Takayama

Saturday morning my Mom and I traveled to Takayama city for a quick tour of the most popular attractions.

We started at the Takayama morning markets which have stands selling a mix of food, flowers, and random Japanese items. (Navi Phone number for parking 0577-35-5540 or 0577-33-4713) The stand in the photo below was selling rice paper inflatables in the shape of animals, globes, etc. I purchased some mushrooms that I plan to use in veggie sandwiches and Japanese omelets and some spice blends for topping rice.
Next we moved on to Hida Folk Village an outdoor museum with thatched roof houses mostly from the 18th and 19th century. (Navi Phone Number 0577-33-4714 or 0577-34-4711) The houses are similar to those I was able to see last Summer in Shirakawago, but the smell from the fires burning inside the buildings which don't have chimneys was much stronger than I remember. In some of the buildings it was so strong I couldn't even convince myself it was worth entering because my eyes would start watering from the smoke at the door.Out final stop of the afternoon was Donosora Ruins, 8000 year old remnants of a settlement. Unfortunately the information was all in Japanese so to me it was nothing more than circles of rocks in the grass.

Expensive Week

I have two work parties coming up in the next seven days. Despite the mysterious food, awkward communication and often pure confusion of attending a party with my co-workers, they usually turn out to be enjoyable. The first upcoming party is a wedding reception for my ICT advisor. W is marrying an OL from another department in the company and they are having a party, which they are calling a wedding reception, for coworkers. They wont actually be getting married until the following day which makes the title of the party is a bit strange. Guests pay the equivalent of $60USD for women and $65 for men to attend the reception with gifts being extra on top of that. A, who is a friend of the bride invited me to go in with her and 3 others on an electronic photo frame to which she will upload photos from the party. So I am expecting my total cost for attending this event to be around $80. I initially tried to sneak out of going but W caught me off guard when he approached me to ensure I had RSVPd since the invitation was e-mailed in Japanese.

The second party is a going away and Thank You party for Y-san who was in charge at the company in America before returning to Japan last Summer. Y-san will be moving to a different company in the group. Of course I would like to thank him, but the cost of the party in his honor is $70USD and the menu is Shabu Shabu which doesn't have a place in my diet. I felt obligated to attend and T convinced me when he was able to contact the restaurant about preparing me a veggie meal. It is usually against my principle to have food adjusted to fit my dietary preferences, but this adjustment supposedly also comes with a price adjustment.

I can tell myself that life is about experiences, but that is hard when I think about how I was holding off on buying a new bathing suit yesterday that I could have bought in multiple colors for less than the total of these two parties.

Japan Stimulus

The Japanese government is in the process of delivering stimulus payments and lucky for me they are available to Foreigners with long term visa status, so I quality. They payment amount is equivalent to approximately $120USD for me, but young people, old people, and people with children get more. Nagoya was reportedly one of the slowest cities to send the applications out, but I returned mine quickly so I am hoping the money gets deposited into my account before I have to close it for departure.

Hang Out Your Car Window Day

On my way to work this morning along Sanage Green road I spotted what I thought was a dog hanging out a car window.As I got closer I realized that it was actually a person hanging out of the car.
For the entire 8km stretch of the curvy high speed road the man hung out the window for what appeared to be a photo shoot of the red car. When a line of cars waiting to pass accumulated the photographer's car would pull over and let them pass.
On my way home I was horrified to see this child also hanging out of a car window and started to wonder what was going on.

Rose Sented Sweat

It was an especially humid and sticky day in the office today and the 4th floor CATIA room had a smell to match. They guy sitting next to me clearly didn't use deodorant. I don't mention this out of some American prejudice about people from other countries having bad hygiene (I am currently reading David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day -- see page 221 for a reference). Most of the youngish people I work with smell just fine and take extensive steps to stay that way including brushing their teeth or reapplying deodorant throughout the day in the office locker room. I have been told that some older people in Japan use deodorant without an antiperspirant, but the offending guy today couldn't have been wearing either. I found his poor hygiene especially contradictory since he was wearing a Rolex so clearly he considers how he presents himself.

At lunch I mentioned the smell to A and she sympathised and taught me about a gum marketed to remedy BO. The gum is called Otoko Kaoru and supposedly it changes the smell of your perspiration.

Manhole Covers 10

Koyasan

Our first stop upon arriving at Koyasan, a World Heritage Site, our first stop was Kongobu-ji.
Kongobu-ji has the largest rock garden in Japanand gives visitors free tea and rice crackers with admission.Our next stop was Rengejo-in the temple where we stayed the night. (Navi Phone Number 0736-56-2233)Our room was large with three sections one of them overlooking the temple garden.We were invited to join an evening meditation and a morning chanting service. Our meals were exquisite Buddhist vegetarian style.On Sunday morning we walked to nearby Nyonindo, the temple which women could enter before they were allowed to enter the mountain.Next we moved on to Okunoin, the largest cemetery in Japan.
The headstones are mixed with huge pines.We finished our time on the mountain in the Daito area.Many of the buildings in the area could not be entered but had peep holes covered in chicken wire through which you could view the interior.

Denji ha boushi Aprons

I was warned in advance of starting my assignment that many of the OLs link wear aprons. The common explanation around the Michigan office was that these aprons are worn so that the OL has plenty of pockets to store any items she might need handy to excel at her job; maybe a stapler or three-hole punch? This explanation didn’t satisfy me, after I started to notice that some OLs don’t wear aprons and some female engineers do, so I asked A and M for the real story. It turns out that these aprons are electro-magnetic protection aprons (電磁は防止エプロン) focused on protecting reproductive health and are not in common use outside my office. I didn’t find any information in English but I did find some interesting Japanese sites with amusing images.

Bread Points

I've gotten in the habit of enjoying a single serving package of some Japanese style bread product while driving to various tourist destinations on the weekends. In mid March I started noticing pink stickers on many of the products. A informed me that if I collected enough of the stickers (she calls them seals) I could get a free bowl in May.

Stove Top & Fish Broiler Cooking 21

Skewed shrimp done up in the fish broiler served on a bed of cabbage with a side of avocado and topped with pico de gallo and a creamy southwest sauce. The side is southwest eggplant based on an Americana heart association low sodium recipe, it tasted a little too AHA so I won't be making in again.

ETC Card Discount

I have blogged a bit in the past about the cost of expressway driving in Japan. I used to think that the toll roads on the way to Chicago were a bum deal, but since moving to Japan any expressway drive costing less 50USD each way seams reasonable. Since the end of March vehicles with an ETC (toll card) now travel unlimited expressway distances for just 1000yen (approx 10USD) on weekends. Some roads are still excluded, but from what I have encountered almost everything seams to be discounted to some degree. My car navigation system lets me know the non-discounted price which is a great reminder of how much money this program is saving me. For example my trip to Fuji go ko would have cost approx 80USD each way and a trip to Kyoto would have cost about 50USD each way. The looming problem at this point is that I have two months left, but have already gone 2000km over my lease limit for the year.

Protecting Strawberries From Birds

The same type of bird that was eating the leaves off my broccoli last fall is back and this time it is after my ripening strawberries. This bird is so brave that it posed in the strawberry pot while I took this photo. Conveniently one of the magazines that R sent me had a suggestion for putting Christmas ornaments near ripening fruit to confuse predators. I followed used this suggestion and some New Year's Eve streamers for good measure and so far the bird hasn't been back.

Sanshu Asuke Yashiki

My second trip to Korankei turned out much better than the first. Mom and I returned to the site of horrible Fall traffic jams to see Sanshu Asuke Yashiki a demonstration center for traditional Japanese crafts. The demonstrations included straw sandal making, weaving, wooden tub making, bamboo basket weaving, umbrella making,charcoal making, cloth dying, paper making, and a knife blacksmith.

Swine Flu Protection Day Three

On Wednesday, the day after my mom arrived I received an entirely Japanese voice mail sometime while I was at the office. The next day I decided to have YI listen to it for me just to make sure it was nothing important. As she tends to do after tackling any of my random Japanese Life related translations she burst out laughing. The message was from the Meito-ku ward office requesting that I record my temperature each day from May 12 to May 22 at which time they would call back to get my log. Of course they were actually seeking my Mom's condition rather than mine, just as a precaution against the swine flue.

8 Hours in Kyoto

For her first weekend back in Japan my Mom and I traveled to Kyoto on Saturday. Her request was to see Kiyomizu in the day light since she saw it during the November special evening hours last time around and I wanted fill in some of the prominent temples that hadn't yet been a top priority. We left Nagoya early, at 5:45, hoping to avoid the hordes of school children that are common at Kiyomizu. It turns out we were just in time by arriving at 7:45. the school children starting arriving at 8:00 and were close on our heels (this group was wearing matching yellow hats). Determined to see Ryogen-in, the temple deemed to have the best zen rock gardens in Kyoto by Michael and Naomi, I took my mom to the Daitoku-ji temple complex hoping that Ryogen-in would be open for visitors. It was open and I now agree that it has 5 of the best rock gardens.It wasn't on my initial to-see list but Frommers listed Koto-in as one of the top three sub-temples in Daitoku-ji so after enjoying Ryogen-in so much we decided to check it out. The garden of Koto-in could only be described as magical and I can only imagine how amazing the Japanese maple canopy over the approach must be in Fall.After a cold soba and tempura lunch set at a restaurant across from Byodo-in we entered this temple which appears on the 10yen coin.The temple is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it decidedly impressive and distinct with its Phoenix roof ornaments, but I found the crowds of visitors distracting.

Our final stop of the day was Enryaku-ji on Mt Hiei another of the World Heritage Sites in Japan. (Navi Phone Number 077-578-0001) While it did provide nice views I was a bit surprised to learn that the toll road on Mt Hiei cost approximately $17 USD.
Given today's rain and the altitude we were literally in the clouds as we toured Dai ko-do, Kaidan-in and Konpon chu-do in the East Area of the temple complex.

Death Announcements

I've been in Japan long enough that I managed to get subscribed to the office e-mail group for Death Announcements. It is pretty unfortunate when I put the contents of an e-mail into a translator to discover that someone in the PPT department had a spouse who just passed away or another person in PE just had a parent who recently died. As far as I can tell from the translation the e-mails also include information on where money can be donated to help the coworker cover expenses.

Amanohashidate

As a last trip before Mike left we went to Amanohashidate, one of the Three Views of Japan. Amanohashidate is a pine tree covered sandbar that passes connects the north and south sides of a bay of the Japan sea.
The customary way to view the bay is to take a cable car up a hill on either side of the bay then turn your back to the water and look at it through your legs so it appears upside down. Platforms are arranged expressly for this purpose and it seamed that no one could resist trying it.

Olive Chocolate

A is from Wakayama prefecture. The last time when she visited her 'Family Home' she returned to work with Wakayama Olive Chocolate omiyage. It was sort of like olive oil flavored white chocolate. The chocolate came from Shodoshima an island famous in Japan for olives.

Swine Flu Protection Day Two

That's my mom upon arrival in Japan today. Her quarantine inspection pass note reads: "...These requests are made to protest protect you as well as your family."

Swine Flu Protection

A typical scene at NGO airport today as I dropped M off.

Obama City

Sunday, on our way to see one of the Three Views of Japan M and I passed through Obama city.

Tissue Advertisements

Nagoya is a goldmine for free tissues. If I spend any time near Sakae Station I am going to come home with free packs of tissues displaying advertisements. In addition to the tissues handed to me on the street I also have packs from my bank, the grocery store, electronic store and my cell phone carrier. I am really at an advantage with this form of advertising since I cant read the advertisements.

Safety Drive Following Distance

Recently there has been a big push in my group for what my company calls 'Safety Drive.' There are seven key points for Safety Drive which are posted in at least size 144 font on the wall over the department recycling bins. I cant remember all the factors, but they include looking back for bikers when making a right hand turn (think left hand turn if you are driving in the US), having clear windows and looking out them before you start driving.

In driver's training I remember learning about the two second rule of safe following distance. It turns out that in Japan there is a different rule for following distance. Signs are randomly posted on the highways at intervals from 0 to 60m, you are supposed to check for a safe following space by distance rather than time. I guess the Japanese rule assumes that everyone is driving the speed limit or can calculate in their head the effect that an increased speed has on how much distance is needed to stop.

Nobori Matsuri

Tuesday was the last day of Golden Week. M had planned to take this day off work so that we could go to the Nobori Matsuri, so despite the rain we went. The festival commemorates the battle of Nagashino which is considered the first modern battle in Japanese history as the cavalry charge was used.