Man-ji

I can't help but feel that women get a raw deal, kanji-wise: 

Yes, man is muscle-clad rice-provider; woman Blobbyesque Martian. Obviously. 

Atatakakunakatta: or why I'm glad it's turned cold

The one consolation of the now wintery weather is that I can escape using the Japanese word for warm: あたたかい (atatakai).

Hiragana is one of three Japanese alphabets. It is used to form words which (1) have entered the language since the adoption of Chinese kanji in the 7th century, and (2) are not foreign imports (these being formed from the 3rd alphabet: katakana). Transcribed into Roman alphabet (Romaji), hiragana characters almost invariably comprise two letters, the second of which is a vowel. For instance ひ is transcribed as 'hi' (the i pronounced as in 'if'), ら pronounced 'ra', が read as 'ga', and な as 'na'. Together these create ひらがな, or hiragana. 

The two-letter pairings and final vowel sound in most hiragana characters often make Japanese sound a little staccato, which brings me back to the word for warm: atatakai. Hard enough to get right in its simplest form (above), pronouncing it it the negative and past is sort of like trying to pronounce supercalifragilisticexpialidotious when you first watch Mary Poppins: the harder you try to say it the further away you get, until you give up, laughing and somehow floating near the ceiling. 

My teachers ask about the weather a lot, and so I try to tell them that it is:

あたたかい - atatakai - warm

あたたかくない - atataka kunai - not warm

Or, was:

あたたかかった  - atataka katta - warm

あたたかくなかった - atatakaku nakatta - not warm. 

Yesterday I correctly pronounced atatakaku nakatta for the first time. I'm still quite glad that now, when the teacher asks me what the weather is like, I can say, consistently: さむいです - samui desu - it is cold. 

For Amy

I may have been slow at emails, but I have been taking some pictures to answer your question about food here! So here's a tiny snapshot... 

Last week our koto (traditional Japanese harp - I'm finally learning an instrument!!) teacher gave us a bag of potatoes from Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, with the instructions: たべてください - tabete kudasai, or 'please eat.' It was an unexpected but lovely present, and lacking an oven we made these: 

Or, 'Hokkaido butties'. Yum. 

Yesterday we visited Hakone, a mountainous region west of Tokyo where you can see monkeys (apparently) and Mt Fuji and a 'coffee and sausage restaurant.' Lunch was not coffee and sausages, but a set of vegetables, rice, pickles, and miso soup: 

The little purple thing on a leaf is pudding, sweet red beans in powdered rice starch - surprisingly delicious! 

Most things here that sound horrible actually aren't; for instance BBQ tea, chicken womb, this: 

One thing sounds disgusting and is: natto, or sticky, slimy, fermented soy beans.

There is less sushi than I imagined, and sometimes we hunt for sushi and end up lost, confused, and eating Vietnamese food. But you can get really good sushi from the supermarket - this was 3 quid: 

Properly settled in, we plan to cook more now, and today bought, amongst other things, katsuobushi (smoked dried fish shavings used to make soup etc) and Kyoto red carrots.

Here is a superhero made out of toast, to end this rambly response to your question!

Christmas is all around, Tokyo

Naively I thought that I might escape the ever elongating Christmas lead-up here in Japan. I expected that Christmas would be celebrated by a country which lays on festivities for Halloween, Valentines, St Patrick's day and everything in between, but was not prepared for the suddenness with which Christmas descended. In typical Japanese fashion the season has arrived, every bit as merry as in the UK, but far more organized.

On October 31st Shibuya was awash with orange and black; shops, restaurants and kareoke bars filled with all manner of witches, vampires, and, for some reason, pokemon characters. On November 1st the theme became decidedly more glitzy. For instance, this happened: 

And (not that Starbucks is the best barometer of Japanese culture, but is ubiquitous here, and very popular among natives and gaijin alike) this: 

Sitting in Starbucks - the peddler of my new addiction, Matcha Frappuccino - on November 1st, I practiced my kanji to a playlist of Jingle Bells and Wonderful Christmastime, and smiled at the sheer ridiculousness of being told to have myself a merry little Christmas on the first of November, in the still humid weather.

So Christmas fever is here in Tokyo, characteristically punctual. The actual day is quite different from Christmas in the UK, though. Friends tell me that in Japan Christmas is decidedly not a family affair. The usual thing to do on Christmas (celebrated on the 24th, and as such more in line with Scandinavia than the UK) is to go out with friends or partners to an izakaya (bar) and get wasted in a good old 'nomihodae', or all you can drink. かんぱい! 

You wouldn't do this so much on New Years though - New Years here is a time to go out for a meal with your family. Oh, and hear Auld Lang Syne piped, on repeat, in department stores (though apparently that happens at other times of the year, too).

My favourite image of Christmas in Japan us one that Jim told me:

In Osaka a few years ago local authorities, decorating for Christmas, understood the festival's twin Christian (the nativity, Jesus, etc) and commercial (presents, Father Christmas) significance in the west, but not quite how these two worked together. Their municipal decoration? Father Christmas, being crucified. 

Children's literature

I found these in the children's fiction section of Tsutaya in Shibuya, shelved somewhere between Winnie the Pooh and the Moomins. It's a small section, just four or five shelves, and so each book is presumably chosen with some care. This begs the question: are these normal children's books, or am I ultra prudish?

Literally, the title of this book in English is 'Shit!' Or so says Google translate.

'Little Black Sambo'

The mountain who wanted to be a skyscraper

Maybe it's just me, but when I think 'mountain' I think 'rural', 'solitude', etc. Not so on Takaosan.

Men will wave sticks of soy-coated mochi at you until, will weak as tired knees on the 45 degree (paved, concrete) ascent, you finish your 'kudasai'. Agility somewhat impaired by the glutinous result of your weak will, you wonder about a break. 'Of course', Takaosan nods: 'would you prefer some shopping, a little sake, or a trip to the monkey park?' (Yes, Takaosan boasts, alongside its wild monkeys, a mini enclosure full of them. It also advertises, in capital letters, a GRASS PARK, but somehow that seemed less exciting...).

It's as if 50 years ago Takaosan grew afraid of being called old-fashioned by its new neighbour, Mr Tokyo, and decided to catch up. 'Look! I'm just like you, I have shops and restaurants and booze! I'm not like all those other mountains, those sad old things with their trees and rocks. I'm just like a street, but vertical!  Sugoi desu ne?! Rooms and shops extending, scraping the sky - mark my words it'll catch on some day... '

Tokyo from Takaosan

Caterium

Now that the time's come for me to revise for today's big grammar test, I have remembered my promise, to some of you, to elaborate on the cat cafe.

You might assume that a cat cafe is a cafe more or less like any other, the sort of place with tables and chairs and drinks etc, just with cats dotted around. You might imagine, as I did, that a cat cafe is really a cafe for humans; a place for people who can't keep a pet to play with one for an hour or two. Really though, a cat cafe is just what it says it is: a cafe for cats. It is a place where cats eat and drink and chat and play, and humans watch them. It is a space filled with toys and scratch posts and cushioned baskets, and nothing so dull as an actual chair. People sit and lie on beanbags while cats crouch high on bookshelves, watching humans read magazines about them, and wondering whether to jump down and countenance a little affection. 'Certainly not from that man over there,' they seem to decide, 'that smiling salaryman brandishing a length of string. Too desperate. But that one over there, the one who seems actually to have forgotten about me... Has she seriously come  to my cafe to talk to her boyfriend? That will not do.'

When the proprietors decide that the cats are not looking sufficiently kawaiiiiiii, it's time for the hats. The cats for their part see this as no indignity- for them it seems quite proper their nobility should be marked by these woolly crowns (which incidentally keep one's ears very toasty). They recline and watch with regal disdain the cooing humans below.