Those Terrible Tourists

Usually the guests that come to Tondaya are very polite, nice and interested - I think that when you pay this much you should at least pretend to be interested. I like working in an enviroment where I have contact with people and I've always enjoyed guiding our guests. Yesterday, though, I had to clasp my hands behind my back to keep from wringing a few necks. In came a group of fashion journalists and basically they behaved like a bunch of 3-year olds on sugar high. Me and my two senseis had to run around and stop them from ruining everything in their line of vision, and when we finally dressed them in the kimono and I started the tour two were talking on the phone, one was writing an sms, and the rest was chatting happily, totally ignoring me. Next they wanted to try make the tea, so we gave them a couple of tea bowls and chasen (a whisk used to mix tea and water); I will not go into details; needless to say, I have never seen tea made so badly. No wonder they didn't finish it... Their Japanese guide was repetedly bowing and apologizing to us when they finally left. Sorry for the long rant... T_T
But today we had two ladies from Poland (the first Polish tourists in six months! In my last week of work, of course) and I had a very good time, giving them a detailed explanation of everything that was going on, so my mood lightened up a bit.
I am leaving Japan on Saturday morning... Today I sent some of my stuff back home; 15 kilo of books, clothes and small things I decided I didn't need right away. I just hope everything gets home undamaged. I have a busy week - I have to meet a few people and thank them for their help and friendship over the last six months; surprisingly it's quite a large crowd. And on Saturday evening I will finally eat some real bread...!

Variety? What variety?

Though I have a TV set in my room I have not plugged it in even once in the past six months. Japanese television in general scares me. A lot. Usually I only watch TV when I'm in the onsen - there's a TV set in the sauna, so I sit on the bench and wonder what the heck is going on in all those variety shows; although I understand the words I can't understand the meaning. I asked some of my Japanese friends and they also told me that they don't get it. It's just a bunch of people dressed like drag queens doing weird stuff on TV. Why? Nobody knows... And even if they have "variety" in the name they all look the same to me.
Two days ago I went to an onsen and as usual got out of the sauna quite puzzled - there was this guy named "Sakana-kun" (Mr. Fish) with a fish-shaped hat on his head, travelling though Japan in search for the perfect fish. His catchphrase was "gyogyo!" and he ended every second sentence with it. He even says "arigyoto" instead of "arigato". He had a cute voice and a very wide smile and was creepy.
The other show I saw was about a guy who traveled Japan (again, it seems that it's a popular theme) with a pet monkey named Sakura. It's a miracle that the monkey survived the journey, because he let her eat everything (to the point when she kept stealing his food too).

Japanese weddings

My boss's daughter is getting married today and I'm sitting alone at the office, answering phone calls. Not that I mind - this wedding will probably a very boring affair.
The family that I live with is very old - my boss is the 13th head of it - so they are very traditional and that is why this was an arranged marriage. "Omiai kekkon" - arranged marriage - is still very common in Japan (especially in old, rich families); after all they can't give their child away to just every family. During and omiai the smallest details are taken into consideration - family's status, wealth, history, medical records, etc - there are even special archives that you can check before marrying someone. I don't know the exact data, but I've heard that about 20-30% of marriages are arranged and they are considered to be more stable and lasting than "renai kekkon" - marriage for love - because there are no strong feelings involved; the whole thing is more like a business deal.
I can believe that there are some people who are okay with that - they don't want to risk emotional pain, family's rejection or just seem to not care much about who are they marrying (I have a strong suspicion that that's the case in my boss's daughter's case; plus, she probably wants to get out of her mother's clutches. My boss is a very interesting woman, but she can also be the most overbearing person in the world...) - but for me it would be not acceptable. Who knows, maybe I'm just too emotional or I've seen one too many romantic movies.
The other thing is that the couple usually doesn't have mutual friends and they don't hang out with each other - the husband is supposed to go drinking with his collegues and the wife goes shopping with her gilrfriends. Basically, they just meet from time to time at home - they are more roommates than a couple in my opinion. But most of the Japanese girls I've talked to seem to be okay with that - they don't want their husband to meddle with their personal life. I've never broached the subject with a guy; I wonder what are their thought on the matter.

Osaka

Jarek has to e-mail me some photos, so sorry, you'll have to wait a bit for them.

For my birthday we went to Osaka, and it was a great choice, because I think this city is the entertainment center of Japan; hundreds of shops, bars, restaurants, shopping arcades... You can basically find anything you want there.

We heard that Osaka's love hotels are famous because of their general weirdness, so we decided to embark on a journey to find one (I've obviously never been in one before, and I could only find an opportunity to visit when Jarek was here). Contrary to popular belief it's not so easy to find it - you have to stray from the main streets and find more "discreet" places, but when you finally stumble upon one, there's usually a whole lot of them in one spot. The easy way to recognize them is that they usually don't have windows, the buildings are particulary ugly and there's a sign in front of them informing you about the prices.
This part of the story ends here for obvious reasons. :P

For lunch we decided to have okonomiyaki again - but those Osaka-style are very different from the ones we ate in Hiroshima. Plus the shop owner was kind enough to give us obanyaki (hot cake with sweet bean or custard filling) as a bonus. We walked around Nanba and Nihonbashi (I will have to visit Amerika-mura to find a present for my baby brother - the stuff you can find there...) districts and then we moved to see the Osaka castle, which is really impressive, but unfortunately it's a concrete replica, as the original was destroyed during the war.

I will write more when I have the photos!

Hiroshima & Miyajima

We bought a Willer bus pass for 4 days, so besides Tokyo we could choose one more destination (it's a quite convenient thing, this bus pass; it only costs 12000 yen and you can go anywhere you want in 4 chosen days. Japan rail pass is a bit better, but two times more expensive). We chose Hiroshima, and one of Japan's most known sights - Miyajima.
We arrived in Hiroshima at 6:30 A.M. tired as hell (always reserve your bus tickets early, otherwise you'll be left with standard ones, and you can't really sleep in those), but after we left our stuff in the hostel we went to see Mazda museum. Last year we were in Stuttgart in Mercedes museum and it was ineresting to compare those two. While Mercedes museum is gigantic and the building itself is magnificent (it even has it's own tornado in the main hall...), you can see the actual production line in Mazda factory. You can also see the whole "Mazda town", as we called it, because they take you on a tour around the factory in a bus. Besides, it's free and the guide speaks good English; you only have to make a reservation the day before. Unfortunately we couldn't take photos of the production line, but we could get in some of the cars:



After the visit to the museum, we went in search for food. We wanted to try the famous Hiroshima okonomiyaki, and we ended up in a fantastic place where a nice obasan chatted all the time with us and three college students (the obasan asked Jarek how old he thinks those girls were and he said 16...). She taught us how to eat okonomiyaki Hiroshima style (don't use the chopstics, use the thing that you cut the food with, and clean the teppan /the hot metal part of the table/ with it after you eat).



Hunger satisfied, we went to see the Atomic Dome, Peace Park and Peace Museum. I can't really describe my feelings well, so let's just leave it at that.


The next day we took a tram to Miyajima - I felt really good on a tram, just like home - and it took us almost an hour to get there; it's almost 20 kilometers for the city center. Then we took a ferry to the island, where we saw the Itsukushima shrine - one of Japan's most famous views. The torii in the sea is really bigger than it looks in the photos, and it is said that if you go under it, it will bring you luck.


We also met some deers, which are a lot nicer than those in Nara (but still, they tried to eat some of our stuff).


Then we decided to climb Mount Misen, the highest peak on the island (we figured that the cable railway is for wimps, plus it would cost us 1800 yen); when we reached the top it started to rain, so we boarded the ferry completely drenched in water. The beautiful view from the top was obscured by the mist and clouds, but at least we got some excercise.


We went back to the city center and Jarek wanted to try some ramen, so we went into the first bar we saw that was selling it, and again hit the jackpot. The food cooked by an eldery couple was delicious and Jarek got what seemed like a bucket of soup. A middle-aged man sitting next to us laughed as Jarek tried to drink it all, and when he was leaving he bought us a beer, probably for appreciation of good ramen.


We left Hiroshima wet and tired, but really happy and amazed by the place and the people living there. I think we will go back there some day...

I can't believe it's already been over a week since I came back to Kyoto!

Our first day in Kyoto started slowly - at the beginning we sat at a bar, chewing breakfast like llamas and next we went to Imperial Palace's gardens to sleep on a bench. After a overnight bus trip I think it's justified, but we must have been a weird sight:

After sleeping until 12 AM we went to see one of Kyoto's most well-known temples - Kinkakuji, the Golden Pavilon. Barely avoiding a group of wild Chinese tourists, we managed to see it in relative peace. (Photo taken by a very confused Japanese: us in front of the Kinkakuji)

Photo: first plum blossoms at Kitano Tenmangu.

In the evening we went to Funaoka onsen - a very old public bath in north Kyoto (and very cheap - only 410 yen!). After teaching Jarek basic know-how (take the little bucket at the entrance, wash yourself before going into the bath, try not to atract attention to your tattoo) I told him I'd meet him in an hour. He asked me "why the hell would I spend an hour over there?" - I told him "you'll see." I left after an hour and waited alomost 15 minutes for him to emerge, totally blissful expression on his face. His only comment was "an hour is not enough..."

When I was working one day Jarek was running around Kyoto on his own - he just picked a direction and went straight ahead. He ended up climbing Mount Daimonji...

Our next trip was Arashiyama. One of the things that I love about Kyoto is that when you want to go shopping and be trampled by a huge crowd you can go to Sanjo or Shijo area, but when you want some peace and quiet and contact with nature you can go into the mountains and after a few minutes there's not a soul in sight. So we saw most of the "touristy" places - the bridge and the bamboo grove, but then we went up the river and that's what we saw:


Also the torii path in the Inari Shrine was an amazing sight:



It was snowing yesterday, which was perfect, because we had planned a trip to Kiyomizu Temple and it's said that it's the best place to admire Kyoto when it's snowing. The temple itself is known for it's wooden terrace where many unhappy couples commited "shinju" - double suicide, but you can also have a great view of the city from the said terrace. Next we went in the direction of Yasaka pagoda, down on the cute narrow streets of traditional Kyoto. We'll have to go back there sometime...

We also visited two museum and were really lucky, because now is the time for student's end-of-term exhibitions, and the entrance was free. We went to Manga Museum and Traditional Craft Gallery. Manga Museum is just basically a huge manga library - they even have all-year tickets and I can understand why. The Crafts Gallery was a fantastic place and we enjoyed the works of the students - I am still amazed that people can make such things with just a couple of simple tools. (Photo: your very own mini zen garden)



Today's evening was spent in a lovely restaurant, celebrating Mindy's and Gary's wedding. We had lots of great food and I'm eternally grateful to Mindy that she invited us, otherwise I'd probably never even dream of entering such a restaurant. Good luck you guys!

If you love me let me go (back to my boring Tokyo)

I had to wait for a while before writing about mine (or ours, in that case) trip to Tokyo. That city is gigantic, ovewhelming, and fascinating; still, I'm glad to be back in my cozy little Kyoto.

I took the (K)night bus and at 7 A.M. I was at Tokyo Central Station. I took a train to Narita Airport and spent a very nervous hour waiting for Jarek I finally met him and startled all Japanese present by jumping on him and then spinning him around like a crazy person. Weird gaijin, really. He was totally exhausted, but very excited and this fueled him until around 19:30, when he promptly passed out.

The next day we started the exploration; we lived in a cheap hotel in Asakusa, so first we walked around this district, and then headed for Akihabara - a place Jarek was dying to see (and so did I, but you wouldn't catch me admiting that :)). We saw and did a lot of geek stuff - you can get any manga, anime, action figure or techno-gadget there, so we spent quite a lot of time running around like crazy. We even went into a sex-shop once, not knowing it was a sex-shop. It was 6-stories high. (Photo: Jarek with Son Goku and Jarek... Hmm...)

Next we walked to Maru no uchi part of the city - you can get a cramp in your neck, because all the buildings are so tall...
As I said, we walked all the time - at first we thought that Tokyo is a little bit smaller (at least it looked like that on the map), so we figured - why pay for the subway? Big mistake. My feet hurt until now.

The second day we visited the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka - we saw a great short movie that you can see only there, plus bought a few Ghibli-related souvenirs - I can never get enough of Totoro! (Photo: me with Totoro and Jarek with a robot from "Laputa - castle in the sky")

After the Museum we took the subway to Shinjuku and walked south to Shibuya and Harajuku. That last one is indeed a place where all the weirdos go, even we felt out of place... (Photo: a fine example of Engrish in one of the Harajuku's shops and two girls dressed as... something.)

The last day was spent mainly on Odaiba - a man-made island connected with "mainland" Tokyo by Rainbow Bridge. It took us about 30 minutes to cross that bridge, and then we got to the "city of future" - you really feel like you've transported a few decades to the future. We visited the Miraikan Museum of new technologies and I met the cute baby seal robot. We also saw a 3-D movie about the beginning of the Universe, and the cool thing about it was that the screen was round and above our heads (the seats were tilted so we were practically laying down), so it looked like real sky...
There was an "installation" (I don't know how to call it, really) that gathered your pesonal info and then composed a song for you - it also took a sample of your voice to use in the song, but it was only after I heard a nice, Polish "DUPA" ("ass") in the speakers did I realise that the damned machinery was actually using my voice it recorded! (Photo: Rainbow Bridge)

Then we moved to Omote-sando to admire some contemporary architecture. I really liked the GYRE and Jarek's favorite was Tod's (photo below).

We finished with visiting Akihabara once again, so Jarek could buy himself some geek stuff, and then boarded the night bus to Kyoto.

Tokyo needs more than a meager 3 and a half days, but I'm glad I was able to see it at all. Perhaps I will return someday and get to know it better - it certainly deserves it...

Freezing my butt off like a boss

Everybody told me that winter in Kyoto is particulary nasty - it chills you to the bone. I've experienced temperatures in my life that would make the people living in here freeze on the spot, but still living in an old house with thin walls is quite difficult. For a country so technologically advanced, you will have problems with heating and paying with credit cards in Japan. There have to be some drawbacks, right?

During the night temperature drops to about -2 Celsius degrees, and without heating it's enough to make you uncomfortable. The Japanese use different methods to warm up; gas stoves, fan heaters, air conditioning, electric blankets... I lived in the blissfull world of central heating all my life, so I never knew how to keep myself warm like that. I have an electric futon in my room, but while it was all right in November, it's too cold just with that now, so I took the ceramic fan heater from the cellar.

But how to heat a 70 square-meter room with nothing but a meager portable heater? Not to mention that there are gaping cracks in the old-fashioned windows (which have only one layer of glass, instead of two like in Poland) and when the wind blows just a little bit they rattle and wake me up. I will not even mention waking up and changing clothes in such conditions (the clothes are also ice-cold) - you just don't want to get out of the futon in the morning.

So yesterday I did some laundry and decided to put my clothes in my wardrobe (which is probably bigger than some flats in Kyoto; about 15 square meters. I sometimes envy the people in those warm, cozy flats...), close the doors and put the fan inside to dry everything quickly; it turned out that the wardrobe is well-isolated and it takes just a few minutes to warm it inside with my little heater. I had an epiphany - from this day forth I shall sleep in my wardrobe!

Japan Budget Cooking

It's been ages since I last time wrote something, so I decided to bore you with my culinary experiments a little. I'm still waiting patiently for my beloved to come to Japan (10 days!!!), and we're gonna do some travelling then, so I will have some interesting stuff to write about.
Now - I'm sitting alone in the office, no guests today, so what's a bored girl like me to do?
I wrote before that I'm learning how to cook some Japanese dishes - now I'm inventing new ways to make traditional meals and trying to spend as little money as I can. Today I made okara croquettes.

Okara is the stuff that's left after making tofu; it looks a bit like white cheese. It's really, REALLY cheap (you can buy a whole bag for 60 yen) and very healthy. In Kyoto you can buy it in a shop specialising in tofu; I'm lucky, because my karate sensei owns such a shop.

Ingredients:

- Okara with black beans ~300g / 60 yen
- Kinpira (I used lotus roots, carrot and sesame seeds from lawson100 ;)) 75g/105 yen
- 1/4 onion/15 yen
- 1 egg/17,5 yen
- broccoli sprouts/30 yen
- vegetable oil (at home)
- bread crumbs (at home)

I used broccoli sprouts only because I bought them yesterday on sale for 90 yen (half price) and I used about 1/3 of the box. I figured I have to eat them soon, or they'll go bad. Can't have pissed off Dark Side broccoli sprouts after me, can I?

How to make it?

1. Chop the onion into small pieces and fry it for about 3 minutes (don't burn it!). Put it in a bowl afterwards.
2. Chop the kinpira.
3. Chop broccoli sprouts.
4. Squash okara into small pieces in a bowl.
5. Add the egg. Mix all ingredients. It should look like that:
6. Form croquettes and coat them with bread crumbs.
7. Pour some oil onto the frying pan, wait for it to heat up and put the croquettes in the oil.
8. Fry until they become light brown.
9. Dig in.

This serves 2-3 people, costs about 230 yen and is delicious!

Awkwardness

Weird things are happening around me. Last week was the second time I appeared on Japanese TV - this time in a show hosted by a famous kabuki actor Nakamura Kankuro. When the TV crew came to our house I thought they'd only film my boss and Kankuro-san, so I sat in the office, answering e-mails when suddenly one sensei burst inside and said that they also want to film me... The worst thing is, I looked like hell. I had trouble sleeping for the past few days, so I had dark circles under my eyes, no make-up at all and a shabby obi and old, worn-out tabi socks. That was not my best day to appear on TV (then again, there are no good days for me).
Thankfully, Kankuro-san turned out to be a very nice and easy-going person, and only 7 years older than me, so we just chatted for a while (the whole point of the show is that he travells around Japan and talks to people who do something traditional) and I didn't notice the cameras that much. I hope they will cut the parts with me from the acctual show though. I still haven't seen the previous one, although they sent me a DVD, and when I buy groceries people tell me they've seen me on TV... Weird indeed. It's me and Kankuro-san in the picture, sitting near the entrance to the house.

"Nara!" "Kyoto!"

A DAY OFF!! Bwahahahaha! I think I'm starting to loose my mind a bit here...

Anyway, on Saturday me and Pola went to Nara. First, we visited my friend's photo exhibition in Tawaramoto; country Japan is really cute; about 10000 people live in this town, and they built a HUGE culture center in the middle of nowhere. Nevertheless, it was quite interesting - the photos were taken during my friend Toshi's travells and I was even in one of them. We also helped to set up the exhibition.

After the exhibition we went to the historical Nara to get bitten and trampled by the mini-deers - shika - that roam the streets freely there. They are always hungry and will chew on your handbag or bite your butt if you don't have anything else to eat. And of course they poo and pee everywhere, so you have to watch your step; don't let the adorable pictures fool you!
We walked around the city for a few hours and had lots of fun speaking Polish and commeting people's looks. It's silly, but it was funny to talk weird stuff when nobody even realised what language we're speaking.

On the 14th we have a special visitor - a kabuki actor Nakamura Kankuro - and maybe I will have a chance to talk to him. I'm looking forward to it, but at the same time I'm pretty nervous that I will say something stupid and embarrass myself...

New Year

My plan that included going to a small secluded temple for New year's Eve failed, and me and Mindy ended up in Chion-in near Yasaka-jinja, the most crowded place in Kyoto this day...

But I guess once in a while it's good to go where everybody else goes and experience something as a part of a group. We were standing in a long queue and were near the bell when midnight came; everybody started to shout "Happy New Year!" in different languages and it was more fun than I expected. We were also very lucky, because when we went to stand in line, the temple guards closed it a few meters after us.

We were able to hear joya no kane, and I must say I was quite moved - the deep sound of a huge bell vibrating through the night was indeed something worth experiencing.
This is me buying taiyaki (type of cake with custard or anko filling; very good on a chilly night). We went to a fair at Yasaka to get some food. We also had amazake (hot sweet sake). Pictures below are: me waiting in the queue to get into Chion-in and joya no kane:On the first day of New Year I went to Kitanotenmangu. I went in a kimono and everybody was asking me if I put in on myself...
In one of the stalls I saw something worth taking a photo: a huge plush poo hanging from the roof of the stall. I am not joking. You can even put it on your head. Here is proof:

And lastly, a video of joya no kane I made: