How much are you willing to pay for a melon?

Please look at the picture below.  This melon costs ¥5780, or about $75.  For one melon!  And believe it or not, this is fairly cheap for a gift melon.  In Japan, high end fruit is often given to show your appreciation for someone who has done something for you, or for an important guest or client. Most of the ones I have seen in our area cost about $100, but they can go as high as $300 or $400.  And for perfect or rare fruits, you are looking at thousands of dollars. In 2008, a pair of melons from Hokkaido broke records when they sold for 2.5 million yen!



Gift melons are perfect in shape, and they are carefully hand tended and cared for throughout the entire growing process.  Any fruit that is deemed imperfect doesn’t make the cut. I saw an ad in Tokyo that showed the fruits being grown in greenhouses at the top of skyscrapers.  I wish I’d taken a picture of the ad so I could have found more information about these skyscraper fruits.  I have never had a gift melon, so I can’t say what they taste like, but I would hope they taste amazing for the price. It should be noted that these are fruits you only buy for others. If you were buying a melon for yourself, you would buy the $10 or $20 one at the regular grocery store.  (I know….I still haven’t adjusted to fruit prices here!) I have also heard there are square gift watermelons and black watermelons, but I haven’t seen either of these.  Right now is a gift-giving season (I believe) because the stores are suddenly full of expensive gift fruit.  I can’t imagine spending this much money on fruit….can you?

Wasabi and Green Tea are great... but not in beer

Homebrewers across the world search for exotic and odd ingredients to distinguish their beers for both fun and competition.  Big breweries tend to shy away from innovations, preferring simple and cheap ingredients to reproduce the same tasting product at different locations for mass consumption.  Micro-breweries are in somewhat of a golden age in the US right now, and are making headways in Asia as well.  Dogfishead Brewery in Delaware often uses unique ingredients in their brews, but have a knack for balance and a keen understanding of the American palate.  Well, in Japan, there is a nationalist attitude insinuating that anything Japanese is genuinely unique and can be used in virtually any situation.  Wasabi leaves and green tea leaves are two common cash crops with dozens of uses in Japan.  Green Tea is world known for a variety of health improvements, and wasabi is commonly associated with sushi but is found in a host of other products.   There is no doubt in the usefulness and greatness of wasabi and green tea... but not a main ingredient in beer.  Recently we purchased a few bottles of wasabi and green tea beers from Shizuoka prefecture, which is known to grow both in abundance.



Wasabi beer tastes like you would imagine... a bland base beer that washes down with a wasabi harsh aftertaste and not at all refreshing.  Green Tea beer was drinkable, but left your mouth dry like drinking plain unsweetened matcha... again, not a flavor one desires in beer.  But the adventure was worth it!  Though not all have failed at using these ingredients,  Baird Beer, a Japan based microbrewery, joined forces with one of the world's finest craft breweries in Stone Beer from San Diego, CA to create a Green Tea IPA.  So far I have heard of it only available in America, but am on the lookout for it here!

キットカット

A year later, and I am STILL excited when I find new Kit Kats.  I have a ton of new flavors to share with you, so here is a small preview of the awesomeness to come.  (Kit Kat party anyone?)

Dog Freaks

Getting AJ groomed has always been a nightmare.  Partially, because he becomes defensive and mean and thinks that we’ve abandoned him, and partially because it’s hard to find a groomer that doesn’t make him look like a little girl, show dog.  I think groomers lose their minds a little bit when you bring a poodle in.  A poodle?!?!  Fun!?! When in actuality, I just want my little bundle of fur to look like a puppy.  I eventually learned that this is called a puppy cut, and you have to specify that you don’t want him to look like a poodle.  I LOVE poodles, but I really don’t want AJ to have a huge fluffy head, a ball on his tail, a shaved face, and shaved paws with puff balls above them.  It’s embarrassing for him. And me.



I still vividly remember the first time we had AJ groomed.  We had just adopted him, and he still had bad separation anxiety.  I could hear him screeching the minute we walked in the door.  They tried to tell us he wasn’t too bad, but his screams and his haircut said it all.  He looked horrible.  (I clearly didn’t specify I didn’t want him cut like poodle….) He fought with them so much that he was unevenly shaved, he had a huge uneven puff on his head, and he was shaved to the skin in all the wrong places.  I kept telling James it was fine, but the whole drive home he just continued talking about how horrible AJ looked.  It was so bad that our next door neighbors who were strung out on drugs all the time took one look at him and told us we should never take him back to that groomer.  They then showed up at our door ten minutes later with their shaving kit and told us we should probably fix our dog’s haircut. Awesome. Even the druggies thought he looked horrible. So with that sad news, we took scissors and the razor to him and fixed him as best we could.



In the past five years, we have had some special experiences at the groomers, including a groomer dumping our dog out of the kennel and telling us she couldn’t groom him because he tried to bite her and an uncountable number of haircuts we have had to fix.  One of my biggest fears about moving to Japan was that we wouldn’t be able to find a groomer for AJ.  1) AJ is horrible at the groomers.  2) AJ usually doesn’t like women, especially Asian and Hispanic women (sorry….) and 3) We don’t speak enough Japanese to profusely apologize for his behavior.  But thankfully we have found a place that seems to be able to work with him.

Dog Freaks! (Ummm…best name ever?) The first day I dropped him off at Dog Freaks, he cried like I was abandoning him forever, which was something he hadn’t done since he was a puppy.  I motioned to them that he bites, and they seemed to smile knowingly.  For the entire three hours, I was so worried AJ was going to bite someone and I was going to have to go to the hospital to gomenasai to the poor groomer.  Thankfully, no phone calls and I picked him up three hours later.  When I showed up, he was behind the front desk with all of the other dogs, just sitting there smiling.  He looked amazing and happy.  Two things that had never happened before!  I paid the woman (a small fortune) and she handed me an adorable picture of AJ surrounded by toys and balls. So cute! I was thrilled.  Finding a great groomer was a huge burden lifted off of my shoulders.  It seemed perfect…



The honeymoon didn’t last long.  Every time AJ goes to Dog Freaks, his behavior seems to be getting worse and worse.  He still looks fabulous though.  I really don’t know how they do it.  I had AJ groomed in the states this spring, so he just now went back to the groomers in Japan.  The last time he had been groomed there, he was crying when I showed up, and everyone came from the back and thanked me and bowed when I picked him up.  He wasn’t playing with the other dogs this time, and he didn’t get a picture.  I felt bad that they had to deal with my crazy poodle all day, and though they didn’t say anything, I could tell they were happy to have him leave.  When we returned from the states, I tried to make an appointment, but the lady hesitated and went to the back to talk to someone.  I thought, maybe they are very busy, even though I could see the calendar which looked like it had openings.  She came back up front after talking to someone in the back, verified my name again, and pulled AJ’s file.  She asked me if I was free for an apt the next week and I said yes.  Then she glanced at AJ’s file, apologized, and went to the backroom again.  I was getting confused, as this had never happened before.  I glanced at his file when she was in the back, and all of it was in Japanese, except for one word in all caps.  ANGER.  Huh.  Anger.  My adorable little poodle?  Sigh… Probably…. Eventually they did make AJ an appointment, but I was getting very worried we would need to find a new groomer.  I feel bad that AJ hates the groomers so much, but they do a fabulous job with him, and I would recommend them to anyone!

[flickr video=5937223690 show_info=true secret=0ef1a97bee w=500 h=281]
Angry Poodle a video by WanderingHokies on Flickr.

Frozen Baby Pumpkin

This adorable little squash is what the Japanese call pumpkins.  I was a little devastated this fall when all of the pumpkin flavors tasted like squash, and not the yummy pumpkin spice flavor that means fall to me in the states.  But, I have since acquired a taste for squash treats.



I have seen frozen fruits filled with ice-cream and sorbet in other restaurants in Japan, but I had never seen a pumpkin before.  I was SO excited about the pumpkin I almost didn’t order anything else to eat.  A frozen pumpkin filled with pumpkin ice-cream? Impossible to resist! This was by far the highlight of my trip, and I have a hard time remembering anything else we did in comparison to the pumpkin (which included a trip to a gold mine, a boat ride through ocean caverns, and a monkey park). Clearly nothing comparable to a frozen baby pumpkin filled with pumpkin ice-cream.

Tokyo's Famous Tower

Tokyo Tower was built in the late 1950s as both a useful communications center and as a national celebration of their rebuilt economy.  Today it houses countless TV antennas and over 150 million people have toured it… including Godzilla and Mothra who managed to destroy the steel tower (which is taller than its inspiration in Paris).  We visited the home of the Noppon Brothers (TV-MA looking mascots “born” in 1998) last year while on a night out in Tokyo.  We saw the tower, which is the second tallest artificial structure in Japan, long before we got near it.  Its flood lamps lit the orange paint making the iron structure stick out against the innumerous business and residential buildings that litter the Tokyo landscape.



After purchasing our tickets we had the option to take an elevator up to the main observation deck or go below to an adolescent themed wax museum and other odd attractions.  We decided to go to the observation deck.  From there we had a unique view of the city, with hundreds of red aviation safety lights blinking on the horizon.  Considering the horizon, we realized how insanely huge the metropolis of Tokyo is as from every direction we turned was urban… there was no dark boundary marking the end of the city, at least from the naked eye.  We took the elevator to the upper observation deck, but did not stay long as Angela gets motion sickness and the tower swayed in the wind.



The Great Tohoku Earthquake of 2011 in fact bent the tip of the Tower, but otherwise the structure remains sound.  We enjoyed being tourists but skipped the dinosaur wax museum.  Today Tokyo Sky Tree Tower is nearly complete in northern Tokyo, taller than Tokyo Tower and built to house digital TV communications along with restaurants and other commercial ventures.  I can only hope that Sky Tree will have a mascot as unique as Noppon!

Asian Autumn

The Japanese reverence for nature is evident in their gardens, even in the midst of the concrete jungle monstrosity that is Tokyo.  Most of Japan is very mountainous and uninhabited, with something like 70% of the country being urbanized. Last Fall Angela and I took a tour out beyond the city limits into a national park hoping to glimpse the last colors of Autumn (Japanese Maple trees turn bright vivid red, oranges and yellows and seem almost on fire).



We discovered a landscape straight out of a Tolkien novel, complete with an “Argonath-esque” entrance to Gondor (nerd reference).  We hiked along a paved path along a river at the bottom of a river, and enjoyed the leisurely stroll as we took in the sights.  Located in the Minami Alps north of Yamanashi City, the gulley was in some sort of National Park.  Being in Japan there were of course shrines dedicated to some of the awesomeness of nature, but these were unique in that one would put their coin offerings in the actual rocks along the river.



After walking by a beautiful waterfall we walked through tunnels cut into rock from the rushing river below.  But what we were really hoping for was to see Fall Foliage.  Coming around a bend in the path, a rush of cool air hit us and we saw an awe –inspiring site of a valley seemingly ablaze.  Dozens of maple trees were at the peak of their color and we descended into the valley taking pictures all the way.  Angela and I have spent much time hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the Fall and are used to forests full of color, but this was uniquely Asian given the steep valley and the fact that only a select few deciduous trees had changed color.



We noticed Ginko, Maple, and Cherry trees are the main ones to change color and here was a valley with short, stubby brown leafed trees up the mountain but hidden here along the river was a sea of color.  Quite a cathartic experience, and made even better turning around and seeing what looked like rock entrances to some mythic kingdom.  We also saw a Godzilla stone statue at the end of the walk bringing it all home.