Construction Day 78

Most of the painting is done. We were looking for a low or no VOC paint that we could color match, and ended up with Kelly-Moore's Enviro-Cote line. We're pretty happy with it so far, and there's no new-paint smell.

The maple flooring is also down now and it looks gorgeous! I'd been thinking about staining it to something a little darker, but now I think I'm going to try to keep it as close to its natural color as possible.

Our contractor estimates that it will take another two weeks of work to finish things up (the cabinets, the lighting, the trims, the tiles...). Unfortunately, it'll probably take a bit longer than that to actually finish everything since one of the tiles that we want for the master bathroom won't be available for another month! We're contemplating our alternatives, but since we are not in any rush to move back in, we'll probably just wait.

For now though, I think I'll hold off posting any new pictures until everything is complete so that the final results will be a surprise.

For the record...

People have wondered why I refer to my wife as "the wife" in this blog. I'd much prefer to just use her name, but she insists that I not use her name because she'd prefer to remain anonymous. I don't really understand it as she maintains her own blog, but there you go.

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day. What have you done for your planet lately?

Personally, I've been trying to use less whenever possible, recycle as much as is feasible and curbing my more materialistic tendencies. I've also tried educating my friends and family, but there's a fine line between educating and nagging or preaching and I'm always struggling to figure out where that line is.

For example, how can you persuade a new mom that buying a second hand stroller is just as safe as buying a new one? You're basically arguing against an emotional response, and there's no winning that one.

Lately I've been thinking more and more about what concrete changes I can make in my day to day life, and I've been inspired by Vanessa's experiment to do one thing a day that betters the environment. Since I know I won't be able to come up with something new every day, I've decided to try something a lot simpler: something new every month. And hopefully, if this sticks, I'll switch to something new every week. We'll see how it goes, but once a month is something anyone should able to do. And whatever that "something new" is, it will continue to get done from then on. If I decide to stop using something, that change is permanent.

For this month, I'm going to stop using paper towels in the kitchen and reverting to good old fashion cloth towels. We never used them before we moved to the US and survived just fine, so I'm pretty sure that habit won't be too hard to break.

If you're thinking of making a change, here are 50 simple things you can do.

Elevators

More than you ever wanted to know about elevators. Worth a read if you've the time. Here's a little tease:

In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works. (It does work if, say, a fireman needs to take control. But you need a key, and a fire, to do that.) Once you know this, it can be illuminating to watch people compulsively press the door-close button.

Yuri Night Bash

Went to the Yuri's Night Festival at the NASA Ames Research Center yesterday. It's part science fair, part art fair, part concert, and all to celebrate Yuri Gargarin, the first man into space on April 12, 1961.

All in all a pretty interesting event. There was even an air show and a fashion show/competition! The fire art installation was interactive and a pretty big hit. Apropos to the theme, the performers all either had a techno or electronic bent.

Environmental issues had a pretty high profile. Almost all food vendors seemed to be organic and there were lots of solar, alternative fuels and electric vehicle exhibits. It was nice to see that trash cans were well marked for recycling and composting. What struck me as odd was that they were giving out glow sticks. Chemicals in plastic tubes destined for the land fill before the night is out just didn't seem to jive. Some cognitive dissonance on the part of the planners.

Rounding Error

Bought something on sale at Whole Foods last night: buy one get one free! The price of a single item? $4.99. When I checked my receipt, I noticed that I was charged $5.00 instead.

Huh?

Well, it looks like their system doesn't quite understand the concept of "buy one get one free". Instead, it sees two for $4.99. And when it tries to do the math, each item costs $2.50 ($4.99 / 2), so 2 items ends up costing $5.00.

Go programmers! Or not.

Construction Day 67

The walls are up! The walls are up! Well, the gypboard is up anyway. It only has one coat of mud on at the moment, with two more on the way. On the outside, the scratch coat is up. Both the stucco and drywall guys should be finishing things up next week if the weather holds (everything needs to dry properly). At that point, the painters will be coming in and doing their thing. Imagine that... Color!!! And then the cabinets, tiling and flooring. I can't wait.

In other news, Grohe's announcing that they'll be releasing low-flow versions of many of their faucets. This is great news, except for the fact that I've just bought their standard-flow faucets. *grrrr*

On the brighter side, it looks like the UltraTouch insulation is working wonders for sound insulation.

Home

I'm home! Despite the allergy attack, it was a good trip. I'll be better prepared next time.

Going through my pictures, I'm surprised what a big difference five days made for the sakura trees:

The other thing that I was pleasantly surprised by on the trip was the Northwest Airlines flight I'd taken there and back - it was good! The food was decent, and better yet, they had a good selection of movies on demand. I managed to catch Atonement (better than I expected), There Will Be Blood (worse than I expected), P.S. I Love You (an excellent cry), The Great Debaters (nothing special), Bella (interesting), Saawariya (reminded me of Moulin Rouge), and Om Shanti Om (campy).

Kotetsu

On my way to the airport, I decided to give Kotetsu another try. Knowing it's exact location made it so much simpler this time, which was fortunate because it was raining and I did not have an umbrella with me.

Unfortunately for me, the menu was in Japanese only, and the waiter wasn't very good with English. The two basic choices were soba or udon, and I opted for soba and just went with the waiter's recommendation, which I understood to be soba with daikon.

What I got were two courses. The first one was a small bowl with soba in a hot broth, and the second was a big bowl with soba in a cool broth and daikon on top. I can't say I was terribly impressed. Especially from a place that had been given a Michelin star. The hot soba was a little soft, and both were ... very subtly flavored? Perhaps I'd just ordered the wrong thing for my tastes.

In any case, after lunch it was off to the airport to catch the plane back home.

Third Time's A Charm

Woke up at 5:00am today again to go the Tsukiji Fish Market for sushi. And finally! got there around 6:00am and still had a 40 minute wait. This place is truly tiny, with a long bar that only fits about twelve tightly packed people at a time.

And was it worth it? Having to wake up at such an ungodly hour (and if you know me, you also know how unlike me this would be) and still having standing in line? In a word: yes. This place showed me how amazingly good sushi can be. The biggest surprise I've had here is how tasty ama-ebi can be in, something I was never particularly fond of until I tried it here. Don't worry, I won't bore you with pictures of sushi.

Since we were there so early, we were able to watch the tuna auctions:

After this, it was back to the hotel. The wife had to get back to work, and I had to finish packing.

Back To Work

The wife had to go in to work today, but she did sneak out for lunch with me. We attempted to go to Kotetsu, which is supposedly well-known for their soba. It also recently got a Michelin star for its soba kaiseki, which is only served at dinner, but if it's good for dinner it must also be good for lunch, right?

Unfortunately, it took us forever to find the place, and by the time we'd located it with the help of some locals, they'd already closed for lunch. What a waste.

On our way back to the subway station, we ran across another tonkatsu restaurant, and thought we'd give it a try. It was good, but perhaps not quite as good as Maisen.

After lunch, the wife headed back in to work, and I went to Shinjuku to check out a couple used camera stores in the hopes of finding some gear for cheap. In theory, with everyone in Japan always on to the latest and greatest, the slightly old and used can be had at a steal. No such luck (at least for DSLR-related stuff). Everything in Japan costs more, including their used gear.

So it was back to the hotel and work for me as well. Not for long though, as we had a 7:00pm reservation at Rokusantei, the original Iron Chef Japanese Rokusaburo Michiba's flagship restaurant in Ginza. On our wait out, we ran into Mathieu, one of the wife's co-workers who'd just flown in and invited him to join us.

What can I say about Rokusantei... It was a novel, tasty, delightful surprise. Delicious in a distinctly Japanese way. There were nine courses in a wonderful progression of flavors. The highlights for me were the chawanmushi, the ultra-fresh uni (which was still moving!), the salad, and the beef. The uni in particular was a real surprise because I'm not usually a big fan, but this time I found the flavor to be very light and sweet. Oishii!

On our way home, we walked by Dalloyau, a pâtisserie well known for their macarons. Even as stuffed as we were, just the sight of those little morsels of scrumptiousness had me salivating. I would definitely have bought some, were it not for the fact that they were already closed. C'est la vie.

Kafunsho

After talking to some of her co-workers, the wife discovers the cause of my allergies: sugi trees! A bit of Google research later and I learn that it's hay fever season here in Japan and that I'm not the only one suffering from kafunsho (pollen sickness). Sugi trees hit their peak pollination period in late February, and just as it dies down in late April, hinoki trees hit their stride, so it's basically pollen hell from late January to May.

Which explains why we've been seeing so many people walk around with face masks (more than normal, anyway). We'd assumed it was because they were sick, but apparently it's a very effective way of limiting how much pollen you're exposed to. When it gets really bad, kafunsho sufferers also wear goggles to keep it out of their eyes. Live and learn, but since I'm leaving tomorrow, it's a bit too late for this trip.

The irony is that the high pollen count is man-made. Right after WWII, some seven million hectares of sugi and hinoki trees were planted nationwide to resupply Japan with lumber. By 1997, Japan had replanted 43% of it's woodland with them. According to the Forest Agency in 2008, almost 20% of Japan's land mass is planted with sugi and hinoki.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the logging industry has declined due to cheaper imports, allowing the trees have survive long enough to mature and produce pollen. And because sugi trees are long-lived, they will continue to do so for another 300+ years.

As a result, kafunsho, which was virtually unheard of a few decades ago, now affects some 16% of the Japanese population and almost 30% of Tokyo's population, and these numbers are increasing annually.

The solution? The Forestry Agency plans to fell the trees in future and reforest them with new strains that were developed to release less pollen.

Look here for my source for the stats above.

A Second Attempt

Woke up at 5:00am today in an attempt to get to the Tsukiji Fish Market early enough to avoid the long wait for sushi. This time, we were too early, by some 24 hours. I should have read the fine print: Tsukiji is closed on Sundays.

Our consolation prize before heading home to crawl back into bed was a chirashi from a stall right by where we got our ramen yesterday. Not bad, but not quite as good as what I hoping for. And, well, you know the fish must have been at least a day older than it needed to be... :P

When we woke up for the second time today, we headed over to Odaiba. I'd thought that it would be fun to try out restaurants by the Iron Chefs, and at the top of my list was my favorite Iron Chef, Hiroyuki Saikai. Instead of going to his flagship restaurant however, I decided to try out his Bistro Cafe La Rochelle, which I'd naively imagined to be something comparable to Thomas Keller's Bouchon. I was sadly, sadly mistaken. It serves buffet-style French food, and I'm appalled Sakai-san would attach his name to this place. The food was totally dismissable, and about the best thing I can say about it is that they had some really good cherry tomatoes in the salad bar.

After the disappointing lunch, we made our way to Kapabashi-dori, a street filled with stores that specializes in kitchen and restaurant-ware. Everything from dishes, silverware and kitchen tools to chef's outfits and the plastic display models.

When we were done, we headed to a place I've been wanting to go to ever since I first heard about it -- Harajuku -- but was never able to go on a Sunday due to one scheduling conflict or another. Why Sunday? Because that's when the cosplay people come out to play:

After getting all the shots I wanted, we headed over to the Meiji Jingu, a Shinto shrine dedicated to the deified spirits of Emperor Meiji and his consort, Empress Shoken. It was in the middle of a dense forest, that while very beautiful (as my wife assured me), was completely beyond my comprehension as my allergies just increased by a couple orders of magnitude. As several points I could barely see because my eyes were tearing up so badly.

We finally got out of there and things eased up a bit as we strolled down Takeshita Dori. We got as far as the Omotesando Hills where we spied a shop selling French macarons. Alas, they looked better than they tasted, and fell far short of the ideal.

Today was definitely not turning out to be a very good food day. Lesson learned: stick to Japanese food while in Japan.

So once again, we went and asked the concierge for advice: where do we go for good tonkatsu? (Something I'd been hankering for after reading Winston's attempts to make them.) Answer: Maisen on the 9th floor of the Tokyu department store. And she was right. As usual.

And because we had such a good time there last night, we returned to Sakura Onsen again, this time with two hours to spare - enough time to also get a massage. Bliss...

Sakur-a-choo!

We woke up at 6:00am this morning to eat some sushi at the Tsukiji Fish Market and we still weren't early enough. By the time we got there, it was a little over 7:00am, and it was a three hour wait for a seat!

There's a specific place I always go to for sushi here, and for the past couple years it's gotten extremely popular because it got listed in a few guide books.

Since the wife didn't want to wait around for that long, we decided to try again tomorrow and looked for breakfast in the outer Tsukiji Market. It's been something I've wanted to do anyway, but never got around to it because I always go for the sushi. We ended getting ramen instead, and wandered around trying out whatever caught our fancy.

After breakfast, the sakura hunt was on. First stop: Ueno Park. We decided to skip the museums there, so we didn't spend too much time at this park, but we did enjoy walking down the sakura-lined main avenue and wandering around the lake.

From there, we hopped on the subway and made our way over to Kudanshita, where we were distracted by all the food vendors along the path to the Yasukuni Shrine before making our way to our original destination: Chidorigafuchi, the north-eastern moat of the Imperial Palace, and Kitonamaru Park. After that, it was just a short walk over to the Imperial Palace East Garden.

Unfortunately for me, yesterday's allergic reaction was only a hint of the horrors to come, and by this point in the day, I was seriously suffering from teary eyes and a constantly running nose. My sneezes were also drawing same dark looks from the Japanese around me. I've been cursing myself for not thinking of bringing my allergy meds especially since I was here to see the sakura blossoms. *sigh*

So we decided to head on back to the hotel, where the wife had seen a pharmacy, in the hopes of obtaining something to get my allergies under control. But since we didn't really want to call it quits just yet, we went by way of the Tokyo station, where we did a bit of exploring in its bowels. Which may or may not explain this shot:

While at the Daimaru department store in the Tokyo station, we also picked up a couple bento boxes for a late lunch, which we ate when we got back to the hotel. The amount and variety of food available in the basement of Japanese department stores is just staggering.

A short nap and some allergy meds later, we headed back out, this time to the Roppongi district. We walked around for a bit, saw the Maman (Louise Bourgeois' spider sculpture), and decided it was time for dinner.

I'd randomly picked a restaurant out of the guidebook we had, and as luck would have it, they were out of business. Instead of looking for something else around Roppongi, we decided to go to the Sakura Onsen in Sugamo. They had a restaurant there as well, so after dinner we both soaked for an hour in the glorious hot hot baths.

We'd "discovered" this onsen through our concierge, and was one I hadn't been to before. It's definitely my favorites in Tokyo at this time. It's much cheaper than both Oedo Onsen in Odaiba and LaQua Spa in the Tokyo Dome and have baths that go up to 42°C. The only downside is that they close at 11:00pm and don't have a steam room on the men's side. Oh, and the restaurant is only so-so.

All in all, a good day. The soak at the onsen was the cherry on top.