Little Slimy Surprises

Do you know what is great about living in Japan? When you're least expecting it, you can walk into the convenient store and stumble upon something amazing! Take for example this slime (sour lime) flavored gum, based on the Slime monster from Dragon Warrior (Dragon Quest in Japan), one my favorite childhood Nintendo games.

Cowboy Curry

We stumbled upon Cowboy Curry the other day on Tabelog, the Japanese equivalent of Urbanspoon. We've tried to discover restaurants on Tabelog several times before but found that Japanese food critics are not extreme enough in their reviews. Most restaurants sit very close to three stars, right in the middle of the five-star rating system. Perhaps it's the Japanese desire to be humble or to avoid confrontation, but looking at a webpage of  almost nothing but three-star reviews doesn't help one decide at all which restaurant are worth going to! The two highest rated restaurants in Miki are only 3.44 stars. Three of our favorite restaurants in Miki include a ramen shop called Hoppoya, an Indian curry restaurant called Shankar, and a Japanese barbecue place called Kashima, and they are rated 3.0, 3.0, and 3.11 respectively.

Cowboy Curry is a 3.54. Technically it is just over the border from Miki into West Kobe, but it's only a few minutes drive from our house. We noticed it the other day, because its 3.5+ rating gave it orange stars on the map instead of the usual yellow stars like the other restaurants in Miki. When we clicked through, we were shocked by the pictures of the unique and delicious looking roast beef curry (which we didn't get to try because they were sold out for the day), and especially by the cowboy theme and decor. It triggered in us the 'This place looks way too cool to be in Miki!' response.

It turned out to be even cooler than we had hoped for. We were so unprepared that we didn't have our good camera, so the few photos I took are from the iPhone. We also failed to get a picture of the boss and his partner, who donned cowboy hats and leather vests. The boss also did card tricks at our table before we left! Both he and his partner (pun intended?) asked us how we heard about the restaurant. It only opened in November, so I guess the word is getting out slowly. The boss used to be a painter at Universal Studios Japan in Osaka, so he designed the interior himself and sourced every piece of Americana in Japan, which probably cost a fortune! Becky said it felt like a BBQ restaurant from home, and we even spotted an Oklahoma Portland Cement sack with "Ada, OK" emblazoned on it!

The curry itself was wonderful. Becky tried the mushroom curry, and our friend Philip and I tried the curry with a piece of hamburger in it. In my humble opinion, it was probably the best Japanese curry I have ever had. This is largely because most Japanese curry I have had tastes very similar, and this curry totally diverged from the norm. The three of us thought there were hints of chocolate and wine in it, giving it quite a unique flavor. The boss happily told us we were right and that the curry also included bourbon and cola! He said it was inspired by how he thought an American (and presumably a cowboy) might re-imagine Japanese curry.

The cheesecake was so good that it was almost gone before I could get a picture!

Becky decided to try the cheesecake for dessert. Japanese cheesecake is typically more similar to American spongecake, often times lacking the satisfaction and gooey richness one hopes for when indulging in cheesecake. To our surprise, this cheesecake was legit and tasted like a homemade American cheesecake. When we asked the boss about it, he told us it was a Kraft recipe!

All in all, Cowboy Curry is a little bit of magic in Miki (officially Kobe), and we plan to be regular customers.

Tamba Sasayma Wild Boar Festival

Shortly after arriving in Miki, we heard about the annual Tamba Sasayama wild boar festival. Sasayama is in central Hyogo, slightly more rural than Miki, and it is famous for its botan nabe (wild boar hot pot). The festival is a celebration of wild boar cuisine and the boar itself.

The main event is a race between three boar piglets that is held three times during the event. After seeing pictures online, we were a little surprised when we saw how short the "race track" was. Some other English teachers said they arrived one minute after the first race and had already missed it!

Eating delicious boar burgers

We went and tried some boar cuisine including the botan nabe, which seemed very healthy and had an excellent miso broth. We also enjoyed the original "tambaga" or wild boar Tamba burger. One of the main events was a boar roast, which sold out before we could buy any. We did however get over to the barbecue, where the roaster was grilling up bones so people could taste the scraps of meat that stuck to them. I struck up a conversation with the roaster, and he gave me some choice bones. He was going to discard the head as inedible, but a couple of fellow English teachers insisted he try grilling it. The end result appears like a giant drumstick but is really just a skull with a bit of meat to pick off.

We looked for seats around 30 minutes before the race. We found some with a good view, but they were ground seats, which meant we battled the cold and our feet falling asleep while we waited. I'll let the video speak for itself, but once the race actually started, it was a fun and fast show!

On the way home, we decided to go to the Kobe Sanda Premium Outlets, which was more or less on the way home. Shortly after getting off at Sanda Station, I realized, for the first time ever, that I had left my bag on the train! At first, I had no idea where it was, but then I was slightly relieved when I remembered leaving it on the overhead rack on the train. In most countries, this would mean a lost bag plus the camera and other contents that were inside. But this is rarely the case in Japan. I told the JR Sanda Station staff, and within four or five stops of where I got off, the staff from another station figured out where it was an got it off the train. I was so thankful!

The outlet mall was fun and a great way to finish an amazing day. It was a little tiring and expensive getting out to the country by train and bus, but we're planning to get a car in the near future, making trips like this one easier and cheaper.

Two Meals in One Day

With the end of the year comes invites to parties. At many companies and schools it is common to regularly have dinner parties, called enkai, when nearly all of your co-workers go out officially for a meal. The regularity at which a company has enkais can vary widely, but most companies will at least have a bonenaki, the end of the year dinner party.

We were invited to a bonenkai at my company on December 10, and by a happy twist of fate, one of Becky’s co-workers invited us to lunch the same day as a Christmas present to us. So we had yummy Tibetan curry for lunch in Miki, and we went to Kobe in the evening to meet a few of my co-workers for dinner.

The enkai in Kobe wasn’t really a typical enkai. It was mostly to welcome me to the company but also to meet Becky. And it wasn’t a big company wide party at all but really just the core people I work with, plus the boss’s daughter, who attends an international school and is bilingual.

We went to one of the most popular Chinese restaurants in town, an old-school family owned place. We were served dish after dish, many of which were new to us, but all of which were delicious.

What evening to the downtown is complete without something weird? On this night it was a parade of trikes parked outside Sannomiya Station. The riders of the most outrageous trike, with Louis Vuitton design, were wearing Santa suits to top it all off.

Creative Marketing

It a country ruled by fads, companies have to get creative to market their products. One thing they do is constantly come out with new flavors or varieties. It’s not uncommon to see the same snacks we have in America suddenly appear in novel shapes or bizarre flavors that don't exist elsewhere. We were particularly enamored with the cheese and sausage flavored Dorito, Cheeto, and pop corn mix. It was one of the best snack mixes we’ve ever had. Sadly, we ate it once and have never seen it again.

Our white whale snack in Japan

And that’s the Catch-22 about all the fad flavors. Sometimes you find a flavor that is amazing, but suddenly it disappears never to be seen again. The successful flavors often become seasonal, so at least you can get them once a year. Every time I go to the grocery store, I’m afraid that the sparkling apple soda that I have come to love will be gone. It’s only a matter of time. Apple is a fall flavor after all.

Another common tactic is giving some free junk with the product. There is a point card for everything in Japan, so if you want to fill out application forms, you can soon be collecting points to earn all manner of junk. Or there is the junk that literally comes attached to drink bottles. The small toys always have straps, so you can connect them to bags or cell phones. It is not uncommon to see compact cellphones with three pounds of toys hanging off of them.

Becky and I got drinks the other day. My Calpis Soda came with a Brahms cell phone figure. Yes, that is Brahms, the composer. There were a number of composers to choose from, but Brahms had the best beard.

Becky’s tea came with a chocolate pretzel bling charm.  She had to slowly narrow it down from amongst the bling cupcake, bling cheesecakes, and bling ice cream cones. She decided to add it to her USB flash drive, which so far has acquired a small Himeji Castle mascot, and a huge, puffy Hyogo Prefecture phoenix mascot. Her goal was to focus on regional mascot charms, but the bling pretzel adds a certain je ne sais quoi.

Pop Goes the Weasel

I know we have been sharing plenty of kitty stories, but the other night Ben and I discovered that we have new neighbors.  While feeding the kitties their dinner, Ben and I suddenly saw something emerge from a drain in the parking lot outside our apartment and run into the garden of one of the other apartments.  It was too large to be a cat and immediately Ben said "weasel"!  We stood their bewildered for a moment and then decided to go after it.  So, we quickly walked to the drain we saw it come out of and tried to catch a glimpse of it again.  As we stood there looking into the darkness for the weasel, we heard a rustling noise under the grate.  We both got really quiet and waited to hear the noise again.  The rustling came again but it was further away on the other end of the drain.  About that time, a second smaller weasel popped out of the drain and ran into the darkness.
 

Not Actual Weasel Sighted

We are putting out a neighborhood alert that kitties should be aware of the danger and not travel alone at night.

Fish Heads, Fish Heads, Rolly Polly Fish Heads

My first Japanese "enkai" was on October 17.  An enkai is basically a company party.  This one was the Miki HS English Department's way of welcoming the new ALTs.  Ben and I were invited to have dinner at an Italian restaurant called Osteria dell' Arancio with the English staff.  Matt, the other ALT, and Kellee, a third part time ALT, also joined us for the evening.

The food was amazing!  We had a course meal, so small dishes kept coming until finally our main course.  For dessert, each of us were able to choose from a plate of various cakes and puddings and we all had a cup of specialty coffee in handcrafted coffee mugs.  I chose a pumpkin dessert of course.  This country loves pumpkin in the fall and I take full advantage of that.

I have always taken myself for an adventurous eater, but on that night that idea was challenged.  One of the courses was a fully cooked fish, head and all.  The chef, God bless him, covered the little guy in a shroud of lettuce and vegetables, but there he was, staring up at us all.  Everyone began to enjoy the fish dish as I worked up the courage to try my first whole fish.  Ben, Kellee, and I discussed what could be inside the fish that had such a grainy texture, when it was frankly explained by my husband that it was fish eggs not cornmeal that Kellee had in her mouth.  She was a little put off, but not deterred from enjoying the fish eggs.  At that moment, I decided to go for it.  I would eat the head and get the worst part out of the way.  The rest couldn't be that bad if I just ate the head.  So, I did it.  

I ate the fish head and felt both victory and disgust.  I cannot forget the memory of feeling fish teeth on the end of my tongue and tasting the bitter flavor of the cooked fish skin.  The fish head had a crunch that seemed very carnal as a chewed it.  Once I had swallowed, I could not bear to eat the fish babies stuffed inside the poor fish mother who's head I had just devoured.  So, I passed.

I probably lost some points with the English teachers that day for refusing to eat the rest of the fish, but that doesn't matter to me.  The most important thing I gleamed from my fish eating failure was that sometimes you just have to be honest about what you can handle,  no politely lying to the English staff to save face, no torturing myself with eating fish I did not like.  The second most important thing I learned that day is that my husband is a fish head eating barbarian and likes it.

Kitten Hell

'Chibi,' our kitten for one day before releasing him back into "the wild" 

Today was one of the strangest adventures I have had in Japan. It was a stressful day, but one Becky and I will remember forever. Several days earlier we heard the sound of a phantom kitten. The little meows were so loud that we thought that they came from inside our house. We jumped off the couch and ran to the stairs. The meows were louder, and we ran up the stairs to search for the sounds. We found nothing. And we decided there was no way a cat could get in the house from our second floor.

The next day, we decided that there must have been cats under the house. A few days later, we heard the meows again. This time, they were louder and they wouldn’t stop. Upon careful examination, we decided that were must be kittens in the crawl space under the stairs. I got on some scrubby clothes, got a flashlight, and ran outside. To our dismay, we discovered that the only access to the crawl was six-inch pipe that was missing its cover.   Back in the house, we opened the closet under the stairs. The walls of this closet were 1/8-inch wood, held in by tiny nails. This is part of the reason why Japanese houses get so cold in the winter! I got some tools and started carefully prying some nails out of the wall. We finally were able to get enough out to partially pull open the wall. I got my flashlight and Becky got a compact, and we peered into the hole swat-team style via the mirror and light. Becky saw two kittens crouching in the corner! One was moving around and one was crouching with little movement.

We quickly went to our hardware store and bought a few tools and a bunch of kitten supplies. We went home and finished preparing for the kitten extraction. I got the door opened far enough for Becky to get her head in but not an arm. Both kittens seemed very interested in the flashlight, and the stronger of the two walked over to it. Unable to extract the kittens, I preceded to remove the entire panel. With the panel finally off, I pulled out a cute little runt of a cat, and got him in a warm kitty box. The other kitten was nowhere to be seen. I stuck my head in the whole and saw there were three pipes leading out of the under-stairs space.

We determined the kittens to be about one-month old. Becky did lots of kitten research and got him to drink some kitten milk and go pee. Our kitten was a boy and definitely the runt of the two. After a while, the other kitten started meowing loudly from a pipe under our kitchen, but there was nothing we could do. We were both very worried about the second kitten and didn’t like the idea of separating them.   We starting calling the kitten Chibi, or runt in Japanese. Chibi slept for a while after he fed. Becky and I were very uneasy about losing Chibi’s brother, but we couldn’t do anything to get him to come to us. Finally, I heard a meow, but it wasn’t the brother’s. This was a low meow, an angry meow.

I went outside and discovered Akamimi! Akamimi, meaning “red ears” in Japanese, is what we named the stray cat that we sometimes fed. We suddenly realized that not only was Akamimi not a male cat, but she was a mama cat, and she was pissed! She low-meowed at me, and hissed at me. Chibi was meowing loudly from inside the house. Akamimi could hear him, and she wanted him back! We were stunned. Akamimi is not a very big cat. We would have never guessed she had been pregnant. I had given her a bread roll a week earlier, and she looked the same as she did when we first met her, presumably before giving birth to the two kittens.

From this point, we didn’t know what to do. We were so excited about rescuing kittens, we never really stopped to consider that they didn’t need rescuing! I went out the front door to look for Akamimi. I walked down to the open pipe, which I had blocked with a cement block to keep the kittens in. The block was knocked over! Akamimi must have done it with her mother-rage. I ran back in the house and quickly blocked the crawl space and closed the closet door. We didn’t need Akamimi’s mother-rage to come bounding into our living room.

We discussed it for a while and decided that we would put Chibi into the crawl space before bed. If Akamimi came for him that night so be it. If she didn’t, then we would take care of him. Becky went down stairs in the morning only to be greeted by the sound of a very hungry Chibi. We pulled him out of the crawl space, and I got him to eat some breakfast. He was very antsy, meowing non-stop and trying to crawl all over the place.  I think I experienced the stress of a parent for the first time in my life, not knowing how to get him to quiet down. I tried to go about my day, while returning to milk him and cuddle him as best I could.

Becky emailed me to say that she read kittens should stay with their mother to at least six weeks. We decided we would try to reunite Akamimi and Chibi next time we saw her, and hopefully she would have him. Late in the morning, I heard a low meow. I opened the crawl space. Nothing. I went back to being stressed out for a while. I heard another low meow. Chibi almost jumped out of my hands. I opened the closet door, and put Chibi on the ground. He RAN toward the crawl space. I cracked open the wall and saw a pacing Akamimi inside. Chibi ran up to the end of the floor. Akamimi frantically tried to grab him by the nape of his neck. She finally just toppled him off the edge. She grabbed him and went for the pipes. I closed the wall and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

It has been a couple of days, and we haven’t heard any cat sounds. Hopefully Akamimi relocated to one of the under-stairs areas in one of the vacant apartments instead of ours. We’re also hoping that she doesn’t hold any grudges when the kittens are big enough to leave the kitten nest. It would be fun to see Chibi again when he is a little older and big enough to eat our table scraps.

It goes with out saying that our kitten adventure had not gone as planned, but it reminded us of how much we loved having a cat in our home.  We miss Moses now more than ever...

Wan Wan Land

"Wan wan" is how a dog sounds in Japanese. To the Japanese, it's not bow wow; it's wan wan. Wan Wan Land is a random pet store we walked into in Osaka. There were two interesting things at Wan Wan Land. First of all, the price of pets in Japan is amazing. The cheapest cat they had was about $1,000. Granted, all their cats were pure breeds, but they cost as much as $2,000. For a cat!

The other thing was that amongst the overpriced cats and dogs there was a smattering of exotic pets. There were some sugar gliders, a spider monkey, a squirrel monkey, an owl, and a meerkat! The monkeys were almost $5,000, and the meerkat was over $7,000! For about the same price, you could go to the Kobe zoo every day for the next three years! Paying that much for a pet seems a little crazy, but if you've got the extra yen lying around, why wouldn't you want a squirrel monkey?

Bad Hair Day

If you spoke with me prior to our moving overseas, you may know that my greatest fear about moving to Japan was finding someone to cut my hair.  

Hair Studio Billy in Kobe was recommended on a website with information for foreign teachers living in Hyogo. I found them on the web where they boasted having international experience and even spoke English.  I made a reservation for the very next day!  

I should have known something was up by the way
 that President Billy wouldn't look me in the eyes.

The interior was funky and western inspired.  The stylist was a young, hip girl with black rimmed glasses, and her English was perfect.  I was feeling confident I chose the right place.  However, halfway through the haircut, she asked if she could use thinning shears.  Um... ok?  10 minutes later she was still thinning and thinning.  She even thinned my bangs!  With no end in sight, my heart started beating fast.  I blurted out, “I think that’s enough of the thinning shears!” She seemed a bit surprised, like I had interrupted her masterpiece, but she finished up with the cut and dusted off my neck.  We paid and left.  I felt tricked.  

I went home that night and washed and dried my hair hoping for the best.  Then, I cried.  My hair is so wispy that it sticks out when I don’t use a straightener.  The humidity only makes it worse.  It is my greatest fear realized; the worst hair cut that I have ever had!

But here is what I have learned in just a week’s time.  People around me do not care if my hair isn’t perfect.  In fact, I am not sure that any of my Japanese coworkers even noticed that I cut my hair at all.  My husband still finds me attractive.  So, that leaves me.  I was very upset on the day of the bad hair cut.  No woman wants to feel like their hair isn’t pretty.  But, the truth is my hair is not what people love about me.  It isn’t what they judge me by and it isn’t what they will remember me for.  A bad hair cut is just that, bad, but there are worse things.  And it will grow.   

Earthquake Survival Chocolate

We were a little confused at first by this chocolate display stand with chocolate bar sleeves in front of it. On closer examination, I realized the stand was promoting earthquake preparedness, and the chocolate sleeve included a checklist. And of course, what earthquake checklist is complete without a bar of Meiji chocolate?!

It seemed silly at first, but I remembered afterwards that Hershey’s business boomed throughout WWII when it was making chocolate for the troops. Any claims about the health benefits of chocolate aside, maybe just having a comforting, sweet bar in a time of emotional distress is an important part of any survival kit. 

Miki Penguins

I had once heard of a bar in Kobe with live penguins in it. I was a little shocked when one of Becky’s co-workers told her there is a cafe in Miki that also has live penguins. 

We ended up going in the evening, and it turned out to be relatively close by bicycle, although there were a few nasty hills along the way. The cafe is called Ballantaine, which seems to be a bad transliteration the Japanese version of valentine. It had a fairly standard interior for a gourmet coffee and cake shop, except for a big penguin tank on one side! There were four african penguins. Two were mostly lounging, and the other two were constantly swimming in circles in their tiny pool. The menu was a little pricey, but I guess we were paying to see the penguins too. I’ve been told the penguin bar in Kobe has an expensive cover charge to pay for the penguins.

I got strawberry cake and iced coffee, and Becky got some sort of potato cake and a Brazilian coffee. Everything was delicious, the penguins were great, and we will definitely go back!

Gaijin Cards

We had to go to city hall to apply for our Alien Registration Cards, commonly called “gaijin cards” by foreigners in Japan. Gaijin is the abbreviated, casual version of gaikokujin, the word for foreigner in Japanese. Before filling out the application, we needed some passport photos. We went to a local photography studio and were greeted by SEVEN Dachshunds! Three were in a pen, and four were laying in cardboard boxes along the wall. They ran up to us, barking like crazy when we came in, and they didn’t stop until we started ignoring them. It was one of those bizarre Japanese experiences that eventually become normal.