More Stuff that You No Doubt will Love

The other day I noticed that I was just about out of stuff to put on my rice, as I like to save my natto for special days, meaning any day I feel like eating it, and since rice is the main part of my breakfasts, I went to the store to buy some furikake. So, I got some that had Hello Kitty on the bag. Cats like fish, I guess. Furikake is basically like fish food. It is little flakes of seaweed and dried fish and who knows what.


Today I went to a kindergarten, which was cool, and included me playing both Anpanman's March and Doraemon's Song for the kids, but I don't feel like typing up a bunch of stuff like that as it would probably be far too interesting for my readers. Instead, have a picture of the assorted dough nut holes they gave me in a The Simpsons: The Movie bag. I saw that movie a while back. It is sad that the once great Simpsons could only manage a mediocre movie. They really lost something along the way.

Some More Junk

Check out this new Kirin. It is awesome.



Some weird chu-hai which I guess is grape flavored and was pretty good. Also, a new kind of Yebisu in a red can. The beer itself was a nice amber color and probably the best Yebisu I've had yet.

Top Four Things I've Learned from Phish:

4. The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road.
3. The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road.
2. The tires are the things on your car that make contact with the road.
1. The car is the thing on the road that takes you back to your abode.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. Here it is called kanshasai,感謝祭, but people obviously don't celebrate it. Weirdly, though, friday is kinroukansha no hi, 勤労感謝の日, which is basically "thanks for the hard work day." That's it.

Yeah, More Weird Stuff to Eat

I'm making up for the lack of posts recently by posting a bunch of crap at once.



That beer I picked up in Matsue. It's called akinama, I guess, meaning fall raw, roughly. I'm guessing on the reading because it isn't anywhere on the can. It's a fall beer, so it was marked down, and I don't think I've had it yet, so there. Also, a pretty can, eh?

That reminds me, the leaves finally started changing colors in the last couple weeks. So now it is pretty awesome looking. Also, we got snow last night. Not a whole lot, and it melted by the time I was home from work (it didn't snow in the other part of town which is somehow slightly warmer), but kind of neat, anyway.

The snack there is called ebitcho, which is a combination of ebi, meaning shrimp, and choko(reeto), meaning, you guessed it, chocolate. It is the little shrimp flavored fry snack things that I'm sure I've shown before but covered in chocolate. Weird? That is exactly why I bought it, and I am pleased to say that they aren't bad at all.

Top 5 Things I Learned from Roger Miller

Because all the other blogs and crappy websites just make top five lists, and because I want to be like them so much, and because I've been listening to Roger Miller lately, here is a list of the Top Five Things I learned from Roger Miller.

5. 110 miles ain't much distance, but it sure do make a difference.

4. We all have the right to be wrong now and then.

3. Chicken ain't chicken till he's lickin' good and fried.

2. You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd.

1. Roger Miller is awesome.

Another Use for that Hot Plate

Wa ha! My best investment yet!



It's getting cold here (as in below freezing at points) so I went up to Matsue this weekend to buy some warm clothes, and I happened into a grocery store which had stuff I can't buy in my little town, so I picked up things like this kit for making okonomiyaki (お好み焼き), which means things that you like cooked. A clever name. What they actually are are cabbage pancakes with various stuff (of your choice!) added, like meat or corn or in my case, squid tentacle bits.



The hot plate in action! すごいなあ！



The white stuff is mayonnaise, with which I best you are all familiar. The brown stuff is a sauce that as far as I know is used exclusively for okonomiyaki. It's very sweet and probably terrible for you. Whatever.



The little green bits visible there are 青のり, which I think is read aonori, but I'm not sure. It's just dried seaweed powder which doesn't really add much besides looks.

I also had some delicious beer which I've never seen here, but I forgot to take a picture of it. It's called Super Gent, which is just fantastic in my opinion.



In a completely unrelated picture, no, it isn't an absurdly under ripe tomato; it's a persimmon. They're in season, and called kaki, or 柿 in kanji. I'd actually never had any before I came here. If you haven't, either, they have a texture kind of like apples and very little taste, but aren't bad at all.

Stay tuned for more updates which will no doubt be about whatever else I eat.

Awesome Stuff

I haven't done anything cool lately, so here are some pictures of stuff I've eaten.



That's Asahi Ajiwai, which I think means something like savoring, but I am not going to look up right now. It's a seasonal beer and not even as good as Super Dry.



There's a snack I bought that is made to imitate the taste and shape of takoyaki, another Japanese snack that is basically octopus balls. Delicious



And there's the actual snack itself, which was pretty good.



Mmm, squid and mayonnaise flavored cracker thing.



This is katsu kare, or curry rice with a pork cutlet on it. It's incredibly good even if I make it incorrectly using store-bought cutlets.



I didn't actually eat this. It's a hot plate I got for pretty cheap, mostly so as to make yakiniku, literally just cooked meat, but actually also using vegetables.



This is tare, a delicious sauce that is used with yakiniku. I found the bottle's claim of spiciness unsubstantiated.



Nothing goes better with cooked meat than a big ol' bottle of Japan's most popular beer.



And that is the actual squid that I cooked on the hot plate. Incidentally, it turns out that squid are essentially just rubbery tubes filled with brown goo.

Congratulations

I know I haven't updated in a while, but whatever. Big news.

The best girl I know is going to be going to Senegal with the Peace Corps. So, congratulations, Marisa!

Some Pictures

Sorry for the absence. I've just been lazy. Have some pictures of Hinomisaki, a sweet place near here.




















Obviously, I didn't caption these, but I'm sick today and I've already documented how stupid blogger is about pictures. There are a bunch of pictures of a massive shrine complex in there that had multiple buildings. There were some dudes working on the main building when I stopped by and an old guy painting a landscape from inside the complex of buildings. I didn't take a picture of him, though, because I thought it would be rude.

After the shrine, I drove up to the lighthouse, which is fairly famous, I guess, along an oceanside road which was beautiful enough for me to stop the car and take crappy pictures with a cameraphone.

The thing that looks like a fish shaped cake is just that. It's called taiyaki, with where tai is some kind of fish (I am not going to look this up just now) and yaki meaning cooked. It's filled with an, or sweet beans. I'm also not bothering with italics just now. I got one when I bought gas because they were giving them away. I actually started to drive off with it on my roof, but the kindly employee lady stopped me to tell me. It was good. That's all for now.