Japan
My Earthquake Experience
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I picked a hell of a year to be in Japan for a year. The biggest Earthquake in Japan’s recorded history and the 5th biggest in the world on record. And to think I was looking forward to feeling my “first earthquake”. I was dumb. In fact, literally the day before the 9.0 quake, henceforth known as "The Big One", I commented to my Mom that I was disappointed I didn’t feel the 7.3 quake that occurred two days before the big one. Here’s what happened the day of and the past couple of days.
On Friday I was in a car headed north to a wedding. Suddenly it seemed to be very windy, kind of that feeling of being in a tunnel and something passes by very quickly and moves you. After a few seconds we realized that it wasn’t the wind and every car was stopped. We turned the radio down and noticed the car rocking. This lasted for several seconds and then the train of cars started moving again.
At this point I was ecstatic. “My first earthquake!”, I thought. It was pretty cool until we got to the hotel where the wedding was being held. Thus the downward spiral starts. (more…)
Cooking Konnyaku: A Video
0It reminds me of Tofu in how you are supposed to use it because it acts like a sponge and soaks up whatever flavor it is in. It has a weird but interesting texture and reminds me of squishy fishing lures. Like exactly like them. I may try to cut a piece of Konnyaku into the shape of a fishing lure. We’ll see. Also apparently it is so low in nutritional value for anything that supposedly a guy tried to lose weight by eating nothing but Konnyaku and died of malnutrition. Crazy. Here’s the video:
More Random Observations in Japan
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Gargling apparently is the cure all for everything here…and it is not considered a rude thing to do. Teachers gargle and spit in the teacher workroom, students in the bathroom, wherever.
Men wear capris. A lot. I’ll reserve judgement.
The roads are so narrow in some places that on the telephone poles they have mirrors so you can look and see if someone is coming from the other street.
Instead of saying “umm” like we do when we are pausing or looking for a word, they say, “eto” pronounced ehto.
Fashion is very different. I can’t describe it other to say that as a male, it seems like you can wear anything you want. Full suits with gym shoes, pink pants, swear words all over shirts. As a female, it seems the main requirement is to wear lace leggings and a short skirt.
Bug bites, paper cuts, and colds are treated like national emergencies. On any given day eight or so kids (PER CLASS) in my school are wearing surgical masks. The schools have a constant supply of ointment to put on mosquito bites that is used up very quickly. (more…)
Konnyaku: Weirdest Health Food in Japan
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For my school lunches, I don’t know what I’m eating about thirty percent of the time. That is not an exaggeration; most of it is good even though I don’t know what it is, some of it is pretty terrible. It took me a long time to realize a particular garnish was in fact tiny baby fish. For about a month I had been eating a grayish chewy food and I finally had to ask what it was. Konnyaku.
from justhungry.com:
Japanese DUI?
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So I was waiting at an intersection to meet some people two weekends ago at about 10:30 PM when a police car pulls a car over only a few hundred feet away from me. By the way police cars in no way try to be sneaky here like cars in the US with the low profile lights on the top. The Japanese police cars have huge lights that stick way up on the car. (more…)