Happo-en Horn Hider

We visited the lovely Happo-en gardens recently. After a wonderful lunch, we visited the tea room for some whipped ocha and sweets and wandered around the gardens. Weddings are big business in Tokyo and Happoen is a popular spot for celebrations. We asked our Japanese hosts the significance of the womans hat. The story is too good… It’s called “tsuno kakushi” or “horn hider”. As you’d expect – it is a hat to hide the woman’s horns from her betrothed until after the ink is dry.

The gardens feature bonsai that are hundreds of years old sprinkle the pathways (see picture of Kenn and bonsai below). Being from Canada I always think of ancient trees as being enormous. Of course, not so with bonsai. The pond features enormous yellow, white and orange carp.

Charlotte Lois Hanako Cukier

Thursday morning at 4 AM Tokyo time, Charlotte Lois Hanako Cukier made a rapid arrival in the world. Weighing 3.96 kilos and 52 cm long, she is lovely and healthy and we are all doing fine. Kenn’s website has some more photos as well as an explanation of her Japanese name, Hanako.

Bic Camera and Electronics Shopping in Tokyo

It’s hard to describe electronics shopping in Tokyo. Points cards are a good place to start… Bic Camera has one of the best points cards schemes going. You get 10% of each purchase as points toward your next purchase. All stores have points systems, but many no one knows what they do or what they are for. Bic Camera is clear – you get cash off your next purchase.

We also understand that you can negotiate with the staff in Bic Camera and other electronics retailers. If you are buying a big ticket item, you can try to haggle on the price. I can’t imagine this at a department store in the west.

The next thing is the song. Each store has its own jingle. Bic Camera’s is pretty basic “bic o bic o bic o bic camera” (or something along those lines – you can listen to it here). Constantly as you walk through the store, you hear this song in the background of the beeping, blaring appliances around you. I described it to my brother as walking through a casino in vegas, but wait… there’s more.

At a few points on each floor there are guys yelling into megaphones announcing deals. At the top of most escalators, you will find these guys. I have no idea what they are saying but they sound like auctioneers and are incredibly enthusiastic in pitching their product.

The other interesting, and very different thing, is that some of the people on the floor are paid by manufacturers not by the store. If you ask a store clerk for info on a particular phone or camera, he is not unlikely to try to steer you to his manufacturer’s product – in fact he won’t be able to answer questions on other products.

Once we get a video camera, I’ll add sound. The picture just doesn’t do justice to the atmosphere.

Kamakura and Daibatsu Hike

Kenn and I needed to get some fresh air (it’s been stinking hot in Tokyo – hovering around 40 degrees) and so headed to Kamakura to see the “great buddha”, Daibatsu. We got off the train at Kita Kamakura, one stop short of Kamakura on the advice of guidebooks and friends. Kamakura is filled with shrines and temples and the walk between stations offers the opportunity to visit several.We visited one set of temples just off the train from Kita Kamakura. There were several buildings with thatched roofs, which reminded me of English cottages.

We then found the hiking trail which follows a ridge through the park and then over to Kamakura. It was a lovely walk. We felt like we were close to wilderness – big trees, lots of greenery. All within an hour of Tokyo. The walk took about 2 hours and was more challenging than we expected, but well worth it. We hopped a taxi upon arriving in Kamakura for Rei Tei, a soba place suggested by a friend.

Rei Tei is tucked away in a garden and serves wonderful soba dishes. We had tempura and soba and tea and enjoyed the view. We then entered “mosquito-ville” otherwise known as the garden. There was a particularly nice trail with lots of bamboo and several Buddha sculptures along the path.

We then went to Daibatsu, pictured above. An impressive bronze sculpture – the largest bronze in Japan, if I am not mistaken.

This will be our last hike before Blasty arrives. Was good to do one trip before the kid arrives to be reminded of how easy the trains are in Japan. We took a train to Yokohama and caught our connection without even changing platforms.

My belly at 38 weeks

It is 41 degrees in Tokyo and I am enormous! 38 weeks pregnant today. A few friends have asked for pictures of my growing belly (that may be housing Japan’s largest baby – estimated at between 8 and 9 pounds).I’ve uploaded a couple of photos to Flickr that should do the trick.

Noh Theatre

Kenn and I enjoyed a wonderful treat last weekend. Our friends Masanobu and Ayoka Katoh took us to an educational performance of Noh Theatre, an ancient form of theatre/music drama in Japan. The performance took place Zojoji Temple, an ancient (founded in 1393) temple that was the main temple for Japan when the Shogunate ruled. There is a burial ground for shoguns behind the temple. After listening to beautiful chanting by monks in this still active temple, we made our way to the performance.

A series of acts, starting with a young child, a girl, and then a woman, were performed with elaborate dancing and singing. Then a series of acts with seated performances. We couldn’t understand the stories, but the language is so ancient that most of the attendees were no better able to understand the words.

After a break with green tea and sweets, we were given a real treat – we were shown how the player who performs the role of the woman is dressed in ancient Noh Theatre. Normally this sort of instruction is not available to the audience and the oohs and ahhs of the audience were testament to how fortunate we were.

As in Shakespearean time, the female roles in Noh Theatre were performed by men. The Noh Theatre instructor at this particular performance was to play the part of the woman. He came out dressed in undergarments, loose cotton shirt and trousers. Two other players then layered the costume and the accessories onto the teacher to transform him into the leading lady.

First, the player donned a pair of enormous and stiff looking orange trousers. The top took several layers – and one of the first was an exquisite silk robe threaded with gold. The most expensive robe is beneath the outer layer, only slightly visible once the costume is in place. This is in part for modesty but also to reward the attentive eye. The following picture shows the player mid-way through dressing.

You may notice that he has long black hair. The hair is made of the tail of a horse. It was placed on the player’s head and then wrapped and twisted to create a fold just beneath the ear. It was tied on in several ways and the long tail hidden under the robes.

No pins or fasteners were used in the costume. The layers were sewn on one by one. At the time when Noh Theatre was crated there were no safety pins or snaps.

The next picture shows what is nearly the finished product. The purple outer layer is slightly translucent so that the robe with gold thread I mentioned earlier can be glimpsed.

The final touch was a mask tied to the player’s head. At each step, the player was asked to confirm taughtness. With so many layers, it is apparently not uncommon for players to faint during a performance. As the head swells, the ties become tighter, cutting off the blood supply.

The two men who were dressing the “woman” and the teacher did a brief performance. Sorry the video quality isn’t great, but gives you an idea of the finished product.

Brilliant Onion Video on Internet Crash

Nothing to do with Tokyo but a very clever bit worth seeing.

Promise to get some updates on Tokyo life soon!

Earthquake & Typhoon

We had what would otherwise be a dream assignment – to find the best patisserie in Tokyo. Kenn was given a budget and we were charged with scouring Tokyo for Japanese pastries. We set out Saturday morning for Ginza, the ritzy shopping area, appetites at the ready. Sadly, the typhoon struck Saturday and what should have been a heavenly assignment left us drenched! The wind was blowing rain upwards, so the shirt over my round belly was soaked through.

We sampled all sorts of “eyeballs” and other gelatinous treats. The strangest was my pick… after which I was promptly fired. A ball of azuki (red bean) paste with jelly things served with brown sugar syrup.

We retreated to the foodhall in Matsuyoma, a Ginza department store, and checked the food hall. We did find a promising bakery and after waiting in line for 30 minutes, Kenn put in our order. Sadly, he mixed up the words for one and two (hitori and futatsu) and so we got two of every gelatinous goodie. They are still in the fridge.

The rain subsided Sunday afternoon and Monday we experienced our first and second earthquakes. We didn’t actually feel the first one, but the second one hit when I was on a call with the Hitwise Marketing & Research team in NY. The house swayed and creaked. Nothing too dramatic. I raced into the other room and asked Kenn if it was an earthquake. Neither of us were certain until the next day when we saw the news. Our friend Leo Lewis happened to be near the Nuclear Reactors in the North and wrote a nice piece for the Times Online.

To find out what we picked as the best patisserie – you will need to pick up the next issue of Intelligence Life from The Economist…

Blasty is Head Down – Cause for Celebration

I have kept this a bit quiet of late, but Blasty (the name of the fetus growing in my belly) was breech when we went for our last check-up. She’s been the perfect little fetus for the past 7 months, but traveling nearly half way around the world must have disoriented her and she flipped.

Good news – she flipped back and is squarely head down in a perfect delivery position.

She is also taking after her mother… she is off the charts! She is the size of a “full-term” baby (by Japanese standards) and the doctor warned me that she will be a big baby – likely well over 8 lbs. You go girl! We are 31 weeks but she is four weeks over in the growth charts. Her estimated weight now is 2521 grams, putting her at 5.6 pounds.

Kenn and I are off to celebrate at “our place” in Ochanomizu where they make a killer parsley tempura.

Update – here’s a rough image of the scan. You can see the average line for growth and the highs and lows. That dot off in space is Blasty. I realise it’s not a great image, but you get the point!

Doughnuts in Tokyo

Any of you that know Kenn know he is a bit of a nut for doughnuts, in particular, Top Pot Doughnut Shop in Seattle. Imagine my glee when I found the next best thing… New York Doughnut Plant in Tokyo’s Ebisu Station. Finding the doughnut shop also gave me a chance to try out video calls. After a few failed attempts, Kenn and I had our first video call via our mobile phones. He got a very good look at the inside of my ear…