31 March 2004
I'm embarking on an experimental dietary period starting April 1st. I've made an agreement with my friend Tammie at work. For two weeks I will not eat from fast food restaurants, nor will I eat anything non-fast food, which would nevertheless be considered universally to be quite unhealthy. I also won't drink beer during this period, although whiskey is fine. I'm limited to 500ml of delicious Coca-Cola® per day. In addition, Kumiko and I will (though she doesn't yet know it), change our nightly sit-up routine to a nightly "crunch" routine, because that's better for your back. We also have to add some of these "crunches" where you veer off to either side, rather than always going straight up. Tammie, for her part, has agreed to drink one glass of beer or wine per week, which should effectively end her right to constantly harp about how she doesn't drink.30 March 2004
Back to work today. It's hard after 3 days off, but I was happy to come home and see that my website server is back up after a long interruption caused by some kind of hacker attack. Everything is OK now. You should see how many of my radishes have sprouted. They're beautiful. I can't wait to put them in the ground, but we can't use the community garden plot until May. Yesterday I had a day off following the Gunma trip. I went to Seijo Ishii, a nice import supermarket in Umeda. I decided to find an answer to the Caraway vs Cumin question. I bought both. They do taste different. Caraway is slightly sweet in comparison. You have to toast them to get any flavor out, however. I've found that carrots taste really delicious with toasted caraway seeds, butter, and a little salt. Then again, gravel would taste good with enough butter and salt. But I suggest the carrots.28 March 2004
We're home. We had a nice time in Gunma. On Saturday morning we met Kumiko's parents and took the shinkansen to Kyoto Station, where we picked up her brother, Kazuomi, his wife, Chiaki, and son, Daichi. Daichi is a year and a half old. He's getting cuter every minute, so he was definately the star of the trip. There is always a buzz around Daichi - five or six kids and adults vying for his attention. The Gunma Niijimas are a lot of fun. Kumiko's father's brother's sons' kids are all young and full of beans. We stayed at her aunt's house. It's a new house (none of us had seen it before) built on the site of the old house. There's a lot of farmland in the neighborhood, and we got to eat vegetables which we had picked only an hour before. On Saturday evening we all (about 18 people) went to a Chinese restaurant. Really good stuff. I gave a little speech, at my father-in-laws urging, which Kumiko translated. People kept putting kids in front of me and instructing them to speak English. That was good fun. The oldest of the kids, Chihiro, is 14 years old, and she wasn't embarrassed to try out her English. She studies at her junior high school, and when we were leaving today, she promised to study English harder. I'm sure she will. This morning we had a traditional breakfast (fish, rice, soup), then went to visit the graves of Kumiko's uncle and grandfather. Kumiko's father never saw his own father. He died in the Pacific War shortly after his son was born. We all burned sticks of incense at each grave. Four-year-old cousin Momoka and even little Daichi know how to pray and show respect in this situation. After that we headed over to the shrine where Kumiko and Kazuomi were both named by the resident priests when they were born. There's a mini-zoo there and a lot of beautiful flowering trees. It was exciting watching Momoka react to the animals and run all over the place. She has the cutest voice. She was too frightened to go near a rooster. Daichi burst into tears when his father climbed on top of an old helicopter on display there. The helicopter was made by Fuji Heavy Industries (aka Subaru), which dominates the city of Ota. At least one of Kumiko's cousin's works for Subaru. We couldn't visit the Subaru museum, as I had wanted, because it's closed on Saturday/Sunday. That was disappointing. Our final stop on the trip was a ramen restaurant that makes their own noodles by hand on site. The technique is pretty cool to watch. The noodle guy makes a really long hunk of dough, which he twists, then holds one end and tosses the other so that it stretches way out before slamming down onto a wooden table. He does that about one million times, I guess. I lost count after seven. Those were tasty noodles. I had a delicious and refreshing Coca-Cola with my meal. It tastes better from the old-fashioned glass bottles. I took a bunch of pictures, of course, which I'll post in due time. Can't wait to get them developed tomorrow! It's a good feeling having three or four rolls of film ready for the shop.25 March 2004
We did a Mad Lib tonight: A Political Speech
Ladies and gentlemen, on this shiny occasion it is a privilege to address such a poop-colored-looking group of trains. I can tell from your smiling hemmorhoids that you will support my crazy program in the coming election. I promise that, if elected, there will be dirty underwear in every handcream and two teeth in every garage. I want to warn you against my urine-soaked opponent, Mr.Michael Walters. This man is nothing but a fat ramen. He has a thick character, and is working machine gun in glove with the criminal element. If elected, I promise to eliminate vice. I will keep the islands off the city streets. I will keep crooks from dipping their bras in the public till. I promise you childish government, silly taxes, and Japanese schools.Need I say what we had for dinner tonight?
24 March 2004
We're going on a trip to Gunma Prefecture this coming weekend. Last November we went to Tokyo to meet Kumiko's mom's family. We had a big party at a tenpura restaurant in Ginza. Her mom's family is really fun. One ofherour aunts runs a ramen factory with her husband on Sado Island in the Japan Sea. They send boxes of fresh ramen noodles every once-in-a-while. We have ten packs of their noodles in the fridge now. They're honestly the best ramen noodles I've had. You'd think that the deliciousness of ramen would depend more upon the soup than on the noodles. That, however, is not so. As good as the soup is, the consistency and flavor of the noodles is the key. Really good noodles can make up for ho-hum broth, but delicious broth can't save lame noodles. As I was saying...that was in November/December thereabouts. This weekend we're going to do basically the same with my father-in-law's side of the family. They live in a much more rural prefecture, and I'm guessing are more on the traditional conservative side, but I don't really know yet. Gunma Prefecture is not famous for anything I know of. According to Kumiko, though, it's the homeland of Niijimas. There aren't many by that name around Osaka, but Gunma is full of them. We're going to stay at an uncle's house. Should be fun...lot's of kids around for social greasing. The Subaru factory is somewhere nearby as well. If we have a chance, I'm hoping we'll be able to check out the attached museum. I want to see the classic cars of Japan, but there are hardly any on the roads now. The nature of the taxation/inspection systems makes keeping old cars really expensive, so most cars older than 10 or 15 years get shipped off to China or southeast Asia. I think it's a shame. Oh, and here's the information you've all been waiting for: I had leftover chili for dinner.23 March 2004
So full. Kumiko made chili, and I made potatoes au gratin. We also made flour "tortillas", but they were nothing like tortillas. This meal looked really simple on the table, but we managed to make our biggest kitchen mess to date. My pants and sweater are splattered with dough too. Before we started cooking, Kumiko went shopping with her mom, and I went to the garden center, then rode home taking pictures of "k-trucks" along the way. I'll explain that when I get some k-truck photos up. I bought a few seed packets (red radishes, morning glory, shiso, and common sage) as well as some potted plants (rosemary, wild strawberry, and something called "cherry sage"). I've found out that black pepper vines only produce fruit after three years, and that sage takes a long time to grow from seed. The potted sages they had at the nursery, however, were not very edible varieties. I don't know why I bought one, just as I don't know why I bought the edible sage seeds. Just desperate, I guess. Mom or Anna, can you send me a packet of jalepeño seeds, and caraway seeds too? Don't say that it's seeds, though, on the customs form. I doubt if it's allowed. I don't know if you can plant them (caraway seeds, I mean) straight out of the spice bottle or not. I tried planting cumin seeds out of the bottle today. My taste memory tells me that cumin and caraway taste the same. Is that right? I planted a heap of radishes today in little starter pots. My grandparents always had radishes on the table from their garden. Their garden smelled like cow manure too. Good with the bad.22 March 2004
It's been cold and raining all day today. I've spent most of the day in front of the computer. I only went out once, to go to the photo shop. It was a long walk, but other than that I've been dormant. Kumiko and I have been doing sit-ups every night before bed. We'll see if it can counteract the sausages I ate for breakfast.21 March 2004
Kumiko and I rode over to see our section of the community garden. It's in a strange but cool part of Toyonaka, near Hattori Ryokuchi Park. There are a couple of reservoirs nearby, which are already breeding mosquitos like mad. I'm going to buy something I used to think was stupid: a battery-powered vapor-releasing belt pack. It's supposed to keep the skeeters away.20 March 2004
I'm cooking rice and grilling salmon right now. I'm going to make salmon "oyako-don" for dinner. Oyako means "parent and child", usually either chicken and egg together, or in this case salmon and salmon roe. This is the eve of a three-day weekend, so I'm feeling good. Going to do some garden research.19 March 2004
Today I met Kumiko's folks at the station at 7:30. We went and met Kumiko at the Starbucks outside USJ. She had worked all night doing inventory, then caught a short nap on a Starbucks sofa. Amazingly, she came up with the plan to meet this morning and spend the day together at USJ. When the gates opened, we all ran to try the newest attraction, "The Amazing Adventures of Spiderman: The Ride", which is far too popular to try at any other time of day. We stood in line for about 40 minutes. By the time we exited, the line had reached the 150-minute mark. It was a great ride. Lots of thrills, combining real motion, simulated motion, and 3D effects. We waited in a couple more attraction lines as well, but the best part of this trip was watching the dance shows. There was a cool one with 50s-era teens, a very sexy disco show, and a really fun western show called "Cowboy Hoedown". The best part was actually the cowgirls. Most of these street-side shows also include a section where little kids are invited to join in. They were cute and funny every time. We had a great lunch at a very picturesque seafood restaurant, including ¥900 glasses of beer, courtesy of my in-laws. Kumiko is conked out now in the living room.17 March 2004
I'm really excited about planting a garden this year. Toyonaka City has a community garden project. We've paid a little bit of money to lease a 15m² parcel of land for a year. I've spent a lot of thought on what to plant. Kumiko may have something else in mind, but at the moment, I'm thinking basil, sage, cumin, red radishes, tomatoes, jalapeños, bell peppers, black pepper and cucumbers. I haven't done any research on when to plant these things or if they can grow at all in our climate. I'm looking forward to finding out.
