Richard's latest post has reminded me of this very post-worthy breakfast I had last Sunday. While Jenni stayed with us, she kindly made blueberry pancakes, some shaped like a mouse or panda, depending on your view, and others in various island forms. This picture is also an ode to happy blog, who always has amazing food-related posts. I hope she adjusts well in terms of nourishment; I just find it difficult to imagine that Canada has better food than Japan.
My dad claims that when I was a kid, my favorite part of the Lincoln Park Zoo was the cow-milking demonstration. Jenni and I went to the zoo last week (has anyone else heard of fries shaped like animals, or did I just make them up???) and we happened to enter the barn as they were wrapping up the milking demonstration. It is generally kind of gross, but I used to drink a lot of milk when I was young so I guess I appreciated this procedure back then. What young child pays attention to giant cow nipples changing sizes and being rubbed with vaseline-like balm anyway?
Left: My photo
I just accidentally took someone else's large iced maté laté even though I ordered a small :D
We went to a Yokohama Baystars vs. Tokyo Giants game and sat in the bleacher seats. There is no point in going to a Japanese baseball game unless you sit in the bleachers! All the action is where the cheerleaders (ouendan) are--they tell you who you're cheering for, what to cheer, and how to cheer (the rhythm can be tricky; there are different cheers for various players and even moments during the game). These boys/men are all very passionate about cheering, and what they do is not insignificant--the cheering can be heard distinctly on TV, so if there is no guided cheering, the team and its fans look half-hearted and pathetic to everyone in the stadium and watching at home. They're like orchestra conductors! (See video below.)
And then there is this weirdo, who is apparently always present at Baystars games. He wanders around all of the stands on the Baystars side, always wears his sunglasses, and always carries a hand-made sign with weird messages. This one says something about not throwing stuff into the field even if you are angry...or something.
And here is a video of the bad-knee cheerleader guiding us into a victorious cheer for...Yoshimura? They seem to have a nickname for him. I can clap along but I never say anything because I don't know what to say, except that if I had a male child to raise in Japan, I'd encourage him to become of these guys! But maybe he wouldn't want to cheer for the weakest team in all of Japan, with the sorriest record ever? がんばれ横浜！
Top left: pyramid shape
On July 17, I took this photo from the bus taking Mordecai and me from Narita to Yokohama. I noticed journalistic frenzy surrounding a relatively built man; I figure he is an athlete of some sort, but because you can't enter images or objects into Google yet, I have no idea who he is. Maybe he's related to K-1, MMA, fighting stuff? He's got that look in his eyes, and either a scar or birthmark near his left eye. Or maybe he's just a famous sailor/seaman?
Bus 52's destination is "Dreamland." Do you get to eat French macaroons, kyoho grapes, and play with Akita and Shiba puppies and roll around in cotton candy clouds all day there?
Jenni suggested I give this cat a name. The other day when I saw it again, I baptized it "Gumi-Neko." It's a cat (neko) from Gumisawa (its hood), so obviously, it's "Gumi-Neko."
On my way out to the internet cafe tonight, I walked downstairs and who do I see but Gumi-Neko lounging about. I think it stalked me to figure out where I'm staying. It probably sensed my sympathy for its scraggly ass. Who else takes pictures of the local dirty stray cat and posts them on her blog? Anyway, I went back inside and got it a tray and milk. Gumi-Neko slurped it up quickly, meowed at me very loudly, and I threw the tray away so that the neighbors don't bicker at me or my grandma for feeding a stray cat so close to the apartments.
These nailpolishes were released in honor of the new Chanel boutique in L.A. I heard about this in May, and had been waiting to hear how I could purchase them. Back then if you didn't live in or near L.A., where you can get them directly at the store, you had to sign up on some useless email list and wait to see when they would be released online. But I inquired at the Chanel counter at Takashimaya here in Yokohama and the pretty Chanel lady told me that they were going to be one of ten locations in Japan to sell the line starting July 4th. After accompanying my grandma to her doctor's appointment that day, we stopped by Takashimaya and I picked up the pink and purple polishes.
"Melrose" 
"Rodeo Drive"I've been in Japan for a little over month now, and I think I'm getting used to things: internet-lessness, the limited surface area-per-person, all the walking, the people dressing differently-but-the-same, and feeling kind-of-foreign-but-not-really. But the one thing I cannot get used to is how my money just DISAPPEARS. I was prepared for the transportation fees, but I underestimated the power of sales/bargains/bazaars/whatever you want to call them, where things are no longer outrageously priced, only mildly expensive. No seriously though, there is SO MUCH TO BUY. I think there are two major reasons why my wallet and account suffer: one is that I'm here for longer than recent trips, and the other is that I am not here with Mordecai right now. Searching for and looking at weird, if not entirely dull buildings to the untrained eye is so much cheaper than going to CIAL, VIVRE, the Landmark Plaza\Queen's Towers\at! (triple threat!), World Porters, Takashimaya's makeup floor, or heaven forbid the ever-glitzy Motomachi numerous times a week.
But it has been revealed just now that he will be coming three days earlier than previously planned! Which is really just two days earlier, because the day you arrive is sort of timeless and nonpresent, when you're dazed from the long-ass plane ride, people feed you things and you fall asleep relatively early. I think if I complain any further about this his plane might drop, I'm even surprised there were seats open, so I'll stop now and figure out how to reserve bus tickets from Totsuka to Narita :D
I’m still obsessed with grapes. As far as I know, there are two kinds of grapes here: tiny little ones (I forget their name) and giant roly-poly ones (Kyoho, above). I stopped at a local, mediocre grocery on my way home the other day and saw that the little ones were on sale. But where there is a sale, there is a reason. In each package, there was at least one grape that was showing clear and distinct evidence of expiring. I just happened to notice out of the corner of my eye that there were Kyoho grapes not on sale, which appeared fine to the naked eye. I decided to give them a good home.
SO GOOD. American grapes are alright, and it’s nice that there are two color choices, but my goodness they are so bland compared to Kyoho grapes, which are so so so tart and juicy. You have to peel them, which is a real pain in the ass, but that’s when you realize how juicy they are and you know you’re going to have a good feast when you’re done. All the hard work makes them taste that much better. It used to be worse—when I was little, I had Kyoho grapes that had about four large seeds in each grape. Technology has advanced, my friends—forget the square watermelon (I think it is mostly forgotten anyway), on with the seedless Kyoho grapes! Make them teleport to Chicago!
They have a new limited McFlurry here: milk tea + Oreo. The ice cream part tastes kind of like milky earl gray tea, and then you get little Oreo bits as a bonus. SO GOOD. My grandma says American McDonald’s tastes better than Japanese McDonald’s, but I wonder if she’s just biased against what she can always have. Likewise, I can’t really tell if I’m just excited about the novelty of eccentric flavors and products or if I really think these products are better than their American counterparts. I never think even once about getting a McFlurry in Chicago.
I saw the movie “The Magic Hour” (pronounced "Za Majikku Awaa") today. I even bought caramel popcorn (pickled-plum-with-something-green flavor was sold out), which came in a little bucket in a plastic bag. I guess to make sure you don’t spill? And then when you leave the theater you put your garbage neatly on a tray, which all gets taken care of by a theater employee. The popcorn was lightly flavored, and might as well not be labeled “caramel” given Garrett’s signature flavor. Anyway my outfit colors were purple, black and gray, inspired by none other than Baikinman, who I posted earlier. It's funny how I hated purple until very recently.
Jenni introduced me to this random Japanese girl’s blog. She appears to be Japanese, but writes all her posts in near-impeccable English. My hypothesis is that she’s studying at maybe Aoyama Gakuin in Shibuya to translate in the future, so the blog is her personal language exercise. A while back she wrote about how she got a pedometer and how she walks a lot around in Tokyo. Inspired, I bought a pedometer at Yodobashi Camera the other day. It counts how many steps I take, and apparently it also tells me how many kilocalories I burn as a result of my walking. I wanted it to record and confirm that I walk a lot more in Japan than in Chicago, and by how much. Also, it’s to replace the Pikachu pedometer I once had my freshman year of high school, which ended up on the CTA train tracks. The blame went to Vinh, who was borrowing it for some reason, but it turned out the person who actually caused it to end up on the tracks was none other than Nik. If I complain, I’ll look like the asshole, so let me leave it at this: Pedometer Pikachu lived a fulfilling life and died a brave, noble death.
Anyway, I walk a lot—I usually exceed 10,000 steps, which may sound like nonsense to most people who never even think about how many steps they take in a day. But the other day, I surpassed 20,000 steps, and my feet died. But it turns out meandering doesn’t burn many calories, especially if you stop for a McFlurry and a dorayaki back to back and come home before dinner completely full :D
You can enjoy Caramel Corn in bath form. They are adamant about not eating the bath salts or drinking the bath water mixed with the salts.
I'm glad I took this picture and not a picture of the salts mixed in. It looks like a pool of urine, basically, though it smells like milky caramel. Either you get used to the smell or it's not too overwhelming. I imagine the latter to be the case so as to reduce the temptation of consuming the bath water. Now I'm both afraid and curious about the chocolate bath salts I saw at the same store.
I wanted to take a picture of the famous crosswalk at Shibuya facing the Hachiko Statue. And then Jero had to get all up in my photo. Good timing!
Generally speaking, Isezakicho is a kind of odd place. The first strange thing there that comes to mind is the Snake Store, where they sell strange medicines made from snakes. There's a sign on the door that says to only enter if you are making serious purchases; it's intimidating enough to make you reconsider entering to gawk and then pretending like you didn't find what you were looking for and leaving without saying anything. The other strange sighting I have yet to see but have heard about is our family priest roaming about, lonely and drunk. The other day, I saw this man with his rabbit on a leash. Naturally, people stare and comment on how "kawaii" it is, but it looked really anxious and displaced to me.
Apparently in the U.S. there are only four places where you can enjoy Fauchon delicacies. Three of them are not surprisngly in Manhattan, and the fourth one is surprisingly in Dallas, Texas. In Paris I was too intimidated and too poor to enjoy Fauchon products; plus I was incredibly satisfied with local bakeries' pastry choices anyway. But Fauchon in Japan? This is just plain destiny.
Marron & Sakura
