sakuranbo

Sakuranbo is by far the finest place in the entire nation of Japan. What is Sakuranbo? Run by an incredibly terrifying, authoritative old woman, Sakuranbo, which, for reasons unbeknownst to anyone but her, means “canned cherries”, is an absolutely delicious restaurant across the street from Obirin.

We first heard whispered rumors about this place back in late September, from those of us who had been here since last semester. “Look for the pink house that isn’t really a house”, we heard, as if this was some sort of scavenger hunt-meets-Amazing Race quest. After much searching, we found it however and were thrilled to discover all the excellent treasures within. This place is perhaps the single most delicious restaurant I’ve ever been to. Central to Sakuranbo is katsu, a simple but deceptively fantastic meal of fried breaded pork, served with rice, miso soup, and vegetables. Katsu is typically served with katsu sauce, which is like a wonderful hybrid of soy and barbecue sauce. I love it. It’s absolutely horrendous for you but katsu is just so wonderful that we go there at least once a week. Furthermore, the food there is absurdly cheap – 525 yen for a giant plate of food; probably the single best price to portion ratio I’ve seen in this country. The best permutation of katsu, however, is curry katsu. Served on a gigantic bed of rice and topped with pickled plums, curry katsu is an enormous pork cutlet covered in curry sauce, a less-spicy Japanese twist on the classic Indian food.

The only downside to Sakuranbo is the fearsome Sakuranbo Lady. The restaurant appears to be run out of a room in her house, and when one eats there you fittingly feel as if you’re somehow impeding on her daily business. Your food comes to you through a hole in the wall connected to a kitchen, from which the Sakuranbo Lady is never to emerge. She shouts all sorts of unspeakable things at you, speaks not a word of English, and is not impressed, amused, or swayed by anything anyone could do or say. Her katsu, however? Fantastic.

kobinifest 2006 pt II

Continuing with the food theme, there are heated options available at the register, including hot dogs, chicken drumsticks, oddly simmering bread items that are submerged in some sort of broth that frightens me, and everyone’s favorite, corn dogs. Depressingly, these are called “American dogs”.

Aside from food, there are innumerable toys, magazines, trinkets, baubles and doo-dads for sale, none of which anyone would ever in a million years need but which I continuously find myself compelled to purchase. So it is that I own an entirely useless but thoroughly entertaining action figure of Kirby, a Nintendo character, wearing what I can only guess is a Navajo chief’s headdress. I don’t know either.

Interestingly, these stores are entirely devoid of Aspirin, Aleve, Tylenol, or anything that may similarly be desired at a 7-11 or equivalent back home. The Japanese have a fairly rigid set of restrictions on drugs, tame and strong alike, and as such things like these are hard if not impossible to get a hold of, even sometimes with a prescription. There are all sorts of snake oil type cures and elixirs, each and every one of which is guaranteed to do virtually nothing for you.

Anyway, this has become almost as complicated and dense as the konbinis themselves, but I will leave you with one parting remark that hopefully encapsulates why I so dearly love these places. Recently, I had a strong hankering for some ice cream. I trudged diligently up the road to the nearest Mini Stop, and ordered a cone of the ‘beruji choco’ (Belgian chocolate) soft-serve that they had been so persistently advertising recently. The clerk hurriedly dashed off to the back room to perfectly dispense the soft-serve onto a delightfully scalloped waffle cone, and then came back and proudly presented me with a bag. I regarded both the clerk and her offer quizzically, as where I come from (“’Merrica”), we aren’t often served an ice cream cone in a bag. I peered into the thing and saw that not only was my cone in fact in there, but that it had been carefully placed into an equally carefully designed cardboard ice cream cone holding device. It didn’t end there though: I inspected the package a bit closer and discovered to my surprise and delight that there were in fact TWO cones: the traditional, “foundation” cone upon and into which the soft-serve had been dispensed, and a novel, exciting “adorable hat” cone which had been placed on top of the vertical point of the soft serve so as to protect and preserve the conical shape of the ice cream itself. As my head spun, I reflected to myself how insanely ridiculous and yet simultaneously fantastic this was. I love this place

kobinifest 2006

The Japanese are a materialistic people. Furiously so. To be sure, we Americans are as well, but at the same time we somehow cringe from our materialism, denying it while at the same time giving into it. Self-hating materialists, I suppose. The Japanese, however, revel in it, and I love it. This isn’t to say they are solely materialistic, not by any means. But they love their stuff, and they love loving it, and there’s something to respect in that.

Case in point: konbini. “Konbini” is the shortened form of “convenience stores”, and if there’s one thing that Japan has in droves, it’s these places. Within a mile from my house, there are the following: two Mini-Stops, (my go-to konbinis), two Sunkus-es, each about 300 yards from each other, a 7-11, a Family Mart or two, a Circle K, and my favorite and the most authentically Japanese in my opinion, a Lawson. Lawson is an enigma whose secrets I hope are never revealed to me for it would spoil the fun. Decked out in a classy blue and white motif, all Lawsons look like they were built in 1969. Their logo is, for whatever, reason, a milk can, and their employees wear hilarious little uniforms. They also feature “liquor corners”. Now, liquor is perhaps the lifeblood of the burgeoning konbini industry and is available at literally every one I have ever seen, but Lawson is the only one who calls their liquor corner (which is not, in fact, located in a corner), by such a name. The only form of ID-checking they have is a little laminated cutout of a hand with a message to the effect of “Halt! Are you 20?” printed on it, which protrudes out from the refrigerated wall on the end of a bouncy spring. The selection of booze is impressive, with each beer manufacturer (generally Asahi, Kirin, Suntory, Sapporo, Yebisu and the occasional foreign brew) sporting an average of 5 to 6 different variations on their brew. There are also dubiously cheap cans available for something like ¥105, or like 85 cents. Christ.

But enough of the booze. The amount of other stuff available at these places is staggering. An entire wall is devoted to prepackaged food, most of which is of disappointingly higher quality than its American equivalents. Of this wall, a good quarter is sectioned off to offer nothing but onigiri, an elegant Japanese invention that consists of a triangular wedge of a rice, wrapped on one side with nori (dried seaweed, a salty thing that tastes much better than you would expect) and with some sort of filling inside the rice. This can be anything from egg to fish (typically salmon or tuna) to chicken, to beef, or sometimes, even a different kind of rice. These snacks are available for about a dollar, roughly, and are ubiquitous. I wish they would catch on in the US, but with less fish and more chicken. At one convenience store it is not uncommon for upwards of 15 to 20 variations of onigiri to be available for purchase. Other prepackaged foods that are available include expected items like edamame, dumplings, and sushi but range as well towards more non-Japanese things like spaghetti and meatballs and all sorts of sandwiches and curry dishes. Another wall is taken up entirely by new and exciting types of ramen, some with incredibly complicated (for ramen) cooking procedures that entail putting the freeze dried vegetables in at one stage, followed by the first sauce at this point and then the second sauce after you’ve eaten half of it, etc. Yakisoba, a dish similar to ramen, is also available in a frighteningly diverse range of flavors and complexities, and is growing on me rapidly.

the happiest place(s) on earth!

So, it turns out that “The Happiest Place on Earth” is, in actuality, dispersed across many different locations on Earth. By my count, there are no less than 5 Happiest Places On Earth, with Disneyland in Anaheim, Disney World in Orlando, Euro Disney in France, Hong Kong Disneyland in South America (just kidding), and, my new friend, Tokyo Disneyland.

In reality my family and I did not go to Tokyo Disneyland, per se. Just like how Disney World consists of several parks including The Magic Kingdom, Epcot, etc, The Tokyo Disney complex consists of two parks: Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. We had heard from many websites and guide books that Tokyo’s version of Disneyland is essentially exactly the same as California’s, just smaller, so we opted instead to go to DisneySea, which is entirely unique and exists only in Tokyo. The Japanese think the land/sea dichotomy in the naming scheme is far more obvious than it actually is, and accordingly, DisneySea is a standard Disney amusement park with a prevailing theme of water and the ocean. Its centerpiece is a massive volcano which periodically hisses and smokes, and glows orange at night. The regions of the park are all aquatically themed to some degree: represented are Agrabah, the Arabian port city from Aladdin, Ariel’s Kingdom from the Little Mermaid, an Amazon River themed area, and a small facsimile of Venice, complete with gondolas. The best area without question though was American Port, which was divided into two subsections: New York Harbor, featuring a gigantic tramp steamer that looked like it belonged in King Kong, and- wait for it – Cape Cod.

So it goes like this. I live in Cape Cod. I grew up on Cape Cod. I leave the Cape, fly halfway across the world to a language, a culture, a world not my own, and settle there. Then my family does the same, and we gather up and travel to a small area, no less than a square mile, that was meticulously designed to look as much as possible like the area that we came here from. Bizarre. The fascinating thing is how convincing it was. To be fair, the architecture and the old-timey-ness of it made the place look more like something from Nantucket or the cape from 1895, but their hearts were in the right place. Lobster traps were strewn about, sailboats in an artificial harbor had signs on their sides saying they delivered cargo to Plymouth and Provincetown, and the streetlights were apparently manufactured in Medford. My life is strange.

Despite this incredible bit of serendipity and synchronicity from which I don’t know if I’ll ever recover, there was something better. In the Amazonian section of the park, I spotted a 1930’s-era seaplane with the registration number “C3PO” on the wing. Being the nerd I am, I recognized this as Indiana Jones’ plane from Raiders of the Lost Ark. We quickly hunted out the ride, which was similar to the one in California. You sit in a huge car that drives around a track, all the while being shouted at by a robotic Harrison Ford who barks messages of encouragement in your direction. The best part? This robot Harrison Ford was shouting to us entirely in Japanese. “Hayaku itte! Koko wa abunai yo!” Fantastic.

trains! trains everywhere!

I’ve spoken before of Japan’s predilection towards trains, railroads, trams, subways, monorails, and basically any other vehicle that runs on one or more rails. They’re everywhere, and they’re honestly fantastic. I don’t doubt that if only the United States had a train system even a quarter as advanced or connected as Japan’s, we would be a cleaner, faster, and altogether better nation on the whole. On the Japan model, we would be able, in the United States, to travel from Boston to Chicago in about 3 hours (tops) for about $100 or so, in an un-hijackable, much more energy efficient version of a plane. That’s on a large scale. On a small scale, people would be easily able to travel from Lawrence, Massachusetts to Burlington, for example, in under an hour and for probably three dollars. Imagine the effect this would have on the economy, and on population density! We have but a seed of this potentiality currently in existence in the US, and it is a shame that it hasn’t been allowed to blossom. Though this isn’t to say that Japan’s trains are cheap, or, with some exceptions, direct.

“Labyrinthine” is the word I think I’ve used before, and will use again, to describe this network of locomotives. Utilizing the hub and spoke method of railway connections, getting from point A to point B requires first going to Point A1, making a transfer to Point A2b, switching for Train F, etc etc etc.

My family and I experienced this firsthand when, beginning at about 7 AM, I left my house and walked up the street to Fuchinobe station. From there, I boarded the Yokohama line and traveled two stops to the Machida JR Station. I disembarked and walked across town to the Machida Odakyu department store, the basement of which is the Machida Odakyu station. Getting on the semi-express train for Shinjuku, I traveled for about 40 minutes or so until I arrived in Shinjuku station in Tokyo, incidentally the largest train station in the world. I descended through the many layers of the highly stratified station and soon arrived at the Shinjuku Tokyo Metro Station, the subway station. I got on the Shinjuku line and switched at Akasaka Mitsuge for the Ginza Line, another subway line, and, about 2 hours or so after leaving Machida, arrived at Shimbashi, the Tokyo Metro station near my family’s hotel.

I met them there and we then boarded the Shimbashi stop for the Yamanote Line, which took us to Tokyo Station. From Tokyo Station we again descended to the lower depths of train-traveling and arrived at the Maihara Line, a private, elevated railway that takes you about 15 km or so outside of Tokyo Proper. After a nice, scenic ride we arrived at our destination: Tokyo Disneyland. I will write more about this in my next entry, for it seems I have ranted far too much about trains.

halloween in japan

It’s Halloween in Japan! Hooray! Excellent! Let’s have a party, everyone! Wait, what is Halloween and how do we celebrate it? Quick, to the foreigners!

This, apparently, was the thought process of The Nakama Crew, that super-funtime club I wrote of earlier. Beginning last week, every foreign student here at Obirin began to notice that all of our conversations and exchanges with the Japanese students started to become peppered with inquiries as to the nature and execution of Halloween. Nakama, it seemed, sensed or had heard that the holiday was a great deal of fun and was something that we all looked forward to, but they seemed to have little to no idea of what in the world Halloween actually was or what people did for it.

Some thought it was distinctly a Christian holiday for which we should attend church services (this delighted some as Obirin is technically a Christian university – one of the school’s sports teams, lacrosse, I think, is named the “triple thorn crowns”, a reference to the crown placed atop Jesus’ noggin during the crucifixion. Yikes!), while others quizzed me as to exactly how a pumpkin should be seasoned and cooked for the festivities. There was no doubt in their mind that the prevalence of pumpkins and pumpkin-related items around late October was a clear indicator that on Halloween night, everyone gathered around a table and consumed the orange gourd. Honestly, considering the ubiquity of cartoon turkeys and the like around late November, I can understand their confusion and I give them points for connecting the dots in such a creative way. And you know what? I would like a pumpkin pie for Halloween! Make it happen, Japan!

Anyway, we did our best to explain what Halloween was and that the big ritual, trick or treating, would be kind of hard to do unless we literally involved the whole of Machida in on our festivities. Certainly a party could be had, though, and we described how everyone should wear costumes, bob for apples, do that thing where you put a bunch of donuts on a string and bite them off, etc. The troops rallied admirably, and we had quite the excellent Halloween party, complete with absolutely ridiculous costumes, apple-bobbing (or ‘ringo-bobbu’), and a bingo game in which I won a stack of CD-Rs. I really find it quite endearing and sweet how eager the Japanese students were to absorb and dive head-long into some of our traditions, and I do my best to try to have their same enthusiasm when viewing their culture. I think I’ve been doing well but this has certainly given me a new outlook on how one can completely enmesh themselves, even if only temporarily, in a culture not one’s own.