Happy Birthday, Mr. Fool.

My classes started this week, and I'm so dead.

Yes, it's all in Japanese. And at the end of every lesson we have to submit comments, so that they know we paid attention. And paying attention to five hours of lesson-grade Japanese... gets kind of expensive. Especially with my sleeping habits, or rather lack thereof. So I'm kind of pooched last couple of days. Add a measure of not-so-common cold, and... I was none too shiny, let me tell you.

Also, last week was my birthday. I thought I would have a small party in an izakaya. It turned out a "small party" became an overstatement, and three of us ended up eating nabe and cake and watching Sasuke. I got some very nice presents (thanks everyone, really!), but I was pretty much blown away by one in particular, consisting only of words. Best birthday present ever, especially considering it had no substance whatsoever. Thank you, you know who you are. Everyone else, you most likely don't, and won't.

As for the obligatory Japan weirdness: pre-printed envelopes. Sometimes you get those: for instance, a company might send you an envelope addressed to themselves, so you can give them a reply easily. Nothing weird yet, eh? I'm sure things work like that everywhere. Everywhere that mail and printing exist, that is. However, because of Japan's politeness rules, things take a sharp turn towards weird: after the company name, there is a character 行 that means "for", but it is kind of self-effacing (when said by them), or rude (when said by you). Basically, but not quite, "for the humble Acme". All Japanese cross that character out, and write two other ones: 御中, so that the address says "for the honoured Acme". However, even stranger is you get an envelope that needs to be self-addressed, for example for the university to notify me of my having passed (or not) the entrance exam. There's a blank for your name, and "for honoured Mr/Mrs" character 様 there (different from the ones above, because you're not a company). You need to fill in your name, cross off the polite 様 "for", and put in the humble 行 "for". When they send it back to you, they will cross off the (now rude) "for" that you wrote in, and re-correct again to 様, so that the envelope you finally receive would read something like

MATH Amadan 様 行 様.

So Japanese.

Personal Room

After a year and a half in Tokyo, it finally happened: I missed the last train.

Back home, it was never an issue. One bitched about how long one might have to wait until the next night tram, but it does come eventually (except when it doesn't, but that's a completely different story). Waiting for 22 minutes might look like an eternity when your feet hurt and you have thin soles and it's snowing, but it's not really all that long.

In Tokyo, everything stops around midnight, and it doesn't budge until five hours later. And while back home I might have chosen to walk if I didn't feel like gambling for a night tram (or, when I moved, I might just have walked home), it's not an option here: my home is nowhere near walking distance from, well, anything.

What happened was this: I went to milonga with a friend (last one [milonga, not friend], as it turns out, as she ships out to Dominican Republic in a couple of days. "See you in two years", she said, but... "then, who alive, who dead", as my people are wont to say). Milongas are rather famous for starting late and ending later still, and it holds true even in Tokyo (except for the previous one, where suddenly everyone went home at 22-23h - what's up with that?), and... well, not much to tell really, the first sentence tells it all. I got stuck in Ikebukuro at thirty past midnight.

Now, I evaluated my options, which I all knew only theoretically by now. I could take a cab. It would get me home, and cost me quite a bit. That was the usual recourse for my tango friend, but she was always all grumbly about how much money she ends up wasting on it.

Also, there are hotels all over Tokyo, in a variety of flavours. In order of decreasing price and increasing sleaziness: There's real hotels, which cost real money. There's love hotels, but I guess it's strange if you don't have company. And there's capsule hotels, where (I am told) you can hear a roomful of strangers snore.

Another option was, I could crash in a karaoke box; but I didn't really want to sing, and karaoke boxes are kind of loud. Normally you don't hear other people singing, but only because there's someone in your own box yelling his or her heart out. (Actually, most people I went with sing very very well; only some actually yell. Details.) If you're not singing, the bloody karaoke machine still insists on playing loud music by itself. (I learned that when I went to karaoke with a friend, and we were trying to have a conversation. We quickly gave up and just sang.) And if you manage to turn that down, you start hearing people yelling their hearts out in the neighbouring boxes. Not really a place I would go to spend a restful night; but it's an option. A lot of karaoke places have a night rate, where you pay a fixed amount for the six or so hours past the point of no return; it's not that cheap, but if you like karaoke, it's a nice enough option.

Then there are manga cafes, or internet cafes - most offer both, to be clear, so these are largely synonyms. You rent a cubicle, kind of like in a internet cafe most of my readers are used to, and there's a computer you can use. That's where the similarity stops, because in a western internet cafe you can't normally borrow a comic book, and they don't normally work 24/7. They also have a night rate, so you can rent your cubicle and just crash until your train starts rolling.

Anyway, as all this was going through my head, fighting for dominance in my mind's arena, I noticed a sign fortuitously just in front of me: Personal Rooms, in B1 (first floor underground). The terms of use were also posted, and... it's a kind of internet cafe. Why didn't they just say so? And they had a "night course" for ¥2000, which I thought was pretty decent for renting a room for up to twelve hours (10pm-10am). You could even borrow a DVD. Each customer even gets one "joke goods" for free. Huh. So, in I went.

The thing I should have realised was this: There were about 25 shelves crammed into a small reception room, with the composition as follows: 3 shelves of manga, 1 shelf of foreign movies, 1 shelf of domestic movies; and the rest was occupied by... another kind of cinematography. Mostly domestic, but one shelf was again reserved for countries where blonditude does not necessarily come from a bottle.
(I like blonditude, and I don't care that it's not a word. It sounds way better than blondness. Blonditude. Blonditude. Or perhaps, blondosity, for certain people.) Next to the counter window which was at the right height for two bellies to converse face-to-face (one has to love the Japanese penchant for privacy), the wall sported the menu of "joke goods", most of which were in an amusing cylindrical shape.

At the time I registered (or rather, shown my ticket bought at the automatic ticket selling machine to the belly behind the counter), I was given the choice of a reclining mat or a massage chair. Now massage chairs are supposed to be good for relaxing, but since I wanted to at least try to sleep (insomnia still going strong), I was definitely more inclined to recline, and declined a massage chair. I ordered a wake-up call, since the rates for oversleeping are draconian when compared to what I paid for the whole night (¥500 for 30 minutes).

I was then shown to my personal room. (Actually, I was shown the door to the half-metre wide corridor where the rooms were. I entered and locked the door behind me, then spent the next five minutes trying to kick back on the reclining mat (since 80% of the width of the room were taken by the mat, leaving just about a foot width of "passageway". Above one's knees there are a DVD player, a keyboard, and a huge LCD TV; and next to one's elbow there's a phone, an ashtray and two (!) boxes of wipes. In case of any sudden leakages. The room stank a bit, but luckily only of old tobacco (one of rare opportunities for me to put luck and tobacco in the same sentence).

All in all, a minor adventure was had. It's cheap, and it could have been much worse. For instance, if I was a woman, I suppose.

In closing, two words: Doomsday sucks. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have a choice between porn and Doomsday, pick porn. Seriously. Porn is way more believable and has a way better plot.

Plum Blossom

I probably said this before already, but Tokyo is, apparently, the city with the most restaurants per capita in the world. It's almost as if eating at home is a strange experience to be savoured occasionally. On every street, every corner, there is a restaurant or ten. The sheer choice makes it hard to pick. There's a cuisine for every palate, and also cuisine for every wallet.

It is hard to say whether I am blessed or cursed to have a good friend who is a gourmet, because it increases the number of times I go to the restaurants for people endowed with thicker wallets than mine. However, today was not one of those days. Today it was my fault.

Last year, as my faithful followers surely remember, when I was visiting Nikko with some friends, I was talked into going to a yuba restaurant, and it was a fateful day. It was love at first taste, even if I still have trouble with the name. But I had to wait for almost a year before I would have an opportunity to have shoujin ryouri ("devotion food") again.

I had a vegetarian phase, long ago, but in the end I went back to meat. There's something deeply delicious in, for instance, yakitori or hirekatsu, and it would be very difficult to give it up again. But let me tell you, those monks knew their food: even without meat (okay, maybe with an occasional rabbit scam), they led a full culinary life.

Anyway, the point is, the food was great. Superduperamazing. I loved every bit of it, even though some people would say it had no meat. It had meat: crab, scallop and fish. To those people who don't think that is meat... Why haven't you failed biology?

I wanted the course with more yuba, which was incidentally discounted this month. Yay! However, they would only make it for at least two people, so J sacrificed himself at my altar of yuba. Em went for a bit less extravagant and more tofu-oriented course.

The restaurant itself was very strange. You know how in some izakaya each party gets their own room? Well, you probably don't. But it is so. Those rooms are often quite small, just big enough so that the allotted number of people can squeeze around the table. There's hardly a place to put a bag; or rather, there wouldn't be, if they didn't have boxes under the seats in which you can pack your things. This one was similar, in a way that Zastava 750 (or for you international visitors, Mini Morris) is similar to a Cadillac stretch limo. It was three metres by four, at least, with a definite tang of hotelicity and a strong suggestion of apartmenthood. Even the corridor between the rooms was un-Japanese in its spaciousness. I felt a bit lost at first, until the food started coming, and then nothing mattered any more.

There are some pictures at the usual place. I'm very near my quota, and if I want to upload anything else, I will have to take something down.

Fortunately for me, I rarely want to upload photos. Today, you were lucky.

Chocolate Sparkling

I just got another drink-related surprise. The co-op store at my campus just got a new addition to its shelves: "Chocolate Sparkling", "new combination of soda & chocolate flavor", "Soda & Chocolate W チョコレートフレーバー" ("Soda & Chocolate Double Chocolate Flavour"... Excuse me? Double what?!?). With pieces of chocolate drawn floating about the bottle, and a disclaimer that it does not use chocolate (the ingredients are, predictably, sugar, soda water and flavouring - I almost kind of miss the "1% fruit content" thing). The drink colour is amazingly non-evocative of chocolate pale yellow. I wonder what it does remind me of...

In the meantime, my lil brother has gone back home. I know I didn't tell you that he even came here, but... some deductive reasoning, please? Anyway, he's been here for a month. When he came here, he was all happy about being able to wander around Japan for a whole month. Already starting with the following day, the tune changed: now he was moaning how he only had a month! It's fantastic how you can present the same fact with two completely opposite meanings, right? Anyway, it got worse with his departure date growing close. Apparently he's been four times to Odaiba, because he really liked some overpass or something.

My mother got addicted to kuzu powder and matcha. I started typing how people will get hooked on weirdest things, then remembered I have difficulties walking past a シュークリーム without getting one. To each his own, I guess.

The Basket Case

Yesterday I went to my second basketball game ever. The first one was 22 years ago. So you might say it was somewhat a new experience for me. J asked a bunch of people, but ultimately only Em and (anagramatic) me went along. Apparently, it was her first, despite having fuzzy feelings about basketball. We cheered for the home team (Toyota Alvark), booed the Mitsubishi Diamond Dolphins (actually, only J did - apparently, Em and me are too Japanised already), ate overpriced bad hotdog and overpriced bad minidonuts, concluded Cola was average, and found my favourite cheerleader and Em's favourite player (although, "I liked him better when he was too far to see clearly"). Afterwards, we pigged out on tempura. Good times.

Anyway, what I thought was the silliest name ever (exacerbated by Japanese pronunciation - "arubaruku"), actually has a reason. I know I usually say "just #$% Google it", or "Wikipedia knows"; but since most of you can't read ja.wikipedia.org, the origin of the name is apparently the arabic word meaning "lightning strike" (and boy, they are fast!); and also, Al-V-ark serves as an Arabic-French-English wordplay for "The Victory Ark". Stilly, but hey.

Also, as someone pointed out, I owe you a school-related update, even though almost every one of the three people reading this blog already know. I passed my scary entrance exam, and I'll be starting my Master Course classes in April. I guess the teachers were properly wowed. Till then, I'll be attending the fun Intensive Japanese Course once again. Yay!

I moved. If you have the old address, ask for the new one.

Exam Saga Continues!

A quick note today: half an hour ago the results of the written part of the entrance exam were published. My number's up! (And I mean it in the literal way.) I will have my interview on Monday morning; if that goes well, I'll be a real Todai student. Wish me luck!

My Friday evening plan: fiddle with TeX and the presentation. My Saturday plan: Game Day in Castle Tintagel. My Sunday plan: go fishing for the first time in ages. My Monday plan: wow the teachers and pass the entrance exam.

Let's hope everything goes according to the plan, eh?

Entrance Exam

Today I had my written entrance exam. I was scared I'd fail like a kanji tattoo, but it seems like it's going to be fine. For those I haven't bored to tears yet, the exam I took had two sections (T and A, I kid you not!). The T section had 5 questions, and the A section had 6. T is mostly basics (maths, computing, physics), while A has some more specialised topics (Internet protocols, programming, logic circuits, GIS...). I had to choose 2 questions from the T group, and one more question from anywhere. However, despite always having been partial to T's, I chose 2 T's and 1 A instead of all three T's. Three T's is just too weird. Anyway, here are the questions, as far as I can recall them, after my 2-hour trial and/or tribulation:

1. {a_n} is a sequence of the form: a_n = a_n-1 + a_n-2, a₀ = x, a₁ = y
   
   
   
   1. There is a recursive algorithm to calculate a_n. Explain it, and show its complexity.
   
   
   2. [a_n, a_n-1]^T can be expressed as a product of Q and [a_n-1, a_n-2]^T, where Q = [ q₁₁, q₁₂ | q₂₁, q₂₂]. Calculate Q.
   
   
   3. Show an optimised algorithm for calculating a_n by using Q. Show its complexity.
   
   
   4. For x=1 and y=3, calculate a₄₈
   
   
   5. {a_n,m} is a sequence where a_n,m = a_n-2,m + a_n-1,m mod m. Show {a_n,m} is cyclic.
   
   
   6. What is the period of a_n,3?
   
   
   
   


2. There is a test by Alan Turing that determines the quality of artificial intelligence systems.
   
   
   
   1. What is its name?
   
   
   2. Describe it (in about 5 lines)
   
   
   3. In about 15 lines, describe its influence and criticisms, using these words:
      Loebner prize, common sense, John Searle, speech recognition, Chinese Room, natural language processing, Eliza
   
   
   
   


3. In C,
   
   
   
   1. define the sort function of signature: void sort(int array[], int n).
   
   
   2. for a structure List { List *next, int v }, define the reverse function of signature: List *reverse(List *list).
   
   
   
   

I think I didn't do too badly. I'm pretty sure I aced the TOEFL two weeks ago, and that I'm over the threshold with the current offering. And if I am, I'll probably do well on the interview next week, since I'm told they'll be asking me about my research plan. And I know in quite a detail what I want to research. The quotas are not too bad either, despite what I thought before: 45 candidates for 19 places is not too bad. So even if I don't manage to pass, I'm satisfied that I did the best I could, and didn't make a monkey or a cabbage out of myself.

The Soft Drink Incident

After a long time of life more-or-less as usual, another culture shock. A bad one. I'm still traumatised as I'm writing this.

Yesterday, I was in Akihabara Donki, and I found Ramune in their fridge.

Ramune is a soft drink well known to many anime otaku, so being at least somewhat related to them, of course I've been wanting to try it. But so far I've only found it in two restaurants so far, never in a shop - so I immediately decided to buy it. However, it was just next to the cash register, and I was next in the line, so I just grabbed the nearest bottle - the red one.

When I came back home, and realised I was thirsty, I remembered the Ramune I bought, and started to open it. Now the Ramune bottle is a bit strange, and there are numerous Youtube clips demonstrating the proper way to open it. Basically, it has a marble inside, and you have to push it in with a provided instrument; then you turn it so that the marble gets stuck between two "reefs" in the bottle before tilting the bottle to drink or pour (otherwise the marble gets in the way again and stoppers the bottle from the inside). What I forgot was that Ramune has a tendency to spray when opened. It of course did, and I did the only thing I could think of - I popped the top into my mouth, in order to avoid spraying Ramune all over my room (or at least mitigate it, since I was not quite quick enough).

Bad mistake.

My reading is still quite slow - in Croatian or English, I can't not read something if I see it, reading is automatic and subconscious. Not so with Japanese - I have to invest effort and time, even if it is just a couple of words it will not be automatically processed. So only then I finally paid attention to the label, and what I saw horrified me, almost as much as the one gulp I got.

キムチ風ラムネ

or, Kimchi-style Ramune. Who does not know what Kimchi is, look it up on Wikipedia or something.

Next to that, a picture of garlic and chili - and yes, you can taste them both, and very strongly.

Anyway, it's the most godawful drink I've ever had the misfortune to have in my mouth. It's positively vile. I've even done some research on the net, and most people agree that even people who like kimchi (I'm not one of them) think it's vomitworthy. Some people probably remember the dream tea that Oz brought back from America. This is worse. If I had to choose between a glass of dream tea every day for a month or a glass of Kimchi Ramune once, I'm going with the tea. So you people who remember that can kind of get the intensity of my feelings on this subject.

Now I'm quite pissed off, because, a) how can anyone produce something like this? and b) since it's being sold, some SOB is actually buying it!

That's not the end of the story though. Today I related the story to one of my lab friends, who is kind of an experienced Japan-dweller, Nihon-sensei kind of person. When I came to the middle of my story, he started smirking and saying he thought he knew what happened, but fortunately it wasn't it.

There is a trend in Japan of hiding things that could be embarassing. For example, a third of the people you see on the Metro are spending their time reading a book, and half of those have the said book in an opaque paper book cover. The book cover does not serve to protect the book - it serves to prevent other people from seeing what you're reading. Of course, it does not really work - if it's really a book, fine, but in many cases it's manga, and if there's nekkid girls inside, people do not need to see the title page to realise what kind of book it is. Still, the book covers are widely used. Also, you can find sex toys that look just like deodorant bottles - you would not look at them twice in the shop. In the same vein, apparently, some companies have started packaging lubricants in bottles with the same imagery as popular soft drinks and teas - including Ramune. The name differs a bit, but the shape and colours are quite similar. I also heard someone tried the matcha lubricant, and that it even tasted of matcha. But it was not matcha.

So in the end, I count myself lucky, I guess.

How to be polite

Japanese signs are fun. Especially the "manners" campaigns. Check these out:

http://www.conbinibento.com/2004/07/16/lets-minding-our-manners/
http://www.tokyometro.jp/anshin/kaiteki/poster/index.html

Don't be scared, the Tokyo Metro site is in Japanese, but posters are easy to understand.

Hair

There's a hairdresser across the street from my Uni. I didn't notice it until today. Since it's getting way past time I should have had a haircut, I'm starting to look at my options, so I stopped and read the menu. [Yep, in Japan, hairdressers have menus too.]

You already know about "Cut & Blow". But today I saw something new: Head Scalp. For just ¥3500. But that's okay, it's just weird Janglish. But how about Nose Scalp (¥2000)? Any idea what that is?

Apparently, it comprises of the removal of fine hairs that apparently grow on the nose. Not nose hair, mind you - facial hair growing on the nose. By way of waxing, or something similar.

Nose scalp FTW.

And then, not two minutes later, I encounter the weirdest hairdo I saw since I came here. A half-meter spike. Of grey hair. The gentleman must have been 50 or 60.

Way to go, man! Major props! Chutzpah bonus!

On Whistle-Blowers

A quick observation.

Workers working on tracks of Inokashira line are a common sight at my station. They thump the stones, bonk the tracks, pull the tubes, and generally behave in a normal workerish manner. And since they're working on the train tracks, they have frequent breaks.

Whenever the train comes, the foreman signals the crew with a loud whistle sound. It is a bit uncanny, since the foreman knows when the train is coming before the announcement is made. When they hear the signal, all the workers line up against the wall, hold their arm up as if greeting the train, but more often than not they drop it before the train comes. I suspect that is one of the little work safety rituals common here in Japan, like the station attendants pointing both ways to make sure the platform is secure.

However, one would think that a loud whistling sound would come from a whistle. The thing that sparked this observational post is that today was the first time I actually saw a whistle. A sub-foreman (is that even a word?) had one, and signaled the crewmen along with the foreman.

So if the foreman doesn't use a whistle to produce a whistling sound, what does he use?

The answer is, a special megaphone-like device, which emits a very cunning imitation of blowing a whistle when you press its trigger.

The thing is, the Amazing Whistling Bullhorn is not any louder than a real whistle (as I found out today), it doesn't sound much different, and it's definitely Bigger Than A Cat (okay, a kitten). [Those who don't know, Bigger Than A Cat is a reference unit of size for some of my friends and me, ever since childhood. It's no weirder than, say, "gallon", or "foot".] And it presumably needs batteries. So, why not use a whistle? Is a lo-tek whistle too lowly an instrument for a foreman? Or is it work conditions issue, protecting the poor foremen from employing their lungs too much? Or an union thing, seeing how whistle-blowing would be the only physical labour they would be doing - as apparently their job description is just observing how other people toil, and not toiling themselves?

Note to readers: I have no problem with the foremen, despite the slightly satirical tone of the post. Knowing a bit about how the Japanese system work, they have earned their apparently toilless office. Still, the whistle thing confounds me. Opinions?

Kabuki-za

Today I went to Kabuki-za. We had a group discount. Having seen the Kabuki-za prices, I first thought it was a big discount. It wasn't. We just had the crappy seats.

The crappy seats are on the third floor, about a mile from the stage, and Japanese-sized. This means that those with smaller Perception scores will presumably only see smudges moving across the stages, and that most male Europeans will at some point during the performance experience regret of never having had leg amputation. The fact that the full course of Kabuki lasts for more than 4 hours does not help.

However, physical pains notwithstanding, it was a pretty cool experience. If in Japan, it's definitely one of the things that is nice to see. However, not all of it would I be willing to repeat often. There were three pieces in today's set; the first one was interesting, the second one, not so much, while the third one was the only one I could really call fun.

Now, what was what?

According to the flyer, the first piece was called "Sugawara denju tenarai kagami" (Sugawara and the Secrets of Calligraphy). It was a famous historical piece, adapted from Bunraku, lasted over 2 hours, and even the Japanese need an earpiece to understand what they're talking about. For those who wish to know more, it's on Wikipedia, and we were shown Act II scene 2 and Act III scene 2. Between the flyer in my lap and the voice in my ear, I managed to get the story (despite having dozed through about a third of it).

The second piece was mainly a dance performance, lightly interspersed with some comic interludes (or, as GW fans would put it, monkey business). Japanese dance is highly stylised, it doesn't interpret the music but rather the singing of the chanters sitting in the background (which is even more incomprehensible), and I must have slept through about a half. The name was "Kyokanoko musume ninin Dojoji" (Two women at Dojoji temple). According to the pamphlet, "Musume Dojoji is considered to be a pinnacle of the art of the onnagata female role specialist". It's definitely something to see, but I guess for many western people not really something to watch for an hour or so.

The third one, which I enjoyed the most (and managed not to doze on) was "Ninjo Banashi Bunshichi Mottoi" (The Story of Bunshichi), adapted from a Rakugo story. It's funny, it's touching, and even if the language is a bit archaic, and there is still the wailing quality of the Kabuki voice, it is much more accessible - I even managed to understand some (it really isn't so bad, as long as you know enough to switch all the "de gozaimasu"s for "desu"s). At least in those moments my ear wasn't full of Oshima-san, our pre-recorded commentator for the piece.

My frequent references to dozing can be explained in three ways. Four, if you count the least applicable one ("really boring"). They are:

1. My vampiric biorhythm. Again I couldn't sleep during the night, and my body tried to compensate by knocking me out during the day.

2. My blasted need for oxygen. I never dozed during the first 20 minutes after the break. But afterwards, my brain just wanted to go to Standby.

3. My appreciation of the soothing sounds of human wails, wooden block claps, shamisen pangs and shoulder-drum poings.

And I'm writing about this this openly and trying to conceal my shame over being an uncultured barbarian only because I can say that I was doing the ultimate Kabuki experience. If anyone starts pointing fingers at me, I can just explain to them that I was doing what the natives were doing. What I mean is that, just around me, at some point or other, I could spot at least a dozen dozing Japanese.

Cool thing about Kabuki, and I guess necessary when one remembers how long it lasts, is that it is expected to have your lunch there. Everyone comes to Kabuki with a bento, or buys one there. So it's kind of like what cinema would have been like had it existed in Far East couple of hundred years ago, with local equivalents of pop-corn (like ¥200 taiyaki).

Regarding the prices: Front row seats are sell-your-soul expensive at ~¥18000. The cheapest non-crappy seats were 1F and 2F back rows at ~¥12000. 3F back rows (where we were) are quite affordable at ~¥2500. There is also ¥650 charge for renting an earphone, but we got it for free with our group discount (¥2000 for the whole thing). There is also an option of paying ¥1000 for the behind-the-back-row spectators, or so-called 4F, for one piece only, and if I understood correctly the guide whom I asked about it, there may not be seats, but standing places instead. This is a good deal for those who have time limitations, cashflow problems, length requirements, or formicas in posteriori.

After that, as if it wasn't enough, I went on to continue my day of reckless spending, and bought a new pair of jeans, with a new belt. The old pants have me look like a skater, only not as stylish.

Does sento wash away bad news?

I had my presentation on sarma today. It was really boring. There was a presentation on Rockies-As-Shown-By-A-Travel-Agency, a perfectly delivered, very touching story about porcupines and personal space, and a presentation-cum-degustation of a Malaysian dish, a presentation on Fusui (or Feng-Shui, if that's more familiar), beautiful presentations on Malaysian jungles and highlands and Israeli saline depths, and a Look-How-Cute-Little-Anteaters-Are one. Of course, there was also an utterly incomprehensible piece on peonies, but even that was a detective novel compared to my Recipe-of-the-Week column in Foreigner Daily.

Various and sundry replies for Linda: The baito is actually a sweet gig. I'm programming odds and ends for my lab. So I don't go anyplace I'm not already going to, and not doing anything I wouldn't already be doing. The only downside is, I'm not meeting anyone I wouldn't already be meeting. But shou ga nai.

As you might have guessed, I did go research local sarma. I went with my gourmet Canadian friend, and I was a bit nervous ("What will he say about our peasant cuisine?") but in the end he really enjoyed himself. Me, I was nitpicking all the time how nothing is really what I'm used to, even though everything was very good. My complaints were mostly based on the fact that it is a haute cuisine restaurant catering to japanese palates, and I'm used to plain old home cooking.

As you might or might not know, sarma is very sour and salty. As (some other of) you might or might not know, Japanese don't like strong flavours. Result is, I felt it was bland. Still delicious, but not the dish I know and love. Also, you only get a midget of one sarma roll for the price I don't want to put on the blog. It is not cheap.

Chabapuchicchi had a similar problem: not enough spices. White codfish (bakalar na bijelo) was the most authentic, from what we had. Shutorukuri (and congratulations for the first one who manages to decipher what that is) surprised me with paprika added to the cream sauce. I know paprika and dairy go well together, and are often mixed in Croatian cuisine, but I haven't yet experienced it on that particular dish.

However, I'm not sorry I went, even considering the hefty bill. I might go back soon, for lunch, if I have time - they have a set lunch for ¥1000, which is more than affordable, considering - but I doubt I will splurge for a dinner there any time soon.

I am continuing my weekly visits to the cute nurses in the dentist clinic. They say there's nothing better than having a pretty girl in your mouth, I don't think this is exactly what they mean. But it's good for health. I'm still in the root-canal-cleaning phase. Dunno why, but I can't but be reminded of Alien 3. One visit is not that expensive, but it accumulates. And that's just two teeth. Sigh. At least that's a regular expense, not a surprise to my wallet.

Unlike the scholarship money cuts. Yup, we got wind of the rumour that our monthly deposits will get cut by about ¥15000 a month or three hence. Plus, the JASSO policy of refunding 1/3 of whatever medical costs after the national insurance is getting axed next month (which is why I'm hurrying with my oral chimney-sweeping efforts).

More bad news: With regrets, I've decided to stop my attempts to start Aikido again. Every week my knees feel worse - last time I had trouble walking for the next couple of days. Not fun. I don't know what I'm going to do, maybe ask about using the Uni sports hall, and starting to swim. Swimming is boring, but it's exercise, and I guess much better for me than destroying my legs in the name of health. I just hope the water is tolerable. (And that for once I do what I tell myself to do.)

Speaking of water - I still haven't gone to a sento, so...

Excuse me for interrupting myself, but I'm really annoyed. I don't know whether it's myself, or English, or Japanese, or... Whatever it is, I hate mixing writing styles. Namely, whether to write the long O as "ou"/"oo" or simply "o". It just seems so bloody inconsistent! But the fact is, if I'm writing something in Japanese and don't want to use a native script, I'll probably go with the accurate kana transcription: "ou" most times, "oo" where applicable. But if they're just words that got into English, I feel silly writing "sentou" when whoever knows the word will probably recognise "sento" sooner. Besides, I'd feel like a pompous prick. So I resolve to remain consistently inconsistent, and peeved at my peevishness.

Ahem. Okay. I still haven't gone to sento, and I think I might like to try to go today. I think I might enjoy it after working on the presentation for so long. On the 'Net I found one near Omotesando station, which is on my free route, and I'm thinking to go and try to find it. I don't have any tattoos and I've read up on sento etiquette, so I hope I'll be fine. Before that, a quick stop at the cafeteria, to see if there's still anything edible.

Till next time!

Pizza

Saturday was a cool day. We had an all-day gaming event, and after that people said there was this cool little Burmese restaurant. So we went. I hardly even knew there was such a thing as "Burmese cuisine", but apparently even people from Burma do eat, so there we went. It was a couple of minutes away from Takadanobaba station, and apparently it is a Burmese restaurant heaven, as there is at least 3-4 more in the vicinity. It was a first time I've been to that station, but seeing how there's over a hundred stations in Tokyo and I don't get out all that much, it's nothing to be surprised about.

The restaurant was small, but kind of cozy. Dalmatian feel, almost. We ordered a bunch of different things and split it between the six of us, so we had a lot of variety in our dinner. But I was particularly impressed by two things. One was a drink, and was listed on the menu as "Grass Jelly". (I actually wrote "Glass Jelly" first, then corrected it, and it's not even the first time I did it; I have no idea why. I guess I'm becoming more Japanese by the minute.) Anyway, Grass Jelly (and again I had to actively control my fingers to keep them away from the L key) looks like water with bits of black jelly suspended in it. It tastes very sweet, and the closest thing to compare with would be the Icelandic lichen syrup. But without the whole coughing crap.

The other thing was tea leaf salad. Yummy! Don't ask me to describe how it tasted like, I just can't. There was a lot of things in it: peanuts, sesame seeds, rice vinegar, probably oil, and several varieties of green. I totally enjoyed it.

Speaking of restaurants, I have to make a presentation for my Japanese class, and I'm doing one on sarma. Like a real scientist, I have to cover my bases, and so I think I'll be going tomorrow (or some time soon if I don't get a table) to a Croatian restaurant. Err, make that "the" Croatian restaurant - since there's just the one in Japan. Sarma should be a bit pricey, but I miss it, and it's not that different from some other restaurants I've been to (like, oh, I don't know, Burmese). Good thing is, I actually managed to save some little money, and also I'll be getting my part-time job salary from next month, so it should be all good. I don't even spend that much on the dentist as I thought I would.

The dentists scare me, in couple of different ways. First, I was scared of the prices - I am going to a hi-tech private dentist, and they said there's a lot of work to be done in my mouth, so I was afraid I'm going to leave a lot of money there. But it turns out that I was wrong about that - the dentist turned out to be not only quite skilled, but also very cheap in comparison to back home. So now I'm scared about getting a nerve pulled, which is scheduled for the day after tomorrow. I'm pretty nervous about that. I hope I don't lose my nerve, and get a nervous breakdown. Waiting for something like that is quite a nerve-wrenching experience, you know?

Okay, enough of that. While on the topic of money and work in mouth - last week I was at a gaming till rather late, and then decided to walk back home from Shibuya rather than brave the overcrowded last trains. It's just two stations, which translates to about... oh, maybe 20 minutes, maybe half an hour, I never measured. Anyway, I was passing the Love Hotel Hill (actually, the Japanese name is Hill where the Road Starts, or something like that, but it's universally called LHH by the gaijin population, I believe), and I got offered マッサージとブロージョッブ by a party previously unknown to me. That's a first. Wasn't even very expensive, I think. If I understood her correctly, it was actually about the same price as StarCraft: the Boardgame: Brood War expansion. But I had a book to go home to, so I did not partake of the services.

But was I tempted? Hell, it's like finding a piece of American pizza lying on the ground just inside Disneyland.

I mean, it's pizza!

But, on the other hand, it's full of fat, probably with germs on it, and you have to pay the considerable entrance fee to get to it.

And then you start thinking about Prosciutto Speciale back home... :(

December

Yet another belated blog post. Way, way belated. No excuses, I'm plain lazy.

There were several memorable events in December. First, our Japanese group held a bonenkai. But without much drinking. Which is not really a bonenkai, but whatever. Only one guy got pissed. He was red and talkative, and normally he is neither, so you just knew something was off. It was fun - only pity that one of the girls got sick that very day, so the group wasn't complete.

We went to an izakaya, where the Canadian got us a good price for a rather large dinner set. "Good price" doesn't mean it was cheap, just that it was cheaper than it would have been otherwise. But it was quite nice. I especially liked the zosui after nabe... That was just delicious. And mushroom tenpura was also very good.

Several days later, the missing girl, the other Malaysian, the Chinese girl and me went to see Sea Paradise in Yokohama. (Hmm, I could have just written "me and the class girls". Oh well.) It's a big Disneylandish place, the centerpiece of which is a huge aquarium located in a pyramid. No, not making it up. Pyramid. It's made from glass, though, not stone. And there's all kinds of marine critters swimming around in its five storeys. And on top, there's a huge pool where dolphins and seals and a walrus and a penguin and an announcer of indeterminate species perform in a show.

There's also several amusementparkish rides, and a rollercoaster. We bought a day pass to the whole island, so if we wanted to go take the rollercoaster five times, we could, with no extra charge. Since the rollercoaster was anything but cheap, we thought we had a good deal going. However, as we came to the gate, six seconds before we would have boarded for the first time, the attendant shut down the ride. The wind was picking up, and they were closing down the rollercoaster for safety reasons. So we didn't get to ride it at all. Not even once, since the wind stayed strong the rest of the day. So that part really blows.

Otherwise, it was really cool. One of the best things was the lunch. When we became hungry, the first thing we spotted was a yakiniku place. I hadn't had yakiniku yet, and thought it would be nice to try it, but we saw the price and it was... rather more than I usually paid my meals. Like, quadruple. However, as we walked around, we saw that pretty much everything was more expensive than usual - the tourist complex effect. Then we decided it's better to eat the expensive stuff in expensive places than to eat cheap food in expensive places, and went for yakiniku anyway.

This proved to be an excellent, and in the end really inexpensive, decision. We got a tabehodai. Which means, eat as much as you can in 90 minutes. Well, we did. Thoroughly. If you haven't googled it yet, when you go for nikuyaki, you get raw meat, already flavoured with spices and sauces, and you grill it yourself on the little griddle built into every table. There's vegetables too, but the main point is meat. The four of us ate maybe 10-15 plates of various species of meat. Stuffed ourselves silly. And that's not all! For the soup is included as well, as is rice, salad bar, and - desert! And by "desert", I mean a really really tasty treat: almond tofu. Or almond jelly, if you prefer. Yum-m-my! All for 2000 yen. It might be four times the price of my regular cafeteria lunch, but it's also the most meat I've eaten since coming to Japan.

Last notable event was the New Year. There was about 15 of us foreign students, and we went to hatsu mode - or first prayer of the year. It's the traditional way to spend New Year's Eve in Japan. We went to Zojoji, the main temple of Pure Land Sect of Buddhism, where we just missed the opportunity to stand in a 3000-person line to recive the paper on which we would have inscribed our wishes, attached to a balloon and sent into the sky at the stroke of midnight. Instead, we visited the Eiff... err, Tokyo Tower, which is just next to the temple. It was very crowded, so I decided, with another guy, not to go up at that time, and go grab some food instead, since both of us missed our dinner.

When the time came to enter the temple, it was... indescribable. In a feeble attempt, I'll only say that the crowd was in a fifteen-meter wide and hundreds of meters long "queue", and when we finally went in, there was a war inside. Half of the people were fighting to approach to throw in their coins and make their prayers, the other half, having finished what they came to do, were fighting to escape to the door. It was a war, I tell you. War!

Afterwards, I went home. Most of the people went on to Meiji shrine, and then to see the first sunrise of 2009. But I was cold and my feet hurt, so I passed.

The last of the notable events, I had dental surgery today. Huzzah!

Brief Notes

I'm sleepy. Mostly because I can't sleep at night. And even less by day.

I've been to a Chinese restaurant where the serving obasan was so surprised I could say a sentence in Chinese that I got a free jasmine tea, free rice - and free iced oolong tea for the whole table of four. I was embarassed, especially the way my Japanese companions kept semi-enviously teasing me.

I've gone to another monthly boardgaming meeting. It was fun. I managed to explain Red November in (something similar to) Japanese. Much hilarity ensued, even if I couldn't explain about "gnomes" and why everything was going to hell in a handbasket.

I've seen the first season of True Blood. Props to Paquin, but Sookie is way better in the book. But Vampire Bill rocks on screen.

I need to find time to go to Akiba by day. I decided my back is worth ~¥6000.

Festival

On Friday the Canadian and me went out to eat something. We ended up in Christon Cafe. Very cool place - an underground restaurant decorated as a church, with very goth-looking staff. The cover charge (or "amuse") was more than I usually pay for entire dinner, but once in a while, it's worth it. The atmosphere was great (if you like gloom), the waitress cute (in a faceful-of-metal kind of way), and the food fingerlickingly delicious.

This weekend is the Todai Festival, so I went over to Komaba campus to check it out. There were some couple of hundred food stalls, just for starters. I had some very nice and rather cheap yakitori - and I've been craving the grilled meat taste for some time now. I also snuck in a game of Go with the Go club. I suck, but I still had fun. And there were bands playing their stuff all over - from very beautiful and haunting vocal songs, to horses playing guitars, to none too bad metal that I didn't quite expect here.

One day I might even upload some photos.

Lost in Shibuya

So, two other guys in my class happen to live in the same dorm as I do: the tall Argentine and the hip Canadian. The Argentine is a source of constant amusement due to his slick look and fixation on neckties. The Canadian is a potential gaming partner.

So, we got together on Friday night, the hip Canadian and I, to try to play a game. My new Galaxy Trucker, for those in the know. Since the rooms are way too small, and since the common room was being used by the laptopped people, he said he's pretty sure we could play in Starbucks. "They don't care what you do, as long as you get something to drink." Despite my reservations about the table size and boardgaming in a public venue, we went out.

He said you can walk to Shibuya in about 15 minutes, so we did. It was a nice walk. We looked at our options, and finally did settle at a Starbucks outside table. I got a cuppa sencha, since I don't like coffee, but even sencha tasted funny. The table was round and hardly big enough for two players, but we managed - once the funny Dutch guy we met there stopped talking about kidney stones. He's also from our dorm, and he was coming back from his gym, and we spent a bemused time listening to him, and giving him layman medical advice. Just goes to show you can never know what your day will be like. But he's cool.

We got one round done, then headed back, and then went to his room after all and went on to play the other two rounds. The consensus was, needs more players.

This was just the preamble. The next day, I was in Shibuya, and I thought it might be a good idea to return home on foot. You know, reinforce the learned data. So I started out, uh-huh, remember this shop, yep, this was the corner, then under this overpass --

This doesn't look quite like I remember. Similar, but - was it really where we crossed?

Must be. Don't know how it could be anything else.

Okay. Yes, the street here was like that...

Wait - I don't remember this! I'm sure I would have remembered this!

Let's ask someone. "Excuse me, sorry, I think I may have gotten lost, so could you please tell me which way is Inokashira Line Komaba Todaimae Station?" "Eh? It's very far! Walking? Very far, you sure? Okay, that way, then turn right, then after turn left, very far..."

Oops.

So, I start walking where she pointed. Five minutes later, I check with a salaryman, but he has no clue. Then I ask a passing couple, and they also give me the "very far" routine, and wonder if I might be better off by retracing my steps to Shibuya. I assure them it's good exercise for me, and press on.

Five more minutes later, I ask a girl, and she says it's complicated to explain, but very close.

Huh? What did I miss? Did I sleepwalk for half an hour? No, just turns out that people have different concepts of "long walks". It actually does turn to be not that very far, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The girl gives up on explaining, and takes me three blocks back where she came from, in order to explain better. In the meantime, we figure out we go to the same uni (No way! Really?), and exchange keitai emails. Her instructions prove to be very correct and very precise (third bus stop, across from 7-11, there is a sobaya there, narrow street just after, then just straight) - I couldn't miss if I wanted to. If you're reading, ever, thanks!

Altogether, my return home lasted 1:20 instead of 0:20. Not bad.

Today I was again in Shibuya. I was in Ginza before that, so I saw some really expensive places, but I also saw some rather normal, yet interesting-looking places - such as a dark, almost sinister, Mexican restaurant with an oldsmobile for a cash register. In Shibuya I found some interesting stores, some decidedly interesting stores, and an extremely strange gambling machine.

The story is, I went into another arcade, but this one catered more to the gamblers than to gamers. The first floor was filled with the grabby machines, I have no clue what they're normally called, but if you're good with cranes, you can get a toy or an ice cream or a box or whatever is inside. There was also some purikura booths, and a taiko playing game. That one looked extremely fun, especially when a really good dude started beating the hell out of them. He hardly missed a beat at difficulty 9/10. Props, man, major props.

The third floor had horse races. No, really. Horse races. There's a fake 5m by 2m hippodrome, with robotic horseys and jockeys, a huge big screen where the computer animated recreation of the race was running, and many many seats for people to bet. Some seats were just next to the hippodrome, while others were hi-tech super-comfortable recliners, but all had race monitors and betting interfaces.

The fourth floor had simulated football betting, and also some normal arcade games, like Tekken 6 (6?!? Already?!?), and the aforementioned collectible card video games.

But the main shock was on the second floor: gambling devices of a decidedly Rube Goldbergian nature. I can't even describe them - but there are photos of posters in the gallery. I was totally fascinated, because I could not for the life of me figure out the specifics of the game. The basics are easy though: coin-tokens go in, coin-tokens go out. If more goes out than in, you're good.

In the end, I returned home by train. I figured my next attempt should be from the dorm side.

Talking about Teeth

Long time no blog. Nothing special happened though. The most exciting thing is that my tooth filling fell off, and it made me famous among all the Japanese lesson teachers - for some reason, they apparently thought it was hilarious.

We were doing another conversation challenge, and we were supposed to go to the staff room (where our conversation teacher and camera were waiting for us), and ask for information on any subject of our choice. I had completely forgotten about the assignment, just like most of my classmates, and it was dubiously fortuitous that my filling fell out a day or two before, so I went with that: "[required long preamble omitted] Do you know a good dentist?"

Well, apparently, this time my countenance was too serious for this kind of request. I'm still at a loss as to why a serious face would not be appropriate where there's talk of doctors (excepting plastic surgeons, people actually willingly go there). And other professors saw it, and now everyone is asking me about my tooth - with a giggly accompaniment. Of course, none of it is malicious, and I don't hold any of it against them, but I'm quite perplexed by the whole situation.

They even dug out a phone number for an apparently very nice and friendly clinic, but it's closed on Thursdays.

Other than that, we went to izakaya after Wednesday gaming this week, and it was nice. Ethnic and pictoresque, to quote the tourist.

Exotic Things

I went to my first kaitenzushi today. It was nice. I've eaten my fill, and surprisingly enough, paid less than I would for a bowl of ramen (outside of our university refectory). The stuff actually fills you up! Who'd've thunk it...

Anyway, there was four of us - let's call us Croat, Kiwi, Malagasy and Finn - and none of the other ones shared my non-dislike of natto. I couldn't figure out why - but then got my comeuppance when I bravely decided to try ikura gunkanzushi. Boy, was that a mistake. Yet Finn and Kiwi had no idea why I didn't like it, they thought nothing of it. Anyway, five plates later, we were full (and I was in search of something that will help me get fish eggs out of my palate).

During that time, Kiwi talked about some of his experiences or insights about Japan. One was particularly telling. Did you know that gambling was completely illegal in Japan? Neither did I. However, there are all these Pachinko salons - I thought it was gambling?

Well, yes and no. Because gambling is illegal, it works like this: when you go into a pachinko parlour (I still haven't, so this is all second-hand knowledge), you buy a bucket of balls. You go and stick your balls into slots, hoping more balls will come out. When you're done, you take your balls and exchange them for - not money, but trinkets and toys. So it's more like a game in an arcade, or a theme park...

...If it weren't for the shop that is always - always! - next door or nearby, and always - always! - unconnected to the pachinko place. Can you guess what it is?

A pawn shop. Specialising in buying toys and trinkets. The largest buyer of which is... (do I really need to say?) A pachinko parlour. Makes perfect sense, and it's all within the bounds of the law.

Yesterday we went to see the Meiji Shrine. There were about forty of us in our guided Todai group, divided into five or so platoons. This weekend was the Shichi-Go-San festival (as well as Culture Day, and the Emperor Meiji's birthday), and there were lil' ones wearing the (mostly rental) best. Props to them, as they were photoed to death. We saw the shinto ceremony in the shrine (well, from outside, anyway), I hung my own ema at the ema-hanging tree, and maybe a passing spirit decides to give me some of my wishes. Afterwards we had a bento picnic just next to aikido demonstration, then walked on by some other demonstrations till we reached what we were ostensibly there for: yabusame.

Yabusame is an old tradition, in some ways like a sport but more like an exhibition, i.e. no winners are announced, where horsemen gallop past three targets while shooting from the bow. At the said targets, of course. It's quite spectacular, if you disregard the long wait beforehand. They ride so fast that if you're not looking at the track all the time, you almost miss them. Afterwards we were taken to a pricy cafe, where we could get beer or a juice, and where soft-drinkers were rewarded by a piece of cake - and all we paid for the day was actually less than what our share cost in the cafe. The Japanese system is actually amazing, from my point of view: the students get subsidised by the senpai. The volunteer guides paid twice as much as we guidees, if not more. Thank you again!

Other than that, I'm a proud owner of the Gathering Storm! Finally!