Cafeteria Food Is Good For You!

I work offsite two days a week at a client's factory with some exceptions every now and then.  My station there is a simple and utilitarian office equipped with a desk, computer, printer, bookcase and amenities such as a water boiler (that's what one company calls the product - it's one of those gadgets you put water in, the machine boils it and keeps it at a set temperature for later use), an air conditioner (alas, there isn't one in the adjoining classroom) and an electric fan.  I get my lunch and dinner in the company cafeteria.  Getting there involves navigating a few turns, stairs, a walkway and a T-junction with emergency exit arrows on the floor pointing out in all three directions (in other words, in an emergency, if you're hurrying towards that T-junction you are going the wrong way no matter what your direction of approach is).   The cafeteria is plain and minimalist.  I don't believe the design has been changed since the building was erected in the late 1960s.  There is no decor to speak of aside from a few posters (one has Pikachu of Pokemon fame promoting healthy food choices).  The food they serve falls into the classification of good grub for the (subsidized) price you're paying.

Generally I can identify what it is I'm buying.  The usual menu choices are noodles and a meal set with rice, miso soup and a side dish.  Some of the side dishes fall outside my scope of Japanese food knowledge.  None of them are too exotic.  The situation isn't like what I've experienced in some onsen (Japanese hot spring/spa) hotels where they'll serve a side dish which looks really attractive but I'm unable to describe or identify it.  There is a table which you encounter upon entering the cafeteria where photographs of each menu item are shown along the item's name and the number of calories per serving.  So I feel some assurance that there is some degree of health consciousnesses going into their menu planning.  The weekly healthy eating quiz cards that get put on each table reinforce that feeling.  All in all, I've never walked into the cafeteria and upon seeing the menu choices, said to myself, "I'm NOT going to have that dish" (though I do avoid the wonton ramen because their wonton dumplings are not particularly exciting).

On a bit of a tangent, last month one of my junior high school students asked me about a certain dish which I later found out is served in a couple of school cafeterias in Yonezawa: cheese natto.  When she first directed the question "Do you like cheese natto?" at me, I didn't quite catch what the name of the dish was.  Once I got clarification, my expression turned to one that was a mixture of horror and distaste.  Don't get me wrong, I like natto enough to eat it semi-regularly.  I've even come up with a quick recipe that utilizes natto, chopped onions, ground pork and a dash of soy sauce.  But cheese and natto...that combination is one which never had crossed my mind.  Any ways, since I had never eaten the dish I quickly asked my student if she liked it.  Her answer was a blunt "No".  The two students who go to another junior high school said they had never heard of it.  I canvassed my other junior high school level class and two of the students said it was served at their school but they didn't like it either.  Interesting.

The subsequent information I got out of my student was that the dish does indeed mix natto and cheese.  It's a main dish and if I recall correctly, it's served with rice and, I presume, miso soup.  I was informed that the cheese is some kind of generic white cheese that has been rendered into a sauce-like form.  Upon hearing that, my mind quickly skipped over to a scene from the movie "Das Boot" where two sailors are verbally sparing over bad food references.  I don't know why.  I suppose the German equivalent of "baby barf" (or something similar) was the first reference I could dig up for a dish that sounded so distinctly unappetizing and unappealing.  When I described the dish to the mother of one of my students, she said it sounded kind of good.  My student and I both gave her bewildered looks.  We probably both shared the thought, "If you think it's good then you're welcome to it because we're not touching it".....

While Driving Back Home Today...

I had set my mind on going to the gym today by bicycle.  But I managed to leave myself too little time to go there by that means and give myself sufficient time to complete my workout.  So I ended up driving.  Unlike yesterday, I didn't treat myself to a creme brule McFlurry.  Instead I dropped in at the Gyosu Super and picked up some nuts, sauerkraut and made in India peanut butter.  In my opinion the latter is comparable to Skippy or Kraft peanut butter.
While I was stopped at a light on the way home I glanced in my rear view mirror and took notice of the occupants of a mini-van behind my car.  It wasn't the child bouncing around in the rear seat or the child seated in a child booster seat, which was mounted on the front passenger seat (I wonder if that is illegal back in B.C.?), which caught my attention.  It was the height of the driver.  It was a young woman and I could barely see her face over her dashboard.  The top of her steering wheel was level with the middle of her nose.  I thought to myself, "Well, she certainly has to be quite short".

A couple of blocks later I found myself waiting for a light in the right hand turn lane.  The mini-van was to my left.  I glanced over and saw why the woman looked so short...she was slouched down.   Her seat was reclined back to the point that her headrest was behind the door pillar.  I averted my eyes once the child in the booster seat caught sight of me.   As luck would have it, the police weren't stopped at that corner holding their "Traffic Safety" banner.  Though I doubt they would've batted an eyelash at the woman driving her mini-van in the same fashion as someone driving a high end sports car.  I suppose they would've had their eyes out for worse offenders...of what sort I'm not sure though.

On Leaving Fukushima in March 2011

In the parking lot of my apartment building one can find a number of vehicles with Fukushima licence plates.  The owners of those vehicles are all likely evacuees.  One in particular is my neighbour.  Up until recently both he and his wife were living in the apartment next to me but the wife succeeded in getting a job in Tokyo and she departed in early April.  The husband has remained behind whilst trying to make arrangements to relocate his business to Tokyo.

I sensed he was going to be departing soon when I saw that he had taken down his daughter's plastic sled which had been hanging outside his apartment on the grid that guards his kitchen window.  So when I heard a dolly in the hallway yesterday evening I stuck my head out my door to call on him and ask if he'd like to head out for a drink or two.

We ended up at a local bar/cafe and chatted for a few hours over a number of beers.  One short story which stuck in my mind was his retelling of how he and his family ended up in Yonezawa.

The essence of the story was that immediately after the March 11th earthquake, he had seen circulated images of what had happened to the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant.  Needless to say he and his wife were skeptical of the reports from the news channels and authorities that there was no immediate danger.  When word started spreading that there had been a meltdown there was no hesitation on his part to pack up and quite literally, get out of Dodge.

So the three of them, husband, wife and daughter, undertook a passage through the snow covered Kuriko Pass Highway to arrive in Yonezawa, a city which they knew nothing of and where they had no contacts, friends or relatives.  They had no information on where to go so they stopped off at a police station to ask for assistance.  The gist of their query being "We're from Fukushima.  Can you tell us where to go?".  The police were at least minimally prepared to handle an influx of evacuees and advised them to head to the municipal gymnasium.  I can imagine that the place wasn't exactly the warmest place to be as Yonezawa is typically snowbound in March.

And so began three years of life in Yamagata.  After hearing that story I can fully appreciate his wife's exclamation of "Goodbye to our evacuee lifestyle!" in my classroom back in March after she got news that she had landed a job in Tokyo.  After all, she had been commuting to Fukushima from Yonezawa all that time.  While I'll miss their company, I'm glad that at least one family has been able to find a new home and a more stable lifestyle.  

Didn't I Just See....

I went down to Tokyo a short while ago to take care of some business at the Canadian embassy.  I could have done it via mail but I needed an excuse to go down there.  I suppose I didn't want to face the (minor) challenge of sending something by registered mail (I have no clue as to what the service is called in Japanese).  But the trip is worth it for a chance to touch base with friends and do a little shopping.
As it turned out I managed to squeeze in visits to a fair number of places: Akasaka, Shibuya, Kajigaya in northern Kawasaki city, Ginza and Ueno.  Once again I managed to get lost in Shibuya though by a much smaller degree than usual.  I suppose I'm slowly figuring out the place.  I took the Ginza subway line to Ginza so I could buy some "anpan", sweet red bean paste filled pastries, at the Kimuraya shop there.  On the subway train I noticed an ad featuring a photo of Kitano Takeshi (aka: Beat Takeshi).  I quickly scanned the other ads and read what I could read on the ones I found interesting.  After all, there's not much else one can do when riding a crowded Tokyo subway train alone.

After purchasing my ¥2500 worth of confections, I continued on the Ginza line towards Ueno.  Upon taking my seat I looked up and once again there was Takeshi looking out from the same ad I had spotted on the incoming subway train.  Then I scanned the other ads and realized they were the exact same ones as those on the train I had been on.  Not only that, they were in the exact same locations!  For me, that was a little perplexing.  After all, up in Yamagata, there hardly are any ads on the trains.  I've been on trains where there are virtually none. 

The following morning, after grabbing a morning coffee, I passed the entrance of Ueno Park.  There were a number of people gathered there who were taking photographs of the cherry trees which had begun to bloom.  I, of course, snapped some photos too using my iPhone.  There still was snow on the ground back home when I left the day before and I just had to take back some evidence that spring was on its way.

Emptiness and a Train

I don't go up to Yamagata city all that often.  Every now and then I might go up there to fill in for a teacher.  Aside from that, I've been up there a few times to catch a bus to go to the Yamagata Prefecture Traffic Safety Office (back home we'd call it the Motor Vehicle Branch) and to attend a couple of concerts.  Oh yeah, I did drop in one time after visiting Mt. Zao too.

Yesterday was a sunny day and I wasn't in the mood to stay home all day.  So I decided to head up to Yamagata to check out a store I've been thinking of going to.  I did briefly consider driving but decided to take the train instead.  It was simply a case of saving gas.  As I made my way up there on the train I realized that I also had the liberty of taking my time without having to worry about finding or paying for parking.

Once there I did a quick tour of the department store at the station and then grabbed a bite to eat at a local Mos Burger restaurant.  After that I dropped in on the shop I had my eye one, made a mental shopping list and then wandered over to the Yamagata City Art Museum.  The museum is located quite close the inner moat of the Yamagata castle.  There's no much left of the castle other that its walls and moat.  The grounds of the castle are now home to a park and some athletic facilities.  The eastern entrance, close to the museum, is dominated by a reconstruction of its gate and guard house.  I indulged myself by taking a few photos of the structure and some passing trains (the Ou line tracks are laid outside the castle walls and moat).

The museum is a modern looking structure which functions as both an exhibit and meeting facility.  Not all of the galleries are in use.  The permanent collection seems to consist of French paintings (Impressionist, landscape and modern), bronze sculptures and some Japanese screens and scrolls.  The French paintings were an interesting bunch with representative works by Monet, Manet, Picasso, Renoir and their contemporaries.  As for the sculptures, I noticed that about half of them were made prior to World War II.  Which of course had me thinking about how the larger pieces managed to escape being melted down for the war effort.  I suppose they weren't large enough or of a usable metal composition.  Or perhaps just lucky.

The trip home was uneventful but not without a touch of the peculiar.  I had taken my iPod with me to help me pass the time.  I had picked The Tragically Hip's "Yer Favourites" to listen to.  It's a two CD set so there would be enough tunes to listen to for the duration of the trip back to Yonezawa.  At first the setting wasn't so odd.  It was dusk and I wasn't paying too much attention to what was passing outside.  But once it was dark then I noticed something different.  I was listening to songs which made me cast my mind to the vast emptiness of Canada.  Once we were passing through the mountain valleys and fields then the setting was complete.  One couldn't see much other than the banks of snow lining the side of the tracks.  I looked out and felt like I was on a train traversing a snow covered empty expanse of the Canadian prairies.  That was not withstanding the conductor's announcements in Japanese and decidedly Japanese looking stations.  The effect gave out once the train got past Nanyo.  There were more visible signs of civilization and human habitation then.  And so, alas, that little bit of magic evaporated...

Happy New Year!

年越しそば, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The photograph I've picked is one of a dish called 年越しそば (Toshikoshi soba). There are no hard rules on what ought to be in or not be in this dish. It's pretty well anything goes. Some people have it hot, some have it cold. Some don't even use soba to make it (though that is more likely to happen outside of Japan). Nonetheless, this dish is traditionally what one eats to mark the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new year. It ought to be consumed prior to midnight on New Year's Eve but this year there was a bit of a delay in its preparation so it was consumed a few minutes late.

Anyways, all the best in 2014!

At the Movies, 2013 - Part I

I've been trying to organize my thoughts about the latest movie I went to see: "Eien no Zero" (The Eternal Zero).  So far, no success.  My initial rating of the movie right after I finished viewing it was "so-so".  Overall, the movie may still hold that rating from me but there are a number of details which have kept my mind spinning.  More on that later.

In the meantime, here are some quick thoughts from me about other movies I watched this year.

"Wara no Tate" (Straw Shield).  Directed by Miike Takeshi.
A student of mine told me she had gone to see a movie and found herself the only person in the theatre.  I asked which movie and went to see it myself.  I also was the only person in the theatre.  Part of that coincidence came from the fact that we both had gone to the late screening of the film and the other was that the film had been in the theatres for a few weeks.  The movie in question was the above named offering from Miike Takeshi.  We both agreed that the film started off well but fizzled out as it reached its end.

"Kaze Tachinu" (The Wind Rises).  Directed by Miyazaki Hayao.
I didn't get the theatre to see this film the weekend it was released as I was out of town then.  Though I didn't really wait too long to see it.  I think I caught it at a late show screening the following Monday.  No, I was not the only person in the theatre.  All in all, I enjoyed this film.  I was captivated by the film's depiction of life in prewar Japan.  The story, a mixture of fact, fiction and pure fancy, was not as contentious as I thought it could have been but it wasn't lighthearted fluff either.

"Django Unchained".  Directed by Quentin Tarantino.
It's a Tarantino movie.  Went to see it with my co-worker Nick, who is a big Tarantino fan, and his girlfriend.  This one, for me, was all I expected from a Tarantino movie.  It got the job done and that was good enough for me.

"Lincoln".  Directed by Stephen Spielberg.
A good movie interspersed with my occasional observation of "That subtitle is not what that character said".   The political maneuvering depicted in the film had my head spinning at some points.  It was quite fascinating.  I spent a fair bit of time surfing wiki pages after viewing the film to get a better grip on the history behind the story I had had the pleasure of viewing.

"42".  Directed by Brian Helgeland.
This one I went to see more or less on a lark after spotting a poster advertising it at the shopping centre across the street from the theatre.  I had gone there to have a sundae which I had developed a sudden craving for after dropping a couple of suits off at the dry cleaners.  It wasn't a bad movie but it wasn't a great movie.  I was aware of a couple of historical inaccuracies in the film prior to viewing it thanks to a quick check of a review online.  I suspect the student of mine who went to see it after I told him about it was more impressed than I was.  The trailers shown before the film included ones for two films I figured I really did want to see, "Kaguya-hime no Monogatari" and "Eien no Zero".... I will talk about those two in my next post here.