Bento Series Breaktime #10?: Cafeteria Katsu Karee

Literally, "Japanese curry rice with pork cutlets," this one is an L-size serving for 441 yen. The curry itself has the usual beef, potato, and carrot bits, and served with pickled radish. It's not so spicy so I sprinkled some crushed chilis on it. It became a little cooler tonight so I had me some free all-you-can-drink hot tea this time, but as usual I didn't miss out on the almond jelly with orange slices for dessert. Notice that I ate the curry with a spoon - this is the Japanese way of eating Japanese curry. No chopsticks, although technically this is easier to eat with chopsticks than Katsudon where the rice becomes soggy because of the "egg sauce." In the same way, I always make it a point to eat Japanese or Chinese food with chopsticks because I feel like they taste better when eaten with chopsticks. But did you know? The standard Korean way of eating rice is with a spoon. Everything else are with Korean-style chopsticks. Oh and Japanese chopsticks are pointier and Korean ones are flatter than Chinese chopsticks. In the Philippines, I think most chopsticks there are Chinese-style, even ones in many Japanese restaurants.

Bento Series Breaktime #9?: My "Buffet" Cafeteria lunch for today

I've blogged about the "new" cafeteria in school where they serve food "buffet" style. It is eat all you can, but it's not a "buffet" in the original sense of the word because you pay as much as you eat as opposed to paying a fixed price. I've also referred to this as the "by-the-pound" ( or "by the kilo") cafteria. If I'm not mistaken, it's 1 yen for every 0.5 grams (0.001 lbs), or maybe the other way around. The plain, steamed rice has a different unit price though. I was too early to get one of my faves, roasted chicken, so I settled for this plate of white fish fillet, a couple of shuumai, half a boiled egg, and my usual lettuce bedding, tomatoes, and pineapples for dessert. I was a bit generous with the mayo as you can see. It is Japanese-style mayo, which is kind of tasty and a little bit sweet. I did find a new use for this mayo - as a dip for the pineapples. Yummy. I was also a little generous with the rice, and this cost me around 550 yen in total. As always, the tea is free and it's free to refill any number of times. I should add that my Mainland-Chinese colleagues here call the shuumai as "Japanese-style," because up there they have bigger ones that are packed with some rice as well that make them full meals by themselves, maybe usually for breakfast, or as a really heavy snack or a quick hunger-stopper. Of course, to us in Southeast Asia and maybe even in HK, this certainly looks like a typical Chinese shuumai and not "Japanese-style," but it is maybe more like Southern China style as opposed to the bigger ones being Northern China style. Taste-wise, to me, it's just about right for something that's not served at a fancy authenthic Chinese restaurant. If these were sold in the Philippines, they would probably be 40 to 60 pesos for four - it's that much better than the street/kiosk shomai we get for 30 pesos or less.

Bento Series Breaktime #8: "Mara Chicken"

"Mara," pronounced "Maaraa," is actually Chinese for hot and spicy. This "Mara Chicken" dish literally translates to "chicken with Chinese hot and spicy sauce." It's actually quite good together with the veggies (beansprouts and some greens). With M-size rice and drink-all-you-can tea, this is all only for 398 yen at the cafeteria.

Very bad, very hot, second day of summer

Here, men with fans is commonplace. Image from  House of Japan.

36 degrees Celsius (97 degrees Fahrenheit). That already says it all.

Nice, very warm first day of summer

Bento Series: #13

"Tori Tatsuta Karaage Bento," 498 yen from 3F. Literally translates to "deep-fried chicken pre-marinated in soy sauce and cooking sake (Japanese rice wine)." Came with some sweet lemony sauce, 500g of rice with white sesame seed and seaweed sprinkles, and pink pickled radish and carrot-tofu sides. Expensive, but yummy and filling. :9

Bento Series: #12

It's a holiday today so no cafeteria for me. For lunch I ate something I've already blogged about before. But this time, I also ordered salad. Just got the cheapest one, "Fresh Salad," only 158 yen from 3F. It's mostly cabbage and onions, but with the sweet vinegary dressing (vinaigrette?), it's great with my main bento meal.

Bento Series Breaktime #7: Another cafeteria special sizzling plate

It's supposedly a Ginger & Pork Plate, but it's more like Onion & Pork. Tasted great though. 399 yen. Together with M-size rice and almond jelly dessert, and drink-all-you-can tea, the meal totalled around 580 yen.

Bento Series: #10 and #11

I bought rice with (roasted?) chicken that came with a salty-vinegary sauce, orangle pickled radish (that almost looks like carrots), some seaweed(?) on the rice, some spaghetti or soba maybe below the chicken, and some onions again on the chicken. 398 yen from 3F, and almost like a small version of one I blogged about earlier. I bought it then with this salad with chicken and egg and has a miso/sesame dressing. Quite nice. 280 yen though; expensive. But I imagine some people would have this alone for a meal. Oh and veggies here are generally expensive, with comparable prices to meat.

Kanji for "Filipino" and "Catholic"

Image from japan-guide.com

In Japanese, that could be written as:

加特力比律賓人.

That supposedly reads "Katorikku Firippin Jin." But actually, these characters are not used for Catholic or Filipino. They just simply write:

Bento Series: #9

Taco Rice with egg. 480yen from 3F. Expensive but yummy. Mmm, egg. And corn. And yup, they serve this with a spoon, not chopsticks.

Bento Series Breaktime #6: Cafeteria Sizzling Plate

Today's special at the school cafeteria: Mixed Grill. 399 yen. 504 yen with size M rice. (Pork) burger, roast chicken, and minced beef (but mostly potato) katsu, plus fries, spinach and corn sides. This was served to me smoking hot. Unfortunately, all the steam was gone when I took this picture. But I think it's worth the price.

Bento Series Breaktime #5: Supermarket Chuukadon

Chuukadon, 398 yen. Rice bowl with carrots, mushrooms, veggies, quail egg, shrimp, and scallops topping. Sound familiar? It's actually Chop Suey. Yes, the Chinese-in-origin dish, "Japanese style." Comes with pink ginger garnish. Usually, ready-to-eat food at the supermarket are cheaper than at konbinis, and maybe this is true for chuukadon. But 398 for this much felt too much.

Bento Series Breaktime #4: Supermarket Sushi

After I watched the documentary "Super Size Me" years ago, I craved for McDonald's food immediately, contrary to what the documentary preached. Recently, I was in a discussion about sushi with someone and why I should cut down on eating certain types of fish. And that made me want to eat sushi again. I realized that it has probably been over half a year already when I last ate sushi. So I thought, why not. Saw this set at the supermarket and had it for dinner. It's 498 yen but here it's a good deal. This has tamago (egg) sushi, maguro (tuna) sushi, sake/shake (salmon) sushi, two ama ebi (sweet shrimp) sushi, ika (squid) sushi, anago (sea eel) sushi, and three other items I'm not sure what they are. One might be hotate (scallop) sushi. Comes with pickled ginger garnish and light soy sauce as usual.

Bento Series Breaktime #3: Food Court Food

I ordered Katsudon at a food court here in Japan, which is rare. I had to wait for it first though, so they gave me this beeping, light-emitting, vibrating order claim number. The katsudon itself is 580 yen but pretty good. It came with pickled radish which was nice. Notice also the eggs. There's probably two in there. When I first ordered this here 7 years ago, I wondered what kind of sauce they put and why they put it because it made using the chopsticks on the rice difficult. I realized that what they actually put as "sauce" is raw egg, white and yolk. The egg then cooks a bit on the hot rice and katsudon. They do this also for gyuudon. The Japanese like raw eggs and maybe raw food in general. You guys all know about sushi and sashimi - but for the past more than two years I've also tried beef sashimi and horse sashimi here. Pretty good, but those two as well as raw eggs aren't things I'd try outside of Japan. I just feel it's generally safer here to eat raw stuff. I must warn you though that last year, some died after eating raw beef at one restaurant because apparently, that one time, they didn't clean the raw beef meat properly.

Not-so-known Japan: Origins of Tempura

Tempura. Image from Wikipedia

You might think tempura is something purely Japanese. It does have kanji: 天麩羅. The first character means heaven, the second is bran / wheat bran / mash, the last character means from. So tempura would literally translate to "bran/wheat bran/mash from heaven."

The word actually originated possibly from one of three Portuguese-related words:

• tempora, a Latin word that roughly translates to "a period of time" and more specifically to the Lenten / Christian holy days;
• tempero, a noun that refers to a spicy condiment or peppery seasoning; or
• temperar, a verb meaning "to season."

Peixinhos da horta. Image from Wikipedia

Actually, there is still today a dish in Portugal very similar to tempura called peixinhos da horta, that literally translates to "garden fishies." Tempura was introduced to Japan in the mid-sixteenth century by Portuguese Jesuits, during the same period that panko and such dishes as tonkatsu were also introduced from Portugal. It is also possible that the Portuguese picked the technique up from Goa which was their colony in India and this could very well be a variation of the "pakora."


Why does tempura have kanji? It's in the same way that the words "Philippines," "Catholic," and many other words have kanji that are pronounced very similarly to their Western/English pronunciation. That's going to be a topic for next time. :-)


Is tempura then not Japanese food? It is. In the same way that ramen (Chinese in origin; i.e. lo mien) and gyoza (Chinese in origin; i.e. jiaozi) particularly those you eat here in Japan are very distinctly Japanese, different from the Chinese versions of those foods, and that lumpiang shanghai (Chinese in origin; i.e. chunjuan or lunpia) and pancit canton (Chinese in origin; i.e. chow mien, chaomian) are distinctly Filipino, different from the Chinese versions of those foods. In the same way that American English is still English, though distinctly American and very different from their British origins.

Bento Series: #8

Simple, seasonal bento from 3F (498 yen): Fried chicken fillet with spring onion and mayonnaise (made from eggs!) topping, pickled radish siding, rice with black sesame seed sprinkles. Nice! But actually I had some extra rice to supplement the rice here. The chicken was a rather huge portion.

Bento Series: #7

398 yen, from Lawson: roasted chicken, half a burger, ebi fry, potato katsu, macaroni salad, egg omelette with ketchup, a bedding of spaghetti, and rice topped with.. parsley? Not so great, overall.

Bento Series: #6

This time, it's from Lawson. Corn Salad, which is mostly shredded cabbage, with tomato, carrots, lettuce. 137 yen only; no dressing included. That would've been 30 yen more. Thankfully, I have my own bottle of dressing. Then, "Napolitan" Spaghetti, 398 yen. Expensive, right? Comes with weiners and egg. This says it all - the Japanese love eggs. Whether raw, or not, or mixed in the tempura or katsu batter or hamburger. They (heart) eggs.

Bento Series: #5

Another regular bento from 3F (398 yen): fried chicken fillets, ground pork with something crunchy, something like pork asado, scrambled eggs, spinach, and a sprinkling of green peas. Sorry for the blurry photo!

Bento Series: #4

Another regular bento from 3F (498 yen) and it's all Japanese: pickled radish, carrots and lotus roots, squid strip (i.e. instead of squid balls), weiner (along with short frankfurters, these are the most common types of hotdogs here in Japan), fish fillet with tartar sauce, mini okonomiyaki, some yakisoba, roasted chicken, slices of boiled egg, and rice covered in salty fish flakes and nori. Wow, right? Very Japanese. Very Yummy.

Bento Series BreakTime #2: Cafeteria food

Photo taken by Rei -- thanks!

Today I ordered "ume oroshi hanbaagu," hamburger with Japanese pickle
sauce (294 yen). The pickle sauce was actually quite nice. The dish came with
french fries and an okra and radish garnish. Ate it with the usual
suspects: M-size gohan (rice), annin doufu (almond jelly, 84 yen), and hot tea (free, drink-all-you-can).

Oh, and have I mentioned? I asked a Japanese colleague if annin doufu is a traditional Japanese food, and he said it's Chinese. I then asked my Chinese colleagues about it and they said it's Japanese. I think it's Chinese in origin, and maybe this one is now a Japanized version. So I think they're all correct, one way or another.

Bento Series: #3

398 yen from 3F: dried salty fish flakes, scrambled eggs, fried breaded squid(?) fillet, fish fillet with tartar sauce, shredded nori, spinach/mustard, carrot & lotus root siding, all on top of rice. The last two bento are like seasonal only; this one is a regular and much more Japanese. Yum.

A couple more ways to say "thank you" and "sorry" in Japanese

You all probably now about "Arigatou gozaimasu," which might translate to "Thank you, sir/ma'am" in English or "Salamat po" in Filipino, or "Sumimasen," which could mean "Excuse me" or "Sorry," or "Paumanhin po." Of course you can also just say "Arigatou" which translates simply to "Thank you" or "Salamat." Or, you can say "Doumo arigatou gozaimasu," which translates to "Thank you very much, sir/ma'am" or "Maraming salamat po."

But you can also just say "Doumo," which translates to "Thanks!" The Japanese expression also has a past-tense version, i.e. "Doumo arigatou gozaimashita." For example, when you board a bus, there will be a recorded announcement that says "Arigatou gozaimasu" in present tense; i.e. thank you for being on the bus right now. When the bus is about to reach its destination, the announcement will say "Arigatou gozaimashita" in past tense - to thank you for having ridden the bus.

Before I came here to Japan, I was taught that Sumimasen means Excuse Me or Sorry. I played basketball with locals and whenever they missed stuff and what not, I heard them say something else: "Gomenasai." Now this is what actually means Sorry. And Sorry only. Get the difference between Sumimasen and Gomenasai? Anyway, there is another way to say sorry: Shitsurei Shimasu or simply Shitsurei, except what it really means is "I'm being impolite" or "Excuse me for being rude" or "Mawalang galang na po." And so while it also means you're being sorry, these three ways (Sumimasen, Gomenasai, Shitsurei Shimasu) are used in very distinct situations.

Anyway, there are two more ways to say thanks. One is "Kansha shimasu," which also means Thanks or I Appreciate (You/Your ___). I've heard the word Kansha before in church, where we say "Kami ni Kansha," or Thanks Be To God, after some bible readings. The second one is by "Okagesama de ..." which translates to "Thanks to you, ..." or "Salamat sa iyo, ..." As indicated by my use of leaders (3 dots), "Okagesama de" is accompanied by an explanation of why you are thanking. But again, there's different situations where you might use the Arigatou form, Kansha shimasu, or the Okagesama de form.

Well, I hope you learned something new today! For reading through this article, arigatou gozaimashita!

Bento Series Breaktime #1: Cafeteria food

First is Chicken Tatsuda Don (399 yen), with salad bar selection (oranges, broccoli, half egg). Next is Katsu Meat Plate (441 yen) that is basically tonkatsu, meat sauce, and scrambled eggs on rice plus shredded cabbage, that I got with almond jelly and orange dessert (84 yen). Last is Pork Ginger Tomato Sauce (294 yen), with spinach side dish and "M"-size rice.

Bento Series: #2

"Demi cheese chicken katsu"

Chicken katsu (a little bit irregularly shaped compared to the normal katsu stuff) with demi-glaze sauce and cheese that doubles as pasta sauce for the fettuccine bedding. Rice with black & white sesame seed sprinkles, similar to the last one. Egg, broccoli, and onion side salad.

498 yen, again from the 3F convenience store.

Bento Series: #1

I'm starting a new series on the Japan! Japan! Blog about bento meals I eat while in Japan. Bento, as you know, means "lunch box," and so you shouldn't really say Bento Box because that would be like lunch box box. What a 1-2 punch that would be. Anyway, I'll post this series mostly from my mobile device while on the go (so please excuse typos and what not), and almost instantly, and let's see where we will go with this. These bento meals, I usually buy them at convenience stores (konbini), but they're also available at supermarkets and even some restaurants and stand-alone bento stores. Hope you like this series! 

This first one features rice, of course, but sprinkled with black and regular sesame seeds. Corn and spinach on the side. Some spaghetti and bean sprout bedding for the main course, which is two pieces "ebi furai" - fried non-tempura breaded shrimp - with tartar(?) sauce and (pork?) burger with "demi-glaze?" (i.e. sweet) sauce. 550 yen. Yes, expensive.

Not-so-known Japan: Premium Outlets!

My first experience of outlet malls were in Northern California, practically 20 years ago already. I remember US$1.00 GAP t-shirts and what not. Not having that much money then though, I think I just settled for a GAP cap (I love owning GAP caps) and I think a belt and maybe one or two shirts. It might have all cost me just under US$20. This is 20 years ago, though. During that time maybe those GAP shirts were selling for like $5 to $7? Unfortunately, that's what I look for still - shirts for a steal. Nowadays, GAP shirts are like $10 to $20 or more, and I'm happy to find $5 shirts at outlet stores or on clearance sale racks.

I also look for shoes at outlet stores, and I'd usually go for $40 shoes (that were previously as high as $150 maybe), and if there's something I really want I can go for as much as $60 on shoes. Any more than those prices, no way. I might have bought watches, too, and maybe I would have $40 to $60 upper limits on watches as well.

I've had outlet mall experiences in other parts of California, as well as in New Jersey where I think there's no tax on wearable items. I've had some outlet store experiences in the Philippines as well. But basically, I have my $5 and $40 limit on shirts and shoes and watches as I mentioned. Now when I heard about the Premium Outlets in Japan, I got sort of excited.

But that excitement didn't last very long. The nearest one is in Gotemba. It's at least an hour and a half from my place. Too far. That's the one problem with these outlet malls, though. They're in far away places because they need the really low real estate values so that they can still realize profits. However, a couple of good friends visited Japan, and they wanted to tour the Fuji-Hakone area. They found out about the Gotemba Premium Outlets, and wanted to go make a side trip there as well. As you might know, I already posted my Odawara-Hakone-Gotemba-Fuji video a few weeks back, and to the Premium Outlets we went indeed.

Guess what stuff I found and bought? Nada! Everything was still way expensive. The cheapest shirts I can find were $10. And these are plain, meant-as-undershirts kind of stuff! Anyway, even the restaurants there, except for McDonald's maybe, are a bit on the expensive side as well, and we just settled for Tully's Coffee hotdog sandwiches, which we could find all around Kanagawa and Tokyo as well.

So we went home with nothing except... And this is the best part. And you've probably seen this already in my O-Ha-Go-Fu video: The best views of Mt. Fuji! I think with the trip to the Premium Outlets practically "free" since it was just a side trip for our Hakone Area tour which was already paid for, I think it was worth it. Unfortunately we did get there when there were more clouds in the sky already and so it wasn't the most optimal sighting of Mt. Fuji. But it felt great nonetheless. Imagine, (window) shopping with Mt. Fuji in the background.

From carbonaramara.com

Anyway, if you wish to go to the Gotemba Premium Outlets from the Kanto (Tokyo/Kanagawa/Saitama/Chiba) area, check out their website by clicking this ad-supported link. Or just take the Odakyu Line express or rapid express train bound for Odawara, get off at Shin-Matsuda Station, walk towards the JR Matsuda station and take the JR Gotemba Line for Gotemba. At Gotemba, there are free shuttle buses to/from the outlet mall. The last bus from the outlet mall going back to Gotemba Station is around 7pm, so make sure to catch that or else you will need to take a taxi. From Tokyo, Saitama, or Chiba, just go to Shinjuku Station to get to the Odakyu Line. UPDATE: If you are taking the Odakyu Hakone Free Pass like we did, it's a free ride around Hakone as well as to the Gotemba Premium Outlets as well.

Found in Japan: USB Flash Drives

Can a picture say a thousand words? This we found at the souvenir shop at the observation deck of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. There's no entrance fee to go up there, by the way.

From carbonaramara.com

Not-so-known Japan: Ajisai Matsuri (Hydrangea Festival)

From Wikipedia

It's around this time that "Ajisai" is in bloom. The festival itself is at different dates at different locations. For this one near the Shin-Matsuda station of the Odakyu Odawara Line (southeast of Tokyo), it's only until 6/17. Check out their official website.

Not-so-known Japan: Tobu World Square

Replica of Tokyo Sky Tree
at Tobu World Square

More than two years in Japan and I thought I pretty much know all the tourist spots from Nikko down to Himeji. Of course, I know some stuff about Hokkaido and Kyushu and Okinawa, but those are rather far away from where I am, I'd rather just spend on a trip home to family. Anyways, I said I thought I knew all tourist spots from Nikko down to Himeji, but this is something new I discovered just recently. And this one is in Nikko. So if you're coming to visit Japan, and more particularly have some time to spend in Nikko other than the UNESCO World Heritage Site there and Edo Wonderland, you might want to consider this:

Tobu World Square.

If you're from the Philippines and old enough, you've probably been to the Nayong Pilipino Park near Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 2, where they recreated almost all of the Philippines' natural wonders. If Nayong Pilipino was to the Philippines, Tobu World Square is to the world. Almost.

There are 1/25 scale replicas of different wonders from around the world, old and new, like Ankor Wat, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Parthenon, the Statue of Liberty, the Tokyo Tower, the Eiffel Tower, the White House, even the (old) World Trade Center's twin towers, La Sagrada Familia, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, and much more.

The full list of replicas is here: http://adf.ly/8V4fc

Check out the photos in this interactive webpage: http://adf.ly/8V4Zs

The home page in English is here: http://adf.ly/8V4UK

Admission is only JPY 2,500 for junior high school students (12-year-olds?) and older, JPY 1,200 for ages 4 to 12. There are discounts for groups and persons with disabilities.

Leaving Japan Stress Free. A guide for expats leaving Japan

Check it out on SayonaraJapan.com.

Cup Noodles Museum

Comes with a bonus footage of Minato Mirai at dusk.

Official Tokyo Travel Guide

Check it out by clicking this link.

Sankeien Garden, Yokohama

If the University of the Philippines' Diliman Campus has a "Sunken Garden," Yokohama, Japan has "Sankeien Garden." It would have probably been best to come here during fall or during sakura season. We didn't have time though to go around the whole place because we were still going somewhere that might be closing early (see the next episode's video). Entrance fee: 500 yen.

Odawara-Hakone-Gotemba-Fuji

I had a couple of friends visit over from Singapore and the original plan was to visit Hakone to get a good view of Mt. Fuji. We bought the Hakone Free Pass so that we can go around the Hakone area freely.

We first made a pitstop though at the Odawara Castle. And then we went on the Hakone Sightseeing Cruise on Lake Ashi (also known as Hakone Lake), the Hakone Ropeway (i.e. cable car / cable-suspended gondolas similar to the one connecting mainland Singapore and Sentosa), and Hakone Tozan Cable Car (i.e. train being pulled by cables, like San Francisco's cable cars or the Peak Tram going to Victoria Peak in Hong Kong).

Finally, we went out of our way to the Gotemba Premium Outlets in Gotemba, only to find the best views of Fuji-san for this day trip. From Gotemba Premium Outlets, it took us 3.5 hours to get home inclusive of all the waiting for the infrequent night time trains. Had I known earlier, we could've gotten home an hour and a half earlier if only we had spent around 500 yen more each and used a different route. But anyway, we had a blast.

Sanja Matsuri (Three Temples Festival), Asakusa, Tokyo

I went to Asakusa in Tokyo to meet some friends, and what do you know, there was a festival going on! I looked it up and apparently it's called the Sanja Matsuri (literally Three Temples Festival). Incidentally, it is three days long, starting on a Friday and ending on the 3rd Sunday of May. They say this is one of the most attended festivals attracting over 1 million locals and tourists over its three-day course.



NOTE: The video was "enhanced" using tools provided by YouTube.

How to Cook Ramen

Check out this article from MustLoveJapan.com about how to cook ramen. I've always only eaten ramen that has been prepared in restaurants, cafeteria, or instantly. I wonder how it is to actually make ramen at home.

By the way, new Nihongo word for you: "Tonkotsu." Pork bone broth. Yummy.

Japanese researchers invent "Shiri" robot

Image from Express Chemist.

Where "shiri," by the way, is Japanese for buttocks. Read this article and watch the video on Kotaku. Of course, apparently the same Japanese researchers have also invented The Hug Machine and The Kiss Machine, all in the name of science and medicine, ladies and gentlemen, mind you.

Talking about "Shiri," here are some Japan-related tidbits that might be interesting:

1. "Shiri" is usually prefixed by "o" as in "oshiri," or as in "ocha" where "cha" means tea, or "ofuro" were "furo" means bath tub, or "okane" where "kane" means money, and so on. I think people would say the "o" makes it more polite, but I don't know if that makes sense.

2. When Apple introduced the iPhone 4S with its voice-controlled assistant feature named "Siri," Japanese tweeters were laughing all around Twitter about it having a name that means buttocks. In Japanese pronunciation, they do not have a "si" sound, instead they use "shi," and thus "Siri" is pronounced like "Shiri" in Japanese, just as they say "Ey Bee She" for "A, B, C."

3. I don't know what the Roswell sci-fi TV series actress portraying the character Liz Parker, Shiri Appleby, would say about all this.

Why "Japan! Japan!"?

Japan, Japan: natural and cultural wonders

Happy Holidays! Golden Week holidays, that is, for those of us in Japan. And Labor Day Holiday Weekend, that is, for folks in the Philippines.

Some of you probably wondered, why "Japan! Japan!" for a blog name. Well it's three things.

First, before I embarked on my (2nd) journey here in Japan, that's how my very good friends wished me well.  They greeted me "Japan! Japan!" And by Japan, they actually meant J.A.P.A.N. - Just Always Pray At Night.

Secondly, it was my second sojourn in Japan, so it wasn't gonna be just a simple Japan blog like last time that was easily (attempted to be) copied by other people months later. So this time around, it was going to be a Japan! Japan! blog. While in my Japan 2005 blog, I was a little bit "diplomatic," as where the people I met were, since I was only a visitor for two months, in the current "Japan! Japan!" blog series, I'm in a more hostile situation and so I have had to be a little bit more fierce, like that dragon in the photo accompanying this article.

Thirdly, it's catchy and unique. I haven't found other Japan-related blogs named like so. I've so far only found one movie entitled "Japan Japan" - note the absence of exclamation points - which I strongly don't recommend to watch, by the way. It is an indie film but it would probably be a for-Adults-only movie. And then there's this Vimeo also entitled "Japan Japan," showing a video of a couple singing a song because they ♥ Japan.

I could think of a number of other justifications and what not for "Japan! Japan!," but you know what, those three are my only real reasons. And actually, I did not name it "Japan! Japan!" until after I started video blogging and some nut already got japanjapan.blogspot.com. But that's not as cool as japan.ronjie.com because I can tell my friends or put in my videos something like, "Visit Japan! ...dot ronjie dot com." :-D

How Nihongo has given birth to new languages, and the case of the missing Beef Misono, Chicken Teriyaki, and Torikatsu

Read this interesting article from Tofugu, entitled "How Japanese gives birth to new languages," via this (ad-supported) link: http://j.gs/uxx. That article reminded me of the most popular "Japanese" fast-food chain in the Philippines, Tokyo Tokyo, and their Beef Misono (and now, even Tuna Misono).

Stats Update

2 years in and here are The Japan! Japan! Blog updated stats.

I'm nearly at 6,000 pageviews for 266 posts (inclusive of 53 posts from my Japan blog version 1.0 from 2005, and of pageviews of those 53 posts since I copied them here).  That's an average of more than 20 pageviews per post. Not bad.

My top article is my "Welcome to Japan (Part 1)" post, which has had 237 pageviews. The other members of my top 5 articles are:

• "Filipino restaurants in Atsugi!" 120 Pageviews 
• "Upo, green papaya, and sayote alternatives in Japan" 107 Pageviews 
• "Pinoy Restaurants in and around Tokyo" 56 Pageviews
• "Welcome to Japan (Part 2)" 56 Pageviews

I think those articles are appropriately my top 5. Interesting though is that, while the "Welcome to Japan" series is understandably in the top 5, the other three posts are about food. It's just past lunch and I feel hungry again. Hmmm, this reminds me though that I should update the restaurants list in Atsugi, and Tokyo, respectively because some of these restaurants do not exist anymore.

Anyway, my number 1 traffic source is Google Search. Interestingly, I found out that when you do a Yahoo! search for "Sayote in Japan," my blog article "Upo, green papaya, and sayote alternatives in Japan" is the number one search result, while in a Google search it is only the third result.

Pageviews by Countries as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger.

In terms of countries where my audience comes from, this is more or less the breakdown:

• United States 2,162 
• Japan 1,294 
• Philippines 505 
• Germany 272 
• Netherlands 172 
• Russia 153 
• United Kingdom 106 
• Ukraine 93 
• Canada 47 
• France 44 
• Others 1,070

It's very interesting that my blog has had the most visits from the US, and visits from the Philippines only rank 3rd, considering that my expected audience are Filipinos coming to Japan. But then, there are many Filipinos in the US, and maybe most of my traffic from the US are from Filipino-Americans. Or my Filipino-American relatives. Or, I would think there are many Americans who are very much interested in Japan, Japanese culture, and travelling to Japan, and they see my blog and look at it as a blog in English by a foreigner in Japan, and so they can relate. What surprised me the most though was the many visits from European countries. Of course, English might be spoken and understood in those European countries more than in other countries and it helps that my blog is in English. I did meet one German national who stayed in Japan for a few months as well, and I did visit the Netherlands for a week on official business, but I'm not sure if those two things have anything to do with the (small) traffic from those countries. Finally, the list also shows that, no, I'm not the only one visiting my own blog regularly just to increase my pageviews because I haven't been to the US nor use US-based proxy servers to look at my own blog. Haha. I've actually disabled that (i.e. counting of my pageviews in the stats), of course. But I guess Japan as a traffic source coming in as #2 and not #3 or lower is not much of a surprise. Anyway, these are very important stats, readily accessible through Blogger, and they give me good insights as to what things I can do to better improve and tailor my blog to my actual audience.

[I checked just now: back in September 2010, I only had around 180 pageviews and my audience came from only 7 countries. And back in May 2011, I also had similar stats as today, except of course I had much less pageviews. I also think that having a video blog on YouTube, and cross-posting on Facebook, Twitter, and occasionally Google Plus, provides a ton of additional exposure for this blog. Great!]

Finally, it is also very interesting that I still have more visitors using Internet Explorer instead of Chrome. That has a ton of implications behind it. And, nearly a quarter of my visitors are using Macintosh computers and around 8% are on mobile devices. Very interesting.

Pageviews by Operating Systems as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger. 

Pageviews by Browsers as of 19 April 2012. Courtesy of Blogger. 

Once again, どうもありがとうございます to one and all.

Arigatou

April 16 marks my 2nd anniversary here in Japan, and the 2nd anniversary of The Japan! Japan! Blog (version 2.0). I hope to stay just 1 more year here and earn my degree by March 2013, but that is unless I could find a nice job here afterward. Fittingly enough, after 2 years here, it is only today that I learned that "arigatou" ("thank you" in Japanese) actually has a Kanji, although in most cases I only see the Hiragana version of it:

ありがとう (Hiragana)
有難う (Kanji)

Apparently the first Kanji means "possession" and the second one means "difficulty," and combined it becomes "in trouble" (in Chinese) or "grateful" (in Japanese) and is actually pronounced something like "yuunan" or "arigata."  The う is Hiragana obviously, not a Kanji character, and instead it is placed to make sure the "arigata" is pronounced as "arigatou."  This is just my speculation but I think "arigatou" might be short for "arigata wo," that together with "gozaimasu" literally means "There is gratitude" or "Gratitude exists."  In any case, you'll probably see "arigatou" in Kanji in very limited instances, and if it would be written in Kanji, it would be in a situation where politeness is necessitated and you would usually see it with "gozaimasu," which generally turns greetings into polite form, like "ohayou gozaimasu" (good morning), and so on:

有難うございます

To all readers of The Japan! Japan! Blog as well as viewers of The Japan! Japan! Video Blog, and to all the people I've met in Japan who has made my stay here so far a very enjoyable experience, どうもありがとうございます / Dōmo arigatōgozaimasu / Thank you very much po. ("Po" being the Filipino equivalent of "gozaimasu," in terms of turning an ordinary sentence into polite form.)

Sakura Hanami in Chidorigafuchi

The Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #36 features our videos from our trip from Atsugi to Chidorigafuchi in Tokyo for some cherry blossom (sakura) viewing (hanami).  It's over an hour long, because the cherry trees are just so nice to look at, plus there's just so many of them. If you want you can skip over the "intro" which features some along-the-train-route sights of Tokyo, and start at around the 10:30 mark to see sakura already. We also dropped by the Nippon Budoukan and the Yasukuni Shrine.

Check out Culture Japan

I think I've previously linked already to Danny Choo's website (www.dannychoo.com) which features some interesting and well-produced content on Japanese culture. He's done a number of videos on Japanese culture as well, encapsulated in the series aptly called "Culture Japan." These videos have even been featured on Tokyo MX TV in Japan, across the whole of Asia on the Animax Network and across America on Mnet America. Here's the official trailer for the just-concluded Season 1 of Culture Japan:



While this is a full-length (more than 1 hour) digest of Season 1:



To watch more Culture Japan videos, including the Season 2 trailer, check out their YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyostormtrooper/featured

Hanami in Zama

In the Japan! Japan! Video Blog Episode #35, we feature my first sakura hanami (cherry blossom viewing) experience at the Camp Zama base in Zama, Kanagawa, Japan. I just discovered that "Karupasu" (Calpas?) Russian sausage thing! Know any place where I can snag some of those?



For the stabilized version of the video, click this link: http://youtu.be/6Q7cKtkoerQ

The fastest and cheapest way to remit money to the Philippines from Japan [Updated]

This post was formerly titled: "I (heart) www.GCASH.jp!!!"

Oh, the difficulties of having to pay bills at home while you're based in a very foreign land. I have told you guys about GCASH.JP through an earlier, short blog post, but man, o man, it is only now I've dipped my hands in it and it's like… holy water! (For you pundits out there: I said it's only like holy water; it is of course nothing like real holy water.) But it is truly a miracle, a real blessing from Up Above. Amen.

Long story short, I have some cash in my bank account here in Japan, and I needed to remit some to my bank account in Manila. How long did it take using GCASH? About an hour, and all from the comfort of my own home. How much did it cost? It cost me around 3.25% of my remittance amount¹. That's very cheap! And very fast. Now that's what you call a wire transfer! I ♥ GCASH.JP!!!

Contrast all that now with the time when I transferred using my Japan-based bank's over-the-counter remittance services for the same amount of remittance applied at the same time of the day (nearly 3pm): roughly 1 banking day, and 11.6% of my remittance amount¹!  That's more than 3 times the cost!

Okay, the length of time it takes is not really a good point for comparison. I had internet banking set-up for my Japan bank account, and so that helped hasten things up. Plus, I also had to pre-register on to GCASH. Now, to go to my bank branch, I had to actually spend at most around 220 pesos for my roundtrip bus fare and 40 extra minutes for the trip. It was just before 3pm when I got to the bank, and we were told that the transfer might not be made until the next banking day. Otherwise, maybe it could have been just as fast, save for the 40 minutes to travel to our bank branch.

Enter the internet banking facilities of my bank. What actually happens is I first transfer to a pre-assigned local Japanese bank account associated with my GCASH account. I just do it online from the comfort of my own home, no need to pre-enroll my transferees' accounts (unlike BPI, but I heard China Bank and a few other banks allow you to make funds transfer within the Philippines without pre-enrolling as well).

In under 10 minutes, the funds from my Japan bank account is already in my GCASH account. And then in around 30 minutes or so, the funds from my GCASH account are already in my Philippines-based bank account.

I should also mention though that the 3.25% tax for remittance via GCASH is because I have a coupon, given to new GCASH members, expiring by the end of March.  If without the coupon I would have paid around maybe 4%, which is still not so bad, and still nearly 3 times less the cost for transferring bank-to-bank, Japan-to-Philippines.

I should also mention that GCASH's Customer Support Staff are a delight. I interacted with an English-speaking Japanese via e-mail, and then later I got a call from a Tagalog-speaking Filipina who was very polite and very helpful (although she did not really have the answers to my issue that time). Speaking about my issue, I was on GCASH's English website and my bank's is in Japanese, so there was a little bit of a disconnect there even though I could use Google's translation functions, and that led to my problem but I eventually figured it all out. Thanks also to Google!

My local Japanese bank, by the way, is Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. I would think that services offered through other Japanese banks are on the same level. Being in a city far away from Tokyo, my local branch does not have people who can speak English so that was a difficulty. Just by using the online banking facilities and Google Chrome as web browser, it didn't matter as much that the website is in Japanese.

GCASH, by the way, is a service by Softbank Payment Services here in Japan, and "guaranteed" by Globe (yes, the cellphone company) in the Philippines.  You can do a bank transfer to over 15 other banks in the Philippines, including Citibank, Chinabank, PNB, and MetroBank². You can also transfer to someone's GCASH account in the Philippines as "Mobile Money" - they can use it as prepaid cellphone load, and a number of other things, but I think it might be difficult to "withdraw" the cash. The remit-to-GCASH-in-the-Philippines option I believe has even cheaper rates. You can also remit to selected remittance centers in the Philippines, like Globe Stores, some pawnshops, and some banks. I can also actually transfer to my GCASH.JP account through convenience stores, but that costs a little bit more and the nearest one is about a 5-minute walk away.

¹ Relative to the exchange rate based on historical rates shown on www.exchange-rates.org.
² [UPDATE/ADDENDUM] They sort of advertise that you can transfer to PNB and MetroBank bank accounts, and it gives you the impression that you would need to have an account at only those two banks. But the truth is, you can transfer to probably all Bancnet member banks. But there are some additional requirements for certain banks (I forgot which ones though), and you'll be informed of those requirements as you use the service. Anyways, the one big question we have is: This is somewhat a service of Globe - an Ayala company - and yet why does it seem impossible to transfer to BPI - another Ayala company!?  That is so weird.  But anyway, in the experience I recounted in this blog post, we transferred to ChinaBank.  Tell us in the comments how different your experience might be if you had used other banks, or if you had used ChinaBank as well.

5-Thirsty in Japan?

In the Philippines, one of the beer companies featured a TV commercial which introduced the concept of "5-Thirsty," i.e. at 5:30pm, after work hours, it's time to invite friends and drink... beer, of course.

Anyway, here in Japan, I've noticed something happening at around 5:30pm as well. And no, it's actually not a 5-Thirsty thing. I've noticed it for a long time now, but it is only today that I paid attention.

It's two things.

Firstly, there are PA ("public address," in case you didn't know) systems in all neighborhoods here in Japan. It has many benefits, obviously, like when there's some impending disaster like a tornado or tsunami or fire and so on, or some message from the local government (and maybe national government?) needs to be disseminated fast.

But, they play chime tunes as well on those PA systems. Like, if I'm not mistaken, at 12 noon, they play a chime to signal 12 noon. Maybe it is to signal lunch break.

In schools, at the start and at the end of every class, or at the start and at the end of public announcements from the school administration as well, there's a chime that plays, that I believe is usually the same sound as the Big Ben's chime.

15 minutes or less before closing time, stores usually play an Auld Lang Syne chime right before announcing closing time.

Today, at exactly 5pm, there's this chime that played again for the Nth time now since I've been here in Japan. I did some search and apparently it's called "the Chime of Love," and the tune is from a song / nursery rhyme entitled "Yuyake Koyake," which I believe literally translates to Sunset Burning. If you haven't guessed yet, it is to signal the sunset and it is meant to inform children, for their own safety, that it is time to go home.

Here's a video capturing the Yuyake Koyake "chime of love" moment during summertime at one rather urban neighborhood in Japan: http://youtu.be/18-YzchO6xs

And here's a video of someone playing a more complex version of the tune on piano: http://youtu.be/k3rtMAr79AQ

I asked a Japanese friend and, considering the different sunset times per season here, he informed me that Yuyake Koyake does not usually play at 5pm. Here are the play times, at least here in Atsugi, Kanagawa:

March, April - 5pm
May to August - 5:30pm
September, October - 5pm
November to February - 4:30pm

For more information, I found this explanation (and another recording of an actual Yuyake Koyake "chime of love" at another neighborhood here in Japan) which might be interesting to you as well: http://youtu.be/Iez63nk6J6w

Graduation time!

Not for me, though. Not yet. But for many students, March is graduation month. I went to Tokyo today and I noticed a lot of women - mostly younger women - in what I thought was "traditional" Japanese kimono. The first thought was, maybe it was their graduation attire. Anyway, I asked a Japanese friend and I was half right. It was graduation attire but it was not "traditional" Japanese kimono like this:

(Image taken from http://www.1carat.jp/images/kasou/kimono/kimono_img.jpg)

Instead, what I saw were actually called hakama, and they look like this:

(Image taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama)

My friend added that these clothing styles are obviously very different from Korean traditional attire which looks like this:

(Image taken from http://blogimg.goo.ne.jp/user_image/03/c3/684b1b938b472ffdce5e613af44a3080.jpg)

Anyways, I googled "hakama" up and found that at least one definition says the hakama is also a traditional Japanese attire. My friend clarified though that it is not as mainstream as the more traditional kimono.

Remembering 3-11

It's been a year since the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011. What an experience that was. Anyways, check out this very interesting visualization (i.e. a dynamic infographic) of the earthquakes in Japan (M3.0 or stronger) in 2011: http://youtu.be/eKp5cA2sM28. For contrast, check out this version for earthquakes (M4.5 or stronger) in the whole world in 2011: http://youtu.be/cwWn_W6ZbT4. These were featured on LikeCOOL. Finally, let's try to remember 3-11 through this well-prepared news video from ABC's 20/20 show from a year ago, that I saw just now: http://youtu.be/9nTlgtf7TME.