Trying new restaurants in Japan - always a gamble.

Now that I've been living in Fujieda for over a year, I have established a few restaurants that I like and have become a patron of. There's a Mexican restaurant that is really cheap and is a favorite with foreigners (especially since Mexican food is really hard to find in Japan), a Bangledesh restaurant that serves curry and has a really nice owner who always gives me and Aya free Cokes, and an izakaya that has good bonjiri (chicken tail). Living thousands of miles from home, it's nice to have familiar places to frequent. It's like Cheers - sometimes you just want to go where everybody knows your name. And they're always glad you came.
But recently Yu, Aya and I decided to branch out and try some new places. The first is a Chinese restaurant just across the street from our school. I went there once when I had first arrived in Japan, and I remember the restaurant being dingy and the menu limited. So I never went back. But a while ago, I noticed that the outside of the restaurant had been renovated, so we finally decided to check it out again a few weeks ago.

The inside had been redone, too - it looks much nicer now.

We ordered lots of food, including shrimp fried rice and cashew chicken.

The food was really good and the drinks were cheap. Also, we could take home our leftovers, which isn't usually allowed in Japan! I think they made a new menu when they renovated the restaurant. I've really been craving Chinese food since moving to Japan, and the nice thing about this place is that it's not nearly as greasy as American Chinese food.

On Monday, Yu and I helped Aya move into her new apartment, and she treated us to lunch as a thank you. We decided to go to Big Boy...I've been passing it on the street for over a year now and wondering how similiar it is to the original American version, and I finally got to try it.

The most surprising thing was that the entire menu was meat! Page...

after page...

after page...

after page of meat!

Apparently, when Japan imported Big Boy, they decided to change the menu to only include chicken, steak and hamburgers because it's an "American restaurant." AND, the worst part is that the "hamburgers" are not actually hamburgers at all - more like what we in the States call salisbury steak. No bun, just a hot place with a burger patty, a few steak fries, one or two broccoli stalks, and maybe some other little Japanese-y food. This type of dish is so popular in Japan, but it just makes me crave real hamburgers!

Like the American Big Boy, there was a soup and salad bar, but not nearly as big as in the States. And no ranch dressing (pretty much impossible to find here).

I decided to forgo the "hamburgers" and have chicken instead. With a random spring roll and Japanese style pork with bean sprouts.

Thankfully, there was dessert. A strawberry parfait with the ever ubiquitous corn flake and ice cream combo that plagues Japan.

I don't think I'll be going to Big Boy again. Nice try, Japan, but you just didn't impress me with your hamburgers that aren't actually hamburgers and other strange hybrids of Japanese and American foods. Where were my chicken strips and ranch dressing and American breakfast that is served 24 hours? Bring a restaurant like that here and I will never leave it.

"working 1 to 10, what a way to make a living..."

Well, January has been flying by with not much to post about. I've been working like crazy as usual and relaxing on the weekends with friends or solo.
A student gave me an old film camera he wasn't using anymore (how awesome of him was that?), so tomorrow I'm hoping to get a battery for it and see if I can remember how to use non-digital equipment.
And, of course, there's purikura to brighten up the day. I'm on a mission to fill up a little photo album with purikura to eventually take back to the States, so I've been dragging along anyone willing (mostly Aya, she's such a trooper) to participate in some purikura goodness:

Seriously. I'm going to buy a purikura machine and somehow take it back to America with me.

A great gift!

One of the great things about my co-workers is that they all know about my love of Mameshiba, so throughout the day I often get little Mameshibas drawn on notes from co-workers or the occasional Mameshiba gift that they saw at the store.
Today I came to work and found five Mameshibas on my desk from my manager:

She saw them at 7-11 and picked them up for me. Not only are they cute, but snacks, too. Peanuts, chocolate, some kind of dried bean, spicy dried beans, and candy coated peanuts. Whoo hoo!

What I'm watching these days...

Being an American in Japan, of course I miss my favorite TV shows back home. Fortunately, there is Surf the Channel, which is the best friend of every person living outside of their home country and away from their weekly dose of TV drama.
But recently I remembered one of my favorite series of all time, VH1's "I Love the ______", which I used to watch with Dave back in the day. Famous comedians, actors, singers, etc., look at old fads from the '70s, '80s and '90s and make fun of them. Hilarious.
I found the episodes of "I Love the 90s" and "I Love the 80s" online and have been watching them non-stop.

Capsule hotels in Japan - now more than just a temporary stay.

An interesting article about the impact of the bad economy in Japan:

Japan's capsule hotels now coffin-sized homes

I've never stayed in a capsule hotel in Tokyo (frankly, I think it would be scary to be sleeping in such a small space), but many Americans have heard about them and are intrigued by them. It's sad that the hotels once built because of Japan's booming economy are now housing people who can't afford to stay anywhere else.

Kyoto Adventure: Day 4

I checked out of my hotel at 10 am and went to Kyoto station to put my luggage in a locker before heading out to Arashiyama. Arashiyama was last on my list of places to visit in Kyoto - I especially wanted to see the bamboo groves there.
I took the bus to Arashiyama - it's about 40 minutes from Kyoto station. It's hard to believe that Arashiyama is part of Kyoto. Downtown Kyoto and all the tourist traps are so crowded and busy, but Arashiyama is open and scenic. It was so nice to be away from gajillions of people. It was a beautiful day, too.
I read about Arashiyama's bamboo groves in my guidebook and and knew I had to check them out. They're basically a main path through thousands of tall beautiful bamboo trees. It was really gorgeous - the sound of the wind rustling the leaves was really soothing.

After walking through the groves, I had lunch at a cute little restaurant and then went for a walk down along the river.

I had a lot of time to kill and I really enjoyed the bamboo groves, so I headed back there to get a few more photos.

After Arashiyama, I went back to Kyoto station, had dinner and coffee, then took the bus back to Shizuoka.

And that's that. My four day trip to Kyoto is over and I'm back in Fujieda. I had a busy four days and I'm exhausted, but really happy I went. I visited so many places that I've been wanting to see and took a lot of photos. I was a little nervous to go by myself, but everything was fine, and I even used a little Japanese here and there!

Kyoto Adventure: Day 3

This morning I woke up around 8 am, had breakfast, lounged around my hotel room for a while, then headed out to see what I could see.
I took the bus to Heian Shrine and spent some time taking photos and observing Hatsumode.

People lining up to pray.

Tying bad fortunes and trying to forget them.

After Heian Shrine, I took the bus to Ginkaku-ji and literally had to run up the hill because they were closing in 20 minutes. When I came to Japan in college, we visited Kinkaku-ji, which is kind of like Ginkaku-ji's older brother. Kinkaku-ji is plated in gold and apparently, Ginkaku-ji was supposed to be plated in silver, but the plans were never finished. So now it's just brown. Really brown. It's a quaint, quiet little temple, but personally, I prefer the pizazz of Kinkaku-ji.

Not Ginkaku-ji. Just a garden and building before it.

Ginkaku-ji. Brown and also under construction.

As I was leaving, I found a little shrine with a bunch of lamps.

More bad fortunes.

I came back to the hotel for a while to warm up and eat dinner, then headed off to Gion and Pontocho in hopes of spotting a geiko (Kyoto dialect for "geisha") or maiko (apprentice geiko). I read in my borrowed guidebook that the most likely place to see them is Pontocho, so I went there first.

Pontocho lantern with New Year decoration in the background.

Not geiko or maiko - just girls in kimono for Hatsumode.

I saw a lot of foreigners and a few drunk people in Pontocho, but no geiko or meiko. So I walked back to Hanami-koji and walked around for a bit. After a while, I happened to look down a crossing street and lo and behold - I spotted a geiko (or maiko, I'm not quite sure which). I was a little nervous to use my Japanese and ask for a picture, but I asked anyway, and she graciously posed for one shot.

So, I read that geiko have white collars and maiko have red, so I think she might be a geiko, but I'm not sure. Geiko are rarer to see than maiko. Either way, I was really excited to finally have the opportunity to photograph one of these mysterious women.