asazuke

Life in Japan, food, music, whatever…

Revisited 8 August, 2009

Filed under: food & drink — johnraff @ 3:07 pm
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“Hey, this place hasn’t changed a bit!” …and it was true – a typical Japanese izakaya with a counter, a couple of small tables and some tatami space at the back. The interior is mainly brownish wood, a bit like an Amsterdam “brown cafe”, with the odd beer poster covering some of the sprayed-on wall stuff, a TV in one corner, a “maneki neko” in another to welcome in customers, and a blackboard with a selection of food to order with your beer.

Typical, that is, of izakaya about thirty years ago, when I used to frequent this place along with other members of Daihachi Ryodan, which I’d just joined. Right in front of a college it was always packed out, but since the students moved out of town things have quietened down a bit, which might be just as well since the owners are now 78 and 80-something, although still amazingly lively. Even more amazingly, the menu on the wall looked just the same as I remembered it, including the prices! (Of course Japan’s just been through a long periiod of deflation, but even so…) Great food too. Fresh broad beans, squid tempura, beef salad… simple but tasty.

I think izakaya like that are a major Japanese contribution to civilisation and at that time there was one on every street corner, but now you really have to search around, especially for a “Mum and Dad” type, privately-owned place. 80% of the eating-out market in Japan is now taken by 10 companies, who are offering something a notch above junk food. Nearly everything is cooked in factories and carried out to the shops in trucks to be microwaved or put in the fryer. They’ve got the technology down so that it doesn’t taste all that terrible, but it’s the same everywhere and the staff are all working to some Manual so there’s no human contact at all. The remaining 20% is shared out between places like Raffles and, what seems to be the current trend, sort of “neo Japanesque” restaurants with modern decor and “international” cuisine.

Another few years and you’ll have to go to the nearby “Showa Village” theme park to find places like our rediscovery, so in the meantime I’d better make a point of getting over there more often!

 

Farmlog 3rd August 2009 4 August, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:46 pm
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Last week we couldn’t even get up to the farm because torrential rain had caused a landslip and blocked the road. Sunday started out the same way; the rain followed us most of the way, rivers were swollen and brown with mud, but we got through OK.

Chinese Trumpet Vine or "nozenkazura".

Chinese Trumpet Vine or "nozenkazura", typical summer flower in full bloom in front of the house.

  • Hey! No leech encounters this time! (relief)
  • Monday turned out to be the first day of Summer – hot and sweltering. The weather bureau got tired of answering “when will the Rainy Season end?” and officially announced it was over, although we’re due more rain on Wednesday and Thursday…
  • Sinister footprints inside the Green Zone netted off and supposedly deer-free where the chillies are trying to grow. Hmm, no damage to the plants yet, so I closed off any gaps I could see in the net, but I’m not sure how they got in, if they were deer footprints. Fingers crossed…
  • Min temp unknown (I forgot to check) max 25°C
 

Where’s our Summer? 27 July, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnraff @ 8:26 pm
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Hey, come on, the Rainy Season should have ended around the 20th, and by rights we’d now be basking in day after day of blistering sunshine, with temperatures peaking in the high 30’s (°C). Hmm… well there’s been another outbreak of devastating floods in Kyushu, with people killed, houses destroyed and over 20,000 taking refuge in school halls. Meanwhile, yesterday we gave up trying to drive out to the farm as the road had been washed away in one place, and here in Nagoya it’s been rain every day, as the humidity goes up and up.

According to the weather forecast we’re in for another straight week of cloud and rain, and no particular guarantee of Summer starting even after that! There’s an “El Nino” phenomenon going on apparently, so the usual Pacific high pressure area is not doing it’s stuff.

(-sigh-)

 

Farmlog 20th July 2009 23 July, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:33 pm
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Not much to report this week- more of the same really, ie:

  • More sliminess, damp, wet (had to put newspaper on the porch floor to soak some of it up), humidity, lush vegetation… and more leeches! We seem to be getting a plague of them. I found one under my T-shirt just before it had got its teeth (or whatever leeches have) into me, and T found another one in the bathroom. Ugh!
  • Another, biggish, snake in the drain ditch by the road. It’s getting so it’s hard to go outside without feeling nervous about what might be about to go for you. I’ll be quite happy when this Rainy Season is finally over.
  • Usually when we head back to Nagoya on Monday evening to I hate to leave, but this week it was like escaping from a hostile jungle…
  • Minimum temp. 20°C, max. 26°C.
 

Farmlog 13th July 2009 18 July, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:44 pm
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  • Gets hotter and stickier all the time. This week the theme was damp. Sticky, squelchy, slippery, slimy, squishy… You get the idea. Water somehow naturally appears on surfaces, just out of the air. Mould everywhere – anyway, as long as it’s not actually raining you can see why we prefer to have dinner outside.
  • The Snake Incident!
  • The uguisu was singing away all weekend.
  • Minimum temp. 20°C, mavimum 26°C.
 

Snakes! 17 July, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:44 pm
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Snakes making love?

Snakes making love?

There are quite a lot of snakes in Japan; mostly they keep to themselves, to our mutual relief, and only a couple are poisonous: the deadly Habu in Okinawa, and here in mainland Japan we’ve got the Mamushi, a kind of adder, which is only dangerous if you don’t go straight to a hospital after being bitten, and the Yamakakashi which was thought non-poisonous but turns out to have venom in its back teeth… The only time you might run into one is in the Spring, when they’re warming themselves in some sunny spot and still too drowsy from hibernation to get away.

A few weeks ago I lifted up the shutter of our garage in Nagoya to see a big snake was sitting on that ledge at the bottom, so had been raised right to eye level… I think (hope) it was a harmless Aodaisho. Then last week out in the country there were the two snakes in the photo coiled up in front of our back door. One larger one with dark patches, and a smaller smooth brown one. I’m presuming the larger one was a female. but they might just have been two different species. It looked as if they were having Snake Sex, with lots of writhing, biting and coiling – very passionate. When they noticed we were looking the female grabbed the male by the head, dragged him to a slightly more secluded spot and ate him. Just swallowed him whole, from the head. I was so surprised that by the time I thought of going back to get the camera again there was just an inch or so of tail sticking out of her mouth. She then raised her head, gave us a defiant look and slid off into the bushes to sleep for a few days I suppose.

Pretty kinky eh?

 

End of the road? 12 July, 2009

Filed under: politics — johnraff @ 1:28 am
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The “Jiminto” (LDP) ie the party that has ruled Japan pretty much since the war, barring a brief break with Hosokawa’s cabinet, may be looking with horror at the end of their monopoly on power. Under the pathetic Aso, whose grinning face was seen among the high and mighty at the G8 summit, their support in opinion polls just drags along at a low 20something%, and a general election must be called soon, as the current Diet’s mandate expires in September.

After losing the Shizuoka governor’s position to the opposition Minshuto (DPJ) last weekend, the LDP look set to lose their majority in the Tokyo council in the election tomorrow. The Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a raving right-wing nationalist, richly deserves a slap in the face with a wet fish anyway, so although his seat is not at stake at this time he should find it harder to throw his weight around from next week on. 24 hours will tell, and I’ve got my fingers crossed…

The LDP are starting to look desperate, and if they get the drubbing tomorrow that they seem in for then the voices to drop Aso and replace him with someone slightly more electorally appetising will rise even higher than they already are. Overtures to the popular former comedian Higashi Kokubaru, governor of Miyazaki, to be an LDP candidate in the upcoming general election got the resposnse “OK if i can stand for prime minister”… which didn’t go down too well in certain LDP circles, and the more sensible, young and also popular Hashimoto of Osaka is wisely keeping them at more of an arm’s length.

Should be an interesting month or two, anyway.

 

Farmlog 6th July 2009 8 July, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:28 pm
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  • Hmm the weather forecast was off – it was supposed to rain on Sunday, but was nice and clear most of the day, and we could have dinner outside again. The crickets started up a little chorus around sundown, but nothing compared with what we should be getting in a couple of weeks when the cicadas join in. Saw a couple of fireflies, but it looks as if we missed the peak two weeks ago when we didn’t come up.
  • More leeches! T. got bitten (if that’s the word) on her ankle; it didn’t stop bleeding for a couple of hours and was still itchy a three of days later. They seem to have increased in recent years, maybe due to the rising wild animal population and this is really the peak season for them.
  • A few more hours of weedcutting, but there’s lots more to do. I’d like actually to be able to see the little stream that runs just past our house for example.
  • A big moon, but not quite full
  • Minimum temp 19°C, Maximum 26°C.
 

Farmlog 29th June 2009 5 July, 2009

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 1:45 am
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There was no farm report last week because I stayed in town – the band had a gig on Sunday afternoon. T. went up with a couple of friends and picked plums (ume actually) and tea.

  • This time we got to the house, opened the front door and were greeted by a blast of mould smell. Yes the Rainy Season has set in and mould has exuberantly infested the tatami matting, wooden beams and just about any surface available. At this time of year you can’t leave a bottle of soy sauce in the kitchen without coming back the next week to find it covered in mould. Ugh. It can get bad enough to give me headaches; anyway house dust and, yes, mould, can trigger an allergy which brings on sneezing and endlessly running nose, though generally the humidity helps me, compared with the dry Autumn. This time of year the moisture rises up from the ground too – or is it the moist air hitting the cool ground surface – but anyway on a bad day the kitchen and entrance floors can be wet. No wonder we prefer to have dinner outside under the stars ( or clouds ) if it’s not raining.
  • Came into the house that evening and saw a brown blob on my big toe. got a tissue to wipe it off and found it was a leech. Hmm, maybe you didn’t know Japan had leeches too. Add that to the list of nasties.
  • Still, there are compensations – late June/early July is when the fireflies come out. The season is very short, just a week or so, and the conditions have to be right: a cloudy, warm, humid evening with little wind and no rain from about 8:00 to 9:00 pm. We saw just one or two, so maybe we were a week late, or, hopefully, a week early so we can look forward to more this weekend. We’ll see, but if you’re lucky enough to hit the right time and see a whole load of them, it’s absolutely magic. A couple of years ago a friend told us about a good place just up the road, and, sure enough, there was a rice field by a stream where hundreds of fireflies filled the sky with a molten milky way of stars, accompanied by an orchestra of frogs. One of those unforgettable moments…
  • A spider has made its web in our outside urinal. The stream of urine hitting the web when I used it must have seemed like a caught insect at first, but that spider soon discovered this was something totally beyond its concept of reality. A paranormal experience, repeated two or three times that day.
  • Out with the weed cutter, and try to get the upper hand on the jungle that’s trying to establish itself around the house but it’s almost a hopeless task. You’ve heard the story of the team of men whose job it is to paint the Forth Bridge? As soon as they get to the end it’s time to start again.
  • Minimum temp. 16°C, maximum 25°C.
 

Season of the Itch 19 June, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — johnraff @ 1:48 pm
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“There’s a mosquito in the room” says T, throwing me an accusing look. (If she gets bitten it’s generally my fault in some way.) It’s true that the humid Japanese Spring and Summer seems ideal for insects, and there are some biters and stingers among them. For example:

  • mosquitoes The city ones come out at the end of May or so and they’re small, fast and hard to squash. The itch only lasts an hour or so, but they can certainly get to you, and our lush jungly garden in front of Raffles has a fair supply. Mosquito coils help, and there’s some stuff in a spray can which doesn’t do a bad job of keeping them away for a while.
  • buyo These are a small black fly – looks almost like a tiny beetle – and are nasty. They hang about in the grass by a stream in the countryside on a muggy , overcast day and draw blood. Really. Much worse than mosquitoes in spite of their tiny size, and the bite stays with you for a week or so. Fortunately I’ve never seen one in Nagoya.
  • dani or mites, live in the tatami mats and bite you when you’re asleep. Just have to fumigate the tatami sometimes, or lift it out of the room to dry in the hot Summer sun. (This is such a pain no-one does it these days.)
  • nasty green caterpillars I don’t know the proper name for these, but you see them on trees sometimes. (One year they chewed all the leaves off our persimmon tree.) They’re a nasty yellow-green colour, have no legs and move about like slugs, and are covered with hairy spines. If you touch one the microscopic spine will stick in your skin, which will swell up for days and itch horribly. Imagine a poisonous cactus…
  • centipedes: fortunately not so common – they live in rotting wood and the like – but the big ones can give you a very nasty bite indeed.
  • There’s more – jellyfish, adders, poisonous lacquer plants, the deadly Okinawan “habu” …

but I’ve probably put you right off ever coming here. If you actually live here of course you know it’s not really that bad. Still the insecticide and itch ointment makers probably do OK at this time of year.