Asian food store bonanza.

[Heads up, this entry is full of Japan stuff.]

To balance out the mediocre curry restaurant, today was also an Asian food store bonanza. We went to Nijiya, Mitsuwa, and Ranch 99 in search of dashi (soup stock) ingredients (the usual dried shiitake mushrooms, dried sardines, and kombu (dried kelp)) and udon flour (which doesn't seem to exist down here, I just got a high-gluten wheat flour instead). I also helped my dad pick out some nodoame (throat-soothing candy, not quite cough drops). He's pretty into it. We also found one of our favorite candies ever, the fizzy Mitsuya cider ones. My dad's a Big Fan. He bought three bags. Awesome. Also grabbed a box of the kurogo pocky, which is full of five kinds of black things, but I can only recognize two. Any exciting new pocky flavors in Japan I should keep an eye out for? I didn't check for the weird kitkats, but those weren't my favorite. Fruit parfait-flavored? Sakura-flavored? Green tea-flavored? Don't miss 'em.

I saw the conditioner I used in Japan. Twice as expensive. Dammmmit. All the other ones--Lux and a few others I recognized--were pretty close to Japan prices.

I also bought a Kateigaho magazine, which I still don't approve of, but it had an article on Konpira-san, so I had to get it. Stupid expensive though. The American subscription price isn't that bad, but I put down almost 20 bucks on a single issue. Ugh.

For people who haven't seen a Kateigaho magazine before, it's a beautiful, glossy magazine about Japanese arts and culture. While there have been some really fascinating articles about woodwork, textiles, and uhm, other stuff, they're fond of putting geisha on the cover. The guilt I feel while reading it is the same feeling I get when I read a women's fashion magazine.

Tonight the dashi stuff is soaking, tomorrow we're having udon! With real (frozen) Sanuki udon! It's packaged by Shirakiku (nationwide brand), so I doubt it was even made in Kagawa, but still, Hooray!

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8am at the optometrist's.

I love my optometrist. He's still the only one I've visited, mostly because I was still covered by my parents until I left for Japan. (Oh dependent student status, you were so good to me.) I still remember the opticians by name, the JA woman who always talks about her daughters and how wonderful they are, and the other woman with the little bitty dogs. Err, they're less obnoxious than they sound. I promise.

So this morning I had my eyes checked, and I was about to stick my face on the...uhm...eye thing with all the dials for changing the lenses...fine, an optical refractor. A phoropter. This thing:

(Except a lot more beige and friendly looking.)

So I lean in, and even without my glasses on, I notice a greasy smear of foundation where you rest your cheek. (There was some mascara too.) I point it out to my optometrist, and he apologizes. The woman who usually takes care of that is out sick...it was probably one of the last patients yesterday...you never know what you can get these days, with our insecure borders...some people have tuberculosis and they keep crossing the border anyway and sometimes they haven't finished treatment and they're all over the place...in our schools and it's terrible, those insecure borders.

Like whoa. Like whoa. It was surreal, like having that sort of conversation with family. And yes, I've got family members like that too. My sister and I cynically decided that's what happens when you get old. You get racist. It's like getting a bad rash, it makes you all sorts of illogical and crazy. And yeah, I understand the whole mental crystallization thing, how it's harder to adapt when you get older...but still. Not exactly shocking, but still jarring. I've been seeing this guy (and his wife, also an optometrist) for...over twenty years. They still have this ratty, dusty clown on a swing up in the corner.

This is turning into a nostalgia post, so I'll save that for later. Just wanted to share my morning.

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This is my America 2 [/]

And it's not haunted either.

My mother has a collection of Japanese dolls. She has...six of them. As I child I thought they were all a family (this was the mother). In middle school I used one as a model for a sketch I did. I think they're pretty neat, but as a child it never occurred to me that other people didn't have Japanese dolls in their living rooms.

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This is my America.

My second day back was manual labor day. The persimmons needed to be harvested. No problem, right? That's what I thought, because I was thinking of the small, pruned trees I saw in my town. Well, my grandparents have a tree that's about 30 years old, and while it's pruned, it has definitely taken advantage of the elbow room.

And my dad did most of the work. Poor guy.

This is maybe a quarter of what needed to be picked.

Kaki butts! [/]

I can't decide if my family picks them later then the Japanese, or if this is just this particular variety. I just know that I like my kaki crunchy, not slimy. I guess I should find a recipe for overripe persimmons.

Remember that guy who invited A to go out picking persimmons at his house? Well, he did it to J too. I wonder how many friendly foreigners he's collected...

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Tricked Again.

The internets! No one's updating them!!! Why? I demand entertainment!

Oh, right, Fourth of July. I barely noticed, and that's the way I like it. I'll get my fireworks fix in August, no worries.

Rah rah, red white and blue. I'm American, I appreciate the opportunities and am only moderately irked by the inconvenience of being judged as a result of my government, my country's history, and my country's BMI being criticized by the rest of the world.

I've already been asked (by a fellow somewhat-immigrant, no less) if I celebrated Thanksgiving. (Yes I do, and we do it with steamed rice and mashed potatoes.) I think I've felt on the fringes of Americana proper for a good long time, but that's one of the few concrete examples that I can provide. Does that make sense? It's no fun being labeled as an Outsider if you already feel that way.

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