Smoking in public

Not too long after I started going to bars in Ontario, smoking started to be prohibited. First, it was allowed in a place with a separate ventilation system for the smokers. This resulted in these interesting fishbowls full of smoke in places large enough to have them and an outright ban in smaller places that didn't have room for that. Then, those were prohibited, but smoking was allowed on patios. Eventually, some cities started banning smoking on patios as well (and some cities have banned smoking from public parks, sidewalks etc).

While the laws regarding smoking in bars were passed for the safety of the workers, it was awesome for me too. As someone who doesn't smoke and really doesn't like the smell of cigarettes, this was awesome. I could come home from going out with friends and smell like me instead of stale tobacco.

Japan, however, has no such restrictions on smoking in bars. Or rather, around here, there are no such restrictions. This means that when I go out somewhere that's reasonably busy and a lot of people are smoking, I come home smelling like an ashtray, which sucks. And yes, I'll admit that I've probably been spoiled by living in Ontario for so long where restrictions on smoking in public have been increasingly common. If not for those restrictions, I wouldn't know any other way of going out for a drink.

It is interesting to think about why Japan has not put in place restrictions on smoking in public as these are becoming increasingly common in many places. One could speculate that the lack of restrictions on smoking in public places in Japan are possibly related to the fact that the Japanese government has a large stake in Japan Tobacco Inc. and the courts are not convinced that tobacco use leads to cancer (I'm sure the former is also totally unrelated to the latter).

Another thing that I've found interesting is how different stores end up looking because of the near-lack of restrictions on tobacco displays. While Ontario prohibits large displays of cigarettes behind the counter (instead, the cigarettes are behind opaque doors), here there are sometimes large displays of cigarettes on the customer's side of the counter in addition to colourful displays behind the counter.

There are even vending machines that sell cigarettes, which is pretty wild. There's some sort of age-verifying card to make sure that people under the age of 20 don't buy them, but nobody is there to verify that the person using the card is the person to whom the card was issued so I'm not sure how effective it actually is. It's certainly something that wouldn't exist in Ontario though (if only because there aren't nearly as many vending machines per person).


Anyway, I'm not generally out to act like Canada is better than Japan. I think that all places have their advantages and disadvantages. Some things here are neat or fun or really interesting and I think it would be great if these were exported (especially kotatsu and this style of karaoke and the part where people are extra helpful sometimes). However, I think that this is one thing that is much better in Canada.

Poor weather not dodged

We were supposed to fly back to Japan on Tuesday, but there was a ground freeze at Pearson airport which delayed our flight to Minneapolis Saint-Paul where we were supposed to connect with a flight to Narita. Since flights were doing just fine leaving Minneapolis, there was no way we were catching our flight to Japan so we had to reschedule. The earliest we could have flown out was Friday, but that flight was going to be through JFK and the woman who rebooked us did not recommend that approach.

Now we're flying back Saturday through Detroit, which means that we have some time to hang out here some more. I got my haircut earlier today, which I meant to do and then ran out of time to do earlier. I figure getting a haircut in Japan would be an issue since I don't really know how to describe what kind of haircut I want in Japanese. I also got to check out some of the damage from the ice storm that hit just before we got here.

Trees doing telephone
pole impressions.

The trees all around the city seem to have taken a hit, but parts of my parents' neighbourhood were really bad. There's one street nearby where it looks like "there were telephone poles on both sides of the street, but someone just went down the street and chopped off all the tops" as daid describes it.

According to my parents, the neighbours on that street lost power for more than a day (my parents only lost power for 5 hours or so). That street had much larger trees than the ones on my parents' street, which is probably why the trees did not fare so well, but the power lines run underground so I'm not sure why it was so much worse for them.

The maple tree in my parents backyard took a beating, but it was pretty bushy before the ice storm, so it should hopefully be okay for the most part. 

None shall pass!
(Without ducking)

The entrance to the park was in pretty poor condition, as you can see. The one tree lying across the path in the front had a trunk that was probably about 30 cm in diameter, but it was snapped just like it was nothing.

The trees further from the road (behind the fallen tree in the image) fared better, but the fallen branches still made for a nice obstacle course if one wanted to go to the park.

Of course, we did want to go to the park.

Our reward for climbing over and under the fallen tree and limbs was a wonderful view of a frozen park that we had (almost) all to ourselves. Here, the trees were sheltered by the valley so many of them had escaped major damage (though the forest was impassable).

A winter wonderland!

Sick day

We're still visiting my parents and will be flying back tomorrow morning. It looks like the weather should hold out and if it does, we'll have dodged storms by one day each way (we flew out of Toyko the day after the ice storm hit over here). Our connection in Minneapolis also looks like it should be fine too so we should be able to get back to Tokyo for Wednesday.

As much as I generally do like the snow and the winter, the temperature here has been pretty ridiculous, dropping to -20 C at some points (and it will drop again tomorrow as we're preparing to leave). During the cold snap, the furnace in my parents' house also broke which wasn't especially pleasant (though possibly the house was still warmer than our apartment gets in Tokyo) and I got sick as soon as the temperature started to hover around freezing so we haven't really gone anywhere.

We meant to make a trip to Toronto while we were here since daid hasn't been to the CN tower before and we have this trend of visiting tall buildings/things together. We also wanted to go to Snakes and Lattes to pick up some expansions for Cards Against Humanity, but that didn't really happen. This is perhaps the disadvantage of being in town for only a week.

We haven't quite managed to get all the foods we were planning on bringing back with us either. So far we have 9 kg of dried legumes (4.5 kg each of lentils and chickpeas), but we still have to go find some tahini before we leave so we can make hummus when we get back to Japan. It's always fun to explain what chickpeas and lentils are to the customs officials in Japan. Last time I think I explained that lentils are things that you cook like rice and that seemed to be an acceptable explanation.

Anyway, sorry about the somewhat boring blog today, not much has happened this week and I'm feeling a bit crummy still (but better than a few days ago). Next week should be more interesting.

Five foods I miss from Canada

Today we're flying back to North America for the holidays. Even though I've been here a little less than two months, it's still the longest I've been to Japan and possibly the longest I've been outside of Canada all at once.

While the most difficult issues when it comes to getting around in Japan are language-related like how I can't talk to store clerks, understand bar conversations or read all the signs, this isn't what I miss most about being in Canada. It's possible that without daid to talk to, I might miss this a lot too, but luckily we get to hear lots of English from each other.

Instead, what I miss most are various foods. I like the food that I've been eating here and many of the foods I miss are things that I would have maybe once a month while living in Canada (sometimes less). However, I think that the absence of all these foods at once just makes me miss them all so much more. Thus, without further ado, I present my list of five foods I love which are not available in Japan (or are at least not widely available and affordable here):

Pizza

I'll start by pointing out that pizza exists in Japan. I've even had pizza since I've been here (last time was when we made some pizza in Tsukuba), but pizza is kind of expensive here. For instance, at Pizza-La (the largest pizza chain in Japan and the only one I know of in town), a medium plain cheese pizza (プレーンチーズピザ) is 1050 yen (just shy of $11 CDN). In comparison, a medium plain cheese pizza in Canada can be had for as little as $5 and it will be considerably larger.

Cheese

Like pizza, cheese is something that exists in Japan and it can be pretty tasty. However, the cheese that's available here is mostly processed and there's not much of a variety. The stuff that isn't processed is pretty expensive (even by Canadian standards) and I think the only kind of non-processed cheese I've seen is Camembert. Maybe there are specialty shops where a nice blue or some cheddar is available, but I haven't seen it.

There was some time in undergrad where I couldn't afford to buy cheese and I was pretty unhappy about that. This is similar, but worse because I'm not finding free pizza every week either.

As a result of my cheese deprivation, I recently had a dream where all I did was eat various cheeses. It can't be good when one is dreaming about nothing other than eating dairy products.

Burritos

Before I moved out of London, a Burrito Boyz opened up downtown near my apartment. As a result of this development, I rapidly developed an addiction to delicious, tasty burritos. When I moved out, getting someone else to make me burritos became more challenging, but at least I had easy access to all the proper ingredients to make my own.

In principle, the ingredients for burritos exist in Japan, but some (like the wrap) are specialty items and others (the refried beans, possibly the salsa too) have to be home made. Also, sour cream in Japan is not the same as sour cream in North America. It tastes about the same, but it's a lot thicker and really expensive (a 100 mL container can be had for about 400 yen). Finally, there's the "no real cheese" issue again.

Falafel

Long predating my addiction to burrito is my addiction to falafel. These wonderful balls of chickpeas and/or fava beans and spices with tahini and garlic sauces, pickled radishes and assorted deliciousness all wrapped in a warm pita do not seem to exist at all in Japan. We've found places that sell chicken shawarma, but they do not sell falafel sandwiches, which makes me very sad.

Salt and Vinegar Chips

Edamame chips. Possibly
delicious, but no substitute.

There are chips here and there are a variety of flavours some of which I've never seen in North America, such as pizza or edamame flavoured chips. I wouldn't want to eat all of the chips that are around either: I'll pass on the shrimp and octopus flavoured chips.

My favourite kind of chips is missing though. It's not clear why salt and vinegar chips don't seem to exist here, since salt and vinegar are two flavours that seem to be appreciated in Japanese cuisine, but apparently not in chip form.

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Soon, I will have access to these foods and I'm so excited about this prospect (which is probably kinda sad). Unfortunately, I won't be able to bring all of these with me when I come back (maybe I can bring some chips, but those aren't going to last long). However, since these foods are not necessarily good for me, I'm probably better off without them on a regular basis anyway.


On another note, I found the followers gadget (as the things off on the side are called) so if you would like to follow my blog, please do so. :)