Sushi Sunday

It's Sunday today.
After a lazy morning we decided to go and get some sushi for lunch. We haven't been out for sushi in such a long time, actually, so it was nice to head out that way for a change.
We ate 14 plates of sushi. It's conveyor belt style, so the plates of sushi all come cruising past on the belt and you just take whichever plate looks good to you and at the end the staff count up how many plates you have on your table and charge accordingly. Each plate is 105 yen (about US$1 or so). There's also a touch screen at each table, with which you can order sushi from the menu and they'll make it for you and send it to you on a nifty little sushi express train. When the train comes it stops at your table and beeps until you remove your ordered sushi from the train and press the button to send the empty train back to the kitchen. It's really cool. Actually, this isn't new at all, but today I just decided to tell you about it.
Here are some of the sushi we had today:

tempura prawns sushi (one of Liz's favourites)

tuna

inari-zushi (sushi rice wrapped in sweet beancurd...so much better than it sounds)

tempura prawn roll (one of my favourites)

cooked anago (salt water eel) with sauce

crab sushi... man, this was amazing!!

Salmon sushi

I forget what this one was... some white fish

pickled eggplant sushi

Our post-lunch stack of 14 sushi plates waiting to be counted

After sushi, it was starting to rain, so we made the very logical decision to keep driving over to the other side of the peninsula to Kumihama and get some ice cream from the cow farm there. Japan draws a strange connection between cow farms and ice cream. I know ice cream comes from cream and stuff, but I don't get the fascination with eating ice cream while sniffing cow manure on the farm... but anyway, we did that. I really like the ice cream there, and I think it's a very scenic place. I got bitter caramel ice cream, and Liz got espresso flavour. I think mine was better. haha
They also had lots of herbs growing in the garden there, so upon being dared by Liz, I snaffed some for dinner tonight. Nothing like a bit of fresh rosemary! In fairness though, this rosemary wasn't growing in the herb garden, but randomly in the carpark, so I think it was ok.

Driving the narrow roads back to Yosano from Kumihama

Pirates in Kyoto

On a trip to Kyoto last month we noticed that Pirates of the Caribbean 4 was playing at the movie theatres in the city. We made a mental note to plan another trip down to the city for the sole purpose of seeing the movie. Last weekend we got around to making the trek. We woke up bright and early, drove a couple of hours to a town called Sonobe where we could leave the car and take a cheaper local train into Kyoto. We arrived in time to see the 10am show (which was fantastic since it's a long movie, and left us some time to do some other shopping).


We lined up to buy our tickets, picked our seats (yep, Japan does assigned seats at movie theatres) and grabbed some popcorn before taking our tickets to the guy guarding the corridor of theatres. He took the tickets Bryn offered, looked at them, and handed them back saying that you could only enter the theatre 10-15 minutes before show time. As he said this I glanced to my left, where there was a large clock on the wall.

It was 9:44.

The movie started at 10:00.

You have got to be joking!!! Bryn and I looked at each other and laughed. We patiently waited for about 30 seconds, at which time dude made the announcement that ticket holders for the 10am showing of Pirates of the Caribbean could now enter the theatre. It was a major Meet the Parents moment...you know the one...when Ben Stiller wants to get on the airplane, but the flight attendant refuses to let him board until they call his row number...which she does 30 seconds later.

Once we got into the theatre we found our seats and waited for the lights to go down. The seats immediately around us started to fill up. By the time it started, there were maybe 10-15 people in the theatre, all sitting in their assigned seats RIGHT NEXT TO EACH OTHER!!! The lady who sold up the ticket showed us 3 sets of 2 seats together that she claimed were still available, so we figured it would be quite full...now why they had to sit everyone together in a nearly empty theatre I will never understand (it has happened in each of the 4 times I have been to the movies in Japan.)

Oh, Japan...I think I might miss your unbelievable quirkiness...

The movie was good - I recommend it if you liked the other Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I was a little hesitant since Keira Knightly and Orlando Bloom were not in it, but I enjoyed it even without them! Now I am patiently awaiting the final installment of Harry Potter...can't wait!!!

After the movie, (make sure you stay through the end credits!!!) we had a quick bite at Starbucks, then headed back towards the station for our usual foreign food shopping. We decided to cut through some of the covered arcade shopping to avoid crowds and shorten the walk. We took a little street that we had been down only one other time called Nishiki Street. It is a narrow little shopping street lined with food stalls selling all sorts of crazy things from pickles to fish heads. Unfortunately none of it looked terribly appetizing to me!!! I definitely recommend it if you ever find yourself in Kyoto wanting a real Japanese experience!

Nishiki Street, Kyoto

Yumm! Eyeballs, bones, and all!!! Would you believe me if I told you this was a typical school lunch item?? (Now you understand why I don't eat school lunch anymore!) The things around it are tiny little fish that are sprinkled on rice, mix in salads or used in other cooking.

Baby octopus on a stick anyone?

Vegetable pickled in salt, sake lees (lees = what is leftover after making sake...yeah, I didn't know that!!)

Assorted pickles...(these I like)

Splayed, dried fish...

Sake tasting

Lately we have been exploring the little "off the beaten path" streets of Kyoto looking for some real Japanese arty stuff to take with us when we leave...that's right...we will be leaving Japan in August. Bryn has been offered and accepted a teaching position at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, UAE. We are both super-excited for the move, and will keep y'all up to date as it comes closer. For the time being though, we are looking forward to summer BBQs and beer gardens during our last few weeks in Tango!

Rain, Rain, Go Away. Come Again on Monday Morning!

This year the rainy season seems to be a little early.
Usually the rainy season lasts more-or-less for the month of June, but this year we've had a few extended patches of rain already. Actually, I'm almost confident to say that we've had just as many rainy days as sunny ones in this latter half of May. I wonder if that means that the rainy season is just going to be longer this year, or if perhaps it will end sooner, since it started sooner. Who knows.
Sure enough, it's raining right now. The frogs must be loving all this wet weather. However, today's rain (and yesterday's too, for that matter) can be explained by the following picture:
Yes, the second typhoon of this season is getting closer and causing all this rain. It was a pretty nasty typhoon when it was down by the Philippines, but it has lost quite a bit of strength as it climbed slowly northwards to Japan. I just saw on the news this morning that it caused some pretty strong winds and heavy rains in Okinawa as it passed by last night, and now the southern island of Kyushu is getting a bit of a pounding, but nothing too serious. The picture above shows it's predicted trajectory. Looks like it's going to pass by south of us, (if you aren't sure where we live, find the "0" of "30" and take your line of sight straight upwards to the Sea of Japan coast (the northern coast) and you'll see a small peninsula just to your right. We live at the base of that peninsula) but we'll probably still fall within the big yellow circle of strong winds and heavy rain. Fingers crossed, anyway! If we get what's known as a keiho (severe weather alert) then school is cancelled for the day (or at least until lunchtime, possibly for the whole day). We had a heavy rain keiho just a couple of weeks ago, and it was GREAT!! Of course, we still have to go in to work, only the students get the day off, but it means we get to chill out and catch up on things without having to "do our jobs" and go to teach classes etc. haha.
Anyway, I just checked the weather report and the southern half of Kyoto prefecture has a heavy rain keiho issued, so it's probably just a matter of time until they extend it up to here. We need to get 50mm of rain in one hour to get a keiho . The question is, will the keiho still be in place when it counts (Monday morning!) or will it be lifted by then and thus school as normal.
Keiho, or no keiho, that is the question.

Anyway, keep your fingers crossed for us. We'd love to have a relaxing Monday :)