ALL THE FOOD - Myles & Sarah

Japan is so well known for what was and is staple foods: sushi, udon, ramen. But there is also many different kinds of fusion and foreign influences in cooking styles and food variety.  Our focus this week was on the more traditional foods, as well as the numerous bakeries with foreign influence; notably French.

Some of the traditional foods that we've encountered during out time here have been the various types of noodle bowls.  Ramen joints are popular and abundant, and tiny fast-food style restaurants dot the streets offering quick bowls of noodles to salarymen and passersby.  Udon and soba are the common choices in these style restaurants, whereas ramen is generally served with variations in broth and toppings.

Myles's Thoughts

One of the best parts of being in Japan so far has been enjoying the local food. It’s cheap, it’s delicious, and it’s everywhere. One of my favourite Japanese foods so far has been chicken karaage. Chicken karaage is essentially small pieces of fried chicken, but it’s definitely not like your standard western fried chicken. My best guess is that it has something to do with the cut of meat, seasoning, and breading they use. It’s just so flavourful and the breading, when done well, is just amazing. I’ve had the opportunity to have it on may occasions so far, at a buffet, at our welcome party, on rice from the school cafeteria, and even in curry. Every time it seems to get more and more delicious.

Speaking of food on rice, another very popular dish here is donburi. Donburi is very broadly defined; it could essentially be considered any sort of food placed on top of rice in a bowl. It does, however, illustrate the importance of rice in Japan. Rice is usually considered to be the main part of the dish, with meat, vegetables, and anything else serving as an accompaniment or side dish to the rice. This runs contrary to Western ways of thinking, where the starch is usually considered the side to some sort of meat dish. Thus far, I’ve been able to try karaage don and ten don. No, ten don is not the nasty part of an animal no one wants to eat. The ten comes from the天 in 天ぷら (Romanised as tenpura). Both were delicious, and it was actually really nice to have a lot of plain, hearty rice to cut the richness of the fried foods on top.

(Karaage don)

Now we jump back to curry. Amazing, delicious Japanese curry. Japan has taken this dish, which finds its origins in India, and made it their own in a big way. It’s a staple of every household and every cafeteria in Japan, it’s just that good. Japanese curry is usually lighter on seasonings and spiciness than Indian curry, often includes some kind of pickled vegetable, and is usually served with rice and some other component to round out the dish. Let me tell you, everything tastes better with curry. Rice, vegetables, meat, fried things, everything. If I could eat curry every day for every meal for the rest of my life I just might. I’ve had curry on several occasions so far. In fact, the first breakfast I had here was hamburger steak breakfast curry from the school cafeteria. Since then, I’ve had chicken curry, katsu curry, croquette curry, curry, curry, and more curry. I actually had the best curry thus far just yesterday. It was at a little hole in the wall joint where everyone just sat around the bar-type-thing and told the single obaa-san running the restaurant from the center what they wanted. I got the mix curry, which came with karaage, meatballs, and a hard boiled egg. It was one of the best meals I’ve had yet by far. It was creamy, just the right amount of spicy, and the meat accompaniments went very well with the sauce. The place also had amazing service. The cook even brought me tissues when she noticed I was sniffling from the heat of the curry. If I could remember the name of the place, I would definitely recommend it.

(Mix curry)

Lastly, I’ll talk about one of the dishes that Japan is most famous for, sushi. I didn’t actually have sushi for quite sometime after I got to Japan. Then I had a lot of it, all at once. I usually feel sick at just the thought of sushi if I eat it too often, but that hasn’t been the case here. I guess that’s a testament to just how good Japanese sushi is. I think I went to kaitenzushi three times just last week. Kaitenzushi is a type of sushi restaurant where you order sushi on an electronic menu and it’s brought to you on a conveyor belt. The variety of sushi there was awesome. Salmon, unagi (barbequed eel), ebi (shrimp), the list goes on. Unagi is still my favourite by far. It’s light, tender, moist and delicious. One of my new top picks though is maguro (bluefin tuna) sushi. It has such a rich, meaty taste, about as close as you can get to having steak in the fish world. Then there’s all the crazy sushi I’ve had at kaitenzushi. I went once with my host family, at which time the dad just kept telling me to try a piece and take the challenge, and I just kept saying yes. This resulted in me trying uni, kanimiso, and shirako sushi. Uni is also known as sea urchin. I’ve heard it’s supposed to have a rich, buttery taste but that was not the experience I had. It tasted very alkaline and unpleasant, though maybe that was from the leaf in between the sushi and the rice? Kanimiso is basically crab guts. It wasn’t actually that bad, fairly creamy but that taste wasn’t super great and I probably wouldn’t try it again. The last and the weirdest was shirako. I had no idea what it was until I Googled it immediately after eating it. I don’t know if I’ve ever been so surprised after eating something and everyone at the table got a good laugh out of it. Shirako is translated to English as “soft roe”. This translation is completely misleading. For the uninformed, shirako is the organ used by male fish to spray their sperm in species who reproduce by dispersing their gametes in the water. The ponzu jelly it was served with was sour, alkaline, and completely disgusting. I couldn’t even taste the shirako itself. I could, however, feel it. I don’t even know how to describe the texture, but it wasn’t pleasant. I’m told that high quality shirako has a very creamy taste and texture, but I won’t be trying it any time soon. Anyways, I could yammer on and on about Japanese food, it’s one of the things I’m going to desperately miss when I’m gone. But, for now, I’ll end it here. Moral of the story, eat Japanese food, and never stop eating it.

(Kaitenzushi)

Sarah's Thoughts

Despite being a very technologically advanced country, Japan still retains a lot of its older traditional foods, which can be found in their breakfast foods, or in the amount of attention and devotion that goes into their food preparation and cooking.  100-yen breakfasts are very cheap, very filling, and often accompanied by miso soup - an old standby for breakfast foods.  The foods range from curry, to broiled fish in a mirin-miso sauce, to sandwiches.

Breakfast aside, there are a million different places to eat lunch or supper at.  Quick-serving noodle joints, ramen restaurants, curry shops, as well as other country-featured foods like Indian or Italian can be found all nestled along the same street.  The noodles are cooked just right, drowning in a bowl of delicious broth: tonkatsu (pork-bone broth) is a staple, as is shio (salt) and shoyu (soy sauce) based broths.  Chasiu (pork meat), nori (seaweed) and some green vegetable garnish the noodles, and some places often offer other toppings, such as bamboo shoot, onions, or extras of chasiu or seaweed.

Definitely one thing that I've noticed is that when serving food, there is lots of smaller side-dishes that make up the overall meal.  At the homestay, two of the meals consisted of smaller dishes - pickles, salad, rice, and meat and vegetables.  And although they are all presented on different plates, there is a cohesion to the flavours.  Everything is fresh too, from the fish to the vegetables, which adds to the Japanese tendency to not over-flavour their cuisine.

One of the last things I've noticed about food in Japan is the abundance of French bakeries, and the variety of bread and baking available in konbini and grocery stores.  Whatever the reason, French baking and pastries have become commonplace in Japan; there's all kinds of shops selling croissants and rolls, or the crepe stands that litter the sidestreets in Harajuku.  The kinds of breads that are sold - like melon pan (bread) or the cream-filled buns - have distinct Japanese touches, like matcha flavouring or lack of sweetener or sugar.  Overall, despite being projected as one of the most expensive places in the world, the food is relatively cheap, extremely delicious, and well worth the experience. 

Kimono and Cultural Appropriation - Gabriela & Taylor

This is Taylor and Gabriela, here to discuss Kimono; its history, different styles of kimono, and whether or not foreigners should wear kimono. 

Before the Heian Period, Kimono was simply a word to describe clothing and only those of high status wore anything ornate. During the Heian period, straight cut kimonos became commonplace as it made work on kimonos easier for the makers. With this style of cut the maker need not take in the wear's proportions to make the kimono. This way everyone could wear a kimono and at a decent price. Kimono then became commonplace to wear around town. 

There are a variety of Kimono types and styles and the list is much too long to possibly name them all. That being said there are a few more interesting ones to point out.
Komon - this kimono has a simple pattern and is considered everyday wear. 
Yukata - worn for summer festivals and not much else. 
Furisode - worn by unmarried women as shown by the long sleeves to mark marital status. 

We visited two kimono shops within the last week, one was rather fancy and up-scale, the other was humble and small (cute). Taylor felt rather uncomfortable going into the expensive shop as she felt she was being judged for just standing there. In the smaller one we felt much more comfortable walking around and looking through the merchandise. The yukatas we saw were mostly of the furisode style with the long sleeves to indicate that the women wearing them would be unmarried. 

Cultural Appropriation is when a specific part of a culture is taken by someone not of that culture and worn or used in the likeness of a costume. When it comes to kimono, the safe thing to do would be to wait and be invited to wear it by the people of Japan, otherwise you get people who wear the kimono as a bathrobe, and disregard the cultural significance of the item. Cultural Appropriation has become a big discussion as of recent times as we see more and more culturally significant items and practices being taken and warped to suit others needs. 

Cute.

Shrines and Temples - Sarah & Taylor

In Japan there is a significant mixture of shintoism and buddhism in equal measure. There are numerous places of worship for either religion at any random corner in Japan.

There are various large shrines and temples in significant places; the Meiji Jingu located in Yoyogi park, or the Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa are a few examples.  These ones are larger and more publicized for public viewing and visiting, but even aside from that, many smaller and unknown-names ones dot the streets all over Tokyo.  Down the hill from the dorm, halfway to the train station, there is a small shrine up a very long, steep flight of stairs.  It is very simple, with only a torii gate at the bottom of the stairs, and a small prayer altar at the top.  Another slighter larger shrine in a small park that we visited was in Hakusan; kitsune statues guarded the shrines and torii gates.  

The atmosphere that was around the shrines and temples appeared to be directly affected by time of day, more so than the number of visitors.  Night versus day has a really strong influence on the feeling of the shrine; daytime makes the entirety peaceful and welcoming whereas nighttime makes it seem like something out of a Japanese horror game or movie.  (The one shrine at nighttime literally looked like something out of Fatal Frame; really super spooky.  We probably got cursed wandering around that time of night.  Oh well.)

Shrines appear in abundance, but the Buddhist temples that neighbour them are also in vast numbers.  With Japan having experienced a growth of uniqueness to their culture from the Isolation Policy, the blend of Buddhist and Shinto beliefs make for something very interesting; many shrines are neighboured or are in the same park area as temples.  Seeing these quiet places in the middle of a bustling city - even in the neighbourhoods outside of the main downtown-city hub - really throws contrast to the old and new traditions present in Japan.  

Traditional Japanese Sweets and Foreign Influences - Myles & Gaby

Traditional Japanese sweets are steeped in history. Known as wagashi, they have traditionally been used in tea ceremonies for hundreds of years. Wagashi
 are typically made using local ingredients like rice flour and azuki bean paste (anko), and often change with the season as different ingredients become available. These sweets are meant to stimulate all five sense, being not only food but a form of art. We wanted to experience this tradition, while also looking into how foreign influences have impacted sweets in Japanese culture.

Nowadays, as we found, wagashi aren't just used for tea ceremony or sold in specialized shops. Wagashi can also be found in in places like bars and convenience stores at reasonable prices for casual consumption. When we were taken out for drinks by the Senshu University students, we were able to try yokan. Yokan is a cold treat made with jellied azuki bean paste. The sweetness was subtle and the texture was smooth, it was a nice refreshing way to finish a meal. 7-11's here sell many varieties of wagashi, many of which cost less than 100 yen. We tried 7-11's daifuku, matcha mochi, and dorayaki. Matcha mochi and daifuku are both made from glutenous rice cakes stuffed with anko. The matcha mochi had, as the name suggests, match worked into the dough while the daifuku had whole bean scattered throughout the dough. Both had a chewy texture and again had a subtle sweetness. The whole beans in the daifuku gave it a grainy texture and the matcha in the matcha mochi unfortunately wasn't very detectable. Their quality matched their cheap price but the still made for a nice snack. We found the dorayaki to be the best of the bunch. The two pancakes on the outside were light and fluffy and the paste in between them was very smooth. If you're goin to 7-11 for wagashi, get the dorayaki. Wagashi are also commonly sold at tourists

Of course, you can still find high quality wagashi at specialized wagashi shops. Myles' host family mother, Kazue-san, was nice enough to take him to shop. Entering the shop immediately filled you with a simultaneous feelings of awe, excitement, and serenity. You could see the attention to detail and mastery that went into every variety of wagashi in the store. The seasonal wagashi were especially beautiful. Being mid-May, they featured bright spring colours and motifs like flowers, ponds, and seasonal fruits. Thanks to Kazue-san, we were able to try three varieties of these wagashi. These were mizu yokan, kingyo, and ajisai.

Mizu yokan is a special type of yokan that is only served during the warmer months as it has a higher water content than regular yokan. It had a sweet aroma, with a texture comparable to that of sorbet. The taste of the anko and the sweetness was much lighter than it had been in the regular yokan and it quickly dissolved in the mouth. The next wagashi, kingyo, was named for the goldfish embedded in the sweet, made to look like they were a live a swimming in a pond. It had a flavour and texture much like that of citrus jello, and had a pleasant fruity scent. The fish themselves had no flavour, and we assumed they were made of some sort of rice flour paste. The final treat, ajisai, is named after the spring flower it is meant to represent, hydrangeas. It seemed to be a type of mochi covered in brightly coloured, spongecake-like pearls. The flavour of the wagashi came largely from the anko in the middle. You could tell the superior quality of the bean paste, as it was much smoother and had a less intense flavour than that of the 7-11 mochi. If you really want an authentic wagashi experience in Japan, make sure you head to a real wagashi shop. Wagashi from anywhere else just can't really compare.

Foreign influence:

We explored foreign influence in Japanese treats at a place called Mister Donuts! They sell a variety of flavors from matcha (green tea) to chocolate donuts.  Matcha donuts were sold in man forms, illustrating how Japanese bakeries try to mix traditional flavours with modern ideas. Gaby being a great fan of chocolate was really excited to try one of their chocolate covered donuts! Truth is… they are not as tasty as she imagined.  Even though the presentation is quite attractive and very similar to what you can find in other western donut stores, the flavor of the donuts is quite different and really hard to compare to the ones found in other bakeries around the world.
The prices at this local are quite reasonable, ranging from 110 - 220¥ (~CA$ 1.50) for a donut.

We also had crepes in Harajuku! Their presentation was much more elaborated than those found in western places. For example, western crepes are flatter and with simpler fillings while Japanese crapes are cone shaped and filled with a variety of stuff! Fruit, ice cream… and they are much sweeter than western crapes.

It seems again that the Japanese culture was yet again able to take an idea from another place and successfully modify it to make it their own!!

Theme Cafes!! - Gabriela & Sarah

Calico Cat Café:

First theme café of the week!! The Theme: CATS!! Cute cats! The café is arranged in a way that allows both cats and visitors to move freely around the store.

The café has an entry fee of 1000¥ (~10CA$) for an hour of stay. We considered this price to be fair in exchange for the opportunity of hanging out with more than 20 cats!!! :D

We didn’t have the chance to try the drinks as we were quite distracted with the kitties, but they were available for an additional fee.

The café also had a set of rules of how to interact with each of the cats. Overall, a nice and unique experience although the cats weren’t as friendly as we expected, they will only come close to you if you had food for them (which you could buy at the café).

The cats looked really healthy and well fed, which was really nice to see!! J

Owl Cafe:

Among Cat Cafes, there are also many other animal cafes in and around Tokyo.  We had the opportunity to go visit an owl cafe during our day trip to Kamakura, which was guided by our conversation partners.  

Entrance fee was reduced by showing student ID's (yay saving money!) and was then followed by rules and instructions for interacting with the owls.  They detailed such things like sanitizing your hands before petting, or to only touch with the back of your hand/ fingers and pet only from the head to the back.  Each owl had its own perch it was tethered to, with a short description plaque beneath.  




There was around 12, maybe a few more, owls situated in this little forest-like habitat that had been created for them.  All the owl had a good disposition (ever though there was a slight feeling that some were a little less comfortable than the others) and looked well-fed and well-cared for. 

The owl cafe was certainly an interesting experience, and we hope to visit another owl cafe and possibly a rabbit one as well.  There might be an impromptu update later in the week as we visit some of the other animals cafes and compare such things like rules, interactions, and settings of the different cafes.  

Pompompurin Café:

Another themed café we were able to explore this week while in Japan starring Pompompurin as the main attraction! Pompompurin is one of the characters from the Sanrio brand.

As we have discussed before, themed cafes are famous for exploiting an idea in order to attract customers. This café featured food and desserts, drinks and a variety of decorations, such as lamps, napkins and chairs, all featuring Pompompurin.

The food is extremely well presented and really attractive to the eyes! Every plate is so CUTE and pretty that I almost felt bad for eating what I ordered hahaha!

From what we gathered from other people visiting the café, the presentation of the food seems to make the plate tastier. However, setting the adorable presentation aside, the quality of the food is very good but it is not the main reason why people keep visiting this place.

We found the prices to be quite reasonable too! 500 – 1500 ¥ (~5 -15 CA$)

In comparison with the Cat Café, there is no entrance fee for Pompompurin café, which is great!! and there is no time limit!

Our conclusion? Themed cafes are a really good way of experiencing Japanese entertainment while eating really cute looking food!

Pokémon & You - Myles & Taylor

Hello everyone! Taylor and Myles here to talk all about Pokémon and the effect the franchise has had on the world and us.

Pokémon has a rich 20 year history behind it. Starting February 27^th, 1996 was the launch of Pokémon Red and Green in Japan on the Gameboy, with more the more polished Red and Blue versions being released in North America in 1998.  Since then it has spawned a long running game series and has developed into a multimedia empire. The year after it's creation, Pokemon spawned a long running children's anime. On the day of writing this blog entry, 922 episodes have aired in Japan. In January of 1999, the game moved to tabletops around the world as the Pokemon Trading Card Game was born. Today, 69 sets have been released for the TCG. From this point on, Pokemon exploded into all forms of media. Multiple spin-off games, including Pokemon Pinball, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, Pokemon Conquest, the infamous Hey You, Pikachu!, and the recent Pokken Tournament have been released. 20 Pokemon movies have been made, world championships for the more popular games and the TCG are held every year, and Pokemon merchandise has been made for everything one can imagine.

In North America, Pokémon is as beloved as ever. As said earlier, Pokémon debuted with Pokémon Red and Blue, followed soon by the anime, the adventures of Ash Ketchum. Followed by Pokémon Yellow in 1999 the franchises spot in North America exploded. Myles was sucked into the Pokémon vortex with the purchase of Pokémon Blue before he could even read. Taylor was forced into the Pokémon world by her anime-loving heart, then later reintroduced to her love of Pokémon with the release of X & Y in October 2013. 

However, no where in the world has Pokemon had a greater influence than in Japan. Japan takes Pokemon merchandising to a whole new levels and many of the best Pokemon players in the world are Japanese. Since coming to Japan, Myles has worn a different Pokemon shirt everyday and, everyday, the Senshu University students recognize them and comment about their interest in them. The characters of the Pokemon universe are instantly recognizable and have helped us cross the language barrier when communicating with our fellow students many times. One of the most interesting things we've been able to do is share the English names of Pokemon and learn their Japanese names in return. Myles' conversation partner, Takeru, told him his favourite Pokemon is カメックス (Kamex), which is Blastoise in English. Myles' knowledge of commonly used competitive Pokemon's Japanese names also helped him talk with Kazuki about competitive Pokemon at nomikai.

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to meet with the members the Senshu University Pokemon Club yet. However, today, we took a trip to the Mega Tokyo Pokemon Centre in Ikebukuro. Myles immediately ran to it squealing in delight as he caught a glimpse of the entrance and Taylor was right behind him. The experience was something a person could never experience in Canada. Every wall was covered in Pokemon merchandise. From plushies, to games, to clothes, to utensils, to chopsticks, everything you could imagine was sold there with a Pokemon slapped on it. While you might think Pokemon Centers might just serve as tourist attractions, this was definitely not the case. At least 80% of the people in the store, which was absolutely packed, were Pokemon loving locals (though I think they all had a laugh at the ridiculous amount of goodies in our baskets). 

Pokémon is such a huge popular culture phenomenon, it is simply amazing how far reaching the franchise is. Gotta Catch Em All - Pokémon!