Happy New Years, everyone and I apologize for the late post. It turns out that visiting family and being social takes away from blogging time.
I don't make New Years resolutions every year and I think last year was the only time I kept all my resolutions because I only made one (I resolved to finish my thesis). This year I have free time so I'm feeling a little ambitious about this sort of thing. So ambitious, in fact, that I will not only make resolutions, but also share them publicly.
First of all, I resolve to read more books. I'm not sure how many books I read last year, but it might have been less than ten. I read a lot of papers, but those aren't quite the same. I think a reasonable goal is somewhere around 26 books (this is one book every other week), but since I'm feeling ambitious right now I'll set a goal for 30 books. In addition, half of the books I'll read this year will be written by women simply because women are severely underrepresented on my bookshelves at the moment. I'll keep a running tally of the books I'm reading/have read in the sidebar.
I also resolve to draw more by making a point to draw something every day (or spend some time working on a larger drawing every day). Here, I'd like to make a point of drawing things I don't usually draw and playing with techniques I don't usually employ (because I'm lazy). Granted, usually, I don't draw things if I don't think about them so it's not especially easy to think of what should be included in this list so I might ask for suggestions from time to time. I'll probably post some of them on here every once in a while.
I also resolve to run more. I've been working on getting back into a habit of doing this regularly in Japan (coming somewhere cold and snowy has not been helpful for doing this at all) and I would actually like to participate in a race this year. However, since I'll still be in Japan, this means I'm forced to make an additional resolution.
I resolve to study Japanese more. Based on some preliminary googling, the way to register for the small races in Japan involves being able to register on websites that are only in Japanese. As good as Google is for translating these, sometimes it does some funny things during translation. Also, it would be nice to be able to communicate effectively (for obvious reasons). Thus, I resolve to learn at least one new kanji a day and to spend some time every week practicing my reading/writing/listening/speaking.
Finally, I resolve to blog more. Starting either next week or the week after when we're back in Japan and things have settled down, I will include a post on Thursday as well as the regular Monday posts (or normally regular). I'll try to keep the Monday posts about interesting things that happened during the week and observations about living in a new place (or however you would describe the topics of my posts so far) while the Thursday posts might be about something else entirely (I have some ideas).
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiday. Show all posts
Thursday, 2 January 2014
Monday, 9 December 2013
Christmas in Japan!
If you know a little about Japan, you might know that the most common religions in this country are Shinto and Buddhism. If you know a bit more, you might know that more than 70% of people in Japan are not religious at all, really. At any rate, the percentage of the population who are Christian is something like 1 to 2%.
So why, you might wonder, am I posting about Christmas here? The answer
is quite simple: Christmas is relatively popular in Japan. Complete
with signs, lights, fake trees and Christmas carols in the stores
replacing the usual store theme songs (yes, some stores here have theme
songs) all wishing passers by a Merry Christmas in one way or another.
Obviously, the religious aspects are not popular and people do not get the day off work, but the part where people are encouraged to buy things for each other is very popular. Especially with the stores who want to sell more things.
Even Kentucky Fried Chicken has gotten into the Christmas spirit, or rather, it has been in the Christmas spirit since I arrived at the beginning of November. While KFC is pretty omnipresent in Japan generally (Japan is its the third largest market after the US and China), the company has also convinced Japan that fried chicken is a Christmas food, so they start promoting special Christmas meals early (because they have to be ordered in advance) and dress the Colonel in a Santa suit and hat.
It seems that Christmas has also become a romantic day, which is a more recent, but still interesting trend. It's a bit odd that Christmas has become a romantic holiday since Valentine's day (where women give men chocolates) and White Day (where the men give gifts to the women who gave them chocolate) exist here as well. It almost seems like Japan is making a point of being rough on single people.
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| Some signs even look fairly permanent. |
Obviously, the religious aspects are not popular and people do not get the day off work, but the part where people are encouraged to buy things for each other is very popular. Especially with the stores who want to sell more things.
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| Because everyone loves capitalism! |
Even Kentucky Fried Chicken has gotten into the Christmas spirit, or rather, it has been in the Christmas spirit since I arrived at the beginning of November. While KFC is pretty omnipresent in Japan generally (Japan is its the third largest market after the US and China), the company has also convinced Japan that fried chicken is a Christmas food, so they start promoting special Christmas meals early (because they have to be ordered in advance) and dress the Colonel in a Santa suit and hat.
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| Colonel Santa brings you tidings of fried chicken! |
Monday, 2 December 2013
Second Thanksgiving and the really long fall
On Saturday, we went to a Thanksgiving party hosted by one of daid's friends. It was a potluck, which is normally fine since neither of us mind preparing food. Unfortunately, we still don't have a burner at our apartment (and we're never going to get an actual oven) so our cooking abilities are somewhat limited.
Luckily, we do have a rice cooker and there are surprisingly large number of things you can cook in a rice cooker, like this recipe I found a recipe for a vegetable hot cake. So we tried to make that, though we swapped out all the veggies for different ones, added some spices, sprinkled some cheese on it and doubled the batter. That last decision was probably not the best idea since we ended up cooking it twice in the rice cooker and then putting it in the microwave (which has a bake function that we still haven't really figured out) before it finished cooking on the inside.
In the end, we got something that reasonably resembled a hot cake and was pretty tasty. It also disappeared almost immediately at the party which is always a good sign. We made it again yesterday for breakfast using a single serving of the batter and it turned out much better. Clearly, this calls for more experimenting with the rice cooker. Perhaps the next step is to make some actual cake!
One thing that has been really nice about living near Tokyo is the weather (though I will probably not say the same thing in the summer). Unlike back home, where the weather will shift from summer to winter in a week or two (and vice versa in the spring), it's still fall here. The leaves are still changing and the air is nice and crisp. It's getting a bit cold at night (though still above freezing), but during the day it's warm enough that one can almost do without a jacket.
Granted, I'm not sure that Tokyo has what I'd consider a proper winter at all since the temperature doesn't seem to drop much below 0°C and it doesn't snow very much. It's still nice to have a long fall since this is a relatively new experience for me.
Luckily, we do have a rice cooker and there are surprisingly large number of things you can cook in a rice cooker, like this recipe I found a recipe for a vegetable hot cake. So we tried to make that, though we swapped out all the veggies for different ones, added some spices, sprinkled some cheese on it and doubled the batter. That last decision was probably not the best idea since we ended up cooking it twice in the rice cooker and then putting it in the microwave (which has a bake function that we still haven't really figured out) before it finished cooking on the inside.
In the end, we got something that reasonably resembled a hot cake and was pretty tasty. It also disappeared almost immediately at the party which is always a good sign. We made it again yesterday for breakfast using a single serving of the batter and it turned out much better. Clearly, this calls for more experimenting with the rice cooker. Perhaps the next step is to make some actual cake!
One thing that has been really nice about living near Tokyo is the weather (though I will probably not say the same thing in the summer). Unlike back home, where the weather will shift from summer to winter in a week or two (and vice versa in the spring), it's still fall here. The leaves are still changing and the air is nice and crisp. It's getting a bit cold at night (though still above freezing), but during the day it's warm enough that one can almost do without a jacket.
Granted, I'm not sure that Tokyo has what I'd consider a proper winter at all since the temperature doesn't seem to drop much below 0°C and it doesn't snow very much. It's still nice to have a long fall since this is a relatively new experience for me.
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