100 Yen Wonders/Japanese Poundshop Haul

Every country has their equivalent of a pound store/dollar store. Actually I have no idea if that's true, I just made it up. But Japan definitely does. Whilst poundshops in the UK usually just sell out-of-date chocolate bars and weird deodorant, hyakuen (100 yen) shops are genuinely nice, like some kind of Paperchase-type fancy shop you might spend ages looking in but feel guilty about actually buying anything from. Except every item costs just 108 yen (100 yen plus tax), which equates to about 50p, which is very hard to feel guilty about. There are a few different big chains of hyakuen shops - Daiso is the biggest, and feels slightly more vibrant and eccentric, like a cross between a Wilkinsons and your grandparents' attic; whilst its main rivals, Seria and Can-Do, are light, airy and colourful. In fact, Seria's slogan is "color the days".

One of the only English slogans in Japan that actually works quite well.

As a Westerner it's extremely weird to go into a discount shop and see loads of genuinely really nice things that I could actually buy and use, many of which would easily reach ten times the price in the UK. When we first came to Japan we used Seria - the hyakuen shop I most commonly use in Nagoya - to purchase pretty much all of our stationery, cooking and cleaning equipment, decorations and storage, and the lightness of the bill was very much appreciated when we'd yet to receive our first payslip. I'm not sure there's much you can't buy at a hyakuen shop - makeup, whistles, chargers, slippers, spatulas, maracas.

Recently I've been trying to make myself more efficient by writing to-do lists in a cute notebook with multicoloured pens, and giving myself a sticker if I complete all my tasks for the day, because apparently I am five. (Surprisingly, the atavistic lure of primary colours turn out to be a pretty good motivator and I am definitely getting more done in the last few weeks.) I wanted to get some stationery to help me out with this, and I also needed some general bits and bobs for the flat, so the other week I took a big trip to Seria and got:

If my counting is correct, all of this cost me Y2268 (£12.38), which I believe is about the cost of half a panini in London. This included:

• some general cute stationery, such as mini-envelopes with parakeets on them which I wanted just because;
• some little foldup storage units for my wardrobe, because Nick and I have to share quite a small space for our clothing; I only have half a coatrack and the bottom of the wardrobe, which I have to crawl into like a goblin if I want to find anything. These units have helped enormously - all my stuff is now separated neatly, so when I do my goblin-crawling I can do it with the minimum of effort.
• A soap dish (because just leaving the soap on the sink leads to scum.)
• A toothbrush-holder (keeping your toothbrush in a normal cup leads to scum.)
• Socks (I needed socks)
• Two battery-operated candles, which turned out to look a lot tackier than I imagined and I'm not sure I'll ever use them. Bit of a damp squib, but not a problem at 100 yen each
• And my personal favourite, these stickers for when I've done well at clearing my to-do lists:

"Taihen yoku dekimashita" = "you did so well at doing stuff".

***

I hope I've proved to you how good 100 yen shops are. If you aren't quite convinced, let me present to you Exhibit B, from which I'm currently drinking my tea:

In case you can't read the text in the second picture, the dancing frog is saying "I am excited very much!" You and me both, my friend. You and me both.

A Tribute to Saizeriya.

Oh, Saizeriya. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Saizeriya is a chain of cheap, casual Italian restaurants. But you must understand, it is more than that. It feeds both our body and our souls.

The first time I went was perhaps a couple of months after I moved here. I only ordered one pizza, which was nice but quite small. I came away feeling vaguely happy with my meal, and amused at the ostentatious Renaissance-style decor; still I was unaware of the depth of this beautiful relationship I had just begun. A few months passed and I realised that there was a Saizeriya just above one of the schools I work at, where I happened to have a few troublesome students and generally found my shifts quite stressful. Hell, why not drop in after work for a glass of wine and some pasta? Unwind for a bit.

Saizeriya is designed to comfort. Everything is painted in warm tones. The seats are like little sofas. Everyone is happy to see you. A glass of wine is 100 yen (50p). When you order a pizza, the server always double-checks to see if you only want one. Thus, I learned the mistake I'd made during that blundering first visit: you don't order just one thing. Even if you're not that hungry, the prices demand that you get at least two more dishes than you really need. Saizeriya wants you well-fed. Saizeriya is like a cuddle.

It is astonishing to see how much you can eat and not break 1000 yen. To start with, for 150 yen you can get access to the drink bar and load up on juice, fizzy drinks, coffee and teas. If you're feeling cavalier you can even grab one of the nice teabags to take back home with you. (I feel a little guilty about this, but then I remember that for the first six months or so of going to Saizeriya, I didn't realise you had to pay for the drink bar at all and was simply stealing loads of drinks from them. In light of this more serious crime, for which I have thoroughly repented, the teabag thing doesn't seem like a big deal). Along with drinks you could get pizza, pasta, salad, soup, bread, cheese and dessert and have it cost less than eight quid in English money. Every time you look at your final bill it's a little bit of magic. At such prices you can afford to get creative. I usually order two salads, the spinach sautee and the caprese, and mix them together in a big bowl of hedonism. Last week I got two pizzas, one after the other, and thought nothing of it. At Saizeriya you are your own god. There's even paintings of cherubs on the walls. Sometimes I close my eyes and think I hear them singing to me sweetly.

Saizeriya would never work in the UK. It's open until 2am, for Christ's sake, and you can get a carafe of wine for the price of a pack of Fruit Pastilles. Imagine the nightmares. The drunks. The aggression. Staff dodging pools of vomit and they bring yet another lasagne to the table of rowdy students. Never work. Only in Japan can Saizeriya exist, beckoning you in with its matronly glow, where you are always welcome.

Saizeriya is love.

Wednesday, 9th September: A Walk Round Chikusa

Summer was mercifully short this year, and I've been taking the opportunity to go for walks. The Nagoya International Centre offers walking guides for those who want to wander around our pleasant but slightly mousy city. Even though Nagoya is one of the biggest cities in Japan, we can't really compete with Tokyo's edge, Kyoto's history, Osaka's gregarious people or Sapporo's novelty bear magnets. We're mainly a city of business and industry (and chicken restaurants, lots of famous chicken restaurants). When I ask my students to name some famous places or recommended things to do, I usually get the sound of sucked-in-teeth and prevarication in response. Nagoya Castle, a couple of shrines and the aquarium are the main responses I get, not a lot else. Still, the International Centre does its best to offer a few routes you could take around the city to check out some history and walk off all that chicken you ate. And even if it's not the most jaw-dropping city in the world, I've come to think of it as my home and I have a great deal of affection for Nagoya.

Most recently, I took the International Centre's recommended route around Chikusa ward, a reasonably central area near my house containing a couple of universities, the baseball stadium and the pachinko district. However the route shied away from these more showy elements and instead took me mostly down leafy residential roads. I actually saw very little of the attractions I was supposed to be paying attention to - one of the shrines was down some weird side-road I couldn't find and some of the others I just somehow missed completely. The maps aren't very detailed and Japanese roads can be very hard to navigate due to most of them not having any names. I was also relying on my phone, but constant switching between the International Centre's map and Google Maps to cross-reference my location drained my battery pretty quickly and I basically made up the second half of the route myself, sneaking through a university campus (partly out of nosiness) and finding my way back to the station. All in all it took about two hours and I covered about half the district. As I said, I didn't actually see much in the way of major sites, but I actually sort of prefer it that way. It's nice to just explore a region of my city that I have no real reason to be in, and pass through ordinary streets looking at mildly interesting things like these:

I'd especially like to draw your attention to "Snafkins Music Academy".

What I Did On My Summer Holidays

When God closes a door, he opens a window. (A window is still way more annoying to go through than a door though.) When me, Nick and our friend Lydia decided to go on holiday together, we picked Taiwan as our destination of choice, mainly (at least from my point of view) off the back of a couple of nice pictures and the promise of steamed buns. Tickets bought, we happily went round telling everyone we were off to Taipei; sure, we'd checked the weather forecast and seen that there'd be a lot of rain, but we'd still have lots of fun splashing around in a new country, right? We even spent a few hours in a weird labyrinthine hospital waiting to get jabs.

The day before our departure, I woke up in the living room (the only room with air conditioning, I slept on a futon there the whole month of July). Nick was prodding my head with an expectant finger, telling me there was a 'super-typhoon' on the way to Taiwan. A lot of stressful discussion and phone calls followed. We all eventually decided our best option was to cut our losses and cancel the trip. It's easy to get complacent about typhoons when you live in Nagoya; it's in central Japan and typhoons usually come up from the south, vent their rage on Okinawa and Kyushu and then peter out to a brisk wind by the time they've reached us. However, this typhoon seemed particularly strong, and we didn't feel comfortable with the risks of being in a foreign country where we don't speak the language. (Is it interesting that I didn't think of Japan as a 'foreign country' when I wrote that? No? Okay.) Instead we booked a flight and a bunch of different hotels here in Japan, and planned an itinerary, all in the same morning. Phew. (Oh, and when we came back no-one seemed to have been worried, even though they thought we were in Taiwan when the typhoon hit. DON'T WORRY, I'M FINE YOU GUYS.)

We went to Hokkaido, which was a touch unimaginative since Nick and I went at the exact same time last year, but we still had lots we wanted to do and it was easier to go somewhere vaguely familiar at such short notice. Plus, I really cannot describe to you how nasty the summer heat is in Nagoya. Escaping to the north is the only true relief.

Anyway, here are some highlights:

• Takikawa. This rural town of around 20,000 people was where we stopped over for about half an hour to change trains, but it easily makes it into the highlights. I believe it exists somewhere outside the bounds of time and space, and might possibly act as some sort of purgatory like that island on Lost (if you still haven't watched Lost and are angry at spoilers, don't worry, it's shit and you would have wasted your time). An eerie breeze tickled our ears and swept softly over businesses that must have been closed for twenty years. We saw a lone man selling balloons outside a deserted-looking shopping centre, and when we turned round for a few seconds and then turned back - I promise you this really happened - he had vanished. Through dirty windows we saw that the second floor of an abandoned dance studio had collapsed and left a big hole with wires and Polyfilla hanging out, dangling over the vegetation that was quite happily growing through the foundations. On the stairs of another shop there was a massive mural of a prawn, painted to look like it had tripped and was in the process of rolling down to the basement. Everything in this town was magical.

• When we said goodbye to Takikawa and went to our actual destination, Furano, we felt music booming through the ground just outside the station. A hundred yards down the road some kind of mini-music festival was happening, with a 90s punk cover band, food stalls and everyone having a good time. A couple apprehended us, pointed to a stall selling venison and chortled "it is the meat of a deer?!". One of the things I love most about Japan is the spirit you feel at festivals and other events - everyone's just drinking, laughing and enjoying themselves, and you never get the feeling that someone's going to start threatening a glassing. After a drink and an amble down to the hotel, I made use of the open-air bath, which was empty seeing as it was almost midnight. I enjoyed the freedom of bathing under the stars with all the town spread out in front of me, at least until a massive cranefly came along and forced me to beat a hasty retreat.
  
  

• Sheep.
  
  

• Asparagus ice cream. 6/10, would recommend to a mildly tolerable acquaintance. I had this at a cheese factory in Furano, where we all failed miserably on a dairy-themed quiz aimed at children. The only way to relieve the shame was to have a delicious pizza in the sun at their restaurant, followed by novelty ice cream (other flavours included pumpkin, corn and - of course - cheese). I asked if I could sample before I bought and was told no, which makes sense since no-one would buy a full scoop of these flavours if they could just try them all for a laugh instead. In this particular game of Russian Roulette I think I did all right - I wouldn't eat it again but the taste was fresh, grassy and creamy. Also there was a tractor on the lawn in front of the factory, but I didn't get a go on it because there were bloody children on it the whole time.
  
  

•  Lavender ice cream! Near Furano is a well-known lavender farm, which I think I've even seen cropping up on some Buzzfeed '23 Amazing Things That You Just Can't Even' type of list. My camera didn't quite do justice to the scenery, but it made me very happy (for all I'd like to think of myself as some brilliant underappreciated genius, there aren't many things that make me quite so fundamentally happy as seeing lots of pretty primary colours). One interesting thing about Hokkaido is that it reminds me a lot of Europe - maybe because of the milder climate, or the dairy farms, or the Western influence in its architecture - and I find that strangely comforting. It's almost like it's the closest thing I can get to coming home.
  
  

• This place is unremarkable but I want to put it here because this is where I smelled the worst thing I have ever smelled. It coincided with Nick opening and eating a dried pepperoni stick, so at first I thought it was that. Only when I moved away from his affronted person and found myself still smelling it did I realise it must have been something else. It was like cowshit and dog food, but much more sour and bitter and pungent, making me feel physically sick. I can still remember it now.
  
  

• Another stalwart of Buzzfeed's 'These Gifs of Hamsters Reacting to Jaw-Dropping Sites of Natural Beauty Will Totally Make Your Day'. Aoike (Blue Pond) is actually not a natural pond (I know, I know, Buzzfeed lied to you, it's okay), but is a fortunate side-effect from when a levee was built nearby. It is believed that traces of aluminium in the water create the vivid turquoise colour. Sadly, despite being very popular with tourists it is almost completely inaccessible without a car. We only had about fifteen minutes there before having to catch the bus, since another one wouldn't come for about four hours. Also I hate buses in Japan because I don't take them very much and every time I do, I mess up because I don't understand the payment system and the driver can barely mask his contempt for me.
  
  

• The Sapporo TV Tower. TV towers in themselves are only mildly interesting, but the real gem here is the souvenir shop. How do you feel about fridge magnets which take Hokkaido-themed things and superimpose the faces of angry bears on them? Or shirts featuring a giant bear tearing up the tower as they fight the Sapporo Self-Defense Force? (We bought seven of them, enough to make the cashier feel pressured to give us a free gift.) Sweets with the rather inadvisable brand name of "Yukky"? How about a loincloth with "My Tower" written on it? All of these bounties and more are available at Sapporo TV Tower's souvenir shop.
  
  

A notebook with Sapporo's clock tower on the left, the TV Tower on the right. The TV Tower is asking "What are you writing?". The clock tower replies "It's a secret" 

Maybe see you next year, Hokkaido?

Sumo!

Sumo is honestly the best sport and I want to bring it to the world.

Cruel fate denies me a regular dose of my secret love, as there are only five tournaments a year and only one of those is in my city. But I've still been able to go twice now, and it's easily one of the highlights of my year. Far from being a simple slapfight between two fat men, it's one of the most elegant yet intense things I've ever seen in my life. I have never cared about any sport before this.

You haven't lived until you've seen a smaller, lighter wrestler - 'lighter' in this case meaning about three of me, plus a dog - face off against a gargantuan rippling behemoth (there are no weight classes in sumo), and watched the lithe David dart around his opponent like a wasp, trying to tire out his Goliath, until Goliath gets bored and nonchalantly flicks him out of the ring. Or seen the second-best sumo in the world charge at a junior wrestler, who simply sidesteps out of the way and allows him to fall on his pillowy face. Learned to notice the different styles - those who prefer pushing, those who like grappling, the fast and slow movers. The gymnastic prowess cloaked beneath all those pops and folds of flesh. Learned to glean the different personalities from the way they slap their thighs. Cheered for the local favourites (Endo!) and the underdogs (poor Ikioi).

I just really like sumo. Please watch some.