Archive for the 'Life in Japan' Category

Construction in Japan

Published
on April 4, 2008
in Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 5 Comments

One of the interesting things I’ve seen in Japan has to be how manual labor works. There are always two or more people to complete a task and most of the time it looks very efficient compared to the U.S. Let’s take construction for example… construction workers tend to get busy using everything from cranes to their bare hands and they’re rarely talking from what I can tell.

Something that I find interesting is even though construction can be happening downtown in multiple locations, I don’t seem to notice it. That’s because they usually block off the construction site wtih some type of wall or gate that surrounds the entire area. I’ve seen some cheap plastic walls, some expensive plastic walls with windows, and some wooden walls. I snapped some pics on a Sunday, so no workers were harmed in the photographing.

Here’s a picture of some type of portable wall

construction in japan

Ooo! This is the heavy duty wall with VIP windows!

japanese construction

I’m VIP, here’s proof, I’m looking through the window.

construction in japan

And here’s another construction location. It looks like they’re escavating dinosaurs.

japanese construction

9 Pounds of Oatmeal

Published
on March 9, 2008
in Food and Life in Japan
. 7 Comments

When we first moved to Fukuoka we stopped by Costco with some friends. One of the items I bought was 9 pounds (4.08 kg) of Quaker Oats which I eat for breakfast a lot. I ran out this week but luckily we went to Costco a few weeks ago and I grabbed another box. Sure you can buy these online at a few places in Japan but it costs an additional 500-700 Yen for the box. Buying direct from Costco costs around 1200 Yen for this box. Anyway, it’s huge. The box is huge, the amount of Oatmeal is insane, and I say this because I’m more adjusted to smaller things and less quantity. I thought I’d share some pictures so you can see what it’s like.

Here are the directions. As you can see there are instructions for food service preparation and the two bags come to a combined total of 102 servings.

Oatmeal Directions

Here’s the box with the 2 bags of Oatmeal that was inside.

Two bags of oatmeal - YUM!

Here’s are some details.

9 pounds of oatmeal - WHOA!

This is after I filled up my small container that lasts about 2 months. Now I’m good to go!

It’s now good to go

Chihuahua Cosplay

Published
on March 7, 2008
in Life in Japan
. 6 Comments

You may remember back in 2007 that Lulu was dressed up for halloween, well this morning was cold so I decided to dress her up. She was loving her bee outfit and it was cute and funny at the same time because she was running around and playing It’s amazing how big she’s gotten and how her outfit fits her now.

My chihuahua in a bee costume

My chihuahua in costume with fuzzy ears

Lulu the chihuahua in a cute costume

 

 

Starbucks in Japan

Published
on March 5, 2008
in Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 12 Comments

Yeah… I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not but I’m 15 minutes away from 6 Starbucks Coffee shops here in Fukuoka. Now that’s going north, south, and east. I haven’t checked west yet…. there’s probably 3 more that way somewhere. One of the Starbucks is across the street from another Starbucks and about 3 blocks or so from another one down the side street.

So here we are… going into the Starbucks that’s inside Tsutaya.

Starbucks in Fukuoka Japan at Tsutaya

For the record… Tsutaya is pretty sweet. It’s 6 stories and you can rent DVDs, CDs, buy them, get books and magazines, and enjoy some Starbucks. The DVD releases that have been out for a while usually run on a special that’s 4 DVDs for 1000 Yen. I’d say about $9-10 US.

Here’s kind of a cool photo

Starbucks in Japan

And here’s a picture I took from Starbucks of Starbucks across the street while enjoying some coffee with some friends.

Starbucks in Japan

By having so many Starbucks so close to me I’d have to say

  1. It’s kind of crazy in my opinion
  2. They are is busy and the city is big
  3. I love it!

Continue reading ‘Starbucks in Japan’

What’s your internet speed?

Published
on March 1, 2008
in Cost of Living and Life in Japan
. 31 Comments

I have fiber optic internet here in Japan and for about $50 USD per month it’s a pretty good deal for how fast it is. It’s cheaper than my old Comcast cable modem too. Sometimes it seems lightening fast, other times sites from the U.S. load slow but it could be on the other end and not the fault of my ISP. I tested my internet speed today and here are the results. My ISP said it’s a 100mbps line and I’m only getting 25 so I might change my provider to see what other options are like. Click the image to test your speed and feel free to post the results here!

More Yahoo! Dome Action

Published
on February 22, 2008
in Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 6 Comments

I forgot to include this picture so here you go! What’s interesting is right when we entered the Yahoo! Dome there was a cell phone company giving us king size snacks that taste like Cheetos. And there’s a snack bar, just like any other baseball stadium, but instead of beer, brats, and burgers they sell beer, yaki soba, takoyaki, and ramen. The prices were about the same. I just can’t imagine watching a game in the stands while slurping on some ramen using chopsticks while drinking beer. In that scenario there’s just too much going on. Of course I say this now, but just wait… in a year I’ll be doing it.

Snack Time at the Yahoo Dome

Valentine’s Day In Japan

Published
on February 18, 2008
in Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 9 Comments

In America we usually do a mutual exchange of gifts, etc. I give her something, she gives me something, I take her on a date, ah… love is in the air. But Valentine’s Day In Japan is something that’s quite different for me. This is my first time celebrating Valentine’s here and there are two parts to this holiday. On Valentines Day a girl will give the guy some chocolate. It’s either purchased or hand made. The 2nd part is White Day where a guy gives the girl a gift, that’s approximately 3 times the value as he received (so I’ve heard from wikipedia). I wasn’t able to get pictures of the store displays, but they look exactly the same as the displays in America except there are tons of chicks and almost no guys wandering in that area.

Because it was too much chocolate to handle, my fiancee gave me a gift on the 13th, and then one on the 14th. On the 13th she hand made a chocolate parfait! It was amazing! It looked and tasted like it was expensive and hand crafted by a chef. It contained chocolate, ice cream, more chocolate, cake, chocolate covered crispy things, and strawberry Pocky. Oh, and hand whipped whip cream! Here are a few pictures (sorry for the blurriness, I’m not used to my friends camera yet). It was delicious.

Parfait on Valentines Day

Parfait on Valentines Day

On Valentine’s Day she gave me a wonderfully wrapped gift. It looked expensive and the presentation was great, so at first I thought she bought it at some expensive shop. She told me that she hand made the chocolate using ‘an idea’ but no recipe and a few ingredients she thought would work. And she wrapped it herself.

Chocolate Valentine's Day in Japan

Here’s my blurry picture of the chocolates when I opened the cute basket they were in.

Chocolate Valentine's Day in Japan

And finally here are the chocolates she made. They were powered with cocoa and had a very rich taste. It wasn’t a dark chocolate taste, and wasn’t a milk chocolate taste, it felt like a truffle when I ate it, but it was nothing I’ve tasted before.

Hand Made Chocolate Valentine's Day in Japan

When I opened the gift I felt overwhelmed and a little teary eyed when I ate the first piece because I know she spent all of that time and effort to prepare everything and that’s very special to me. Even when it’s not a holiday she often does special things like this to show me how she feels about me, and she is the first person in my life to ever do this. She’s so great. This was the best Valentine’s Day ever.

An Update and an Interview

Published
on February 16, 2008
in Life in Japan
. 6 Comments

Here’s an update on what’s goin’ on! I’ve been pretty busy lately with work and I’ve met some new people. You just have to live life as it happens, and with that said… thank goodness for power naps! Some good things regarding this site have been taking place as well.

  1. First of all I have been interviewed by the Daily J. You can see Part 1 here and Part 2 here. I have to say thanks to the Daily J because they took an initiative and contacted me which was great.
  2. The second good thing is my blog has been reviewed at Nick’s blog, Long Countdown. It gives a nice review of my site and I appreciate the time he took to take a look through Japan it UP! He does rant about ‘how anonymous should an anonymous blog be’ which he speaks of the name ‘Smoother’ and that fine. Nobody has ever inquired about it. Could it be my last name? How about a nick name? What about part of a company name? Regardless of this, it has got me to thinking. I first started this blog for friends and family and find a lot of other people visiting here so I just changed things up to show my first name Steve. Nice to meet you :)
  3. The third thing is my camera. I haven’t talked about this sad moment in life, but my digital camera broke about 1 month before coming to Japan and I haven’t gotten around to buying a new one. It’s sad because it was a gift from my fiancee, DOH! I’ve been using my fiancee’s but it’s tough because she uses it a lot and then we have problems finding it (and the memory card) when we want it. A friend of ours from Kumamoto came to visit and forgot his camera. What’s the good news? Well… I’ve been using his camera for as long as the battery lasts and now I have some interesting pictures to post!

Stay tuned!

Ishiyaki Imo Truck (baked sweet potato)

Published
on February 4, 2008
in Food, Life in Japan and More in Japan
. 2 Comments

Every now and then I hear this guy singing a cool little tune at night. No music, just him singing a melody. I asked my fiancee what it is and she told me it’s a truck that sells ishiyaki imo (sweet potatoes). How awesome is that? I would never think “Hey, I could really go for a sweet potato” … until NOW! For a while I’ve been on a mission: run like an Olympic sprinter, catch this guy, enjoy the full ‘Japanese sweet potato out of a truck’ experience. The result? I’ve eaten one of these once, and I’ve seen the truck twice, and I have a picture!

What does Ishiyaki Imo mean? I asked this very same question and here’s the answer broken down. Ishi = stone, Yaki = grilled, Imo = sweet potato.

My Imagination: Now here’s what I was thinking about this truck before I saw it. I figured it was a pickup truck, some guy that cooks them on the back of his truck, and he sings his song out of a megaphone, he’s a happy guy that just loves giving out sweet potatoes late at night and apparently the job is fun and exciting. He drives fast because he wants to cover the entire city.

The Reality: Not quite what I was thinking. From my experience, an older guy drives either a truck or a van. He’s not singing, he’s playing a recording over a megaphone and this explaines why the song is perfect every time he drives by my place. He does drive slow, which means I’m just not running fast enough (time to hit the gym?). He has cooking gear on his truck but when I went all of the potatoes were ready to go. I spent 400 Yen ($3.75 at the time) for a big hot potato. And big as in huge, it looked like they gave me the biggest one in the sweet potato field. Good thing I was hungry!

The potato was hot and it I enjoyed it. Just eating a hot sweet potato is quite different from The Outback Steakhouse version back in the U.S. which is smothered in butter and cinnamon and maybe some sugar.

Here are a picture from the truck.

Ishiyaki Imo Truck

Here’s an Ishiyaki-Imo old school setup which I’ve never seen in person (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Ishiyaki Imo Vendor

Here’s a YouTube video I found. The song doesn’t have as nice of a melody as the truck Fukuoka, the truck is slow and not busy, but it’s cool to check out.

YouTube Preview Image

Good stuff.

Things I’ve never seen before

Published
on January 28, 2008
in Life in Japan, More in Japan and What the...?
. 9 Comments

Today I’m going to share some pictures I’ve taken of things in Japan that I’ve never seen before in the U.S.

QR Code for Japanese Cell Phone

The picture above is a QR Code. I see them everywhere here, even at McDonalds. They’re on buildings, billboards, magazine ads, product packages, etc. You take a picture with your cell phone and it brings up information or a website.

From Wikipedia: A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional code.

Bottle Keep at a Japanese Restaurant

The picture of the shochu bottles above were explained to me as a “bottle keep” and from my understanding these are unfinished bottles of alcohol. If a person comes in (probably with a group) and orders a bottle but they don’t finish it the restaurant will put the person’s name on it so that person can enjoy the tasty beverage which they’ve already paid for during their next visit. That’s awesome!

Continue reading ‘Things I’ve never seen before’