Use Your Noodle!
It's only Wednesday here, but this is actually the end of the week for me - tomorrow is a public holiday (Labour Day), and Friday we have off for the Komaba festival, which I understand to be something like a school gala/day of shows and performance. I've seen a lot of hip hop dancers practicing outside this past couple of weeks which may be in preparation for this, though one thing I noticed at each school I've been to across my three previous trips to Japan, was that there are always hip hop dancers - the Japanese seem to want to be bboys.
A quick update on my academic situation, my application for the entrance examination is almost complete, thanks to one of my previous lecturers from Victoria University I have a referral letter in my hands today after a very quick turnaround time! I am now in the process of applying for a TOEFL English exam (why a native English speaker needs to take this exam is beyond me, but so it is with the lack of Japanese lateral thinking), and then I'll be starting to prepare for the actual entrance exam, after which I'll be a masters student proper!
This weekend was a good one, with some good balance between fun and focus. I had enrolled for a soba noodle making class with the Meguro International Friendship Association (MIFA). This is a group that engages foreign residents of Meguro (my ward in Tokyo) with Japanese people and culture. So early on Saturday morning I got up and headed out to south Meguro, navigating my way through the Japanese streets (very few streets are named in Japan, so it takes a bit of trial and error and google maps), and I eventually got there. There were 18 foreigners there, from all over the world; Malaysia, Rwanda, USA, France, Russia, Greece, New Zealand, as well as some Japanese volunteers. We had a soba master instructing us, with a translator providing the occasionally necessary English explanations.
Soba are noodles made with buckwheat, and the master was going to great lengths to explain that the age and origins of the buckwheat are hugely influential on the taste and texture - we were lucky to have freshly harvested Japanese buckwheat, so apparently our soba was to be top notch.
The wheat was sifted into a bowl, with increasing volumes of water added, and continuing kneading of the dough. Even this was done in a precise way; there being a specialised technique to attain the perfect soba texture - who knew! Eventually we were left with what looked like an apple made of dough, which weighed about a kilogram.
This was then squashed out and rolled first into an oval shape, and then into a rectangle shape. The desired thickness was to be less than 5mm, which he gauged by measuring the diameter of the spread dough. His rolling pin was 90cm long, and by assessing how close it was to 60cm, the master would know the desired thickness had been reached. With some folding skills that bordered on witchcraft, he turned the oval shape into a rectangle, which was much better for creating uniform noodles.
Once he had the rectangle of dough nicely arranged, using a knife that looked like it had been taken from a medieval halberd, he began cutting thing strips off of it, thus producing noodles. After having made 5 incisions, he would weigh them, the aim being to get around 100 grams of noodles. They were then ready to cook!
Throughout this process we were invited to have a go, and so when it came to the noodle cutting part, I was right in there!
For the class I had borrowed an apron, hence the pink rose aesthetic-rather dashing I thought!
Cooking the noodles was a reasonably straightforward process, immersing them in boiling water for about 90 seconds, and then removing them, putting them into icy water. Once they had been cooked and cooled, we put them into a little cup. This was then paired with another cup, which had a soup of soy sauce, wasabi and spring onion mixed in. To top this off, we had fried shrimp, scallions, sweet potato and mushroom cakes to put in as well, making for a yummy time!
The event was a good one, an excellent opportunity to meet some cool new people, learn a recipe, and eat what is my favourite variety of Japanese noodle. I joined MIFA as a student, so there are going to be some more events coming up that I may well take part in, so watch this space!
After the soba class, I decided I wanted to take a look around the area, which when I arrived looked like a fairly boring place. However in the afternoon, once everything had opened up, I discovered this not to be the case! There were many boutique stores, including Christmas stores, antique stores, and some really cool architecture (a photo blog on the cool architecture I come across is slowly coming along!) There was also a temple which had a giant 9m long snake made of straw, slithering along the main gate, which was pretty cool, it looked like it could come from some animated movie.
Following that it was back to Komaba for the evening, where David Victor and I played cards and generally had a relaxing time of it.
Sunday was spent mostly in the Komaba library, with nothing terribly remarkable coming of that outside of research, however on Monday I went to Inokashira Park to meet up with Claire, my friend from Chicago. The autumn leaves (called koryo in Japan) is coming along quite nicely, and so we had a nice time looking through the park at all the reds, oranges and yellows. The park is around an ancient water source for Tokyo, and like everywhere in Japan it has plenty of temples and sculptures, which made for some cool reflections on the lake within. Following this we went to see some of the trendy shops that are around the area, as it is apparently one of the hottest shopping areas for young people. Both Claire and I were successful in making a purchase, with both of us coming away with a shirt - hers with cats on, and mine being kinda meta with a pattern of shirts on it.
We stopped off for pizza at an Italian restaurant for lunch, where I chose a four cheese variety. I was however very surprised when I was also provided with a little jug of honey! This was to be poured over the slices, and I was actually pretty happy with it - something I can recommend for sure!
The rest of the day was spent wandering around, looking at various shoe shops and meandering with no particular purpose (Japan is good for this!), and ended in a coffee shop, where Claire is assessing the best coffees Japan has to offer - better her than I, a non coffee drinker!
A couple of curiosities from the day, one was canned bread from a vending machine (only 500 yen -$6), and an almost naked man statue with a huge video camera on top of a store near to the cafe we visited - Japanese marketing is truly bizarre!
Otherwise, Monday evening was fairly relaxed, I got back and made dinner, then sat down with Victor to watch the latest episode of the Walking Dead, a good time indeed. Tonight we are going to a Christmas light display, which features apparently 510,000 lights - you bet I'm bringing my camera! Tomorrow's mission I don't yet know, but I'll be seeking to make the most of the day off with people, so another blog post will be in the works shortly I'm sure!
It is now getting quite cool in Tokyo - today's weather has a high of 10 degrees celcius and a low of only 4 degrees, so I think I'll have to start cracking out my gloves and thicker jackets! So, until next time, make like me and stay frosty out there folks!
Troy :)
A quick update on my academic situation, my application for the entrance examination is almost complete, thanks to one of my previous lecturers from Victoria University I have a referral letter in my hands today after a very quick turnaround time! I am now in the process of applying for a TOEFL English exam (why a native English speaker needs to take this exam is beyond me, but so it is with the lack of Japanese lateral thinking), and then I'll be starting to prepare for the actual entrance exam, after which I'll be a masters student proper!
This weekend was a good one, with some good balance between fun and focus. I had enrolled for a soba noodle making class with the Meguro International Friendship Association (MIFA). This is a group that engages foreign residents of Meguro (my ward in Tokyo) with Japanese people and culture. So early on Saturday morning I got up and headed out to south Meguro, navigating my way through the Japanese streets (very few streets are named in Japan, so it takes a bit of trial and error and google maps), and I eventually got there. There were 18 foreigners there, from all over the world; Malaysia, Rwanda, USA, France, Russia, Greece, New Zealand, as well as some Japanese volunteers. We had a soba master instructing us, with a translator providing the occasionally necessary English explanations.
 |
| Naturally I have a camera in front of my face |
The wheat was sifted into a bowl, with increasing volumes of water added, and continuing kneading of the dough. Even this was done in a precise way; there being a specialised technique to attain the perfect soba texture - who knew! Eventually we were left with what looked like an apple made of dough, which weighed about a kilogram.
This was then squashed out and rolled first into an oval shape, and then into a rectangle shape. The desired thickness was to be less than 5mm, which he gauged by measuring the diameter of the spread dough. His rolling pin was 90cm long, and by assessing how close it was to 60cm, the master would know the desired thickness had been reached. With some folding skills that bordered on witchcraft, he turned the oval shape into a rectangle, which was much better for creating uniform noodles.
Once he had the rectangle of dough nicely arranged, using a knife that looked like it had been taken from a medieval halberd, he began cutting thing strips off of it, thus producing noodles. After having made 5 incisions, he would weigh them, the aim being to get around 100 grams of noodles. They were then ready to cook!
Throughout this process we were invited to have a go, and so when it came to the noodle cutting part, I was right in there!
For the class I had borrowed an apron, hence the pink rose aesthetic-rather dashing I thought!
Cooking the noodles was a reasonably straightforward process, immersing them in boiling water for about 90 seconds, and then removing them, putting them into icy water. Once they had been cooked and cooled, we put them into a little cup. This was then paired with another cup, which had a soup of soy sauce, wasabi and spring onion mixed in. To top this off, we had fried shrimp, scallions, sweet potato and mushroom cakes to put in as well, making for a yummy time!
The event was a good one, an excellent opportunity to meet some cool new people, learn a recipe, and eat what is my favourite variety of Japanese noodle. I joined MIFA as a student, so there are going to be some more events coming up that I may well take part in, so watch this space!
After the soba class, I decided I wanted to take a look around the area, which when I arrived looked like a fairly boring place. However in the afternoon, once everything had opened up, I discovered this not to be the case! There were many boutique stores, including Christmas stores, antique stores, and some really cool architecture (a photo blog on the cool architecture I come across is slowly coming along!) There was also a temple which had a giant 9m long snake made of straw, slithering along the main gate, which was pretty cool, it looked like it could come from some animated movie.
Following that it was back to Komaba for the evening, where David Victor and I played cards and generally had a relaxing time of it.
Sunday was spent mostly in the Komaba library, with nothing terribly remarkable coming of that outside of research, however on Monday I went to Inokashira Park to meet up with Claire, my friend from Chicago. The autumn leaves (called koryo in Japan) is coming along quite nicely, and so we had a nice time looking through the park at all the reds, oranges and yellows. The park is around an ancient water source for Tokyo, and like everywhere in Japan it has plenty of temples and sculptures, which made for some cool reflections on the lake within. Following this we went to see some of the trendy shops that are around the area, as it is apparently one of the hottest shopping areas for young people. Both Claire and I were successful in making a purchase, with both of us coming away with a shirt - hers with cats on, and mine being kinda meta with a pattern of shirts on it.
 |
| A memorial to someone called Nakada Yoshinao, who I presume liked pianos |
 |
| A dragon fountain for ritual purification before going into the temple |
We stopped off for pizza at an Italian restaurant for lunch, where I chose a four cheese variety. I was however very surprised when I was also provided with a little jug of honey! This was to be poured over the slices, and I was actually pretty happy with it - something I can recommend for sure!
The rest of the day was spent wandering around, looking at various shoe shops and meandering with no particular purpose (Japan is good for this!), and ended in a coffee shop, where Claire is assessing the best coffees Japan has to offer - better her than I, a non coffee drinker!
A couple of curiosities from the day, one was canned bread from a vending machine (only 500 yen -$6), and an almost naked man statue with a huge video camera on top of a store near to the cafe we visited - Japanese marketing is truly bizarre!
Otherwise, Monday evening was fairly relaxed, I got back and made dinner, then sat down with Victor to watch the latest episode of the Walking Dead, a good time indeed. Tonight we are going to a Christmas light display, which features apparently 510,000 lights - you bet I'm bringing my camera! Tomorrow's mission I don't yet know, but I'll be seeking to make the most of the day off with people, so another blog post will be in the works shortly I'm sure!
It is now getting quite cool in Tokyo - today's weather has a high of 10 degrees celcius and a low of only 4 degrees, so I think I'll have to start cracking out my gloves and thicker jackets! So, until next time, make like me and stay frosty out there folks!
Troy :)
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