At first, these felt wrong. The first taste reminded me of the butter in a squeeze bottle that was sometimes offered for our grilled sweet corn when I was a kid. The kind of squeeze butter that, upon closer inspection, says “butter flavor” on the bottle, causing a gut punch of betrayal.
But 5 seconds later, I got over my butter supremacy issues and ate the entire box. These should be called Super Duper Lick-your-Fingers-Clean Butter.
A teeny, tiny peek at what I’ve been stitching…
More peeks to sneak, coming soon!
Whew, it has been busy in these parts. We’ve had family and friends visiting, which is fantastic. We’re got more family on the way, which is fantastic. It was Dan’s 30th birthday, which was extra fantastic. Oh, and we had this little typhoon last night. No big deal.
There has been some of this:
A lot of this:
(Please notice the sign over the beer kegs says, “Please help yourself!”)
And even a little bit of this:
I am amused that this purikura (sticker picture) makes us look so hip. This booth not only makes your eyes bigger, but plumps your lips, too.
We also found a bar with a pass-through window in the floor — I was handed our drinks from the bartender below just minutes before another customer took a tumble through the rabbit hole and onto the bartop. Exciting stuff.
Through the winding streets of Golden Gai we found Jete. It was so hip, I felt lame taking my camera out once we were inside.
Seeing Tokyo through the fresh eyes of our visitors has been … well, fantastic.
I like to cheer for the smaller guy and to point out when someone is exceptionally hairy. I love the way sumo is steeped in tradition, with song and pomp and a whole lot of belly slapping.
I also love it when they tumble. Sometimes they even bounce a little.
Ang: Dan, this photo looks like Mothra! Will you help me think of a funny caption?
Dan: How about something to do with the end of summer…
Ang: It’s amazing, it really looks like Mothra!
Dan: Or how the cicada –
Ang: Mothra!
Dan: Call it your pet, since you can’t have a dog…
Ang: Maaawthraa!
Dan: Shouting Mothra isn’t helping.
Ang: Mothra.
Dan: …
Ang: Did you know Mothra’s a good guy?
Dan: I’m going to –
Ang: Mothra!!
Dan: bed.
Saké Puppets’ Sashiko Kits were featured today on The Haby Goddess, an Australian-based sewing blog:
Check out Jodie’s weekend roundup here!
My friend from the States (featured here and here) is a crafter, but in a very different way than me. She loves pretty things and is an ace with a crochet hook (whereas I prefer to stab at things, have never crocheted or made anything remotely wearable, and sometimes I like ugly things). When she visited Tokyo, we found this book:
I begged my friend to buy it — not because I like doilies (actually, I sort of hate doilies), but because 1. it’s a beautiful example of a Japanese craft book and I wanted to share it with you, and 2. if you could bundle my friend’s personality into a book, it might be this book, all flowers and peachy-pink and cashmere yarn. It was meant to be.
My initial unlove for doilies was because they didn’t fulfill my first rule of craft: the things you make should be useful or contribute to the beauty of a useful item. Because seriously, what do you do with a doily?
Apparently you can do a lot of things:
I love that book cover. Psst — hey friend, hint hint. I love that book cover.
I challenged her to finish a doily before she left. She put my challenge to shame and made two. Show off.
She offered to make me one, so I chose the triangle doily. And I love it.
It turns out my new doily is lazy. It lounged on the couch for a week after my friend left. It was being a total couch potato doily. Maybe it was sad to see my friend leave. Or maybe it’s an inanimate object and I need to get some fresh air.
After finding this image, I’m thinking the doily found a new home. Doily, your purpose in life is clear. You are welcome to stay, as I bind you in chain stitch to my couch.
Image from Apartment Therapy
I’m in love with Pretz — crispy little breadsticks covered in salt and umami. In Nagoya we did a riverside taste test: clockwise from the top left, we tried salad サラダ, gyoza 餃子, black pepper chicken wings 手羽先, and citrus すだち. The black pepper wings were the obvious winner.
A quick Google search of Pretz cemented my love — check out the YouTube cache here. Warning, it may cause seizures. Please take note that Pretz is pronounced like the classy Pennsylvania gas establishment Sheetz (Ah Sheetz! I dropped my Pretz!), not like the Pennsylvania snack food, the pretzel. The recommended method for eating Pretz is to snap them in half. I prefer to inhale them, teeth continuously chomping like the wood chipper in Fargo. “Where is Pancakes House?” Who cares, I have Pretz.
Snack food companies in Japan are good at throwing new, crazy flavors at you so you’ll continue to buy their products, as if the addict needs another excuse. A recent find, just butter ジャガバタ:
And there are many, many more. Sorry crafts, it looks like I have a new hobby.
When I see a cat cafe in Tokyo, I try to peer in the window, but Ang says no, laughs, and then steals my candy.
Ang is aggressively allergic to cats, and I’ve been denied, DENIED from entering cat cafes. But when a friend visits, there is great pressure to entertain. So while Ang worked, I took a visiting friend to a cat cafe in Shinjuku, and it was special.
We wash our hands before we enter the cat room, take off our shoes, and put on a visitor badge. Is this a cafe, or an institution?
We’re given instructions. Let sleeping cats lie. Do not suppress the cats.
As an employee opens the door for us, a cat darts out into the entrance room, but then slows to a crouch. The cat knows it has nowhere to go.
Forty cats lounge around a two-floor cafe. This is the nursing home rec room of a crazy cat lady’s dreams.
The furniture is a bit slick, easy to clean I suppose, and the smell is akin to 40 cleaned cats. An unpleasant smell, but a clean version of it.
A couple of young girls play Wii, ignoring the cats. The cats do just as good of a job ignoring all of us. Shelves on the walls and staircase give cats places to be out of reach of our frantically affectionate hands. I feel a bit like I’m in a remake of The Birds, but with cats. With cat eyes on us from above,we descend the stairs, and we descend into madness.
More cats.
Cats on totem pole constructions, cats on the counters, tables and shelves. I hear a cat snarl upstairs. Perhaps the Wii teenager has finally taken interest. Perhaps the Wii teenager is now dead.
A young salaryman in a white shirt and black pants pulls a sparkled ball out of the toy box. He rolls the toy toward a cat, but the cat doesn’t move. The ball jingles as it hits the cat in the paw, but still, the cat doesn’t react. She just looks to her left, looking for something that isn’t us. We all laugh, and then move on to the next cat, which had hoped to be invisible in its stillness. We see you cat. We see you.
Only one man seems to have mastered the art of affection. He is slumped in the corner on a floor cushion. His rumpled suit is too big for him, and six cats surround him. He stares ahead, paying no attention to the cats, or to us. He alternates between sipping his iced coffee, staring ahead, and pulling out pinches of shredded chicken from a plastic container. He barely looks at the cats as he feeds them, and he does not pet them.
My friend tries to pet a cat, any cat. They wait for her to approach, and then dart off, trying to catch a few winks before someone else comes for them.
“Come here, kitty. Come here.” There are equal parts frustration and joy in her voice.
But the cats only speak Japanese.
Hello! I’m back, at least physically if not-quite mentally. We spent the weekend with friends in Aichi prefecture, and it was fantastic. Here’s a look at our weekend and some of the reasons I love summer in Japan.
We started the weekend with a proper lunch, prepared in Nagoya’s hitsumabushi 櫃まぶし style.
The evening found us in yukata 浴衣 at the Nagoya Castle summer night festival.
Mmm, cream puff.
Sunday meant a trip to Gifu for a river swim.
Then a post-swim hike.
Back in Kisogawa, as we waited for the hanabi 花火, the sunset almost outdid the fireworks show.
After some of the best fireworks I`ve seen (according to our friend, the display was 1/6th as big as others), it was off to an onsen. It rained a bit as we sat in an outdoor pool, cooling our faces. That night, curled up on the tatami mat, I never slept so well.
Saké Puppets 