Chillin' with a tofu shake

Next Stop, Kudumatsu: 

Kudumatsu has some great recycle shops. Boy, was it a relief to us girls when we finally stumbled across that word. Recycle. At home I'd sooner say second-hand shops, but hey, when in Japan, use Japenglish. I actually bought a skirt in Kudamatsu. Here's the edge if it. Can you make it out? That's the foyer of the Ube lighthouse. See all the fun slippers? Yup, that's a bit of culture for you.  

               Tonight I'm drinking a really thick shake. Rich and chocolaty. So thick I'm almost eating it. Mmmm. Do yourself a favor, go make your self a shake!  

All a board!

[EDITED TO ADD: This post was actually written on Sunday, Oct. 26th. Sorry for the time lag!]

First stop: Hikari (光) 

We first arrived at this station on a cold, rainy night back in June. It was dark and miserable. We'd been to half a dozen stations already, and lugged our suitcases (we short-termers each had a big huge bag, a not-so-cute small bag, and various carry ons) up and down nearly a thousand steps. We'd been traveling forever it seemed, and we weren't interested in looking around at our surroundings, not when they could only be wet and dark. 

Since that night I'm glad to say my veiw of the Hikari eki has only improved. In fact, 

I rather think of it as my home station. I've ridden up to Iwakuni, and down to Tokiwa, but each time I started in Hikari. Of course, now I live in Ube and  I can no longer walk to the Hikari station, but I still get to see it at least once a week.

 The Hikari eki has a rainbow theme, in fact it's covered walkway is painted on the inside to look like a rainbow. Unfortunately, it seems to have been painted a long time ago, and is now rather dingy looking, with rust covering a good deal of the once bright colors.        

 Thursday I went shopping because I was completely out of food, including rice. I'm really helpless when it come to shopping. Really. And when every thing is marked in Japanese, well, it can be a disaster. I come home thinking "what ever will I make with this hodgepodge?" But I rather think I succeed this time inbuying useful ingredients. Planning ahead what I wanted to make helped a lot, and so did asking a nice lady what kind of rice I should buy. After shopping I was too spent to cook, so I ate some leftovers, I think (it seems so long ago), and put the groceries away for later.  Later meant Friday, when I made lemon chicken, and yesterday, when I made chicken hamburgers*. Actually, for dinner I ate them as chicken dumplings and udon (I live on udon. おいしい！). The unused burgers were put in the freeze Wednesday's lunch (I heated them in the pan with some honey, soy sauce, and rice wine vinegar). 

(One of my Favorite Things: Harvested Rice Hung to Dry)

*Who would have thought? They actually had already ground chicken, so I didn't have to tax my poor smoothie maker. 

Train Saga- Reading Your Train Schedule

(A group of statues placed randomly in Ube city) 


There is little one can't do with a little logic on their side. One can build, cook, educate, and yes, figure out the Japanese train system. Still, it is advisable that you have an expert give a you a quick crash course before you start planning parties all the way up in Iwakuni. While I'm not an expert, and I can't explain what those little kanji things mean, after three months of traveling the trains I'd be next to useless if I couldn't at least describe the operation. Lets start with a look at my handy-dandy train book:

(The train book; never leave home with out it)



Hikari's time-line is highlighted in pink, under it, highlighted in yellow, are the Tokuyama and Honyura lines. Looking just the Hikari line, you'd read until you find a departure time that's good for you. Say you want to leave at 6:40,  well the closet time is 6:48.  Put your finger on that time and trace the column down until it bumps into Tokuyama's row. Lift your finger up and you've got your arrival time, 7:01. (7:03 is the departure time. Tokuyama and Shinyamaguchi have train changes and waiting times that smaller stations don't have. Thus their double time lines). Conversely, if the arrival is the important thing, start with the Tokuyama line and trace up. Can you figure out which train you'd have to catch in Hikari to get to Tokuyama by  7:50?* (Try clicking on the photos to enlarge them, it will make reading the schedule a billion times easier). 

To go from Tokuyama to Hikari you just flip to another page. This page has trains going to Iwakuni - the first page showed the Shimonoseki line. Let's forget about about Tokuyama now and look at my old Honyura schedule:





          The line with the circle is Honyura, then Tokuyama, and finally the blushing Hikari. Planning a trip from Honyura is just like planning other trip. Except, did you notice the strange little "jump" in the column?  Yup, that means a train change. Sometimes you have one minute to change trains and, when there are a whole swarm of people getting off and geting on, it can be very alarming. Thankfully, these one minutes changes seem to only occur when the train you are on and the train you need to get on next are pulled up to the same platform. However, there are other train changes, and for those the surest way of figuring the right platform is to go on the second floor and look at the information board.  Just find the your departure time and proceed to the corresponding platform. Also, they you can see they include the names of the lines above the LED display, if you forgot your book  (unlikely!) you can just follow your track.

So, that's the basics of train travel, but I've one more situation: The local track. These tracks require a bit of fancy finger work, and the ability to plan ahead. Here is how I work the system to get to Hikari:
1) firgure out required arrival time of arrival (Time D)
2) Find that time in Hikari and trace it to Shin-Yamaguchi (time Time A)
3) Flip to the back of the book and find trains leaving Shin-Yamaguch after time A (Time B)
4) Trace trace time B to Tokiwa.

Of course, I have to reverse this process to get back to Tokiwa. That's why it's so nice to have a set schedule, I never have to worry about what train I'm going to catch. 

Whew! Now that I've finally posted that the rest of the saga should be easy. In fact, I'm hoping to be able to give you a feel for my day to day life. No promises though! 

*The 7:31 train would get you to Tokuyama at 7:46. Four minutes to spare.

Japanese Vermillion – 柿

                 ("pizza" man from Seven Eleven. A sweet, soft dough filled with a (semi) quasi-pizza sauce  )

Here's a filler post. As was unanimously voted, in a crazy stampede to the ticket box, The Train Saga has been slotted for production and only awaits a little photo tweaking. Until then, I'll distract you with persimmons:



Persimmons, they are the fruit of the season. My first persimmon was eaten a few weeks ago in Hikari eki. Before that I had never really seen these strange, orange fruits. Note the unique purple grain work*. Somehow, at first sight of the inside, they reminded me of figs. If you've never had a persimmon let me encourage you to go try one and then come back and write about what it taste like. That's the hard part, describing its taste. The persimmon is made up of a fleshy center surrounded by aslightly woody outer fruit. The woody part has very little taste, and reminded me or a peach, or an uncooked sweet potato. The inside was actually sweet, but I didn't notice any hint of flavor there either. Really, I wouldn't trust my feelings too much on this one, they're kind of impressionistic when it come to taste. (I mean, uncooked sweet potato? Where did that come from?) Also, it's early in the season, as evidenced by the tree in "my" front yard, which has not yet reached the beautiful orange color of these babies.



Yup,that's Japanese vermilion** alright. I'm told by the owner of "my tree" that it produces sour persimmons. Persimmons, you see, appear to come in two varieties. The sweet, pluck-and-eat kind, and the sour, pluck-and-dry sort.Reportedly, drying sucks the sourness out of them. If I get to try this I will certainly tell you about it. Until then take care, and I'll see you at Train Schedule school.



Yours Truly,
Mrs. B.



* Somewhere between writing this post and posting it I've had the chance to eat riper persimmons and, though they certainly had more of that lack of flavor that I mentioned, and though they really certainly weren't as woody on the outer parts, the most remarkable difference was their lack of this purple grain. I must say, I was quite disappointed, as I think the purple is one of the persimmon's lovelier attributes.

** I grew up with a sister whose favorite past time was to sort her eighty Crayola crayons. The first time I visited a Japanese shrine I was with her, and we both kind of looked at each other askance when our guide told us the bright, carrot-red pillars were vermillion. Now, to be fair, there are a few different colors associated with vermillion, which you can read about at your leisure. Suffice it to say, my vermillion has always been closer to blood than carrots

(Grass  in one of  the many rusted objects at the Ube Church's new ministry center.)