A couple weeks ago Tokyo International School held their annual Cherry Blossom Fair. I’m not sure why they call it that as the cherry blossoms are gone by then. Maybe they usually have it a week earlier and didn’t want to change the name of the event this year.

The top photo is of one of the many games. This one was called Japanese Curling. The kids were a little disappointed that there were no sweepers, but it was a popular game anyway.

The food booths were really good. Countries (and foods) represented included Japan (pictured above), USA, Egypt, Israel, France, Germany, New Zealand, Korea, and about five others.

There was a taiko performance. Koinobori (鯉幟 or carp streamers) graced the outdoor activities.

A clown/comedian/juggler/entertainer who called himself “Super Gaijin” can be seen in the above photo sporting a blue hat.

Posted on April 29th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: food, people, skywatch, taiko, tokyo international school. Comments Off on TIS Cherry Blossom Fair

A couple weeks ago we met a most kind Japanese man who wanted us to experience an authentic Japanese meal with him. A week, and several emails, later and we were being picked up by him and his wife at the Fussa Station. From there we went to Kurochaya, an amazing restaurant along the banks of the Akigawa River (River Aki actually). The grounds, atmosphere, and food were all fantastic.

This is the view of the handmade baskets in the gift shop with the river in the background through the window.

Our private room included a tokonoma (床の間) and ikebana (生け花) to go along with the walls of windows with views. ごちそうさまでした.

Should you ever be in Tokyo, and really want to experience a traditional Japanese meal (kaisekiryori or 懐石料理) and environment, then this is the place for you.

The address is 東京都あきる野市小中野167, info-e@kurochaya.net for reservations.

From central Tokyo take the Chuo Line (with transfer at Tachikawa onto the Ome Line) or Seibu Shinjuku Line west. Transfer at Haijima Station onto the Itsukaichi Line. Ride the line to the end, Musashiitsukaichi Station. You can walk or take a short cab ride from there.

Posted on April 11th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: food, tokonoma (床の間). Comments: 4

One of my students was ordered, by a professor, to be my tour guide for a day. I thought this was rather strange as I was standing right there watching the command take place. I would have preferred he ask the class if anyone was willing and able to show me around instead, but that’s not the way he operated. The student was very kind and hopefully had a good time despite the lack of freedom he was granted.

We planned to visit the Yellow River, but the weather was not going to make that worthwhile (as it was raining), so instead we went to the Henan Museum (河南省博物院) in Zhengzhou. The museum is fairly new, and quite nice (compared to everything else I saw in China anyway). Admission was free, and the exhibits were loaded with amazing items. The human history in this area of the world is very ancient. The Yellow River is referred to as the “cradle of Asian civilization.” Many times Zhengzhou was the capital of China, including the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

The top item is made of ivory and is over 2,000 years old.

These bronze bells have not aged much in the past few thousand years.

What do you think the above item is?

Comfy, eh?

Items with early Chinese characters were some of my favorites.

Why does a museum sign say “No spitting” you ask? Thanks to the polluted air, and the Chinese male addiction to cigarettes, Chinese people make strange hacking sounds with great regularity. They also spit those contents regardless of where they are. I can’t even count the number of people I saw spitting on a single day the numbers were so great. The sidewalks, and many other locations, are covered in the stuff. Really gross, I know, especially since no one spits in Japan, and that is what I’m now used to.

The guy on the right in this picture is my aforementioned student (and his roommate is on the left and was also my student). His English was pretty good. Perhaps that is why he was ordered to take me around. We went out for ramen after the museum, and it was quite different from the Japanese version of Chinese ramen. The noodles were wide and flat. The ramen included tofu that was noodle like. I was told that the local ramen is very different from that found elsewhere in China. Maybe the ramen that is more like that found in Japan can be had in other parts of China. Although different, it was still good.

Posted on April 1st, 2010 under China. Tags: food, museums. Comments: 1

My hotel had a morning, buffet breakfast. The “daily egg special” was the same thing every day—fried eggs. I’m not a big fried egg fan to begin with, and the way the hotel cooked them (super runny yolks and crispy/browned/blackened whites) pushed me towards other choices every morning. But authentic Chinese food, most of the time I didn’t even know what I was eating, three meals a day for two weeks can be a bit much. So I tried explaining to the cook that I would like a scrambled egg. The result was a fried egg. The next day a different cook was doing the fried eggs so I explained to her what I was hoping for. She assured me that scrambled eggs would be coming my way. What did I get? Another fried egg.

Finally, I used Google Translate to look up the Chinese characters for scrambled egg, wrote them down, and handed the paper over to the cook. Perfect scrambled eggs were the result. Yeah!

The Chinese people sitting at my table (and the tables around mine) looked at my scrambled eggs like I was crazy. It was a look I became all too familiar with, but the scrambled eggs were fantastic.

Notice the ash trays (four per table) in the above photo. The buffet went from 7 – 9 a.m. I soon learned that I needed to get there right at 7 and be done eating by 7:15 to avoid much of the smoking. By 8 the room was filled with smoke.

Posted on March 30th, 2010 under China. Tags: food. Comments Off on Chinese breakfast

Many posts ago I mentioned that we went to the Tokyo International Anime Fair in 2007, but all of my pictures were lost due to an SD card going bad. For Tokyo International Anime Fair 2010 (東京国際アニメフェア2010) I was more successful as my pictures made it to my computer safely.

The venue was the same place, Tokyo Big Sight (東京ビッグサイト), on Odaiba. The weather was poor, but that didn’t stop tens of thousands from lining up to wait to enter.

Detective Conan (名探偵 コナン and also known as Case Closed in English) is one of Japan’s more famous manga and has been catching on overseas lately too with an English-language translation.

Heroman (ヒーローマン) is a new anime series coming out on Japanese TV in April. They were promoting it by giving away giant bags, big enough to hold all of the other freebies we collected on this day.

After nearly four hours of crowds, anime, manga, and more crowds we headed home. On our way we stopped at Oosaki Station and exited just long enough to eat some ramen. You can see our train through the window in the restaurant.

More photos coming soon…

Posted on March 28th, 2010 under Japan. Tags: anime, food, Japanese Manga, odaiba, tokyo international anime fair. Comments: 7