My Garden 花

There is a little flower shop down the street from me with beautiful spring blooms. I don't have a yard or even a decent porch, but I have flowers!

The pictures say more than I can, so enjoy them as I have. 

Signs and Wonders

It's time for a guessing game! 

Here are various signs that I see in my day to day life. 

Can you guess what they advertise/communicate?

(answers are at the end)

1. 2. 

3. 4. 

5. 6. 

7. 8. 

9. 10.

11.12.

13.14.

15. 

       1.  Don Quixote: the closest thing you can get to a Walmart, but smaller and more expensive and filled with Japanese things...

       2. Yep, seven eleven. It is one of the four Konbinis (convenience stores) within a five minute walk from my house. Unlike the American convenience store which feels dirty and is filled with food that you only eat out of desperation on long road trips, the Japanese Konbini has a clean atmosphere and decent food at decent prices. It is still more expensive than a grocery store. It is also much closer. 

       3. A restaurant: Like a Perkins, Denny's, or Sherrie's, this restaurant claims to serve American food, but you mostly would not recognize it as American. Sure it says spaghetti and pizza, but look closer at the picture before you buy. You could try to Google-translate the Kanji... but than only makes it more confusing, usually.  

       4. Another Konbini: this chain is more popular and (for some reason) also labels its food in English. Again, convenient. べんりですね。

       5. The Japanese says "book". This is a book store.

       6. This is a paid parking lot, which is the only kind of parking lot available in Mito (that I have seen).

       7. Denny's, yup - but the Japanese version. These are the hardest places for me to eat because it is distinctly not American in flavor. I love Japanese food, but if it claims to be American then I want it to taste American. 

       8. This is a commemorative event for a 1980's tv series.

       9. The strange red T means "post office" and it conveniently sticks out above the tops of all the other buildings.

      10. Softbank, a phone service provider: their mascot is a dog. もこもこ

      11. This is a warning about the fast pass for trains - make sure you have enough money on the card or you will jam the lines. かわいいね？

　　12. On business days, some morning trains only allow women passengers. This is one of those trains (although later in the day so it was co-ed when I rode it).
　　13.  Coin Laundry (ko-in ran-do-rii)
　　14.  This strange blue building offers a bizarre selection of things from a huge manga library, cafe, internet, and back massages...

        15. Bic Camera, an electronics store: this one is at my train station, although the chain is popular all throughout Japan. This one has several floors of electronics. I am convinced that they wanted to name their store Big Camera but it somehow got lost in translation, so "Bic" it is. What shocks me most about this store is how much they seem to trust their customers. The cash register is way in the back of the store so that the purchaser walks back past the merchandise after they pay. In American they funnel you out and away from their shelved items through metal detectors. Just think of Barnes and Noble or Walmart. 

Meat Buffet 肉

There are many restaurants in Mito. Some are American restaurants (like Denny's) but serve food that westerners would not recognize (spaghetti with fish eggs). Some are genuinely Japanese like ramen shops. There are also Korean BBQ shops, Mexican restaurants, and French Bakeries. Beware of the French Bakeries; they do not use butter...

Today's restaurant of choice is the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. 

This means that you serve as much raw meat as you want from the buffet, and then you cook it on the grill in the middle of the table. The restaurant supplies thongs for flipping the raw meat and then you use your chopsticks to remove the meat and eat it. YUM! 

The meat is delicious, but the slices are so very very thin. Although the thin-ness helps the meat to cook faster, it also means that it is hard to eat your monies worth in meat (especially since you have to share the griddle with the whole table). Even so, it is really fun flipping the meat. If you forget to watch your meat then it catches on fire - like a good, greasy, outdoor BBQ.

The tinfoil wrapping is spaghetti noodles.

You can see my plate of raw meat, waiting to be cooked.

The restaurant does not only serve meat. As you can see, there is fried sweet tofu, sushi, fried chicken, and french fries as  well as curry and rice, udon, crepes, fruit, ice-cream, and a drinks bar (free refills on non-alcoholic drinks), and more.  

They even serve natto... which I unfortunately did not know till I ate it. 

But they do serve a lot of raw meat.

...and fruit (which is just as expensive as meat in Japan).

The Korean BBQ is not my favorite restaurant, but it is definitely an experience worth having!

It's a Walk in the Park

The pictures in this post are from the Eikan Peace park.

 

 In one corner of the park there is a giant statue of a woman riding a goose and a fountain, but I don't know why because the plaque is in Kanji...

This spring I was so excited for warmer weather which will transform this park from brown patch to luscious beauty. But, after a Japanese summer, I was even more excited for the cold to return and change the green to the flaming colors of fall before returning to the crispy brown of winter.

So here it is, my year in review:

Mascots

 

A few months ago I mentioned Mito-chan (pictured above) in one of my posts.  I think it is important to mention her again because she is only one of many mascots running rampant on the streets of Japan. Actually, I have only seen full-sized mascot suits at a shrine on a festival day, but pictures of them are on signs and brochures everywhere. My city has two of these mascots of which Mito-chan is actually the least popular. (The other mascot is Natto, an elastic, fermented bean which is neither cute nor appetizing...)

 あまり.

In addition to the two city mascots, my prefecture has a mascot - an old samurai man with a purple hat (pictured below). The picture below also has many other city mascots from my prefecture. Remember that there are 47 prefectures in Japan and this picture is only one of them. 

Representing cities makes them seem more friendly and welcoming.

かわいいね？