Sunday in Shimokitazawa

Shimokitazawa, or "Shimokita" for short, is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Tokyo. It's a half-dozen stops west of busy Shibuya on the Keio Inokashira commuter train line, and totally worth a trip to look around. Heaps of college students, cheap restaurants, fashion-y stores and nightspots - on a human scale. (Natasha Caryl, whose husband was Newsweek's last correspondent here, took me there 2 years ago.)



I took Lucinda and Arno there on Sunday to see "Playmoland," which had a gazillion Playmobiles and other stuff.



Other curiosities from our day out: This restaurant sells fugu, or blowfish, which are poisonous unless you prepare them properly. There was a fish tank built into one corner of the building (just in front of Lucinda).



The Hana Donuts shop which, in addition to plain and cinnamon-sugar, sold a donut that maybe had basil or thyme in it?


And a pink Jaguar.


Very stylish.

Antique obi

One thing that distinguishes Tokyo from US and even European cities is that centuries-old traditions co-exist with modern life. That was certainly true in the Ningyocho neighborhood near the Imperial Palace, where traditional shops are mixed in with office buildings -- and where these ladies-who-lunch (above) were walking around in kimono, geta sandals and white socks.

My first stop (on a tour arranged by the Tokyo American Club) was a corner workshop where an artisan made lacquered, woven boxes for kimono and obi storage. This is the entire operation; the artisan, who was painting the inside of a box-top, sat on the floor and hung boxes on ceiling hooks to dry.


Most boxes had a symbol (like the chrysanthemum) or some Japanese kanji characters on them; I didn't have a chance to ask what anything meant, but here's a close-up view.


Next I spotted a store selling individually forged scissors and other sharp items.



Then we walked to a nondescript office building with kimono and obi for sale on the 2nd and 3rd floor. The variety was overwhelming, but I was drawn to the antique obi, which were defined as "at least 50 years old." They're quite heavy and embroidered on both sides with silk thread. I bought the one on the left, with flowers (chrysanthemum, cherry, others) and fans; hopefully not a completely ridiculous purchase.


Close-up view, below center. The saleswoman said it was probably a wedding obi. It's about 15 feet long - seems impossible to wrap and tie around a tiny Japanese woman. People drape them on decorative hangers for display.


There were also some "story obi," helpfully labeled in English with prices...



... and thousands of cheaper polyester kimono with pastel flowers. I wasn't too keen on them.



Odd Egyptian pattern.


And a strange boar statue to finish the day.

Mystery treats at the konbini

One of the games I play in Japan is "mystery treat": At the konbini (convenience store), I buy random things without knowing exactly what's in them. I search the label for English clues, decipher Japanese hiragana when I can (like finding the word oishi, which means "delicious"), look for color clues (among soy milk boxes, for example, I've learned that yellow is banana flavored, pink is strawberry, green is green tea), and buy it anyway.

Sometimes it works, like when I found green-tea flavored milk or honey-flavored milk with tapioca in it. Sometimes it doesn't, like when I bought ume (sour plums).

Tonight I found an unusual ice-cream treat at our local AM/PM konbini. The only English was "White Taiyaki," and because it was in the ice-cream freezer, it seemed logical to guess that it would be a fish-shaped ice-cream dessert.


This is what it looked like inside: a palm-sized fish, very lightweight. The outside layer was made of very thin, styrofoam-y, edible wafer material.


I've seen fish-shaped treats lately at the grocery store, which led me to believe there were greater cultural forces at work in the design. I was right... Wikipedia tells me that a taiyaki is taiyaki is a "fish-shaped cake" that is usually filled with azuki (red bean) paste. I think they must also be an expression of autumn, because the Japanese love seasonal variations in food. Here's the taiyaki from Wikipedia.


I'm not a huge fan of azuki because it can be thick and bland; today's other "mystery treat" was azuki-bean-flavored soy milk that I bought for Lucinda. Not a big hit. So I took a bite and...


Delightful! Inside the fish, there is vanilla ice cream and a thin layer of sweet red bean jam.


So delicious that after Blaine finished writing about the new Japanese prime minister, he rode his bike to the konbini to get one, too.

Weird science

The Japanese are the healthiest people on earth - but they do have some odd health-related ideas.

For example, the preschoolers at Arno's school gargle with water every time they return from the nearby public playground. Is it supposed to cleanse the throat of bacteria or viruses? I have a hard time believing it works.

Then there's the pinworm test. At Lucinda's school, students in grades 2-5 have several swim lessons at a pool in a nearby elementary school. But before they can swim, every student has to be tested for pinworms. Never mind that the US Centers for Disease Control website says, "It is unlikely that pinworm infections can be spread through the use of pools."

A pinworm test arrived in Lucinda's homework packet. It included a small envelope with this charming diagram. (Click on the pic for a close-up view.)


And inside, the 2-day test: 2 outside layers of clear tape, each with a bullseye, that you stick to a central layer of plastic after the procedure.


The school assures us that no Nishimachi student has ever tested positive, and we assume that Lucinda doesn't break that record.

Soup of the gods

For our Saturday date last night, in honor of the recession, Blaine and I spurned fancy restaurants for a cheap ramen shop under Shinagawa train station. These places are common near big stations because you can grab a meal quickly and sit by yourself. (This photo shows Blaine's $10 salt ramen with pork - very steamy!)

Underneath the trains, there's a long hallway filled with ramen places.


We chose Saijo restaurant, where we've been before, because there's English on the menu. The restaurant is enclosed in plastic sheeting all year round.


You use a vending machine by the front door to choose dishes and pay in advance.


The menu, with English titles, hangs above the vending machine - but the vending machine only has prices and names in Japanese. So we stand there looking stupid while we match the kanji characters to get the right dish.

My 900-yen ($9) miso ramen on the menu...


... and its button on the vending machine.


The machine prints out small white tickets, which you hand to a waitress and she hands to the cooks.


5-10 minutes later, your supper arrives. We ordered 2 bowls of ramen, a $5 plate of fried gyoza (potstickers) and a $5 draft beer. It's customary to loudly slurp your noodles as you inhale them, but we're not very good at it.



The well-considered extras on the table include (left to right) soy sauce, toothpicks, white pepper or red pepper for extra-spicy flavor, chopsticks, and tissues - because the soup really can make your nose run.


Ramen, soup of the gods.

Blaine's latest...

...is about the sudden reversal of North Korea's leadership succession from Kim Jong Il to his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, because Jong-Il's health might be better. In early summer, N Koreans were being taught a song about Jong-Un, but no longer. Interesting stuff.

Humming along

Lucinda is in her 3rd week of school and Arno is in his 2nd week, and it's a delight to see how they're both calm and happy about their surroundings at Nishimachi and Willowbrook.

Lucinda and several of her close friends have a wonderfully warm teacher, Ms. Greene, who has been nicely encouraging in math and reading from the start. Lucinda marched straight into class on Day 1, and Blaine and I can see her fresh confidence, sense of self, and comfort at school. It seems that 7-year-old girls know themselves pretty well.

Arno was disconcerted that his closest friends from last year all left for kindergarten (he's in a mixed-age 3-5 class). But he's making new friends - particularly those with a similar love of action figures - and already seems very pleased with his teachers. He's not reading yet - and I would love to see that happen this year - but he's become drawn, again, after a slow period, to making his own spaceships out of Legos.

Meanwhile, Lucinda has a new, energetic Japanese tutor (a teacher from Arno's school) and will participate in Nishimachi's afterschool ballet and "active games" (kickball, basketball, wiffleball, soccer) classes. Arno is again taking an afterschool art class. And we're inheriting a friend's okay-but-not-great piano; maybe we'll try piano lessons?

So much for underparenting?

Sights of Yokohama

Blaine was in Seoul over the weekend, so I took the children to Yokohama on Saturday to see what we could see. It turned out to be a very pleasant day trip.

We emerged from Yokohama's Sakuragicho train station to find the Yokohama Landmark Tower, which Wikipedia tells me is the tallest building (71 floors) in Japan, with the world's second fastest elevators!


At Yokohama Station, Bubby's restaurant; this satellite of the Tribeca favorite opened in June 2009.


The moving sidewalk (under a roof) that transports you probably more than a kilometer to see the sights.


The Nihon Maru, a four-masted sailing ship that was built in 1930 to train Japanese sailors.


On the Nihon Maru: the deck, rigging, and tiny bunks with privacy curtains.




Destination: World's largest ferris wheel, called Cosmo Clock 21. I dodged the endless drip-drip of yen for little rides along the way.



At the top of the ferris wheel, the views from our glass bubble: The next car, Yokohama Bay, a mini-golf course on the roof of a nearby building, the Hotel InterContintental.






For lunch, we went to the American House restaurant. Here's our waitress, the ketchup supply and our hotdogs, served with lettuce and onions in the bun and a dozen french fries.




Nutty sidewalk performer and the balloon hat he made for this little girl.



We took a water taxi from the Hotel Intercontinental to Yokohama's main train station. It's rare for us to be on the waterfront in Japan.


The boat lands near the huge Sogo dept store, which you walk through to get to the train station. We checked out the children's floor (8th floor), which had toys, spectacularly fancy clothes, and $25 bibs.




I'll leave you with this sign from the water-taxi pier, which sums up the public experience in Japan. Rule #3: "No annoying behavior for others."