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The newest in the you are what you eat series is Curry Udon which is udon noodles in a curry sauce with a bowl of rice for those of us not on the Atkins Diet. The sauce was great and spicy but the noodles brought to mind the cheap-tastic English Pot Noodle.

My last personal post described how I was a lazy man on the weekends with no life except for watching videos. I`d now like to shatter this hurtful illusion by describing how I played five a side football with Reiko`s friend`s husband and his workmates for three hours on Sunday.

It was good to get playing football again as it is such a long time since I`ve played it. This means that I am awful once more. It`s not fair. I`ve heard about Americans who come to Japan and play baseball in the local teams regret that when they go back to their motherland, their batting averages get substantially worse due to the superiority garnered from being from the country which invented it. Being a newbie to the great sport of baseball I am unsure whether that means they go up or down. (Is it down?) That`s the problem with baseball. There are too many confusing statistics such as RBI`s which mar what is otherwise an excellent game. Go the mighty Hanshin Tigers!

Anyway where I was going with that point is that I have come to Japan and am still getting run ragged by the jozu Japanese. That our team`s highest scoring game came when I played in goal is a case in point. This may be of course due to my lack of practice. I did manage to score two goals overall including a stunning (read flukey) shot from the halfway line. Are you impressed? : )

More blog name-dropping abound. I took this picture a while back with my phone and looking at it today decided to post it.

This is explained on the excellent Tokyo Times blog (who seems to be having temporary template problems) as:

March 3rd is Hina Matsuri (Girl’s Festival), a time when families with girls display traditional hina dolls and pray for the health and happiness of their female offspring. This festival has been a part of Japanese culture since the Edo Period (1603-1867), and is said to have originated in China along with the custom of transferring bad luck from people to dolls. But such a long history hasn’t stopped Mickey Mouse and his pals from hijacking proceedings, turning the event into just another cute and cuddly moment.

I fear stealing pictures from blogs I link to so click on the link to see the picture of the Disneyed Hina doll. It`s astounding.

Found a hilarious post in someone else`s blog (Road thoughts) about a trip to Osaka he took and a visit to an onsen that he made. This man is here on work from America and was invited by a Japanese bloke to visit an onsen. The whole post is funny and gives another viewpoint on my gushing love for Osaka and all things Japanese. Read the bit here or click on the link below for the whole thing.

Bravely, we undressed and headed into the spa area. This had to be the gay-est thing I had ever done in my nearly thirty years I’ve been on this planet. Dozens of men walking around, naked, like they had no care in the world.

So we headed to a jacuzzi which had individual seating so it didn’t seem so gay. The water was wicked hot, but I didn’t care as long as no one too close. The jacuzzi faced a giant window overlooking the side of a mountain and the Japanese style garden.

“It’s a nice view” Nakamura-san said.

“Yes it is.” I replied. My original meaning was in regards to the view of the garden and the side of the mountain. But at the moment I said that, two guys walked in front of the window, stretched, and then went into the sauna.

“Not when some dude’s c**k’s in your face,” Junior added immediately after they walked into the sauna. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Today I proved the maxim doing nothing makes you more tired. Most Saturdays for the last forever here in Japan I have done very little apart from stay inside and watch crazy Japanese television (soul destroying) or videos as I am unable to garner any energy beyond that. Today I watched Kill Bill 1 and 2 back to back.

What`s wrong with Japanese television you ask? Oh wait you didn`t. Well EVERY program revolves around food or will have a food related segment. This normally involves having a shot of whatever food was chosen today (normally fish) on the end of the chopsticks shaking like somebody with Parkinsons with the panel of `celebrities` who get paid to say Oishee so (Looks delicious) whilst smiling inanely. This coupled with samurai dramas (not half as exciting as it sounds) stuffed full of people wearing headpieces that are blatantly not there own is Japanese TV.

I have started carrying around a small notepad with me to write down Japanese words I come across in the day. I was really happy as well as I got to saw a pencil in half with my Swiss army knife so it would fit in my pocket. (No felling trees to make a camp or slitting throats behind enemy lines, I saw pencils in half with mine) I`m not trying to show off that I can speak (a tiny tiny amount of) Japanese. Really. I`m not asking for a medal. You speak Japanese do you? You want a medal?

This is starting to sound a bit schizophrenic. So I`ll stop that now. I carry around a notepad because I would ask somebody how to say this or that word or I see a word I can read and instantly forget what it means. So now I`ve got a place to store them (and a semi-valid excuse for using my army knife.) Whether they are sinking in or not is debatable but it`s an improvement.

Learning to read and write in Japanese is the best thing about learning Japanese. So much so that I have done almost nothing else except some vocabulary learning. Who cares what shio means when you can write Fujimoto in hiragana and kanji? Right on. A lot of the other Japanese knowledge I have picked up has come via repetition. You go through the same thing so many times that you soon become an expert.

Alright then a few choice cuts from the magic book of wisdom are:

kobucha - seaweed tea. Always useful to know so you don`t order it by accident and end up in the toilet retching although it`s really not so bad.

saikolo -dice

okashii - strange/funny/crazy. Useful for most things. ie. You do it that way? What the hell for? That`s crazy.

kawa - river

hitsuji - sheep. My university was in Wales ok?

and in case you were wondering (Yeah right) Shio is salt.

Well I finally got around to posting a picture of the kids I teach from my mobile. This was a Body Parts lesson in an excellent 5th Grade (10 and 11 year old) class I taught. You can see behind them some bodies they drew as part of a game called Bodybuilding Game I found via the mighty Genki English site. There were 42 kids in the lesson today. I`ll try and get some better pictures before this thing finishes for you (early March.)

This year’s first warm windstorm signifying the arrival of spring blew hard across the Kanto and Hokuriku regions Wednesday, nine days later than last year, the [Japanese] Meteorological Agency said.

This story was the second one on the evening news last night and I couldn`t understand why. (Of course it was in Japanese.) It must have been a slow news day if high winds are in the top three news items I thought. Reading the newspaper today I finally understood. As quoted above from the Japan Times there was a warm windstorm (Haru-Ichiban) on Wednesday with winds of 103.7 kph clocked in Chiba, 100.1 kph in Yokohama and 82.4 kph in Tokyo. It was surprising as the temperature soared from 5 degrees on Tuesday to 17 on Wednesday. This is supposed to signify the start of Spring although the weather at the moment (Thursday) reminds me more of wet and windy England than the sweet cherry blossom of Japanese spring. Click on the link for the full article.

This is a meal at a Yakitori restaurant. Tori means bird and yaki means grilled and this is what this type of restaurant specialises in. Mainly chicken. You normally get delicious edamame beans with it. It is mostly served on a skewer like a kebab. The pink things are pickled garlic. Delicious.

This is what it can look like from outside.

This is a picture of a smoking room in Japan regarding my below post about smoking. The table has a contraption that sucks away the smoke into it. They may well have these in your part of the world but not in England. This was found in a shopping centre called Diamond City. A couple of miles up (or should that be down) from Emerald City on the yellow brick road.