My Daughter Tries on Her School Uniform

Here is a quick shot of my daughter in her new school uniform for Tenshin Yochien. The hat and coat are a little big for her but she will be growing into them in no time soon. Time goes by so fast. She will start school in April. She's probably going to want to wear her uniform everyday up to that point.

Hello Kitty!

Yesterday we took our long awaited trip to Sanrio Puroland, the home of the all powerful "Hello Kitty". Probably one of the most recognized icons of Japan is Hello Kitty. My daughter along with all 3 year old girls in the world has been caught up with all of Kitty's cuteness.

From our house to Sanrio Puroland is about a 2 hour trip right through the center of Tokyo. I again was able to navigate the roller coaster that is the Shutoko Expressway. When we arrived we realized that most of the people there were not speaking Japanese, but Chinese. The reason being that this Sunday was the last day of the Chinese New year. In one of the pictures you will see my daughter with Kitty's boyfriend "Daniel" dressed up in a traditional Chinese costume.

My daughter isn't usually shy but trying to get anywhere close to Kitty and her friends in a crowd of crazed 3 year old girls was quite stressful for her. She eventually got the courage and was able to battle her way towards Daniel for the picture here.

We had a great time. Next quest is to visit the home of Totoro, Studio Gibuli.

Museum of Aeronautical Sciences

Yesterday we visited the "Aero Museum" right next to Narita Airport. This was a pretty cool place with flight simulators and an observation deck on the top to watch the big planes fly in and take off. What was really cool is that on the deck there was a guy announcing the flights as they flew right out of the clouds and onto the runway. It was raining yesterday so these huge 747's would be right on top of you as they headed in for a landing.

If you are curious here is the web address:

http://www.aeromuseum.or.jp

My daughter got to eat lunch from a space shuttle plate. For a child, if you put something on an interesting plate, anything tastes good, I suppose. For me and my wife though, this was probably the worst tasting meal we have had since we arrived here in Japan.

This weekend we will be embarking on the big quest to the world capitol of cuteness, "Sanrio Puroland", the home of "Hello Kitty". I just hope my head does not explode.

Pooping in a Japanese Toilet

Last Week's Trip to Kashiwa

It has been a couple of weeks since I posted so I wanted to be sure to include last week's little adventure.

This weekend we were supposed to go to Sanrio Puroland in Tama City. However, my daughter, my wife, and I have all come down with a pretty bad cold. On top of that, my sister-in-law's 2 year old came down with a bad cold just a couple of days ago. He had a temperature of 40 degrees C (104F). They took him to the hospital on Friday night and the fever has gone down. He should be OK. Sanrio Puroland just was not to be this weekend, so we've decided to take it easy at home this weekend.

Last weekend we visited my father in law's cousin's house in Kashiwa. This town is about 30 minutes northwest of Inzai City, close to Ibaragi Prefecture. Before meeting up with my father in law's other cousin at the Takashiama department store, we picked up some goodies in the bottom floor of the store as a present for the family we were to visit.

If you ever visit Japan you must always make sure you see the lower level of any department store you visit. The sweets and chocolates that they sell here are from here and all over the world. You could spend a month's salary here just on chocolate. I included a couple of pictures here.

The family we visited in Kashiwa has my wife's second cousin and their three kids, a couple 1 year old girl twins and a 4 year old son. They were all very cute. We played the new Nintendo Wii. Their 4 year old son was a pro with the bowling. This is already being sold in the USA now and has been available in Japan since last year. I'm just wondering when my wife will give me permission to buy one for our house.

Dancing with the Animals Video

Back at Kobayashi Tenjin

Today I went with my wife and daughter back to Kobayashi Tenjin Yochien (Correct Spelling this week). Today was for orientation for new students at the school. The teachers were great. While the parents were lining up to order the uniforms, the teachers kept the kids entertained with a rabbit and a squirrel.

My daughter will have her first day of school in April. I'll be sure to post some more stuff then.

Akihabara & Honyaku Konnyaku

I wanted to post a some of pictures of the area where I work everyday.

Akihabara is the electronics center of the world. All of the latest stuff you can find here. This area is also a great place for the Electrical Engineer and home surveillance buff.

There have been other aspects of Akihabara that are interesting it is also a great place to pick up the latest anime. My office, in the UDX Building, also houses the Tokyo Anime Center. In the one picture you see Doraemon on the left (The blue little one). Doraemon is really popular with the kids. The story is that he is a robot from the future that can pull out a number of tools from his pouch on his belly. My favorite tool of his is the "Honyaku Konyaku". Honyaku is translation and Konyaku is a kind of tasteless gel like substance. When Doraemon eats this Honyaku Konnyaku he can understand whatever anyone is saying to him no matter what language they are speaking.

Here is the definition from Wikipedia:

In Japanese cuisine, konnyaku appears in dishes such as oden. It is typically mottled grey, and firmer in consistency than most gelatin. It has very little taste; the common variety tastes vaguely like seaweed. It is valued more for its texture than flavor.

Japanese konnyaku jelly is made by mixing konnyaku flour with water and limewater. Hijiki is often added for the characteristic dark color and flavor. Without additives for color, konnyaku is pale white. It is then boiled and cooled to solidify. Konnyaku made in noodle form is called shirataki (see shirataki noodles), and used in foods such as sukiyaki and gyudon.

Also in Akihabara there has been many "Maid Cafes" popping up around the office. You will typically see girls dressed as French Maids waiting at the station entrance to give you a flyer or a pack of tissues touting their Cafe. I have not been to one of these places but have heard many a tale of adventure from others who have ventured into these places. Apparently they greet you as you come into the Cafe saying "Goshuujin sama Okaerinasai!". Which means, "Welcome home master!"

If you order the Omelet Rice they will sit with you at the table and write your name in ketchup or if your food is too hot they will actually blow on it for you before you bite into it. I'm thinking about going but to tell the truth, I am afraid of what will happen to my world after I leave the Maid Cafe. Will I expect my wife to do the same? When I passed the shop in the picture here with the maid uniforms, I actually had to think, "Hmm, What if my wife wore that?".

The Round Earth

After Miura we took a short trip to see this place called, "See the earth Round". This was an observation point above Choshi City where you can see the Earth's Horizon. According to the map at the top, you should be able to see all the way to the Philippines from here. From the top we could also see the many high tech wind power generators at the Choshi coast. These were also very cool to drive by on our way back to Inzai City.

Also, my wife and daughter look very cold because it is (very cold that is.). We found out the reason why they use wind to generate their power out here.

Miura in Choshi City

Yesterday we visited the city of Choshi on the coast of Chiba Prefecture. Here are the coordinates for Google Earth.

35 44' 00.99" N

140 50' 19.25" E

The coordinates above are for where we had lunch. A great restaurant called Miura. If you look across the street on Google Earth you will see where the fishing boats dock to bring in the day's catch. Miura gets the fish right from the boats. Whenever I'm back in the States people always want to tell me about this or that great sushi place. I would defy them to find anyplace where you could find fresher sushi than this place in Choshi City. Above are some pictures of the place and the fish they sell on the street in front of the restaurant.

My wife and I had Aji no Tataki Don (Horse Mackerel Cut into small slices over rice with a touch of ground ginger to be mixed with soy sauce and poured over top) and Fish Tempura. It was just about the best lunch I've had here since eating at Ebi Maru in Ise.

Climbing Mount Inzai

Today we also took a trip up Mount Inzai. It isn't really a mountain per say but it was allot of fun. From there we can see Inzai Makinohara Station, Joyful Honda, and Yamada Denki. You can also see that there is still allot of space that will be filling up soon as they take the Hokuso Rail line and extend it all the way to Narita Airport. As a result, I think that I will lose my seat on the train in the morning in about one and a half years.

For those of you using Google Earth, here are the coordinates for Mt. Inzai.

35 48 33.90N 140 10 15.05E

Just copy and paste these coordinates into the search field for Google Earth and you will see the majesty that is Mt. Inzai.

It is only 41 meters high. For those of you inclined to do a little math; that is about 2959 meters shorter than Mount Fuji.

Making Freinds At Kobayashi Tenshin Yochien

Today I was able to go with my wife and daughter to Kobayashi Tenshin Yochien (Kindergarten) for "Making Friends Day". It was allot of fun. My daughter is the type where when there are other kids around, she likes to go it alone and play without us. In one way this is nice but in another sometimes its hard for me to participate when I'd like to.

All in all though we had a great time this morning. Here are a couple of pictures.

The one picture with my daughter holding her fingers up is her just checking in for her first day at Nagato. The other is a picture of her with her "Oni" (Troll / Oger) origami bag that she made in her class.

Natto = Vile

Yesterday I was in a rush at Moriya station to buy some lunch. I had to catch our company's bus to our Tech Center in 5 minutes and so I jumped into a conbini (Convienence Store) and bought a couple of onigiri and a pack of five sushi maki's. I had looked at the label and saw "kimu chi" written in katakana and ingnored the rest of the kanji.

Later that afternoon when I sat down in a meeting room with one of my co-workers to eat my lunch, I bit down into the roll and to my shock, it had natto inside mixed with kim chee. I had to get something quick to wash this taste out of my mouth.

For those of you who don't know, Natto was developed by someone who left some soybeans in a barrel and they spoiled. At some point in the near future this person ran out of food and thought they should try whatever was left in the barrel. Much like the first person to look at a cow and decide that they will try whatever comes out of the pink teet, this person began to eat these beans that were stuck together with a snot like substance and smelled like feet.

This is what I bit down into. Yuck.

First Entry

Hi, this is Mark. I'm an American living in Japan since October of last year. I live here with my wife (From Matsusaka, Mie) and my daughter in Inzai City, Chiba Prefecture.

We moved here from Detroit, MI after I was offered a position with our parent company in Japan.

I'll try to add some more ideas as they come.

Some content I would like to add in the future is:

• Proper crouded train riding techniques.
• Comparing Winter in Michigan and Chiba
• Good Food in Japan (RA-MEN!)
• Drinking with my co-workers!
• Japanese Terebi Dramas and Kimutaku
• The story of the Matsusaka Cow that I ate for New Years
• Corn on Pizza?
• Mochi = Death
• Godzilla's Poop
• Trying to get my daughter to speak English

Talk to you later,

Mark W.