Tokyo Notes

More swimming, studying and cooking - I have tracked down the necessaries for chilli-garlic chicken and aloo gohst.

Suddenly, at about 7pm, a cricket started its noisy buzzing. This is the sound of summer, and I have missed it.

Quiet day of studying, swimming and cooking. Really very pleasant - I recommend it. Watched an episode of Jeeves and Wooster with Tapi. She approves of the very great care Jeeves takes of clothes.

Short trip to Gokurakuji, about 20 mins by tram. Pictures, along with some from that of the pre-holiday merriment at which I remembered to take them, are here.

I haven't received a postal ballot paper, and I don't now expect to. I had been a little foresighted about sorting this out, but only a little, and so applied too late. The first stage in the process, which I completed successfully, is to download and print out the appropriate form. It was after this that Tony called the election, giving about 4 weeks in which to apply, which isn't enough. I carried on with the process, though. Another of the stages is to find a British person to vouch for you. They have to declare various things, including that they know you, but aren't related, and that they believe you to be British. We both have to give our passport numbers. I sent it off. I'll be able to vote in the next European, but not, if I understand the rules, the next Scottish election.

Whilst on the subject of bureaucracy, I should tell you of my having re-registered with the British Consulate. This was very speedy and efficient - all do-able online. I believe this to be a good thing to do: I'm not on the run from the law, and somebody will know I need to be looked for when Fuji erupts.

Evening. Went to the opening party for an exhibition in Ginza. An acquaintance of Jen's part owns a very small gallery there. But the artist, Tina Keane, is apparently quite well known in video installation circles, having had exhibitions at MOMA and Tate Britain and the like. So this pokey little place, up a flight of disreputable stairs behind a confectioners, perhaps felt like a step down. Nonetheless, the cool crowd was out, with its coloured hair, smart trainers and DJ bags, watching the images. They were mostly of long, American freight trains, zooming past from unlikely angles, and cryptic messages about the role of science in society. The room was dark but white walled, and the projections were about 2 metres long and a foot high, at about head height, giving a feeling of indeed watching them from the window of a speeding train. The cool crowd sipped wine and pointed appreciatively. Tina herself, then, was a bit of a surprise - not the 20something hipster one had guessed her to be, but a middle-aged lady of the jolly hockey-sticks sort, her only concession to hipness being a metallic red rinse through her hair. We exchanged pleasantries and left.

Working in Tsujido today, so revisited an old haunt for dinner - my formerly local ramen ya san. Ramen is a sort of noodle soup, and Japan's most popular fast food. This place is a particularly fine example of a ramen shop, for the following reasons.
1) It has no nonsense about it. It's a small shop, with a long, wooden bar-height table in the centre, around which men sit, reading manga, piles of which is stacked at the ends, while they eat, noisily.
2) It is cheap.
3) The ramen comes in a good big bowl, with proper, thick slices of roast pork on it. In some other places, the meat is so thin as to be insulting.
4) There are jars of mashed garlic on the table, which you can add to your heart's content.

The portions really are quite huge. Once when I went, I was asked if I wanted the large size, and, assuming that that was what I usually had, said that I did. Big mistake - they brought out a washing-up basin filled with noodles, which, unless you have been doing hard manual labour all day, and haven't had anything to eat while you've been doing it, you will not be able to finish.

It has been raining very heavily all day. This did not divert me from today's purpose, which was food. For many years, I have held an ambition to regularly prepare large quantites of wholesome food, divide it into portions, freeze these, then microwave them on occasions when the pressures of time would otherwise demand I eat processed supermarket muck. I now own a freezer capable of realising my dream, so spent a happy proportion of today cooking an industrial sized pan-full of Bolognese sauce, and am now surrounded by the output of my efforts, in small plastic pots, cooling to an easily freezable temperature.

New pictures now posted.

Cycled to Enoshima and down the coast. Coastal strip had Californian feel: surfers, bikers, MPVs and endless fast food and surfer bars. Evening: dinner in Hiratsuka with Tapi, Sophie and her husband; included legs of a red, spiny shellfish, which wasn't a lobster.

Update 13/4/05: it was a crab.

My new gas cooker has just arrived - two rings and a grill. I celebrated by making a cup of tea. I've only been able to do this with the microwave, and it's just not the same. The kettle makes a cheerful whistling noise when it boils. Tomorrow, I might cook something.