Office snacks

You may recall me saying that eating in the office is kind of taboo. Every once in awhile (on what I call "lucky days") they do pass out snacks for everyone in our department. I probably shouldn't complain about the snacks we get because I'm usually so hungry, but these are wacky enough to share with you.

1. The wife of a General Manager brought in sticky rice ball treats for us. These were wrapped in 2 sakura (cherry blossom) leaves and hiding inside was azuki (that yucky red bean paste). It's pretty bad when the best flavor of your dessert is minty leaves from a flowering tree.

2. Five chocolate-covered raisins. Seriously?! 5?! That's just a tease...

3. Two soy crackers flavored with pepper. These are actually pretty yummy. I could eat a whole sleeve as long as I had some water to go with them.

4. One chocolate covered almond. Again, yummy, but I'm just getting started at one.

5. Cake rusk. It's basically a chunk of dried cake that is 1.5" x 1.5" x 0.25" thick. Imagine the size of a saltine, and then imagine it not having any taste. Welcome to my life!

6. This one was my own fault. It looked like a soft bite of cake, and I didn't even question it. But but I soon realized that there was something white & mushy & mysterious inside. (At least it wasn't azuki for once!) So I decided to do a little translation and read the package. It said: "sui-to poteto". Sound it out... They thought it was sweet potato flavor. I usually like sweet potatoes, but not that day, and not in my cake!

Why can't someone bring in cookies or brownies or cupcakes just once?!

Oh yeah, the whole "no oven" situation makes that kinda tough...

Hina Matsuri

How would it be another week in Japan without another holiday? "Hina Matsuri" is celebrated every year on March 3rd (but is not a national holiday). It's also known as "Girl's Day" or "Festival of Dolls". The origins of this holiday dates back over 1,000 years to 794 A.D.

On this day families pray for the happiness and prosperity of their daughters and to help ensure they grow up healthy and beautiful. Usually grandparents will buy their granddaughters a set of dolls on their first Hina Matsuri. Often times the dolls are displayed in a very specific elaborate 7-tier design as the picture below indicates. I have no idea where the Japanese find the space to put these displays in their tiny apartments!

These figurines are usually brought out around mid-February, and then are promptly put away after the celebration on March 3rd. I even got my own "doll" figurine from a lady at work (pictured below). She warned me that if I don't put it my doll away on March 3rd, the superstition is that I will have trouble getting married!! I've never had so many people concerned about my marital status before... It's kind of weird! (Just look at the doll that was picked out for me... I think it's supposed to be a bride & a groom!)

There is also a tradition that each household should leave a doll at a shrine or put it on a boat and have it float away to the sea on March 3rd. The thought is that bad fortune will be removed from the girl, transferred to the doll, and then abandoned.

Many of you may be wondering when is "Boy's Day"? In the past Boy's Day has been celebrated on May 5th, but in recent years it has been renamed to "Children's Day" to include both genders, and it is a national holiday.

Everyone please pray for me today, and I will be sure to put my doll figurine away before bedtime!!

Japanese Police

I've heard my fair share of foreigners make fun of the Japanese police, but then I saw this Q&A in Japanzine, a magazine for foreigners, and I thought it explained it quite well!! My additional commentary is in (parenthesis). Please read on...

Yo Japanzine,

I'm confused, Japanese police cars patrol the roads of Japan with lights flashing but no siren. And the cops look like kids in the special education buses because they are wearing helmets inside the car. What is that about? In America, only motorcycle cops wear helmets and cops only put on the lights when the siren is on and they're going after a bad guy. Helmets on Japanese police in cars look ridiculous! And hey, what is it about the small cars Japanese police drive? (Good thing that Japan is so safe because there is truly no room for criminals!!) Sorry, but how can they get respect or catch the bad dude when they look so ridiculous in their tiny clown cars wearing helmets?

Laughing American Monkey Mike

Dear American Monkey,

Actually Japanese NPA, or National Police Agency, made a special deal with Bandai Co., Ltd. in the early 1950s, under the order of Diet (kind of like the House of Representatives) and the Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida-sama. The new law explained that "all Japanese police uniforms must have the kawaii (cute) look and condition, as well as the car, helmet, and other accessories, to enable strong sales of police toys and games, and to keep the obedience image of omawarisan (friendly policeman) strong in the minds of young boys." In America, police are "die hard" with the ripped T-shirts and broken glass in their foot (what?!), and disobey the higher authority. This only teaches destruction to young American boys. As you see, the cute police toy and appearance is for the sake of society. Without the "special education helmet", our society would be lost forever.

Fascinating... you learn something new every day. It's not the policeman's fault he looks like that, but by the order of the government! Japanzine never did explain why they drive around with the flashing lights on. I've heard of foreign drivers who pull to the side of the road, and then get weird looks from the police when they drive by. But then again, I get weird looks every day I'm here...

Fujitrans visit

This week I was able to see Nagoya Port in all of its glory! I went on a tour of Fujitrans, a company which does domestic sea shipments.

First off, welcome to Fujitrans... what Japanese company would be complete without a life-sized wooden tiger in their lobby?! (Remember 2010 is Year of the Tiger!)

Here is an aerial view of Fujitrans property. The green swirly things are highways, so just ignore them. The tiny green arrow indicates the office, and I put a red box around part of their parking lot and drew arrows to show how the cars load onto the vessel docked at sea! Here's a pic of the Fujitrans vessel. It's huge like an aircraft carrier or cruise ship. Length is 167 meters, and width is 30 meters. This particular vessel holds 846 vehicles and 150 trailers.

As a rule of thumb, 1 hour by plane is equal to 1 day by sea. So it takes 90 minutes to fly to Tokyo, and it takes 36 hours on the vessel.

Inside the vessel, here is the radar screen... sure, it makes perfect sense to me.

So much sense that they elected me "Captain Kerri".

Here's the control area where they dock the vessel. There are windows on the floor to see how close the are. This particular ship does not need to be guided by tugboats (as you will see later). They can do everything on their own.

If you're still not sure where to park the ship, you can just hang out the window and check it out this way!!

A vessel this size has a staff of 11 when out to sea! That's unbelievably small for such a large ship, and that includes a full-time chef. Here is his kitchen!

Bunking area for one staff member. This is plush accommodations!! Larger than a Japanese hotel room, and almost as big as my entire apartment!!

The tables are chained to the floor in case they find some rough water.

On to the good stuff... Here's the inside of the vessel. It looks a lot like a parking garage. There are 6 levels of parking.

Here are some trailers that are secured nice and tight. Majority of freight northbound is cars (given the proximity to Toyota City), and southbound is generally food products or auto parts.

The cars are loading! (Check out the video at the bottom to see this in action!)

Up the ramp they go. (Check out the video at the bottom to see this in action!)

After 28 new vehicles zoom by, they are followed by 2 Fujitrans vans to go pick up the drivers and they do it all over again. It takes about 6 hours to load all of the vehicles.

Group photo outside the ship. Thank goodness the Japanese like taking pictures so much!! I'm in the middle in case you can't pick me out.

Here's an overseas vessel that is being pushed/pulled by two tugboats and taken out to the ocean. This one is not a Fujitrans ship, but it holds 4,000 new cars, takes 2 full days to load, and usually takes 6-9 days to reach it's destination. Generally overseas vessels like this return empty because there are few cars imported to Japan.

The Ferrari I ordered has finally arrived. I guess my bicycle is going to get a break for a while...

Here's a cool "wing" trailer that they use all over Asia. It's convenient for Japan because they have few docks, so the fork lift drivers just come outside and unload it from the side. It's also nice for milkruns because you can pick and choose which freight to unload. Not like a rear-load 53' footer where you have to unload the entire trailer.

Here's a quick video of the cars loading. (You must go directly to the blog to view it.)

Update on Singapore

We had a trainee from the Singapore office this week, and he told us that the first Singapore casino opened last week. (Remember the one I was taking pictures of?) Casinos aren't widely popular in Asia, but back in the States there was a casino close to every city I have lived in. And don't forget how much I love Las Vegas!!

Because casinos are such a new concept to Singapore they have some goofy rules:

1. Everyone must show their passport upon entering, and all Singaporeans must pay a entrance fee of SG$100 (USD~$70). Total craziness!! It's because authorities want tourists to come and spend their hard-earned money, not the locals. It's an interesting concept, and I wonder if it will cut down on gambling addiction?!

2. There is a government form that anyone can fill out and BAN a specific person from entering the casino! For instance, parents could fill one out for their son because they do not want him wasting his money. Or a husband could have a fight with his wife, and she could fill out a form and ban him from the casino for life!! My understanding is that this is very easy to do, and a specific relationship or reason is not required. Again, the reason is that they mainly want the casinos to attract tourists, and do not want to have any negative impacts on locals.

I did a research paper back in high school called "Casinos: Good or Bad?". My conclusion in the end was that casinos are actually bad for most communities. Casinos comes with gambling addicts, increased crime, and other unsavory factors. The economic "draw" is usually negated by locals who quit their current jobs to go work at the casino, which in turn raises wages everywhere and hurts many local businesses. Rather than creating jobs, casinos can cause other people to become employed and bankrupt due to their addictions. I think its very smart that Singapore is trying to prevent some of these negative factors from affecting their city.

Let's eat "Shabu Shabu"!

This week was busy with 3 work dinners. I'm finally at the point where it's nice to try new things, and doesn't everyone love a free meal?!

This meal was in honor of a Mitsui trainee from the Singapore office. He was here for 4 days, and we took him out for a fancy dinner the final night. I am told that "shabu shabu" is a very costly meal, so I should be happy that work was paying for all drinks and food.

First we start off with "fugu sashimi", which is the nearly clear triangles of stuff on the outer edge. As the name suggests, it is raw fish. But it is a very special, rare, and expensive raw fish. It comes from a poisonous puffer fish and is prepared only by special chefs who can slice it paper thin and remove all but a tiny portion of poison. If prepared improperly, the person could die. People say you can feel your tongue go numb a little bit from the poison. I actually ate all of it. Once I doused it with lime, dipped it in soy sauce with radish, and jammed a green onion in my mouth, I could barely taste that it was raw fish.

There was another appetizer that I didn't take a picture of but it was really yummy fried fish nuggets. The only catch was that there were still bones hiding inside, so you either had to crunch really hard and swallow the bones or find them in your mouth and spit them out.

On to the main course! Shabu shabu is thin slices of beef (top) and pork (bottom) which get boiled in hot water and then dipped in your choice of sauces. Morisaki shows us how excited he is to eat the raw meat!

Beef goes in first because it cooks much faster, in about 30 seconds.

When it's brown, you know it's done. Beef is generally dipped in soy sauce or sesame sauce, and pork is generally dipped in miso soup. You just start grabbing whatever meat looks cooked with your chopsticks and jam it in your mouth.

We had about 10 dishes of raw meat brought to our table of 4. This was a pretty good meal, but I think I'd rather fry the pork up and eat it like bacon!

At some point you have to skim the fat floating around the surface of the water. (BTW - I taught everyone a new English word today "skimmer".)

There are also vegetables to add to the boiling water, but Higashi (our main shabu shabu cooker at the table) gave us strict instructions to fill up on meat first and then vegetables later.

Between this and the "nabe" pot, I'm wondering why Japanese like to go to restaurants and cook their own food at the table. It seems like so much work. Higashi was always busy adding more meat, skimming fat, making us eat the cooked meat before it got too chewy...

We were also served Nagoya-speciality noodles, which are thin and flat (kind of like fettuccine), and in a clear soup.

At last dessert came. I look like I've had a few too many nights of drinking in this picture, but I wanted to demonstrate the small portion we received. It was a bite-sized brownie, a spoonful of ice cream, and a half of a strawberry. Thank goodness that Shiraishi said "drinking and dessert don't mix", and gave his portion to me, too!

I also learned that I have a Japanese condition called "betsu bara", which literally means "separate stomach". It applies to anyone who is full from dinner, but can still eat dessert because they are said to have a separate stomach for that. Yup, sounds about right!! I'm going to remember that one!

Life in Nagoya

Have I mentioned yet that trash is kind of a big deal here? You have to buy special bags (which took me about 6 weeks to find but now I see them every where) and then you have to sort it yourself. The clear bags are colored coded, and you can see inside clearly if someone isn't following directions.

Green = non-burnable trash (basically landfill material)

Red = burnable. This is the majority of my waste because really how many things can you throw in a fire and watch melt?! Almost everything!!

Blue = recyclable cans and bottles, but oddly enough they won't recycle my plastic containers from the US because it doesn't have the proper label on the bottom.

At work, we take it a step farther and recycle paper in 4 different categories: office paper, magazines, newspapers, and others.

You won't find any dumpsters in Japan. Just bags of trash in designated areas. I guess they don't have any issues with raccoons or stray animals!!

Trash sorting area #1

Trash sorting area #2. Who doesn't love a close-up pic of bags of trash?

The highways are often over head when I am walking around Nagoya. Just a tiny bit noisy.

Two bullet trains in the station at one time. One is eastbound and the other is westbound. Considering they come and go every 10-15 minutes this probably isn't such a rare sight, but they only stop for 20-30 seconds each, so I had to snap this picture quick!

Bicycle for young families. One kid sits in front, and the other in the back. My questions is: where do all of the purchases go?! I am happy to see this family has helmets though. They aren't very common here, and neither are car seats or even children buckled up in cars.

It's funny to me to see live flowers outside in February, but they love plants here, and there is always something in bloom.

For the busy mother on the go who's gotta go... here's a seat in the bathroom stall to put your kid in. We use strollers in America, but they are a rare sight here because there are so many stairs and so few elevators. I do see a lot of young sleeping babies wrapped to their mother's chest with fancy contraptions, but many of them are just held in their arms.

Even the gas stations are "5S". For you non-Toyota people, that's when there is a place for everything, including a box designated on the pavement where the cars should park when they are filling up with gasoline.

One foggy morning on my walk to work. The tallest building in Nagoya "Toyota Century" just disappeared into the mist!

Hiking Club goes to Mt. Kinka

I received an invitation from the Hiking Club for another level 1 hike (easy), and I decided to give it a try. This time we were heading to the neighboring area of Gifu, which took about an hour to get there via train & bus. There were 7 people this time, and one repeat girl from my first hike 2 weeks ago.

Here's a stained glass window in the Gifu train station. In addition to their several mountains and famous castle, Gifu is also known for their cormorant fishing. A cormorant is a bird which has a rope tied to it, and they send them out in the river while keeping the other end of the rope in the boat. After a period of time when the cormorants have caught enough fish, they pull the birds back in the boat and remove the fish (often up to 6) which are caught in their throat. Very popular, especially for tourists, and they have many festivals in the spring to celebrate the beginning of the season. Although I'm not really a fan of birds, it sounds kind of like torture for the cormorants.

See that teeny, tiny castle on top of that giant mountain? Yeah, that's where we are going: Mt. Kinka (or Kinka-zan in Japanese). At this point, I was totally freaking out. Maybe I should have researched this "level 1" hike business a little better. What the heck was I thinking??

Waterfall on the way to our trail plus a ceramic turtle and frog! I suppose this should have been nice and serene, but I was not calm at this point.

The leader said we were going on the shortest trail, but he failed to mention that it was also the steepest!! (And hardly a trail at all in my opinion!!)

Here I am halfway up the mountain and near the throes of death. They were hiking incredibly fast, and my lungs and heart were ready to burst. I am not built for uphill climbing. I kept thinking I may die before I get to the top of the mountain.

Here's a view of the castle at the halfway point. If I had been with friends, this would have been my quitting point. I considered it, but I had no way to meet back up with them because we were planning to take a different trail down to the bottom, and I didn't trust myself to make it back to Nagoya via bus and train by myself. So the death march continued...

At one point, another woman asked me if I brought my inhaler and what type of asthma I had!! I told her I didn't have asthma; I was just out of shape and not used to climbing straight up mountains. She then said that I probably had "seasonal asthma". Well if "lazy girl climbing a mountain" is a season, then sure let's say I have seasonal asthma!

It's a miracle!! We finally made it to the top. Here's a pretty view through the trees.

Unobstructed view from the top.

Gifu Castle at the top. Originally built in the 1200's, but eventually deteriorated due to the WWII bombings in surrounding areas. It was rebuilt in the 1950's by volunteers who carried all the materials and supplies to the top!! Insane?! Who would volunteer for that gig?

Also at the top is a restaurant and Squirrel Village. At first I thought... seriously, who is hard-up enough for a job to climb this darn mountain to go to work as a waitress every day?! But then I found out about the "Rope way". It's a giant lift (similar to those for skiing) that takes you to the top in less than 5 minutes. Why the heck did we just climb for 75 minutes through pain and torture?!

And Squirrel Village?! Seriously... I will watch them from the dining room window in Michigan, but please don't stick me in a giant cage full of squirrels to pet. No thanks!

I also saw this nice "trail" of stairs at the top and it even had a railing tall enough for me to reach without stooping over, but we didn't end up going down this way. Instead we took another rustic trail, and literally ran down the mountain in about 30 minutes.

Although it was pure torture for me, I'm glad I went on this hike today because I realized that Mt. Fuji is WAY out of my league!!

Mt. Kinka is 329 meters (1,079 ft) tall.

To put that in perspective, the Eiffel Tower is 324 m tall, but that includes the mast. The observation deck is only 275 m to the top.

The Empire State Bldg is 381 m with the spire, and the observation deck is 369 m.

Mt. Fuji is 3,776 meters tall. Even if I started at the 5th station, which is the highest point for buses to run, it is still another 1,471 meters to climb!! I don't think I could survive!

Finally back at the bottom of the hill, we went to an insect museum. Yes, you read that right. Japan has a museum for everything, including creepy crawlies!! I liked the butterflies the best.

Here's a nice example so you can see how big some of these bugs were. This one is about 130 millimeters, which means just over 5 inches. Ewww... I would run the other way if I found that in my house!! I don't even know if stomping on it would kill it!

Here's some pretty colored bugs but still disgusting.

Can you find the praying mantis?

I'm finally at the bottom of the mountain and done with the insect museum. It's been a crazy day for this girl. Hopefully I will sleep well from all of the exercise & fresh air and not have nightmares about enormous insects coming to get me!