Japan Bash

Coffee Day in Tokyo

2013-05-07T10:50:00.000+09:00

コーヒーの日

My morning cup.

Golden Week, Japan. Golden Week is a mash-up of holidays (green day, kid's day, some other day) that all come together to give Japanese people a kind-of week off. This year, Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday were working days, sandwiched between some long weekends. I am freelance so I was off the whole time.

The point I'm getting at is that this one week is when everyone has a holiday. Leaving Tokyo is horrible. Traffic is insane. Serene nature is inundated with city folk. Disneyland . . . maybe you can ride 2 or 3 attractions in an entire day.

Stay-cation is the way to go.

Anyways, I spent a day cycling around to local coffee shops.

First up is Bear Pond in Shimokitazawa. Only open for a few hours a day, this spot is kind of revered as one of the world's espresso meccas. Katsu Tanaka is absolutely fanatical about the stuff here, and an espresso will come out as less than an ounce of bitter chocolate that I think sends most people to the nearest Starbucks for something they are used to.

Unless you know that this is what you want, you might want to go with one of the other drinks, all of which are excellent. Dude lived in NY for a few decades, so you can ask him about coffee in English.

There seems to be a cafe boom in Tokyo, by the sheer number of magazines and books devoted to the places. I should say, a nerdy coffee boom. Tokyo actually led the planet in cafes back in the 60s, but these places, some of which remain, are often just smoky hangouts for old dudes who could care less about the flavor of their drink.

This perception of Tokyo being a coffee town is, I think, an illusion. The specific kind of shop that I'm searching for, airy, open spaces where people hang out and mingle, seem to be only a handful. Places with art on the walls and good music on the stereo. Well, minus the art and music I guess that would be Starbucks.

Nozy Coffee wasn't far away by bicycle.

The first branch of this excellent roaster is somewhere near the beach, probably next to the beach houses of the residents of Setagaya, where this 2nd shop is.

The coffee here is all single origin, and a hipster coffee nerd could have a field day with their variety.

I had a french press of something-or-other. Yeah, I'm obviously note that into the details. Atmosphere is what I like, and Nozy seems more like a place I would just go to buy beans for my home.

I heard you get a free cup if you buy beans here.

If anything reminds me of the San Francisco coffee shops back home, Streamer is it.

Just park your pisto out front, and you are good to go. There is art on the walls. The soundtrack was the latest Wiz Khalifa. The fashions were intentional.

The owner is some kind of world champion latte art guy, so expect a beautiful cup.

This place should be teeming with 20-something hipsters on MacBooks, but it isn't. Instead, being surrounded by some of the most exclusive high rises in Tokyo, this is a family hangout. Tons of kids bouncing around, playing gameboys, and drinking coffee.

Weird.

Four cups was enough for 1 afternoon. There are a few more places to speak on in this area, like the mega old spot with massive ikebana arrangements on the tables and the soup-nazi spot in Kichijoji. By the way, don't use the pop reference soup-nazi in Japan. People will think you are talking about real nazis and it is awkward.

April 2013

2013-05-04T20:24:00.000+09:00

Ridiculous month for food, as I did a few high-end food tours.

Ishikawa is located on a side street in Kagurazaka, an area of Tokyo I know almost nothing about. If you can make it here, expect the highest level of seasonal Japanese cuisine.

Jiro Roppongi. The famed son of even more famed Jiro Ono is much friendlier than expected. And this shop is much easier to get that reservation, if Jiro is on your checklist.

Jiro, the main Sukiyabashi branch, is so popular now with foreigners that the major hotels have one person on Jiro duty on the 1st of every month.

I made a reservation for some clients a few months back, and it was a veritable nightmare. I'll write about it when I'm in the mood.

Ukai Toriyama is located an hour out of town near Mount Takao. This is the place to take out of town guests. Every group is seated in their own private bungalow in a beautiful Japanese garden.

Cost performance is very high.

Hato's Bar is legit. While other spots are doing American barbecue, they all seem aimed at richer-than-shit bankers. Peep the Vice video!

You so ugly . . .

My go-to nihonshu.

Ryugin. Everything during this 3 hour meal is insane.

Especially this strawberry. Actually, when we ate it, it was a little underwhelming. Flavor-wise, tastes like a strawberry. But watch this video of how they make it.

After watching all the videos on that channel, I want to go back.

Fuck this train line. Sorry Nagoya, but this train line sucks.

Random waterfall near Shirahone Onsen. The mountain was oozing water in some places, hemorrhaging in others.

泡の湯

3cm visibility. The men and women each have their own entrance into the mixed-gender bath.

Dinner at said onsen hotel.

I did it like 3 years ago. Never again. That is 1000 miles in a day for those in America. It is retarded.

Maybe in a rally car.

Shit, there looked to be a rad campground with secret onsens about 5km further. A minute later, a ski tour came down. One of them recognized me from the ramen site. Random.

Then I went home instead of camping. Weak!

Sup, wasabi.

www.ramenadventures.com

Thailand . . . Let's Do and Let's Don't

2013-04-12T19:45:00.000+09:00

タイー

Thailand is probably on everyone's bucket list. I spent 10 days in the Chiang Mai area and the Bangkok area. Here is some simple advice so you Don't make the same mistakes, and are sure to take advantage of the rad things things to Do in this country.

Food is ridiculous in Thailand. For a paltry sum you can dine at some really excellent spots. For a little more, like what you would pay for a medium priced sushi meal in Tokyo, you can have some of the best food in the world. Do eat a lot in Thailand. The above, a young coconut filled with massaman curry, was eaten at the Riverside something-or-other in Chiang Mai. It's in all the guidebooks. Probably my favorite of the area.

Chiang Mai is a sprawling city in the north of Thailand. Sprawling, yes, but most of the good spots for tourists are in a very centralized area, surrounded by a moat. Our hotel was a 20-30 minute walk from this moat. Tuk tuks will take you anywhere for about 100 baht, which I realize is paying too much, but whatever. $3 to ride a taxi is kind of cheap.

You might want to try and stay somewhere in the moat area, though. There are about a thousand guesthouses ranging from dirt cheap to nice.

Do take a cooking class.

The cooking classes are all similar in Chiang Mai, with some minor, yet important, differences. All of them take you to the market for explanations.

Do try some fried grubs with kaffir lime.

Do go to the Thai Farm Cooking School.

Wait! That's not the Thai Farm Cooking School. Is what we said when we arrived.

So all of the schools have hotel pickup. When the dude showed up a few minutes early and announced "Cooking school!" we just jumped on. There was no sign, just a nondescript van. Maybe Don't get into nondescript vans. After the market tour, we arrived here, at the Siam Rice cooking school.

Confusion followed, until we finally deduced that someone else at our hotel had made the reservation for this spot, and we probably just switched.

I have no qualms with Siam Rice, but I heard some rad things about Thai Farm, namely that it is on a farm.

Do check out the Wats. There are a bunch within walking distance of Wat Chiang Man. People often complain about becoming watted out fairly quickly, so take your time.

Do save some baht coins to donate, paper bills if you ballin. Ballin! This gold leafed Buddha doesn't pay for itself!

Do get a massage at the women's prison.

Say what? So right in the middle of Chiang Mai is a low security women's correctional facility. Part of the rehabilitation process is to teach them massage. So for about $5 you can get an hour long Thai massage from an inmate.

Traditional Thai massage is mega relaxing. In fact, Do get a massage every freaking day you are in Thailand.

Do get out of Chiang Mai for a minute. Do so on motorcycle. I highly recommend Pai, about 150km north of the city. Tony's Big Bikes is a legit rental service in central Chiang Mai.

I got this Ninja 250 for about $20 a day. Fun bike. The road from Chiang Mai to Pai, Route 1095, is quite well known for it's 762 curves. Most visitors will remember this because they are barfing out of the tour bus window. On a Ninja, it is pure joy.

I'm no expert on the weather, and I'm too lazy to look it up on wikipedia, but maybe Don't go in March.

This is what the views from the mountains look like. The fuck? It looks like there is some sort of forest fire.

Turns out that is exactly correct. Myanmar and the northern area of Thailand straight up burn their farm fields and forests every year. It is kind of nasty. I heard November is the best time to come.

Pai! Pai is kind of a hippie drop-out town. Why? Why would such an area be the go-to for dread-locked European chicks looking to unwind.

Sitting at a bar one night in Pai, and it all made sense. The two dudes next to me were speaking in some strange language. German? Random French dialect? Albanian? Nope, straight up heroin slur.

Pai is part of the infamous Golden Triangle, competing for number one spot in the world opium trade. So, yeah, this is probably a good spot to come and chase the dragon for a few weeks if that is what you are into. Some of the dudes here, it looked more like years.

Internet is everywhere.

As are delicious, healthy restaurants.

Don't buy a dumb ass Pai t-shirt. Seriously, Pai has the world's largest ratio of people to locally branded t-shirts. Is this a thing that hippies buy?

I don't get it!

No more Pai t-shirts!!!!!

Ok, the cloud vomiting a rainbow is kind of cool.

Do, if you have a chance, get out and see the hill tribes of Northern Thailand. From Pai, I took the Ninja 250 up to Mae Hong Son, another mountain town about 100km from Pai, with about triple the number of curves. This road was epic. The route from Chiang Mai to Pai is a little beat up, though still first world standards. Pai to Mae Hong Son is empty, fast, and smooth.

Except for the 5km of off-roading I had to do to get to the longneck's village.

Very cool.

Don't eat street sushi in Thailand. C'mon people!

I've heard Don't eat ground meat of any kind, but nuts to that. Do do do! I later spoke to a chef who learned how to make Chiang Mai sausage from one of the most famous spots in the country. And . . . ummmm . . . yolo I guess.

Hey, I made a shit map.

Gotta explain the red line.

So I was feeling restless, walking all over town, and rented a bicycle. Figured a burn down along the river would be some good late night exercise. I'm going along, business being all minded to oneself, when out of nowhere comes a wild dog. Scratch that, a pack of fucking rabid wild dogs. Dogs with a taste for white meat.I shift my rusty, 30 baht a day children sized bicycle into top gear and let adrenalin do what it does. For the next what felt like 10 minutes, I'm booking it. Finally, they give up, and a tuk tuk driver pulls up along side me. He had seen the whole thing. High fives were exchanged.

Don't get murdered by dogs in Chiang Mai.

Maybe Don't get a tattoo in Thailand. All the tattoo shops I saw were above bars. It is like that.

By the way, we're now in Bangkok. You mean the place from that one song and that Hangover movie? Yeah, that place.

Don't complain about the weather, don't complain about the weather, don't complain about the weather!

Fuck it! In late March it was 40 degrees.

Maybe Don't go between February and Summer if you aren't a fan of the heat.

Do go to the palace and Wat Pho. And in the palace, Do check out the Queen's silk museum. For some reason, there were a few thousand people outside in the heat, and no on in the excellent air-conditioned museum. It is free, by the way.

Gourmet food. Bangkok has it. I gotta say, Don't go to the Blue Elephant. I was very underwhelmed with this world famous restaurant.

Very normal. The course menu is kind of a mess. They bring out too much at once, and all the flavors get mixed up into a Thai flavor cornucopia.

I'd read that the durian cheesecake was epic, but it wasn't.

If you do go, just order something simple a la carte. But Don't go in the first place.

Nahm, on the other hand. Do go to Nahm.

Chef David Thompson really brings it. Everything here was on another level.

Don't have $80 to spend on dinner?

Cabbages and Condoms was excellent, in both the cuisine and the atmosphere.

Still got some baht in your pocket? Looking for somewhere to spend it? How about . . .

. . . at the movies!

Movies in 4-D (4-D spoken in a booking dramatic voice to make it seem all kinds of epic). 4DX is some only-in-Asia-but-not-Japan thing. Sensory stimulation devices make the movie more real, I guess. The seats are full on Disneyland Star Tours. Plus there are massive wind turbines in the room (it feels like flying!). Plus there are tiny air jets that shoot at you (bullets in your face!). Plus lumbar support shaky things (getting kicked in the back by ninjas!). Plus smoke machines (fire!). Plus flashing lights (epileptic seizures!).

Do try it out, once at least.

Don't see G.I. Joe 2. It suuuuuucks. Actually, I think 4DX only shows one movie at a time, so expect it to be whatever Hollywood blockbuster the kids are into. Fast and the Furious 6, anyone?

Do check out the rooftop bar scene. There are a dozen or so that push past the 50th floor. You'll pay $20 for a drink, but the views are legit.

Cheers Bangkok! It's hot as fuck in March, and I will never come back this time of year, but it was a good time.

If you go to the Lebua Sky Bar, you can have the official Hangover 2 martini. The Hangovertini! How lame is that!

And lastly, Do fly Air Asia. Hella cheap. Bangkok to Tokyo was less than $250. The seats and service are kind of sparse, but just deal with it for a few hours.

Singapore . . . Let's Do and Let's Don't!

2013-04-09T02:29:00.000+09:00

What country is that? I don't know! Let's drink!

The Singapore Sling is perhaps one of the most famous cocktails of our times. I can just imagine wealthy British pseudo-explorers sitting at the Raffles Hotel, sipping the drink and devising new and innovative ways to exploit South East Asia.

I'll settle for a shitty airline version for now. The real thing awaits . . . in Singapore!

I spent a few nights in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur during March. I had a checklist. Now I have advice. Time for some Dos and Don'ts!

Do - Stay at the Marina Bay Sands hotel. Let's face it, 90% of people going to Singapore these days just want to take a facebook or instagram photo from that crazy infinity pool at the top of this new mega billion dollar hotel. Well, you can't, unless you stay there.

I didn't stay here.

But for about $20 (Singapore dollars are roughly American dollars . . . roughly) you can go up to the top and see the view. Be sure you book a spot on the "tour", as they will take you in to see the pool. When they take you in, they literally put a temporary fence around you so as you can't go in the water and disturb all the fat people who paid the price to stay. What? They were all overweight.

Do - Go to this spot, The Garden by the Bay.

I sound like a damn TED talk, but this is a very rad public space project. The domes cost money, but the rest is free to walk around. Tons of info for kids, but unless you are a botanist, you probably don't know anything about plants. So learn something!

The cloud forest dome is air conditioned. March is ass-hot. That's another Do.

Let's talk about food. Do go to the hawker stalls. Don't get screwed.

Sometime back in the 1960s, Singapore had a problem with unlicensed street food. Instead of shutting them all down, they designated certain parts of town as mega street food centers. I think there are about a dozen (maybe many more) of these spots in Singapore. Cheap street food!

The first one I went to was the Newton Hawker Center. Arrived at about 3pm. The only shop open was a Chinese looking place. $30 for some sweet and sour chicken and fried greens.

$20 for a beer.

Ok, so I didn't really do my research. Most hawker stalls are closed from about 2:30pm until the evening. The ones that stay open, for some reason, suck. And are overpriced. And have scummy dudes straight pimping the food. Further research indicated that Newton is not only considered by locals to have sub par food, but they have a checkered past. Some tourists got a bill of almost $500 a few years ago, without realizing it. Our semi-scammed meal, $50 for some shit Chinese and a beer, pales in comparison.

Don't go to Newton and Don't go between 2pm and 7pm.

Do drink along the river. It's like 3km of non-stop bars. Micro brews are about the same price as America or Japan. Some kick ass looking restaurants as well. Jumbo looked rad (though I didn't go).

More hawker stalls? Do go to the Zion Food Center.

This is what a hawker stall looks like for lunch. Tons of options, and every dish is like $3.

Booth #18. Mr. Ho is mega famous for this one dish. All he does, day in and day out, is fry noodles in lard and sauce. You can get small, medium, or large. It is called char kway teo, and the chef has been making it since he was 10 years old.

Awesome. Do.

Bring a checklist of local foods you want to try. This is a kind of fried carrot cake. The chef here, Mr. Goh, is partially deaf and lip-reads his customer's orders. How awesome is that!

Grub. Seriously, if you go to a good hawker stall area (I can only recommend Zion, as it is the only one I went to that didn't suck) you can get like 3 or 4 dishes, some fresh juice, a beer (don't get imported) and end up spending like $8 a person.

Some other food that can be enjoyed at hawker stalls are: bak kut teh, char siew rice, oyster omlet, laksa, nasi lemak, and fish head curry. Google it if ya don't know!

Ahhhh, The Long Bar. Inventor of the previously mentioned Singapore Sling. I've wanted to come here since I took a bar tending course back in 2001.

$26?!?!?!?! That is a lot for a drink. Plus 10% service charge?!?!?!

I was considering it, just to try it once in my life, when I noticed the plastic cocktail shakers outside the bar. Are you kidding me? You pride yourself on tradition and a nostalgic sense of cocktail history . . . and you have some Las Vegas style souvenir shakers? Made out of plastic?

I peaced out asap.

Don't go to The Long Bar at Raffles.

After helping with the Tokyo version of this article back in 2010, I've made it a point to try the recommended shops when I travel in Asia. The aforementioned noodle dude at the hawker stalls was one winner. Tom's Palette was another.

Do!

Hey! Kuala Lumpur!

First of all, we took the train from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. It is 6 hours, and we thought it would be a beautiful way to see the countryside. It isn't. I think the train company also owns a sizable crop of palm trees, because the ENTIRE train route is just a thick forest of palm trees. It is all you see. For 6 hours.

Not like, vast forests of palm trees. More like, palm tree in your face with no view.

Don't take the train.

KL, as people say, is a cool place. I only had 1 night, so I planned on a quick nap before hitting the Sky Bar to hang out and see the night views. Then I woke up the next morning. So . . . ummm . . . I don't have much to say about KL.

Oh, Do take the monorail from the main station into town. The view is nice and it costs like 30 cents.

Next stop! Amazing Thailand Amazes You!

March 2013

2013-04-03T13:24:00.000+09:00

３月２０１３年

March is pretty much a vacation month.

After some onsen, went to Singapore and Thailand.

Find the turtle!

Words coming soon.

What's the Story?

2013-03-12T20:09:00.001+09:00

Something like 10 years ago, ages before I even had an inkling of an idea that Japan would be a rad place to live and work, some friends and I had a kind of lame running gag about Japanese Engrish. My buddy Z was taking an art class or something, and when it was time for the students to title their works, a Japanese girl in the class chose the name "Peach Story". We found this hilarious, and started adding "story" to the end of things to make them sound dramatic. Yes, it was lame.

Little did I know this is kind of a regular thing here.

Here are a bunch of story things I found.

Can't travel without buying presents. A fitting end to any magical vacation is buying obligatory gifts.

A freaking magazine at the dentist's office. Story. He has biker mags as well, so I didn't check this one out.

Some kind of chocolate.

One of the few times it might not seem weird.

One of the best ramen shops in Tokyo has a 20-something panel comic illustrating how to eat. The character seriously goes on a roller coaster of emotions as she adds different things to the mazemen.

You should follow this story.

Happily ever after.

Booze is a theme.

As is chocolate.

Actually, 物語 is often translated as story, but you would be better off using tale. Story is easier to pronounce using the Japanese alphabet, though. The above is for a pachinko machine, fyi.

Don't worry, I won't be posting too many Engrish things on my site.

Mister Donuts, I'm out!

Sushi - Winter 2012

2013-03-03T21:24:00.000+09:00

Sure, you saw the documentary about that famous old sushi chef, and now you're planning a vacation around having the best sushi (according to a movie and some experts who were coaxed into appearing in said flick) in the world. You're down to drop $500 a person. I'm not there yet. Here are the spots I checked out in the first quarter of 2012.

紋寿司 - Monzushi in Hatagaya

This place came highly recommended as one of the best mid-range shops in Tokyo.

But I left a bit unsatisfied. Sure, the sushi was decent, if not a little on the smallish side, and the omakase set was only like 4000 yen or so. But the problem was that I felt ignored. Totally a local spot, hence the local recommendation from a local friend. So local that the chef knew everyone in the shop that night. Everyone except me.

One thing that I really like about an average local sushi joint is when the chefs interact with the customers. They talk fish, and they talk sake. The customers order fish, and the customers order sake. I would have been inclined to try quite a lot more if the chef had just noticed me with my empty glass. The only time we really spoke, was when I made a fuss about some guy ordering grilled eel guts. Yes, I want to eat eel guts.

I was told that you should order the omakase set, plus about a dozen other things. I would have done that if I felt more comfortable. Anyways:

It is a small place that gets busy at night, you might want to make a reservation. I paid about 9000 yen for two people with a bit of nice Japanese sake.

匠ダイニング - Sho Dining in Hatagaya

I just gotta post up about this random shop we found. Beers are 50 yen, and sushi is about the same price. 中トロ for 150 yen is kind of reeeeediculous.

You actually save 10 yen if you sign up for a VIP card. A one-time charge of like 500 yen and you are good for life. They weren't busy, so we convinced them to treat us like VIPs, sans the card. I think a bunch of cheap sushi and drinks came out to like 600 yen a person. VIPs I tell ya!

花まる - Hanamaru in Sapporo

This internet is all about Hanamaru as the best place to get sushi in Hokkaido. Hokkaido is mega-famous for a few choice ingredients; different kinds of crab, uni, salmon, and squid. One would assume that these things would be extra rad here.

But it was strictly basic.

Expect to wait about an hour for a seat at this lively chain. I sampled every kind of crab on the menu, and they were all pretty poor.

Speaking of poor, this place is cheap, so you might as well go regardless of any negative press.

青木 - Aoki in Ginza

Aoki is a great option for a beautiful sushi lunch. The Michelin guide gave them one-star, but you should be able to just roll in without a reservation on most days.

The second you sit down, you're given a wooden cup of the house sake. Bonus, you get to keep the cup.

*Edit* This was a New Year thing. Lucky me. Unlucky you.

The sushi is top notch. For 5000 yen at lunch, you'll get the shop's famous kohada, hamaguri, and chutoro. No otoro or uni at this price (there is an 8000 yen choice as well, also a 3000 yen course), but I was trying to stay around half a 万.

Actually, I made a new year resolution in 2012 to eat at all the Michelin star restaurants that can be done for less than 5000 yen. I went to a total of zero of those.

Anyways, this gets my vote as a top place for reasonable sushi in Tokyo.

かねさか - Kanesaka in Ginza

Here we go. This was the most expensive meal I have ever paid for. Kanesaka is lauded up there by many as one of the infamous 5; Jiro, Saito, Sawada, and Mizutani being the others.

This is rich person food, no doubt about it. So much so that it affects the atmosphere. On the Sunday night I was seated on the Kanesaka-san side, next to a middle-age dude who acted like a middle-level gangster, berating the 3 young ladies he was dining with and shouting shit while sipping champagne. Next to him were a couple American businessmen dressed in typical American businessman "casual" fashion; jeans and Eddie Bauer flannels. On the other side (the shop is basically a mirror image of 8-person counters) was a full group of English speakers who talked loudly about, at one point, titties.

I was later told by someone in the know that Kanesaka is famous among Ginza's ultra-expensive hostess clubs as the best dohan sushi in town. Dohan, by the way, is the system where customers take the girls on paid dates before their work shift. So, yeah, this is a glimpse into the hyper-retarded world of Ginza money.

I'm not, for the record, Ginza money. Which is why I was worried when no menu was given. I had read another blogger's account, and they were given three options; 2万, 3万, 5万. I really, really didn't want to be given a surprise bill of 10万 (about $1200) for two people.

The meal starts with wave after wave of sashimi and cooked fish.The katsuo, normally charred around the edges, was left completely raw to highlight the half-inch of winter fat. The buri is on the same level, decadent.

Ikura was followed by this . . .

Lightly stewed maguro cheek. Exotic.

Mr, Shinji Kanesaka himself. He is quite young to be considered the master that he is, and his style is a twist on traditional edomae techniques known simple as Kanesaka-style.

His English is passable for food conversation, so don't worry about being lost-in-translation here.

The nigiri course was fantastic, with all the usual suspects being presented in their highest form.

Ten pieces or so, all perfection.

The aji with negi was shockingly good.

As was the meal-ending anago and tamago-yaki. People often go a little nuts when describing the egg at a place like Kanesaka or Jiro. Yeah, it is all kinds of tasty, a velvety scramble that is more akin to cheesecake, but in the end, it's just an egg. The hundreds of recent Sukiyabashi Jiro foodie reviews always go nuts for the egg, always referring to it's cake-ness. You know what, though? You can buy cake at 7-11. Just sayin.

The bill was about 2万 a person. Phew! Then my credit card got declined and I had to borrow money from my friend. Embarrassment!

From now on, I think all mega-yen-busting sushi shops will become lunchtime-only. You get less of the skummy yakuza dudes, and the prices are usually about half.

すし天 - Sushi Ten

I almost don't want to post about this one, it was so good. Hands down the best sushi course I have had in my life. A 31-piece meal, wave after wave of anticipated alongside unexpected seafood. Perfectly timed, perfectly served. Here are some highlights.

Crystal-clear baby unagi. A first for sure.

Tuna marinated in negi shoyu, soy sauce that tasted more like a rich onion soup.

A veritable mountain-mound of crab meat.

Kinmeidai, touched with a torch.

Our chef for the evening. Not pictured - smoked scallops, monk fish liver, and a lot of nigiri.

The uni (two different varieties) get handed over the counter directly into your hand.

Kind of awesome.

Did you know that a tablespoon of wasabi can be neutralized by the fat in a massive piece of otoro? Well it can.

Bonus, the counter is heated underneath. Maybe this is normal at high-end shops with counter seating, but I never noticed it before.

So, yeah, this spot is a winner. Expect to pay . . . get ready for it . . . one man. That's like a hundred bucks.

Oh, and for and extra 5000 yen you can get 飲み放題. Word.

One more. Jesus, are you gonna post 4 long-ass sushi posts a year?

No, more like 6. Japan has 6 seasons, didn't you know? There is winter, followed by spring. Then comes rainy season. Rainy season precedes shit summer. Shit summer? That is where it is like 40 degrees and everything sucks. Then comes nice summer, which is about a week of joy. Followed by fall, which is about a week as well. Then back to 4 months winter. I blame global warming.

金太郎 - Kintaro

Kintaro is a group of sushi shops around Kanto (Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama). Very local vibe.

A lot of unusual things going on. This bowl of uni, ikura, ika, etc is piled on top of natto. Mix it all up and get busy.

Baked rolls with toro, mentaiko, and scallops. Tasty, but I think that combo would be better raw.

Never a complaint.

The master played a DVD for us that was a cross between Bum Fights and traditional Japanese culture. Asakusa's Sanja Matsuri is madness, apparently. Imagine dudes carrying portable shrines, things that are very old and very revered, and then taking these things into basically a mosh pit.

Great sushi here. I was treated, but I think it was about 6000 yen a person, and we drank a ton of beer and sake. The shop was 100% regular customers.

February 2013

2013-03-01T16:37:00.001+09:00

February 2013

Kudoki Jozu - The Pickup Artist

Homemade liquor.

Randomly had a job in Nagasaki on the same weekend as the annual Lantern Festival. The entire city is decked out. Amazing. I randomly had a job in Matsumoto last year and there happened to be a beer festival in front of my hotel. Obviously that is #1, but this is a close 2nd.

Rilakkuma loves Jesus!

I don't deserve to be rich, because I would buy things like this. $15,000 tortoise shell glasses.

How do I get there?

Ah, just take this fuckin' street.

Bam!

More food? Yeah. Kurobuta in Kagoshima.

March marks the end of the school year in Japan, and a beautiful sunset is a fitting image. Being freelance in Tokyo means many jobs, and it also means that those jobs are volatile. My High School will be cutting back next year, but I'm now, for the last year at least, a children's event performer. Singing and dancing sort of stuff. Yeah, this is the job that sends me all over the country on the weekends. If anyone who reads Japan Bash is living in a big city out there in 日本, hit me up, I may be coming around and want to eat and drink in your neck of the woods.

Haikyo! Gunkanjima

2013-02-20T00:22:00.002+09:00

軍艦島

Nice, I finally had a chance to check this place out. Gunkanjima is, to shorten a hundred years of history, an abandoned coal mine island made out of cement. That looks like a battleship. It is where they filmed all those scenes in 007 Skyfall where James Bond meets the villain guy. What? They didn't actually film here? Anyways, they made it seem like they did.

This was like the #1 haikyo spot back in the day. The island was closed off, mainly because the buildings were crumbling. Explorers would probably die if they somehow scaled the 10 meter concrete walls. At least that is what the officials of whatever city governs this place were thinking.

The people who did make it, they hired clandestine fishermen boats, slinking away before sunrise for a chance to photograph.

I took the tour boat.

A few years back they decided that they could probably make a shit-ton of cash by allowing tour boats to land here, weather permitting.

4000 yen and a few hours is all it takes these days. Granted the on-island tour is fairly boring, only hitting up a small stretch on the southern tip.

A lot of fishermen spend the day on the walls. Plan B, dress up like an old Japanese fisherman.

The residential high rises are strictly off-limits. Probably full of neat relics.

1000 meters down, give or take, to get coal. The history of the island is fairly interesting. On the paid tour you get a healthy dose of it, albeit all in Japanese. The above is the worker's bath. Coming out completely black from the mine, they would wash in hot seawater, then get undressed and wash again in seawater. Finally some freshwater, which had to be hauled in by the boatload from the mainland.

It would have been rad to do that for a week, all wwoof style.

During the war, a lot of Chinese and Koreans got to do just that. Lucky!

There is a good account of someone who did the illegal trip here.

Recommended if you have a few hours in Nagasaki. The first boat runs from about 10:30am until 1:00pm or so. Reservations can be made, though they will just let you stand on the deck if they are full.

Himeji Castle - Error 404

2013-02-07T20:26:00.000+09:00

姫路城

Whoah, a castle-sized tarp! Around a castle!

Yeah, this is the mega-famous Himeji Castle. Probably the most famous castle in all of Japan. While most castles in Japan are reconstructed shells of their former magnificence, Himeji survived both the Meiji-era mass destruction of castles and the frequent American bombing raids during World War 2.

But it hasn't survived, well, dirt. So here it is being repaired and painstakingly cleaned until around 2015.

But you can go inside (for an extra fee of 200 yen!) and take an elevator to the top. Sweet!

And you can learn all about the re-plastering process. Sweet!

If you can't find the castle, just go past the Lamp and Laser store. Sweet!

January 2013

2013-01-30T15:20:00.002+09:00

一月二千十三年

If the ramen shop at the rest area up here were a bit better, I'd come more often.

The SOUSE house!

I swear, every photo in this album was either mean-mugging or some kind of crazy hair. A Saitama university, as expected.

Broke into the piggy bank. My daily collection of 500, 100, and 50 yen coins. How much you think?

Raw horse mane goes well with motsunabe (pig gut stew).

Winning poster of the month.

Himeji Castle is under a tarp until 2015. A castle-sized tarp.

If you get bored waiting, there is plenty of literature about the plastering technology being utilized for the restoration.

Lame art exhibit. A bunch of old vinyl players, sans the vinyl. Some sort of expression of unintended sound. I can't believe I paid to see this. The permanent exhibit at the MOT is always decent though.

Dinner?

Building a New Computer in Japan

2013-01-22T13:09:00.002+09:00

It's been about 8 years since I built my own computer. One of the main reasons I studied Computer Science and became a massive nerd during my formative years was because of a knack for this stuff. The first computer I put together from parts was a x386 something-or-other back in 1993.

It used to be a lot harder, let me tell ya. Jumpers and what not. DOS prompts. Anyways, my laptop, an Alienware gaming thing, was starting to show its age, so I headed down to Akihabara.

A lot of people come to Japan thinking they are going to find amazing deals on electronics. For some countries with massive sales and import taxes, this can be the case. But with North America at least, you can probably get everything that plugs into a wall and makes beeping noises for the same price, depending on the exchange rate.

Actually, even in Japan, you can probably just buy all your parts on Amazon.

But walking around this place, anime music blaring, girls in their 20s trying to make a buck by donning their high school uniforms and working at cafes, overwhelming neon lights, there's something nice about that.

Six years ago, before some guy went knife-crazy and they shut down street performers, this place was super fun. Maybe not super fun, but more like neat-o fun. The weekends were a veritable extravaganza, with mini live performances every five meters.

Now it's just a place to buy stuff. Let's consume!

The only real deals are when you buy a few things at once.

By the way, I chose the components for this based on Tom's Hardware's Quarterly System Builder Marathon, with a much less powerful video card (I don't play a lot of games). I also went a little beefier on the storage and memory. And I didn't get the Fatal1ty branded motherboard. I met that guy once at E3 years ago and he seemed like a dick.

I saved 6000 yen by buying the motherboard, processor, and memory all at the same time.

Bought the drives on the net.

Windows 8 is rad! It is the perfect balance. Just enough new features to excite Windows mega-fans (fanboys). Just enough weirdness to give the Apple people (fanboys) something to complain about. And it is slick enough so that normal people can use it to get on facebook and watch cat videos.

Anyways, I added up how much I paid, and compared it to the price in dollars on newegg (a popular computer retailer in the states). About the same. I used to be in touch with the crazy deals back in the states, and most of my friends were into this stuff, so you could often get scraps from other people and free-after-rebate bits and bobs to drastically bring down the price of a home-built system. But those days are over. Everyone in Japan uses Macs!

By the way, my 3DMark11 score is:

SCOREP4907 with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti(1x) and Intel Core i5-3570K Processor

Not sure if this is good or not.

I could probably adjust the core speeds in the bios a bit and . . . whoah! Too nerdy!

I'm out!

Drinking Parties are a Cultural Thing in Japan

2013-01-11T20:31:00.000+09:00

Japan is big on cultural-social events that revolve around drinking. No complaints here! The 忘年会 and 新年会 thing is entertaining to say the least. Get wasted before the end of the year, and then do it again to celebrate the new year. Technically, bonenkai means to forget the year, so I guess you can't be blamed for wanting another massive drinking party a week after the last, what with all the forgetting.

If you have random jobs and friends, you will have random parties.

A typical one looks like this:

An atypical one looks like this:

Super-rad and super-lame at the same time!

My boy who organizes this Santcon had it in Kanda of all places. Who hangs out in Kanda? Besides a few hundred Santas? A bunch of old dudes who look like they just lost money at the track. Seriously, the east side is depressing at night.

I wore my red G-Star sweatsuit and a ski mask, which most people thought was whack, but a few people were down with.

Some ramen bonenkai went here.

It was some of the worst food I have ever had in Japan. At least the drinks were watered down so I didn't get too drunk.

Mega-random:

I hit up my boy's glass-blowing studio for their year end party. Hunh?

Glass blower fun and games?

You bet. Apparently you can make popcorn.

Blow a giant bowl of molten glass.

And dump in the kernels!

Later, he said he's tried it a few times to no avail.

The videos on Youtube make it look easy.

No drinking, but we always have a meetup of the fine folks from the English biker groups.

Nice weather.

Homeboy crashed his KTM, but he is always talking shit about how I don't do wheelies, and he laughed off the crash, so I guess I don't feel so bad. See it live here:

http://youtu.be/JDrbvNC8sZA

That isn't me, it was another guy, by the way.

Insane ramen party. See you next year.

December 2012

2013-01-07T01:03:00.000+09:00

Happy holidays, even though those days are long gone by now. I spent the holidays in Japan, I won't lie, with a 10-day return-to-Warcraft free offer. About seven years ago I was severely obsessed with that video game. Over about a year I logged 66 days of playtime. That's over 1500 hours in front of my computer clicking on my night elf. Moving to Japan with a turn of the millennium laptop essentially forced me to go cold turkey. I thought I had kicked the habit, and a short return could be something casual, maybe an hour or two in my free time. But said free time was in abundance this holiday season, and soon the sun would be rising while I would be doing basically the same thing I did in my previous life.

What I'm getting at is just say no to MMORPGs kids.

Most train stations in the countryside, in places known for hot springs, will have free foot baths just outside.

As well as local confectionery. Dried persimmon stuffed with chestnut cream. Pair this with a crisp sake.

Just another day at the office!

Cheapest sushi ever was found in Hatagaya! Also, the beer was 50 yen. Also, the first drink was free. Also, chu-toro for 150 yen.

Also, not so bad!

The new job takes me far and wide on the weekends. I'm trying my best to get deep into the local food and drink scene. In Tsuruoka, up in Yamagata Prefecture, on a search for the famed hata hata fish, we found this small izakaya. The owner, seen here, was previously, until September, a professional duck and pheasant hunter. And hata hata.

The old guy sitting on the adjacent stool (nothing but counter seats during the year-end drinking season) invited me to his local whisky bar. Wild.

Santacon Tokyo 2012.

Grilled eel guts.

From Zero to Beer-o: Home Brewing in Japan #1

2013-01-03T17:27:00.002+09:00

A good craft beer, at one of Tokyo's now many craft-beer pubs, will set you back about $15. This is the norm.

A bottle of imported craft beer is something like $6 or $7 at a store. This is also the norm.

It is kind of ridiculous. I can't be sure, but good beer is a little more accessible everywhere else in the world, no?

So I decided to start making my own.

There is a rad home-brew supplier right here in Tokyo. advanced-brewing.com/ has it all.

Kits, ingredients, and free shipping if you spend the equivalent of one night out at The Tap Room or Popeyes or Goodbeer Faucets.

Boom, science experiment up in the lab (aka the kitchen). I had hella questions with this first batch, and when I called the number, it was just some rad old dude who guided me through it all.

Ya'll want some 新宿地ビール?

Hells yes. Big thanks to the fine folks at Got Faded Japan who introduced this on their podcast.

So how is my first brew? Respectable. There is a slight tingly taste going on, not sure how to describe it. It's a Nut Brown Ale, and I dig the dark color. Kanpai!

November 2012

2012-12-02T23:01:00.000+09:00

November 2012

Raw pig uterus and raw pig brain, along with other bits at an upscale spot in Shinjuku. What do pig brains taste like? Have you had 白子? Kind of like that. 白子 are cod semen sacks, by the way.

This month's road trips included an overnighter in Shizuoka. Not somewhere you would find in a guidebook's best-of list, but kind of a rad surprise. They are famous for oden, and steamy rows of the shops can be found all over. Complete with old ladies serving you the stuff.

We were walking and randomly found this, a tea-only gelato shop. 14 types of Japanese tea ice cream should be something we see more of.

Cheers!

Yeah, I got the bike. Lake Saiko is the best spot for bike-with-Fuji photos, I gotta say.

The Hakone Skyline ain't bad either.

Forgot the name, but this Hokkaido restaurant on the 50th floor of one of the buildings in Shinjuku was so bad that I am now boycotting all restaurants on any 50th floor of any building, just to make sure I never go again.

Also had a road trip to Tottori.

Rock on.

Ramen School in Japan

2012-11-22T01:48:00.002+09:00

Ramen!!!!

It's no secret I love writing about ramen. Ramen Adventures has had an amazing reception over the last 4 years. One of the more frequent mails I receive are from hungry travelers who want to do more than just eat; they want to learn. There are lots of one-day food classes around. Sushi has one.

And now ramen has one.

This is the unassuming school / shop.

This is real ramen, and the ingredients are legit. Pig head anyone?

This school is normally a multi-week long school for Japanese dudes who want to not only make ramen, but make a career of it. I met with the teacher and we thought that setting up a one-day course aimed at foreigners would be a fun idea.

Soup, toppings, and . . .

Noodles! This bowl is 100% from scratch.

Kanpai!

Rad!

After slaving away all day, we serve the extra to random college students who are walking by!

If you or anyone you know would be interested in this one-day class, please check out the page I made over at Ramen Adventures! The day includes an interpreter. And you get an official certificate after. Bonus!

宜しくね

Haikyo! Abandoned Obstacle Course in Hyogo

2012-11-07T17:37:00.000+09:00

I found this 廃墟 something like three years ago when I was out on the edges of Hyogo prefecture for work. Hyogo is best known for being the place with Kobe, but this ain't Kobe! This is Miki, and the wikipedia page is pretty boring. One of the top five links from a Google search on the place relates the depressing efforts of some English teachers in the area trying to meet for a drink.

But there is a nice super-resort out there. What is a super-resort? It's a long, long driveway followed by a massive hotel with hiking, biking, a water park, put-put golf, and more. Randomly in the middle of nowhere. If that is your idea of a good time, you are not alone! This place was packed. With the aforementioned attractions, who wouldn't bring the family out for a good time?

But what if you develop one of these super-resorts, and you build a dozen or so rad attractions, and the public find one of those attractions not so rad?

Haikyo, that's what!

You wouldn't even know, the entrance to this adult-sized obstacle course is totally overgrown.

But it's up there.

Here is the easiest way in. Up a hill, along a service road. Just hop the fence!

Even the "do not enter" sign is outdated. You gotta pay to play!

I was hoping for some unseen extension, but this was it. The massive ring of ropes and tires and metal tubes was probably deemed unsafe to the kids that were climbing it.

Still sturdy. Sturdy-ish.

Up on this hill, you can here the children playing in the massive water park below. Kind of a strange vibe for haikyo.

But haikyo none-the-less. Then I almost stepped on this:

I very recently deceased mole. Ok, that's kind of freaky.

October 2012

2012-10-31T18:55:00.000+09:00

October 2012

The Garmin GPS got an updated map. The fuck? Somehow I made it home though this mess.

Oh, and I found out that the new bike's reserve fuel tank is good for exactly 45.8 kilometers.

Two TV appearances this month. One was on NHK World in relation to the Ramen Ambassador project. The other was for TBS, a regular channel in Japan. Yeah, I eat enough ramen to be on TV for it. I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

The "talent" who we ate ramen with.

A lot of trips this month for work. First time on the Hayabusa bullet train.

In Morioka, you gotta eat some wankosoba. Pretty much an all-you-can-eat soba noodle fest served one bite at a time.

I ate 95. Average for dudes is 50. Win and lose at the same time!

By the way, if you choose a local train over the mega expensive bullet train, don't miss your departure time.

Next stop, Hokkaido! Nothing like a local beer and smoked egg on the train. Livin' life, son!

These trips are a little mottainai, though. Mottainai is a cool Japanese word that is used universally when something doesn't live up to the potential awesomeness that it could. A broad word in all senses, I've heard it used to describe someone murdered a few weeks after graduating from a prestigious university (what a waste, he really coulda been someone), and I've heard it used to describe a left-over grain of rice at Yoshinoya (what a waste, some old man totally slaved to get that rice to your table).

For me, these weekend work trips are a bit mottainai. I flew into Asahikawa Saturday morning, worked for a few hours, took a train to Sapporo, and checked into the hotel. By then it was about 9pm. The next day, Sunday, more work and a quick flight back to Tokyo. So really only a few hour of free time in far-off Hokkaido. Oh, and I can't really drink or party much Saturday night, because I need to be on point Sunday morning. If you've read Japan Bash for a while, you know that I like slow-paced, explore-everywhere type of adventures.

Found this though, so I guess it isn't as mottainai as I though.

You're welcome!

I used this . . .

. . . to make this! I am producing an English language ramen school in Osaka. Stay tuned to Ramen Adventures for more info! The basic plan is that you spend an intense day making everything that goes into a bowl of ramen, in an actual ramen shop. Gonna be fresh!

Touring (2x) to Fukushima

2012-10-13T13:35:00.000+09:00

I did a couple motorcycle tours up to the Fukushima area; one a while back and one more recent. The Bandai-san area is maybe the best place for spirited motorcycle riding in Japan these days. Why the best? After the disasters of 3/11, they opened up all of the skyline toll roads with one major change; no fee. In the past, to spend a day looping around the scenic mountains and lakes would have cost about $50. Worth it, though. Free is more worth it.

For Motorsport enthusiasts, the local Ebisu Circuit provides a lot of events, mostly geared at drift racing. Unfortunately, the dudes I know who are into that are all military, and they do their stuff on American Monday holidays. Since I work in the Japanese system, I haven't had the chance. Whateva.

This will be the last appearance of the KTM 690smc. Now that she's not part of my life, I can talk some shit! Turns out this wasn't really a good bike for my style. The 690smc is a rich guy's second bike, no question about it. Super fun around town, and great on twisty mountain roads, but horrendous on the long haul. Driving from Tokyo to Fukushima, a mere few hundred km, was butt-cheek torture. Add to that the lack of luggage options, other than some very pricey custom racks, and this bike turns into the most expensive impulse buy of my life. Good thing it was stolen!

Ideally I would have a three-car garage with half a dozen KTMs in it. Naw, I am a one ride guy.

Anyways, we geared up with the latest in protective riding clothes and hit the countryside roads!

Hey local ladies, whatcha selling?

Pickles! I forgot what these were exactly. Some sort of root vegetable imported from South America that grows well in the arid (ish) mountains of the area.

Always hit up the onsens. Luckily, we had some Japanese people in our group who wanted to go. Not to talk shit, but the majority of the dudes I ride with are borderline homophobic, and getting naked in a hot spring with other dudes is totally too gay for them. That's a quote.

Burgers on the other hand . . . manly meat for manly men!

Let's talk about charity for a sec.

This is the Dog Run Cafe. The trauma on lives in Northern Japan after the triple disaster of 3/11 takes on countless forms. One of those is with animals. Many, cats and dogs especially, became instantly homeless. Of those (fortunate?) pets that weren't tied up or confined inside, many took to roaming the streets. The stories of vagabond bands of dogs, pigs, and even monkeys searching for what little food remained are common.

A large area, some 20km in radius, is a restricted, no-enter radiation zone. Luckily, there are groups like the Japan Cat Network and people like Susan, the owner of this sanctuary for lost animals. After securing red-tape bound permission to enter on a regular basis, they bring food and try to capture some of the strays.

We stop by everytime we are in the area with donations and our legs. Yes, this is a one-woman operation here, and the dogs sometimes just want to go for a walk.

Check out their donation page if you can, it is a very worthy cause. There are a lot of truly horrible stories about animals in Fukushima, and this is one organization that is really making a difference.

And this old lady has some bomb-ass juice!

Kanpai! This is how motorcycle riders do it . . . with grape juice.

Thus ended my one tour on the KTM 690smc. The ride home was painful, but a wise man once said that there is no progress without struggle. I guess that applies to the condition of my ass.

Hold, on, another KTM? Yeah, so fast forward a few months. I made a visit to the bike shop to say hi, and they had just got bought back a 2010 KTM 990 SM-T. My dream bike. Super Moto styling, a larger tank and luggage for touring, and plenty of orange. These things are very expensive in Japan. Twenty large is about right for a new one. A little out of my budget.

They told me to borrow it for a week.

I can do that.

I had actually planned on my annual attempt at hiking the Northern Alps, but with zero of my friends accepting my facebook hiking event invite, I cancelled and went riding instead.

Essentially I drove north on the expressway to Gunma, then over Mt. Akagi and up to Nikko. From Nikko, up to the Oze area. From there, a straight shot to the Bandai area. Great ride.

The gaudiest roadside soba shop I've ever seen. Yes, that's a foot onsen.

After a day of Gunma's east side, I rolled into this lakeside onsen town to camp. This is my new favorite camp spot for motorcycle touring.

The camp field was free, I think. Anyways, I didn't pay, and I couldn't find a place to pay, so I don't feel bad.

Seriously, this spot was tranquil. If you have the cash, there are some attractive looking hotels in the area.

On the way to Oze, I really, really wanted to eat here. A middle-of-nowhere joint serving only whatever the owner has hunted. Deer, bear, boar, all on the menu. They were closed that day though. Bummer.

I'll settle for this. Gnochi-like dumplings in a local mushroom soup. Fantastic. And the view:

Heading on the only road west, I ran into this guy:

What a dick! Dude scowled at me and wouldn't say one word. Yeah, I understand that the road is closed for some reason, but you are just standing out here in the middle of nowhere by yourself and you can't give me the courtesy of human speech? It's not like I was trying to sneak my way past. Anyways, congrats on being a jerk.

I turned around and found an overpriced campground for the night. I almost never pay for camping, and have no problem sleeping in a park or field. I don't leave a trace, so the world isn't affected, even if it is against some kind of unwritten law about free camping in Japan. I thought that this camp had an onsen attached, but it didn't. $20 for a one night use of their empty lot.

Because of the turn-around, I had to search for a late dinner. Plan ahead, all the soba shops in the area close at about 5pm. Seriously slim pickings. This was, of course, the middle of nowhere, and the only indication of possible food was a light in the distance, across a small bridge and down a smaller alley. Turned out to be one of the best 洋食 spots I've been too. The town is 檜枝岐, the restaurant あしたの天気 - Tomorrow's Weather. The shop has a massive herb garden, and everything is full of fresh vegetables and herbs. And they are open late.

I wonder if I could have camped in the herb garden?

Next stop, Kitakata. I wrote about this ramen mecca here.

No sake for riders, but I took a bottle home and drank it with a friend. Excellent stuff, it is no surprise that Kitakata nihonshu is some of the best in the country.

Ice cream time!

Ice cream made using salt from a local mountain hot spring.

Free camping for the night. The KTM 990 SM-T has a GPS unit, and in Japan it is common to just enter a phone number to get to your destination. An hour later and I was at . . . the phone company's main switching station! An hour later and I was at the right spot.

Keep a paper map in your bag.

Then I hopped on the expressway home. The 990 SM-T is capable of cradling my posterior ever so gently, and the ride back was no problem. Also, the cruising speed is more than 120kph, which the 690 had trouble at.

Should I destroy my savings and pick up this sweet machine?

Wedding Winner!

2012-10-06T12:21:00.000+09:00

Weddings in Japan. I don't know if my friends read this site, so I won't say anything bad. But how do you rate a wedding? With the take-home gift bag of course! If you are ever out in Shibuya or Roppongi and see a group of people dressed to the nines, with matching fancy shopping bags, you can go 99% that they came from a wedding. Living in Tokyo, seeing this sight, I came to imagine that the guests get hooked up with the funnest goodie bags ever.

The first wedding I went to in this country, they gave each of their guests two teabags. Please don't give your guests two teabags. Yeah, I'm petty, but I think most people secretly want to get hooked up with a bunch of presents.

A and Y's wedding wins, if this was any sort of contest. Cake, candy, snacks, a choose-your-own-adventure prize catalog, and some fancy soap. Oh, and a new iPad.

Actually, I won a quiz contest for the iPad. Things are looking up for this guy!

Also, is it ok if I sell an iPad that I won at a friend's wedding? I played with it for a couple days, and realized that it doesn't enhance my life that much. It is fun to make the shiny things move around with my fingers, but after I checked the price of one of these, I would much rather put it towards my next motorcycle.

Or are there some apps that I am missing out on? I travel a lot for work, and don't carry a computer, so I guess I could use this to check internet stuff. Also, as someone who works part-time in the photography world, these tablets can be useful. But usually creative people who have an iPad seem to be just showing off when they whip it out, and I don't want to be that guy. Conflicted.

Back to the wedding.

Wow! Real gold foil on my savory egg custard. Tasteless, odorless gold.

I think he is talking about Per Se in that bit.

Thanks guys!

September 2012

2012-09-30T12:34:00.000+09:00

A lot of food and a lot of drinks. In Japan, autumn is celebrated as a time to eat. It's also the one month that it is nice outside. Above is a $40 bowl of noodles. Rad!

Meet the newest member of team Japan Bash.

Jake the Snake.

Kusaya is basically rotten fish. The smell is horrific, but it is quite tasty.

Gold plated ramen bowl. $200.

Every year I have my high school students write about their most depressing summer experience. Trust me, it's an interesting lesson.

Her flower died.

The correct grammar is "You got a broke face".

I've been there!

Expensive Camera Equipment

2012-09-28T12:17:00.000+09:00

Photo taken using a couple grand worth of lighting equipment:

Photo taken without:

Or was it the other way around?

I was gonna buy a Nikon D800 with a couple sick lenses, but then my motorcycle got stolen and I am now in savings mode.

July and August 2012

2012-08-31T18:36:00.000+09:00

I work pretty much non-stop for July and August. Not just busy like most people say they are. No, I mean I go away and live at hotels in the countryside and help run children's camps. So I am basically sequestered for the blazing hot summer, away from Tokyo. I wouldn't trade this job for anything!

Not good booze.

Oh, snap! You can see Fuji from my roof if you stand on your tippy toes!

Kind of.

Monkey wants to kill.

Mienmien, zyiezyie, tsukutsuku-hoshi, kanakana. These are the sounds of a cicada. Ask a Japanese person to explain, it makes perfect sense to them.

Last train, Kobe style.

You should go here. I forgot where it is. Somewhere in Shikoku.

Really good om-rice.

Dance.

Dance.

Dance.

Drink.

All you can eat scallops for about $3. For 30 minutes. That's how we roll.

Motorcycle Stolen

2012-08-15T06:19:00.002+09:00

Yeah, I've been silent on the blog for a bit. Downright ghost town status. I think I got in a blogging funk last year when my apartment in Japan was robbed. All that nonsense is here:

http://www.japanbash.com/2011/06/day-1-apartment-robbed.html

Anyways, it's time to use Japan Bash as another notice of the theft of yours truly's property. Rad!

I just got back from two weeks of children's summer camps out in West Japan. I have about five posts worth of interesting things to talk about, including more haikyo, crazy dance festivals in Shikoku, and ramen schools. But that will have to wait. The first thing I noticed upon arriving home wasn't the mailbox overflowing with bills, but that my new motorcycle was rather invisible.

I knocked on my landlord's door, and immediately contacted the cops. Asked around the apartment and the last confirmed sighting was August 9th at 10pm. I filed the report on August 14th at 8pm.

If you are in Japan, keep an eye out for this rather uncommon bike. The bright orange is hard to miss!

I made a post on my favorite Japanese English language motorcycle forum here, please take a minute to read it if you live in the greater Tokyo area:

http://www.japanriders.com/showthread.php/852-STOLEN-BIKE-NOTICE-KTM-690smc

Wish me luck!