New Years Recipe

So it's official, steam is the future.

I recently obtained a steamer of some kind, big enough to steam a chicken breast and all the vegetables.  It's the only way to cook potatoes (I really didn't eat many potatoes outside of England).  It's the best because you just turn it on and leave it, you don't have to worry about it boiling over or not being covered (so basically there's no difference between steaming and boiling).  It's good for just setting and forgetting which is perfect for me because I can't cook.

The one downside is that there's literally no flavour.  Spuds are so devoid of taste that they go with anything, but that's not exactly a boon for someone who can't cook.

The answer is simple, and is one that I've only reached today.

Before I unleash this recipe upon the world I must add that I'm making it now (I'm writing this while it boils away) and I haven't tasted it yet.  But here goes:

Boil or steam or fry your vegetables and chickens.  Or microwave them; whatever suits you best.  Put it on a plate in your preferred order.  Put cheese on top.  Wait, you're not finished yet.

Now add lots of marmite.

Done.

What I Eat

I've been on a manic quest to put on a bit of weight while living in Japan.  Everyone tells you that it's impossible.  Portions are too small, the makeup of their diet is wrong; et cetera.  This is absolutely true.  I have struggled immensely with this issue, and have only recently begun putting on weight due to an insane amount of eating.  Once you've got the weight, it's quite easy to keep it (I don't know whether that's genetics or what) but getting there is a chore.

I eat a small breakfast (I've never been one for breakfast, it's a stupid meal).  Then when i have some, I'll have a protein shake for elevenses.  As an aside, whoever invented elevenses is a genius, especially if your choice of fattener is chocolate milkshake.

Lunch will be a sandwich, nothing major.

Then around four, I'll have noodles, or another sandwich, or a Japanese curry chicken thing out of the corner shop (whatever I can get my hands on really) then I'll hit the gym or go for a run (adequate time being left between consuming food and workout).  When I get back it's two chicken breasts, all the vegetables in the world, and a portion of rice.  Veggies will include peppers, green red and or yellow.  Spinach type things.  Broad beans.  Mushrooms.  An onion (always).  And whatever else is available.  Couple that with the myriad fruit juices I drink every day and I think it's pretty healthy.

So for all the effort I've put into gaining weight, I've put on about 2kg's.  Two measly kilogrammes.  It's certainly lean weight though, I don't think there's much in the way of fat going in me at the moment.

92 kg's isn't bad, and I certainly don't want to be much more than that.  Another one or two and I'll be done I think.

Assuming I can afford this terribly expensive eating habit.

The Art of Selfishness

This article from the BBC pointed towards something unintended.  The tradition in all Asian countries, has been for the subsequent members of family to provide for their elders.  They don't have pensions, banking interest rates are measured in fractions of a percent, and general wealth has been hard to come by.

Japan has bucked this trend recently, with its' declining population and relative wealth, they do the western thing of providing for themselves with pensions, savings and occasional part-time work.

Watch the article and you'll see that china is still some way behind in this respect.  The guy speaking ends his part by saying 'it will be difficult for him [the lone male child] to provide for the six of us.'

Now, when you are so selfish as to expect the child to provide for six people, without even considering the child in question, something must be inherently wrong.  In fact, expectation is the wrong feeling.  It's not really expected that he will do this; he will do it.  It transcends expectation because there is an element of doubt related to expectation.  It's a certainty in the mind of this man.  When you elevate selfishness to the realm of certainty without reprisal, you have created an art form.  Truly.

Poor kid.

Then again, the 'little emporer,' syndrome they talk about lives true and well within all of china.

Having met and spoken with a ton of the wealthiest 'little emporers,' in university, I can honestly say they can be obnoxious.  This is not to say people with brothers and sisters can't be foul, obviously this is not the case - I just feel that this particular breed of chinese (dedicated to pouring their entire being into the new generation) has created a number of monsters.  Just look at me as a prime example of the western equivalent (a term I'm now coining 'little king.') and become afraid.  There is only one of me, but there are billions of them.

Time to get out of here before they all grow up and move abroad!



In other news:  UK terror threat level has been downgraded from 'kiss your ass goodbye,' to 'rip your own eyeballs out, it'll be easier for you when they come and start shooting children.'

If you have any fears over your safety in the UK, just watch James Bond - he is badass.

Also, grow up.

One last thing about the terror warnings - they only ever raise them to the highest level after an attack has occurred, rendering all the 'I urge civilians to be cautious and alert,' bullshit moot, as we should have been alert prior to the bombing.  Not after.  Not exactly rocket scientist material heading government anti-terror units these days.  That in itself is more a cause for concern than any fictitious terrorists.


On an unrelated note, I just visited a class for lunch (every day I have to eat lunch with a class.  This is probably why I've lost weight.  I just want to eat lunch quietly without seeing filthy children vomiting and spitting food at each other and flinging poo around like monkeys.  It's disgusting.) and saw a kid eat his meal like a gannet.  An otherwise impressive feat, it was somewhat disturbing for me to realise that all the kids were eating like that.  It must be a fad or something.  Literally no chewing occurred.

Then again, contrary to popular belief, Japanese people do not possess table manners.  Sure, they kneel down and bow, say prayers of thank you (more on the prayers at a later date) before and after meals, and keenly observe proper chopstick etiquette - but once those formalities are overcome, it's all hands to the troughs.  To see grown men, holding their chopsticks perfectly, dive head first into their bowls of food without using their hands is quite something.  They can go through whole meals without actually using their perfected chopstick techniques, instead preferring the animalistic approach.  Once they have finished troughing, they observe the etiquette laden formality of life once again.

Their children are umpteen times more disgusting to watch eating.

This is of course not to disparage all Japanese people.  I find the women eat in a way that isn't fear-inducing, and some men are tolerable.

This is also coming from the only human being on the planet who feels that meal times are much better alone than shared with another, however, so my views may well be biased on this front.

P.s I just read a ten minute long back and forth internet flame war, arguing which is better: Western music or Eastern music.  Not to put too fine a point on matters, while every country has patriots, Korea and Japan have attracted the anti-patriot.  The 'weaboo,' is a common internet species, who think they're Japanese or Korean (the 'or Korean,' part is still yet to be added to the definition, but it's not long before it happens) despite being 14th generation English, French, German, Dutch or American - and never having left their parents' metaphorical or literal basement.

As such, the defence for the East-Asian music went thusly (to paraphrase): Western music is shit.

The rebuttal was: Japanese and Korean music is equally shit, except there is no variation that allows for the occasional breakthrough artist, or that caters for individual tastes.

The rebuttal is entirely correct.  The only music in Japan is pop music.  It's so generic, people have created computer programs that produce music indistinguishable from 'real,' music.  I recently told the rugby guys that I like a Japanese rock band called 'maximum the hormone,' (another example of why Japan really needs to start taking English language teaching seriously) and they said, 'that's a bit weird.'  They also advised me against telling any women that I like them, in case they thought I was weird too.

They're genuinely awesome, but they're not pop - in essence the reason why the West is better isn't the overall quality of music, (huge swathes of stuff produced in the West is dire, let's be honest) it's the fact that there is no music catering to differing tastes.  If you don't like whiny, nasal pop, you're SOL (something out of luck) in Japan.

Unless you have the internet.

The internet beats the wheel as the best invention ever.

Using the above statement, begin a new flamewar at your own behest.

A Day of Temples and Eating.

So the day after we had arranged to meet with a monk and sort his garden out; we arranged to go sightseeing with the same monk and uparupa.  We were chauffered around by another man this time.  Thank you driver-san!

So anyway; this day was really good, the large number of people meant everyone was always smiling and being silly which is the recipe for a good day in my books.

We visited a large shrine area, the name of which eludes me at this point; but I was finally shown how to pray properly.  Of course James monk was the one to show me how, so by havnig a monk show me I think I'm safe to practice in front of others.  If a monk can't show me the right way to pray, then who can?

After the walking around and photography we walked around a small shopping square and someone bought some tea; I bought some ice cream and snacks and then we headed off to dinner.

Pictures of which are below.

Needless to say, I ate a lot that day... An awful lot...

I've not read a single newspaper, or watched a single English language news report since I've been here.

I had a little spare time before we headed out, and the first headline I read is one that makes me want to cry.

No, don't reform the diet to include English style campaign financing laws...  *sigh*

There seem to be a lot of small roads following the major river that runs through Kyoto, (the name of which escapes me at the moment, maybe the Kamogawa, I'm not sure.) and none of them seemed to have any safety barriers.  They're all single track too, which means the whole sensation of driving along these types of roads is extremely free.  I doubt anyone who's sober goes off the edge, and the roads here seem pretty safe overall.  I've only seen one accident, and both cars seemed fine.  I.e, The crash occurred at some traffic lights at four miles per hour.

This is just after the entrance to the temple grounds.

It transpires that the difference between a shrine and a temple is down to which religion the grounds belong to.  If it's Buddhist, it's a temple.  If it's Shinto, it's a shrine.  When you're at a shrine the process for worshipping is slightly different as well.

For the first time in my life, I'm interested in religious goings on.  However, I'm still only really interested in the processes, results of monk based labour and the architecture.  (How to pray properly and looking at the amazing gold statues thinking, 'bloody hell that must have taken a lot of money and time to make.')  I've never been much interested in religion; but a good temple, monastery or cathedral is always worth a look!

This building looked good from every single angle.  We tried, and failed, to find a single position that was ugly or strange.  It sits perfectly in the landscape and blends perfectly with the water.

The lake surrounding the temple also provides a fantastic reflection.  It's a little difficult to see in this photo, but when the sun peeks out from behind a cloud the whole scene is reflected by the water, creating the illusion of there being another world hidden somewhere inside this temple.

It's wabi-sabi!

Yeah; try and explain that to a belgian while walking around a temple...

I couldn't!

Beauty in unrefined things?  Maybe?

Fallen leaves on a path?  That kind of thing?

I have no idea how to explain it, primarily because I've only got my own interpretation of what it means; I've never been taught its' meaning.

The same temple from a different angle.  We were too late to see inside, which is a bit of a shame because this seems like a building that would be as interesting on the inside as the outside.

It also has a cool little bridge running over the water, in the classical Japanese style.  Well, classical as we think of it in the West I suppose.  They do have a large number of them here though, so maybe it's not a misguided preconception for a change.

It's a little dark, but in this picture you can see the reflection I mentioned earlier.

The sky was a really fantastic colour on this day, and the clouds looked as if they had been painted with a thick calligraphy brush; so the whole image was pretty much perfect.

My camera kept struggling with the contrast between light and dark places though, so some pictures are horrifically over-exposed, and some are under-exposed.

I really like this picture, despite it being too dark.  You can see the type of clouds I was talking about earlier; and the surrounding trees reflections' are really nice.

This is one of the mental image of Japan I held before coming here, and I'm glad to be able to say I managed to capture that view.

Still water is everywhere here, so I've seen this picture in a number of places - I've just not been able to capture it!

This is taken from the same place, but looking at the temple building.

With a greater emphasis on the sky this time!

From right to  left:  Uparupa-chan, James Monk, Driver-san.

The rest are just random tourists, but I liked how everyone was in a semi-circle and could therefore be seen by the camera.

Driver-san had an awesome camera; but it's a few models below the one I want.

(But don't tell him I said that!)

A final picture of that amazing temple.

Sorry about the large number taken of a single building!

Ok so one more picture of that building...

So I took about fifteen photographs trying to get the sun setting on this bell, but none of them were any good.  So you'll have to settle for this picture of the roof of the belltower (it's only a few mtres high) and a tree...

The sunset over one of the minor temple buldings.

Some of the skies here are fantastic colours, but often not very different to those we have in England.

I can definitely see why this is the land of the rising sun, with their 5AM sunrise and 5PM sunset every day, that does not seem to change.  But I don't think they have any more impressive sunsets than we do.  Maybe if I wake up at 5AM I'll see some really amazing sunrises.  But let's face it, something extremely special would have to happen in order for that to happen.

It's the J-CREW.  Here to fight crime and save the world.  Or something...

I honestly don't know how, but I told them to strike a pose and they all did it without even having to think.

There are some serious pose striking skills in Japan.  It's a skills base that I think is horribly underutilised within society.  I mean come on now, how awesome is this picture!  No planning!

A picture of a picture of a picture.

Being taken.

This took about five times longer to orchestrate than the strike-a-pose as seen above!

Modern art in action, folks!

The sign said, don't go down these stairs, and definitely don't go near the water.

He who dares wins.  And in this case, I won a good photograph of the river at dusk.

It's amazingly calm in this area, despite being relatively close to railway lines and roads.

He who dares, wins.  And maybe this man won a fish.  Who knows.

I wasn't going to wait around long enough to find out, my feet were wet and getting cold!

The sky at night.  Or dusk to be more precise.  But we can clearly see the vast space dedicated to this park; a rarity in the cities of Japan.

We can also just about see the three muskateers without whom, this journey would have been rendered impossible.

あろがとうおざいます！

After my ice-cream, chocolate bun and chocolate ice-cream snack, came this wonderful (if a little expensive) dinner.

It's a bit of a shame, but a family were eating opposite us, and thy had a small kid who kept waving and pulling faces at the big stupid looking foreigners.  To which I pulled faces back and whatnot; but the dad kept telling her off.  Just let the stupid idiot kid be stupid, he'll be crushed by society soon enough, and will no longer have the inclination to have any fun; it happens to everyone after all.

Itadakimasu!  Said before every meal.  Something akin to, thank you for the food.  It probably has a religious significance, but I'm not sure.














And that was the fun temple trip!

Thanks to everyone involved!  It was a really great day.