Things Matt Ate This Week

This is not just a post about food!

That being said, here's a few unique cuisines I've enjoyed this week:

Going from left to right, top to bottom:

1. Here's some of those ramen noodles that I mentioned in my last post. This was "dipping ramen with full plate."

2. Vending machine coffee! It cost ~$1 and tasted as good as those Starbucks frapuccino's.

3. The Korean BBQ place was a lot of fun as 7 of us shared this little grill and cooked all our own pre-marinated meats. Also with great kim chi!

4. Udon dipping noodles, cucumbers with unrefined miso, and ...cow tongue??? The cow tongue was awesome.

5. I knew we couldn't go wrong with Indian food for dinner. A nice little bowl of Chicken Tikka Masala and a fresh-baked garlic naan the length of my hand and forearm!

6. And who doesn't like churros!!? Although, these Japanese churros are very different in that they're crunchy like a cookie and are meant to go with coffee.

The Indian place was pretty sketch. This was the tunnel stairway we took to the basement level restaurant.

Besides food, I was able to experience three very different aspects of Japanese culture throughout this week:

1. The Kamakura Temple

This temple was built by the first Shogun (or militant leader) to conquer the entirety of Japan with his army of samurai. His temple  is famous not only for its historical value, but for its beauty and scenery. I was only able to take a brief tour of the grounds, but every aspect was rich with historical and metaphorical value.

The gateway to the temple is a long path whose entrance is marked by two dog statues and the Torii gate. The dog on the right has an open mouth, which symbolizes life, while the dog on the left symbolizes death with its closed mouth. This is meant to reflect how we enter the world with an open mouth, hopeful and experiencing all things new; then we pass away with a closed mouth and at peace.

The Torii gates are all over Japan and symbolize a passing into a spirited or holy area.

The path actually narrows as you get closer to the temple, which gives the optical illusion of the path being significantly longer than its actual length. This was engineered by the first Shogun in order to deter and intimidate challengers to the Shogun position, as they would have to assassinate him in order to take over his role.

Before entering the temple, we performed some ceremonial washing at a small, but well-decorated, fountain. There was a whole procedure to follow, which I know that I completely messed up. I had to quickly pull out my 'American' card and speak English to the confused onlookers in case it wasn't already obvious enough that I had no clue what I was doing.

After this point, I couldn't take any more pictures due to being inside the temple. The scenery everywhere around the temple was absolutely gorgeous, though, and I wish you could all experience it someday, too. There were two small ponds that were installed by the wife of one of the many Shoguns to live by the temple. The pond on the right was filled completely with white water lillies, while the pond on the left was filled only with red water Lillie's to, again, symbolize life and death. Although the lillies were not in bloom, the ponds were both beautiful and very serene.

There were many other temples and shrines around the Kamakura area, all of which I hear are gorgeous places to visit. I'm hoping to spend a full day in that city sometime in the future.

2. Harajuku

As a city known for its fashionable and trendy shopping centers, Harajuku is crowded every weekend with Tokyo's younger demographic. There are hundreds of stores within a mile radius of the train station, most of which are stacked on top of one another as it is with most of Japan's buildings and stores. I saw many of the major American outlets like H&M, Gap, Nike, and Tommy Hilfiger, but also noticed a peppering of trendy Japanese stores. Their fashions and styles are very similar to what we have in America and most of them seem pretty hipster. (Btw, are expensive, used clothing stores existent in America? Have I missed them completely? There were a few of those here with ~$40 t-shirts that have clearly been worn.) There was even a whole street that was decorated to look like a shopping avenue straight out of NYC; every outlet advertised american-styled clothing.

Harajuku is also known for its cosplay-ing weekend visitors. I was only able to snap one decent picture of the costumed locals:

She was last in a line of various uni-coloured princesses. Many shops had girls advertise in front of their doors dressed to look like they popped straight out of an anime cartoon. Probably the weirdest advertiser was the one who wasn't a girl, but was a guy in a skimpy Snow White outfit. For obvious reasons, no pictures were taken of that disturbing character.

I also visited a rabbit cafe while I was in Harajuku, which is a place where you pay a few bucks to play with a rabbit for a certain amount of time. Apparently these cafes, along with puppy and kitten cafes, are becoming popular all over Tokyo due to the restrictions on owning pets for those who live in the city. I didn't pay to spend time with a rabbit today, but at least I now know where to go if I'm having a bad day.

3. Akihabara

Akihabara is Tokyo's famed electronics district. On the left in the picture was a large multi-row market that sold only and all electronic parts. It had a booth for any electronic component you could ever need: capacitors, transistors, screws, flukes, wire strippers, motors, computer fans, batteries, lightbulbs, etc.

Straight ahead in the picture was one of many several-storied arcades. These arcades are an epileptic's nightmare. As soon as I stepped through the doorway, I was greeted with flashing screens and gameplay noises from every direction. Almost all the arcade games were multiplayer arcades and most required trading cards that the players purchased separately and used to interact with the game. It was all very impressive. Though perhaps what was most amusing in the arcade was the bathroom! The urinal itself was a video game! As I peed into the receptacle, I racked up points by the mL and filled up two soda cans, about which the little anime character in the video game seemed pretty excited. I don't think I got a high score, though.

Akihabara is also known for its maid cafes where the waitresses are all dressed as french maids and serve you very eagerly. I only saw a few maids out in the streets advertising for their cafes, but wasn't in the mood for feeling like a huge creeper that night.

Aside from reports on my tourism, I should be moving into my new apartment in about a week! I'm very excited for a place to call my home and I'm really looking forward to living the city life for a while in Yokohama. This past week was filled with a 5-day, mandatory, training course on adjusting to the new culture. It was very useful and I'm glad I went through it (it provided me the trip to Kamakura!), but it took away valuable time from the paperwork trail that I have to hike in order to move in to my apartment. Nonetheless, the Lord has faithfully been blessing the details of the housing process, allowing me to find an apartment and schedule a lease-signing meeting much sooner than normal. I'm continuing to pray for this process as I continue to realize my dependence on the Lord for all my needs.