Fun and Games in T.O.

Tuesday March 26, 11:53 a.m.

Well, it's come to the point that whenever Mayor Rob Ford's name pops up in a broadcast, Torontonians' eyes roll to the back of the head with the dependence of an involuntary reflex. And so, the latest in the 2-year series of The Perils of Rob has "The Toronto Star" splashing this exclusive on the front page about allegations of alcohol abuse. Of course, the triumvirate of the Ford Brothers and Deputy Mayor Holyday immediately put up their shields and fired some warning phaser shots almost immediately after the news got out.

At this point, after all of the sturm und drang that has followed Rob Ford for the past couple of years with the court stuff and the recent accusation by a former election rival of sexual assault, it'll probably take even more than today's headline to have this news last beyond the better part of this week. Confidential sources are one thing, but I think it'll take some big names and absolute hand-in-the-cookie-jar proof to even dislodge anything. We've just gotten so inured to all of the bread and circuses.

And what about The Leafs? They took three out of four points from the Boston Bruins. Yep, the Buds aren't exactly great at shootouts but since once the game is at that stage, both teams are gonna come away with something, so it's not such a terrible thing to lose, aside from the pride aspect. But the big thing here is that not a lot of fans had expected Phaneuf, Kadri and company to get anything from the Bruins considering the past couple of years, so three points is pretty darn good.

Took that needed hour's walk today. Nope, not that cold but the winds are out there. I actually got a rare Monday off from translation. I got a heads-up last week from one of my colleagues that things could be a bit slower than usual for the next week or so since Japan is entering the final week of the fiscal calendar. Plus, April is the reset month for a lot of everything over there so the normal course of things will be disrupted for a bit. A lot of corporate parties for welcoming and saying goodbye will be in order for the next several weeks leading up to Golden Week.

Spring Supposedly

Monday March 18, 12:02 p.m.

Well, rumour has it that Spring is on its way, but despite the expert opinion of several large lumbering rodents in February, it's still gonna be plenty chilly here for this week. Plus, we've got some messy weather on the way as of 4 this afternoon. So, there may be some Vernal enthusiasts who are thinking up of some evil plots to cook groundhog.

Team Japan just lost to Puerto Rico in the semi-finals of the World Baseball Classic in San Francisco, I believe. Probably a lot of disappointed folks over in Japan right now but after winning the first two championships, the country has nothing to be ashamed about. Plus, they can start back on how to regain the big prize for next time, and I think that's always more fun for everyone involved rather than trying to defend a championship.

Had my brother's family over for dinner last night. The usual pleasant time involved, including playing with my niece. But we did have one casualty in the form of the coffee carafe which ended its long life by cracking and pouring some fresh brewed onto the kitchen floor. Mom seemed to be quite eager in getting a new coffeemaker anyways.

Just been taking care of some invoicing and awaiting my next translation assignment which should be in sometime over the next few hours.

Looks like Pope Francis I is having an immediate effect on the world at large with his charm and Gorbachevian openness. I think Pope Benedict XVI is probably grumbling and muttering, "Dang whippersnapper!" And apparently, the leader of the Orthodox Christians is even gonna attend tomorrow's Papal Inauguration for the first time in a millenium. Rather unorthodox, if you ask me. (thank you, I play Vegas til Friday)

Soggy Start

Monday March 11, 12:09 pm

Well, pretty wet and gloomy out there, but at least it's warmer. However, the weather folks are saying that the minus temperatures are still gonna plague us later this week. The snow is melting, though, which is revealing a lot of stuff that the dogs left behind. There is also a dead raccoon nearby which the killer car driver deposited on the curb. I'm now considering calling Animal Services.

Not a great sports weekend for Canada or Toronto. The Leafs were squeaked out of a win by the Penguins on Saturday...the Buds did show heart but just couldn't beat Crosby or Malkin. And of course, there was that kerfuffle with Team Canada in the World Baseball Classic against Team Mexico; there has been some back-&-forth since then with the Blue Jays' Jose Bautista putting in his two nickels by scolding Canada for trying to run up the score. And then Canada had to go home with their tails between their legs after collapsing against the USA yesterday. However, Toronto FC did provide a glimmer of good news by winning its first game since last July.

Still waiting for my regular translation assignment from the company; apparently, things are a bit slow in Japan today. But today is the 2nd anniversary of the big Tohoku Earthquake/Tsunami, so I'm sure people are being quite reflective. I'm finding the media coverage quite interesting depending on the country. Of course, NHK and probably the commercial networks in Japan have been providing very somber and wistful programs about 3/11, and NHK was visiting a lot of individuals in the affected areas to get their impressions and reminiscences, but very little has been shown about the progress of the cleanup. On the other hand, CNN and BBC have been focusing on that aspect of the disaster aftermath, and showing that after 2 years, not much has been done. It was the first time in several months that I've seen anything on the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster still in progress, and that was through BBC only. The reporter for the British network remarked that in a society where consensus-building is often still paramount, there has been little consensus built about how to fix something this enormous which would explain the delay. I think the Japanese media's take on it is that the ramifications will simply not go away for decades, so it's sho ga nai...let's work on the emotional healing and getting people to regain their energy and confidence to work around the difficulties while the upper echelons deal (or try to deal) with them directly. NHK's report did pick up on one angle and that was whether the memories of the disaster have started to fade; apparently, corporate and perhaps private contributions to the quake-affected areas have fallen by a huge margin, and the weekly protests in front of Parliament against nuclear power have also shrunk (although there was a huge parade in downtown Tokyo yesterday). I think the fading is a natural thing and is part of the healing process, but I was surprised at how quickly the fade has been in the country itself. But at the same time, the national TV network has been keeping up its end of the bargain by broadcasting a lot of programming on the situation over the months.

Springing Forward

Friday March 8, 10:54 p.m.

Looking a bit more optimistic out there in the weather department. Went out with Dad and it felt quite warm. Mind you, +1 degree is pretty relative but it was also quite sunny, and things are just looking better for the weekend. Makes one wonder why anyone would like to head down south for March Break. Well, mind you, the folks down there are getting 29 more degrees than we are.

Finished off a good week of translation, and looking forward to a bit of respite perhaps just blogging and watching TV. Spring seems to be coming in and our clocks are gonna be springing forward one hour as of early Sunday morning. But I saw an amazing instance of springing back...from adversity, that is. I woke up this morning to see a bit of that Japan vs. Taiwan game at The World Baseball Classic. Japan was behind 2-0 in the bottom of the 8th when they started to pull off a major upset by tying things up. Then when Taiwan pulled ahead 3-2 at the top of the 9th, Japan just tied things up again before winning for good in the 10th. That is grit. The Leafs have pulled this sort of feat before, and hopefully they will remember to do so in the latter half of this strike-shortened schedule.

Still, not all lightness and heart in Toronto. There was that tragic case of that 5-year-old girl getting struck down and killed by a garbage truck yesterday; the school and surrounding neighbourhood are mourning very deeply. And then at Thistledown Collegiate yesterday, scum actually had the gall...and stupidity...to ooze in and rob two students of their cellphones and fire a bullet at one other kid before taking off and pulling off some more robberies. Luckily, those kids left a pretty good bread crumb trail in the form of their blue Toyota with a fully-recognizable license plate and security camera footage. It's almost as if they were begging to be arrested. And then of course, our walking trouble magnet, Mayor Rob Ford, is back in the news for allegedly groping a former mayoral candidate at a party the night before, although I'm getting the feeling that there may be holes developing in her story. Never a dull day in this city....kinda wish for some, though.

Tokyo Olympics 2020?

courtesy of Jamie Barras
from Flickr

Thursday March 7, 1:22 p.m.

Was watching NHK News this morning. For the past few mornings, the broadcast has been focusing on the IOC's visit to Tokyo to see if Japan's capital is up to hosting the Olympics for a 2nd time since its inaugural shot in 1964. The Games there happened just several months before my birth, so the only record I have of them is a very old, beat-up but huge commemorative magazine and a coin given to me by my late grandfather.

It's been the grand inu-&-kouma show for the gang at IOC. Prime Minister Abe was abnormally cheerful and gave a fairly bizarre first few words in his speech as he persuaded the visiting group to give Tokyo the opportunity. And during a tour around the city, the IOC stopped at some table tennis training facility where table tennis Olympic darling, Ai Fukuhara, was working up a massive sweat pounding away at the table with a huge nailed-on smile that rather unnerved me. I've seen Fukuhara practice on TV, and she has only had the most serious expression during training.

Do I seem a bit skeptical? You bet. When Tokyo was vying for the 2016 Games under former Governor Shintaro Ishihara, it seemed that the only folks interested in getting the Olympics were the folks talking with the IOC about the possibility. 99.9% of the citizens around the country, however, gave a collective yawn, or if they lived in the capital, grumbled about having to head out of the city to avoid the traffic craziness. It's kinda like how a lot of Torontonians felt about having an Olympics come over here....not very excited. I think the Chinese were excited about the 2000 Games and the British were ecstatic about getting the London Olympics, but Toronto?....meh. We're getting the Pan Am Games in a couple of years, and the news hasn't exactly been all that overwhelmingly approving here about those.

In the NHK report, a reporter who's been on the Olympics beat for years, did some man-on-the-street interviews in front of Shimbashi Station in Tokyo, one of the places to be to get the opinion of the common working person. I'm sure there was quite a bit of editing involved for the report since the man was giving out a lot of "Sumimasen"; I could imagine that a lot of the folks probably just wanted to avoid him to avoid the embarrassment of using the English language despite the fact that an interpreter was there on hand. However, he was able to snag a few people and ask them their opinions of an Olympics in their city. And frankly, my impression of their answers was that they were on the polite "Well, it would be n-i-i-i-c-e...." level, but nothing exciting. Now, the Japanese are relatively reserved when dealing with people they're not familiar with, but I think they can be a lot more excited about things they really support, and I didn't see it with those interviewees. The reporter himself observed that Japan certainly has the technology and the logistics, but he was still looking for more spirit behind the bid. And the expression on his face and his tone kinda said that there wasn't a lot of that.

When Japan was bidding for the 1964 Olympics, I could imagine a people who would rally around the flag, as they were already doing for some years just to rebuild their country. That collective oomph didn't need to be generated by an Olympic committee of old folks or the national government; it was already there, ready to be harvested. A Tokyo Olympics would be the globally-sanctioned welcome back for Japan, and the national celebration for the people to say that Japan was becoming healthy again. The Japanese then had something to prove, and any grumbles about traffic and overcrowding probably didn't exist to a great degree since the people had been going through much more hardship. Nowadays, most folks have been accustomed to the good life, even in the last two decades of economic doldrums, so that they will grumble loudly about an international sports event invading their city in terms of what it may do to their surrounding infrastructure for 2 weeks and their tax payments for the 7 years leading up to the Games. Probably a lot of people may feel that there is nothing to prove about their country. Plus, they've got plenty of smaller international sports events such as The World Baseball Classic or the numerous running marathons, they would say.

It's possible that people could be brought together on behalf of all those who have suffered from the 2011 Earthquake/Tsunami/Nuclear Disaster. Obviously that was an environmental maelstrom that had international coverage and its effects were felt well beyond the Tohoku region. However, I'm not sure if even something of that magnitude would rally people around an Olympic bid these days. Some people in the quake-ravaged areas may question the sense of spending money on a sports event years down the line when there is still so much that needs to be done in the short-term alone. Some Tokyoites may wonder about the sense of supporting an Olympic bid just because a totally separate area got wrecked. But then again, the Tohoku may reap dividends from the fact that thousands of foreign tourists may visit the area during their time attending the Games.

But it all comes down to how much the Japanese want the Games. That reporter stated something that stuck in my head: "The IOC won't give the Games to a city that doesn't want them." I think the next 6 months will be critical to see how much Tokyo and Japan want them.

Bye Seth, Hello Storm

Tuesday February 26, 11:12 a.m.

Well, in a not-too-surprising PS to last night's entry about Seth MacFarlane and the Oscars, Hollywood's current bullseye just tweeted that he would definitely not come back as the host next year. So I guess Amy and Tina are up! But the producers may have to do battle with the Golden Globes guys to get them. Perhaps the producers can throw in a couple of names to be added later: Paul Rudd and Melissa McCarthy...please.

Supposedly, we got another major storm on the way which could veer from a lot of rain to a lot of snow. Whatever the precip, there's a lot of it coming. It's looking pretty nice out there right now, though.

Got the latest translation off to the company, but I've got one more to finish for Cozy today. Not too difficult.

The Leafs have won another one against the Flyers. It's been a good time to be a Torontonian when it comes to sports. The Blue Jays are not doing too shabbily in Dunedin, the Leafs have been doing far better than last year's sad sacks and the Raptors aren't too bad either (although they lost at home to the NBA's worst road team last night, the Washington Wizards...a bit embarrassing, that). I guess a lot of Toronto sports fans almost feel like a guy who's just come out of rehab a new man.

Unfortunately, I've just heard that 4 Japanese nationals have been killed in Egypt due to a hot air balloon exploding and falling near Luxor. From the names, the four sound like older people; very sad.

Memories of Genkatsu

A lunch at Genkatsu

Thursday February 21, 10:12 p.m.

Sunday's tonkatsu dinner at Tako Sushi in North York brought back some memories of being a foodie in Tokyo. And one of my great memories is of a tonkatsu restaurant in Ginza called Genkatsu.(ゲンカツ）

There is a show on The Food Network here in Canada called "You Gotta Here". Well, if the host, John Catucci, were ever to make it out to The Big Sushi for a special show, I would heartily recommend him to go there. Mind you, I'm not sure if the chefs would be too welcoming, though. Some of these guys in Japan can be a bit secretive about their techniques. But then again, Genkatsu is not secret at all about one technique: how they slice up the pork.

Genkatsu's claim to fame is that they take this luscious pork and slice the slab that would become a lunch or dinner entree into 25 thin slices, and then do all the egging and breading and deep-frying as if it were still one huge chunk. What gets served then has an interesting mouth feel with the juices coming out into your mouth as you break through the crispy panko coating into the layered meat.

Salty dipping sauce

Being located just a few metres away from the main Ginza intersection, it's not inexpensive like going to McDonalds or the student bento places, but it's worth every yen; I think the lunch is still going for about 1,200 yen....not bad at all for a good filling lunch in one of the most expensive neighbourhoods on the planet. The lunch comes with the usual salad and bottomless rice and tea...and of course, the shredded cabbage. Any decent tonkatsu restaurant mates that deep-fried cutlet with endless cabbage. No ifs, ands or buts on that. And besides, fiber is good. The other wonderful thing about Genkatsu is that you don't only need to have the Bulldog or Worcestershire sauce to dip the meat into. I received a bowl of salty dipping sauce....kinda like a really intense bowl of consomme for lunch, but dinner can also have a tiny tray filled with different types of salt in lieu of sauce.

And the dinners have one great entree option for neophytes. You can opt for the Assorted Platter in which you can get a plate of different types of tonkatsu with the layers stuffed with cheese or garlic or shiso. Did I mention you can get bottomless bowls of rice?

Tonkatsu restaurants are plentiful all over Tokyo, but Genkatsu and its sister restaurant, Kimukatsu, are definitely two of a kind.

Japanese Foodie Tuesday

Nope, it may not be the Priestly but I'm more than
happy with my Maple Donut and Double-Double.

Thursday February 14, 3:00 p.m.

Yes, it is indeed Valentine's Day. As usual, I'm on the outside looking in as those couples woo or re-woo each other with chocolates, roses and other paraphernalia (batteries not included).

In any case, I'm not talking about today. I'm more talking about Tuesday the 12th, otherwise known as the day I went for a nearly all-day session of noshing on Japanese outside of my home. The parentals were off in Niagara Falls for an overnighter, so I could go off guilt-free into the big city with a couple of old friends. The Egg, The Banker and I met in front of Santouka, the ramen place east of Yonge and Dundas. It was my 2nd trip to the place in as many weeks. The Banker is a big ramen fan, so he and I got together last year to try out Kenzo, but since then we hadn't met up for a bowl of Japanese noodles until a couple of days ago. We hope to shorten the time between ramen outings considerably. In any case, I partook in a bowl of their lovely toroniku ramen with the slices of tender-as-butter pork jowl cha-siu. Man, those slices really did melt in my mouth! Over in Japan, pig farmers pride themselves on making their future bacon taste so good that even the fat is delicious. I'm pretty much guaranteed that I will inherit those jowls into my own face if I keep on ordering that into the near future.

Afterwards, we walked west on Dundas past a couple of ramen joints: Sansotei and Kenzo. Ramen restaurants are continuing to spread like viruses all over the GTA, and I figure that there will be the eventual war of attrition among them. Kenzo was good and certainly above the average lunch of Sapporo Ichiban instant noodles but I think places like Santouka and Kinton have gone far ahead and have the lineups to show for it. And now, The Egg has told me that there is yet another similar joint in the neighbourhood there called Raijin. I'm OK with Ajisen although I don't consider the stuff there to be authentic Japanese ramen; it has its own brand of noodles which I'm fine with, and I did like their karaage teishoku back in December.

The three of us stopped off at a Timmies on University and Dundas for a couple of hours of chat. It'd been a very long time since all three of us got together, so a lot of stuff to catch up on. Knowing that I would later be having stuff at an izakaya, I figured I needed something purely Canadian in my gut.

The Banker had to take off for home, but The Egg and I decided to walk around a bit more. We dropped off at the World's Biggest Bookstore so that I could search for a new textbook for my Skype student but couldn't find it (I would later purchase it at The ESL Shop online). Had a brief look-see into the new and condensed Silver Snail before heading uptown to crash at The Egg's place for a few hours. Ended up watching a couple of repeat episodes from "Yamato 2199"; I think I'm gonna have to get my friend and The Anime King together once more since they've been on their own tracks of watching the genre.

Kingyo in Cabbagetown

At about 5:30, the two of us took off on the Yonge Line once more to head over to Kingyo in Cabbagetown. The Egg's wife was to have joined us but unfortunately she was under the weather so she had to pull out at the last minute. Aside from riding through the neighbourhood on my way to the Christmas Market in The Distillery back in December, I hadn't walked through Cabbagetown in many, many years. I lived right beside it in my childhood and used to regularly go to a clinic there but since we moved away back in the mid-70s, that was it for me. There have been quite a few changes in terms of a Starbucks and a number of modern commercial additions to the area, but my old area still seemed to have that old-fashioned, slightly seedy quality.

A pachinko machine on the wall.
Genius!

The ramen boom may have been and still be the big culinary thing in Toronto, but izakayas have also been enjoying popularity in The Big Smoke as of late. I'd only been to DonDon with Sam last year but that was just for lunch. Kingyo was the big time. Unlike most izakayas in Japan, reservations and lineups are common in the Toronto variety. Fortunately, The Egg got that reservation although when we arrived, the place was still pretty empty at that time. Kingyo, which means "goldfish", had that mix of Japanese cuisine and service with Western size and urban upscale ambiance. Still, there were some tips of the hat to Japanese pop culture in terms of a pachinko machine on one side, a number of katana on another (probably created by the wondrous and fictional Hanzo Hattori), and reruns of an old Ultra Seven series on the big-screen TV. However, the cheesiness factor didn't quite register. Although most izakayas I had gone to in Japan were very much of the cheaper neighbourhood pub mode which stressed imbibing of mass quantities over noshing of decent fare, there was one place in Tokyo which resembled Kingyo (and the other Toronto izakaya, I assume) in terms of price, fare and atmosphere, and that was En, a classy upper-scale restaurant on the 11th floor of the Bic Camera building in Shibuya.

Ebi-Mayo (basically shrimp tempura in a spicy
mayonnaise sauce)

Neither the Egg and I are big drinkers by any means, so we were more than happy with the homemade Ginger Ale. And yep, it was good sipping. The ginger tasted very fresh without overpowering my taste buds. We rather went nuts on the menu, although things were tempered by the fact that we were missing our third member. One of our first orders was Ebi-Mayo, a standard dish at any izakaya or ramen restaurant. The original variety is served very plainly....just shrimp tempura with dollops of the sinful Kewpie mayonnaise on the plate. Over at Kingyo, it's a bit more dolled up....there's a bit of a fiery spicy component installed into the mayo. And the combination of textures was great. The crispiness of the batter with the succulence of the shrimp dunked into the creamy mayo. Lovely, lovely.

Karaage with Special Salt and Lemon

Another must-order at any decent izakaya is the plate of karaage....Japanese-style fried chicken. It's absolutely ubiquitous everywhere in Japanese supermarkets, convenience stores, ramen joints, izakaya, etc. There's something about marinated chicken deep-fried in batter that just gets everyone there slavering away, including me. And yep, the plate we ordered of Kingyo-upgraded karaage was another plus. Six huge chunks of flavoured thigh meat in crispy and crunchy batter with some dipping salt and a lemon wedge. Flavour bombs, indeed.

Maguro Carpaccio

Of course, it wasn't all upgrades of old izakaya favourites. There were some fancy dishes that usually wouldn't appear on a regular izakaya menu. We also had a couple of plates of maguro and salmon carpaccio. We didn't order salad so it was good to have some vegetation as fiber. And the sashimi underneath soaked a bit of that vinaigrette but still retained that firm but yielding texture.

One thing about the service....it was ultra-friendly. I knew that The Eggs had been to Kingyo a couple of times previously so I had assumed that our main waitress for the evening and The Egg were quite familiar with each other, until he told me that it was the first time he had met her. He also told me that the owner was quite strict on how good the service had to be. But service in Japanese restaurants focuses far more on polite and very competent professional distance (think of a butler handling guests at a mansion); the service at Kingyo was more on the level of being a girl's new beau entering the house of the girl's eager-beaver welcoming family. It almost...but thankfully didn't...hit the overbearing level, but that's just me. Other people are far more people-loving than I am.

Matcha Brulee

And what better way to finish off a large meal than some potentially artery-hardening dessert? Mind you, I don't think my Matcha Brulee would compare to a huge slab of Black Forest Cake in the calories department, but it was a nice treat. And there was that characteristic crackling of the caramelized surface with the spoon.

It was a nice 2 hours there. A good meal at Kingyo will not be cheap but I had fully expected that I would be paying a bit more than usual. And it was a worthy repast at $65 with tax and tip. The frequency of visits there will depend on one's income tax bracket. For me, I think semi-annual trips there are quite good for me. But yep, I had a fine time there. Will need to try their Kobe steak next time, provided that my translation work becomes more lucrative.

Calm Before The Storm

Thursday February 7, 3:09 p.m.

It's been an enervating and energetic past few days for me. As Cozy has been a bit delayed in some of those financial statements to be translated, I've been lucky to get work from my regular gig this week, and I did get a nice healthy check to be deposited in the old account. Still, with the precision needed with this work, I could use a massage AND a nap just about now. As for the energetic part, I've gotten a couple of guest contributors for my Japanese music blog, Kayo Kyoku Plus, and they've been absolutely great with their articles. They're covering artists that I've never covered which means that I have a good chance to discover new singers. It's good talking with folks that share my admittedly niche interest, and I don't feel as much pressure to get a couple of songs up there everyday. I've had some good talks with each of them via e-mail about the wonders of kayo kyoku.

Calm before the storm? Ah, yes, Toronto and much of Southern Ontario is supposed to be socked with about 15~20 cm of the white stuff starting from tonight. So, the big news on the news channels highlights the salting trucks and the weather map. Tokyo was gonna get walloped by a second major snowstorm but it turned out to be a mostly false alarm. Some flakes did fall on The Big Sushi, but here in Toronto, we eat those flakes for a light snack. I'm just glad that I don't need to commute anymore. Although if it's as bad as they're forecasting, I think most people will be more than happy to take a sick day on a Friday.

Looks like I've got another Santouka run next Tuesday with another ramen buddy of mine. The two of us got together more than a year ago for ramen (we've gotten together a few times over the months but with his family and not for ramen) at Kenzo but nothing since then. One of my old students who's now living with his family in California recommended the toroniku ramen with pork cheeks. I did see a page devoted to that type in the menu last Friday, so hey, why not? Plenty of cholesterol to go around.

I got a call out of the blue from another old friend yesterday. Looks like he and his family had gotten bogged down by the flu over The Holidays which would explain why I didn't hear much from him for the past few months. But it sounded like he's hale and hearty again, so hopefully we can all get together for lunch or dinner in the next few weeks.....provided I can shovel out of the snow.

It looks like my Skype student will be continuing on with me. Very grateful for that but I have to find a certain textbook for him. I'll be doing my scouring via Amazon or going downtown to the various bookshops.

Santouka

Monday February 4, 4:09 p.m.

Back on Friday, Sam and I got together for lunch and wondered about trying one of those Winterlicious places, but I soon tired of flipping through those pages, and he came up with the idea of hitting Santouka, one of the latest ramen places to sprout up in the GTA. Located just east of the main Yonge-Dundas intersection, it's hard not to spot the restaurant when walking from the west, since there are the rather large words "HOKKAIDO RAMEN"emblazoned in white on the side of the building which Santouka occupies.

Shio Cha-siu

Luckily enough, even though the two of us got there at 12:30, right in the thick of lunch hour, we didn't have to wait too long for a table. There were people waiting ahead of us but we could all fit in the inner air lock, and within five minutes, Sam and I got our table. Winter is the perfect season for ramen, so I went for the shio cha-siu ramen (salt and BBQ pork). The soup was savoury and not too salty....reminded me a lot of that wonderful tonkotsu from Fukuoka, but what made it different was the addition of that pickled plum at the top. I think the other interesting thing was that the bowl was smaller than the one at arguably Toronto's most popular ramen eatery, Kinton, but it was of a size that anyone could handle and be satisfied with. I love Kinton, too, but I sometimes wonder if some customers are a bit overwhelmed by the size of the portions there.

Fried gyoza

I also ordered a mess of gyoza as well...trying to relive old glories when I used to hit the ramen joints in my old neighbourhood of Minami-Gyotoku in Ichikawa, Chiba. And the table had the essential ingredients to make the sauce: soy, chili oil and vinegar. Just mix it all up. The gyoza were OK although I thought the filling seemed to have been made through a machine, but then again, maybe the chef's hands were just very good at making perfect cylinders. I've yet to try the gyoza at Kinton.

Really nice lunch there at Santouka. Next time I go, I'd like to try their pork on rice.

After my friend went back to work, I walked down over to St. Lawrence Market and picked up a few of those Chicken Parmigiana sandwiches at the Carousel Bakery there. I felt I needed to show my parents the wonders of a good hearty sandwich. I had the remaining one for lunch on Saturday, and tell ya what....it's just as good cold as it is warm.

Strangely enough, this morning, I got an e-mail from another old friend asking if we could get together next week for ramen. He's always very busy and usually can't make it out for most things but managed to get some off time next week, so we're juggling either Santouka or Kinton.

All's Happy in Training

Friday February 1, 9:36 a.m.

Yup, definitely back to a normal Winter day here. As I type this, it's about -10 C outside, compared to the heady heights of +14 C on Wednesday.

I was watching NHK News today and the sports report mostly centered on Japanese baseball training camps in Okinawa which started yesterday. Looks like everyone's happy there....perhaps the Okinawan government should even declare the opening of training a regional statutory holiday. All of the fans were there with their cameras, cellphone-type or otherwise. The one guy who seemed to be getting the focus was a strapping young lad by the name of Otani...all of 18 and although perhaps not as tall as the beanpole Yu Darvish, he still has quite the physical presence. And ambition....he has said he wants to reach the Major Leagues someday. If he's that good, he can now probably get there within a decade.

The whole spectacle reminds me of just a couple of weeks ago when the NHL strike was over, and hockey fans descended on the Leafs truncated training. And the Leafs won at home over the struggling Caps last night...and it was a come-from-behind win, too. So, it seems that the big key here is consistency and making sure that there are no more injuries on the team.

For the first time in a few weeks, I've got no translation issues to worry about. I handed in the first of the annual translations to Cozy last night and am waiting for any further comments from the regular boss. Initial reviews have been good; the editor hasn't lost that much hair this time.

Well, I'll be heading downtown for the first time this year. Will be meeting Sam for lunch. May actually pick up some Chicken Parmagiana sandwiches over at The Carousel Bakery at St. Lawrence Market later on for the parents.

First Anime-and-Foodie Outing of the Year

Monday January 21, 7:58 p.m.

Met up with the Anime King yesterday for the first time this year. He'd spent the past month traveling through Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam before getting back last Saturday. He was in remarkably alert shape on Sunday considering the long voyage back home. We did the usual brunch/lunch thing at a Chinese restaurant that we'd gone to before....had the Chicken A La King with Rice; it's been a while since I had that....pretty good. The sauce was good and rich. Then, it was off to the Second Cup down on Finch for coffee. I got some nice anime goodies and that CD by the late Miki Matsubara that I'd requested.

The King took tons of photos from his trip. He spent Xmas and New Year's in Tokyo; some of the shots were of my old haunts like Asakusa, Nakano and Akihabara. Seeing them was like just being there yesterday. He also took that pilgrimage all the way to the small town of Oarai in Ibaraki Prefecture since it is the place where the anime "Girls and Panzers" is based. The town has embraced its inner tank since the city basically had an exhibit set up in the main train station paying tribute to the show. There was even a map of Oarai pointing out which areas were animatized. The King remarked that outside of the show, there was pretty much nothing else to see there. He did have dinner at a sleepy anglerfish restaurant....the anglerfish dance is a bit of a rallying point in the series.

The anime of the day was focused on the Precure franchise since the current series will be finishing up this Sunday. It was the one that I got started on, thanks to The King. It'll be kinda sad to see the girls go, although I've already started watching some of the earlier entries such as the very first one in 2003 and the one immediately preceding the current series, "Suite Precure". You always remember your first.

Before the King got back home on Saturday, I'd sent out a summons of sorts to see which of the Anime Court would be available for dinner on Sunday, since we hadn't gotten together as a group over the Holidays (outside of The Anime Bishop and I getting together at Kinton Ramen back on Boxing Day). Well, I was happy to hear that both him and The Iconoclast were able to show up. The two of them came over to The King's house and after a bit of chit-chat, we all made our way up to Wild Wings in Markham. Kinda engorged ourselves on the chicken while the Ravens-Patriots game was playing on the screens, although I was the only one who had the least bit interest. It was good to have the group together again.

It really is feeling like a Toronto Winter again. The temps will be plummeting tonight and then we will only have a high of -12 C tomorrow and then the possibility of 5 cm of snow later on this week. Plus, the Leafs are back in town. Strike? What strike?

Different News Fronts

Monday January 21, 7:51 p.m.

Well, it's been a varied day in terms of news. Down in the States, the main story was the second inauguration of Barack Obama, over in Japan, NHK led with the sad news that 7 Japanese nationals have been confirmed killed due to the hostage incident in Algeria, and over here, the big story was the return of the Leafs to action tonight. It was nice to see and hear the Leafs win the first game in Montreal....and a low-scoring one, at that. Saw the first few minutes of tonight's Buffalo-Toronto game....pretty spirited although the Leaf defence still needs a bit of enhancing, but our own buzzsaw, Colton Orr, managed to knock a 6'8" fellow down to his knees in the first fight at the ACC this year. Always great for morale to see that.

I managed to fairly sprint through another 50 pages of translation this afternoon since there wasn't all that much text. Just have another 50 or so to go and then the final check before hand-in.

Anxieties Everywhere

Thursday January 17, 9:36 a.m.

The latest translation is coming along slowly but steadily. However, I'm not a huge fan of TRADOS or at least the learning curve for me seems to be a right angle. I tried to send over a sample file to the boss only to be told that the file didn't have any translation along with the source. Well, I have 16 hours of solid work to prove that I was working on it! Something similar happened to me when I did my first translation on the software, so using another trick, it was able to pull through. I'm hoping that the same thing did the trick this time. In any case, the deadline for this one seems to be rather distant and amorphous so neither the boss nor I are particularly in panic mode. But I'm still unsure.

Japan has been having to deal with a couple of crises in the last few days. The new old Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, would only have had to deal with the usual economic woes infiltrating his country if these situations hadn't happened. But both ANA and JAL have grounded their Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleets like itinerant teens since the batteries on some of the planes have been turning into (smoke) bombs at the very least. Of course, Boeing stock has been going boing at the news....and that is in the bad way. And then there is the ongoing hostage incident in Algeria in which some Japanese nationals have also been taken, although I may have heard that some of them have been released.

Buried within all that is the 18th anniversary of the Kobe Earthquake. Some events will always be remembered....the people in Kobe and the surrounding region certainly haven't forgotten. And as someone who had felt a fraction of the Tohoku Earthquake a couple of years ago in Tokyo (and that fraction was enough to sear itself into my memory forever), I can attest to that.

At the end of this, I also have to mention that Conrad Bain from "Diff'rent Strokes" has passed away. To be honest, I hadn't heard anything about him for years so that I thought he had already left this mortal coil, but he was able to live a good long life. I had no idea that he was actually born in Lethbridge, Alberta. I used to watch the show with him, Gary Coleman, Dana Plato and Todd Bridges on Thursday or Friday on NBC. It's a pity that Bridges is the only surviving member now from that series.

Now that I know Bain's connection with Canada, I can understand a bit more about his brother, Hank, being brought into that old "SCTV" sketch involving the station and alien cabbages.

Learning How to Slide/Nagisa Oshima

Tuesday January 15, 10:15 p.m.

Well, it's been about a couple of days since the big snow hit the Kanto Region. And the consequences are starting to befall commuters. Yup, the traffic on the major highways has been snarled up....kinda like looks like the Gardiner Expressway here on a bad day...which is usually everyday. But the NHK report also told of over 1,500 incidents of people falling over on the sidewalks or floors since Sunday. Looks like it's not just cars that need the chains....and yep, tires in Japan often get the chains for snow driving. I haven't seen chains here on car tires since the 1960s....and that was through ancient Canadian Tire catalogs. Anyways, I'm not laughing....we may be getting some of the white stuff as well in a few days. It would be appropriate, though....NHL season is coming back on Saturday.

As soon as I entered the living room this morning, I caught the news on NHK that director Nagisa Oshima had passed away from pneumonia at the age of 80. His name is not particularly a household one on this side of the Pacific. But for some of the veteran cineasts out there, he was the auteur who had directed the controversial "In the Realm of the Senses" back in the 1970s and "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" with David Bowie and Ryuichi Sakamoto in 1983. Never saw the latter one, but I remember it making news for the fact that Bowie was in it, and at the time, he was hitting another peak in his career in his incarnation as MTV-friendly pop star. Sakamoto was also cruising fine as one-third of the Yellow Magic Orchestra back in Japan. Actually for me, the theme song, also created and performed by Sakamoto, is the most well-known part of the movie for me.

Not sure how long this video will stay up on YouTube, but here is a series of commercials that the director actually appeared in. Some of them match the image of zaniness that Japanese commercials have cultivated. But that was the thing about Oshima. As one of his friends pointed out today on the news, Oshima had no taboos about anything. He showed that in his movies, his interviews (his friend also remarked that Oshima would fight with anybody anywhere anytime), and even the commercials. He may have been an intimidating high-level director but his ego wasn't so big that he would pooh-pooh the idea of appearing in a TV ad.

I used to see him in my early years in Japan on TV shows regularly. At the time, I hadn't even known it was Nagisa Oshima. I saw this cheerful, talkative old guy as a panelist on a number of game shows, not realizing that this was THE Nagisa Oshima. Still, when I finally did see him at work in some documentary footage, he was the scariest sumbitch. He probably had the power to reduce yakuza to tears if they didn't act like he ordered. People did not cross this man intentionally.

There was a Saturday night program called "Hammer Price" which was hosted by the comedy duo, Tunnels (one of whom is Takaaki Ishibashi, who had his brief 15 minutes of Hollywood by playing the insane baseball import in the last few movies of the "Major League"franchise). It was an auction comedy game show of sorts where the studio audience could bid on some crazed piece of pop culture whether it be a sample of bathwater that a buxom actress had sat in or Robert DeNiro's attempt at calligraphy (both true). Well, one night, someone bid and won the opportunity for his child's graduation ceremony to be filmed by Oshima himself. And Oshima actually did it....with crane shots and all of the energy and anger that he brought to all of his other projects. It was quite the scene...no pun intended.

Anyways, I leave you with the theme from "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" which is one of the de rigueur Xmas tunes heard everywhere in Japan during the Holidays.

And this is "Ai no Corrida", the Quincy Jones disco tune from "The Dude". It's one of my favourite songs from that era of R&B, and the original version was written by Chaz Jankel and Kenny Young. "Ai no Corrida"was the original Japanese title from Oshima's "In The Realm of the Senses", and according to Jankel in his first album, he decided to adopt the title for the song.

Facebook, Face Music?

Monday January 14, 10:46 p.m.

I've been getting some reports and more photos of the Snow That Swallowed Tokyo via Facebook. It looks like the trains have been reporting some delays but things are moving surprisingly well. Good to hear. Still, one of my old buddies over there has been reporting that certain drivers have deigned not to switch over to chains or snow tires under the circumstances, so accidents are probably occurring. Y'know, guys....the trains are still really good there.

I read an article in "The Toronto Star" about how some people are trying to quit social networking sites such as the aforementioned FB and Twitter because they're suffering some form of fatigue or they want to show the world that, yes, they no longer want to act as if they were beholden to a digital god. And so they do so....and come sneaking back when they have those Internet withdrawal symptoms. For me, I have no problems with FB or Twitter. Facebook has been my public plaza of sorts with all the pictures and all of the FB friends showing up en masse, and since the vast majority of them are in far-flung places, it's nice to be able to keep in touch with them, even digitally. There is of course some of the personal security issues that Mark Zuckerberg seems to have some problems with, but again in my case, I don't particularly put up photos of people too much, and if any photos of me end up anywhere, I would actually take that as a compliment....as long as the site isn't some fat fetish page. For a guy who still needs to know about what's been happening in Japan (such as yesterday's storm), FB has been OK by me.

Snow in Tokyo

Monday January 14, 8:16 p.m.

Well, my Facebook was all a-flutter with photos from the buddies back in Japan concerning the big snow in the northern half of Honshu....which includes Tokyo. And YouTube seems to have had quite a few videos get uploaded of the atypical blizzard which swamped the region in white. The video above was taken in the tony neighbourhood of Den'en-Chofu...the home of my Skype student and former Prime Minister Hatoyama; it oughta be interesting talking with him for his first lesson of the year this coming Saturday night. In any case, Tokyo got hit with 7 cm....which is an enormous amount for the Japanese capital. Apparently, the JR is running; the joke about them was that if a single snowflake hit any of the rails, the entire network would come crashing down.

In my years there, I remember perhaps one Winter in which the Kanto region got anything comparable to what happened on Sunday. Basically, Tokyo is snow-free most of the time, and what snow does come down is in the form of pleasant flurries. If there is accumulation, usually it's gone by the next morning. I don't think that will be the case today and perhaps for the next couple of days. Tokyoites may even experience that horrendous sight of watching the snow gradually going various shades of gray and black....and perhaps yellow, in pet-friendly areas.

Meanwhile, over here in Toronto, the grounds are bare once more but perhaps just for a few days. Apparently, 4 cm will be on the way later this week. The cold has returned, though. There was that distinctive below-freezing snap in the air. Spent the afternoon on this new translation assignment....not too difficult but had to download a free PowerPoint viewer on the new computer which was aggravating, plus I got the usual feedback from the editors about my work. I'm never gonna be too thrilled to see that although I am aware that they're trying to improve me as a translator. Let's say taking criticism....constructive or destructive....will never be my strong suit. In any case, it seems that I will be on this assignment for this week so I'm just focusing on that.

The Anime King has gotten in contact with me. He managed to miss the big snowstorm in Tokyo by a couple of weeks, and is now enjoying the hustle and bustle in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. He'll be back on the 19th after his long flight from Southeast Asia back to Canada; was surprised to say that he wants to meet up the next day for our first outing. He may want to re-consider considering the potential for extreme jet lag.

January Thaw

Sunday January 13, 9:13 p.m.

As was the case yesterday, I couldn't complain about the weather today. Was downright boiling at 12 degrees....too bad the sun refused to cooperate. It was pretty dreary all day. However, things will get back to normal as of tonight as we dip down to -2. Strangely enough, according to a photo put up by my Facebook friend in Japan, it looks like Tokyo is getting bombed with the white stuff. But as I've said before, snow isn't exactly an everyyear phenomenon in that area, so I'm sure a lot of kids...and my friend (she's in her mid-thirties but she's got the heart and energy of someone a sixth her age)...are taking full advantage of having snow.

Well, the NHL training camps are in full swing as of today. As would be the case in this city, the press conferences of both the General Manager and the Coach of the Maple Leafs were Breaking News. Haven't heard any news of major trades and I figure if GM Nonis is gonna be pulling the trigger, it will be within the next 24 hours....otherwise, he'll be making some major disruptions to his team. But then considering the boneheaded timing behind the ousting of his predecessor a few days ago, anything can happen.

Got my latest translation assignment in, and I'll probably be getting another multi-day one tomorrow. I'm definitely getting busier....the money coming in will be helpful, especially when tax time comes around. I also helped out a friend of my sister-in-law who'll be coming back to Japan from overseas life; she needed some advice on the Customs stuff. Basically, if she's having goods follow her, she should be prepared for some extra time conversing with the folks in another section of Pearson.

Speaking of which, my sister-in-law and the rest of my extended family came over for dinner tonight. My niece was as cheerful and running off at the mouth as usual. Unfortunately, she was one of the hundreds (thousands?) of kids who got caught in the middle of that Friday morning kerfuffle involving the Ontario government and the teachers' union, not that it bothered her too much.

Was looking at some photos from my time in Tokyo. I took this one back in 2009 as I was walking through the Park Avenue (Koen Dori) area of Shibuya. Sometimes when I look through the shots, I can't believe it's been over a year since I made my return from my second home. I do miss the place at times. Shibuya can be grungy at times but this shot certainly makes the neighbourhood a little more sophisticated.

Mission Completed

Thursday January 10, 11:53 a.m.

Well, got the initial translation done for that assignment. Took about 3 days but I got it done more than 24 hours before the deadline. I still have to give it a good once-over for any errors or mis-translations so that will probably be what will take up my day tomorrow. It wasn't supremely difficult but there were quite a few pages to go through. Had a bit of a scare last night when, for some reason, the Internet wasn't coming through as the router was having conniptions I couldn't control. I wasn't translating in the evening but was worried that the problems could have gone into today.

Looks like we're in the middle of a January thaw. It's really warm for a Toronto Winter at 4 degrees today, but things should get utterly boiling by the weekend when we hit the double digits as a high. I think people will be in the mood to break out the T-shirts and windsails. But of course, in Tokyo, that still means wrapping the scarves and buttoning up the wool coats. Still, it seems as if half of Japan is undergoing a major deep-freeze this year. Tokyo has been hovering at about the freezing point as a low for several days....something that doesn't happen all too often in The Big Sushi. It's gonna be interesting getting The Anime King's account of the weather there when he gets back from his vacation in a couple of weeks. For me, the winters in Tokyo were great for me although I often missed the snow. We sometimes got socked in by the white stuff every few years or so but basically the capital was free and clear. It was cold....for a Japanese city....and clear, though, which made Mt. Fuji sightings a lot easier from the Tozai Line subways.

Anyways, getting back to Toronto 2013...now that I've completed the translation, I'll have lunch and finally get a good hour's walk in for the first time in 3 days.

Pikachu greeting me on top of the Ueno Matsuzakaya
Department Store back in November 2009.
What's life without a little whimsy?

Kom Jug Yuen

Thursday January 3, 8:53 p.m.

I did mention a few entries ago in the last year that I was going to meet my old Japan buddy, The Satyr, for lunch last Saturday. And I did. The snow was coming down to the extent that any memories of the Winter That Never Was the previous year disappeared completely. Before I met up with him, I took temporary refuge in that anime/manga store just down Spadina for about 15 minutes or so. Of course, it's nothing compared to some of the emporia in Tokyo, but saw a respectable number of translated manga, CDs and figures. If I were on more secure financial ground, I would probably be investing some of my cash into these things, especially on the "Haruhi Suzumiya"series, but I'm gonna have to wait somewhat longer.

Anyways, I met The Satyr at about 12:30 in front of Kom Jug Yuen. It'd been over a year since I saw the lad with the rest of my old Movie Gang back in Tokyo. The last time was when we had that dinner at the Akasaka Hooters (deep-fried pickles....well, a work in progress). We got in, sat down and started catching up on friends and movies. It'd been a very long time since I was in ol' KJY. Another friend of mine, The Entrepreneur, and I often hit this place in the early 90s. I was happy to see that the place hasn't changed all that much. The wooden tables, the Chinese lanterns and the hanging meat at the front were all there. I guess the reunion wasn't just for The Satyr and me....it was also a re-meeting with an old culinary haunt.

We both ordered what we had wanted for years there. Meat on Rice. In The Satyr's case, it was just the char-siu on rice, but I splurged to have BBQ duck crammed in with the BBQ pork as well. Splurge, of course, is a relative term with Kom Jug Yuen. I think it just cost me $6. And there was that lovely simple soup with chicken, stock, slices of ginger and some greens. Good meal for a cold day.

The chatting continued on as we made our way around the corner and to the Second Cup on College St. just across from U of T. That place was also one of memories for us. The Satyr used to work part-time there while I went there on Saturdays with the oft-huge crowd of Language Exchange members from the JCSA. The Second Cup was the transition point between the Exchange site at the International Student Centre and the various restaurants that the Japanese/Canadian crowd headed for. The Satyr told me that he and the staff behind the counter had to get their battle gear up and ready to handle the sudden influx. It certainly wasn't that way on the 28th. For one thing, the JCSA wasn't in session over the Holidays, and for another, I heard that the even larger group now is more or less heading to the closer Starbucks. So, it was nice and quiet and empty when the two of us had another reunion with an old place. It was good seeing The Satyr. Hopefully, perhaps someday, maybe some of the others might come and visit, although Movie Buddy will probably be not one of them since he became a father for the first time last year.

At this point, I would think that The Satyr will be getting ready to head on back to Japan in a couple of more days. In a way, I envy him since he's going back to the city where I had lived a pretty happy life for many, many years. But I'm settled back into life in Toronto, enjoying a proper Winter this time around. And perhaps making more trips over to Kom Jug Yuen.