Early impressions (3)

More of my diary when I first came to Japan.

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It's getting really cold now. It will get quite a bit colder than this, though. Today I tried to find a nice warm, padded jacket - everyone wears them here - but they all make me look like the Michelin Man.

I've been trying out origami; I bought a book of patterns. It's fun. What I like about it is that you can't rush it, or do other things at the same time. I'm used to surfing the 'net while typing an email while listening to music while channel surfing on TV... But with origami, you have to sit and focus on what you're doing.

I realised that the main reason I'm shy about going into restaurants by myself isn't primarily because I'm shy about speaking Japanese. I just don't like going into restaurants by myself. I mean, even in Australia. Restaurants are social places.

What I am enjoying are frozen dinners, supermarket meals, and convenience store meals. That sounds bad... but they're so good and cheap! For dinner tonight, I had some gyoza (Chinese dumplings - 'jiao zi' in Chinese), a small frozen pizza, some Vietnamese cold rolls, a slice of baked cheesecake and a mini Kit Kat. Okay, I ate too much...

The convenience store has a selection of pre-packaged meals that they'll heat up for you. There are some really good rice dishes, and some pasta dishes, and this nice udon laksa... it's like, sure, if I tried, I could probably cook meals slightly better than the convenience store meals. But these meals are like $4 or $5 and require No Preparation Time From Me. When you get home at 10pm, you don't feel like cooking anything but the most simple stir-fry...

I do have a few bad temptations, as far as food goes. There are some really delicious frozen cream-based pasta meals that I like. I cook them in my toaster oven and slather them with parmesan. One of these meals costs under $4 and it's very filling; not like Australian frozen dinners where you always need something else to supplement the meal...

(I'm finding that most things here are cheaper than back home. I never thought of Australia as an expensive country, but it seems that with the strength of our dollar, we are more expensive.)

Then there's the chocolate croissants, but actually these aren't such a temptation as the bakeries nearest work are not so great; I only eat one when I haven't eaten breakfast and have no time to eat something decent.

Gyoza are a huge temptation. I always loved jiao zi but never found them often back home. In Japan they're everywhere. And they're soooo good... but they're fried in a lot of oil...

I'm also eating burgers a little more often than back home. My usual lunch is at Subway, but some days after an afternoon of teaching, my 'hamu to chedda cheezu tosuto' just isn't enough, so I get a Becker's Burger... they're so good...

I don't know why I'm rambling on about food... it's not like I'm hungry, having eaten so much... I always say you shouldn't go into a supermarket when you're hungry. That's probably why I ended up buying far too much this evening. I bought about eight things I felt like eating and only got through half of them, hahah...

What did I do today, apart from go to church? Hmmm... I came back through Yokohama station and tried to go shopping to buy a padded jacket... it really is so cold... I'm wearing the kind of clothes I would wear for winter in Australia, and the cold just bites through them like I'm not wearing them at all.

The shopping centres around Yokohama station are labyrinthine... I get so lost. I bought a few bits and pieces, including - I'm ashamed to say - more food. I bought Tim Tams (I'm such a sad Australian... you can only find them in specialty shops, but I've found a few of them...). I found Time Out bars as well! And green curry sauce... mmm... I want to eat Thai green curry, enough that I will actually be motivated to cook it. I haven't had it since I moved here. I also bought an Indian curry sauce which looks good. The only curry I've had here is 'curry rice', a peculiarly Japanese invention which, while not bad, is just not the same. I have a rice cooker, but I think I'll just buy pre-cooked steamed rice from the convenience store.

(Convenience stores really are convenient. There are three within three minutes' walk of my house. I even pay my utilities bills at the 'conbeni'.)

You can really find most foods here if you put your mind to it. Though sometimes only a particular variety of a food is common.

For example, virtually all Italian restaurants serve these huge but anaemic spaghetti dishes with a meagre sprinkle of mushrooms or clams or small bacon pieces or whatever... I find the sauces a bit disappointing. I'd love a rich, hearty, tomato-ey lasagna full of mushrooms and onion... mmm... or maybe penne pasta bake... some type of pasta other than spaghetti...

Another example is bread. Virtually all bread is white, and very thickly sliced. It's fresh and delicious. But it's bloating, especially in the morning. I'm so used to eating multigrain bread, which I prefer, that I struggle to eat breakfast at all now. So now I am buying rye bread, the only other option available. It's very similar to white bread - in Australia it probably wouldn't be called rye at all - but slightly more palatable.

Generally I'm eating about as wide a variety of food here as I would back home. And to be honest I don't eat that much Japanese food; only when I eat out with others. When I'm really hungry, I want something filling and hearty, and sometimes Japanese food just doesn't fit the bill. I do love Japanese noodles though, and I like nabe and shabu shabu (both forms of Japanese hotpot).

Okay, I'm really sounding food obsessed... what else did I do today... then I came back home, ate (too much) dinner, *finally* got rid of my HUGE bag of cardboard boxes and papers (this kind of garbage is only collected once a month, so they have been waiting a long time), had a bath, and spent a couple of hours surfing the web collecting idioms and proverbs for use in teaching.

Japanese people love baths, they are for relaxation as well as washing, and nearly all Japanese people love going to hot springs and the like. I've never been big on baths but I'm kind of getting into it, mostly because it's so cold...

Students really have trouble with my accent when I say the sound 'ni-'. For example, a whole class of people were stumped by the simple question "did you have a late night?" They kept repeating the word 'nought?' 'nate?' in confusion. Then again last week, a student couldn't understand me when I said "the ninth floor".

When my co-worker with his 'standard American' accent, says these words, everyone understands. We both tried out saying them to the Japanese staff. To the two of us, they sound so similar, but to Japanese people, apparently not!

I made a resolution today to study Japanese for an average of half an hour a day, each day this week. I am being Too Lazy.