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Published: December 12th 2007
Pancakes
This was my favorite Japanese pancake, it was sooo good, my mouth is watering just thinking about it. Whoa, time is flying by, I've been here for over two months now and I can barely believe it. I just got my second paycheck and I'm super pumped about that. My coworkers and I have now made it a tradition to go out for a culture food event every two weeks. I wanted to do it every week but apparently its too fattening. Which brings me to another point. Everyone in Japan is super skinny... they have messed up view points of body image. The people that they call fat are not actually fat. I'm average size, I should be skinny... and most of the girls who would be skinny by North American standards think they're fat and are usually on diets. Its crazy.
Anyways, the last thing that we went out for were these Japanese pancakes. Which really aren't pancakes at all, only in similar in shape. But they are so good. They're more of a lunch food and definitely not sweet. I wanted to bring some maple syrup and they said it wouldn't be a good idea. I don't think they understand how good Canadian maple syrup is. I don't think i really did until Guillaume introduced
Pancakes
Just a note, these pancakes aren't sweet. I wanted to bring some Canadian Maple syrup and put it on the pancakes, but they said it wouldn't be good. I still insist that Canadian maple syrup is good on anything... they just don't understand. me to real maple syrup. So in these pancakes they put all sorts of stuff in them: eggs, lettuce, meat, seafood (they put seafood on everything), noodles, onions and other crazy vegetables. It was so good. They also have this sauce called sauce and that took me about 5 mins to figure out cause I kept asking what type of sauce and they kept saying its sauce... and me being the understanding English teacher that I am.. i merely thought that they didn't understand what I meant by type, so I'd ask the question again and emphasize type: What TYPE of sauce is it... its sauce.... keep in mind that these are Japanese girls that have studied English for four years in University and studied English in North America.. so their English is fantastic and I'd rather assume that they didn't know what type was.. rather than me not understanding that the name is sauce... yeah, sometimes I'm a little full of myself... Anyways, watch the video of them being made.. they're so good
On another crazy awesome note, I've finally made my own sushi. Its was amazing. so good... I was the only one who had it so
Pancakes
Japanese people, as far as I can tell, are really big into the buying food and everyone shares... the problem is that I eat really fast and then end up eating too much, I blame Rainer for this fault. Rainer you owe my Japanese friends some food. I'm not sure how it would rate by Japanese standards.. but really how wrong can you go. its rice, seaweed and raw fish. Like I saw my boss do when she made sushi for me, I wanted to put vinegar in the rice to make it not sticky... so I went to the grocery store to look for vinegar... needless to say I didn't look up what vinegar was in Japanese before going and I ended up in an area with bottles of clear/yellowish liquids that might be vinegar.. I probably stood there for about 5 mins trying to see if maybe one of them would pop out and I'd magically know which one it was.. that didn't work so well so I had to resort to other measures... which was smelling the bottles... most of them barely smelt at all so it was kinda hard.. but my keen nose picked up what I thought was the right one... turns out I was right... but at what cost. I've begun to reply on the fact that my skin is a totally different colour here and it means I can do stupid things... When i finally found the bottle I thanked
Pancakes
This one was good too.. the sauce they put on top is sooo good. They also have another sauce called "sauce" its kinda weird, it took me about 5 mins to figure out that it was just called sauce and they weren't just being jerks to me. god that no one came down the aisle and saw what I was doing.. i now realize that the people that walked by the aisle quickly saw me smelling bottles and didn't want anything to do with a foreigner who was smelling bottles so they passed by... Sometimes I don't realize how much I embarrass myself (in actual fact I was a little proud of myself for coming up with the ingenious idea of smelling the bottles). It really makes you wonder what else I've done that I either think I've gotten away with or just don't realize is weird to Japanese people. But on a slightly better note.. I think they sorta expect it from me and most other foreigners.
We went for karaoke again, I was amazing, the other people were alright... not really sure what else to say about it... my coworker, Brandon, introduced me into mixing saki and beer.. which is amazing. but other than that the only highlights were me singing backstreet boys and I will survive (which may or may not have pulled on a few of my heart strings... or not.. who knows. Just after that song, I had to go to
Pancakes
Part of the crew going to get Japanese style Pancakes the washroom.. not to get a tissue.. I just had to go... whatever... I'm just a very emotional singer.. leave me alone!)
My Japanese class is going great.. I still don't feel comfortable in Japanese but I can understand a few words in sentences now... The shitty thing about Japanese is that when giving commands like: do that... do this or go here and what not... it is grammatically correct to put please at the end of the sentence. You're not supposed leave it off or else people won't understand what you're saying... How shitty is that.. how are you supposed to mean, threatening or rude if you have to say please at the end of a command you just gave. Japanese people have a lot of learn about being mean...
Last weekend, a couple of the Japanese staff were going down to Tokyo for a training session. The husband of my boss was going to drive them down there and they invited me along and he offered to show me around for the day. How could i refuse? a free trip around Tokyo. So the trip down was long, but good, most of Japan's trees are not
Pancakes
Enjoying my Japanese Pancakes evergreens so they're all changing colours right now and its beautiful. After dropping the ladies off at the training session we were off. He wanted to take me to a sumo museum but when we got there it was closed... I cried a little on the inside. So we went to this other museum. It was great cause there was lots of stuff to see. For instance.. the live music that I posted in a video and all the other pictures.. .not really sure what else to say... I'd like to say that I'm maturing and before coming to this museum I finally thought that I'd hit the point where i could enjoy a museum without rushing through it... oh how wrong was I.. its great and all.. but when describing history most museums tend to lean towards the uninteresting parts of history... when talking about a building.. they talk about the structure and how it was built... I want to hear about the juicy stories that happened.. for instance: In this building is where the emperor had his first orgy. It was awkward because he didn't really know what he was doing and no body else wanted to show
Sushi
This is my Sushi that I made! him up so it was really just 20 people acting like it was there first orgy.. Then the Emperor beheaded this chick for laughing at the size of his penis... thats when the party got started... nows that information I'd pay to hear. I'd probably read all the information signs... actually I'd look forward to the information signs.. screw the model of the building they built. I should totally work for a museum and write facts about their exhibits. PS the signs they had were translated into English.. but the person they got to do that must have taken great pleasure in making it as boring as possible.. needless to say I'm no more mature when it comes to museums then before.
My amazing guide then took me to Asakusa and I got to this the largest Japanese lantern in the world.. .it was great... then I got bored... and we walked around.. Theres this long shopping road right behind it, which has many souvenirs and food vendors... it was great.. but I was too cheap to even consider buying anything. At the end of this road there this temple and some other stuff... so we went up to
Sushi
Step 1: put rice on seaweed paper. the temple and there was this place where you can through money to get your wish to come true.. I wasn't sure how much to through.. so as you can guess... I stood there for a while trying to figure out how much a wish is worth... 1 yen.. maybe 100 yen (about 1 dollar) or maybe 500 yen... (these are all coins.. ) I mean how much is a 100 yen if your wish does come true... thats pretty good deal.. as you can guess I settled for 1 yen... and consequently... my wish has not come true.. yet... yet (I'm still confident)! Later that night when the girls were there, we went back to the area and got our fortune told. I of course got the best fortune one could ask for. It basically told me that all my dreams would come true.. that I have many talents and that even the people in the capital would know of my talents in the future.. I'm pretty much going to have an amazing life. One of the Japanese teachers got the exact opposite of me, she was sad.. I totally should have taken a picture.. dammit...
Then we
Sushi
Step 2: Place raw fish on rice went for Japanese food. We had this stuff that was kinda weird. Its these vegetables and meat and other stuff mixed together... then fried on your table's frying pan and then mixed with this liquid... not sure what it is.. looks like eggs and flour and other spices. Then when its mixed into a nice paste... you take your metal spoon.. take a small section of the paste and press it against the frying pan to cook it more. Once it sticks to your spoon you can eat it... Its a lot harder then it sounds.. I burnt myself several times... But it was good.. not as good as the pancakes though. i don't think you realize how good the pancakes were... sooo delicious. Then we drove home and I tried melon ice cream.. it was alright.
On a side note... I miss being my full sarcastic self and I've started to dream in sarcasm... its kinda scary, funny and great at the same time.. the first time it happened I woke up confused... i dont' remember the dream now, but it was great.
As a follow up to the seat belt thing I mentioned earlier... its only
Sushi
Step 3: Wrap Sushi and enjoy with Wasabi and Soya Sauce when you're sitting in the back seats of the car that you don't have to wear your seat belts... so whenever I ride in the back seat of the car.. I always put on my seat belt and they make fun of me... I shake it off.. but I'm a little hurt. But honestly.. if you don't' need them then why do they put them in there... there is something terribly flawed with this Japanese logic.
Anyways.. this is getting long, so I'll leave you be and I hope you enjoy the pictures.
Cheers
Geoff
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JulZ
non-member comment
pancakes look good!
How many did you actually eat? I bet you stuffed your face... The food does look delicious. I want to test your karaoke abilities once you come back! I'm challenging you to a Karaoke battle. News: You're not missing much over here: lots of snow (compared to the last 5 yrs)... exams started last Friday... news... I'm running for VP Communications of the SFUO ... and I live above the Royal Oak on Laurier! ... but of course I told you that already.