Monthly Archives: June 2004
My Favorite Places To View Hotaru
One of my favorite ways to spend a spring or summer night in Japan is to go out and watch the hotaru (fireflies) flicker on and off in unison. The Hotaru Festival in Kyokushi (North of Ozu in Kumamoto-ken) is worth checking out, and easy to get to. During this celebration, beef ranchers like the … Continue reading
Rainy Weekend
This weekend I had to work, and so I missed the last hash with our group in Kumamoto. I hope it went well, and that you all had to swim through the brown dirtiness that is the Shirakawa River. It rained all weekend long, which was a good thing. I did more this weekend then … Continue reading
Chewing Through The Gag
Over the past year, posting stuff on Higo Blog is something that I have really grown to enjoy. It’s a much needed release sometimes, and helps me to stay sane in my relative isolation in the Japanese country side. I can’t imagine what it would feel like if the Japanese government decided to censor what … Continue reading
Cooking With Green Butter
Avocados are only 100 yen right now, and so I have been using them a lot lately. My favorite ways to eat them are sliced with shoyu (California-nisei style), as part of a sandwitch/cheeseburger, or as guacamole. Fresh tortillas are worth their weight in silver over here, but tortilla chips are abundant and cheap and … Continue reading
Spy vs. Spy
Justin told me that he ran Ad-Aware and Spybot on Merin’s computer last weekend, and that he was shocked to see how much spyware (check out this article for more information) was on her computer. He said that it had so much crap on it that it crashed while he was running the anti-spyware programs. … Continue reading
Classroom Punishment
What ever happened to time out or setting up conferences with the parents of a kid who is having problems in school? In Japan, you hear many stories of how screwed up the educational system is, and how the pressure on teachers (to get their students to pass tests) and students (to pass the tests) … Continue reading
Cooking With Goya
This weekend I cooked with goya(bitter melon) for the first time, and it turned out awesome! I first tried goya in Okinawa as a component in a chop suey-like dish, and made it with the help of a friend. After you try this dish, you might grow to love the bumpy-cucumber-like hunk of bitterness. Goya … Continue reading
Genocide Cocktail
My sister Merin sent me this picture of a tank full of habu in awamori that she took while on vacation to Okinawa this weekend, in a place called Gyokusendo Kingdom Village. I wrote all about habushu and mamushizake in a previous post, and thought that they made this liquer with one snake per bottle, … Continue reading
A Gaping, Unfilled Niche
There are a few things that I used to depend on for everyday cooking and I still use many of them over here, but I sorely miss Mexican food ingredients. I miss the abundance of tortillas, both flour and corn (I can get flour tortillas at Costco in Fukuoka periodically, but it is a pain … Continue reading
Tienes Arroz, Bitch?
This thing made me want to put on a blindfold, spin around ten times, let the force guide my bat straight and true, and smash it open to get to the candy.