JAPAN

TEMPTATION




If Blogger hadn’t given me the gift of direct photo posting, I would not have spent the first hours of the night-morning today learning the easy steps of uploading pictures from my camera.

Therefore I would have eaten breakfast before heading off to do a two hour presentation at the University. And I would have not had to run in the rain to make it on time. And afterwards, I perhaps would have also gone to the basement food halls of the department store (Japan ostensibly has three acclaimed “wonders,” one which I will actually see tomorrow, but I would add a fourth: the department store food halls—they are amazing!), but I would not have lusted hungrily after all that was being offered and I would not have searched out the free samples [I don’t like to eat my way through these when I have no intention of buying, though I would have loved to pick up a bag of the pickled eggplant (see photo below), but as I explained to the clerk (and I am sure she understood not a word), I was at a hotel where the minibar wouldn’t have held a kilo of pickled anything].

I remember when I first visited a food hall in Japan. There, and actually anywhere that something was being sold, clerks called out a friendly greeting, with big grins on their faces: “Irrashaimase!” You hear this everywhere and after a while you long to reciprocate. After some days had passed and I thought I had the pronunciation down pat, I would return the favor. “Irrashaimase to you too!” I would say.

It wasn’t until much later that I learned that what they were saying was “welcome!” (as in: come over and buy from us). Blunder along, that’s me alright.


Not to get carried away with visuals, but I can’t resist a few from this morning’s visit to the halls of culinary delight.

JAPAN

IMPATIENCE…


[image of Sapporo late last evening]

I’ve taken to running in Sapporo. I can’t help it –it’s because of the lights. If I walk at a brisk pace down the street, the green crossing lights are completely out of sync with me and so at almost every corner I am forced to stop and wait. And wait. Any red light here is like Madison’s worst nightmare intersection in terms of stopping time: each turning lane has it’s own green light and so you, the pedestrian, need to wait until all permutations have been exhausted. Thus, when I am walking along and I see up ahead that there is a green crossing light, I run to make it. This is yet another one of those transgressions that make me appear odd and foreign, but I can’t seem to help myself. Green light ahead? Run!

…AND GREED

Last night (that would be Tuesday for me) I sought out a place for dinner that I had noted earlier while leafing through the Lonely Planet guide to Japan. It was a simple place, with counter service and a few tables, but what had especially caught my eye was the reference to the use of fresh Hokkaido ingredients. Anyone who knows me would smile in patient (I hope) amusement: it has long been true that if the food is described as fresh and local, I’ll want to try it!

I had a hard time finding this place. The book referred to it as “Uoya Itcho,” but clearly the authors read and speak Japanese because nowhere on the outside, nor inside, is there a single letter of the western alphabet. And no one speaks any English – or they do a good job of feigning ignorance when asked. But I did finally corner a few random people to inquire if this was “Uoya Itcho” and though people here always appear to be agreeing with you even if you are dead wrong, something in the vigor of the “hai’s” and the nodding of the heads convinced me that this was indeed the place.


It was crowded, but I was given a comfortable spot at the counter and a menu to make my selections. Thank God for those photos on the menu!


As this was my first authentic Japanese meal (the others had elements of Japanese food, true, but this had the potential to fulfill my cravings for such things as sushi and sashimi) I went overboard with the finger pointing. What I had forgotten is that you have to sort of ease into raw fish eating if you’ve been away from it for a while. Getting a plate loaded down with five slices of every conceivable ocean critter can initially dazzle and eventually overwhelm. I had one of those momentary longings to have a dog under the table – anything to decrease the number of pieces still ahead.

The waiters, amused I’m sure, by this solo foreigner (the place was filled with men pausing to eat in the course of their evening of work, with random pairs of women thrown in, probably just for decoration), kept hovering and asking questions which I assume had the goal of assessing the degree of my satisfaction (or, they could have been asking about my age, wealth, or country of origin, how would I know...). Of course I had to finish THE WHOLE THING. Even a tall beer didn’t ease the pain of overindulgence. Oh yes, healthy, it’s all so healthy, but my God, did I eat a lot of raw fish!

It’s interesting how quickly you then forget the pain and look forward to a repeat performance.

JAPAN

WHY WOULD ANYONE HEAD NORTH ON A DAY LIKE THIS?

Finding myself with a conversational negative balance today (I spoke no recognizable English to anyone, and what English I did speak can only be classified as minus-English. Just as an example: “time! time next train Sapporo! Next, 16 clock?”), I decided to indulge myself here on the blog. Since “the blog never lies,” I mustn’t create fictionalized persons. Thus, the conversation is between myself and myself.

NC: So what did you do today?
nc: I took the train up toward the northern part of Hokkaido.

NC: Don’t you have enough train travel in your weeks in Japan just to get you places you need to be?
nc: I have a rail pass which entitles me to unlimited train travel. I am nowhere near ‘unlimited’ yet. A Pole never passes up a freebe. Besides, it felt cold in Sapporo – too cold to just walk around like I did yesterday.

NC: Wouldn’t it be even colder up north?
nc: I did not think of that when I studied the train schedules.

NC: How far north did you go?
nc: About 2.5 hours and two separate trains’ worth of territory was covered each way.

NC: Five hours total? You are nuts. There must have been something special to see up there?
nc: I went to check out a village. Actually it was somewhere between a town and a village: I could walk it’s circumference in about half an hour.

NC: Was it stunning? Is that why you went?
nc: I vaguely recalled reading somewhere about it, but I could not remember why it was so special except that in the summer they grow flowers around there. Was it stunning –well, I have never been to Alaska, but this is how I imagine an impoverished town or village deep in Alaska would look like, right around the month of March (desolate, deserted, scruffy and gray).

NC: Sounds thrilling indeed! Highlights?
nc: Watching the youngest children returning home from school in the afternoon. Their features were very much Hokkaido features: dark, pronounced, with not a small trace of Ainu. Beautiful smiles (photo doesn't do them justice!).

NC: Low points?
nc: Where do I begin? I think three words would summarize all relevant points: it was cold. This village (called Biei) is at the foot of a mountain chain, and the mountains were completely covered with snow. Not a single bud had broken through any of the trees in town. I had wanted to borrow a bike (apparently it is possible to do that) but thought that I would not last more than a quarter of a mile. I was warmly dressed, but the wind was piercing.

NC: When you figure out how to post photos, do let us see the snow-covered mountains.
nc: That I wont do. I don’t know enough about the camera yet (it is less than a week old) to figure out how to create contrast where non exists: today the sky was gray-white, and the snow-covered mountains were white-gray. You would have been viewing basically a picture of mixed whites.

NC: Any other thoughts on the outing?
nc: Yes. I am glad I went. Just taking this little one-car train for the final stretch was cool: people were traveling home with groceries bought in bigger towns. I imagined what it would be to live there year-round. You’d have to be pretty resilient. Oh, and BTW, when I came back to Sapporo, I found that it had been (still is) raining. I didn’t have any rain up north—I felt rewarded for my efforts to move myself out of the comfort zone of this city. Then, when I got back into town I did a first: I went to a Starbucks and bought myself a steaming latte. I’ve never felt so decadent. But you’ll be surprised to hear that I have yet to turn on the flat-screened TV in my room. No CNN to date. So if the world turned up-side-down in my absence, I wouldn’t known (there are no English newspapers in Sapporo news stands so I don’t even know what the headlines are, and no, obviously I haven’t been reading CNN.com – haven’t you been paying attention to my computer woes? I rarely can get a connection).

NC: So, are you having fun yet?
nc: But of course: the days are full, so full. Every minute explodes with something interesting and new. That is the essence of being elsewhere, isn't it?
Now can we go back to being one? I feel I'm bordering on the insane here.