sake tasting

A lesson on how to drink Sake (Nihonshu)

Last night, my host family brought me along to an organised sake tasting tour. The bus arrived at 5.20 (early! complained my host mother). Everyone assembled on the drive - around twelve of us in total - awkwardly greeting each other. In the bus, we all sat separately. The only conversation being how beautiful and red the sunset was - impressively strung out for fifteen minutes. We were bussed to a hotel in the now-deserted Hirafu ski resort - the place lit up by construction warning lights; workers busy preparing the roads for the winter season.

Trying to remember which ones were which was a struggle.... especially towards the end of the evening

The event was set up in the usual dining-at-a-wedding manner, with each group sitting around a themed table (we were 'plum'). People wore suits and dresses and greeted each other, waiting for the first kanpai so they could all get down to the business of drinking sake.

As is the norm for every event and/or gathering in Japan, there were many introductory speeches (紹介). The mike passed from one unknown besuited man to the next. Then the three Sake producers, wearing Matsuri-style jackets with the name of their company emblazoned on the hem, talked to us about their offerings. The names passed me by, I'm afraid. All I understood is that the one in the middle was from Hokkaido - the home team - and, of course, the best of the selection.

Then the raffle for the Kanpai was called - who was going to say the toast? I looked down at my seat number (32) and was just explaining to my Mrs T that if they called my number out then she would have to...

"32!"

I can't describe to what extent this was the worst possible scenario for me. As soon as I'm facing people, all normal language - whether Japanese or English - leaves my head. Hearing me speak in public is like watching a chihuahua running a marathon: so painful you can't bear to look. In fact, I have memories of seeing various loved-ones in the audience with their head in their hands, desperately hoping I can manage to string together a coherent sentence.

In any case, a room full of completely sober lion club members and retired managers and their wives were waiting for a good long-winded, mumbling Japanese speech with a couple of old-man jokes. Instead, they got the nervous laughter of a foreign girl. "Kanpai!" I said. Then ran away.

I look a little worse for wear here - but I wasn't that bad I swear!

The rest of the evening, though, was really, incredibly fun. I knew it was going to be fun when, for the Kanpai, Yamagiwa San dashed up to get his second glass of Sake. It was barely six o'clock. People ate daintily (a squid; horseradish and egg; a bit of soba and mushrooms) and drank wildly. Although there were quite a few 'young tables' (i.e. not-retired people, or, as Yamagiwa-San referred to them once, 'children') our table was the most lively. Even the reserved, disciplined Sachiko-San in her black outfit and set hair had a row of sake cups lined up in front of her.

There were yet more raffles and, for some bizarre generous reason, everyone decided to give me their winnings as 'Omiyage' (souvenirs). I know have three boxes of chocolate, potato cakes and more furoshikis than I can count.

The sake itself was delicious, but the tastes were so different. Sweet and dry and fruity, just like wines. Some were dangerously drinkable, almost sweet liquors. And others were so hard and dry on the tongue it reminded me of Vodka (urgh).

I ended up talking (badly) to a retired Jewellery designer who worked with silver. She'd traveled to England many times, she explained, although the food wasn't much, was it? Fish and chips! Now and again she would slip into English. I don't generally mind slippages into English, of course, it being my native tongue. Language is like a baton of power, and while speaking Japanese the baton is always in the Japanese person's hands. But if she or he slips into their school-learnt English, then they're handing the baton to me. And for a while they're happy like that, chatting away in  English, but as soon as it comes to a whole conversation, they quickly realise they've made a terrible mistake, handing me the baton of power, and they want it back. So a few sentences later - after they've offered me as much English as they could manage - we're back with Japanese.

The lads

Everyone was exceedingly merry. But as it is with Mr T's Nomikais (drinking parties) generally, they are always very short. 6-8pm is the time we have to eat and drink; afterwards everyone goes their separate way. Even at 7.50pm I could tell Mr T was lagging. He'd said all he had to say to his drinking buddies. Most of them had relaxed into a quite booze snooze. Apart from Yamagiwa San who talked on without making any sense. Mr T's eyes were closing and he kept asking where the bus was. Time to go to bed, he seemed to be saying. Two hours with other people is more than enough!

The journey home was much warmer and more jovial than the way there, unsurprisingly. We had a cup of tea and a chocolate (I taught Mrs T the joy of dipping things into tea, and now she does it all the time) and Mr T duly fell asleep on the sofa.

sapporo

The first thing I noticed in Sapporo was how empty it was. At Sapporo station - the largest train station in Hokkaido - there were wide corridors, assembly points, information desks and waiting rooms, but no one around, really, to fill them. In Tokyo station, of course, it's a different story. My homestay mother noticed, on our search for a map of the area, that there was only one sign for overseas visitors, which read: 外国人案内場所. Really useful for the foreign tourist!

One of the main exits at the biggest and busiest train stations in Hokkaido

It was raining - a fine drizzle coating the pavements, the concrete buildings - but thankfully most of central Sapporo is built on a large, complicated network of underground shopping centres. I am ashamed (am I?) to say that I spent most of the three hours I had shopping instead of hitting the sightseeing trail. But I did have the recommended ramen in the proper district. But it turned out it wasn't the right kind of Sapporo ramen, which entails sweet corn and butter.

waiting in line for good ramen

At 'Ramen Alley' - reminds me of Chip Alley in Cardiff

I walked from Sapporo station to Susukino, stopping on the way to pop my head out into (onto?) the surface and take a peek at Odori Park and the TV tower. The park is very European in style, with fountains, lawns and neatly arranged flower beds in oranges and pinks.

awfully sorry to bother you, but do you by any chance have the time?

naked dancing women

Despite this, there were hardly any Europeans in Sapporo. In fact, I didn't see any in my (admittedly) brief time. And, more than in Niseko (which is fairly international for a small town of 10,000 inhabitants) I was struck by self-consciousness. Especially when I was sitting in the ramen-ya: passers-by stopped, smiled or even waved at me through the window. One unfortunate teenager looked up, met my eye, and tripped over his feet.

Sapporo tram

sapporo's answer to shibuya

All in all, there were many, many things I could have done in Sapporo (the Literature Museum, Modern Art Museum, the Clock Tower [what? you didn't even see the clock?], the numerous beautiful parks, the brewery). Please, if you have the chance, do those things. Succeed where I have failed.

Still, I managed to buy a really nice blouse. 

Book Review: Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

I have never been more confused or disappointed by a book than when I read Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd.

The novel begins kind of, well, brilliantly. Or at least interestingly. Part 1 is based in Vienna, 1914, where we are introduced to the dashing Lysander Rief, an actor, whose fame is mostly thanks to his father who was a world-famous stage actor in his time. Rief forsakes all his engagements in England, including a fiancee, to come to Vienna in order to avail himself of the new 'talking-cure', or psychotherapy, for his sexual problem. The opening of the novel offers a detailed, sympathetic portrait of Rief and his struggle with 'anorgasmia' (i.e. no orgasm) and really delves into the original cure proscribed by his doctor. Boyd conjures up a charming, bohemian pre-war Vienna with skill and ease. We see Rief adopt to a new culture, meeting new people, and falling in love. Behold, his anorgasmia is cured. Being a good man, Rief breaks things off with the fiancee (although everything is not as simple as it seems) and invests in this exciting relationship.

Ah, I thought, this is good. This is a book about the birth of psychotherapy, about the London theatre world in 1914, about love, strife, the outbreak of war and Rief struggling with his own sexual inhibitions, his personal traumas.

Not so. Um, no, says William Boyd, I've had enough of all that human emotion stuff. Can't be bothered with that nonsense. Let's give them an old-fashioned, tried-and-tested World War spy thriller.

Not only is it secretly a spy-thriller, which, frankly, came out of nowhere and slapped me across the face, but the story is ponderous, boring, badly-stitched together and, yes, even clunky. I can't imagine any good crime novelist ever allowing such a plot to grace their desktop for more than a day. There are so many loose ends you can weave a tapestry from it. (Why is every person in the 'spy cell' related to Rief in some way? Why are the MI5 bosses so damned suspicious? Why did they fake Rief's death, only to have him turn up a few months later, no questions asked? What about Rief's SON for crying out loud? Also, he's supposed to impersonate a 'Swiss engineer', but he's not even German - how could he impersonate a Swiss-German accent?)

It's as if the spy-thriller is still smarting after the wholly different Part 1 and it takes a while for Boyd to adapt to the new pace. He sacrifices a few things, too, which should have stayed. For instance, the quality of language. Descriptive gems, like calling the trenches of the First World War "a meandering doodle" and, on finding a spy in Geneva:

The phrase 'searching for a needle in a haystack' came pessimistically into his head.

Also, Rief inconsolable after his mother's suicide:

I sit in 3/12 Trevelyan House with a bottle of whisky and a cheese-and-pickle sandwich I bought from the pub on the corner of Surrey Street.  

And cliched dialogue:

'Why did it all go so wrong for us, Lysander?'
'It didn't go wrong. Life got in the way.'
'And now the war's got in the way.'

The most unforgivable thing, however, is the changing Rief. Rief - who can't cheat on his fiancee without breaking things off with her 'properly'; who still adores the woman whose lies put him in jail; who cries for the son he'll never see - suddenly starts blowing people up and torturing them for information. You can sense Boyd has hit an impasse after one particularly disgusting torture scene involving metal scrubbers and teeth. Boyd has Rief squeamish - no blood! no gore! - which is supposed to be a sign of mercy, but what he ends up doing to his victim is pure horror. And he does it twice. And he hardly understands the reason why he's doing it either.

If this had been a spy-thriller from the off, or if Rief had been portrayed as a flawed hero like James Bond, I wouldn't have minded. The problem here is that Boyd wants it all: the English gentleman - kind, loving, handsome, thoughtful, even a little timid - and the shrewd and cunning assassin, whose one step ahead of everyone he knows, even the reader.

The novel doesn't please anybody. It reaches some kind of uncomfortable compromise (mass-market appeal I guess?) between people who like to read mystery novels and people who like to read historical dramas and literary fiction. But it wouldn't exactly be a great book in either category. It's a confused, sloppily-concluded novel, and I'm glad that I've come to the end of it so I can read something else....

in the pharmacy

at one glance

Warning! This is a detour into general soap-boxy topics. You have been warned. 

Above is a picture of an aisle dedicated to dieting products. Diet pills are very popular in Japan and are sold in most shops, corner shops, conbinis, pharmacies, supermarkets and so on. Sometimes they are sold next to the till, so you can chuck it in the basket on the way to pay.You can tell they are 'diet pills' because unlike they're gentler cousins 'vitamin supplements', they are about six times the price. 

The idea is that you take the pill before or after you think you might be in danger of 食べ過ぎ or 'overeating'. In the UK, if you eat too much, generally, the reaction might be 'oops - I'm a bit full now. I'll lie down a bit and watch TV.' In Japan, apparently, you crack open a pill box and take laxatives.

Recently I watched an advert (not this one, but similar) for these pills, where two girls were ready to eat dinner in front of the TV. They were kneeling on the floor and seemed to be having a normal weekday night in. They both took a pill before they started to eat. I don't understand what they were planning on having which meant they had to take these pills - but the message it conveys is that eating anything at all for dinner is 食べ過ぎ or eating too much and is somehow wrong. 

Calorie Cut? Um. No. 

I suppose I'm used to going to pharmacies in Tokyo and seeing these kinds of products lined up and ignoring it, but there's something particularly bizarre about seeing it all sold in Niseko: a small-town whose population is made of people over the age of 65, very young children and their athletic, outdoors-y parents who moved to Niseko for the skiing and hiking and who don't seem to be the kind of people who'd be interested in losing weight. The pharmacy itself is pretty much empty, apart from old women. So... who buys these things anyway?

(Reads: Fat Busters!) If you're taking this, you don't need a diet pill. You need a chill pill.

There are a lot of things which make me angry about diet pills. But I'll put them in a list and save you the rant:

Diet pills -

1. Exploit young girls' low self-esteem and body image and... 

2. Encourages them to throw away large sums of money (One packet starts at about ten pounds), which could be spent on something worthwhile (rent, travel expenses, college fees, concert tickets, roller blades, massage, very fluffy slippers...) 

3. Support a world-view which forces women to spend most of their time worrying about their body and what they put in their mouths (when they could be doing something else like working on their career, for instance...) 

4. And threatens long-term damage to heart, stomach-lining, intestines and kidneys if used regularly. 

Right. Time to count to ten and breathe deeply and maybe go out for a walk.

山ガール

山ガール　'Mountain Girl'

I was ready for climbing Annupuri. I had my brown knitted jumper, black trousers, thick socks (two layers, clearly), fleece and scarf.

'Yama Girl!' said Mr T. Uh, what? 'You're a Yama girl.' Uh, sorry, come again?

It turns out that Yama girl is an expression for hiking-loving girls. It's very fashionable in Japan for girls to be into their mountains. Above is a sample of the fashion expected of a bonafide Yama Girl - the central ensemble is especially popular. It consists of brightly coloured socks with variously patterned leggings and skirts/shorts. Possible not what I would think of as the number one appropriate kit for hiking, but, for the Japanese lady, indispensable. Also, note the sticks. No point trying to go up a mountain without sticks.

we managed without the leggings

As we walked up the 1083 metres of Annupuri-San, we met many a Mountain Girl. Another popular past-time seems to be mountain running. There's nothing more disheartening then being overtaken by a mountain runner, only to have them overtake you on the way back down fifteen minutes later.

she'll be coming round the mountain....

The walk itself was perfect: a steep steady climb through reddish tree-groves and thick ferns. The path was very rocky, and I fell over on several occasions, but that's part of the course. The only negative was the weather - at the top of Annupuri, we entered a cloud, and the view was entirely concealed. However, now and again the sun would break through or the wind would blow away the mist and a glimpse of beautiful green hills and white sulphurous peaks would momentarily be revealed.

Hana stopping for a drink

Poor Hannah. No one told her about the plan to go up Annupuri. She was full-steam ahead at first, but come the 1500 meter mark she started to look yearningly at the path behind her. "You can't turn back now, Hana," warned Mr T. But it didn't stop her from pulling at her line, desperate for the warmth and safety of the car.

near the start. still full of energy.

I learnt some useful Japanese onomatopeias on my climb. For instance, in moments of poor balance, you don't say 'oops' or even 'uh-oh', you say 'ototototo', with your arms held out wide. When the stones slip or dislodge under your step, you say the stones are 'zurizuri' -ing. When your knees hurt, you don't say they're sore, you say they're 'laughing'. When you sit in the sauna and let your muscles recover after a long walk, your body is 'jiwajiwa' -ing...  

made it!!!

Afterwards, we went straight to the onsen and recovered in the hot spring water which smelt faintly of gone-off eggs. Phew. We sat in the communal tatami-rooms, which are usual in the Japanese baths, and had a picnic of onigiri and corn on the cob. Mr T fell asleep immediately, snoring, and embarrassing Mrs T so that she had to apologise to the other people in the room. 

homemade onigiri

女子会 - Ladies' Night

Riiiiight....I get you.

Mrs T took me on a tour of Max Value supermarket in Kutchan. I'd never really been taken around a supermarket by a Japanese housewife before - i.e. someone in the know about grocery shopping. She explained to me what was tasty and what was not - how to pick out the best bulb of Japanese ginger and how to eat it (sliced raw on top of Soumen. Obviously). How to cook Horumon (um... some kind of cow and/or pig innards), chicken hearts and sliced cow tongue. She explained how it's better to buy fish from the '生’ or 'fresh' section and slice it to make sashimi, rather than get ready-made sashimi, which loses its flavour as soon as it's cut. The many mysteries of the Japanese fish section (what the hell is that weird yellowy-egg stew anyway?) were made clear to me. For instance, the yellowy-egg thing should be eaten cold on rice. The purple seaweed is purple because it's been pickled in a special sauce. Never buy pre-frozen fish, even if it's cheaper. Always buy fresh scallops. She introduced me to いももち or potato mochi and explained to me that you can actually eat those strange leaves you're often served in izakayas:

Yeah, you can eat the leaf.... It's called shiso.

Finally, she brought me to the sweets section. 'Do you eat sweets she said?' 'Um,' I said. 'Actually... I like chocolate.' 'Right,' she said, 'Aha,' she said. And proceeded to buy me three boxes.

fun times with the girls

In the evening, Mr T was off to play golf and drink with his golfing buddies. So, I was brought along to a 女子会 or a ladies' night. There were four of us together, sitting in an empty European-style cafe, drinking Moscow Mules. One of the women was a small, smartly-dressed lady in her sixties who had been to Germany on several occasions and who loved German classical music. The other, a skiing instructor, was in her thirties, wore a fleece and cargo-pants and had a tanned, rosy complexion. I noticed the way they spoke to my homestay mother, using the politest Japanese, and seeming a little ill-at-ease at first. It occurred to me then that she is, in fact, the wife of their landlord, and that they had been summoned to a ladies' night by her as a kind of social duty. In the same way that, in Japan, students are summoned to go for dinner with their professors as a matter of course, or an employee is made to go out drinking on a Friday night with his boss.

Still, after a beer and another moscow mule, the evening lightened up, and the ski instructor described her exploits (off-piste down Youtei-San...) and the upright, retired lover of Classical music ended up explaining to me that I ought to marry before I was twenty-seven. (Why twenty-seven?)

When we arrived home, we were greeted by the amazing sound of Mr T's deep, satisfied snoring.

初雪 or first snow

clear day

Today is the first day of snow on Youtei-San. By the time I got up, the snow had melted. Autumn is here, says my homestay mother. Autumn is here, says the news reader on Niseko Radio. Autumn is here, says Hana as she barks outside the door to be let inside.

On my walk I see the leaves changing to yellow and red with the light of the sunset. A year has passed since I arrived in Japan and I'm strangely excited to be seeing the Kouyou 紅葉 again - the autumn colours - now that I understand more about life here in Japan. At least, I think I understand more than I did a year ago...

lunch?

I think of Frances Hodgson Burnett (as you do...) and her description of those moments when you're alone and you come across a 'majestic' scene and 'you know you will live forever and ever'. But, in those moments, I think precisely the opposite . Only a week ago it was balmy summer and now summer has gone and I will never have a summer in Japan again. It's a sweet sadness, a melancholy, about how everything must change, and move onwards, and end. It's not about living forever, rather it's the realisation that everything will fade away. And that the fading away is not so bad, after all, because it can be beautiful, like the reddening, dying leaves are beautiful. Or the pink light of the setting sun is beautiful.

Hana peering down at me as I arrive back

As me and homestay mother watch TV together, Hana pads around the living room, refusing to settle down and sleep. She looks forlorn and lost, her triangular ears pricked up, she sits down here, then there, waits by the door, then in the kitchen. T-San has fallen asleep in Hana's usual spot (I'm guessing it's a futon, not a kennel....) and Hana has no idea what to do with herself.

"What shall we do with you?" says my homestay mother, scratching her behind her ears. "What shall we do?"