Doala

What would you suppose would be the famous mascot character of a baseball team called the 'Chunichi Dragons'?

That's right, it's a giant blue koala called 'Doala'. This character is a popular mascot, and a famous 'face' of Nagoya.

I was amused the other day, passing by a Japanese curry shop, to see that they were selling Doala curry.

I don't know, I think I'd prefer beef...

Lining up

Back when I was teaching in Nagoya, late last year, I asked my students my usual Monday morning question, 'what did you do on the weekend?'

One student's reply: 'I lined up 6 hours to buy Arashi goods.'

Arashi is a popular boy band. I am a fairly open-minded person. Although I personally probably wouldn't spend half a day lining up to see a famous person or get concert tickets, I can understand that some people might want to.

However, please note what she actually said: she lined up to BUY ARASHI-RELATED MERCHANDISE. The band did not appear in person at all. Apparently this merchandise was specialised for their Nagoya appearance, which somehow made it so desirable that thousands of young girls would line up for 6 hours or more. She said the sale was at Nagoya Dome, and people were lining up from OZONE station. o_O

I have mentioned before that many Japanese people seem to have more patience for lining up, particularly for a product that is considered to have a reputation or is for a limited time. This is a nice little illustration of the principle at work.

Nagoya-ryori

Nagoya is known for its food. I wasn't overly impressed - I thought the restaurants there lacked variety - but I'll give you a small features on Nagoya food.

Miso katsu
Katsu is deep-fried, breaded pork. When it's good quality (ie, not all gristly), it's actually delicious. The oil gleams on it beautifully. ^_^ Miso katsu is katsu with a thick, dark miso sauce on it. People describe the taste as 'koi', which, roughly translated, means 'heavy' or 'rich'. It is quite a strong taste, though not bad. I wouldn't recommend getting a large dish of it unless you're sure you like it.

Hitsumabushi
This is an eel donburi dish, ie, eel on rice. If you like eel, and rice, you will probably enjoy it. ^_^

Ten musubi
The 'ten' is from 'tempura', and the 'musubi' means rice ball. Basically this is a sushi roll with tempura inside. I like tempura, so I like this reasonably well, but I do find it a rather odd combination.

Miso nikomi udon
This name is a struggle to say quickly. ^_^ This is an udon (noodle) dish with miso flavouring and lots of vegetables. Miso seems to be a bit of a specialty of Nagoya cuisine.

Miso nikomi udon. Yes, that's an egg. Yes, it does look disgusting.

How does it taste? Hmm... not as bad as it looks. That dark brown colouring is from miso, and the whole dish tastes strongly of miso. It is also 'koi' (strong) and a bit salty. I don't really recommend it.

Tebasaki
These are fried chicken wings. Basically, they just taste like fried chicken wings, but they are very tasty, if a bit fiddly to eat. You can see tebasaki in the picture at the top of this entry.

Useful everyday kanji - out and about

Here are a few handy kanji if you're out and about.

洋 ('you') means 'Western'. Two useful places to know this kanji are in a bathroom (where it denotes Western-style toilets, ie non-squat toilets) and a bookstore, where it indicate the foreign book section.

番 ('ban') means 'number'. 一番 means 'number one'.

店 ('mise') means 'shop'. At the end of a word (as part of a compound) it is usually said 'ten', like 売店 ('baiten'; shop, stand).

市 ('shi') means 'city'. Other useful address-related kanji include 町 ('chou' - 'town' or 'neighbourhood') 区 ('ku' - ward) and 県 ('ken' - prefecture).

For doors, elevators and buttons:

押す (osu, push)

引く (hiku, pull)

閉 (close)

開 (open)

For stores:

営業中 (eigyouchuu) - open (literally 'in the middle of business' or 'in the middle of sales')

準備中 (junbichuu) - closed (literally 'in the middle of preparation')

This kanji 営業 (eigyou) is handy because it's also used in 'operating hours' (営業時間 eigyoujikan) or 'operating days' (営業日 eigyoubi) on shops and restaurants.

Earthquake (update)

Please note, I'm not a news source. But I do have a bunch of friends in Japan, and here are some of the things people in Tokyo and Yokohama have been saying today:

-The atmosphere on the streets is calm. However, supermarkets have been quickly selling out of everything. Shelves are bare.

-Japanese TV is focusing on broadcasting information about upcoming blackouts, scheduled for short blocks in certain areas. For example, a particular ward might lose power for 3 - 4 hours at a time. Some trains will not be running due to the blackouts. The TV hasn't been airing quite as much footage of the destruction in Fukushima, possibly hoping to avoid panic?

-One report said that these blackouts are predicted to last through April. I don't know if this is accurate though.

-People are not being encouraged to return to work just yet. With trains often not running, people are mostly staying where they are.

-A nuclear power plant in Fukushima has developed a leak, and many people were evacuated from the area to avoid exposure to radiation.

Earthquake

I am not living in Japan any more - these last few posts you've seen were pre-written - so I have fortunately missed the big earthquake. 

As you know, there was an earthquake of magnitude around 8.8, which hit the coast north-east of Japan, creating a huge tsunami and causing a lot of damage. The biggest city nearest the quake was Sendai, in the Tohoku region.

I am relieved to say that, as far as I can tell, my friends in Kawasaki and Yokohama seem to be okay. In those areas, buildings were evacuated and the earthquake was strongly felt, but it didn't cause a lot of damage; they were too far from the quake. Japan has quite strict rules about earthquake preparedness, and I believe buildings must be constructed to certain standards. Phone networks were down and train lines stopped, as there were a lot of aftershocks.

It sounded pretty scary and I hope things will settle down and there will not be another large quake, as I heard they were predicting.

I send my thoughts and good wishes to the people in Japan suffering from this disaster. :(

You can go now

Sometimes I see people doing jobs that nobody should have to do. In many cases their entire function could be replaced by a box, a sign, or a traffic light. In some cases, the function is already being done by a box, sign or traffic light, and the person is completely superfluous.

Examples of such jobs, which usually make me feel sorry for the person doing them: 

People standing on a street corner holding an advertisement on a pole. 

People waving pedestrians across the street. 

People standing next to construction work waving people around the cones.

People trying to hand out brochures to pedestrians.

Many large car parks have an attendant out the front. His job is to indicate to a car when they can drive out the exit, or to indicate to a pedestrian when they can walk past the exit. I don't mean he does this on festival days or days of incredibly high traffic, I mean he does this all the time, even though a driver should clearly be able to identify for him or herself whether there is a pedestrian walking in front of her car.

Sometimes you even have assistants stationed at traffic lights or random side streets to tell people when to walk and stop. I admit I find these ones a bit irritating. I am an adult; I know how to cross the street by myself.

They have these on the street near my university. I was told they were there to make sure the students *did* stop to let traffic through occasionally, otherwise there might be a constant stream of students crossing the road. Okay, but most of the streets *don't* have an attendant, and I have often seen students stop en masse to let traffic pass - all of their own volition! Wow!

I must admire the work ethic of these guys. I'm sure it's soul-crushingly boring work, but most of them are quite diligent, waving with gusto and a very efficient-sounding shout of 'okay, you can go now!'