Shack Attack

American Night: Beef and Potatoes

Tasty times at the Koyama house tonight. We had my older sister and her husband over, and to mark the occasion, my host mom served up mashed potatoes, garlic bread, and the most delicious, melt-in-your mouth stewed beef.

Takeshi (my host sister's husband) at the computer, dad running around doing stuff. He and I were trying to resize the family computer's hard drive partitions, but qparted kept telling us it was going to delete everything on there.

Mashed potatoes just begging to be eaten. Mom subbed some cream in in place of the butter, which made for a beautiful texture.

Beef marinated in a stew of soy sauce, a dash of sugar, spices, and the secret ingredient: black beer. We used the french break to scoop up every last bit of it on our plates; it would be a shame to let any of the tangy, wonderful flavor go to waste.

Happy Birthday, Dad

    Today was my host dad's birthday, and my host mom brought home sushi to celebrate. It came from the local sushi shop we went to for my older sister's birthday, a tiny restaurant run by a reticent-but-warm sushi chef and his wife, the most adorable woman in the world (um, except you, birth mom). It's hard to explain why, but she's got a voice, face, and manner that twinkle in a way that make you forget all the pain and suffering in the world, and stuff your face with delicious raw fish. I compared notes with my friend Sam, who stayed with this family a few years back, and he had exactly the same impression.

The story of tonight's dinner is probably better told in photos then words:

Sitting down for dinner. I came home at 8:30 or so, after a Waseda Business Association meeting, and instead of the waiting-to-be-warmed dinner I usually run into when I arrive late, I was welcomed with the most epic sushi spread I've ever seen. Note my host dad at left; he has a very low ratio of smiles-to-awesomeness.

The absolutely fantastic spread. Unagi, maguro, yaki-tamago, ebi, a few sorts of maki, ika, and probably some others in there I missed.

Akami, which is what we usually think of as "Maguro" in the states. Maguro is usually split into akami, chuu-toro, and o-toro here (for Japanese learners, that's 大とろ and 中とろ), which describe which part of the tuna the cut comes from. I was a diehard sake (salmon) fan for a while, but in the last year or so, maguro's become my sushi of choice. The Akami above is the leanest cut of maguro, but it's still delicious.

Toro (didn't quite fit into 大 or 中, because it was from a different sort of tuna) a fattier cut from the stomach of the tuna. It melts in your mouth, but it's hard (and probably not too healthy) to eat a large amount of it.

Unagi (eel). I never tried it as a child, because the idea grossed me out, but once I did I realized that it's like the most moist, succulent chicken you've ever eaten, barbecued in a sweet, tangy sauce o' wonderful (unlike most nigiri, unagi isn't served raw).

Ebi (shrimp). Like salmon, this was a staple of my early years, but I've grown to like the other sorts of sushi more in the last year or two. That said, the giant prawns on the perfectly-formed mounds of sticky rice tonight were sublime.

As usual, there's a full set of photos up at Flickr.

In other news, a bunch of friends from Lewis and Clark are coming for winter break, which is really exciting. We'll be getting together with the Waseda kids who exchanged at Lewis and Clark for the past few years, and making a party of it.   

Also, if you're a sushi fan, or just a little curious about this odd tiny-raw-fish subculture, The Sushi FAQ is a spectacular resource.

What's a Week in Japan?

I've gotten this question a few times from folks at home, so I figured I'd lay out what a typical week in my life looks like:

-Sunday: Catch up on the homework I didn't do over the weekend, occasionally go out for a mellow outing.

-Monday: Internship. Out to Akasaka to work at Six Apart Tokyo. I was just doing afternoons for awhile, but starting this week, I'll be going to the all-company meeting in the morning (mostly for my own edification), and running a little English conversation circle during lunch, so it will turn into an all-day thing.

-Tuesday-Thursday: Classes, classes, classes. Go to school, come home, eat my host mother's delicious cooking, and stay up too late on the Internet (actually, that last part applies any day of the week). Thursday night is absolute hell, because it's followed by a kanji (japanese pictograph characters) test at 9am the next day. Also, I telecommute into my internship Thursday morning, sitting in on a little chat meeting between the Tokyo and San Francisco IT teams and translating where they need it.

-Friday: Classes in the morning, quick trip home (or an hour trip home, rather) for a shower, and some sort of drinking event.

-Saturday: Much like Friday, with a jog and a little homework replacing the classes. Between Friday, Saturday, and the weekdays, I usually make it out about twice, with the standard event being your typical izakaya (traditional sit-down bar/restaurant place) party at Takadanobaba (高田馬場), the college-priced district a short walk from school.

This changes occasionally, depending on schoolwork and various invites, but life usually works out to about 5 days of studying and 2 of goofing off, producing a pretty stable budget, grades, and health level. I can easily tell that I could make life a lot easier by cutting back or not working on my Japanese classes, or much harder by increasing them. The English language classes are a joke; I think I could probably (and likely will) toss in another few credits next semester, as they take barely any work. If you're thinking about coming to Waseda, also be aware that how much time Japanese takes depends on your level and teacher; I've heard that the lower ones (I'm in 5A at the moment) tend to produce less work, but that it varies by teacher.

If you're trying to reach me by phone, the best times (translated into PST) would be Tuesday or Wednesday evening. These are my late mornings at the house, so I'm usually in a good space to chat. That said, feel free to email me if you want to talk, and I'll make time for ya.

Beaujolais Nouveau

You know you've got a good host family when, right when you're about to start studying, your dad calls you downstairs with 「ワイン、飲む？ (Want to drink wine?)」. The third Thursday in November is the traditional date for the release of Beaujolais Nouveau , a red wine fermented for a very short period of time and air-shipped from Beaujois, France, around the world, and consumed soon after. The Japanese go crazy over it (it was on the news yesterday, apparently) because our time zone lets us be the first to get and drink it. I knew little about this particular tradition before my host dad called me to drink, but with the Beaujois in my veins, and feeling like I'd rather not study, I did a little reading about it. Slate magazine thinks the event is a marketing scam, laments the damage the hype has done to other types of Beaujolais, and calls Nouveau the cheapest, simplest variety out there; if you're into wine, the article is worth a read.

Overhyped or no, though, I liked the wine pretty well. It wasn't too complex- light and fruity, less tannins than a real red but more than a white- but it was tasty all the same, and I found the ritual of it amusing.

Pouring

This label thinks it's so cool because it's in French

Kanpai!

Surprisingly delcious cheese crackers.

My host sister, Kana

My host dad. I swear he almost smiled a second before this was taken.

I'm fairly sure my birth mother is more worried than she voices about being replaced by this very kind woman, and I'm not sure those worries are groundless (just kidding, mom).

Pictures link to the flickr album; slideshow here.