{"id":2994,"date":"2013-09-02T10:32:34","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T01:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/?p=2994"},"modified":"2013-09-02T10:32:34","modified_gmt":"2013-09-02T01:32:34","slug":"special-feature-5-things-advice-from-a-unicorn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/2013\/09\/special-feature-5-things-advice-from-a-unicorn\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Feature:<\/b> 5 Things \u00e2\u20ac\u201c advice from a unicorn"},"content":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that the best things about Japan will always be the people that you meet and relationships that you forge; The friendly lady who sells bread at one of your schools, the volunteers running Japanese language classes, the other ALTs in town and random people you \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinherit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from predecessors. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s before you even start to think about anything truly work related.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to talk about that, but about some of the other little things that can make your time in the Land of the Rising Sun that little bit more magical. They aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t strictly Japan related, but have made my five years in Japan, a smilier place.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1) An Oven<\/b><\/p>\n

Innocuous as it may sound, one of my happiest purchases in Japan was my oven. Before heading to these fair shores, it hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t crossed my mind that an oven wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be present and correct in the kitchen upon my arrival. Stepping into my kitchen for the first time and noting this lack, my initial thought was \u00e2\u20ac\u02dchow am I going to cook for myself?!?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Of course it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not actually that hard, and I soon realized that most of the food I cooked was on the gas hobs that were in the kitchen, but I still wanted the option to bake\/roast things.<\/p>\n

So I took a deep breath, handed over a wodge of cash and bought my Japanese oven.<\/p>\n

Doubling as a microwave (useful) and grill (useless) too, just having it in the house made me happier. When the mood took me I had the smell of freshly baked bread wafting through my house; baked veggies in giant quantities became a regular feature of meals and I was able to produce cakes, meringues, biscuits (the list goes on) to share with teachers and friends.<\/p>\n

I love my oven and if it wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t explode upon being plugged in to a British electrical circuit I would never, ever part from it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2) Yuzu<\/b><\/p>\n

If I see this little citrus fruit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name attached to pretty much anything I will seriously consider buying it. The smell of it is heavenly and the taste rapture-inducing. From moisturizer to yuzu-wasabi, I have never failed to love anything it touches. I will \"yuzu\"<\/a>always choose yuzu-ponzu over any other; the yuzu-hachimitsu (yuzu-honey) chu-hai at Torikizoku the yuzu sorbet at the supermarket. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve used yuzu juice to make fruit pies that bit more amazing, and the aforementioned yuzu-wasabi takes tuna mayonnaise to a whole new level. Try it, and fall in love.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

3) Mister Donut (Point Card) <\/b><\/p>\n

When I first arrived in Japan I got a lot of point cards as that just seemed like a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcthing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. A word of warning \u00e2\u20ac\u201c most are absolutely rubbish and you have to spend an extortionate amount of money to get anything from them.<\/p>\n

Now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a bit of a fan of Mister Donut to say the least. The doughnuts aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t overly sweet, the custard in the custard one is delicious and honey dipped old fashioned are one of my guilty pleasures in life. The chain also has free refills on coffee making it a brilliant location for Japanese study in my humble opinion \u00e2\u20ac\u201c you get a coffee, a donut or three and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re set for an afternoon. They also have 100\u00e5\u2020\u2020 doughnut sales with alarming regularity (it was certainly the case for a while, and possibly still is, that they had a sale every fortnight. EVERY FORTNIGHT).<\/p>\n

Now let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return to the point card point. At \u00e3\u0192\u0178\u00e3\u201a\u00b9\u00e3\u0192\u2030, you get 3 points for every 100\u00e5\u2020\u2020 you spend. It can therefore be terribly efficient to get doughnuts when they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re on sale. Over and above that, you can actually get some nice things with the points. For 50 you can get a free doughnut (a bit meh, though not nothing) and for 150 you get into cup territory. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re well designed, ceramic cups with silicone sleeves so you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t burn yourself holding them. Volunteer your card when going with friends and not only is that really very achievable, but you both get tasty things to eat. A win all round really (apart from maybe for the waistline).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Update – Apparently the\u00c2\u00a0Mister Donut<\/i>\u00c2\u00a0people really\u00c2\u00a0do<\/b>\u00c2\u00a0hate me. Having closed my closest \u00e5\u00ba\u2014, they are now discontinuing the point card. Anyone with a card, you have until September 30th to collect\/use points. I stand by ‘yey delicious doughnuts and free coffee refills’ as a reason for misdo being wonderful, but the card going is undoubtedly a bit of a bummer.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

4) Soft Cream Flavours<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure this would have been a thing if it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t for my town, Sasayama, having the best <\/i>\u00e3\u201a\u00bd\u00e3\u0192\u2022\u00e3\u0192\u02c6\u00e3\u201a\u00af\u00e3\u0192\u00aa\u00e3\u0192\u00bc\u00e3\u0192\u00a0 on the planet \u00e2\u20ac\u201c kuromame (black bean). If you visit (and you should), you must try it, and if possible, go to \u00e7\u2030\u00b9\u00e7\u201d\u00a3\u00e9\u00a4\u00a8\u00e3\u0081\u2022\u00e3\u0081\u2022\u00e3\u201a\u201e\u00e3\u0081\u00be (Tokusankan Sasayama) which is the best in town. Sasayama also has chestnut \u00e3\u201a\u00bd\u00e3\u0192\u2022\u00e3\u0192\u02c6 which is good, but not as good.<\/p>\n

Now that little plug is over, what about the other flavours you can find? There are some that tend to be in most tourist locations; there will always be green tea, often black sesame (my preference in these situations), and the more standard strawberry, chocolate, vanilla. A little further afield perhaps, but in Asakusa, Tokyo, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a stand that has flavours including sweet potato, sakura and wasabi. It seems that the more tourists there are, the greater the range becomes.<\/p>\n

Yet, like Sasayama, you also get more region-centric flavours. This means I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve sampled wine, miso and even soba ice cream. Whenever you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out and about and see a \u00e3\u201a\u00bd\u00e3\u0192\u2022\u00e3\u0192\u02c6\u00e3\u201a\u00af\u00e3\u0192\u00aa\u00e3\u0192\u00bc\u00e3\u0192\u00a0 sign, go and have a peek at what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s on offer. It might be awful (miso \u00e2\u20ac\u201c bleargh) or wonderful.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

5) Gatsby Ice Wipes<\/b><\/p>\n

Japan is HOT in the summer. It is sticky, and as one friend recently put it, before too long you just start repeating \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcI am a swamp creature. Fear my swamp ass\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 over and over again. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all fine and dandy when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in the a\/c, but as soon as you want to move anywhere, give a lesson or, god forbid, cycle somewhere with a rucksack on, things go rapidly downhill.<\/p>\n

Enter the Gatsby wipes.<\/p>\n

Now something similar may be available back home, but until encountering a Japanese summer I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a need for them so I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re wet towels, handily on sale in most convenience and drug stores, which have the added charm of menthol. Menthol has cooling properties and boy do Gatsby wipes make good use of that fact. The initial wipe isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that cooling (but gets rid of those pesky beads of sweat peppering your brow) but then it hits and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wonderful. Stand near a fan and you will be cold.<\/p>\n

I took them to Singapore with me on a trip with my brother, and he now requests them in care packages (which I swear I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m meant to get living abroad rather than the other way around…).<\/p>\n

Keep them away from sensitive areas though. Male friends inform me that drunken dares to wipe the nether regions result in a serious degree of discomfort for not an insignificant amount of time. You have been warned.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Imogen Custance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It goes without saying that the best things about Japan will always be the people that you meet and relationships that you forge; The friendly lady who sells bread at one of your schools, the volunteers running Japanese language classes, the other ALTs in town and random people you \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcinherit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 from predecessors. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s before…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":2991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false},"categories":[366,107],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/misdocup.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hyogoajet.net\/hyogotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}