I'm not starving

Just to let you know I`m not starving, here`s a few shots of the home cooked food I`ve either had by my own hand or my host mothers. The restaurant food I really haven`t taken many shots of thus far.

The night after I arrived my host parents from three years ago insisted on having a celebratory meal at their house. We decided on Teppanyaki, which basically means grill it by yourself.

Break out the grill, spend $60 on some delicious looking meat, and this is what you get.
 
Indeed, we did grill all sorts of other things too at the table that night, but the beef was just too beautifully marbled not to shoot. Why can`t we buy stuff like that at home?
 
I'm still drooling at the sight of the photos...

One night I did a Chinese style stir fry: meat, bok choy, onion, bean sprouts, etc... I wished I had a black bean sauce at the time, but I had to settle for soy sauce, salt, pepper, rice vinegar etc...
 

There`s also a kind of Japanese/Korean mix dinner I did too. Tofu with soy sauce and avocado salad (soy sauce dressing) are the Japanese tastes. The beef, garlic, onion, saute is more Korean than chinese tasting.
 

I also did a nice chicken rubbed with fresh minced ginger, garlic, salt, pepper, etc... It came out well, but I was much more excited about the legitimate baugette I found at a store down the street! One of my two big complaints about the food here is the oversweetened, overfloured bread, so I am overjoyed at this discovery.
 

Still, lacking an oven or toaster oven I had to get creative and basically throw some butter on the ends and quickly grill? it in a pan to get it toasted. It worked out well, but when I told my host mom about this two days later she said `is your microwave not a toaster oven? Most are...` I checked and she was correct. Oh well, it helps if you carefully read what every appliance in your kitchen does.

Of course I`ve had plenty of nights eating out, being treated (my host family, friends from three years ago, etc...), and even a rare few evenings where I settled for making some simple udon with onions and such. The point being I`m not starving. In fact, I figuring out how great a food city Kyoto is. There`s a great coffee shop about a 10 minute walk away that doubles as a pasta place. They do a surprisingly great job.

I also ate my first Middle Eastern (Israeli in fact) food in Japan ever today! They had a legitimate flaffel sandwich in this little shop I encountered biking around North of Kyoto University. In true Israeli fashion and another first for me in Japan they overcharged me for my meal (all I can think of is Rami`s), but I still enjoyed the food.

The Japanese cuisine in my neighborhood is too numerous to go into, but as far as foreign cuisines within walking distance I have Italian, French, Spanish Tapas, and I think Chinese. All are about a ten minute walk away. Location, location, location.

A little tour of Kyoto University...and more

Kyoto University alternates from being nice to look at to butt ugly, so I`ll try to pass along the pleasing pictures first.

Here`s both the most famous building and most famous plant on Kyoto University`s campus: the Tokeidai (clock tower) and the Kisunoki (camphor tree).
 
Japanese people recognize the Tokeidai like we would recognize the main quad at Harvard. I`m always reminded of the childhood book `The Giving Tree` when I walk by the Kisunoki.

One must remember that Kyoto University was founded in the 1880s, so the original buildings were merely ok to look at. You barely see them in a rebuilt item like this
 
Nonetheless, the big building boom was in the 1950s and 1960s, so you`ll find these horrible looking concrete hulks around the campus too. It`s as bad as having a bunch of Boston City Halls in one area interspersed with a bunch of rebuilt/refurbished buildings like the Tokeidai and the one above.

Anything that looks new has been built in the last 10 years or so like this building you see here on the Yoshida Campus (just south of the main campus).

 

Finally, there will occasionally be a building that dates from the beginning of the university. Doshisha University, a private institution about a 5-10 minute cab away, is considerably prettier than Kyodai architecturally.

Classes alternate for me between Kyodai Kaikan and the J-Pod (International Seminar Room). Kyodai Kaikan is basically a conference hall that was orginally created to be an alumni space about a six minute walk from campus. Things didn`t work out, so it today has become a conference hall for rent that`s moderately affiliated with Kyoto University.  
We rent out rooms for language classrooms, the KCJS library, and our professors` offices. Since language classes are always from 9:15-10:25 and 10:30-11:40, I usually spend my mornings there.


You`ll see the bikes out front: biking is the best way to get around Kyoto if you`re not going where the public transit runs frequently.  
I just invested about $85 in a used, excellent condition collaspible bike. Since my apartment has no official spot to put a bike (people do just leave them out front despite the rental company`s pleas), I figured the collapsible bike was the way to go. If somebody complains about parking out front or if it is supposed to rain, I can always just carry it up to my apartment and stick it on my veranda. Since I bought my bike my commute has gone from 45 minutes of walking, riding the bus, and walking again to 20-25 minutes of flat, pleasurable biking. The surrounding neighborhood is also pretty cool with lots of traditional houses like this one.
 



Finally, there`s the J-Pod. I have my Economics/Business and Kyoto: The Past in the Present classes here.
 
The J-Pod is actually a product of the forestry school here at Kyoto. They planted a cedar forest on some mountains in Wakayama Prefecture and needed to manage the forest by cutting down trees. It doesn`t pay to hire the labor nor the shipping in this country, but because they already had the costs for the forestry school they decided to build these little J-Pods with the wood. It is a very cool spot to have class, and the young cedar smell is great and nothing like the whiff you get when opening up an old chest.

First Week in Kyoto Pt 3

More views of the Kamo River from a charming little park I found. I ate my vanilla cream filled soft waffle sitting in the park.
Looking up one half of the Kamo river. The Kamo is the most famous river in Japan and other towns in Japan have named themselves and their rivers after the Kamo. Look around for Kamomachi and Kamogawas on your next trip!
This was on the calendar in my host family's bathroom. Clearly they were excited for my arrival.
This picture makes it look gross, but this was an unbelieveable fried item. Japanese panko on the outside with a small piece of chicken and a fried onion (onion ring kind of taste) on the inside on a stick. I bought it as snack at the grocery store and ended up eating the whole pack of 7 in about 10 minutes. To think it was only 200 yen...

First Week In Kyoto Pt 2

I was walking home from school one night (a 50 minute affair if going straight) and ended up cutting through the Imperial Palace Gardens. I also ran into the hotel I stayed in when traveling with the Brookline High Japan program. It's only about a 10 minute walk from my apartment.


An interesting building in my neighborhood is on the right. The photo didn't really capture it well.














Funny English is the norm. This is only worth a chuckle, but there are others that make you burst out laughing. I almost did it in class the other day when I realized my tiny notebook had "Campus notebooks contain the best ruled foolscap suitable for writing." Who came up with that word in an otherwise normal sentence.


This is the view of the Kamo River from a small park along the side. The river isn't much of one because it is less than a food deep. The paths on the sides often hide the development as well. Nonetheless, Kyoto and other Japanese cities surprise people with the lack of tall buildings and a real center. This is mostly due to the fact that building tall buildings to withstand big earthquakes gets expensive fast.

First Week in Kyoto Pt. 1

The fog rolls in off the mountains to the east of Kyoto. The photo doesn't do it justice, but I was very surprised to find it on my walk from the bus stop near school in the morning. Classes start at 9:15am for me. You'll also notice the character on the mountain (Dai amongst other readings in Japanese, Da in Chinese). These characters are lit in bonfires on summer nights on the mountains surrounding Kyoto.
My host mom from 3 years ago was worrying whether I was capable of cooking for myself. To assuade her fears I sent her pictures of my first and second meals. This is number two with avocado salad, tofu in a light soy sauce, and a stir fry with beef, baby bok choy, tofu, garlic, and perhaps some onion too.

This is one of the first genuinely run down and abandoned buildings I've ever seen in Japan. Modern Japanese buildings are usually not much to look at architecturally, but this was a first.


Down the street from the run down building was this random shrine. I liked the angle looking back down the street so I took a picture. Of course the picture doesn't do it justice.

Konbanwa from Kyotoー京都からの今晩は！

I safely arrived at KCJS in Kyoto last Tuesday and finally moved into my apartment today. You'll find the pictures of the neighborhood and the apartment here: http://picasaweb.google.com/brett.m.newman/NijoHeightsTour(hit the slideshow button for best results). The location is near the intersection of Karasuma Dori and Nijo Dori in Kyoto.

It is wonderful to be back in Kyoto, and my host family from 2004/2005 is incredibly glad to see me. As always they have been incredibly kind to me: we have shared meals, they have taken me around Kyoto for tourism and shopping, and I stayed at their house a number of times already. Furthermore, they were invaluable in helping me get set up here at Nijo Heights and even picked me up at Itami airport when my adjusted flight schedule put me there instead of Kansai.

Classes start tomorrow morning and we have a week to shop around for our favorite courses. All looks very good on that front thus far. A cell phone will be in the works in the next week or two because I need to get the proper paperwork.

Finally, during orientation we had a great introduction to the students from Kyoto University auditing KCJS classes and those in the international friendship clubs. They gave us tours of the Kyoto University campus, answered questions, and took us to the friendship tea time . Finally they arranged for all 50 of us KCJS students to go out for dinner and drinks the night our orientation concluded. The program has really done an excellent job thus far of making sure we get those introductions to the Kyodai students.

Following something I've seen friends do in the past I have set up a blog for my trip. I'll try to send emails once in a while and update the blog more frequently. The address is http://brettinkyoto.blogspot.com/ . I will post this this email as the first entry.Best wishes to all of you stateside. I hope to see those of you in Japan soon!