We drink some weird things in Japan.

This isn't entirely what I intended to do today, particularly just after another food review, but the planned post is proving to be tougher and more complicated than expected so here is a quickie for you.


For the past few years Pepsi has been producing a special limited edition drink each summer. When I arrived they released a cucumber soda that I sadly didn't get the chance to try. Last year they brought out a bright blue "Blue Hawaiian" flavour that tasted almost entirely of chemicals.

This year they have something completely different, Shiso Soda.

Shiso (also known as perilla) is a kind of Japanese leaf that is related to mint. It has a really unique flavour, sort of a cross between basil, mint and sprouts with something wholly unique thrown in. Said flavour is really incredibly strong and Shiso tends to be one of those herbs that completely overwhelm a dish. Consequently I do not use it much (although I do know a nice pasta recipe using it). It is not, however, in the slightest bit sweet. Furthermore it has a texture pretty much identical to a stinging nettle and stings your mouth a little when you eat it.

An odd choice for a bottle of pop, wouldn't you say.

But what really makes the Shiso soda worthy of a blog entry is that this year Coca Cola have seen fit to try and directly compete in the weird summer drink market with their own entry. Green Tea Diet Coke plus catechin (and no, I'm as in the dark as to what a catechin is as you are).

So how do they stack up?

Well being the slightly more normal entry I thought I'd try the coke first.

It smells pretty much exactly how you'd expect. It smells of Diet Coke and faintly of green tea.

But it tastes just like Diet Coke. Now, in fairness I haven't drunk diet coke in a while no do I have a bottle here to compare and contrast but from memory this is just Diet Coke. If there is a green tea flavour then it is subtle in the extreme.

What about the Shiso Pepsi?

Well first strike against it, it is a violent green colour. That never bodes well and puts me in mind of that Final Fantasy Potion I had last year.

The packaging is much nicer than the coke bottle though. In fact for a soft drink it is almost understated. Look at the sheer amount of text Coca Cola has to cram onto the bottle. That is astonishingly ugly even before the design, horrible clashing colours and clashing styles are factored in. I count at least five different fonts on that bottle which is simply unforgivable.

The Shiso bottle is much simpler in design. All laid out in a simple line format and with less fonts and a nice design that complements rather than clashes with the font.

Can you tell that I am trying to put off drinking it?

It smells unmistakeably of Shiso too. To try and convey that imagine some nettles, cucumbers and plums left to sit in a box together. Shiso is almost like that.

And it tastes, entirely of Shiso. The flavour is pure Shiso to the extent that it isn't even sweet. It even makes the roof of your mouth tingle in the same way Shiso does.

I'm not certain that is a good ambition for a soft drink to aim for though. The flavour is nice enough but it distinctly savoury and the notion of a savoury drink is more than a little bit off putting. Even most beers are sweeter than this.

Ultimately I don't think it works. The taste isn't bad as such but it is so odd that is pretty much impossible to drink a whole bottle of the stuff.

No, I think I shall be sticking with my Pocari Sweat thank you very much.

of sandwiches

I mentioned in my post about the ninja museum that there doesn’t seem to be any kind of advertising standards law in Japan preventing exaggerated or false claims made by products. Or if there is then it probably doesn’t apply or get enforced to claims made in English because some of the English blurbs written on products in Japan are unbelievably grand.

I think I have discovered the finest example of this in the form of Starbucks Japan.

Starbucks Japan sells a Chicken club sandwich that contains no chicken.

None.

It does contain crab, salad, mayonnaise and prawns and it is a very tasty sandwich but seriously Starbucks; what’s that all about?

Laugh at the funny pictures or suffer the consequences.

No post tonight, my brain is tired. 

Instead you get this.

A deer attempting to eat metal.

A totem pole of robots.



A misogynist bar.



An actual record found in an actual shop in Shibuya.
(Obviously German beer drinking music was popular enough to warrant a sequel)



The most unappealing Italian restaurant ever.



RanDOM ENglisH CapitALIsAtioN



Something highly disturbing from Shinjuku.



And the most excited shoe shop you have ever seen.


and frankly you should be thankful you even get that.

Kit-Kat K-K-K-Kombo!

I’m back.


Sorry for my absence. My parents came to stay with me for three weeks and that coupled with the need to clean the house before their arrival has meant that I have had absolutely zero time for blogging whatsoever.

However, I am now energised with hundreds of pictures and stories and the amount of content on this site is set to skyrocket.

Not today though, today I am tired, so we’ll be going back to an old favourite.

Yes, it’s time for me to review some kit-kats.



First up is the most normal of today’s contenders a dual pack of kit-kat minis; white peach and peach.

The packaging is nothing particularly special and not particularly well done although the peach illustration is nice. Having said that; peach kit-kats don’t seem as out there as watermelon or tea so they probably need less eye catching packaging.

So how do the flavours stack up?

Well peach is delicious. Even the smell is really overtly peachlike. Like all the fruit kit-kats the initial taste isn’t too fruity but there is a strong peach quality to it and the after taste is very strong. It’s a nice complex flavour too and not too sweet. Overall I’d say this was a real homerun for kit-kat.

White peach doesn’t fare quite so well. It doesn’t smell or taste as strong as peach. In fact it is a little bland. It is very creamy though and there are definite fruity notes to it. On its own this wouldn’t be too bad but it stacks up poorly next to peach.

Next we’re onto a pair of drink based kit-kats in the standard Japanese packaging (i.e. 4 finger split into 2 packs of 2) Espresso coffee and Jasmine Tea.



Espresso Coffee has great packaging with a delicious and inviting looking picture of an espresso and some funky swirls and dark notes. It all seems very jazzy. I approve.

I can’t really make up my mind about espresso. On the one hand it in no way shape or form tastes as strong as an espresso coffee. In fact the first few bites are almost totally tasteless. However once you get into it a really, really strong coffee flavour starts to emerge with a lovely aftertaste. I wouldn’t call this an espresso coffee, unless you drink espresso with about 4 sugars, but it is nice.



Jasmine has really cool packaging that is very over the top. Not only is it green and pink (the Japanese colours of spring) but it has tiny flowers on it and an inviting cup of jasmine tea complete with pot! Totally irony free this one, it wants you to feel all springy and by god you will feel springy. I should also mention that I am not allowed to throw away this packet because it has the kanji for jasmine written on it and these are the same kanji that appear in my girlfriend, Mariko’s, name. So she wants to carry it around and show it to random Japanese people.

I was surprised at the colour. Rather than being a white or off-white tea colour it was in fact chocolate coloured. And the taste is distinctly odd. Not unpleasant but very odd. It tastes of both chocolate and jasmine tea at the same time. In fact the jasmine tea flavour is uncanny, particularly the aftertaste. The flavour is a little bit too busy for me personally but they delivered exactly what they promised.



Now onto the truly oddball offers. These are a pair of kit-kats that can only be bought at Tokyo station. They come in a special kind of display package so you can give them to co-workers as gifts, a common practise in Japan known as omiyage.



The writing is all in Japanese in florid letters that I cannot decipher so the flavour could in fact be anything. In fact our brief attempt at decoding it came up with the flavour “shoyu,”… which means soy sauce.

Soy sauce kit-kats? Well, I’ll try anything once.

It is white.

The smell I cannot place.

Ah, it is soy sauce.

Technically it is sweet soy sauce, which is still soy sauce but Japanese people do use it as flavouring for sweets such as dango. I’m not hugely keen on it and my first bite of this was a little weird but actually they’re rather nice. They taste mostly of burnt caramel with a slight sour note and a little bit of a salt note. This means they have a really rich and complicated flavour that hits all the areas of your mouth at once. They’re sweet but not too sweet, a little bitter, a little sour and a little salty. Consequently they are really, really more-ish. A surprising success I’d say.



The next one we literally had no idea what to expect. Our best guess was mushroom but we weren’t nearly as sure as with the soy sauce guess.

I literally have no idea what it is meant to taste like but it does taste nice. It is mostly chocolaty and very, very salty. In fact it is the saltiest kit-kat I think I have ever eaten. There is also a very strong umami feeling (the fifth taste and a big focus of Japanese cooking) and a very complicated rich indefinite note as well. Curiously it lacks a strong after taste, something that flavoured kit-kts tend to have. Frankly I find it too weird and ephemeral to be a big hit but it isn’t bad by any stretch of the imagination.

This Man, This Legend, This Mummyboon

You know, I think this sight has been running long enough now that I should actually show you the Mummyboon T-shirt.



Sadly the shirt has shrunk a bit in the wash and has some major bobbling issues on the back, so I can't really wear it anymore.



I'm going to keep it forever though. It is my first and still my favourite example of an Engrish t-shirt.

The slogan that inspired a site ladies and gentlemen.

Fear the RAGE of Mummyboon!

Gragh! Blogger isn't letting me upload pictures from my P.C. tonight (although the problem appears to be with my internet connection rather than blogger) and my promised massive post requires a vast amount of pictures. So, sorry guys it'll be delayed yet another week.

In place of that lets start a new feature.

Japan: The Good and the Bad (and the occasionally ugly)

The aim of this feature is for me to present two short essays, one bitching about some little irritating feature of life in Japan and the other offering ecstatic praise for something in Japan.

So lets see how this works.

The Bad Number 1: Oil Vans

Staying warm in Japan in winter can be a massive challenge. Homes in Japan have almost no insulation, there is no central heating at all and there are no carpets on the floors. This is not so bad in summer when all anyone wants to do is escape Japan's tongue-drying heat for just one second, please is that so much to ask!!

Sorry, got a bit carried away there.

But anyway it gets cold in Japan. Not hugely cold but the winter temperatures are certainly comparable to winter in Britain. The lowest extremes in Britain are much lower than in the part of Japan I live in but nonetheless it is cold. In fact it feels even colder because going indoors offers no relief from the cold.

So most people have some kind of free-standing radiator, such as a space heater or an arger. I myself use the heating function on my air conditioner and it is wonderful thank you. Many of these heaters use gas or oil and so of course they need to buy gas or oil.

Enter the oil van.

The oil van sells all kinds of fuel for heaters and drives around residential districts to sell fuel and collect empty canisters.

So far so enterprising and useful.

And of course in the fine tradition of all Japanese mobile businesses the driver sings.

Theoretically.

It is wonderful and charming to be walking down the street at night and hear a man cycling past pushing an oven full of hot potatoes and singing a song about how great his potatoes are. It is like being transported into a bygone age, and it makes you really want a potato.

Such a technique is sued by pretty much every Japanese businessman that has some kind of motorised stall, including the oil van.

But the oil van doesn't sing. Instead it has enormous speakers mounted on it which blare out the song at roughly the same volume as your average death metal concert. I swear I have been to gigs with quieter speakers than this sodding van. Big gigs too, not ones in pubs, full blown concerts that makes less noise.

I have to turn my television up to almost its full volume to drown out the noise.

It wouldn't be so bad if the van just used it to announce it's presence and then got on with it. No, instead the speakers blare every time the van moves so I can be expected to be treated to a cheerful blast at any point for 2 to 3 hours.

Do you know that there are no laws limiting noise pollution in Japan?

What is the oil van man accomplishing with this sonic terrorism? He certainly isn't attracting any new customers as I and everyone I know have sworn to boycott him. Maybe he is using the speakers in an attempt to oust all the rude gaijin that have moved into Gakuentoshi.

Regardless the oil van man is something BAD about living in Japan.

The Good Number 1: Safety and Honesty

Everyone knows that Japan is a very safe country. Violent crime levels are astonishingly low here. I know of people that have left the country for a holiday and left their front door open whilst they did so with no ill effect. Murder is very uncommon so that single murders still make the news in a way that they simply do not in America or Britain. Drug use is very low and so the associated dealing and gang culture is non-existent. Basically bar a few genuine nutters there just isn't much crime.

However more important and more surprising than that is the honesty of the Japanese people. British people, on the whole, are not lawbreakers. Very few of the people I know would give serious consideration to breaking and entering, ram raiding or a spot of mugging. Yet, under certain circumstances nearly everyone I know has committed theft. Few would steal a video, but what about download it? What about nicking a pint glass from a pub, trying to use an expired coupon or dodging the fare on a train for a short journey? We've all done some kind of small crime like this.

Japanese people don't though. It wouldn't occur to them to. Rules are sacrosanct here. In fact in many aspects of life the Japanese positively adore having some extra rules. The more rules there are the less decisions have to be made and the more likely everyone is to act the same and reach a consensus.

In western nations the highest ideal is individual freedom and expression. Rules impose a barrier on this, a restriction on freedom. It is in our nature to enjoy breaking rules. Some of our most revered artists are appreciated because they broke rules (think of any popular punk band for example) and we've all broken the rules once or twice and enjoyed it.

In Japan the ideal is harmony. Everyone getting along fine and the whole functioning well. This is why there are so many rules, both official and unofficial. Whilst we have punk Japan has art forms with thousands of rules (such as the tea ceremony) and the finest exponents of it are those which can adhere must strictly and perfectly to the idealised method (or way) laid down in the rules.

So there is very little violent crime, there is an appreciation of rules and restrictions and there is also a tremendous generous impulse towards others.

Take the example of a wallet left on a train. Lose your wallet on a train in Britain and you will likely never get it back. Many people wouldn't bother making the effort because they assume it to be futile. Either it has been nicked or nobody bothered to give it into lost property and it can now no longer be located.

But just last week a friend of mine lost his wallet and found it the same day. It had been turned in at a police box near the station he obviously dropped it in.

To give a quick comparison here are some things I have lost in Britain and never seen again.

A bag containing a collection of CDs I was using for DJ work.

A camera (pre-digital).

A model tank used for the wargame "warhammer" with a retail value of about £20.

In contrast stuff I have lost in Japan only to have it be returned to me the very same day.

A travellers backpack I was using to go on holiday containing probably about
£400 worth of stuff.

A replica air-soft assault rifle worth about £60.

I can say that living amongst such trusting and thoughtful people is definitely a GOOD thing.

Mummyboon is not Dead.

Huge apologies for the lack of updates guys.

I've had several irons in the fire recently re: extra-curricular projects and it has reduced my ability to blog.

Ordinarily I'd squeeze out something small and insignificant but the problem is that I've been sitting on an absolutely massive blog post that will take a lot of work. It's also something very original and special and I want to get it right.

I should get it posted tomorrow.

After that and starting from next week I'm going to set myself a target of doing a post 5 days a week. This will likely mean many shorter posts and I don't expect I will hit this target but I am nonetheless going to try and see what happens. Hopefully I can get some more work out and re-establish a routine.

Until then please enjoy some more brilliant engrish from my students.

I was able to spend the winter break very enhanced.  It said to the New Year's day visit to a shrine in the sinto shrine at the New Year, the sealed lucky bag was bought, it went to play, and it played with the cousin. It was very happy. I want you to come at the sprng vacation early.

100th post!

100 posts everyone.

I could have whipped up some kind of impressive new banner or some sort of retrospective on the nearly 2 years that Mummyboon has been up and running but i thought that would have been boring and self congratulatory.

Instead let's talk about the one thing that really defines this site.

KIT-KATS!!!



3 new flavours to discuss today.

Tiramisu flavour

Picked up in Kyoto at the weekend as part of a trip that will definitely make it to this site eventually. Probably on Thursday.

The packaging is unusual in that it is a single regular sized finger. Usually when nestle makes a single fingered kit-kat it is slightly thicker than a regular finger. Frankly I feel that something has gone very, deeply wrong with the world of kit-kats when a regular sized single finger is considered an acceptable product. We need to be very careful here people. Give em an inch and they'll take a mile. First it was the special flavours but soon all kit-kats will be sold purely as single fingers and then civilization as we now it will collapse in an apocalypse fueled by insufficient quantities of biscuit.


.... I may have drifted a bit there.

Anyway, not been a big fan of tiramisu in general and coffee flavoured chocolate even less so I was not really looking forward to sampling the new tiramisu kit kat.

And it tastes...

Actually it tastes kind of bland at first. The initial bites are pretty tasteless, sweet but with no definite flavours. The after taste has a very strong coffee note that is very pleasant and surprisingly complex. I would even go so far as to say that it tastes of tiramisu. But it is overpowered by the sweetness. In fact this may be the sweetest kit-kat I have ever eaten.

I understand why it is packaged as a single finger now. It is so sweet that I am struggling to finish even one finger. 2 fingers would be such concentrated sweetness that it may prevent my tongue from ever tasting anything ever again.

Maccha Tiramisu

Matcha (spelled Maccha for some reason on this packet) is the strongest and bitterest of all Japanese green teas. It is never served as leaves but rather made into a powder of such an emerald hue that it calls to mind the mutagenetic ooze that turned the teenage mutant ninja turtles from ordinary reptiles into fighting ninja teens.

It is also bloody awful. Well that isn't really fair but it is terribly, terribly bitter. Much bitterer than the strongest espresso I have ever had. For this reason the Japanese usually eat a very sweet tasting snack with the tea to cut the strong flavour. Traditionally this was a daifuku, dango or wagashi but nowadays it commonly can be a kit-kat. A matcha flavoured kit-kat then completely defeats the purpose of a kit-kat.

And it is also another example of this appalling new packaging strategy. Blegh!

So, how does it taste...?

Well, like the other tiramisu offering the first bite is pretty bland and the real flavour is in the after taste. Again the after taste is nicely complex and really evokes the flavour it is meant to. Pleasantly it is significantly milder than the other tiramisu and nowhere near as sweet. Whether this is because it has less sugar or because the matcha flavour somehow cuts the sweet notes I do not know but overall I'd say this is one of nestle's better efforts.

Still annoyed about the packaging though.



Cookie Kit-Kat

One of the odder new varieties to burst onto the scene recently is the cookie kit-kat.

Whilst most varieties only change the chocolate coating and leave the wafer intact the cookie kit-kat has a different strategy. It inserts a layer of oreo like biscuit between the top layer of wafer and the chocolate.

The result...?

Pure bliss.

The oreo-esque biscuit has a much richer and bitterer chocolate flavour than the cheap nestle chocolate on the outside (or an oreo for that matter). The clash of the three different textures and the two different chocolate flavours is exciting, interesting (for your tongue at least, which needs stimulation y'know) and pure joyful chocolate ecstasy.

It's a subtle one. It's charms are not obvious but it is a massive improvement on the standard model without any of the usual drawbacks.

AND... it is one of the more common "premium" line that are slightly thicker than a regular finger and thus not an abomination unto the chocolately god "avabrew" like these horrible single finger efforts.

sden dna sddo : odds and ends

Too tired for a proper post right now faithful readers so it is odds and ends time again.

Beginning with yet more fabulous Engrish from my students.

This weeks offerings are statements written from memory that my students said to me during their interview tests.

 

“I am my grandmother”

 

“I helped cook my mother.”

"I exerted a cultural festival."

 

And finally

 

“It was doog.”

Holy Balls of Fire Batman the Earth is Exploding

For those of you who don&t follow the news in Japan (and why should you really) a Volcano has just exploded in the Nagano Prefecture.

There is a video at the link with more details.

And this is a time lapse video of the actual eruption.

I was bitterly jealous that I was missing out on Britain's worst snowstorm for 30 years but now I am excited again! I live in a country with active volcanoes.


Oh Crap.

I LIVE IN A COUNTRY WITH ACTIVE VOLCANOES!!!


(but seriously no damage whatsoever has been reported. Japanese people seem naively trusting of natural disasters but even here people tend to avoid mountains that hurl things at you periodically)

Shameless Shilling

A friend of mine living in Japan has recently launched a blog.

I'm adding it to the links roll. Go check it out if you're bored at work, some of it is funny stuff.

Would you like to see a brain in a jar?

I seem to be posting a lot of links today but here is one more about haikyo, or derelict sites in Japan. Apparently this person found a derelict doctor's surgery complete with medical instruments and a preserved brain in a jar in the middle of nowhere.

I can't decide if this is the most frightening or the most awesome thing I have ever heard. I am however intrigued by this haikyo thing and I aim to do a bit more reading up on it.

In fact whilst I'm at it here is another haikyo in a hotel.

It's fascinating that in a country with such a premium on space that this can happen.

Tomorrow; forget it baby, it's China Town.

We have the technology, we can rebuild it, odder and endier than before.

Hooray! Two posts in one week, I’m finally getting this baby back on track. In fact I’ve got a massive stack of stuff to write about now and plenty of free time at work to knock out some posts so we should finally be ahead of the game again.

Woo hoo!

Anyway today I just want to go over a few miscellaneous odds and ends that have been gathering up and need to be addressed.


New School



No photos as, well, it isn’t very interesting looking, but I have recently moved to a new school, Higashiochiai.

In contrast to my last placing out in the middle of nowhere Higashiochiai is smack dab in the centre of the kobe metropolis. Well, not quite, but it is decidedly urban. And whereas Iwaoka was an hour’s journey everyday Higashiochiai is less than half the time away. This is a massive boon to my free time and has granted me an extra half an hour in bed in the morning. Bliss! And no snakes either.

However I’m now in a decidedly weird situation. I will probably be moved from this school at the end of March and it is already nearly the end of January. I have barely 2 months left at Higashiochiai before I will be shipped out yet again to meet new teachers, get to know students and generally adjust. This means I’m kind of in limbo. Sure I work here but I feel like all of my efforts here are pointless. I don’t really have enough time to properly get to know anyone, students or teachers and I certainly don’t have enough time to train students up to my expectations of them in lessons.

Still everyone seems nice enough so far so I guess I’ll just enjoy it while I’m here and worry about the future later.



Sweet Potato Kit-Kats




I have been as lax with my kit-kat reviewing as I have with the blog in general but I intend to let this error persist no further. Already I have skipped over informing you people of the important evolutions of strawberry cheesecake and blueberry cheesecake kit-kats, cookie kit-kats and anko kit-kats. Maybe one day they shall return to stores and I can educate you as to their deliciousness or lack of delciousness. Alas, that is a dream for the future.

For now let’s talk about sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are very popular in Japan. In fact potatoes of all kinds are fairly popular but particularly potatoes that are traditionally grown in Japanese soil, of which swete potato is one. In fact there are a wide variety of sweet potatoes native to Japan ranging from the purple skinned but orange centred imo to the wholly purple beni imo.

Sweet potatoes can be used a both a savoury option, in nabe (a kind of stew), roasted, boild or baked on its own or pressed into rice and as a sweet option, made into a dessert called daigaku-imo, sliced, fried and sugared or used as a starch in wagashi (tea ceremony sweets). There are even varieties of shochu made of it. And now there is a kit-kat version.

And it is delicious! Incredibly delicious. In fact it may be my favourite variety of kit-kat. The taste is incredibly nuanced and complicated for kit-kat. It's mostly a kind of caramel flavour but a very rich caramel with nutty, earthy notes coming through too.

And it tastes, not even slightly, like a sweet potato.

Delicious though.


Umeshu

You may re-call from this post all those many months ago that I was making some umeshu.

Well here it is.



As you can see it has gone down in height by quite a significant amount. This is because I have been drinking it, not because of the ume absoribing the water or anything like that. The colour has obviously changed to a more recognizable ume tone and the ume have shrunk.



My how they’ve shrunk, and now they look like little brains. Tiny brains in a jar. I’ve always wanted to own some brains in a jar, now I can fantasise that I do.

The taste is, actually a little bit disappointing. It’s definitely umeshu but it isn’t as sharp as I usually like my umeshu and furthermore it is very, very sweet. To the point of almost being sticky. I aim to try again next year with much less sugar in the mixture.

I also aim to brew it for a whole year. We cracked open the jar around about Christmastime after a period of more than 6 months but I am now informed that a ful years wait is needed to make a fully mature umeshu.

I should point out that my girlfriend was very happy with it though, even if it is a little bit sweet for me.

Mushrooms

Until the next spring my attempt at making umeshu has drawn to a close but now I have a new project to divert me.



Growing shiitake mushrooms.

My wonderful girlfriend got me a grow your own mushroom kit for Christmas. After dithering with the Japanese instructions for a while I eventually figured out what to do and have been cultivating a patch of mushrooms in the same cupboard the umeshu used to live in.

My first mushroom was constrained by the shape of the bag and had begun growing before I had even opened up the kit. It went a bit strange shortly after I set up the kit properly and turned all watery and…odd. So I ripped it off.

Presently I am growing 1 single solitary but unbelievably massive mushroom. The biggest shiitake I have ever seen. I am going to eat it for my tea tonight in fact in the hopes that if I cut it off it will stimulate all the other spores to start growing.

I will keep you updated on further mushroom news.

Finally I like to end any odds and ends post with a video showcasing the madness that is my adopted land.



This is a trailer for the upcoming live action version of the yatterman anime. Yatterman is about a pair of super hero mechanics riding a giant robot dog who fight a trio of super villains who also have various robots, and a 3 person tandem (tridem?) The show is mostly about the villains and the comic relief they offer. In tone it feels like hannah-barbera filtered through Japan. And now they are making a live action movie. I have high hopes for this.

Sometimes I laugh and I laugh and everyone in the teachers room looks at me funny.

Okay, I concede I am not quite living up to my New Year resolution.



Still, let’s see if I can improve things from this point on; starting with an old favourite, amusing stuff my students have written recently.



I have recently begun working at a new school (again, gah!) and one of the first things the teachers at my new school did was dump a load of work on me that my new students had written over the winter break.



This was a comedy goldmine.



Apparently at my new school the teachers had been very good at introducing the students to some higher level vocabulary. Words like pleasure, one (in the sense of oneself or one does), restless, etc, etc. However the students weren’t quite so hot on how to properly conjugate these new words, leading to such examples as…



Well, see for yourself.



“I will pleasure me in winter vacation.”



“I will pleasure in winter vacation. I want come early.”



“I want to go to Okinawa because I want to raid a banana.”



“My dream is ueding dtheina. Becoues I think many peapol smailing get home. They’re get married to happy. They’re never happy mamols plezant for them.”



“I exerted a cultural festival.”



“I like my bedroom because it is very restless.” (he meant messy)



“”2nd term was great! There was field day, culture day and eisteddfod.”



Cue conversation between me and the Japanese teacher of English.



Me: What do you think eisteddfod means, I can’t think what English word it could be.



JTE: Hmmm. No, idea. I’ll read the Japanese version they wrote.

Okay apparently they mean music festival.



Me: How did they get eisteddfod from music festival? Does it sound similar in Japanese?



JTE: No, let me check my dictionary.



Me: What does it say.



JTE: Apparently it’s an arts festival in Wales.



Me: What! Wales!



(cue gales of laughter for ages)



There were two other entries that are absolutely heartbreaking too.



For example, one girl was talking about the Akashi suspension bridge and wrote:





“When I saw it, I was happy, for the first time.”



Now obviously she meant “when I saw it for the first time I was happy.” But even so

don’t you just wanna give her a hug?



The other heartbreaking one was in answer to the question. “How was your second

term?”



“What!!! How was it!!! It was terrible. Oh my god!!! I studied very hard but I love the

comic books too much. When my mother came in she yelled at me and took the comic

book. The next day, my mother took all the comic books. I was very sad. I didn’t get a

good grade.”



Awwww. Rest assured I gave you a good grade fellow comic fan.

Unplanned Video Filler

Sorry guys but both my camera and my SD card are elsewhere as I type this so I have little recourse but to do a quicky video post.

Real posts to resume next week gang.




I'll start us off with this marvellous tribute to Super Mario Bros rendered through Japanese puppetry. With roots in bunraku,a style of puppet theatre, modenr Japanese puppetry probably provides the most spectacular special effects that can actually be done on a stage. Recreating something as abstract and cartoony as the world of Super Mario in real life is an amazing artistic achievement.

Funny as hell too.





Excel Saga is a "Quack Experimental Anime." Basically a surreal comedy series that satirises anime tropes and in which anything can happen. The series is loosely about the ideological organisation ACROSS, a severely understaffed super villain outfit that aims to eventually conquer the world but for now is focused on just conquering F city F prefecture. the staff consists of Excel, a hyper-fast talking, energetic but hopeless idiot and Hyatt, a naive alien girl who dies every episode (beating kenny to the punch by a few years). There's also a mad paedophile scientist, a poor doomed dog called menchi and many other hilarious characters.

The theme tune's lyrics were apparently written by the director on the train ride to the recording studio to record the theme and bear no relation to the plot whatsoever. Good sight gags though.



The end theme is rather brilliantly sung by Menchi.

The title of the song is "and so you are going to eat me."



In contrast to Menchi's eventual fate, to be eaten by Excel as an emergency food supply, Chi, the star of "Chi's Sweet Home" gets, well, a sweet home. This anime, about a stray cat adopted by a family and told from the cat's point of view is without question the cutest anime ever made and possibly the cutest thing on the planet.

I should note that the subtitles on this version are not especially good as they editorialise far too much to make the English seem more natural. However it is the only embeddable version of the song that I could find.

Better post on Saturday I promise.

Low Content Mode

Hey guys, sorry to say but it looks like I'll be entering low content mode for the foreseeable future. The combination of upcoming work regarding Christmas an insane amount of work to do at school and my invalid girlfriend who needs nursing this week (not quite, she just had a wisdom tooth out) means that I likely won&t have any proper posts up until after Christmas.

I'll try to have stuff up but don't expect anything major.

And on that note I leave you with the following fine example of Engrish I've been saving for just such an occasion.

Chotto Matte Kudasai

Hey guys. New post tomorrow for sure. I just came back from a visit to Hiroshima and I have lots of amazing photos to share. Right now though I'm absolutely knackered so just a quick filler.




birds fling delightly


Seen on a cup in our Hotel.


(topic title means "one moment please")

What Horrible Creature rises From the Depths?! It is....MUMMYBOON!

Ermmmm, sorry about that.

So that was an awfully long time without a post wasn't it. In fact it was one of the longest spans without a post since I started a regular posting schedule.

Rest assured I had no intention of ever letting things get quite this far out of hand but, ah well, the damage is done now and I hope to resume a regular posting schedule starting again from this week.

As for the why? Well there is no clear cut excuse so much as a combination of factors. Busyness at work, computer problems, the summer heat, social commitments, issues with my new librarian job, factors arising from the departure of current JET's and the arrival of new ones and the fact that I recently started Japanese lessons.

However, undoubtedly the biggest factor is the fact that, well, recently I haven't been doing much.

Well, that's not strictly true. I've been doing absolutely loads. What i mean is recently i haven't been doing much worth blogging about. I had a great time at Suma Beach Party, for example, but I doubt that you all want to read about me getting wasted and sunburnt.

However, all this has changed. Summer looms and with it time off work, lots of free time at work to type blogs up in and opportunities to resume my adventures. Coming up this summer you can expect;

My trip to Tokyo
Photos from the Kobe Oshaberi Book project
Festival reports
NINJA TOWN!!!!!!
More thoughts, feelings and reflections
A "my first year in Japan" reflections piece
and possibly, just possibly me in a yukata


And now that I have whetted your appetite let's begin Mummyboon Year 2 with some miscellaneous pictures.




This glorious monstrosity was glimpsed in Kitano. Initially I had absolutely no idea what on earth it was and just snapped some photos out of curiosity. However I have since been informed that it is a tour bus/boat of Kobe. It takes tourists on a tour of the city and actually takes them INTO the harbour, as in onto the water. Mountains and harbours in one day sounds like one hell of a tour and something I want to take my parents on when they arrive.



This guy is a monk who stands in the Santica shopping centre all day and chants. Well, he at least does it in the early mornings. No idea what branch of Buddhism he is affiliated with as, well, all he does is chant. Oh and sometimes he plays a pipe. i love these little intrusions of the historical Japan into modern Japan. It really is a country where past and future intermingle like no other.

Apparently this guy is a gaijin but he looks pretty Nihonjin-esque to me.

Anyway, more posts tomorrow (a loooooooooooooong one) and I hope you all join me for Mummyboon Year 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I Almost Hesitate to Mention This.

My computer has a bad case of being really, really irritating tonight so I'm going to postpone the longer post I had in mind until I can be sure it will behave itself.
3
Until then I'm going to re-post something I've spotetd on a few other sites. Mum and Dad you probably don't want to read this.

From this week's edition of Time Magazine we have, porn for young people but featuring really old people.

Japan is repeatedly found to be one of the most sexless societies in the industrialized world. The WHO reported in March this year found that one in four married couples in Japan had not made love in the previous year, while 38% of couples in their 50s no longer have sex at all. Yet, at the same time, the country has seen a surge in demand for pornography that has turned adult videos into a billion-dollar industry, with “elder porn” one of its fastest growing genres.

Tokuda’s exploits have proved to be a goldmine for Glory Quest, which first launched an “old-man” series, Maniac Training of Lolitas, in December 2004. Its popularity led the company to follow up with Tokuda starring in Forbidden Elderly Care in August 2006. Other series followed, and soon elder porn had revealed itself as a sustainable new revenue stream for the industry. “The adult video industry is very competitive,” says Glory Quest p.r. representative Kayoko Iimura. “If we only make standard fare, we cannot beat other studios. There were already adult videos with Lolitas or themes of incest, so we wanted to make something new. A relationship between wife and an old father-in-law has enough twist to create an atmosphere of mystery and captivate viewers’ hearts.”

Japan’s adult video industry is believed to be worth as much as $1 billion a year according to industry insiders, with the largest rental video store chain Tsutaya releases about 1,000 new titles monthly, while and the mega adult mail-order site DMM releases about 2,000 titles each month. Although films featuring women in their teens and 20s are the mainstay of the industry, a trend toward “mature women” has become evident over the past five years. Currently, about 300 of the 1,000 adult videos on offer at Tsutaya, and 400 out of the 2,000 at DMM, are “mature women” films.

Now I am aware of some really weird fads in this country but this one simply mystifies me. I was, for instance, well aware of what this article refers to as the "lolita" fetish in Japan (i.e. that there is an awful lot of anime/manga porn in this country that we would consider paedophilia in Britain and that is kind of brazenly stuck up around palces like den den town.) which creeps me out but is sort of understandable. This though? I get that old people might want to look at other old people getting jiggy with it and young people may actually want to get jiggy with an elderly person but watching two elderly folks play a rousing game of hide the sausage is pretty much the first thing the devil will do to me when I get to hell.

Still, different strokes for different folks I guess.

Oh god, I just realised what that sounds like.

I will give the spokesman this, it is a novel twist.

Oh and "Forbidden Elderly Care" is the best title of a Japanese film I have heard since "Fight! 10 Million Power Warriors!"

Eh, what's that?!

Sorry everyone no regularly scheduled post tonight. I had some odds and ends I wanted to bring up but I'm opting out on account of being sick. I've got an ear-infection that's given me a headache and left me deaf in one ear for most of the day. I'm going to get an early night and then see if it's better in the morning and that means no blogging.

I will update everyone to say that we had a second earthquake the night after the first. This one did wake me up and it was a decidedly odd experience. Like falling asleep on the train and then waking up when it comes to a sudden stop.

If I feel better tomorrow I will have a bonus post up here as a replacement.

Sorry to keep you waiting.

My Sumo post is written and most of the pictures and videos are ready. However this was a bit of an epic and just typing it all took nearly two hours of work. There's still lots more I want to add and a lot of proofreading and html fiddling to do before it is ready. So unfortunately you're going to have to wait another day for fat guy action.

Thanks for staying with me though, trust me this one's a corker.

The Flux Continueth

No poker night this week but blogging time was monopolised by the recently arrived girlfriend. I'm sure you can all forgive me for skipping a post in order to spend time with my girlfriend whom I haven't seen for 7 months. However on the off chance that some of you are sharpening net-axes and prearing to murder me would a sorry help?

My life, along with blogging, continues to be in flux as well. School is wrapping up and this Tuesday will be my last ever lesson at Fukuda Junior High School, however, joy of joys, I have to stick around until the 1st of April. Considering my full time teaching kind of wound down in the middle of February this is not a prospect I relish. Ah well, I expect there shall be many hours spent studying Japanese in my future.

Speaking of school I received confirmation today that I am going to be moving schools in April. Fellow JET Pete informed me that I'll be taking over his old school. Apparently the letters have been sent out but typically my school hasn't bothered to tell me yet (le sigh). Peter described the kids at his school as super nice, which will make a nice change. No seriously, the best part about my job are the kids. I love them all and they're all great fun, but my school does have something of a reputation for misbehaving students. Having no experience of other schools I couldn't tell you how bad they are but certainly I have struggled.

The worst part about my new school is that apparently it is the furthest away school that Gakuentoshi JET's go to. Which is, obviously, not exactly ideal. I need to get both a train and a bus to get to work. I already have to get up at 6 to get into work now I'm going to have to get up even earlier!

Recently arrived girlfriend (or Fran to use her proper name) is in good health. On her first weekend here I showed her around Sannomiya and Harborland and watched her go "squee" whenever she saw anything cute. Although I have lived here for 7 months she was spotting shops I have never seen before! Apparently Fran has some kind of cute radar and can home in on a cute thing without even seeing it.

She started training today and this finishes by March 29th. Hopefully then I can book Japanese lessons and figure out a new schedule for blogging but until then you'll all just have to bare with me.

Currently I've had no big photo opportunities or particularly exciting jaunts. However this is all due to change as this weekend I am going to watch Sumo wrestling, followed by a national holiday (in which i intend to visit Kyoto) and then a tea festival in Shiga the weekend after that.

However despite the lack of photos I do have news. Today was my san-nensei's (third grade) graduation. Alas no pictures because I rather foolishly forgot to charge my camera but mostly there wasn't anything to take pictures of.

The main hall was really elaborately decorated, there were red carpets, an ENORMOUS bunch of flowers and of course the Japanese flag. Highlight for the embarassing moment of the day was when I went in to look at it in the morning and one of the teachers told me that it was the Japanese flag. Now it's one thing when my kids explain Japanese to me that I can already speak but it is quite another to try and explain the Japanese flag to me.

I am convinced that everyone at my school thinks I am an idiot.

the day started with the san-nensei in their classrooms getting ready and some volunteers from the other 2 grades helping to put the finishing touches on the hall. Since nobody seemed to have any work for me to do I volunteered myself for greeting parents that were coming in. My word some of the frocks had to be seen to be believed. There was one woman that looked exactly like Margaret Thatcher, only Japanese obviously. There was also a man with the largest beard I have ever seen on a Japanese guy. It rivals my Grandad's for length and for width surpasses most of the beards I have ever seen in my life. It was an almost semi-circular projection from his face, quite extraordinary.

All the female teachers were dolled up too. Kosuga-sensei had a smart suit on, Nishi-sensei looked like an asian Princess Diana and one san-nensei teacher was wearing Yukata. Only a very unusualy yukata, more like the kind that priests in shinto-shrines wear than the kind I am familiar with. She was the only woman wearing Yukata on the day too but she looked very smart.

I do like that about Japan. At any formal ocassion you have a choice between western clothing or traditional Japanese and nobody bats an eyelid. You can wander round in something that is essentially the same item of clothing from 100's of years ago (and in the case of some kimono's this is literally true) and not seem at all out of the ordinary. It makes formal events so much more vivid and interesting to look at. Even if this particular style of yukata did have the unfortunate side-effect of making her look like a bell.

My concession to the day was to wear a tie. Yeah...

Eventually everyone was seated and I got the opporunity to practise sleeping with my eyes open. We had a speech in Japanese, an intermiable wait whilst students collected certificates, some music, another speech, another speech, another speech, anotherspeech and then some more singing followed by another speech and it was all over. 1 and a half hours of sitting in a hot room desperately trying not to fall asleep.

I did perk up when the second bit of singing started because the san-nensei sang everyone a song and then everybody sang the school song. I do like to hear my kids sing, they're all wonderful singers and whilst I'm not keen on Japanese singing voices individually collectively they're stunning.

It was quite sweet to see some of the students in floods of tears as they tried to sing too. And some of the teachers.

I did think it was a bit much pomp for only graduating year 9, however I realised that this is the last time the students will all be together. They will all go to separate high schools. And the teaching set-up is slightly different in a Japanese school, the teachers change grades every year. So for example Nishi-sensei taught
1st grade English, 2nd grade English and then 3rd grade English with these kids. So I guess it is a very emotional time, particularly for the teachers.

Fleeing the very, very hot auditorium (to the strains of land of hope and glory???) the teachers, parents and ichi and ni-nensei lined the road outside and we threw a parade for the san-nensei. Then I nipped off to where they finished up and said my goodbyes and had my photo taken many, many times.

I will miss some of my students. In particular Michael (who did a very un-Japanese thing and hugged me) and Maho who is easily the best English student in the school and one of my favourites. However I can't say I was particularly sad, after all they have their whole lives ahead of them and it would be selfish of me to want to tie them to one place and time.

Besides a lot of them really were gits. Especially Michael.

Kids all done with I retired to the staff room for a fancy sushi lunch paid for by the PTA and then proceeded to do sod all work for the rest of the afternoon.

Titles are Hard.

My girlfriend arrives in Kobe tomorrow.

Needless to say I am excited.

I don't know how much that excitement seeps through in this post but it might help you to picture it if I tell you that I have to break off ever 5 minutes to do a cartwheel.

I have spent all week cleaning my house in preparation for her imminent arrival and now it is finally clean and tidy. Well except my game room but that is a whole other problem.

My San-nensei graduate on Wednesday, I had my last ever class with one of my ichi-nensei classes today and very shortly I will be moving to another school.

It feels like I am entering a new stage of my life. I had my bachelor period in Japan and my grace of adjustment and now it's time to get down to business.

I had been getting into a bit of a routine and now it is time to spice everything up again and turn the process of being here into an adventure again.

In-Jokes

So last Friday my friend Ben was bored at work and decided to see if he could get a "You know you're an ALT when..." meme going on via e-mail. I don't know how much sense this will make to most of you but here is a list of some of the funnier ones including some contributed by myself. Annotations are in brackets.

The concept of teaching more than 16 classes a week sounds preposterous.

You wonder why Japanese people don't get fat if they eat "Japanese food" like
you do.

You know the "Azuma Legend".
(The azuma legend is about my "boss" azuma-sensei the head of the JET programme
in Kobe. Azuma-sensei is very softly spoken and friendly but he's one of those
guys that inspires instant fear and respect. The Azuma legend is about the time
before he became the head of the JET programme when he was a general trouble
shooter for the Kobe Education Centre. Now it won't surprise anyone who has
worked in one but riots in Japanese schools are not unheard of, particularly in
Kobe just after the earthquake when everyone was in a pretty bad state. In fact
one famous story about a school in Kobe is that a boy beheaded a student and
stuck his head on a spike on the school gates. My friend Damon actually works
at the school where that happened, although apparently it's very nice now.
Anyway one day there was a riot out in a Kobe school. The teachers basically
barricaded themselves in the staffroom and called the KEC. Azuma-sensei came
down and walked into a class that was kicking off. One boy took a swing at
Azuma-sensei with a baseball bat he had for baseball club and Azuma-sensei
CAUGHT IT IN ONE HAND and smacked the kid down. I don't know what happened to
the rioting kids but every ALT in Kobe knows the azuma legend.)

The only Japanese you know is: ichi, ni, san -nensei, Kyoto/Koucho-sensei and
Ohaiyougozaimasu.
(I entirely sympathise)

You find yourself bowing while talking on the phone.
(I do this too)

You can`t eat lunch without an audience ("No I don`t use chopsticks to eat a
sandwich or a banana.")

You go to the toilet for a sleep.
(I have never done this but I gather that Dave does it a lot)

Students greet you in the corridor with "How are you I'm fine thank you and you,
ha ha ha ha hahaha haha!"
(Yes they do, damn textbooks!)

After an hour you realise that the only other person in the staff room is the
janitor. And he's sitting in the kyoto sensei's chair reading a newspaper."
(barely a week goes by without this happening to me)

You spend 5 minutes, with san-nensei, saying "No, what's the day...day...day...d- a-y. Not date. DAY. What's the day today? Today... what...is...the...day? Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday and ( ). Not the weather. You're 14,
not 40. Not date... not daTE. No T, just day----. Yes, it's Friday, well done!"

The warmth of your clothing depends on the temperature and not the date.

I know I'm an ALT because I get letters that begin "To Mr Dabit, I like
spaghetti. What J-pop do you listening at?"
(obviously just Dave but it makes me laugh)

The laminator is your bestest friend. And you slowly start to realize almost
any small flat thing you own is now laminated.
(I love my laminator. Without it some days I wouldn't have done any "work" at
all.)

You're the last one in the staffroom and you have no idea why.
(this happens everyday)

No one, not even the English teachers, understand what your saying.

You have no idea what your bills mean , but you pay them anyway.
(yup, when I remember)

You're the only one who thinks that insulation is a good idea.

You're the only one that wants to spend a few bucks and TURN UP THE DAMN
TEMPERATURE IN THE STAFF ROOM!

You don't own a pair of inside shoes.
(Japanese people usually have separate shoes to wear inside, I always forget to
bring mine and thus whenever an assembly is sprung on me my feet get cold as I
wander around in socks)

Kids notice you pass the classroom even if you creep by with ninja stealth.
(Entirely true, and yet if you sneak up behind them during break they never,
ever notice. Japanese people have ridiculously poor personal space perception.
It must be because the country is so crowded.)

Half the school is empty and the only hint as to why was given a two days ago
when someone said cryptically "Student make newspaper".

Suddenly all your classes are cancelled and nobody told you until an hour before
they were meant to start.
(thus meaning that frantic rush job you did to get the worksheets finished or
the extra you put in the night before WAS COMPLETELY POINTLESS!)

You are not allowed to use the photocopier in the staffroom without an audience.

You have set answers to the questions "what Japanese food do you like?"
and "where do you go in Japan?" that you can reel off in seconds.

You have a burning hatred for the man responsible for the phrase "dondakee"
despite never once seeing his TV show.

You are the only teacher whose desk is covered in art materials. Even the art
teacher has less coloured paper and pens than you.

You hear the bell ring but have no idea if it is time to teach your lesson or
not.

right, and that signals my bedtime over here so short and a bit in-jokey as it is that's your Thursday night post.

With poker-night and my recently arrived girlfriend the blog schedule is going to be in flux for the next few weeks. I'll probably decide on a new schedule once I know what Fran's schedule is going to be.

I do aim to try and actually increase the amount of posts per week too or at least get some better content than this last month.

See you next time.