Lunch Time at Matsuya / Rice Bowls

So where do I go for lunch, you say? When I first started working, I imagined that I might have enough energy to cook during the evening, bring in rice and some okazu and zap it in the company microwave, just as I had done at my last workplace. How wrong I was! Not to mention, no kitchen in my office!

Akasaka (the general area where I work) has no dearth of restaurants in all price ranges, and all kinds of cuisines, including French, Turkish, Chinese, and Korean within walking distance of my office. But most of the time I end up eating at the restaurant pictured below.

It's like Yoshinoya, famous for its sliced stewed beef bowls, but (better than Yoshinoya) even the simple rice dishes come with miso soup: always a nice plus and filling too.

Matsuya's are slightly more expensive than Yoshinoya, but the taste is much better (especially the sliced pork bowls, which are made with -- I kid you not -- pork produced in Denmark). (Further irony: some of the waitresses are Chinese, you can tell by the accent and their name tags.)

When I get tired of eating regular-flavored sliced pork bowls (330 yen) I sometimes splurge on the BiBimDon bowls which are pork with green onions and kimchee sauce smothered on the top, for a slightly different taste sensation.


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LINK

Matsuya Home Page click here.

Cheap Sweets in Shinjuku Station

On my way from futsal on Saturday I passed through Shinjuku station transferring from JR (trains) to the local metro line. Near the Marunouchi line entrance is a peculiar shop selling desserts for 105 and 150 yen. Impossible, you say? But there it was, puddings and mousses and chiffon cakes for 105, cheesecakes for maybe about 150 yen ... amazing that they can make ends meet on that, but perhaps the volumes that they sell are just phenomenal.

I bought a coffee mousse (105yen) and a baked cheesecake for 150 yen. Not the best that I've made, but it was fine for breakfast the next day.

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LINKS

None for the store itself, but if you search google using the keywords "105" and "メイプリーズ" then it will take you to several people's blogs. A cake cheaper than a Coke from the vending machine? Unbelievable.

Eating my words - Beaujolais

I broke down and spent almost 2000 yen on a bottle of Beaujolais at my local supermarket. A friend of mine said to me, Beaujolais really isn't about the wine, it's about celebrating the harvest and the promise of good wine in the future.

At the supermarket they were giving out wine glasses with a purchase of a bottle and I think I will probably try to enjoy it this weekend, while the wine is "fresh" (air flown from France in time for the third Thursday). Unlike the Bordeauxs which I usually drink, apparently it's OK to drink this wine chilled. Given that the temperature in my room is about 10C, I at least won't have to put it in the fridge ...

Futsal - Part 2

This past Saturday was the second time I played futsal, or soccer on a handball-sized court, and like the week before I was so winded after the first two matches I thought I wouldn't make it through the evening. Fortunately with three teams there we were able to rotate and take short breaks -- the games lasting about 7 minutes each.

I realized why the game is so hard: unlike real soccer, where half the game is just standing around waiting for the ball to come your way, in futsal you have to chase after the ball and then be quick enough to get back to your side to play defense when the other team makes a quick break. In this sense it's probably closer to field hockey, or even basketball in terms of demands on stamina. But since it's equally compact, the game goes much faster and more intensely than traditional soccer.

Too bad that this time I didn't score, but I did set up one goal with a fantastic assist -- a pass down the center corridor right to my teammate waiting up at the other end.

Here's a couple of terrible pictures of the futsal courts (outside, on astroturf covered payment). But I hope you can a feel for the atmosphere.

Beaujolais Nouveau: A Luxury Good?

At the prices it commands, one would be hard-pressed not to believe that Beaujolais Nouveau was a fine week, up there with the 2nd or 3rd tier Bordeaux wines. While lower-grade Bordeaux wines can go for as little as a 1000 yen (6 EUR), Beaujolais was selling at a local liquor shop for 3300 yen, or about 20 EUR at current exchange rates.

This in spite of the fact that Beaujolais can be drunk for about 3-5EUR in France even at the moment of it's release, the third Thursday in November. The high price reflects the air freight costs required to have the bottles ready in hand for those who want to be among the first (after Australia, perhaps?) to taste Beaujolais.

Needless to say, I held back (still on a budget) and am making do with vin de table from central France. Just one year ago, I remember the crowds celebrating the coming of Beaujolais until late in the evening -- 1, or 2 AM, in the courtyard just below my apartment. No such sounds tonight ... in my neighborhood, people are probably already fast asleep, or will wait until the surface (sea) shipments of Beaujolais (at about 10 EUR a bottle) arrive ...

JapanPost: they're definitely stricter in the cities

I registered last week for an Internet banking account, and the company sent me its application form ... but I received it neither last week nor this week (even after the company resent it on Monday morning). After I called the bank earlier, they explained the reason for the non-delivery: nobody by this name at that address.

What?

Come to think of it, wanting to maintain my privacy, I haven't written my name on my mailbox. That is in some ways, just inviting identity theft. (Feeling a little paranoid with the mail not arriving, I bought a lock to keep prying hands out of the mailbox ...) But it seems that banks and especially credit card companies are wary of their application forms falling into the wrong hands, and have Japan Post on their side, willing to send back mail if they are not able to positively identify the owner of the mailbox.

It was never this way when I was living out in the countryside. Everyone in the central post office knew who I was and where I lived, and somehow mail always found its way to my house. Not to mention, sometimes I would be stopped in the street -- "you got a package, come and pick it up when you have a moment!" Those days are gone, and everyone trusts no one.

So I scrawled my name on a piece of strapping tape (a small piece, to make it rather unnoticeable) and slapped it on the mailbox. Hope that this time the mailman will see fit to deliver the bank account materials!

Flu Shot: One ounce of prevention -- five seconds of torture

Yesterday, my company sponsored flu shots, and I decided to take advantage of this offer. Some of my colleagues remain apprehensive about getting the shots (one of them evidently got a real bad cold right after getting the shot last year), but I thought it best to buffer up my immune system ahead of the long flu season. It's not quite cold yet but I expect the dry overheated buildings to start taking its toll mid-January. So a good time to build up the anti-virus while it's still warm. And besides since I take the metro every day, in cramped quarters, I know that I'll be face-to-face (no pun intended) regularly with the flu virus. I've even given thought to wearing a mask to protect myself from sick people on the train.

So I went to get the shot. They made each of us fill out a form waiving all right to an attorney ... nah, but it did list certian disclaimers about how some times the flu shots led to illness or other side effects, and so on. Understandable, since you are injecting foreign bodies into your system and each person's reaction should be different.

Before they gave me the shot, they took the temperature, not with an underarm or oral thermometer, but with a space-age device straight out of Star Trek and Dr. McCoy. They scanned my forehead with a light scanner and bingo! 36.1 degrees Celsius. Slightly below the average human, but still within range ...

After that, they administered the shot, and in five seconds it was all over. I felt the needle go in and especially when it came out. They advised us not to scrub the area when taking a shower, and asked us to refrain from drinking and exercising (not sure why). If anyone knows, please let me know ...!

SPAM o-musubi

Just a throwaway post, but I got a kick out of this sign as I was walking up towards JR Nakano station the other day. Of all things, it's a banner for Spam o-musubi. Quite incredible that a meat designed by Hormel in the midwest could become a staple in Hawaii and then make it over to Japan in the form of a SPAM riceball.

Strings Hotel Tokyo - Shinagawa

Although most of the action is concentrated on the west side of Shinagawa station, where the Prince hotels and entertainment complex is situated (there are theaters, shops, restaurants, and even a row of ramen restaurants underneath the Shinagawa train tracks), my family recently had the good fortune to stay on the "other side of the tracks," on the east side of Shinagawa (technically, 港南 konan, or "southern portside") which has been transformed over the last, I don't know for sure, maybe ten years into a row of office buildings and a convention center like building (where I had seen a Pompei exhibition quite a long time ago). This was only the second or third time that I had been on the other side of Shinagawa (the Shinagawa station is so huge it takes 5 minutes to walk across) and so for me, too, it was a real discovery.

To have a luxury hotel so easily accessible is a treat: the Four Seasons is a beautiful hotel but like the Sheraton Miyako, nigh inaccesible without a car. More recently opened first-class hotels have chosen much better locations: the Peninsula, near the Teikoku hotel over in Yurakucho; the Ritz Carlton, just a few minutes from Roppongi station and smack dab center in one of the newest spots, Roppongi MidTown; and the Conrad hotel, just minutes from Shiodome/Shinbashi stations.

Here are photos of the room and the view of Shinagawa down below. As the hotel begins on the 26th floor of the building it occupies, you have a tremendous view of down below. And it is like an oasis in the middle of Tokyo. You literally walk into a different space the moment you step out of the elevator ...

Wireless in Japan: Who to Choose?

As wired as Japan is, I still had trouble finding out how to connect to WiFi near where I work, in central Tokyo. For a long time I had seen posters for NTT-related WiFi services (as the national phone operator of course they have had a headstart in setting up the antennas in the areas that they service, which include office buildings and metro stations and JR train stations), but I wasn't really interested in paying the 900 yen ($9 or so) fees each month for service that I probably wasn't going to use more than three-five times a month.

Livedoor, run by the flamboyant Horie, had had ambitious plans for a Tokyo-wide wireless network, but after Horie's arrest the money dried up and they have had problems expanding their network. I had considered signing up with them, since they only charged 500 yen or so a month, but the lack of access points and the initial sign-up fee of 1050 yen made me hesitate.

By chance, I came across Yahoo BB's wireless network which is in several main JR stations and airports, and also in (get this) McDonald's all throughout Japan. They even have a BB point in the McDo near where I live. Better still, the reduced subscription fee is only 200 yen a month plus tax, which makes more sense for me because I use the internet at home and really would realistically use the Internet outside my home maybe a few times at most a month. The times, for example, I'm travelling inside Japan, or when I need to pack the computer to check or send a last-minute e-mail.

I signed up online and was sent an ESS-ID and WEP Key (these are related to limiting access to the wireless network). The next way I plugged these in and logged in using a user name and password I made up myself, and .... bingo, I was in! There's a McDonald's about a five minute walk from my office, and another one just 2 minutes away, so for last minute reservations or even Skype (gotta try that next), I think this will work really well. Yes, I think Skype will be useful because of the time difference with France or Hawaii -- I could call in the middle of the day during my lunch break. After having a quick meal at the Matsuya (a Yoshinoya-like chain serving beef and rice bowls) next door ...

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For more info, click on the links below

Yahoo BB (Yahoo Wireless) (in Japanese)

in English, (info looks a little bit old) click here

Busy week continues, but no overly long nights

Second week into 1H results announcements for many Japanese corporations, but there was nothing like Halloween (31 Oct) when there were so many reports by analysts that had to translated into English and out the door before the next morning. There were two big days this week (the 6th and the 8th) but fortunately there was enough "capacity" (this is the term that they often use: they'll ask a translator: 'how much capacity do you have today? can you do a short one? or would you be able to do a (longer) one?') to cover the large number of reports still coming in at a regular pace.

This week I found myself settled into the role of a relief pitcher, the middle reliever who sets up for the closer. Right from about early evening it gets busy, and until the other translators based in Europe (and then later in the night, the US) come online (translators, you see, wait by their computers for translation offers to come in), there's a spread of two hours or so where if reports outnumber translators, then they start scrambling. And that's where I sort of come in. So far, I've been asked to take the shorter translations, short brief passages, but even then it takes me a good 45-60 minutes to translate it and put it into the desktop publishing template for publishing over the Internet. By taking the smaller jobs, I free up "capacity" and they can interest people with larger, meatier jobs (which of course means more work but more money at the end of the day).

I would like to take the plunge sometime and translate a larger article, but I don't know if I'll get the chance. I'm still settling into my dual role as editor/translator; half of my colleagues prefer to use me as an editor, the other half wants to use my translation skills. Either way I'm happy to be of service, just so long as they entrust me with some kind of work ...!

Lunch with the family -- French food in Ginza

I'm going to rewind the tapes a bit to up load some of the photos from a meal my family and I shared at Paul Bocuse's Ginza bistro in the new Marronier Gate building. It's not exactly run by Bocuse himself (I believe it's a joint venture of sorts with an entrepreneur-chef named Hiramatsu who has several restaurants in Tokyo bearing his name and at all tiers of the budget (2000-20,000!).

The food was not nearly as exciting as at Pierre Gagnaire or Robuchon, but the cost-performance (as we say in Japanese) was quite good. For 3500 yen (tax, tip included) we had an entree, fish, meat, and dessert (creme brulee), not large portions like you get in Lyon bouchons but mysteriously enough to hold us over for five-six hours until dinner.

Here's some photos from the meal.

Friday - Tough Day for the Transport Networks

Last week, it was a pretty dismal week for the public transport networks. I think there were maybe three accidents involving humans during the whole day, on various metro and JR train lines, which means (above all things) that trains get delayed, people get antsy, and tempers flare.

I can't remember a day like this when three times during the day, they've announced unexpected delays because of these accidents.

Some of the stations have been taking precautions to reduce the number of accidents, putting in barriers that open only when the train enters the terminals, much as they do with the Tube up in London. In fact some of the newer terminals on the Nanboku line running north/south have the same kind of space age, plexiglass doors that open up onto the train (they have similar terminals like this up in Kyoto).

In any case, I hope they get more of these barriers up. I know it sounds like we're protecting people from themselves, but in a crazy city like this, sometimes you do need that sort of extra precaution.

Graveyard Shift has its Perks

Yesterday (Halloween) I worked until close to midnight. I made sure to leave before then (in order to make sure I had a metro back to my area), but there were so many reports to translate, they kept coming and I wanted to support one of my colleagues there who was scheduled to be there from 4pm to 12 midnight but who ended up being there until 2AM!

I ended up having three brief passages to translate from Japanese into English. Unfortunately, these texts are not simple letters, greetings, or similar material. On the contrary, they're quite dense and (though it may be hard to believe) wordy in Japanese. And considering that each Japanese character in term generates somewhere around 2.5 English words even a short passage will take some time to translate. But I still relish the chance to cut my teeth during these times, under time pressure and with fatigue weighing on me.

One bright spot, as I noted in a previous entry, is that the firm has seen fit to give us bentos or box dinners during the busy results period. Given that some analysts and their staff are in there way past midnight (yes!), this is a small, yet meaningful gesture to show that they are appreciated. I enjoy working the late shift because that means taking part in the daily feast ....

So far we've had Pizza hut pizza, burgers (twice; see photo), and also traditional bentos, some of which are actually quite delicious. Today's burger was an avocado-filled burger with a side salad, and used organic beef. A small luxury but I am extremely grateful, and am translating between bites ...