Christmas Cake: The Results!

So, Christmas has come and gone. Whatever happened to that cake I promised to make? How did all of my hopes and dreams of becoming a master sponge-cake chef resolve? The drama? The intrigue? The whipped cream and strawberries?!

Find out about all this and more after the jump! Well, maybe not all that stuff about drama and intrigue...

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Merry Christmas!

You can probably guess, even if just by looking at the picture to the right, that Christmas is a little different in Japan than we know it here.

The broad strokes are still there - families and friends sometimes exchange gifts, and houses are decorated with Christmas lights.

But the types of gifts, when there are any, tend to be "cute" (or, as the Japanese would say, かわいい; kawaii), typically being things like teddy bears or scarves — things that we Westerners might give on Valentine's Day. Inexpensive gifts are also given around this time of year, more due to the upcoming new year than to Christmas, to less intimate friends. Here's an interesting excerpt on that subject:

More obligatory year-end presents are given during this season as well to people who have done you a favor during the year, however, in contrast to Christmas presents, they are given between companies, to bosses, to teachers, and family friends. These presents are known as 'Oseibo' and are generally things which are perishable or which wear out quickly for which the price can readily be checked because of the system of 'on' and 'giri' (loosely translated obligation and reciprocity). These presents are usually purchased at department stores so that the recipient can check the price and return something which relates to the scale of reciprocity.

Billy Hammond

More significant than the difference in gifts are the differences in actual tradition. The Japanese often celebrate Christmas with two signature foods. The first is a Christmas cake, a sponge cake topped with whipped cream and strawberries (click the picture for a recipe). By the way, I plan to make one of these myself for Christmas - I'll post the results, wish me luck!

The second, bizarrely, is Kentucky Fried Chicken. KFC managed to hijack Christmas with a very successful ad campaign some decades ago, and now takes reservations for "Christmas Chicken" as early as October. Many Japanese believe that this is how Westerners celebrate the holiday as well.


Hmmm... this post is getting a bit too long for me to talk about New Year's in Japan, like I originally planned. I'll leave that to my next entry, and I'll close this one up with a Christmas song straight out of Japan. If you want to read more about Christmas in Japan, check out the links below the video.

Christmas in Japan:
Wikipedia
TanuTech
Santas.net

PS: My savings have passed 25%!

First image retrieved from Unusual Life.
Second image retrieved from Japan Guide.

Torii, Rainbow Bridge, and some J-Pop

The archway in the picture, and others like it, are a sort of symbol of Japan to us foreigners. So elegant, and yet so simple, torii (literally meaning "bird perch") are usually found in or around shrines and temples.

I'll readily admit that I had no idea what these things were until a few hours ago, even though one is prominently displayed in this page's background. But, thanks to the power of Google, I was able to learn that they "symbolically [mark] the transition from the profane to the sacred" (Wikipedia). Aside from doing that, they make good postcard material.

Moving quickly onward, I have decided on one thing in Tokyo that I absolutely must see: the Rainbow Bridge.

During the day, it's a rather drab, white-ish bridge. After sunset, though, it becomes the stunning work of art that you see in the picture. It would be sin for me to be in Tokyo and not see this in person!

So, I'll squeeze that into the itinerary box on the right side of the page. Also, now is a good time to mention that I added another $50 to my travel fund, bringing me to 19%. It's not much, but every penny counts!

Now, let's bring this entry to a close with the song below, called 負けないで (makenaide, "don't give up"), by Izumi Sakai.

First image retrieved from Sydney Morning Herald.
Second image retrieved from Flickriver.

Oyakodon and days of the week

,

Oyakodon (親子丼) is a simple dish, consisting of chicken, eggs, green onions, rice, and such like. The reason why I mention it isn't that it has some amazing flavor that we westerners shouldn't live without, but rather because of its name.

The first character in the word oyakodon is oya (親), meaning "parent". The second is ko (子), meaning "child". The last is don (丼), meaning something like "bowl". So,  oyakodon is the "parent and child bowl", because we eat the parent (the chicken) and the child (the egg) in the same bowl. Horrible, right?

Anyway, moving on, I now use my laptop and iPod entirely in Japanese. No, I really can't make sense out of most of the text, but I am slowly learning useful new words, such as 時計 for "clock" and 天気 for "weather", through forced immersion. The most immediately useful thing that I have learned this way, though, is the days of the week:

• 日曜日 (nichiyoubi) - sun day 
• 月曜日 (getsuyoubi) - moon day
• 火曜日 (kayoubi) - Mars day or fire day
• 水曜日 (suiyoubi) - Mercury day or water day
• 木曜日 (mokuyoubi) - Jupiter day or wood day
• 金曜日 (kin'youbi) - Venus day or metal day
• 土曜日 (doyoubi) - Saturn day or earth day 

It's worth noting that their weekday names are very similar to ours. Our first day is "Sunday", which is followed by "Monday", and our last day is "Saturday". This is no mistake — it would seem that the practice of naming days of the week after the visible planets was borrowed by China and Rome from Mesopotamia and Egypt, and then eventually was delivered in whole to Japan and in part to us. For comparison, here are the Latin day names:

Dies solis - "Sun day"
Dies lunae - "Moon day"
Dies martis - "Mars day"
Dies mercurii - "Mercury day"
Dies iovis - "Jupiter day"
DIes veneris - "Venus day"
Dies saturni - "Saturn day"


Well, I'd better stop here. I am about to fall asleep on the keyboard! I really need to do this earlier in the day.


First image retrieved from AllAbout.co.jp.
Second image is my own

First stop: Tokyo!

After some deliberation, I have decided that want to take the bull by the horns and start my vacation in Tokyo!

For some time, I had considered that it may be better to save my stay in Tokyo for the end of the vacation — sort of "saving the best for last", if you will. Today, though, I have decided that I want my vacation to start with a bang. After coming out of my culture-shock induced coma, I should be thoroughly converted to Japan-mode, and I think that I will actually better appreciate the rest of my trip after partaking of the vital essence of the capital.

While I'm there, I plan to rendezvous with my friend Suzuki-san and see if I can't coax him into showing me some of the city. This might well be the highlight of my trip!

That's all that I know. I haven't decided how long I will be staying in Tokyo, where I will go next, or whether I will return before flying home. Once I have put together a comprehensive plan for my time in the capital, I'll try to make these decisions. Suggestions are more than welcome!

Now, before I end this entry, time for a status update. I have added $200 to my travel fund, bringing me up to 12% at $400. I have also decided to wait until spring before exchanging my dollars for yen, since I might get better rates then.

That's it for now. またね！

Image retrieved from Wikipedia.

Happy Halloween!

Trick-or-treating, when you think about it, is a rather elaborate custom. It somehow became mutually understood that anyone with their porch lights on during the evening of October 31st should have candy on hand to give to droves of children wearing all manner of disguises.

While Halloween is gaining popularity in Japan, trick-or-treating isn't terribly common yet. Although this post from Japan-Guide is rather old (it's from 2004), I found it interesting:

"I think the U.S. is about the only country that is so big in Trick or Treating, if that's what you're asking. 

But the existance of this custom is now quite well-known in Japan, except that as mentioned, not many people actually do it.

Halloween in Japan has more young adults enjoying costume parties than kids knocking on doors. Rarely, some expat districts have Trick or Treating events though, and in recent years, the orange color pumkins have become more available at a lot of markets.

Since I moved out of our apartment building and in to our house last year, I've been putting Jack-o-Lanterns outside our door with a notice saying that people are welcome to come for candy on the evening of Oct. 31.

Last year, the girl accross the street brought a bunch of 10 year olds. They all were in their normal clothes, but one of them said, "Hey, I might wear a costume next year." This year so far, I had a Cinderella, two Scary Movie boys, and the girl accross the street acompanied by her big brother. No one has yet yelled "Trick or Treat" though.

Right now it's 5:30pm on the 31st here in Japan. Let's see how many more I'll get. Oh, I just had a pumpkin mask and an animal ring my door!"

— by Uco 

I think that post leaves little for me to say about Halloween in Japan, except to repeat that it is certainly becoming more popular year-by-year. So, with that out of the way, let's look at something somewhat related to the topic at hand: Japanese candy.

From green tea Kit-Kat bars to lemon-milk flavored sticks, Japan definitely has a unique (but not altogether bad) taste when it comes to confectioneries. But, rather than ramble on and pretend to be an expert on the subject (read: because I don't know what I'm talking about, and I wish I were in bed right now), how about I just show you. To see more, visit KidCrave, which is where I got these images:

First image retrieved from AsianOffbeat.
All subsequent images retrieved from KidCrave.