Niigata day 2: Crackers and Geisha

My joyful assignment to travel and blog around Niigata continues...

I can already tell that this trip is going to make me get fat if I'm not careful. There is so much food we've tried. Luckily today's first stop was to a senbei (rice cracker) place, and such things probably don't have too many calories.

From Niigata Trip

The place we went to was called Senbei Kingdom [map]. It makes sense that it would be here, considering that Niigata has such famous rice. We got to see the senbei being baked by two guys that constantly turn them over a kiln, producing 3000 a day each. The pic above is from the area where you can make senbei yourself.

From Niigata Trip

We then went to the Furusato Mura Museum [map], which is part souvenir market and part museum. The dude above is twisting straw into rope--rope which they used back in the day to make containers to carry all the good rice.

Rice? Better put some vinegar in it and make sushi!

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This feast was set before us in a tucked-away place called Miya-Zushi (宮鮨 [map]). We also ate some shrimp-miso here. Wow, three hyphens in this caption, and I'm not too confident that any of them are grammatically correct.

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In recent months on Fridays and Saturdays at our hotel, up on the 31st floor, they hold a little show of the geigi (this region's word for geishas). The one on the left had the whole flirtatious mystique thing down. Naturally some video is coming. The city has a webpage about the geigi here (ja).

From Niigata Trip

The Niigata City Art Museum is holding a show with the theme of water and earth, as behooves a port town. I actually dug these sediment paintings. There is a big bamboo hut that lies on the city river that was made for this show too.

From Niigata Trip

We ended up at a local bar, run by a Canadian, called Northern Lights [link]. The baked apples were really good. They are kind of like apple pies without crusts. Tis the seasonal food, methinks!

Well, it's time for sleep. I must leave the Nikko hotel [map] tomorrow to travel to Sado island. Maybe I'll run into Jenkins (a guy that once defected to North Korea)!

Niigata Day 1: New Rice and Old Birds

As I detailed in yesterday's video, I'm in Niigata as of this morning, blogging on assignment. I'll be making plenty of YouTube vids of the experience later, but for the time being, here's some pics.

Our first day was spent around Niigata city. They have a tourism site in English here.

Shortly after arriving via shinkansen, I met my chaperon (a guy who's a salary-man usually) as well as my fellow blogger in arms (a German woman who writes freelance travel articles).

After dropping our bags off in the hotel in Niigata city, we headed out to the Northern Cultural Museum　[map, vids and pics][website]. It is actually what remains of the estate of the once powerful Ito family. At one point, the land they owned could have contained 300 Tokyo Domes, but eventually a land reform act forced them to downsize.

From Niigata Trip

Here's the view from the entrance to the grounds.

From Niigata Trip

While there, we ate at the in-house restaurant, Misogura. The meal included Niigata rice, which is famed for its taste. I have to agree that it is pretty good. It was also pretty fresh batch. Quite a change from my usual conbini rice.

From Niigata Trip

This is a huge rice cooker from way back in the prime of the estate, when the staff and family ate about 50 pounds of rice a day.

From Niigata Trip

This pic is from later, when we were in Shibata city [map] nearby. A number of stores were participating in a campaign where, for 500 yen, one can purchase a cup and get it filled five times with nihonshu, another local specialty (you just need to find stores with the pretty rabbit sitting on the moon). Speaking of which...

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This a pic from a distillery. Until the mid 40s, it was forbidden for women to go through this sort of gate (note the Shinto touches), due to the holy nature of the area. Even now, it is only the men that offer nihonshu to the gods.

From Niigata Trip

This is a pic of hyōko [map], a lake where birds come for the winter. The giant swans and smaller birds battle it out for food. I got some good video footage of the feeding frenzy to upload later.

From Niigata Trip

Finally, this is a small part of the spread from dinner at a fish restaurant [link]. I caught one of the fish myself later in the in-house pond.

Niigata is pretty cool so far. See you tomorrow!

Shweet. I'm Getting Sent to Niigata!

So check out that label as the next week or so progresses, or just sub to my RSS already!

Kiss or get on the Pot

A sweet little subtitled commercial about a couple that really want to kiss... or go to the bathroom. Either one will make you happy, really.

I am awesome at Chinese

You probably often think to yourself, Does Clay speak any other languages? Speak them? Lady, I have babies with them. It's consensual.



I was going to black-bar out the eyes of my unwitting teacher here, but meh, that effect takes too much time!

Flu Mask Santa Installation in Kobe

Zoom/visit original J article

Kobe-- A rather giant santa, complete with a surgical mask that answers to the trend of a swine-flu terrorized populace that loves to wear them, has been installed on an old 異人館 (ijinkan lit. different-person-hall, a place where foreign settlers lived in during the old days). He has a cat hanging from him. In addition, two boxes in the styrofoam Santa's bag are adorned with the words "job" and "tamiflu".

Hey, I found him on youtube too:


If you live in Kobe, you can go there and see it in person, so I found it on the Google map embedded below. The nearby 英国館 has a contest going on: if you can find their hidden Santa, you win an expensive travel voucher.

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Japanese Student Dodging Chalk

A student's imagination gets the best of him when he hears that milk increases concentration. So is the daydreaming he does before drinking ironic? Does he lack the ability to daydream in this way after drinking? I could give you the answer, but I forgot to drink milk today and so will stare at the clouds now.

Awesome Japanese Alpaca CMs

What is Kuraray? By watching these, I get a vague idea that it has something to do with turning people into alpaca slaves to fight wars against aliens.







The best one:　Sorry, they took the best one down because they apparently hate free adversising. You'll have to go here choose the CMs tab, and click on the commercial link in the lower right (the one with the green glowing thing) to see my favorite.

Karaoke: Goodnight Agnes Chan

I usually try to find videos with Japanese lyrics attached so you can perform from the safety of your own home before making your debut at the snack bar, but the translations will have to do this time. It's a pretty easy song anyways.



Fret not! I have one more with lyrics: This is probably her most famous song (i.e. findable in that karaoke machine).

So the singer is Agnes Chan (Japanese: アグネス・チャン). She is actually a Hong Kong-born singer, a novelist, a UNICEF ambassador, and a professor. That all makes me feel unaccomplished, but I can drown my sorrows in singing at least.

The thing about the name is for name with the same character as hers, we say Chen, Chin, or Chan in English, but in Japan the standard is just Chin. She just seems to be an exception to the Chin rule, probably because they used her English name (lots of English singing goes on in Hong Kong and almost all Chinese stars have two names). In Agnes' case, her original name's hanzi is 陳 (which has an on-yomi of chin), the same as one of my Chinese classmates, Chin-kun. I don't know why she chose Agnes for her first name though.]

Another 陳 is Jackie Chan (born Chan Kong Sang), who has many names. Jackie gets to break the chin-barrier in Japan too. Agnes and Jackie sang together at some point, but I have yet to track that song(s) down. I did see Jackie singing with Annie Defranko though.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention Richard Yung Ka Tsai, a songwriter and musician that worked with her and collected some of his old works on his youtube page.

A Furry Surprise in the Computer Lab

An exclusive peek into where the action happens, and it's furry inhabitant. Also, a cat is there.

A Sky Full of Bats in Japan

I'm coming at you in HD, with flying friends! This experience happened during the trip that inspired me to write the Get Lost! article at Jibtv.



Not much to say, except I'm not sure where these bats go during winter. They left poo on my balcony to remember them by though.

Sashimi-san is One Angry Cat

I don't know what makes the cat Sashimi-san so angry, but it definitely doesn't like this guy, who is visiting his sister. There are many vids in this series. I made a playlist of a few of them. Don't let the Japanese at the beginning scare you off; funny stuff abounds.