A sequel to my dearly departed 8-year-old blog, Ä Canuck in Emperor Akihito's Court"(http://haruhiko.blogspot.com). Back home in Canada but still have those ties to Japan after 17 years' residency there.
Let's see what the top news stories were on NHK today. The Oi Nuclear Reactor in Fukui Prefecture was reactivated. Check. Ichiro Ozawa's embryonic political party is slowly making its way down the tube for its birth next week. Check. And then there was Shin Shin.
Shin Shin the female Giant Panda on loan from China along with her male companion, Ri Ri, are now the proud parents of a cub after some Woo Woo. Hold the presses! Japan's largest zoo in Ueno Park, Tokyo, virtually declared a national holiday. And newspaper staff were giving out extras on the streets with all the fervor of an Olympic win. Panda bears are up there with girl group AKB 48 in terms of popularity. But the black-and-white marsupials have always been the animals to be loved in the Land of the Rising Sun.
courtesy of weenah from Flickr
Little kids once told me that robots lived side by side with humans in Japan. To a certain extent, I would agree. However, when it comes to animals, especially the cute kind, they are given the celebrity treatment there. I remember going to Kobe during my Japanese Language School trip in 1981, and just seeing tons of pictures of panda bears because a couple of them had been visiting the country. Then there were the frilled lizards boom in the early 80s. Food products often have pictures of little critters on the boxes. And there is a certain prime time TV show starring comedian Ken Shimura that puts various animals on full display. Even NHK has a couple of weekly animal-based shows.
The Japanese mania for animals seems to have even extended to eating and drinking establishments. Cafes with cats, dogs and even rabbits have popped up all over Tokyo....like rabbits. I went to one of those Rabbit Cafes last September....more on that in a future entry.
Ironically, that love for animals doesn't seem to extend to whales and dolphins, though. Scientific research, my butt!
After the massive binging of Canada Day with The Anime Court's visit to Toronto's Ribfest and then my brother's BBQ later on that day, the 2nd was relatively light. I met up with The Dancer and her husband for lunch downtown. We were supposed to have met at this mozzarella bar called Obika since they made an online reservation. However, Obika screwed up by accepting it while the restaurant stayed resolutely closed. No problems....we just went over to another very pleasant al fresco restaurant for lunch and served by a perkily pretty waitress who had a glancing resemblance to Taylor Swift and Flo the Progressive Insurance lady. Splurged a bit on a Cucumber Sangria....very refreshing.
After lunch, while the husband had to take off for a bit of work, my old friend and I did the usual 2-hour walk up Yonge St. all the way to Eglinton. We saw a couple of crazy women screaming abuse at anyone who would listen....south of Bloor, of course....and then one young female scammer near Davisville tried to give us a sob story to relieve us of some coins. She wasn't even trying to act....just rattled off some of her story like a robot before we quickly turned away and up. She yelled some mild epithet at us as we walked off.
Yesterday, I had one sub stint for the morning class. Not the greatest execution though most of the students were nice enough. Motivation levels amongst the students varied somewhat, though. Once again, there was a curveball thrown by having two new students come in, though, the current session was already halfway through. Not a huge fan of that policy by any means...and it's officially not supposed to happen, but as one veteran teacher mentioned to me, business is business. If one student wants to start ASAP, the management will not disagree.
Luckily, today will be an off day. I have a monthly meeting tomorrow there but that will be it. I'm wondering whether to catch "The Amazing Spiderman" but with the kids off for summer vacation, I'm considering whether to just wait for it on DVD. Plus, I still feel burned by the last one.
courtesy of North Carolina State Archives from Flickr
Wednesday July 4th, 10:00 a.m.
Perhaps it is somewhat fitting that I write this entry on the 4th of July, since it deals with the passing of an American TV icon. Not to say that Andy Griffith should be compared to Abraham Lincoln or George Washington. I'm well aware that he was an actor, singer and pitchman for Ritz Crackers, but whenever I think of my early days as a TV watcher, Sheriff Andy Taylor will always be that fictional but comfortable figure of Americana for me.
It's been recently said that as one gets older, one can only remember the last half of life with good clarity. The first half of life's memories ends up becoming mere flashes of images. Still, one image that has still remained crystal clear in my mind all these years is the opening credits for "The Andy Griffith Show", with Andy and Opie walking down to the nearest pond for a round of fishing while the theme song is being whistled. Even in this day and age of Bieber, Gaga and Rihanna, that simple tune can be remembered by most people above the age of 20, I assume.
As I was watching the tribute feature on him on the CTV News last night, the reporter pointed out that even when the show was being aired for the first time, it was already being labeled as nostalgic...like something out of the 30s. And watching reruns of the show over the decades, I can only imagine what life must've been like in a small North Carolina town where apple pies could be seen cooling on the window sill, the local lawman could be seen more often brandishing a guitar than a gun, prisoners were actually lovable, and locks were merely seen as optional on doors. Most likely a very fictional scenario even back then, but wasn't it nice to see such a peaceful town as Mayberry?
Andy Griffith may have started out his career as a slightly eccentric happy-go-lucky guy with a guitar, but he would always strike me as the ideal patriarch/career professional. Laconic, friendly, sage and leaderly (if such an adverb exists....according to my Spellcheck, it does not). He even brought some of that into his Ritz ads and "Matlock".
I don't know if "The Andy Griffith Show"ever made it out to Japan, although in the early postwar period, a lot of American TV programs did get out there to make up for the lack of domestic programming at the time. However, "Matlock"was a fixture on local cable TV.
It would be too maudlin....and false....if I said that with Griffith's passing, another link to an innocent time has been severed. Instead, with all of today's technology and archiving, Andy Taylor and that theme song will continue to go on and welcome viewers to his small imaginary town.
Well, as promised, The Anime King took me over to Centennial Park on Canada Day. The park is over in the west end of Toronto, the area known as Etobicoke. Pretty huge park, so pretty huge setup for Toronto's tribute to all that is meaty and drippy.
The Anime Court got there about 11 a.m. so we were very early and therefore we could get finger-lickin' spareribs without having to wait in the relentless sun. Sure enough, an hour later, the crowds started surging into the area.
Do not lick the screen!
This was my very first Ribfest. Before I'd left for Japan, such festivals didn't exist. Now, it's a Toronto gastronomic institution. The members of the Court and I planned it out and we all went to different rib joints so that we could share the whole kit n' kaboodle at our table. I could see the grilling philosophy of low n' slow being carried out.
My contribution came from Sticky Fingers. I went for the whole rack at $22. Nope, not exactly a Dollarama deal but this was a special occasion. And it was well worth the money since the meat was literally falling off the bone. Neat freaks can just pass by this festival. You only eat ribs one way, and that is messily!
And what is a Ribfest without a free computerized spinal scan? I could only imagine that the service is provided to find out whether ingesting kilos of rib meat could induce curvature of the spine. Didn't see too many hunched-over foodies, but isn't it comforting to know that the scanning technology is mere metres away?
Saw the news that I'd been expecting to happen all week. Actually, my student, Mr. Moriya, informed me a little over 24 hours earlier during our biweekly Skype lesson.
That wily political fox, Ichiro Ozawa, has decided to part ways from the governing Democratic Party of Japan along with 49 other rebels after disagreeing with PM Noda's plan to double the consumption tax rate over the next few years.
Not that it's a huge surprise. Ozawa is known by a number of nicknames in Parliament...a few of which are probably unprintable...but The Don and The Kingpin are two of them. The one that sticks out to me is The Destroyer since he's pulled this stunt before whenever he disagrees with some sort of party policy (no matter which party he has been allied with); just ups and leaves like some spiteful kid does when he leaves the sandbox with all of his toys. I think he's split more times than an especially randy amoeba.
The sticking point that finally "made"Ozawa split with the DPJ is that Noda was able to get that bill about the consumption tax rise passed last week. The DPJ had come to power a few years back after decades of Liberal Democratic Party rule with this Manifesto (kinda like what the United Nations had envisioned for itself and the planet in postwar euphoria), part of which was that the consumption tax would never rise under its aegis. Then, the very first DPJ Prime Minister, Hatoyama, turned out to be an ineffectual leader and it was pretty much downhill from there.
I have a number of impressions about Ichiro Ozawa, but altruism is not one of them. It's all a power game for him....the thrill of creating trouble if he doesn't get his way. I can probably add another nickname...that of Loki (yeah, yeah, I like my Marvel characters). He's still probably riding high from the fact that he was able to miss another legal bullet by not being convicted yet again for alleged election violations....for which I would call him Japan's Teflon Don. And a lot of people had ridden off even earlier when he supposedly got terribly sick a few years back. But the Kingpin (yep, Marvel again) is back....making headlines and ensuring his legend while he sends the Japanese Parliament into further turmoil and disillusioning the Japanese public. Shou ga nai.
Yup, it's getting steamy out there; typical for the last day of June. We will definitely need that new AC online by the time my brother and his family get there tonight.
I was taking a look at my analytics for Blogger and found out that there were a couple of inquiries about Schneiders Meat Pies...most likely from Meat Pie Lover. The Schneiders stuff is all frozen so it can be bought anywhere at a Metro or other major supermarket so that shouldn't be a problem at all.
That was one of the things I missed back in Japan. Of all the wonderful different dishes which have arrived in my adopted home, meat pies haven't been one of them. Although they can be ordered online via an enterprising young fellow there, they aren't readily available unfortunately at the supermarkets. I'm not sure if that scandal involving garbage-filled gyoza hitting Western Japan a few years had anything to do with it, but then again, "Sweeney Todd" with Johnny Depp did make it out with little ill effect. Frankly, I was thoroughly unimpressed with that so-called musical.
Yup, went down to St. Lawrence Market and picked up another dozen of those bagels there. Pretty darn hot in the GTA today. I think we're in the low 30s but the Humidex is probably hovering around 40 degrees. Instead of the Carousel Bakery, I decided to have my lunch downstairs in the basement. I tried out the Chicken Souvlaki in a Bun with a Coke served at a place called Yianni's Kitchen. Pretty good for $7. There's a lot of stuff I would love to take home with me but unless I brought down a fully-iced chest, I just can't take the chance.
Before I left for downtown, I had received a surprise call from The Anime Chamberlain, the quietly ousted member of The Court. The lad was just a bit too opinionated for The King over the years. I hadn't heard from the fellow in a few months so I thought I was on the outs with him as well, but he re-made contact. It's possible we might meet for dinner on the 2nd.
The kids are out for the summer as of today, a fact I was reminded when I got on the Eglinton 34. Just a few stops away from my area, a whole swarm of elementary school kids amassed on the bus with a couple of harried teachers. Luckily, I was able to survive the experience for a few minutes.
