Costco Pilgrimage

Sometimes when you've been living in a new country for a bit you start to overlook those unremarkable events that make up an important part of your experience. For example, you probably wouldn't think of Costco as an essential part of life in Japan, but you'd also be hard-pressed to find any expat in Asia who would turn down the offer of a Costco trip. That's because in just about every major Asian city from Shanghai to Sapporo, Costco is the cheapest source of Western staples like peanut butter, sausage, and cheese.

So when a co-worker offered us a ride to Costco this morning, we jumped at the chance!

But there's more to an expat's Costco visit than cheap groceries, as Costco's "food court" (read: concession stand) is also the only real option around for cheap American-style pizza and hot dogs. Despite the ensuing stomach ache, those treats alone would have been worth the journey--including those harrowing 20 minutes when we got lost, accidentally blew through a tollbooth without taking a ticket, and threw ourselves on the mercy of a thankfully kind toll collector who could speak a little English.

As it is, we also came away with several pounds of peanut butter, dried cranberries, and Quaker Oats. All in all, a stirring success!

Formatting Weirdness

Wow--the formatting on that last post went really wonky, didn't it? I think I'll go back to the simple layout from now on!

Say Cheese!

It's tough to find good cheese in East Asia--tough enough that every now and then, they'll devote a whole restaurant to it, like some sort of delicacy.

Such is the case with Cheese Dining Angelo, a restaurant in Tenjin that specializes in all things cheesy.

(Many thanks to our coworker, Dayle, for showing us the place and guiding us through the menu!)

The menu at Angelo is built around a bunch of different types of fondue, some familiar, some exotic (think "squid ink"). We stuck mostly to the familiar stuff: plain, basil, tomato, and sesame (our one adventure).

 Here's plain (on the left) and basil (which was my favorite).

Here's tomato (on the left) and sesame.

As per usual, you're given bread and veggies to dip in the fondue--but the addition of squash, okra, and little cocktail weenies provided a distinctly Japanese touch. (The Japanese are obsessed with hot dogs.)

We also had a great caesar salad with hunks of bacon and tofu in it. The cheese, ironically enough, left something to be desired (it was that chewy, plasticy Asian cheese), but the dressing was awesome--a hint of smoked red pepper, I think.

After our fondue, we indulged in some risotto made inside a giant wheel of Gran Padano cheese.

Our deserts were also cheese-themed. Here's a surprisingly light baked cheesecake.

And a tart with cheese, nuts, and chocolate. (Plus the world's smallest fork.) Yum!

A Post-Payday Trip to the Second-hand Store

Stuff in Japan is expensive. No one denies this. But when people move house, they tend to offload anything that doesn't fit in the new place at one of Japan's delightfully eclectic second-hand stores. Here are some highlights from our trip to the local "ACB" last weekend.

Most of the store like a well-stocked Salvation Army, but with a much lower ratio of clothes to other stuff.

A super-comfy double-recliner loveseat for 21,000 yen (about $230)? Yeah, we totally bought that. In fact, I'm sitting on it right now!

While we were checking out and arranging delivery they gave us some chilled tea. For some reason I seem to have felt really smug about this.

After we purchased our awesome couch, we started poking around, and things quickly got weird (as they are wont to do in Japan). The copy on this mini beer fridge reads:

"Drinking a glass of beer helps you release fatigue and mental stress when you come back home. Just pull down the lever and get a chilled canned beer for your relaxing time. COOLING CUBE creates a healing time and space beyond reality for you. SINCE 2003."

Yeah.

Not one, but three slot machines, each for under $600 bucks.

The obligatory pachinko machine.

An 88-key electric piano for . . . $125?

And, naturally, a mechanical bull.

(Seriously, I'm not kidding--that's actually a mechanical bull.)

Muromi Paper Lantern Festival

The Muromi River is one of the two little rivers that flow together at the point by our house. Yesterday, Nana and I (along with a bunch of co-workers led by Maureen, whom you may remember as the leader of our little Dazaifu adventure) rode our bikes a few miles upriver for the Muromi Paper Lantern Festival. 

The Muromi festival is just one of the countless local lantern festivals celebrated throughout East Asia. Though pretty humble when compared with some of the bigger festivals, the sight of all those lights flickering in the cool evening air isn't something I'll easily forget.

Here are some photos (and videos!) from our night:

The majority of the lanterns were simple colored paper bags with candles inside, arranged in a wild array of patterns.

Most of the patterns appeared to be abstract, though there were a few we could identify (fish, birds, something that was either a mermaid or a top-down view of a veil dance).

 

The lanterns marking the edges of the footpaths were all made by local schoolchildren.

 Some of these added some really neat colors to the mix.

 Others simply have a lot of personality, like this ogre . . .

 . . . and his red-faced companion.

It's hard to get the full sensation from these photos, though. For one, the spread was huge, and with the cool breeze blowing up the river, the lanterns were constantly flickering like waves of grain.

Here's an attempt to catch the flickering:

And here's an attempt to give a sense of the scale of the thing:

Singapore III: The Final Smackdown

Here's the final installment of my Singapore adventures. Is it food? Of course it's food. It's Singapore.

(I also suggest checking out Wendy's blog entry about our trip. She mentions some non-food experiences like the amazing airport line and the racist subway baby. She also mentions omiyage, the Japanese tradition of bringing back crappy little gifts for coworkers, which I still don't entirely understand, since I spend most of my life trying to throw away the sort of things people bring as omiyage. Good thing she was along, or I would probably have seemed very discourteous to our office staff!).

Penang Hawker fare at the York Hotel:


Coincidentally mere yards from our hotel, this Malay smorgasbord was brought to our attention by Wendy's Singaporean friend Grace. A bit pricey to get in (well, compared with our $5 Little India dinner, anyway) but once inside, it was all you can eat, and weekend dinners included beverages as well. Here is Rose Bandung Drink, which we had before:

Too sweet. Not syrupy-sweet, even though it's made with syrup - it really almost tastes like you added the rose syrup to confectioner's sugar. Actually, they did, as far as I know. The green one here is Calamansi Juice, a form of lime juice. Absolutely delicious.
Top: Banana pancake, which I believe is called Apam Balik. Lovely, light and dessert-y, but we got it first because the line was shortest. Bottom is Penang Laksa (laksa is a type of dish, Penang is a region). Too spicy for me, but Grace informed us it's a Singaporean favorite.

Clockwise from top: Kway Teow Soup (lovely mild chicken soup-y broth with cilantro, my favorite), Prawn Mee soup (I think, too spicy for me), and oyster omelette (my second favorite. Creamy, fluffy, delicious. There was a warning sign at the stall cautioning you to enjoy it in moderation... apparently too much oyster can have ill effects.)

Left: Penang Rojak (mystery brown sauce over fruit; too much cucumber for me and I didn't much care for the sauce); right, Lor bak (essentially a varied tempura dish; fabulously crispy and fresh).

There were other dishes too, which I'll spare you, except to comment that no matter how much somebody tries to convince you otherwise, cuttlefish is inedible. Your first tip-off should have been the fact that the cuttlebone, hung up in budgie cages to allow the birds shave down their beak tips, comes from this nasty mollusk. I don't know about you, but I prefer not to eat things other creatures use as nail files. The Koreans have a monstrous yet popular dried cuttlefish snack. Justin and I theorize that the recipe goes something like this:

- Take used sneaker sole
- Smoke over burning tires until dry. Consistency should approximate gum scraped from beneath a desk.
- Dip in peanut butter.
- Gnaw vainly for a few minutes, then surreptitiously throw away.

Let it be said here that even Southeast Asians, who (I theorize, due to historical economic problems) can make food out of anything, could not produce an edible cuttlefish dish. I am hereby closing the door forever on cuttlefish.

The downside of the Penang Hawker Fare was the lines:

Took me about 15-20 minutes to get the Char Kway Teow (freaking delicious). It is kind of surprising, after our subway experiences, that nobody cut the lines. They did have to post signs saying a maximum of two dishes per person. If you go, go with friends, so you can make more efficient use of your line time.

Newton hawker stalls:


Newton had some bad PR when Justin and I last visited Singapore because of a skeezy hawker who served a bunch of American tourists and ended up charging them $20 a prawn. Signs all over the place remind you that it is illegal for people to sell to you at the tables for just this reason: you have to be able to see the posted stall prices. Wendy held down the table and waited with our luggage while I went around to the stalls to order. I was a bit trepidatious but all went smoothly and deliciously.

Since we'd had Malay and Indian food, I tried to get a bit of Singapore's other cuisines: Chinese and Muslim. In front of me is one of Justin's favorite dishes, a semi-bitter Chinese vegetable stir-fried with garlic, and in the below shot is a lamb murtabak. Murtabak involves a crisp eggy pancake/crepe with different items cooked in; in this case, ground lamb. There's a curry dipping sauce on the side. The drinks I'm holding are lime juice and teh tarik, which our Korea coworker Paul discovered in Malaysia by pointing to some old guys and asking to try whatever they were drinking. It's a special black tea with piles of sugary condensed milk, which you can get hot or iced. Absolutely amazing.

The downside to Newton? Besides the slightly stressful ordering (people holler at you to try to get you into their stalls, so you have to move quickly) and the overwhelming volume of choice, it has to be the fact that this is one of the hardest to get to places I've ever eaten. Not in terms of location - it's right beside a subway stop - but in terms of access. Presumably to prevent jaywalking, the entire complex has bars lining the sidewalks. You have to get there via a wretchedly steep overpass. Witness Wendy grapple with her omiyage-filled suitcase:

And that's all from Singapore!

Kyushu National Museum

Many moons ago (actually, just one moon, almost) Justin and I went to the Dazaifu Flea Market,
where the weather was hot as a certain location's proverbial hinges. At the peak of the day's heat and sun strength, from about 12:00 to about 3, we bailed on the outdoor market to take refuge in the Kyushu National Museum.

The museum is several sets of escalators and moving walkways away from the temple complex, and you actually have to go through a mountain to get there. This sort of thing is not so exciting to my Yinzer husband, because putting paths through things is practically a Western Pennsylvania regional pastime, but to an Ohioan, it's kind of wild. When you pop out, you get this neat view:


I love how the museum blends into the hillside and gives you a view of what you just came through. Very clever.

The ground floor is free. One of the first things we saw was this fellow, engaged in a life-or-death struggle with two poofy dragon puppets:



Action shot:

We also saw one of the wacky Kyushu festival floats, with the red fellow in front taking a swan dive.

Is it offensive to say "Banzai?" What about "Geronimo?"

Justin tried on a Hakata costume, sort of:

The upstairs of the museum had more local history but for an entry price. Since we were technically still matriculated Edinburgh students at the time, we were able to get in for the student rate, about 240 yen or $3.00,or maybe $30, these days. It was worth that price but I'm not sure the full price would have been worthwhile. There are some cool individual items, like a buried pot of copper coinage (apparently it was imported from China to help stabilize the economy, but so many people hoarded it and buried it that inflation spiraled out of control) but the curation is minimal. Items are presented in a typical Asian museum style, which is to say, in cabinets by type, with little context for usage. Even I can only look at so many glass cabinets full of pottery shards.

If you're at Dazaifu, it's a great place to beat the heat, with a cute little gift shop. But stick to the free floors; the others really aren't worth the price.