I know what you're asking

Where the hell have you been?  Where is the blogging?  What else am I supposed to read during my morning "constitutional?"

It's definitely my bad.  I was distracted by my other writing project, which is now "done."

My plan now with the blog is what psychologists calling 'flooding.'  Essentially, this will consist of producing so many blog posts that it will be hard for most of you to realize that the quality has plummeted, that I'm recycling content, that I've resorted to product placements in lieu of a retirement plan, or that most of the content was produced by a primitive AI.  

That being said, while reading it, why not crack open a cold Pabst Blue Ribbon (the real breakfast of champions)?

The Politeness Paradox

At first glance, Japan seems to be one of the most polite places on Earth.  There are twenty ways to modify your speech to make it more polite (of course, there are forty ways to be offended, so it sort of balances out).  You can pretty much throw a 'gozaimasu' into any conversation to make it more polite, and you can always be one upped if someone throws a 'domo' in there.  I've exchanged twenty arigato gozaimasu's with our local convenie clerk just trying to get out the damn door.  At some point, you forget who is doing the thanking and why.

In stark contrast, there is election time.  As I write this, there is a car cruising through our neighborhood at a low rate of speed blasting messages at a very high volume through massive speakers mounted on top of the car.  The message is in Japanese so I can only assume they are saying 'give up all hope because we will continue to broadcast until despair settles into your bones like soy sauce on a fatty tuna roll.'  I've been working on sushi similes and metaphors.  

This broadcast is so deafening that you cannot have a conversation on the street without shouting at each other.  

AMY:  WHAT SHOULD WE COOK FOR DINNER?  

ME:  THE EXPANSE?

AMY: TOFU AGAIN?

ME:  I ALREADY WATCHED THAT.

I've begun to think that the car intentionally slows down as it passes the older gaijin couple shouting at each other.  At the end of the message, the person says 'arigato gozaimas' to take the sting out of the auditory barrage.

The oddest thing is that no one seems to mind.  I want to run screaming into the street and throttle the driver, but every Japanese person takes it in stride and sometimes waves back at the car as if to say 'keep up the good work' or 'maybe even turn it up a notch' or 'could you say that again?  These gaijin don't seem to be leaving.'  

Another facet of the politeness paradox are the maps in Japan.  I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that most people regard maps as helpful if not inherently polite.  I thought so too, until I encountered the Nagoya Parks and Rec Department, which randomly changes the orientation of the maps in the parks.  

Sometimes north is up.  Sometimes it's down.  

For example ... this lovely hike we took.

When we started out, North was to the right.  Not exactly what I'm used to, but I can adapt.  We struck off in a northwesterly direction confident in the universal belief that a map is designed to be helpful.

Twenty minutes later, we came upon this sign, which indicated that we were in an entirely different park.  This freaked us out a bit, especially with the 'no humans' sign on the left.

However, closer inspection revealed that the sign designers changed the orientation of the map.  North is now up.

In reflecting on this experience, I've come to think this is how Amy experiences the world in general.  In the best of circumstances with the best of maps and a seeing eye dog, Amy has the potential to get lost walking out of a familiar store.  Years ago when we were living in London, Amy and I were walking into Harrods and we passed a Gap.  After wandering around the first floor (and realizing how expensive everything was), we left by the nearby side exit, upon which Amy exclaimed "There's another Gap!  They're everywhere."  As I'm sure you've guessed, it was the same Gap.  

This continued to happen over the years, but Amy learned to bluff.  If you are planning any road trips with her in the near future, bring some paper maps and make sure north is always up.

Inuyama castle

And ... I'm back.

With another castle blog post.  I'm aware that the people most excited about these are probably my male tween readers and the male middle aged who have fond memories of being male tweens when Friday nights were consumed by marathon Dungeon and Dragons sessions with several 2 liters of Mountain Dew and Dominos pizzas.  Or at least that's what I've heard.

Inuyama castle is on the outskirts of Nagoya, about an hour north of us by train.  

Before you reach the castle, you are forced to march through a warren of restaurants and shops designed to sap your energy and yen.  This strategy dates back to the 1600s, when invading armies were forced to approach the castle the same way, and probably explains why Inuyama was never successfully conquered.

Lily getting to experience how things were when I was 13.  "How do you text with this thing?!"

You know you have a teenage daughter when her quip is ... hey look, it's a pothead.

Looking at the somnolent pose, who could argue with her?

Finally, tired and several thousand yen poorer, we reached the castle.  Inuyama castle is one of the five remaining original Japanese castles, the others having been destroyed by fire, war, or fire and war. 

Inuyama was established in 1537.  It started the way all Japanese castles seem to start.  A shogun shows up and plants a hut on top of a hill.  Then a bigger shogun comes along, kicks that shogun out, and builds an addition on the hut.  And so on ...

When I visit castles, I always imagine twin two year-olds running down the hallways with their diapers held high above their heads, chased by an overtired shogun.

The armory, where the Shogun probably spent a lot of time (especially when the twins were awake).

On the castle balcony.  Lily spent most of our time staring at the rickety wooden railing and repeating "this was built exactly when, again?" and "when they say 'original' do they mean this railing?"

I spent my time repeating "don't tell mom what we did" and "it'll be fine" while pressing my back to the wall.

Safe on the ground.  Ready for sugar.

Lily and I then walked to the Urakuen Garden, where the aptly named cherry blossom trees were just blossoming.

Lily discovered a water feature (Amy is always clamoring for a water feature in our garden at home).  I am always hoping that pictures of water features will suffice.

For Lois.

For Kathy.

"You cannot start a paragraph with my name," Lily said at one point, anticipating that any such paragraph would include details that might be embarrassing to the teen set.  As I've said all along, I'm willing to accommodate certain requests in the most literal way possible.  Unbeknownst to me (been wanting to get unbeknownst into a post), Lily's true intent in accompanying me was to conduct a field experiment on the correlation between sugar intake and STU (sudden total unconsciousness).

As you can see, the experiment was an unqualified success.

I was later asked by Amy whether I managed to get her to eat anything healthy.

There's dairy in whipped cream right?  Dairy is healthy, right?

The next day, Lily said that she wanted to replicate her findings with hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin.  

I sometimes wonder about the long term health effects of repeated sugar comas.

However, I reassure myself by thinking that it is more likely that Lily has experienced a years-long sugar coma punctuated by brief periods of consciousness.

I can't explain why this is reassuring.

Nagoya castle

We've now been to Nagoya castle twice; once by ourselves and once dragging reluctant progeny with us.

Walking through the ancient stone walkways of the castle, it just kind of makes you wonder how things were in days past.  How did the shogun cope when his daughters rolled their eyes when he asked them to tour the outlying province or if not that then for the love of God to hang up their damned kimonos rather than leaving them dumped on the tatami mat?  Honestly.  He probably paid good yen for those (or at least had to put the squeeze on a local tailor - little known fact, 'put the squeeze' did not originate in Italy or low budget mafia movies but, rather, in 12th century Japan - it was a common threat thought to have been associated with the meaty hamhocks of the sumo wrestlers). 

On the cusp of spring (sorry to everyone in Maine, which is also on the cusp of spring but still experiencing 12" snowfall and subzero temps).

This series of buildings served as a reception center, where the shogun would entertain various dignitaries and lesser noblemen.  I suspect other shoguns would be entertained in the castle itself (unless they showed up with an army).

The interior of the reception area was a maze of rooms that represented various waiting areas.  If you had business with the shogun, you started under the peacocks and graduated room by room until you were staring at a bunch of tigers on the wall while hoping the shogun was in a good mood.

If the shogun had business with you, I'm pretty sure there was a dungeon area under the castle.

Someone you never want to see in a dark alley.

Two people you never want to see in a dark alley (though for different reasons).

Hattori seemed pretty impressed at how quickly I was able to master the ninja salutation and the master ninja facial expression (you can't tell, but our facial expressions are identical).  I chalked that up to my extensive martial arts training in high school and college in addition to watching Bloodsport recently.

You know it's been a long day with the family when this hut looks inviting.  I kept edging towards it thinking 'I could just slip away and go in there and lie down and take a vow of silence and not have anyone tell me how bored they are or how tired they are or how much more fun it would be to watch Seinfeld or Gilmore Girls or even My Little Pony.  Even maybe static.  They'd be willing to watch a little static when it came right down to it.'

Everyone is smiling because we've run out of things to see at the castle and it's time to go home.

Yet another shout out

This one goes to Uncle Brian, for his unusual thoughts on ways the Japanese might push the boundaries of plumbing.  After reading the blog post on the various bidet settings, he noted that the logical extension would be a colonoscopy setting.  That way, you could get reimbursed for your toilet seat through your HSA.

I'm thinking this idea is good enough to end up on Shark Tank.  It'll have to be the NSFW version, as I'm sure that Mark Cuban will want to see a demonstration of the setting before investing.

Shout out to the top comment maker on the blog

And the prize goes to Deba, who won for both frequency and content.

The prize is unfortunately this blog post.  But well done!

This contest was limited to those people making comments online, as Lily and Tessa tied for most in-person shouted comments.  

DAD!

The things we live on and the things we don't

I have foolishly become accustomed to "barista level" oat milk in my coffee.  A small carton runs roughly 834 yen.  It could be a hedge against gold.  I have tried several times to "downsize" to generic "oto miruku" and simply cannot take it.  It's watery and tasteless and looks like regurgitated baby formula.  Some of you are probably thinking 'that pretty much describes all oatmilk.'  You clearly have never seen oto miruku in Japan.  The last thing I thought I would be is an oat milk snob.  IPA snob?  Sure.  I mean, who isn't?  

Unfortunately, the supply chain forced me to compromise.  The harsh reality is that the Nagoya grocers and convenie operators were wholly unprepared for the Douglasses and our eating habits.  I'm afraid we are a bit like locusts.  We descend on a store and pick one item and purchase all of that item and then we move on.  The first three weeks, it was dried mangos.  I would go in and buy six packages of the mangos and then go in the next day and buy the last three (it was too embarrassing to buy them all at once - plus, I'm backpacking those groceries home).  Eventually, we wiped the store out of mangos for several weeks.  We
then descended on the local Lawson convenie and proceeded to buy all of their dried mangos.  By the time both stores were able to restock mangos, our daughters decided they didn't really like mangos so much anymore and instead really really like english muffins.  "Why haven't you ever given these to us before?" Lily demanded as she mashed a stick of butter onto a muffin.  

Ultimately, both stores ended up with a massive amount of dried mangos and no english muffins.  And so it goes.  All of this to say, we wiped a different store out of our fancy barista level oat milk, so I'm drinking the local sub-par oat water.

This IPA helps lessen the sting.

As does this cappucino from Freak Coffee.

And a few more things that have sustained us here ...

Street pizza!  Margherita and Four Cheese with Honey.  Soooo good.

Poke bowl from Aloha Cafe.

Aloha Cafe has cleverly marketed this as "breakfast," presumably based upon the nutritional value of the flower.

The most nutritious thing here has to be the popsicle stick.

Ahhhh, Crunky.  Otherwise known as Nestle Crunch.

Yet another lucky find by Lily.  When it comes to sugar and white flour, she's the equivalent of a                   .

If that stays in the blog, you know the censors have stopped paying attention.  :)

Lily later said "daddy, did you censor truffle hog?"

Yes, yes I did.

This may be the one thing in Japan that is shaped like a fish and yet is completely fish free.  

Sugar and white flour filled with custard.

I think the rough translation is 'quick heart attack.'

Pre-fried tofu runs about 84 yen for a brick, which is a real bargain (unless you're Uncle Andy, when tofu can never be a bargain unless it is in the trash).

And now for the "don't" category.

The sushi cream cone, a rare failure of imagination from the fish industry.

This looks like something Hannibal Lector might serve as an entree, but it's actually compressed bean paste.  On second thought, maybe Lector would serve that.

"I ate his liver with some compressed bean paste and a nice Chianti."

Eh.  The line doesn't work because you want people to be horrified that Lector ate someone's liver, not that he ate compressed bean paste.

I believe this is squid but may also be a prop from Alien.  I haven't seen a cookbook that covers this sort of thing, but I'm hoping there's more to it than boiling.  Maybe pan seared with a bit of pepper?

Movie night!  Pass the crunchy fish and ranch dip.

If you can get around the image of eating something that is sticking out its tongue at you ... you'll find that you're eating compressed bean paste.  

So, really, who won?

Who could resist the temptation of chowing down on a cute kitten marshmallow?

A guy allergic to cats?

Anyone with a soul?

Why do we continue to anthropomorphize our food?  I mean, how would you describe the emotion in the eyes of those cats?  They don't exactly scream 'EAT ME!'

More like ... 'May I have some milk?  Why am I trapped in this bag?  Why are you looking at me like that?'

At a sushi restaurant facing off against this tentacle.  At the end of the meal, I (unsuccessfully) tried to hide it under the sauce.