Tokyo Costco

Well, I finally made it to Costco yesterday. Sarah and Robert have been once before, but this was my first visit. Getting there is a bit of an adventure, as it takes 90 minutes by train, and involves several transfers. Ultimately however we arrived, and it was a little slice of home -- well, a Costco sized slice, actually.

When shopping in Japan, you grow accustomed to not recognizing brands and having a difficult time understanding package labeling. Costco is refreshing, in that it's more-or-less just like its American equivalent, right down to the American brands and English labels. The biggest differences we spotted were that the largest package of "bulk flour" is a 3kg box, and the sushi selection is slightly improved:



There is a bit more emphasis on fish in the meat department, and a few other "ethnic" items sprinkled throughout, but on the whole, the Tokyo Costco might have been plopped down in Kirkland, San Francisco, or just about anywhere else in the US and the average shopper might not notice the differences.

Interestingly, and I can not remember if I've already blogged about this so please indulge me if I have, the only rice available is Japanese domestically produced, the largest bag available is 5 or 10 kg, and the cost is probably 4x what an equivalent quantity of rice would cost in the US (current global rice prices notwithstanding). It seems strange to me that for a people who consume as much rice per capita as the Japanese, rice would be so dear. However, I have it on good authority that this anomoly is due to there being no demand for rice in Japan that is not domestically produced. People here prefer to purchase domestically produced rice over imported rice, no matter the price.

At any rate, the biggest difference US and Japanese Costcos became clear shortly after check-out when we stopped for snacks:



Yes, this is an unattended shopping cart parking lot for newly purchased groceries, and the photo does not do justice to its scale. Details like these are what I enjoy the most about Japan.

And no post would be complete without a picture of Robert to keep the grandparents (and the rest of us) happy, so without further ado, here he is, sporting a sweater knitted by Sarah's mother:

The first Cherries of the year...

Sarah and I took Robert out in the stroller after lunch today to see if he would go down for a nap. We wandered around our neighborhood, admired some of the late season cherries coming into peak bloom on the campus of a medical school near our place, and browsed the 100¥ shop. Robert succumbed, so we decided to grab a few groceries before heading back home.

It was shaping up to be a routine trip to the market, but that changed when we passed by a display of fruit on our way to check out. The display included a single box of cherries...

As you may or may not know, I used to work at a fruit stand at the Olympia Farmer's Market while attending high school and college. I spent 7 fantastic summers working at Sullivan's Homestead with a crew of exceptional individuals, and we sold cherries. Lots of them. Our boss purchased the cherries in Eastern Washington, one of the finest cherry growing regions in the country, if not the world, and trucked them back to Olympia to sell. During peak season, we would sell upwards of 3000 lbs of cherries per day, and every pound was hand sorted by myself, or one of my illustrious colleagues.

Sorting cherries for hours on end is mind-numbing business, so to pass the time we came up with some vocabulary games in order to keep our minds engaged, but I think it's probably fair to say that we spent most of our time gossiping about the crew members who weren't sorting cherries at that instant, and coming up with imaginative back-stories for the folks on the other side of the counter. The market was perfect for people-watching, and we were a crew of mostly high school and college aged kids, so there was never a shortage of dramatic happenings to be recounted.

Over the years, I became something of a cherry connoisseur. Our boss Sully (is every man who's last name is Sullivan nicknamed Sully?) chased cherries from one end of Washington to the other. Through an extensive array of connections, Sully was able to procure a steady stream of cherries from around the 3rd week of May, right through to the end of July, or even early August. Over the course of the season, varieties would come and go, and I had opportunities to sample them all: Burlot, Chinook, Bing, Van, Lambert, Ranier, pie cherries, Black Republicans, and probably a few more that I'm forgetting. And did I sample? Oh, did I sample! I imagine my bowels looked at the arrival of cherry season in much the same way as a soldier might eye an advancing army, with a combination of dread and resignation.

By the end of the season, you're so tired of sorting cherries (get up, go to work, sort cherries all day, go home, go to sleep, dream about sorting cherries all night, wake up, realize that you have to go to work and sort cherries all day, cry) that you're glad to be done with them, but by the time next spring rolls around, after spending a fall and winter devoid of cherries, I at least, am always impatient for the first cherries of spring.

Why am I telling you all this? So you can believe me when I tell you that as fond as I am of cherries, my passion pales to that of the Japanese. Today I saw a flat of 40 cherries on sale for 98 dollars -- almost 2.50 per cherry. Granted it is barely the middle of April, but these cherries didn't even have stems. Bah.

I took a picture with my phone, but it is being a bit recalcitrant at the moment, and I can not download the image to my laptop. I will amend this post with the image once it is available.

In the meantime, if you made it this far I applaud your attention span. My guess is that you are either family, you worked with me at market, or both. If you do have any favorite market anecdotes, please post a comment and share, I would love to read them.

Hanami

Cherry blossom viewing -- Hanami in Japanese -- is serious business. The Sakura Zensen, or cherry blossom front, is tracked with the same care and precision that might be given to an approaching hurricane. The nightly newscasts run elaborate maps depicting front lines, percentages of blossoms, and expected peak dates.

In early March, Starbucks began carrying their "Sakura" line of mugs and music. By the time I got around to taking a photo, sadly, they were no longer the featured display:



I am currently reading a great book called "Hokkaido Highway Blues", written by a fellow named Will Ferguson. After teaching English in Japan for a few years, Will took some time off and hitchhiked from the extreme southern tip of Kyushu, through to the northernmost point of Hokkaido, following the cherry blossom front the whole way.

We engaged in Hanami last weekend with some friends at Shinjuku Gyoen, one of the most famous areas in Tokyo for cherry blossom viewing. Predictably perhaps, it was a bit crowded:



This picture was taken toward the front of the park. Shinjuku Gyoen is a large park, and as we wandered through toward the back, we eventually did find a patch of grass near a grove of cherry trees to call our own. We sat down, ate our lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting, sipping Kirin beer, and enjoying the cherry blossoms.

Robert had a great time running around and around the little glade where we were sitting. The Japanese ladies sitting near us gave him plenty of attention, of course, and he ate it right up. Sarah and I took turns chasing him down whenever he wandered off; by the end of the afternoon, we were tired, and Robert was so exhausted that he took a second nap and still went to bed early without complaint. Here's a picture of our little tree-hugger at Shinjuku Gyoen just before his second nap:



On Sunday afternoon, my boss hosted a get-together in the party room at his apartment building for his employees. He lives in Northwest Tokyo, about a 45 minute trip from our apartment, on a street famed for its cherry blossoms. The street is divided, with a wide median between directions. The median was planted with cherry trees many years ago, and has plenty of space for laying out blankets beneath them. Even though the trees were mostly spent, there were still crowds of people camped out beneath them.

Our First Visitors

Sarah's folks came to visit us last week, and just left a few minutes ago. We all had a very good time. They arrived on Thursday, and took the "limousine bus" in from the airport to the Miyako Hotel Tokyo, conveniently located across the street from our apartment.

On Friday, Sarah gave them a walking tour of the district where we live, and on Saturday, we hopped the Shinkansen to Kyoto. We rode the 700 "Nozomi" series. We stayed at a Ryokan -- a traditional Japanese-style hotel -- in a room with tatami mat flooring. Breakfast and dinner were included in the cost of the room, and were served to us in our room. The experience was perfect, and very Japanese... Here are a few pictures:

First, dinner:



Then, a good night's sleep:



Our attendants/housekeepers came in and cleared away the remnants of dinner before laying out our beds. The beds were composed of two fouton mattresses stacked on one another, with a sheet tucked around them. Drape a down comforter over the top, and call it complete. Completely comfortable, anyhow.

Don't mock the ukata until you've tried the yukata... it makes great lounge wear after a hard day's walk through Kyoto's many shrines and temples:



We stayed 2 nights in Kyoto. I do not have a picture of our first morning's meal, but my understanding is that it was a very traditional Japanese breakfast: fish, eggs, rice, and some salad. Our second morning's breakfast however, was more Western-style, while still retaining an essential Japanese-ness:



Thanks to Sarah's dad, Earl, for these pictures. Now that we've got the description of our room sewed up tight, let's move on to what we saw while we were out and about. These are just a couple of highlights, but never fear, there are more on flickr:

Mt. Fuji from the Shinkansen window:


The outer gardens of Nijo Castle:


Some sort of flower arrangement in the garden behind a shrine. This may a form of Ikebana, but I don't think so. Oh, who am I kidding, I know less than nothing about arranging flowers -- it's what's in front of the bouquet that counts.


Kiyomizu-dera, the "clear water" temple:


Kinkakuji, the "golden pagoda":


Other than the trip to Kyoto, we stuck around Tokyo and I worked Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Thursday was a national holiday in honor of the Vernal Equinox. We had planned to take a day trip to Kamakura, but we woke up to persistent rain, so we decided to stick closer to home and visit Akihabara, "electronics town", instead.

Sarah and I had a great time visiting with her folks, but I don't think anyone enjoyed themselves more than Robert. He had a great time playing with his grandparents. Robert isn't quite able to muster the words "Grandma and Grandpa" yet, but he's making some valiant efforts. Robert is starting to say a few other things though, his repertoire currently includes: ball, moon, meow, baa, daddy, mama, moo, wow, and my personal favorites: uh-oh, and juish (juice).


If we happen to mention the "J" word in his presence, he immediately responds with a chorus of rather insistent cries of Juish! Juish! Juish! We try to give him juice no more than once a day, so we are learning to be careful not to mention it other than when we intend to come through with the goods.

Kitchenware Town

Sarah, Robert and I made it to Kappabashi (Kitchenware town) last weekend. It was an entertaining way to spend an afternoon. There are a multitude of shops selling everything you would need to outfit a home or commercial kitchen, or open a restaurant. Here are a couple of photos:



This is the store where you can purchase the perfect sign for catching the eye of potential customers as they walk by, provided they can read Japanese -- not an unreasonable assumption here. Several of these signs read (in part) either 'Ramen', or 'Karaoke', and that's about all I can make out -- other than 'Open', of course.



This store sells the plastic food featured prominently in the front windows of many restaurants here. The "food" is very realistic looking, but also quite expensive. Many of the items in these display cases were well over $100.

And without further ado, here is this posting's gratuitous Robert picture. In Japan, one lives under constant threat of morphing into an anime character. Tragically, Robert's transformation has already begun:



Last week we stumbled on a new (to us) playground in the Hiroo district. I have heard Hiroo referred to as the "Gaijin ghetto", though it is actually quite upscale. It is a much quieter than Roppongi, its more famous cousin to the East. Hiroo seems like a very nice area, especially now that we've found the park! Sarah and Robbie had a great time on the teeter-totter (or shi-shaw in Japanese, if you'd rather).



We may move to this area once the lease is up on our current place in mid July. I was recently asked to extend my stay here in Tokyo and take on a new role: 'Product Manager for Derivatives Enablement, Tokyo'. The title probably sounds fancier than the job actually is, but it is a big promotion. The next couple of years will likely be challenging, but hopefully they will be a lot of fun too.

Sarah is on board with the idea of staying here through the end of '09, even though I know it's probably not her first choice. Sarah, you are a model wife, mother, and my best friend. Thank you for this. On a related note, Robert starts 3 day a week 1/2 day daycare/preschool at an international (i.e. English language (i.e. very expensive)) school just down the road on Monday. Wish him luck!

The annual 'Skipalooza' ski trip organized by our friends Matt and Mary kicks off in a couple of weeks, and with it has come the attendant bump in e-mail traffic to the mailing-list associated with the event. For the first time since 2004 we will not be in attendance and that's a real bummer for two reasons: not only has it been an epic snow year, but I will miss the thrill, the tingle of danger each time I take a drink, lest I shoot it out my nose like I did my coffee this morning while reading the following:

Matt: First the bad news. Lem and Satu have decided to join us in Utah after all, so unfortunately we'll have to share the house with them again this year. The good news is that this means you'll all be getting a cash rebate when we get to the house. Think of it as compensation.

...

So far only Rockett is coming to Tahoe for PPSW (Pre-Palooza Ski Week). But wait! Did you realize that the world Elk calling championships are being held here next week? You can't turn down sking *and* Elk calling, surely? We're talking the world championships for heavens sake!


Isaac: Last time I called an elk it just put me straight through to voicemail. I ended up having to text it.

Can you imagine a whole week of this?

Isaac's wife Wendy is a second-grade school teacher. As penance for stealing his material, I am including a link to a proposal Wendy has up on donorschoose.org to purchase new chairs for her classroom. Unfortunately(?) Wendy's project appeared on television recently, and now appears to be fully funded (I think I need to start checking e-mail more than once a week). Donorschoose is an excellent service though, and I encourage you to browse the available proposals. If any of them speak to you, please consider making a donation. And Wendy, if you put another proposal together in the future, will be sure to post it here.

Valentine's Day

Thursday was Valentine's day. Before I write more about that though, I must confess that I my grammar freakery has gotten a bit out of control -- I just the last few minutes doing research on whether this post ought to be titled "Valentines Day", or "Valentine's Day". Counting the number of google hits for each search term indicates that "Valentine's" is more popular, but only just: it has 24,800,000 hits to "Valentines" 22,500,000.

As usual though, a trip to Wikipedia set me right. First of all, their article on Valentine's day includes the apostrophe. More important even than Wikipedia though, our very well educated friend Cammy blogged about "Valentine's" day, and evidently on the day of, too. Come on Cammy, there have got to be better things to do on Valentine's day than update your blog! ;-)

The final straw though, is that there are of course several Saints Valentine, and a feast in their honor was traditionally held on February 14th. Somewhere along the line though, we seem to have dropped the feast in favor of chocolates, cards, and roses.

What I intended to blog about this morning though, is Valentine's day in Japan. Here, the Valentine's day tradition is for ladies to give the men in their lives chocolates.
When I explained this to Sarah though, and suggested we celebrate the Japanese way -- well, let's just say she was less than enthusiastic. ;-)

There is a follow-up holiday in Japan on the 14th of March called "White Day". On this day, guys are supposed to reciprocate & buy chocolates (generally more expensive chocolates) for their ladies. As you might expect, while celebrating White Day was a good idea too, it was not going to get me out of Valentine's day, and that's just fine. I am not one to pass up an opportunity to show Sarah how much she means to me.

Playing into her hand as well, earlier this week at work we had our annual compensation conversation, so come Thursday I was feeling rather flush. One bottle of '99 Dom Perignon, an 8 dollar cup of strawberries, a few Godiva chocolates, and take-out donburi (sashimi on rice) later, we had ourselves a wonderful, quiet evening at home. With Robert.

Change of Plans

Well, we woke up this morning to a world of white outdoors. Evidently it began snowing last night, and it has not stopped yet. The sidewalks are covered in an inch or more of wet snow and even the roads are slushy. How convenient that today is Sunday! The wind is up, and the snow is coming down much harder than it did a couple weeks back.

We ventured down the road to Johnathan's (a Japanese Denny's equivalent) to have breakfast, drink coffee, and watch the snow fall out on the street from our perch on the 2nd floor.

We generally hit Johnathan's for breakfast once each weekend, and the same waitress always greets us. Robert, of course, has worked his charms on her -- she takes good care of us.

Our trip to Kitchenware town has been put on hold, but we will probably still head out this evening. We aren't going to let a little snow get in the way of our good time!

Robert is getting closer and closer to talking. Often when we say a word like "balloon", "cracker", "puppy", etc., Robert tries to say it too. It doesn't come out quite right yet, but it is good to know that he's trying.