What's Missing?...

Recently I've found a type of bread I like sold in the pastry section at the local Onuma department store. This particular type of bread is white bread with a bit of rye grain mixed in. So it's not as sweet as most of the usual white bread I've experienced here. Plus, it's sold in an unsliced loaf form which is not square! That's utter heresy! Virtually all bread loaves in Japan are box shaped with a square or rectangular cross sectional shape. I suppose the idea of a slice of bread with only two 90˚ angle corners would befuddle most Japanese who haven't traveled abroad.

The other thing which I haven't found yet is good old brown bread. Never mind whole wheat or 60% whole wheat bread. I thought I once located brown bread at my local Yo-ku Benimaru supermarket. On closer inspection I found I had been deceived. It was chocolate bread. Given that I'm allergic to chocolate I can safely say I won't be trying that product.

So I found myself with bread, milk and eggs. It took a while but I realized I had pretty well everything I needed to make French toast. My latest trip to Yo-ku Benimaru found me happily in possession of a spice jar of ground cinnamon and pure Canadian maple syrup. The maple syrup I chose was the less expensive of the two brands they had on sale. Both were in 250ml bottles but one cost at least ¥500 less. Nonetheless, this morning I was able to enjoy French toast for breakfast. But there was one thing missing.

I realize not everyone does this: I like to spread peanut butter on pancakes and French toast and then top off the mess with maple syrup. Yes, some of my friends back in Canada thought that was odd. So there I was enjoying my breakfast and thinking "There's something missing here...". Yup. I wanted peanut butter. French toast with real maple syrup is good. But I like mine with a bit more oomph.

Amongst the expats I work with we've come upon the topic of peanut butter at least once. I don't remember if I've been told that it's sold at Yamaya. Yamaya is a liquor supermarket store which sells import foods on the side. I think it's the only place in town you can buy cheddar cheese in a form other than cracker sized slices for ¥198. I recall buying a brick of US cheddar cheese there for about ¥498. The problem is that Yamaya is quite a distance away from where I live and I don't have a car yet.

So I did a quick search online for "peanut butter". Aside from the usual suspects (Wikipedia, et al) I came across this blog entry which talks about different spreadable peanut products available in Japan: http://www.rockinginhakata.com/2009/02/16/936/. Frankly speaking I wouldn't touch Skippy peanut butter with a ten foot pole back home. But I guess asking for Adam's natural unsalted peanut butter (http://www.adamspeanutbutter.com/) is just plain out of the question. So I may have to compromise. The alternative is make your own but I don't own a food processor (never did own one back home either) so I don't think this recipe will be one I'll try: http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/cda/recipe_print/0,1946,FOOD_9936_75311_RECIPE-PRINT-FULL-PAGE-FORMATTER,00.html.

Anyways, enough about food...I'm getting hungry again!

Connections...

Statue of Nitobe Inazo, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

The last couple of days I've made a few connections which had escaped me (one for a while and one overnight). The latter one I'm going to leave off of this blog entry given the subject matter. Nonetheless, the connection I hadn't figured out for a while was why Victoria, BC and Morioka, Iwate prefecture would be sister cities. Victoria is a city located on the sea. Morioka is landlocked and not all that close to the ocean. In comparison, Vancouver's Japanese sister city is Yokohama. Both cities are harbour cities.

It wasn't until I saw a photograph I took of a signboard at the entrance to where this statue is located did I make the connection between the two cities. Nitobe Inazo, educator and diplomat, was born in Morioka and he passed away in Victoria, BC. Yes, I believe he is also the namesake of the Nitobe garden at UBC in Vancouver.

Of course I had read that Nitobe had passed away in Victoria in the Morioka Hall of Distinguished Citizens but I sure hadn't made note of the significance of that fact with respect to the question of Morioka's sister city. In fact, I had seen the Victoria-Morioka friendship totem pole after visiting the aforementioned hall and was only then made aware of the relationship between the two cities. So here I was sitting at home a month later, uploading the photos I took in Morioka and finally making the connection.

Brunch Has Been Delayed

Frozen raw eggs, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

One of those weird moments in life: The shells on these eggs had cracked and so they ended up becoming frozen solid in my refrigerator. I was going to make soft boiled eggs but decided to warm them up just enough to be able to peel them. Now I'm waiting on them to thaw out so I can cook them in a frying pan. Frankly, I've never had eggs freeze solid on me before.

Of course this isn't a reflection on how cold it actually is here. Generally outside temperatures hover around zero ˚C. Since it snows constantly there usually is cloud cover. So you don't get those crisp clear and cold winter days like one encounters in the Prairies or Eastern Canada. Mind you, we have rather thin cloud cover right now: last night I was able to observe a full moon (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8936205@N02/6664551727). With that in mind the temperature projections are in the -8˚C to -11˚C range this week.

あけましておめでとうございます。

あけましておめでとうございます。, a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

Okay...So this shot is with the back side of the banner showing. Can't be helped. It's at the end of the bridge and trying to take a shot of it from the other side would involve defying gravity.

I did make it out to Uesugi Jinja (shrine) on New Year's day. I had caught a cold earlier in the week and still hadn't really recovered from it. But after a conversation with one of my local acquaintances I decided that going on a subsequent day just wasn't in the spirit of things.

The visit to the jinja was very different from my one previous memory of New Years in Japan. That happened back in the 1970s and for whatever reason I believe our family went to the Kawasaki Daishi temple. That within itself is a bit odd because it's a Nichiren temple and we're not members of that sect. What I remember from that day are the crowds, the large number of monks chanting "Namu Myo Horenkyo" and a couple of men who looked like WWII Japanese Army vets seated by the side of the road. I couldn't read the signs they had placed before themselves and my dad wasn't interested in explaining them to me. All in all the experience was a fair bit different from what I had this year in Yonezawa (without having to mention there wasn't an iota of snow in Kawasaki that day).

PS: The kanji on the banner can be read as "Bi" or "Bin". It represents the name "Bishamonten" (毘沙門天), the Japanese Buddhist god of warfare. In Buddhist mythology he is known as Vaiśravaṇa, the chief of the Four Heavenly Gods. Uesugi Kenshin, a daimyo lord of the Uesugi clan prior to their arrival in Yonezawa, was a fierce samurai and Buddhist who was believed by some to be an avatar of the god.

Iwate Prefecture Post-Earthquake Posters

2011 Iwate - Post-Earthquake Posters, a set on Flickr.

After uploading these photos I came to the realization I don't want to upload any more until after New Years. There's a quality to these posters which demands that they be given a bit of space and time so those who view them can contemplate all that happened. So rather than crowd them into a tiny spot in an almost endless stream of images I'm going to stop, share and let others gaze on these much like I did in the hallway between a shopping plaza and a hotel in Morioka.


PS: While the text on each poster tended to be of the inspirational variety that wasn't the overall impression I had of them. For me there was a strange resilience in the faces where the subjects seemed to exude strength but also a sense of almost apologetic humility. I don't know. What does one feel when photographed in front of the face of such calamity and tragedy?....

The Magic Number...

So when my Amex statement arrived a few days ago I thought I had it figured out as to how I would pay it: I'd go down to the bank or post office and transfer a payment as per the instructions on the bill. It should've been that simple. No. Things didn't turn out that way.

I guess a portent of things to come was the reaction from my office manager on Saturday when I told what I was going to do. Her response was that "What?!" which makes no attempt to hide confusion and skepticism. She had never attempted to do such a transaction. "Too complicated", was her remark. That conversation came back to haunt me today when I got to the banking counter at my local post office.

First off, the clerk at the post office explained that it would be cheaper to do the transfer using the ATM because the service charges are lower than if I do the transaction using my account passbook at the counter. Okay. I have no problem with that. I go to the ATM, pick the "English Guide" option and pick the best looking option: "Remittance". There didn't seem to be anything else fitting the bill for what I wanted. So on my first try I run into a requirement to enter a recipient transfer number. That isn't on the bill. I withdraw, take a seat and ponder my next step.

So I phone American Express. I press '2' for service in English and get a Japanese speaking customer service representative (who I assume can't speak English). I ask for an English speaking rep and she checks for me. "There's no one available to take a call because of call volume", she reports. So, I step up to the plate and try to get the information I need from her whilst carrying on the conversation in Japanese. She provides me with the bank code and bank branch code. I figure I have what I need and I thank her.

So I attempt to do the transaction with the information I've gathered. No luck there. I have too many digits to enter. I try a couple of permutations but give up my station at the ATM once I notice there are others waiting to use it (the small post offices usually only have one ATM). I decide to head off and pay my gas bill. After doing that I head into another post office.

After another failed attempt to make the transfer I walk up to the post office banking counter and ask the clerk what it is I have to do. I show him the information I have and he asks if I'm trying to do an international bank transfer. No. "In that case there's an option on the ATM you an use with your cash card", he explains. Ah, this might be the turn in the right direction. I explain I'm not a local once things start getting complicated. He kindly writes down the text I'm supposed to hunt down on the ATM menu on a piece of paper for the option I need to choose.

Armed with that I return to the scene of my previous defeat at the hands of the ATM. This time I weather the menus in Japanese. Voila! The option I need is there. I navigate my way to the point where I enter the Amex destination account and the amount of my payment. A small alarm bell goes off in my head. Why haven't I been asked to enter my credit card number. No sooner said than done I'm asked to enter my phone number. I duly do that and receive a confirmation screen. Everything seems to be in order. So the magic number that sealed the deal is my phone number? When I think back to the time I called Amex I recall that their system told me they had confirmed my identity based on the phone number I was calling from. Now that is interesting.

So what did I learn today? One, yes, Virginia there may be options on the post office ATMs which don't get shown when the user switches to English. It's either that or the translation becomes misleading and you miss it. I suspect the former. Two, having an IVR system identify customers by their phone numbers is an interesting tactic. They do ask for a PIN so it's not a completely wide open access point to one's accounts. But it is a bit of a surprise when first encountered.

There you have it...the magic number when dealing with Amex Japan.

Let's see now...

Let's see now..., a photo by dtk_guy on Flickr.

This lesson jumped about a bit. "Tomb", "mummy" and "kingdom" were in the homework assignment I reviewed in class. "Cattle", shrimp and eel were part of the textbook lesson. The part about "cow", "bull" and "cattle" was to clarify something in the textbook. Most ESL students aren't taught right away that female cattle are cows and male cattle are bulls. They're simply taught "cow". That caused a bit of consternation because in this particular lesson the textbook used "cattle". The question of "What is 'cattle'?" inevitably came up...

This is all too weird. A Christmas day blog post based on a photo taken on Dec 7th... >.<