Better than Cheesecake: October 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Friday clip of the week #8 - 25 ways to tie a scarf in 4.5 minutes!

Love this!

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Japan weekend #11 - I love Kobe!

I found the place I'd like to live in Japan if I'd had a choice in the matter - Kobe! It's a small city, so not as overwhelming as Osaka, and it seems like there's lots going on there. Kyoto and Osaka are nearby, and I even found a decent coffee there.

Where I live in Kishigawa is quite nice, it's just so damn quiet. The good parts are that it's only five minutes bike ride to work, the air is fresh and clean, and there's a great buffet restaurant down the road called Hachi ju hachi. The region is known for it's fruit, and it is really good. The fruit is so fresh and flavoursome that it makes fruit at home in Australia seem like an imitation of the real thing. On the other side, I haven't found much to do on the weeknights, so have been watching more movies and television than I have in ages through Hulu Japan. It's also a little hard to make friends when I don't speak much Japanese, particularly friends near my own age.

So I spend a lot of time travelling on the weekends, but it is so worth it! Living where I do in the inaka (countryside), everything is far.

I had a fabulous night on Thursday, making the trip into Osaka for my second FEW Kansai event, that little haven of Western women, many of whom are married to Japanese men. Every month they hold a dinner at the Hilton Hotel. God I was underdressed. Must remember to put on some make-up next time! The theme was 'To travel is to live', and three of the women spoke about their recent travel experiences in Vietnam, Canada and Naoshima Island. Naoshima Island is now on my list of places to go in Japan. It's known as the 'art island' and it's halfway between Osaka and Hiroshima. I'm really enjoying the FEW Kansai nights. It's so good to interact with interesting women and enjoy a delicious meal in the centre of Osaka.

For dinner on Friday night Andrew and I found a cheap-but-good udon place in Iwade where they served up the udon as you requested it. I asked for 'udon', which is like going to McDonalds and asking for 'burger'. Luckily they had a picture menu and we figured it out. Thank god for picture menus!

On Saturday I drove down to Arida to the beautiful Rub Luck Cafe to see a friend's band play. It's gorgeous there, looking over the water, and is quite a trendy place. I've got to remind myself that there are good things in the inaka as well as in the city. I wish I'd stayed for the whole concert. Instead, I drove to Wakayama city for another friend's birthday at an 'Irish pub', but I couldn't find the place for ages. My mistake was looking for something that looked like an Irish pub! In Japan, you can never be sure that something you expect to be like something (Doritos, western food) will be like what you expect.

Sunset over Arida

Inaka Sunset play at Rub Luck Cafe

Sunday was a great, great day spent in Kobe for the Swing Jazz Cruise. Funnily enough, it was not a cruise. It was a free jazz festival on the waterfront and surrounds. It takes a couple of hours to get there to Kobe train, but, again, so worth it!

There were dozens of jazz bands playing through the day, a main area with food stalls and second hand clothing stalls, and even bebop dancers:

We had such a good day dancing and listening to music and drinking coffee, finishing up with yummy dumplings in Chinatown. Kobe has funky shops, nice cafes and restaurants, good music, everything I like in a city. I love Kobe!

Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Japan weekend #10 - looking for the right balance

Peach Fanta - currently rocking my world

I think I'm starting to go a little bit crazy here in countryside Japan. Not in a bad way, just in a still-adjusting-to-a-different-life-and-culture way.

To say work is cruisy is an overstatement - I sometime go for two or three days without teaching any classes, and don't have any real responsibilities besides teaching. Perhaps they are easing me into things very, very slowly. Perhaps not. So being here still feels like a holiday. A big, long holiday. Which is... kind of great! But it does get old after a while. I would like to be more productive and useful here.

The dilemma of living in the countryside in Japan is that while it is beautiful and peaceful here, with clean air and mountains, all the action is in the cities. I remain too lazy to really commit to studying Japanese, meaning I can only participate in my local community to a certain extent. Going to the city is expensive; but staying home can be boring. I'm still trying to find a good balance.

I know I want to see as much of this beautiful country as I can in the year or two I am here. I know from my year in Samoa that I should have spent more weekends at the stunning beaches there, rather than hanging out in Apia. I know that time flies, especially when overseas.

We spent this weekend exploring our local Kinokawa area a bit more, heading south to Arida for a barbeque, and north to Osaka for swing dancing.

On Thursday we had friends over for dinner. We managed to find lasagne sheets at the Okuwa supermarket and Andrew made a great lasagne. Kazumi and Kumi have been such good friends to me here and both had invited me over for dinner before so it was good to return the favour. They both brought yummy cakes - homemade sweet potato cake and banana cake. As they say in Japan, oishii! (delicious!)

Dooshel Bakery Cafe, Kimino

Friday was a public holiday for the autumnal equinox - celebrating the change from summer to autumn. They have holidays for everything here, it's great! Following the recent destructive typhoons, seemingly overnight, the weather has cooled down beautifully to become cardigan weather. I've got a favourite local cafe now - it's called Dooshel and it's up in the mountains in the next-door town of Kimino, about 15 or 20 minutes drive from my house. It was such a nice morning and everyone had the same idea as us of brunch at Dooshel - families, motorbike riders out for the day, a young lady with her dog. Dooshel is good for nice bread (the stuff at the supermarket is invariably white and sugary) and they do a great lunch set. Like most places I've been to in Japan, the coffee is average at best. I miss Melbourne coffee. The setting is beautiful, looking over mountains towards Kainan.

Lunch at Dooshel Bakery Cafe, Kimino

After brunch we found a cute park just below Dooshel with the Wakayama Animal Welfare Centre, a golf course, camping area, picnic area, children's playground and cafe.

Sign for the big park in Kimino - golf, camping, animals, you name it!

It was such nice weather and so nice to see all the families and friends enjoying their day off. You can wander around and see all the animals for free and enjoy the atmosphere.

Goat at the Wakayama Animal Welfare Centre, Kimino

Birds at the Wakayma Animal Rescue Centre, Kimino

Big park in the Kimino mountains

Swedish(?) playground, Kimino

Saturday was even lazier, I read and napped and had a great ramen and beer lunch set at Raguman.

Ramen and beer at Kishigawa's finest ramen place - Raguman!

Sunday was a big day. We drove for an hour or so south to Arida to meet friends for a barbeque. Unfortunately the route we chose took us over a big mountain and I got freaked out and made Andrew drive. It was actually really beautiful up there - verdant and cool - but the thin, windy roads with seemingly only room for one car even though it was a two-way road made me a bit shaky. I sometimes have an irrational fear that a car I'm driving will start rolling backwards, so driving up a mountain is not a lot of fun for me!

Japan is such a stunningly beautiful place, except for all the modern buildings, which are horrible. I'm starting to understand Alex Kerr's Lost Japan more now.

The barbeque was fun! It was a nice mix of gaijin (foreigners) and Japanese, and everyone was nice and friendly. From my huge sample size of two barbeques, it seems like the culture of barbeques here is a bit different to Australia. In Australia, you bring meat or vegie burgers and maybe a salad, and drinks to contribute. In Japan, you contribute some money to the host, and the host looks after all the food and soft drinks. You could still bring your own beer if you wanted to drink.

Bridge in Arida

Barbeque in Arida, Japan

We then trekked all the way up to Osaka for a night of swing dancing - the Speakeasy Swingin' Ball - at a tiny little place near the main Osaka station. I like the Osaka swing dance scene - it's small and friendly and I'm looking forward to their lindy exchange soon!