming.. therapeutic... even the breeze was full of perfume.. and then, without warning, something changed...

... a true silence descended in an instant.. I am sure that the other noises actually continued... but something close - and almost unheard - drew the focus of my hearing away from all other sounds.. a steady feeling of dread and a whisper of something outside my window... close... and dangerous... as my ears strained to gather more facts, I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand-up.. part of me knew this feeling well... I have felt it before while hunting predators.. luring hungry coyotes with a screaming rabbit... if you let yourself go, you can hear the panic... the terror in the pleas of the prey... and you, as you watch the prowler come close, understand that you are being hunted....

... I eased out of my chair, and approached the open window... leaning forward for a better view into the darkness... just then, the neighbor's Labrador gave a mighty bark from across the road... and from just below my open window, I heard the familiar yelp of a coyote as it bounded back into the woods...

... the call of the coyote echoed through the house, and the Wife appeared at the door of the blogroom... "Eric?.... What in the Hell was that?", she said.. open book still in hand....

... "Nothing, dear... just the dog from across the street... are the cats in the garage?"...

... "uh huh... they are both in"... she shifted her weight, and walked over to the window... "what a beautiful night"...

... "it sure is, babe", I said as I found my way back to my chair... "let's open a bottle of wine"...

Balancing Act

2008-04-21T17:10:00.002-04:00

Japanese commodes
instead of sitting pretty
squatting on two feet

Passover In Japan

2008-04-20T12:18:00.003-04:00

Passover is this week having begun at sundown yesterday. I live in Palm Beach County, which believe it or not, has the largest Jewish population in the United States. I know, y’all are shaking your head and saying, “NO! It’s NYC!”, but according to the statistics last year, which may have changed, it is down here at the end of the peninsula state.

I’ve put on my blog a number of times the GREAT benefit of having such a large population of Jews. I think, personally, the biggest benefit is the opportunity to immerse one’s self in another’s religion. In college when I had decided to become Episcopal, as I went through our night classes to study the religion, our priest used to say to us, “And remember, to be a good Christian, first and foremost, you should be a good Jew.”

Many of my friends are Jewish and I’ve had the wonderful pleasures of attending weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs, Orthodox and not, and every time I attend, I promise you, there is not a person there enjoying themselves more than I.

I remember when my husband’s best friend got married and his family is Orthodox. We attended everything and our friend’s mother and father took me under their wing explaining EVERYTHING to me. An entire weekend, from Friday night until Sunday night, I was immersed and fascinated. As the bride and groom opened some of their gifts there were mezuzahs. I looked at my husband, understanding the meaning as the groom’s father had spent an hour with me giving me some historical lessons, and I said, “Hunhead. We need these for our doors at home. It is a reminder.”

My husband rolled his eyes and said, “Hun. We are not Jewish. I am Catholic. You are Episcopal. It is not part of our heritage.”

Point taken. I understood what he was saying (and to know my husband is to know he is not a jerk or meant any disrespect to anyone), but honestly, one day he will come home and we will have a mezuzah. That conversation may have taken place 16 years ago, but I have not forgotten. The long memory of a woman… and all that. Heh.

I love that my children are starting to fully understand the roots of their religion. I remember sitting at dinner with a friend of my husband’s whose children are grown. He is Conservative Jew, if I recall. Anyway, we were discussing the plight of the schools here as in… they all suck and what are we to do come high school?

He said to us, “When my daughters were of high school age, I went to all the high schools in the area, private and public. I stopped at the local private Catholic high school and I met with the priests. They told me, that they would never push Catholicism upon my children, but I would find, that when they graduated they would be better Jews than when they started. I chose that school and every Jewish holiday, they called my home to talk to my children. They spoke about the meaning. It was the best education my children could have received and I never regretted it. And yes, they are better Jews, having come to truly understand their religion. The priests and nuns saw to that.”

That is where I know my eldest is going to school. Next year you should see a ramp up in my work hours! Gah! It’s not free...

And before I continue, another great thing about having such a large Jewish community is the fantastic food we have! Gah! The delis and the desserts and the… wow. I remember when we thought my middle son had an allergy to dairy and we had to take him off anything with dairy… including dairy protein. Luckily I had a plethora of bread choices as Kosher bread has no dairy. I was definitely doing the happy dance that we lived where we lived.

Anyway, I have been thinking about how Elisson and his daughter spent their seder dinner. My internet research shows there are only about 1000 Japanese Jews. (That could be wrong as it did come from Wikipedia, whose facts I question mostly.) Spread over an island, the probability of Elisson meeting a Japanese of Jewish faith seems somewhat remote.

So I’m excited to see how they passed this first evening of Passover. Elisson always finds interesting things to do, immersing himself in his surroundings and life. I was happy to see that SWMBO did not spend it alone. In my opinion, it is not a holiday to spend alone and SWMBO and Elisson, they are cut from the same cloth in my opinion. They are people who DO. They don’t sit around and wait for life to come to them.

But now, I want to know... what did the other half do?

A seasonal haiku

2008-04-18T01:12:00.002-04:00

sfardi Elisson
while abroad for Passover
rice is kitniot