December 17, 2009
It would help if I put up the right e-mail for the password
December 16, 2009
Password Required
I’m going to put up a password protected post. Nothing salacious…just not for every single eye out there. If you want the key, e-mail me at iamhereinfranklin@gmail.com. Or text. Or call. 
December 8, 2009
Japanese Toilets and Other Odds and Ends
Please note that the following observations are mine alone, based on only a few days in Japan. I’m sure that these generalities can be easily disproven on many levels. Again, just my personal observations.
1. When you’re traveling, you have to get used to going to the bathroom in lots of public places. On our recent trip, that often meant train stations. The public bathrooms in Japan are immaculate and many of them feature a wonderful product know as the Toto toilet. Totos aren’t your average toilet. When you sit down, you’ll notice what seems to be an armrest on one side. Look closely and you’ll see dials and buttons. These controls operate features that are unfamiliar to most Americans. You see, these toilets have additional water jets–one that will duplicate a bidet and one that will…hmmmm….wash your butt. The dials control the water pressure and temperature.
I totally want a Toto, but they cost around $3,000 so I don’t think Santa will be putting one under my tree.
But here’s a contradiction–once you leave the stall with your freshly washed behind, you notice that there’s no soap and no towels and no hot water. The best you can do is to rinse your hands with cold water and then rub them on your pants. That’s right–your rear end is cleaner than your hands after a visit to a Japanese railway station bathroom.
2. As I said earlier, Japan is immaculate. But garbage cans are very hard to find. There are lots of recycling bins for plastic and aluminum, but no place to put regular garbage. On our last afternoon we were catching our breath and repacking our backpacks in the hotel lobby. Husband needed to discard an empty plum wine bottle and set off to find a garbage can. He looked and looked (the lobby was immense). One hotel worker came to his assistance. Then there were two. In all, three people helped him throw away his empty bottle…all apologising the entire time. I don’t know how a country that’s so clean can have so few places to put garbage.
3. Most Japanese people are quite small by American standards. The younger ones are definitely larger than their parents and grandparents, but I saw some of the tiniest people I’ve ever seen. However, when we were visiting some of the ancient temples and shrines, we walked up some of the steepest, tallest steps I’ve ever been on. I just measured the steps in my house–7.5 inches. I’m guessing that the ancient steps in Japan were at least 10 inches. They were a stretch for my long legs…I can’t imagine how the diminutive monks of old managed them.
4. Husband frequently travels on business to China and Japan and one of his observations is that the people living there never get hot. Everytime we sat on a train or went into our hotel room we felt like we were in a furnace. The temperature was around 60 degrees F–perfect for sightseeing. We were walking around in shirt sleeves and light fleeces. All around us though, people were bundled up in hats, coats, scarves and gloves.
5. There were Christmas decorations everywhere, including our hotel. Not sure why these devotees of Buddha and Shinotism are decking the halls, but it looked pretty.
t
So there you have my thoughts on Japan. It was a wonderful place to visit, and there’s lots more to see. It will never replace France as my favorite place. but if you have the chance to go, by all means, do. Just remember to take a buddy if you visit an onsen.
December 6, 2009
Pictures from Japan (and a little commentary)
If you read the previous post, you already know that I had some difficulties with the food in Japan. Here are a few more examples of what we ate. Or, in some cases, didn’t eat. This was my first breakfast in Japan. It is a bento box bought in the train station, to be eaten on the train to Nikko.
As best I could tell, the two brown objects in the top part of the main section are rice balls covered with fried skin of some sort. It’s not as bad as it sounds. The two rice balls under them are sweet and good. But do you see the dark object in the upper left corner? I bravely put the whole thing in my mouth and that was it for the me and bento box.
This is an omelette. Guess what’s inside. If you guessed sharp cheddar and smoked ham, well, you’re wrong. The correct answer is…wait for it…RICE!! Yippee! A rice omlette.
This was delicious (if you skip the noodles). It’s a rich bacon-y flavored broth. Perfect for a cold day.
Ok…enough about the food. Here are some shots from the gorgeous gardens in Tokyo and Yokahama.
In Japan, the food is gorgeous, the gardens are beautiful. This is a contrast to what I saw in and around the cities which was not very attractive for the most part. Lots of grey, utilitarian buildings. Almost every restaurant or bar we visited had the charm of a public school cafeteria. Nothing inviting or charming. Nothing like a London pub or Paris cafe or Key West patio bar–they were just kind of cold.
But, so was the beer and that’s usually what we were after anyhow.
November 30, 2009
Sushi in Japan…aka…The Night I Almost Hurled on my Host
Before we went to Japan, Husband contacted one of his business associates (actually a client) and asked if he would be free for dinner one night in Tokyo. The gentleman said yes–that he and his girlfriend would be happy to meet us for a meal. I suggested sushi and the arrangements were made.
They met us at our hotel. Before we headed out, we had a drink in one of the hotel bars…2 beers (ours) and 2 coffees (theirs) amounted to just over $63–just to give you an idea of the cost of food and drink in this very expensive city. During drinks, our friend mentioned that his boss had wanted to join us, but couldn’t…he did, however, want to pick up the tab and had made reservations at a sushi bar in the famous Tokyo fish market. This market is known for having the world’s freshest–and best sushi. I was soooooo excited.
The restaurant was small–sushi was the only thing offered and we had seats reserved at the counter.
Behind a glass separating us from the chef was an array of fresh fish and shell fish. Hmmmmm…this was going to be interesting.
The chef dipped his fingers into a bowl of vinegar and reached into the rice cooker. He pulled out a small ball of rice and rolled it in his hand…he dabbed a bit of wasabi on top and added a piece of salmon.
OK…I can handle this. Next came the tuna.
Yummm. Hey…look at me…I’m eating real sushi in Japan. Yep…I’m a bona fide foodie…nothing I can’t handle.
Next was squid. Imagine taking the eraser off a pencil. Now roll the eraser out thin with a rolling pin. Plop that on a rice ball and eat. That’s what squid tastes like. Also, keep in mind that proper etiquette dictates eating all these pieces in one bite. It’s not easy. But I got it down. Obviously, I wasn’t going to love every piece.
Little did I know, it was only going downhill from there.
This is half beak. I knew there was no way I was even trying this one…not even if I drowned it in soy sauce. I just played with it and pretended like I was getting full. (Oh, and can I mention here that to wash all this down we had sake. Sake tastes like boiled sock water.)
I’m starting to realize I’m in serious trouble here. As husband says, I had definitely bitten off more than I could chew.
Then I spied this behind the counter:
Clams. Fortunately, the woman beside me could see that I was getting in trouble…I told her that there was no way I could eat the clams. Truth be told (and all you cosmopolitan types out there can laugh), this is what I was expecting:
Unfortunately, for my next piece, this is what I got:
That there is your basic raw sea urchin. Just a short while before, it looked like this:
I had to get it down, no matter what. It was our host’s favorite. If I didn’t eat it, I would be insulting him. I grabbed it with my chopsticks and dipped it in the soy sauce. Then, trying to remember that this is one of the world’s greatest delicacies, I put the whole thing in my mouth.
It was too big to swallow whole and too mushy to chew. I literally gagged (albeit in a quite, ladylike fashion). They were all staring at me. My eyes were watering and my throat was rebelling…every cell was telling me spit it out. But, this being Japan, there were no napkins. I had no choice. Our host’s girlfriend didn’t think I would make it…and neither did I. But finally it was gone, washed down with some boiled sock water.
That was all for me. The others had a raw crab leg and some salmon roe.
Then we all had a nice bowl of grass soup and called it a night.
November 27, 2009
The Naked Truth About Japan
I have seen enough naked Japanese women to last me a lifetime.
Japan is full of onsen–a public baths that are fed by the thousands of hot springs caused by the country’s volcanic activity. Onsen range from elegant outdoors affairs tucked into mountain resorts to scruffier city versions.
Husband promoted the idea of visiting an onsen on our recent trip to Japan. I assumed it involved putting on your bathing suit and getting in a hot tub–albeit a very large hot tub–with other women.
We found our onsen on a side road in Gero. Between us and the proprietress , we spoke about six words of each other’s language, but we managed to convey our desire for a bath. We also had to pay for soap and a towel. And when I say towel, I mean a piece of cheese cloth the size of a handi-wipe.
Husband went in one direction and I went in the other .
Now I’m in the steamy locker room and, while trying not to look at anything around me, start to undress. You see, my initial impression of a bathing suit and hot tub were pretty far from the truth. Onsen bathing is done in the nude, and only after you have throughly and ritualistically cleansed.
In the room with the actual baths…two round ones… there are tiny stools placed along two walls in front of a trough. Above the trough are hot and cold water taps close to the floor and a shower head that’s slightly higher. Before you get into the bath, you must sit on the tiny stool and throughly clean yourself. I squat on my tiny stool, dip my cheesecloth into the water and start to soap up. After a while, I am as clean as I can get squatting on stool. It’s time to get in.
I walk to the nearest tub and get in. Two Japanese women immediately get out.
Hmmmmm.
I look around again and see that the cleansing involved the buddy system. Women are in pairs, cleaning each other like those nit-picking monkeys I used to see on National Geographic specials. They’re scrubbing each other’s backs with stiff brushes, rinsing each other off and chattering away–no doubt about the blond buddy-less woman who doesn’t get the procedure.
So I get out and decide I should clean some more. I go back to my little stool and wash my hair, regardless of the fact that I don’t even have so much as a comb with me, not to mention the tools and products I used on a daily basis.
Scrub scrub scrub. Rinse rinse rinse.
Surely I’m clean now. It’s nice and chilly outside, so I try the outside tub. In I go. Out go the Japanese women.
Ok…I’m trying not to get a complex here.
“I’m clean,” I want to tell them. “Truly I am. I just don’t have black hair.”
But I just decide to enjoy having the tub to myself. There is another woman dozing in a plastic lawn chair by the tub. She is hefty and is wearing nothing but her cheesecloth over her nether regions. For the life of me, I could never, ever just doze off while sitting outside on a plastic chair. Naked.
After a while, I make the long naked walk back to the locker room and dry off the best I could using only my wet handi-wipe. Finally I had my clothes back on.
It was an interesting experience and I’m glad I did it.
At least I gave those women something interesting to talk about after I was gone.
Oh…and before you ask…I do not have pictures.
November 17, 2009
Sayonara, Y’all
Wheels up at 6:10 a.m., November 18–Nashville to Chicago to Tokyo.
There will be lots to tell, I’m sure. Check back after Thanksgiving!
November 17, 2009
When Good Intentions Go Bad
Yesterday my co-worker and I were standing on the busy street corner near our office. We were waiting for the light to change and gabbing about the office. There was a thin woman with a scarf tied around her head standing there as well.
“Excuse me,” she said quietly. “Do you know where this is,” she said and showed me a small map. “It’s on Murphy Avenue.”
Fortunately for this woman, she had just asked “She Who Knows Everything” (also known as me) for directions.
“Oh,” I confidently answered. “You mean Murphy Road.”
“I guess so,” the woman said. “I’m supposed to go to the Allen Clinic.”
“Well Murphy Road is that way,” I pointed. “It’s too far to walk, it’s at least a mile.”
She sighed. “Ok, thank you.” And she started walking up the hill to her destination.
This woman was obviously ill and obviously without transportation.
As my friend and I crossed the street, I said that I wished that we could get the woman a taxi and just pay for it to take her to the clinic. My friend agreed and then said “Oh my God, look right there!”
Sure enough there was a taxi at the light we waved it over and as the cab did a u-turn my friend ran up the street to stop the woman. I gave the driver a $20 and we got the woman in the cab and went on our way.
Later in the afternoon I got to thinking. I googled Allen Clinic on Murphy Road. Up it popped. On Murphy AVENUE…not two blocks from where we originally encountered her. It’s an imaging center specializing in the brain.
Crap. I (She Who Knows Everything) had sent this poor brain-sick woman a mile out of her way. I could only hope that the cab driver looked more closely at her little map than I did and delivered her to the right destination.
I told my friend about my mistake and we were both chagrined that our attempt at being good Samaritans might’ve flopped. Thinking that I sent that woman on a wild goose chase is sickening. So here’s hoping for a compassionate cabbie.
What do you think? Are we on the plus side of the karma equation or the negative?
November 15, 2009
Thank Goodness Customs Confiscated the Rest of It.
Husband travels a lot in course of his business. Last week he came home after 2 1/2 weeks in China. As is his custom, he brought back some local delicacies. I’ve listed them here in descending order of oddness.
This packet contained several kinds of tea including one for energy and one for clear thinking.
This isn’t food…it’s playing cards…cards that are evidently endorsed by the card-playing insect on the box.
Ginger candy–very strong.
Mmmmmm–thousand year old eggs. Which is about how long it’ll be before anyone here eats them.
Yummy chicken pieces. Or maybe duck. Actually, I don’t have a clue what this is.
Oh—and in case you’re wondering what customs took–it was the package of individually-wrapped smoked duck tongues.
Hate that.
