Japan offers some exquisite culinary delights, only a fraction of which I've tried, but while there I sampled as much as I could, and found, amazingly, that everything, yes, every single thing, was extremely delicious. There were times, in izakaya for example, when the small dishes before me, containing what can only be described in broad innocence as 'fish' looked deliciously tempting...and give-in I did, with octopus and many other 'see-through' fish, which again were delicious. But a word of caution, as some years in Japan, up to 100 people die from the poison contained in the extremely toxic fish, Fugu.
Which brings me to drinks, in Japan it is easy to ask for water, Mizu, but one must remember that it's only a reference to 'cold water' and not water in general; for hot water one must say, Oyu, so as to avoid embarrassment.
Indeed, drinks in Japan, when visiting McDonald's are a size smaller than we may see in the UK or USA, and that is welcomed. The drink size in England, I find way too much, as half will suffice, so the Japanese size sits more comfortably in my size-conscious stomach which is prone to do a Maradonna after consuming soft drinks, which I find unpleasant at the best of times.
In some other 'fast-food' outlets, I noticed spaghetti with nattou, and pizza topped with squid, (which is apparently extremely popular in Japan, and again, delicious, though surprising.) It was at this time too, that I saw frog's legs on offer. I learnt to my great amazement, that Japan is the world's biggest exporter of this 'food'. There went myth number one. Curiously, frogs are considered a good luck symbol in Japan!!
It's also interesting to reflect that the Japanese stomach doesn't naturally warm to milk or dairy products as much as the western stomach, due to it's isolation in the past, and thus creating a nation of very healthy people, reliant on fish, and reaching considerable age. However, price-wise, I was shocked to see many foods were cheaper than in England, but some watermelons, (admittedly special varieties), were selling for the equivalent of 80-85 pounds. I passed on those.
As for my homestay lodgings, which were fantastic, located in Chiba-ken, with a delightful host family. I was given instruction on the bathroom routine, as the toilet is never in a Japanese bathroom. And the bath is never used for cleaning yourself. This routine I came to love, because the piping hot water was beneficial, the bath tub soaking relaxing, and beer offered directly afterwards! It seems strange? Well, in England it seems strange, but in Japan somehow seems highly appropriate. (Never more than one beer, but that was excellent for sleep.) However, the one which I appreciated the most was green tea after every meal, tasting like a drink that wants to help, and assuredly does, this is Japan's national drink.
The toilet has it's own slippers, unique to this private room. My host family all used the same pink ones.
Rooms are all suitably placed within the house, and have a specific function, mine was the guest room, and the doors, lights, tv, heating were all operated from one battery-controlled remote control. I thought one night, after waking at around 2am, 'what if the batteries die? will they bring me too?'
From homes to streets, and attempting to find my friends lodgings in Kyoto was, as I have previously mentioned on this blog, an adventure and a half...the streets have no names. Furthermore, I learnt from my friend, driving me, that from one prefecture to another, it cannot be assumed that a Japanese can read the kanji of the place names in another. Oh!! Another myth of mine shattered. Therefore, finding one address in a city of millions, was a lottery.
Eventually my friends home was located, by chance and thanks to my Tokyo friend's driving skill, we rested at the old-style house, situated near the famous hills and mountains that surround Kyoto. They took me to some hot springs, near dormant volcanoes, of which there are an amazing 40 still active in Japan!! In addition to this, is a little-known fact that Japan is made up of 6000 islands. When asked the question, "How many islands make up Japan?", I answered 'two dozen or so' which was way off the mark, though I later learned and never imagined that the true figure ran into many thousands.
You may have seen the heavy snowfalls in Japan this past week, one of which seems to have caused the train crash in the north-west part of Honshuu, which is actually quite accustomed to snow. Coming from Norwich, which has the world's foremost Climatic Research Unit within the university, I was understandably interested in Japanese climate, beginning with my interest and study of meteorology and climatology many years ago...and it's an interesting link, because as a nation, Japan is the leader in climatic research, though Norwich has the leading unit. These are interesting facts! Japan and climate go together.
My time in Japan was taken up, enjoyably, with teaching and travelling, and nobody told me beforehand, that the students remained in the same classroom all day, and it was me, the teacher who stumbled from classroom to classroom through the day! This I found more tiring than the 12-hour flight, because my classrooms were mostly situated in different buildings, different streets, even different towns, necessitating a train journey at break-neck speed between lessons.
While there, my friend's had their birthday's, of course, and again some cultural learning fell upon me; namely that Japanese children all celebrated their birthday's on the first of January in the past, no matter when their real birthdate fell. So January the first must have been extremely eventful right across the country, and I wondered, in such a situation, who invited who to their birthday party??