In sake's footsteps

My teachers sometimes manage to positively surprise me.

The trip to a sake brewery, where we were to see how it’s made, was first supposed to take place in December, but something didn’t work out there. Then the information we received got a bit unclear, it ended up as February 8^th (right before a skiing trip – yay for health and safety!)… but surprise, it turned out that there’ll be two trips in total and the first one was yesterday.

First big plus: Fukumitsuya (福光屋) brewery is relative close to my campus, about 10 minutes by bus or 40 on foot (coz you have to go down one mountain and then climb another). Second one: Fukumitsuya was founded in 1625 and is the oldest sake brewery in Kanazawa (no surprise there), so if this isn’t going to be first class sake, then I doubt that such thing even exists!

Upon entering we were welcomed by a very characteristic smell. Not an unpleasant one, though that depends on one’s taste, just this typical sake smell (for those who don’t know it: less acidic than wine, slightly sweeter than vodka and all in all quite subtle). We watched a short video about the brewery and the process (the process was then revised upon touring and we also have it in a form of a leaflet), we dressed in wellies and white coats (hehe, we were a group of sake-doctors!) and we set off.

Leaflet adequately reflecting the seriousness of the whole brewing process.

In front of the building, where the whole sake-making process takes place, there was a little shrine, which also happened to be a tiny spring of the Kanazawan spring water. It’s the same spring water that’s flowing from all taps in the city, and, as we were assured during the trip at Fukumitsuya, when the only ingredients are rice, water and yeast, they all need to be of the best quality possible to make something really good. As for the shrine, well, brewing sake is thought to be an almost sacred process since centuries ago, moreover, Japan’s full of various Shinto deities or mythical creatures which everyone believes in – so all employees at the brewery pray to the deity of sake (hehe) and ask for a blessing at the beginning of the brewing season which takes place in winter.

... and may our sake taste fabulous. Amen!

Unfortunately, the highest floor, where the process begins – the rice is prepared by being washed many times and cooked – is for staff only. Apart from the 40°C and about 90% humidity (!), at this stage it’s very easy to contaminate the rice and spoil its taste, so the less people go in and out (and the more of the people allowed in are properly trained), the better for the sake. And yes, employees there work topless and yes, centuries ago they also did (both men and women, though I don’t know if some form of gender-based segregation takes place now).

However, the other three floors were accessible to us – and not just the floors! We had the honour of being able to taste pretty much every stage of brewing up until the moment where the pulps (which have their own names, but I think only sake brewers with a history of sake brewing in their families can remember) become sake.

On the second floor were big tanks filled with just rice, water and yeast mix called koji, each tank being at a different stage of the fermenting process which is about 2 weeks long on average. None of the pulps look attractive, kind of like a particularly unappetizing porridge, but there’s no swan without an ugly duckling first, right? (Or more like no sake without an unappetizing pulp beforehand). A day or two after mixing this pulp tastes a bit like a sweet and sour rice pudding and the yeast hasn’t produced any alcohol yet, but a day or two before the pulp is due to move on, it tastes considerably less sweet (though it still has a sweet aftertaste) and the whole thing’s about 5% alcohol. Other than the taste, someone not trained as a brewer will only be able to tell the pulps apart by the amount of foam on top, of which there is more of in the older tanks.

Young pulp, 0 alcohol.

Older pulp, 5% alcohol.

Tanks on second floot.

The first floor was full of other tanks which kept the pulp fermenting some more before it could be purified. At this stage “layers” of the rice pulp, water and more koji-yeasr are added, the proportions being dependent on the type of sake (Fukumituya claims that they produce the “purest” one, by which they mean only these three ingredients and no watering down), and the whole process is controlled with thermometers and the experience, intuition and sense of smell of the sake-master. Pulps we tasted here had about 18-19% alcohol, which is about the same as the final product, though to me they tasted like poor quality rice moonshine. And what are the crosses on top of the tanks for? To save clumsy people from falling down the tanks, which could end up horribly due to the level of CO2 so high that you risk suffocating in a ridiculously short time – even thorough washing of the tanks has to wait a few days until the CO2 level inside isn’t life threatening.

Top: proces of adding the "layers". Bottom: comparing the sake fermentation to that of beer and wine.

You don't wanna fall in there.

We could not see the process of purifying itself. I’m not sure if that’s because it’s all happening inside the machine pictured below or because we weren’t allowed in the place where rice pulp is put in linen sacks (which we have seen on the video). The point is, all that we saw from this last stage was pipes getting clear, and ready, sake to some other tanks. A few days pass between the sake being done and bottling it, so we became new members of this quite elite group of people who got to taste the freshest sake possible. And here I could really see what good sake tastes like. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no expert and I had maybe three to five chances to try different types of sake beforehand, but even I realised that those ones were, well, average. It’s just like with everything else: if someone isn’t bothered, then they’ll be satisfied with the cheaper mid-range one, but if someone really likes something, then they’ll pay a bit extra just to feel the taste they’re after. And when minutes later we were able to try some of the Fukumitsuya bottled sake, I was quite surprised because I kept being told that it’s expensive (we’re paying for quality here, people), while to me the prices were completely reasonable (the most expensive one cost about Y2500/0.5l, which is about £15). And to me, someone who knows next to nothing about sake, the Fukumitsuya sake is definitely worth its price.

The mysterious purifying machine.

Aaaand down the hole you go!

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Review: １リットルの涙

I finally got the guts and read my first whole book in Japanese. Not a comic, not a newspaper article, not bits of textbooks for classes – a book. Not only have I stepped up to the mini-challenge I set myself, but I also fulfilled the first of my New Year’s goals.

“Ichi rittoru no namida” (“１リットルの涙”, eng. “A Litre of Tears”) is a diary by Aya Kitō who was diagnosed with spinocerebellar ataxia when she was 15. To put it simply, with time Aya became unable to perform any movement – walking, sitting, writing, even eating – or to speak, until finally she was bedridden, fed intravenously and communicated through (and with intense effort) by pointing to letters on a board.

Yes, “Ichi rittoru no namida” cannot be said to be an optimistic read, even if it does have a few motivating bits, so why did I pick that as my first book to read in Japanese? Well, there were two reasons.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/

Firstly, the book was made into a TV drama (Japanese ドラマ, dorama, means a TV series), which I’ve seen last year. When I was watching it, almost as the title warned, I shed a litre of tears myself while watching, and the moment I learned that it’s based on a true story and on Aya’s diary, I decided that when in Japan I’ll buy and read this.

Secondly, because the book is a diary, a teenager’s diary at that (it starts with 15-year-old Aya’s entry, and ends with 21-year-old Aya), I figured that language-wise this book must be right on my level. And I wasn’t wrong. If anybody’s learning Japanese and feels that they’re ready to read their first book in this language, then “Ichi rittoru no namida” will be just right for intermediates (and better, of course). Aya describes everything without using fancy words or characters, and if difficult characters do appear, they tend to have furigana (reading on top of the kanji), which makes them easier to look up in a dictionary. Every now and then there’s a little bit of Nagoya dialect, but nothing that’d be impossible to read or understand, and once you get used to it – and there are plenty of places to do that – it doesn’t make it any more difficult to read. Moreover, since Aya’s focusing on her daily life and her feelings or thoughts related to the disease, the whole thing’s even easier to understand – and even more touching.

I very quickly noticed that in the whole diary the name of disease is not mentioned even once – it’s only when you get to the afterword by Aya’s doctor, Hiroko Yamamoto, that you’re told that Aya was suffering from spinocerebellar ataxia; Aya herself was most often referring to it as “(this) disease”. Which is both understandable, after all she wasn’t expecting her diaries to get published when she was writing them, and makes it even more touching because the reader gets to know the disease step by step through its symptoms, Aya’s health getting worse and her thoughts about it. Saying “spinocerebellar ataxia” is just a fancy word for most of us, but when you read again and again about “this disease which makes me unable to walk” (and many other things, but Aya tends to mention walking the most) really hits you in the feels, to put it colloquially.

Because I first saw the drama and then read the book, there were bound to be plenty of comparisons. And before you ask: I don’t think it makes that big a difference which one you do first. The differences between the two are based on the differences between the two types of media – a book vs a TV show – and in the case of this story the most important things are feelings and showing the progress of the disease, which are shown in the same way in both the book and the drama.

(WARNING! There may be spoilers!) The biggest difference is that there are a couple more characters and tiny episodes in the drama that aren’t in the diary. Specifically, the drama includes two boys who are Aya’s love interests, who weren’t in the life of real Aya (or at least they’re not mentioned in her diary). Is that a big deal? Hm, technically yes, but the drama, as the name suggests, has to be a bit more dramatic and if all episodes focused only on Aya’s illness, her family and school lives putting aside, the show could end up being less interesting. So to me introducing two boys that Aya fancied added a bit to the whole thing, reminded everyone that teenagers do fall in love and that it’s part of being a teenagers. It was a nice touch, let’s put it that way.

But I took more notice of the difference in how Aya was portrayed. The TV-Aya, though you can’t call her unrealistic or unbelievable, sometimes had moments of being slightly too much into motivating speeches or generally into the stereotypical TV/film type of talking and acting. Aya was simply tuned up a bit to match the expectations of the drama’s format. Whereas the diary-Aya seems truer to a real teenager (especially through the lack of getting a bit too dramatical at times) and it’s a lot easier to understand how she felt because she’s describing all the stuff that her illness influenced. So we’re not shown just the problems with walking, writing or talking (which had an extra dimension in the drama thanks to giving Aya a love for playing basketball), but more descriptions of confronting strangers (kids making fun of her, looks full of pity from strangers, unpleasant remarks not even said to her, but ones she overheard) or prosaic activities (using the toilet, bathing, spending hours just to eat one meal).

On top of that I like the diary-Aya even more because she was… well, I’m not saying that in a bad way, but she was a cry baby. She even describes herself this way, that she’s a cry baby and she cries for no reason at all, but that is so human. TV-Aya seemed to cry only when there really was a reason for it, even though the producers tried to allude to the diary-Aya-a-cry-baby, but without adequate actions to support that. I myself am a proof that one can cry over almost anything and not be able to help that, so if there is a reason, especially such a serious one as an incurable disease, the fact that Aya does cry, like you’d expect from a teenager in her position, makes her even closer to the reader’s heart.

At the end of the day it is a very sad book. Aya had a few moments of being in a fighting mood, when she decided to not give up and wrote about making the most of now and fighting back, but the closer it got to the end, the less of these moments she described. And so the reader starts to feel overwhelmed with how many everyday things we take for granted, while for others they are unattainable dreams. Nevertheless, I really do recommend “Ichi rittory no namida” to anyone, who gets a chance to read it. The book was translated into English, and I’m sure there’s a way of getting a hold of it, but if you do, I do advise you to prepare yourself mentally that this is not going to be a naïvely optimistic story with a happy end.

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The Small Towel Phenomenon

A small towel as such isn’t strange to anyone. Quite a useful thing, but usually only one is enough. And that’s why a few times already I had a conversation with friends when they expressed their surprise at this thing upon coming to Japan – so I decided to explain to you too the Small Towel Phenomenon, the so called tenugui (手拭), literally “hand wiper”.

Tenugui in the Studio Ghibli shop.

As it stands, in Japan tenugui are a fair deal more popular than in the West, especially as a souvenir or a fairly non-obliging present due to its cute designs and low price. I think every shop with souvenirs or merchandise has a shelf just with tenugui, and even in hyaku-en shoppu you can find a good selection of them.

Tenugui with Snoopy.

On the one hand, when such towel is really cute, one almost doesn’t want to use it, so as to not stain it or to keep the colours bright. But that is very Western thinking – and not very practical, after all an unused towel isn’t fulfilling its basic function – the Japanese use them daily regardless of design. And in different ways too: from simply drying their hands, through compresses all the way to using them as rags or… tissues.

Tenugui with Hello Kitty.

Moreover, only upon coming to Japan one fully realises how useful they are. Although Japanese public toilets are great – clean, well maintained, often with a heated seat if the toilet is Western style – they have one, but very serious flaw: in most of them there is no means of drying one’s hands, no hand dryer, no paper towels, nothing. At such moments tenugui in one’s handbag is priceless, probably even more so in winter: the taps in such toilets only have cold water, so with tenugui you can both dry your hands and warm them up a little. Also in summer, when it’s hot and humid, along with cold drinks tenugui are a godsend, either as a means of wiping one’s forehead or as a cold compress.

Tenugui with Rilakkuma.

In the end, when one is in Japan for longer, you inevitably acquire more of them than you really need. Over these three months I myself acquired three, of which only one I bought myself – and after seeing all sorts of tenugui with Totoro it’s possible that I’ll end up getting a few more. And probably the few that I won’t find any use for myself will end up as souvenirs…

Tenugui in a shop by the supermarket.

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Review: 花咲くいろは

After so many warnings and reasurrances, Kanazawa finally has snow and the temperatures got below zero (only by a little, but still). And if I ever need any excuse to binge watch stuff, then weather like that is good enough. So at an almost scary pace I watched the entirety of “Hanasaku Iroha” (花咲くいろは), a 2011 anime.

When I read some synopses on Wikipedia, I expected something quite average and I expected myself to keep watching it only because it’s real life set inspiration is Yuwaku-onsen in Kanazawa. So it was such a nice surprise when I started watching and discovered that story from the synopses was very simplified.

http://angelayuuki.pinger.pl/m/14462786

“Hanasaku Iroha” is focused on one period in life of a sixteen year old Ohana Matsumae. When her mother decides to elope with her boyfriend and send her daughter to a grandmother, whom Ohana has never seen before and who runs a Japanese-style inn, ryokan (旅館), Ohana feels that here is her chance to have some excitement in her life that she doesn’t get in Tokyo and that maybe finally she’ll get some family love that she never got from her mother. Even if she is sorry to leave behind her best friend, Kou, who unexpectedly declares his love just before Ohana’s due to leave Tokyo. But upon arriving this plan sort of fails: grandmother, Sui Shijima, insists on being called “okami-san” (“manager” or “landlady”), announces that Ohana can live in the ryokan, but she’ll have to work to keep a roof over her head, and to top that up Ohana’s roommate doesn’t like her from the very beginning and her first words to Ohana were “Die”.

http://otakusphere.com/2011/04/12/spring-2011-hanasaku-iroha/

Anime concentrates first on the life and work at this Japanese-style inn. Ohana and the viewer simultaneously learn what the work is like and gradually get to know the rest of the staff and sometimes even the guests. And because all of them stand out well enough to be memorable and aren’t just to fill the empty spaces in the background, the viewer has more time to enjoy getting to know them and be excited about the daily routine of cleaning rooms and carrying meals. Sure, you can dislike some of the characters, but they are all presented and carried very well and very believably, and when you reach the end of the twenty six episode long series, everyone has changed somewhat, especially Ohana.

http://www.due2life.net/2011/06/hanasaku-iroha-9/

The relations between them all are also great. Minko, who told Ohana to “die” at first, doesn’t suddenly become her bestie, but allows her to slowly get to know herself better, without losing her temper from the first episode. The third of Ohana’s new friends, terribly shy waitress Nako, also doesn’t become a confident star overnight, instead slowly getting to know how to behave around louder Ohana and gradually getting more confident in what she herself is doing.

http://www.projectsaber.com/2011/04/04/hanasaku-iroha-first-impressions/

The relationship between Ohana and her family deserves the same praise: Ohana and her mother, Ohana and her grandmother, mother and grandmother… Although these stories are more in the background, they still influence the main plot. Mother’s decision from when she was younger affects present relations between Ohana and her grandmother, while the blossoming understanding between these two influences Ohana’s relations with her mother. The strength of each woman and how each of them is strong in a different way, which sometimes leads to clashes, but eventually aids them on their way, were superbly shown.

http://www.due2life.net/category/finished/page/2/

Ohana’s love dilemmas were the least important of the lot, just in front of one-off events, but they certainly weren’t neglected or patronised. They are there, Ohana faces them, but the creators don’t dwell on them any more than is needed, which, in my opinion, is great for the plot. So many teen animes have a tendency to make love stories the biggest problems ever, even if the protagonists have to face more serious ones, so it’s refreshing to see some healthy approach to these things.

http://ghostlightning.wordpress.com/

I could praise “Hanasaku Iroha” for a bit longer because it simply deserves it. The only thing I could realistically criticise are the songs, but they’re not bad themselves, just not to my taste, that’s all. It’s not a complicated story, no next “Death Note”, but I think in this case this is an advantage. It’s another story about a teenager growing up (and yay, the teenager looks and acts like one, not like an adult in disguise), but it’s told in a great way, with focus on the right things and with balance kept. And that’s probably why I got so addicted to it and watched the whole thing almost at once (only almost because I had other things requiring my attention). At 26 episodes about 20 minutes each a binge watch of this is only a matter of a day, so if anyone likes teen anime, this one’s worth your Saturday or Sunday.

This is not a blog with reviews, so I’m not sure if I should give this anime a mark, so let me put it this way: if I had to mark it, I’d give “Hanasaku Iroha” a B. It’s everything I would’ve wanted and expected from a good anime for teenaged girls, the plot’s interesting and the characters believable and likeable. But even though I won’t forget about it, may even watch it again sometime, it’s not touching or moving enough to deserve an A. It’s a good watch, let’s keep it at that!

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Cat cafe

For my birthday I (finally!) went to a cat café, or neko café in Japanese (猫カフェ). And what can I say really: it turned out exactly as well as one could expect.

Prices depend on the cafe itself. I remember walking round Tokyo and passing by a few cat cafes which put me off by their prices per half an hour. This one was relatively wallet-friendly: 30 minutes cost Y500, and 45 minutes, which my friends and me ended up buying, Y700. And after buying this first instalment, every next 20 minutes would set you back by another Y100 (or Y200, can’t remember), but 45 was just right.

Because of what it is – a café where you play with cats – we had to be instructed before we could enter. Nothing outrageous: no flash photos, no picking the cats up, warning that we may get scratched or weed on, wash your hands before entering, just a few small health and safety things. In this particular café they only had bottled drinks and no food at all, but there are some where you can eat or have some proper coffee – it depends on the place.

And after passing this ritual almost, we could finally go through the door to the magical world of cats. Or to the room where they lived.

There were ten or twelve in total – I didn’t count and some of them slept somewhere in the corner and one had to look for them to find them. They were all adult cats, between three and five years old, no kittens which surprised me a bit. In a cute-obsessed country like Japan surely kittens would attract more customers? Maybe that was due to today being Wednesday and weekends having more clients – or maybe it was another health and safety thing and trained adult cats are less prone to suddenly attacking or weeing on someone? I don’t know and if I ever manage to go back there, I’ll probably ask about that.

What is noticeable almost instantly upon entering, other than the impression of looking into my own future as a crazy cat lady? Behaviour of the cats themselves. You can tell that they’ve been spoiled by this lifestyle and customers spending extra Y100-200 for treats because the moment you’re at the door, you’re greeted by a few and after that they always looked to our hands first – some of them left us as soon as they realised we’ve not brought anything. And when some while later another pair of customers arrived, who have bought some treats, they almost couldn’t get rid of some of them. Typical spoiled cats, that’s what they are.

Everything else would really end up being me talking about each cat’s character, which I’d rather avoid coz there’s a chance I’d never stop. I definitely think that such a café is a piece of Heaven on Earth, even if I’d have to be severely depressed or be promised playing with kittens to buy more than the 30-45 minutes which are just fine. Although there were some toys, the cats were clearly uninterested in them and preferred either to sleep, or to allow us to pet them, or to play with new things, like camera straps. And as relaxing as petting cats is, when they’re not your own, an hour tops really is enough.

A surprisingly small four-year-old Maine Coon (only just bigger than your average house cat)

Not the only seriously unimpresed face there.

Picking cats up was forbidden, but I wasn't going to stop them when they jumped on my knees. ;)
photo by Charis Messier

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Around Tokyo

Of course, I did not spend all my time just in the capital – that’d be a bit of a waste. After all there are so many interesting and pretty places, and also how long can one stare at ordinary buildings?

In fact I did not go around the places near Tokyo as thoroughly as I probably could’ve, but I feel that I saw what was really worth seeing. I don’t live in Tokyo, so I don’t feel the need to wander round places that are simply an escape from the city. But I can’t deny that when you do escape the city, the views become prettier and as did the towns, though compared to Tokyo they seem like small towns, and friendlier (both in terms of the people and of potentially living there).

The first and, in my opinion, the most impressive stop was Kamakura (鎌倉), where lives one of the three most known of the great Buddha statues. Although this one’s smaller than the one in Takaoka by about two metres, it seemed bigger tome – no idea how come. And despite the crowd of tourists, I found some peace there, especially when the sun started to set and I sat down by the trees in the temple where the statue is. I think it’s due to the Buddha itself: the one in Takaoka, though also sculptured during meditating, seemed more… dunno, awake?, happy?, it’s hard to put in words. On the other hand Daibutsu in Kamakura seemed more concentrated on meditating and finding nirvana. When I sat down and watched the approaching tourists from the side, I thought of an elder who can be approached for advice by anyone and who will not judge or condemn anyone.

The statue is also hollow inside and upon paying Y20 extra (entrance to the temple is Y200) you can see the inside. Apparently quite a few graffiti were left there over the years, but either something was done about that, or it was too dark for me to see. The board showing how the statue was constructed was quite interesting too. Construction started in the middle of the XIII^th century and the statue was lucky enough to survive mostly unscathed right until now, so bearing that in mind and looking at how it was made – almost like a 3D puzzle – I was certainly very impressed with the architects that did it.

I see you!

I was put here without explanation, hence the pose.

In Kamakura itself I’ve only seen a bit of a beach (as beautiful as mountains can be, I do prefer the sea) and one of the shopping streets which had, amongst other, a Studio Ghibli shop (where I bought some Totoro shaped chopstick rests – kawaii!). We only had time for this much in one day, but if I’ll be able to I’d love to go back to Kamakura. If anyone’s interested in the Japan of a “time gone by”, then Kamakura really should be on the list of places to visit, not just because of the many temples or the Daibutsu, which help to get a feel of this past Japan, but also because one period of Japanese history is very closely tied to it. The Kamakura period (鎌倉時代, Kamakura-jidai, 1185-1333) was a time when Japan was ruled by the shoguns, samurais emerged as a warrior caste, Buddhism flourished, Mongols were stopped from invading and a feudal system emerged. For those fascinated by that time in Japanese history or simply for lovers of all things samurai a visit to Kamakura seems a must – for everyone else there are gorgeous views and a generally peaceful atmosphere (perfect escape from Tokyo’s noise and only about an hour on a train).

Frog dressed up as a reindeer at the end of train tracks. Logical, non?

Christmassy Totoro.

I spent my Christmas Eve in Hayama (葉山), where the friend who hosted me lives, and though it wasn’t a particularly Christmassy day (warm, sunny, no snow), it was still magical. Why? Because I got to see Mount Fuji in this gorgeous weather for the first time in my life. And no doubt it’s breath-taking, probably especially seen from Hayama which is a lot closer to it. Although the daytime picture isn’t best, I went a little crazy during sunset – and who knows, maybe I’ll use some of these shots as postcards?

They came just to watch the sunset.

While in Hayama I also had a chance to try the best doughnut I’ve ever tasted in my life. Generally speaking, doughnuts in Japan are mediocre, chain stores like Krispy Kreme or Mister Donut are good enough, but all the other one’s are too dru for me. Not this one! About 10 minutes’ walk from the train station in Zushi (逗子) is this tiny doughnut place called Misaki Doughnuts, where I had a white chocolate and orange one. I tell you, it was heavenly! I’m not a fan of white chocolate, but this one had just enough of it to balance the slight sour of the orange. I almost want to call it a gourmet doughnut because after eating it I didn’t feel like I had junk food or anything unhealthy – a sweet snack for adults!

MOAR!

On Christmas Day itself I returned to Tokyo, where I was right until I had enough and felt the need for some change. So I jumped on a train (and had my first experience of being squished in like a sardine – the memory itself makes me hurt all over!) and I set off for Yokohama (横浜). I specifically planned to go to the rather famous China Town (中華街, Chūka-gai), just to make the change that little bit bigger. In general Yokohama, due to being a harbour, is a lot more international than most places in Japan and though I didn’t see that myself, Yokohama it’s known for having a lot of Western-style buildings and more of a multicultural atmosphere. I was content with just China Town.

If anyone of you is still thinking that Japanese and Chinese cultures are „essentially the same”, I sincerely hope that after seeing the pictures and reading some explanations you’ll see the difference. Firstly, and probably most obviously, visually Chinese culture is richer, sometimes brushing against kitsch: more gold in decorations, brighter colours, richer designs in the background… Compare this to, for example, Japanese temples and shrines or some traditional Japanese crafts – Japan is mostly dominated by simplicity, the decorations are more subtle (both in terms of colours and the amount of designs) and in general it’s more modest and one’d almost like to say less eye-hurting.

I’ve seen a similar trend when it came to people. Sure, the Japanese can be loud if they want to (girls screaming “KAWAII!!!” with all their might is just an example), but most of the time they are a rather quiet nation which tries not to impose on others too much. On the other hand, when walking around Yokohama’s China Town, I had a few moments where I had to repeat myself when declining on offer to go to a restaurant – and the sellers seemed a bit louder too.

As for China Town itself, it’s composed of places where you can eat and places where you can buy souvenirs. And wherever possible, the souvenirs included pandas. Pens, plushies, jewellery, socks, bags – if it was possible to put a panda on it, you bet it had one.

Also, it’s not really appropriate to leave China Town without having tried the local delicacy: niku-man (肉まん), which is a steamed bun filled with meat. Niku-man is so close to this district that it even became its mascot! There are also other fillings available, but I’ve had the real deal. At first I was glad that it was so cheap (Y90 for one), but when I got it, I was a bit disappointed by its size – it fit perfectly in my hand and could be no bigger than a plum. But at least it tasted great! You can buy niku-mans almost everywhere, but this one tasted a lot better than the ones I’ve bought in konbinis, probably because the meat was well seasoned. I really recommend it, it’s worth it!

Delicious, but small.

The mascot of Yokohama's China Town.
http://item.rakuten.co.jp/rouishingoh/10001628/

I also found another piece of happiness in Yokohama. While looking for a place for lunch, I was wandering around one of the shopping centres – and discovered that it had a Beard Papa’s shop, which sells my beloved cream puffs (シュークリームパッフ, shū-kuriimu paffu). Last time when in Japan I had them anytime I could and I missed their taste so much it hurt. And, unfortunately, there is not a single branch in the UK. This upsets me greatly.

Happiness exists and it's called Beard Papa!

To end the post on a funny note, let me share with you this picture which I couldn’t fit into any of the previous two Tokyo posts.

I feel like such a village idiot now - I only ever used baking powder for baking...

And that’s it for my Christmas trip. Ooph, good coz one post took me on average an hour and a half to write – it’ll be good to go back to shorter ones. ^^

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