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Playing a summer-time game, in the winter, while it looks like autumn…
This was the scene less than two weeks ago at the baseball field in Ueno Park.
I pre-blogged today, and the next few days, as we are on our way to Thailand for the winter break. We should have an internet connection in Thailand so expect some updates from Bangkok and Phuket soon.
Inside the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art (東京都現代美術館) I found myself surrounded by about a dozen of Andy Warhol’s “Marilyn Monroe.” How many of these did he do anyway? I’ve also seen these at BYU and in Denmark.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo can be entered for free with the Grutt Pass.
The fall season and “back to school” go hand-in-hand in many parts of the states. In Tokyo the fall colors a delayed by not weeks, but months. Today’s photos were taken in December. The foliage on the Waseda University campus, although mostly gone now, was quite beautiful in late November and early December.
Once the leaves began to fall, the campus looked quite different in early morning, before the cleaning crews arrived. The place was blanketed in leaves.
Unfortunately, the Japanese are far too efficient at raking leaves. They do so on a daily basis so seeing the leaves on the ground is something of a rarity.
In the above photo you can see three grounds keepers removing the fallen leaves, pretty much as they fall. There were probably 10 people on campus doing nothing but making sure leaves were not under foot. I would have preferred to walk through a few inches of the stuff myself.
I have always enjoyed katsu, but I never realized just how many varieties there are until recently. Usually when one says “katsu” they mean tonkatsu or a fried pork cutlet that has been rolled in egg and bread crumbs (of the Japanese variety called panko). But there are actually many more kinds than just tonkatsu. Let’s take a look at several.
Tonkatsu (豚カツ or とんかつ) is the most common. It is also called rosukatsu (ロースカツ). For most restaurants, that don’t specialize in katsu, this is the only katsu offered and hence is the one you will get. If you don’t like to eat fat and gristle then you will likely be disappointed in your bites around the edges of a regular tonkatsu as the Japanese don’t cut the fat off the pork cutlet when served in this way. It seems crazy, I know, but that is how they actually like it. I don’t mind it this way, but I much prefer the next kind.
Hirekatsu (ヒレカツ) is usually still pork, but all of the fat is trimmed before battering and frying. Hire comes from the word fillet, even though fillet in English doesn’t imply fat-free, and most katsu would be considered a fillet in English. If you are given the choice of rosukatsu or hirekatsu, go with hirekatsu. It is my favorite.
Chicken katsu (チキンカツ) is what the name suggests. I have been making chicken katsu for over 20 years, but it isn’t nearly as common in Japan as pork katsu. I actually didn’t make my first pork katsu until a week or two ago, using ultra thin pork that I trimmed down to include no fat. It came out quite well. I like my chicken katsu to be cut very thin as well.
Katsudon (カツ丼) means that the katsu is over rice with egg and onion and a sweet sauce. Sometimes rice comes as a side dish if you don’t order katsudon, especially if you order a katsu teishoku, but other times it will come without rice over cabbage. The extremely thinly sliced cabbage is great (even though I’m not normally a fan of cabbage), but katsu just isn’t the same without rice.
Katsu is also frequently served with curry (katsukaree or カツカレー). Even more common is to have it with tonkatsu sauce ((トンカツソース). Bulldog is the common sauce brand and can even be found in many places in the states.
Menchikatsu (メンチカツ) can sometimes be like a hamburger patty turned into a katsu, but other times pork can be the ground meat used in menchi. The word menchi is a Japanese abbreviation of “minced meat.” Onions and other items are frequently added as well so you are never sure exactly what you are going to get with a menchi katsu if you aren’t the cook or don’t ask beforehand.
Katsu sando (katsu sandwich or カツサンド) is a katsu put between two slices of bread, usually with the crust cut off of the bread. Personally I’d prefer it if they kept the crust on and cut off the fat from the katsu.
There are also beef katsu (gyukatsu 牛カツ) and ham katsu (ハムカツ). The picture at the top of this entry is actually of a beef katsu I picked up as my bento a week ago. The place where I purchased this bento also does a cheese katsu which adds cheese next to the meat before sticking the panko on and frying.
Kushikatsu (串カツ) is a smaller katsu on a stick. Since it is on a stick nearly anything can be skewered next to the meat. Onions are frequently included, but you can find variations with just about anything.
There are many other types of katsu that have been attempted and many more that will likely be created in the future, but the above should give you a pretty good idea about most of the katsu you will encounter.
Don’t forget to look for hire katsu. You may have a hard time going back to regular tonkatsu once you try hirekatsu, but you’ll be glad to have experienced the difference.
Continuing the series… Ellie and I sat at this window for a while enjoying the view from near the top of the Mori Tower in Roppongi.
From the Hiroo (広尾) shopping arcade…
Not the real thing, of course, but a pretty large replica of the Tokyo Tower can be seen inside the Asahi TV Studio.
Before this time in Japan I read every issue of Mangajin as well as several of the serialized volumes of Kochi Kame. I thought I’d be enjoying manga by now. Unfortunately, after reading a few issues of the most popular weekly manga, Shonen Jump (週刊少年ジャンプ), I realized that most manga do not appeal to me in the least. Outside of Kochi Kame (こちら葛飾区亀有公園前派出所), only about two of the 22 manga in Shonen Jump are even mildly interesting to me.
However, since we live near Osamu Tezuka‘s stomping grounds, the libraries in the area carry some of his works. I recently picked up the first installment of his Adolf series (in Japanese) and had a hard time putting it down. A month later and I have consumed all 5 volumes (or over 1,100 pages).
I don’t think I would have found the Adolf series nearly as interesting in English, but an English translation is available and the reviews are good. Unfortunately, the first issue in English is hard to find at a decent price.
Other sites provide detailed summaries and character descriptions so I won’t go into that here. Even though the contents are fictitious you can learn a bit of history and get a flavor of Japan before, during, and immediately after World War 2. The series isn’t just about history though. The character development is fantastic, the illustrations superb, and the dialog engaging. It is a manga though so there are some jokes and Tezuka does get a bit carried away with “chance meetings.”
In Japanese the books are simply called アドルフに告ぐ (or Tell Adolf) and numbered 1 to 5. The reader doesn’t find out the meaning for the アドルフに告ぐ line until the last few pages of the 5th book. In English the names are:
Adolf: A Tale of the Twentieth Century
Adolf: An Exile in Japan
Adolf: The Half-Aryan
Adolf: Days of Infamy
Adolf: 1945 and All That Remains