Halloween Omiyage

This week's Omiyage, Halloween Candy from Canada and another cake for nighttime.

Hoshigaoka

Hoshigaoka is the next stop after Issha, on the way into the center of Nagoya. I love walking to Hoshigaoka on the weekends or getting off the subway one stop early to see what is happening at the shops.This weekend the landscape in front of the shops was decorated for Halloween.

Nagoya City Art Museum

Last Sunday was a nasty fall day, in contrast to all of the beautiful fall days we had during the work week, so I visited the Nagoya City Art Museum. I wasn't interested in seeing the temporary exhibit, works by Picasso from the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen museum in Germany, so I purchased a ticket to see the museum's permanent collection.

The building is two stories with visiting exhibits on the top two floors and the permanent collection in the basement. The permanent collection was disappointingly small, only 3 gallery spaces. I found several things about the display of the collection distracting and frustrating.

-The wallpaper behind the pieces is filled with pierce holes, scuffs, and dirt remaining from previous arrangements.

-About 1/3 of the collection behind glass walls creating glare

-bright overhead florescent lighting and few targeted light sources

-No apparent connection, other than size, in the arrangement of the pieces

My favorite piece in the collection was a portion of a Diego Rivera mural, It made me appreciate how lucky we are to have the Rivera gallery at the DIA.

In contrast to the museum upkeep the grounds on which the building sits, along with the city science center, are a well kept beautiful green spaces where I would have spent more time if not for the rain.

http://www.art-museum.city.nagoya.jp/index.shtml

Congratulations ACB!

Bells

Before it gets so ingrained in my head that I forget about the absurdity, I want to mention the working hours in my office. Every morning at 8:25 the first bell rings, the bell continues to ring throughout the day on the following schedule.

8:25 Get Ready to Start the Day!
8:30 Start of the Day
11:45 First Lunch
12:00 Second Lunch
12:15 My Lunch
12:40 Warning for the end of First Lunch
12:45 End of First Lunch
12:55 Warning for the end of Second Lunch
1:00 End of Second Lunch
1:10 Warning for the end of Third Lunch
1:15 End of Third Lunch
5:30 End of the Day
9:00 Actual end of the Day

The 9:00 bell is accompanied by a nice announcement stating that it was a great work day and it is time to go home At 9:10 the lights go out and my group members can return home.

Stove Top & Fish Broiler Cooking 3

Black bean cakes on a bed of cabbage with pepper lime mayonnaise and a side of avocado and tomato.

Halloween Party

Yesterday well planned and much anticipated Halloween Party hosted by M & L.I wont know the final count until they come down, but Friday night, over pizza, we put up several hundred rats on every surface of the apartment. One guest was very confused as to what Mickey Mouse had to do with Halloween. I wish I had taken more photos to document the fun. My excuse is that I was too busy trying all of the delicious food. In addition to the food that L and I prepared it seamed that every guest brought something fun and Japanese to share. Post party M&L and I headed out to raid our neighbors persimmon tree (http://ictjapan.blogspot.com/2008/10/persimmon-tree.html), but failed after fearing that our fits of laughter tipped our neighbor off.

Green Tea Soft Serve

I'm always looking for an excuse to have ice cream, a photo for my blog is today's perfect reason.
The usual soft serve, called 'soft cream' in Japan, choices are green tea, green tea vanilla twist, and vanilla. Sometimes chocolate is an option, but I just gotta go with the green tea, I can have chocolate when I get home.

CO2 Ticket

This morning when I went to start up my laptop I noticed a paper that bad been placed between the monitor and keyboard. Hmm, strange. I couldn't interpret the Japanese, but I did notice CO2 clearly in several places, so I had an idea what it might be about. When I brought it up at lunch, my coworkers explained that if your computer is not shut down at night there are company CO2 police who will occasionally patrol the office handing out tickets. The penalty is writing an explanation as to why the computer was not properly shutdown and then having your group leader and department head sign it before returning it to the policing department. I can almost say that I am happy to have gotten the ticket, I was feeling pretty good about the steps I take to reduce my environmental impact, I recycle almost everything, fill my freezer with water bottles to improve its efficiency, unplug electronics that are not in use, shop at second hand stores, don't eat red meat, etc, but this served as a humbling reminder that I can/should always be doing more.

Cell Phone Patrol

On Monday we had a cell phone camera checkup. Our group leader, his assistant wasn't severe enough, had to inspect each members cell phone for a camera and document the results. I was safe, one step of my company orientation was using a Dremmel to grind the camera off my three day old cell phone. On Wednesday there was a follow up inspection, upon reaching the employee entrance I was greeted by five group leaders who demanded to see my cell phone before I entered the building. Unfortunately, I had left my cell phone at home, I opted to allow them too look through my bag rather than trying to explain in Japanese why I couldn't produce my cell phone.

A New Greeting Dog Moved In

I'm not sure when it happened, but a new Greeting Dog (http://ictjapan.blogspot.com/2008/08/greeting-dog.html) moved into my apartment building entryway.

Fall in Michigan

Two things happened today that made me just a bit homesick. First, my supervisor was in Novi for a few days and came back to the office with a Hillers' bag of souvenirs. I miss my grocery store, with foods I recognize and labels that I can read. The second thing that reminded me of home was the smell of one of my teammates eating apple candy, I want to go to the cider mill!

Toyota City Confetti Festival

I spent Sunday afternoon being showered by confetti at a festival in Toyota city intended to keep evil spirits away.The concept of the festival is that each section of the city has a float, they begin with drum performances in front of the floats after which snacks are tossed from the floats before they depart along the parade route. Throughout these events large amounts of confetti are tossed into the crowds.

The floats are human powered, with large groups of people including small children helping out.

Manhole Covers 1

It's hard not to notice the variety of manhole covers that can be seen throughout Nagoya.

Delicious Raisin Bun

...Or not. I picked up what I thought was delicious raisin rolls at my local organic grocery store, only to discover that instead of raisins they were filled with sweet beans.They taste OK, just not what I was hoping for.

Omiyage

I think I've mentioned it before, but food snack souvenirs are part of the workplace culture, I receive approximately two per week, which may be inflated due to the number of people on the other project in my group who are frequently traveling on business. Today's souvenirs were a mini strawberry muffin (which I had couldn't resist eating before I could take a photo) from a Safari Park and a chocolate cookie from a Mt Fuji Honeymoon trip.

Drill

The commotion started many days in advance of the drill. Step 1 halt production at all of the plants on site on the day of the drill. Step 2 install fire doors in all of the staircases. Step 3 Clear out the piles of junk obstructing the emergency exits. Step 4 Close the visitor parking lot on the day of the drill. Step 5 Ask each employee to take vacation on the day of the event and make a detailed attendance record. Until the actual event my understanding was that we were having a fire drill; that's what everyone had been telling me. Just after the alarm went off, and I was asked to sit under my desk for 5 minutes, I realized that it must be an earthquake drill. After the imaginary shaking stopped we followed designated leaders, who were provided with tall signs, outside to where an extensive PA system had been set up to warn us about the Tokai earthquake which historically happens every 100 years and is overdue.

Atsuta Shrine

On Sunday I went to Atsuta shrine in Nagoya. Atsuta shrine is the second most important shrine in Japan after the Ise shrines, which I visited over summer vacation. Luckily for me Atsuta is only about 30 minutes from Issha by subway.
The entrance gates are substantial.

One of the shrine buildings.

A pond on the grounds

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Female Drivers

During the first week after I moved to Japan I spent a lot of time with the consultant company preparing various things for my stay. On the day when I was receiving my temporary car, one of the consultants was discussing how I should be taking the driving test to get a Japanese Drivers License rather than using my International License. As I've mentioned before I'm sticking with the international License, the Japanese driving test is notoriously difficult for unpractical reasons. After her persuasion attempts failed, she turned to M and said ''You'll have no problem, men pass on the first try, but most women take three times to pass.'' I wonder how the female driving instructor that the consulting company employs would feel about this comment.

Social Security Scandal

There is a scandal in Japan involving Social Security records (http://www.chinadaily.net/world/2007-09/02/content_6073795.htm). This week I received my form to be filled out and sent back to verify my employment record.

Care Package Shipping

I was lucky enough to receive two care packages last week they were sent using two different shipping methods. In the race between USPS Priority and USPS First Class, First Class wins, in this case 4 days to 6. Thank you Rebecca and Mike!

Garbgage day

Every week there are four garbage days.

Monday recycling
Tuesday burnable
Thursday non-burnable/non-recyclable
Friday burnable again.

In addition to these days, some items, such as milk cartons and plastic food trays, are returned to grocery store for recycling. I've heard rumors about people having their trash thrown back on their doorstep if they fail to properly sort it out for the particular collection types. Thus far I've had good luck.
I've been here over two months and still haven't had to put out non-burnable trash, which feels pretty environmentally responsible.

Stove Top & Fish Broiler Cooking 2

Eggplant and Tofu Pad Thai. I wasn't confident that I could make thai sauce, but using Pad Thai recipes from allrecipes.com as inspiration and the ingredients I had on hand I managed to come up with something pretty close - and delicious. For the sauce I used equal parts sugar, rice wine vinegar and soysauce I added in katchup, lime juice and minced ginger, and japanese red spice mix to taste.

Persimmon Tree

The house across from my garage has a persimmon tree, the fruit is starting to ripen and and fall onto the street. I want, badly, to pick up a fruit and try it out, but I haven't yet for two reasons. Is it stealing? even if the fruit roll in front of my garage? Would it be safe to eat?

Spiders and Campaign Advertisements

I realize that spiders and political ads have nothing in common, but they both happened to annoy me today. When I got into my car this morning I was not alone, a very large spider was hanging on its web that was attached from the rear view mirror to the passenger window to the dashboard.

When I checked my mail after work I found an advertisement from the challenger for Oakland County Executive. It boggles my mind that she was willing to pay $0.95 to send me an advertisement all the way in Japan. I thought I was going to miss the campaigning this time around, but I guess I'm not so lucky.

Uotaro BBQ

Sunday was a going away BBQ for one of the TBA ICTs who has been here for almost 2 years and will be leaving in mid November. The BBQ location was Uotaro, (http://www.uotaro.com/modules/tinyd0), just over an hour away from my apartment on the ocean.
View of the Dinning area. The concept is that you pay an entry fee, then select food which you BBQ at a pit next to your table.

The food selection area, foods available include fish, shell fish, various sausages, vegetables, chicken, and many different types of breaded mystery meats.

A small selection of our foods on the grill.

Nagoya Orchid Gardens

The Nagoya Orchid Gardens are one of just 10 points of interest listed on the Nagoya City website, so they must be impressive right?I am still excited by the way that Green spaces are placed within the urban setting.
Halloween was being heartily celebrated. Many of the employees, including the women between the two topiary on the right, were dressed up.

The variety of orchids displayed in such a small space was impressive, I don't think I need to go back within the year, but it was nice to visit once.

When it gets light so early

Why not just get up early even if it the weekend? One perk is going out to breakfast to read a magazine without feeling like the day is wasting away.
Since Japan doesn't use daylight savings time, sunrise is currently just before 6:00am.

I Voted

I'm a little bummed that I don't get the 'I Voted' sticker this time around, so I took a photo to commemorate the occasion. Everyone who walked past me as I was trying took take this photo must have thought I was insane, but hey, I highly value my right to vote.

Stove Top & Fish Broiler Cooking 1

As if it isn't hard enough to think of something to make for dinner, my meal preparation situation is made more difficult by long hours at the office, not eating meat, no oven or microwave, and worst of all a foreign grocery store where I choose foods based only on look. Recently I became tired of less than delicious food so I started researching recipes and planing meals, not something I have done before. In Michigan I mostly cook without recipes and based on what in my refrigerator needs to be eaten quickly before it goes bad.
Today's meal was spring rolls. Rice paper wrappers filled with sauteed carrots, bean sprouts, and cabbage then topped with rice noodles and avocado. The dipping sauce is a combination of tsuyu (the concentrate for dashi or Japanese broth), green onions, garlic and minced ginger. I started with a recipe from vegcooking.com, but ended up making modifications as I went along. I took the leftovers to work for lunch and shared some with my co-workers who gave them good reviews.

Scenic Drive to Work

It's been raining a lot, which I didn't expect, everyone said after the July rainy season I would see blue skies and sun. Well, despite the gray skies I couldn't help but appreciate this view as I drove to work this morning.

Rice Field Update

And it doesn't stop after the harvest (http://ictjapan.blogspot.com/2008/09/rice-harvest.html), it seams that something new is growing in the rice paddy's around my office