Citrus Blend Kit-Kat

A new entry in the "weird Japanese Kit-Kat flavor" category. According to the package, it's exclusive to Chugoku and Shikoku. (Nana bought it in Hiroshima on a school trip.)

They're actually pretty good, but they're hardly classifiable as Kit-Kats. The flavor is somewhere between a creamsicle and an orange Starburst.

Dan & Kath in Kyoto: The Golden Pavilion

In the afternoon of our second day in Kyoto, after a morning spent at one of Kyoto's massive flea markets, we stopped by Kinkaku-ji ("The Temple of the Golden Pavilion"), which perhaps one of the most famous temples in all of Japan. At the center of this temple's sprawling gardens lies a broad, shallow pond with a soaring pavilion coated in gold leaf. You've probably seen it before, though you may not have known what it was: along with, say, Mt. Fuji, or one of Japan's multi-storied pagodas, the Golden Pavilion is among a handful of images that can regularly be found on Japanese post-cards and calendars.

Fortunately, we managed to arrive at just the right time in the afternoon: with the Golden Pavilion shining in the early evening sun, even the crowds of fellow tourists weren't enough to take the magic out of the place. A joy to look at, and a joy to photograph, too.

As you can see, the water that day was incredibly still.

I also indulged in a few shots from behind the pavilion, looking out over the pond.

You can see how the pavilion juts out into the water, so that it looks almost like it's floating. This is a favorite trick in traditional Japanese architecture.

Buffalo, venison, and elk, oh my! Shipping Jerky to Japan with Climax Jerky

Sometimes Justin and I like to feature things on the blog which have contributed in small or large ways to our quality of life. Today's feature: the good people at Climax Jerky.

Foreign food is relatively accessible in Japan, certainly more so than in Seoul (although that was five years ago now, and we've even seen Fukuoka become more international in that time, so who knows what you can get in Seoul these days?) What you can't get can often be mailed by collaborators back home, which is the source of my precious brownie mix, still unavailable here. (I saw reduced fat brownie mix at the Kaldi Coffee Farm at the mall... so close, and yet, so far.)

Meat, however, remains difficult. Most is too perishable to ship, and stores here typically don't stock "foreign" meats like turkey. Even non-perishables are severely restricted by international shipping and quarantine laws. I once had a care package from my mother impounded after customs discovered jerky inside. This being Japan, they were happy to remove the jerky and send the rest along, which was nice for the brownie mix but did nothing to assuage my jerky craving.

We love jerky, Justin and I. When we go home, we drive back and forth to visit relatives and usually keep a bag of jerky in the car for snacks. You can find beef jerky here, but not the holy grail of jerky. the mighty bison jerky. Or buffalo jerky, if you aren't really fussy about terminology.

My brilliant mother contacted the post office and some shipping folks and found out that jerky would be exportable to Japan provided that it was shipped directly from a licensed manufacturer, as opposed to from a consumer who bought it in the store. Which led her to the good people at Climax Jerky, a specialty jerky producer in Colorado. They have everything from beef to buffalo to salmon, in flavors like hickory, lemon pepper, and teriyaki. (Contrary to what you might think, bringing teriyaki bison jerky to Japan is not like bringing coals to Newcastle. It's more like bringing Tex-Mex to Mexico).

Mom called. Brooke said, "I think we can do it." They did.

I am too lazy to rotate this. Please note hand-signed thank you note.

The downside of ordering from Climax: well, their jerky isn't cheap, but it is a specialty product. Buffalo jerky, for instance, is expensive wherever you buy it, but it is completely worth the price. I don't know about shipping because this has always been a gift from my mother at the holidays. I'm sure Brooke could tell you.

The other downside is that the arrival date is not predictable. Based on package stamps, I can tell that Climax sent it out within 24 hours of my mother's order, so the delay is on the post office and customs side. I don't hold Climax responsible. The first time my mom sent it, it took about 6 weeks to arrive. However, this time, it came in just over 2 weeks. Maybe that's the result of the Fukuoka customs office being familiar with it the second time around. Still, it did get here both times, and it's not like jerky spoils.

Overall, ordering from Climax Jerky gets two big expat thumbs up!

Sapporo Skiing & Snow Festival Teaser

Ise Shrine, made out of snow.

As many of our loyal readers may already know, Nana and I spent the weekend in Hokkaido at the 64th Annual Sapporo Snow Festival. We also managed to squeeze in an excellent day of skiing at Sapporo Teine Highland (read: two feet of fresh powder overnight, followed by clear skies in the afternoon).

Hard to tell, but that's the northern sprawl of Sapporo down below.

It will take us a bit to get the pics sorted and the posts written (and, egad, we still have a couple posts from my parents' visit in November . . . !). This is just a little something to tide you over while we catch up from doings nothing productive for four whole days.

(Full disclosure: I'm writing this post partly to test a new IFTTT recipe. Any accidental entertainment you incur from this post is just a happy side effect.)

Kyoto: Fushimi Inari Taisha

Another episode from the adventures of Justin, Nana, Dan, and Kath . . .

Our first stop on arrival in Kyoto - after a flight from Nagasaki and a train from Kansai - was Fushimi Inari Taisha (伏見稲荷大社, "the great shrine of Inari in Fushimi"). This is the head shrine of Inari Okami (稲荷大神, "Inari the great spirit"), one of the most important of the kami, the god-ish beings central to Shinto.

Inari is traditionally honored as the spirit of worldly success in all its forms: agriculture, fertility, business, and such. Like most kami, Inari takes many forms (of either gender, though more often female). But she's most commonly associated with her messenger, the fox. Hence her shrines can usually be identified by pairs of flanking fox statues and clusters of bright orange torii gates erected by local businesses hoping to gain her favor.

If you can't afford a big one, you can buy a little one instead.

At Fushimi Inari Taisha, though, this has gotten totally out of hand: the shrine occupies an entire hillside on the south-eastern edge of Kyoto, criss-crossed by dozens of paths under thousands upon thousands of torii.

The four of us spent about an hour wandering the wooded precincts and still barely scratched the surface of the place. It's essentially a day hike, with little clusters of noodle shops and tea shops scattered along the way, looking like they'd just dropped out of the 1790s.

Awesome little playground for the camera!

Fukuoka, mon.

I supervise, among other tests, the SAT here, and I don't even bother to check in the mail for my rosters. I'm in my second year as college counselor, and they've maybe come before the test twice? The joys and perils of test distance, I suppose.

I also get copies of the scores of students at my school. I hadn't gotten any for a while, and I was wondering what had happened. Turned out they took a little detour:

 

I am impressed by two things. First, that things are missent to Jamaica so frequently that there is a stamp for it. Second, that the best way to get it back to me once it had gone to Jamaica in the first place somehow involved Germany (check the stamp). This is a well-traveled set of misplaced scores.

I do actually know how this happened. Someone must have had to sort the letter electronically, and whenever you use the dropdown menu to enter a country name, you type "J" to get to the right section. Japan, however, is not the first J country on an alphabetical list. Jamaica is. (Reminds me of our time in Korea where you never knew how to find that country on a dropdown menu at all - depending on the makers of the list, it could be under K, for "Korea, South,"; under S for South Korea, or under R for Republic of Korea). So if you're rapidly tabbing through the list, you could easily end up on Jamaica by mistake.

The capper:

Me, showing envelope to student: "Isn't that hilarious? The letter went to Jamaica instead of Japan?"
Student: "Haha! Jamaica! That's in Africa, right?"

I think he has a future with the post office.

Cptain Aquriam

We had a PTA potluck tonight, and the prospect of squillions ownerless paper cups. The obvious solution is to put names on the paper cups. Yet I am not a big fan of putting my actual name on things (not that Nana is my actual name anyway) - not when there are so many magnificent names out there to be had, and so tragically few opportunities to dub myself with them.

Me, to fourth grader with pen: "Does it have to be my real name?"
Fourth grader: "I guess not..."
Me: "I mean, I want something cooler than my regular old name. Something awesome, or heroic. Like a superhero name."
Other fourth grader: Captain Aquarium!

ONE AND DONE.