Lost In Translation

Winter Break 2012: Seattle

The pictures never do justice to the amazing Cascade Mountain Range. There have been several clear, sunny days in Seattle during my visit, which is a bit of an anomaly.



Both of the pictures above were taken from the Sand Point Country Club near my brother's house in north Seattle.

I had a nice panini sandwich, The Firehouse (turkey, cheddar cheese, jalapeno, roasted red pepper, chipolte, cajun seasoning, mayo with a side of ranch dressing) at Van Gogh Coffeehouse, a local coffee place in the Wedgewood area of Seattle.

On New Year's Day I went with my brother's family to the new attraction downtown at the wharf, Seattle Great Wheel.

Grady, Addie, Quinn, and Kellen enjoyed the ferris wheel.

The Space Needle is visiable between two buildings.

A ferry on its way to Vashon Island.

Grady on the carousel at the wharf.

Quinn rides on.

Kellen in Uncle Pat's Christmas gift-Superman pajamas.

Winter Break 2012: Spokane

It was a white Christmas and the kids from Seattle were anxious to get into the snow.

Nephews and nices were looking forward to opening presents.

Kalynn and Kellen playing nice.

Addie and the olives.

All the McCoys in one room.

It wouldn't be a proper visit without a trip to Five Mile Hieghts Pizza with the kids.

New Apartment in Ebisu

Last weekend I moved to a new apartment 7 minutes from Ebisu station in Shibuya-ku. This is the view from my balcony--very urban. But there is room for a couple of chairs and table on the balcony. The picture below is the front side of the building, my apartment in on the 8th floor.

Inside the apartment, it's a one room plus kitchen 43 square meters (13 square metters bigger than the last place).

You can see that he kitchen has a space saving washing machine under the burner. Shower and toilet in separate rooms on the left.

In the main room a new dresser and new desk/chair set. On the left is a big closet and flat screen TV to the right.

Here's the right side of the room with lamp, reading chair, and double bed.

Teppanyaki At The Intercontinental Hotel

Kraig, Dad, and me with our chef Maeda san at Teppanyaki at the ANA Intercontinental Hotel. This was my first time to have a proper teppanyaki meal. It was much more reasonably priced for lunch as well-highly recommended.

The first course was Hirame (flat fish) and shrimp-served live!

Eviscerating and cooking the shrimp.

The finished product. All dishes were served withe seasoned salt or sea salt and we were given the choice of three dipping sauces: garlic ginger, onion, and soy based sauces.

This appetizer was aki (mackerel).

The vegetable course included pumpkin, snow peas, bean sprouts, and Korean mochi (pounded rice and dango).

The presentation is always impressive in Japanese cuisine.

Dad and I had sirloin and Kraig went for the Tenderloin. It was Dad's first time to eat wagyu beef.

Big fire!

The set also included rice (garlic rice optional, which I ordered), pickles, and miso soup.

Happy diners.

The view from the 37th floor.

 

In the lobby.

I really enjoyed this meal and highly recommend it!

Family Visit March 2012: Part 3

Lunch at an undon shop, Kraig and Dad got the beef udon noodles with fried rice and pickles.

We shared karage (fried chicken).

I got udon with tempura.

Dad had to use a children's fork for the meal...

I took Kraig for a tour of Harajuku/Omotesando/Shibuya before going out for dinner. Here at Meiji Jingu Shrine at the tori gate.

Nihonshu (sake) barrels.

 In front of the shrine proper.

A statue in Omotesando.

The Prada building in Omotesando.

Children's Museum.

Shibuya Crossing.

Dinner at Andy's Shin Hinomoto with Darrell.

Deep fried oysters from Hiroshima for Dad.

Sashimi (two kinds of tuna and hirame) for Kraig.

Karage (fried chicken).

Mahi Mahi (John Dogherty).

Tempura (Lotus roots, anago/ eel, eggplant, pumpkin, shrimp, etc.).

Tokyo Internaitonal Forum.

Me and Kraig at Mucho.

Shinjuku at night.

Studio Alta.

Family Visit March 2012: Part 2

On the 28th we started out the day in Shinjuku Gyoen. There weren't many trees in blossom, but this one was.

In front of one of the tea houses in the park.

The Docomo Building looms in the background.

Near the large pond on the grounds.

Next we had shabu shabu (similar to sukiyaki in which meat is cooked in a broth and dipped in sauces) at Nabezo.

We ate pork and beef.

Before coming to a boil...

Next it was onto the game at the Tokyo Dome, this is a shot of the amusement center La Qua near the Tokyo Dome.

Pre-game ceremonies, the Mariners won the first game 3-1 in extra innings.

Refreshments served up by girls with kegs ontheir backs.

Family Visit March 2012: Part 1

Me and Kraig at Ushi Tora (a craft beer bar) in Shimokitazawa on his first night in town on the 26th. Inexplicably, we ran into his co-worker who also was in Tokyo on vacation.

I forget the name of the brewery, but it was a Pilsner from Hokkaido.

In the genkan (door way) of my old Shimokitazawa standby, Isaka Ya Ism ,with my brother (my father decided to rest up instead).

On the morning of the 27th before my curriculum meeting with my Dad in my office.

The view from the Observatory Deck of the North Shinjuku Government Tower building in West Shinjuku.

Kraig with some campaign girls.

Piss Alley in Shinjuku.

A beer and a snack in a ramen shop in Piss Alley.

Making yakisoba at the ramen place.

Followed by sushi and...

...atsukan (aka hot sake).

Radiation,"Flyjin," and Other Matters

I guess I should continue the updates as family members have been asking about the conditions on the ground here recently. I suppose there's been a lot of fuss about traces of radiation found in the water and foods like spinach and milk. The amount is not enough to cause significant damage. They have been cautioning the consumption with small children and pregnant women because children's cell divide faster. Here's a link to the WHO explanation of the situation.

Things continue to be touch and go at the nuclear reactors in Fukushima, but largely under control. The evacuation zone suggested by the Japanese government was not as large as suggested by the U.S. government and they have recently extended it, but it remains very far from Tokyo. I feel no danger.

There's a new term being bandied about the fleeing foreigners (known as gaijin in Japanese) in Japan "flyjin." When the earthquake happened and the ensuing problems with nuclear reactors in Fukushima many foreigners fled to south or out of the country to their home countries or places like Singapore. A lot of Japanese people have mentioned that they were disappointed by this. I heard the buzz on discussion sites like 2-Channel and Twitter question the validity of giving foreigners voting rights if this is how they react in a crisis. The German and French embassies suggested that their nationals evacuate Tokyo. So they were among the first to go. Wealthy expats in industries like banking were among the first wave to leave as well. Most of the people I know stayed, but some left and some went south to places like Osaka and Kyoto. Many "flyjin" seem to be returning this week.

I work at several universities and many have cancelled or scaled down graduation ceremonies and postponed opening ceremonies, guidance and orientation. Meiji University has cancelled all ceremonies and will start two weeks late, Chuo university will proceed as planned, and Musashi University has delayed the opening of classes for 10 days. I'm still waiting to hear from another. But with all the free time I might try to sneak away for a few days in April using mileage accumulated over the year.

More Aftermath Musing

Things are slowly starting to return to normal. I think the nuclear reactors will soon be stable according to news reports. I got an email from my university that said they were going to cancel the graduation ceremonies. They are considering postponing the opening ceremony, guidance, and orientation. They have also decided to allow foreign students to return by May (we have a large number of foreign students in our department: The School of Global Japanese Studies). I think I'll stop by the campus and check out my office and do some research at the library if it's open and assess any damage done on campus-I heard there was minor damage.

Last night I went to a "Tokyo Survivors" home party since today is "Vernal Equinox Day" in Japan (I know, anything to get them to take a holiday and spend money). More stories about where people were when it hit and the mass foreigner exodus. It seems the French and Germans were largely the first to leave, but it sounds like you won't be able to swing a cat and hit an investment banker in Heartland this week as usual either, either. Some people are returning to Tokyo this week after fleeing sound to Osaka, Kyoto, and other areas.

The big scare are the trace amounts of radiation found in the water supply and milk and spinach. I think the media needs to do a better job of putting this in perspective so that people know that the levels of radiation are less thane you get flying or taking an x-ray. The levels in the food and water are also reasonable and not a worry. I suspect there are some who will never return-last night we were joking there will be some job opening coming up in the near future-career opportunities.

 

Relax

The British embassy in Tokyo says even in the worst case of a meltdown and explosion its only serious for people living within 30 km of the power station.

 

This is what it says below:

 

Let me now talk about what would be a reasonable worst case scenario. If the Japanese fail to keep the reactors cool and fail to keep the pressure in the containment vessels at an appropriate level, you can get this, you know, the dramatic word “meltdown”. But what does that actually mean? What a meltdown involves is the basic reactor core melts, and as it melts, nuclear material will fall through to the floor of the container. There it will react with concrete and other materials … that is likely… remember this is the reasonable worst case, we don’t think anything worse is going to happen. In this reasonable worst case you get an explosion. You get some radioactive material going up to about 500 metres up into the air. Now, that’s really serious, but it’s serious again for the local area. It’s not serious for elsewhere even if you get a combination of that explosion it would only have nuclear material going in to the air up to about 500 metres. If you then couple that with the worst possible weather situation i.e. prevailing weather taking radioactive material in the direction of Greater Tokyo and you had maybe rainfall which would bring the radioactive material down do we have a problem? The answer is unequivocally no. Absolutely no issue. The problems are within 30 km of the reactor. And to give you a flavour for that, when Chernobyl had a massive fire at the graphite core, material was going up not just 500 metres but to 30,000 feet. It was lasting not for the odd hour or so but lasted months, and that was putting nuclear radioactive material up into the upper atmosphere for a very long period of time. But even in the case of Chernobyl, the exclusion zone that they had was about 30 kilometres. And in that exclusion zone, outside that, there is no evidence whatsoever to indicate people had problems from the radiation. The problems with Chernobyl were people were continuing to drink the water, continuing to eat vegetables and so on and that was where the problems came from. That’s not going to be the case here. So what I would really re-emphasise is that this is very problematic for the area and the immediate vicinity and one has to have concerns for the people working there. Beyond that 20 or 30 kilometres, it’s really not an issue for health.