フライドチキン - Fried Chicken: A Serious Review

Whilst I know this is not the highest thing on people's lists when they think of Japan and its cuisine, it is something which surprised me in its popularity when I came here.  Fried chicken, generally a fillet, is cheap (generally about 165 yen per piece, roughly £1.35) and plentiful in Japan, and all of the different konbinis (Japanese for convenience store, they sell almost everything you need under one roof, albeit in small quantities, sort of like a petrol-station mini-mart thing, but better) have a selection of yummy, hot, fried food by the check-out.  They have hot dogs and chips and chicken nuggets and all that, but the only thing worth getting is the fried chicken; it's SO good.

My standard fried chicken-eating face

In light of the popularity of this delicacy amongst both Japanese people and foreigners, as well as the competition between konbinis, I thought I would save anyone in Japan reading this the tremendous struggle of sampling each konbini's offerings, by reviewing the chicken of the five konbinis local to me and then giving you a recommendation; how generous am I?!  For comparison, I give KFC 8/10.

5th Place: Lawson 

Quite simply because they're the only konbini I know of that don't sell it!  I'm sorry Lawson, I know I do most of my weekly food & ingredient shop at you, but pull your finger out and sell some fried chicken for 105 yen a piece, like everything else in your shop costs. 0/10

4th Place: Familymart

The only konbini I've been to which sells it on the bone.  It's good to be different, but not when your chicken's dry and bland. 3/10

3rd Place: Mini-Stop

It was a nice twist to see some chicken with a squeeze of lemon on it.  It was a little dry, but the seasoning was alright (maybe a little too much lemon on). 6/10

2nd Place: 7-Eleven

Absolutely gorgeous. Nice sized portions, very juicy chicken, and always piping hot. The seasoning was nice, too. 9/10

1st Place: Sunkus

My definite favourite.  Pretty similar to the 7-Eleven chicken, with all of its positive points.  The deal-breaker is the slightly nicer seasoning, plus the inclusion of a little sachet of extra seasoning, in case you like it a bit more seasoned. They call it consumer choice; I call it an extra point. 10/10

Another thing in Sunkus' favour is the fact that it is on my route home from the train station, and it certainly does the trick after a sozzled evening out in Tokyo, with it being open 24/7.

So next time you're in a Sunkus (or a 7-Eleven), whisper the magic words to the cashier:  "フライドチキンを一つお願いします", Furaido chikin o hitotsu onegaishimasu; you'll like the result.  Just have 165 yen to hand.

James

Photo of the Day

Not the nicest place to put a drinking-water fountain, ICU

新しい携帯電話! Finally a mobile!

So after a longggg few weeks of not having a phone, and all of the associated problems of not being able to contact people whilst out, and running up a high bill on my English mobile, I finally went out last week to get one!  

I met Shunyo at Musashi-Sakai station to go and have a look around the mobile phone shops in the area.  Instead of just going to a network branch, we went into a shop that sold phones from all of the different networks; sort of like a Phones 4U or Carphone Warehouse place.  The cheapest deal was on Docomo, whereby I got a two-year contract, and a free phone.  What most people seemed to get was the pre-paid option from Softbank, but despite the 9,000 contract cancellation fee, it actually worked out cheaper altogether to get the two-year Docomo contract.  I pay 1100 yen a month (under a tenner), which gets me unlimited emails.  The Japanese use emails a lot more than texts, as they're much cheaper!  Another advantage is the fact that you can email computers from your phone, as well.  I know this is a usual features in smartphones anyway, but my new phone isn't a smartphone, just a basic one.  I don't get free texts or minutes with this contract, but that doesn't bother me as I only really intend to use the email.

I got a free handset with my contract.  It's not too bad, though!  It has a 5.1 megapixel camera and an electronic Japanese-English dictionary, among other things.

 

 

A warning screen I don't understand

So I'm glad I can now finally keep in touch with other people in Japan!  It was a bit of a fuss actually trying to buy it.  It's not like at home where you can walk into any Argos and pick up a pay-and-go SIM card for £1.  For a start, you have to be 20 here to get a phone.  Ridiculous I know, but after getting Mum to fax over the photo and address page of her passport to prove she gave her consent for me to have one, I could start on the paperwork, which I won't even begin to go into, as it was hugely boring and typically Japanese in it's pointless bureaucracy.

So yes, if you're yet to get a phone, I recommend you go into a shop where you can compare deals from different networks, as they're generally less biased, and have a good range of recommendations for different deals, depending on what you're after.  They're also often willing to jump on the computer to research anything they're not 100% sure about, which just seemed to be my annoyingly precise questions about data charges and roaming, so fair play to them.

That's all to talk of on the mobile front, but I've decided on another feature of my blog; I'm going to have a 'photo of the day' at the end of each post.  There is so much strange stuff here in Japan (as I'm sure you can all imagine) so I thought I'd photograph anything hilarious I see and stick it on here :) I'll annotate them to try and give a bit of context, too.

Although, I haven't seen anything funny today, besides the picture below, which I found on the internet.  But after this post they will all be photos taken by me in Japan!

James

Photo of the Day

I don't think this needs a caption.

The Weirdest Restaurant I've Ever Ever Been To

On Friday my classmate T.J. invited me and 10 others from ICU out into Shinjuku for his 21st birthday.  Being an American, his 21st was a big deal, and he wanted to celebrate it in style.  That's certainly how the night turned out!

After meeting at the nearby Musashi-Sakai station, we all got the train twenty minutes to Shinjuku (incidentally the busiest train station in the world, with over 200, yes 200 exits).  From there we walked to Kabukicho, the red-light district.  Even to just walk around Kabukicho is an experience in itself.

The standard "Oo, Tokyo" picture

In Kabukicho was The Lockup restaurant.  It's a haunted prison-themed restaurant and I have to say that it was mind-bogglingly strange, terrifying and, well, Japanese.  To get into the restaurant itself you have to walk through a dark, narrow tunnel, where a variety of gruesome things jump out at you, like at a haunted house or London Dungeons (yes, in a restaurant).

Once inside the restaurant, a waitress dressed in a very skimpy and kinky police uniform led T.J. in handcuffs to our 'cell' for the evening.  

We weren't allowed to photograph the waitresses, so this is the best I got...

Once inside, we each opted for the two-hour all-you-can-drink (yes, 飲み放題 again) & all-you-can-eat option, which was just 3,000 yen (£25) per person.  Pretty cheap considering this is in the centre of Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world, and we all left pretty ahem satiated at the end of our two hours! 

The cocktails arrived in various pieces of laboritory equipment, test tubes, beakers, syringes, etc, and were all brightly coloured (and delicious).

Throughout the evening, endless plates of food kept arriving, and it was certainly tastier than I had heard prison food to be!  There was both Japanese and Western food, including prawn dishes, fried pork, and some very salty chips (fries to the American readers).

T.J. is the one looking chuffed with his birthday night out, second from right.

At a random moment halfway through eating, everything went dark, before a prison siren went off, accompanied by loud, heavy music and strobe lights, as the 'jailbreak' occured.  Several monster-prisoners burst into our cell, slamming open the heavy doors and reaching out towards us.  Props to Erin Flannery for getting this video;

 

It was a pretty amazing experience, all in all!  I'm certainly going to have to do something spectacular to top it for my birthday in November! 

James

The British Pub in Kichijoji & More 飲み放題

I shall first of all point out that I am NOT the type of person who moves to a foreign country simply to spend all my time mingling with English people in British pubs!!  I'd discovered the existance of this British pub in nearby Kichijoji from Miles, a Leeds student who studied at ICU a couple of years ago, and decided that I wouldn't mind having a look in, and see how they interpret our culture!

So yes, the other night, Melissa and I went for a drink there.  Many other people were invited but couldn't make it in the end, tsch.  As we walked in, Trash by Suede came on the stereo, and I liked it already.  Babyshambles and Pulp also featured on the stereo during our visit, in amongst some less tasteful and appropriate music.  Blink 182 are not welcome in such an establishment.

 

 

Remember what I said about my indoor photography abilities?

The interior wasn't too bad!  Obviously it was a little exaggerated and stereotyped, but the general atmosphere was there.  The furniture was varnished oak like back home, and it was nicely dingy.  They even had the Stoke-Liverpool match ont' telleh.

We went during happy hour, but unfortunately there was no lager on the happy hour menu, just a choice of cocktails.  It was very strange to see everyone in the British pub sat sipping bright pink and green cocktails.  Still, I'm not going to complain about the choice of drinks when it was £2 for a double Gin & Tonic.

There was a food menu with lots of traditional and contemporary British and European dishes, but I'd decided before I'd even stepped through the door that I'd be going for good old Fish and Chips.  Being not only from Britain, but specifically from Yorkshire, their ability to do a good plate of Fish and Chips was the deal breaker as to whether I'd be returning or not; the true test of their ability to replicate a crucial bit of Blighty.  Luckily, they certainly delivered!  Whilst not precisely what I'm used to, it was pretty damn close, and much more authentic than what I'd heard from people's anecdotes. 

 

Mmm the fish.  I'm not sure whether it was cod, or haddock, or whatever, but it really hit the spot.  The chips were delicious, too.  I liked the fact it was served in faux-newspaper, too; so authentic that we don't even do that in the UK any more.  Well I never got ink poisoning from when my Fish and Chips used to get wrapped up in The Yorkshire Post.

So a very good experience, all in all!  I'd give it a good solid 7/10!  Plus points for the decor, Fish and Chips, some good music, cheap drinks (the food wasn't too expensive, either) and the football being on.  Minus points for the lack of beer on the happy hour menu, and some pretty crap songs in between the brilliant ones.

Melissa had to go quite soon after we ate, so I headed back to Koganei, where I then met Ayaka, and we went for a 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, if you don't know what that means then tut tut you haven't been reading my blog posts) at a nearby 居酒屋, or izakaya, a traditional Japanese pub.  

I'll write a proper blog post about 居酒屋 at some point.  They're a great, authentically Japanese experience (and a good opportunity for western goldfish to abuse the all-you-can-drink offer).  You have to take your shoes off at the door and everything!

On a side-note, as we walked to the izakaya, we passed a rather interesting looking bar, with an equally interesting slogan (/health advice label?!).

I wonder how long a sign like that would last in the UK...

James

A Night Out in Shibuya

Before I start writing about this, I apologise in advance for the appalling quality of some of the outdoor shots.  My night time photography skills leave a lot to be desired.  

So yes, last night I went out into Shibuya with Melissa, an American girl from my Japanese course, who I also live at Big Rose 21 with, and her friend Alonna.  Shibuya is one of the big nightlife centres of Tokyo, and has what I believe to be the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world; there are plenty of photos and videos of the huge volume of people crossing every minute, so just type "Shibuya Crossing" into Youtube and you'll get an idea of it!

After getting the train from Higashi-Koganei to Shinjuku Station, and changing there, we took a different train one more stop to Shibuya Station.  Once outside, we had a bit of an explore whilst we looked for a place to have some food.  Even just walking around Shibuya is an amazing experience, what with all the neon and the sights and the sounds.  If you picture Tokyo in your head and imagine the big neon signs and bustling streets, that's exactly what Shibuya's like.

On the way to find some food we came across a concentration of 'Love Hotels'.  If you've never heard of them before or you somehow hadn't worked out their function from the euphemistic name, there's a fairly, ahem, comprehensive article on them on Wikipedia.  

 There were tens of them on this one little street, from the predictably named "Hotel Silk" to the more worryingly named "Blood".  The place we chose to eat at was actually at the bottom of this street (although in no way connected to its neighbours!), at a little place where we could sit and have a drink as well as get some food.  On the specials board there was an offer on a sashimi platter for three people which, considering there were three of us, we decided to get!  I'm glad we did; it was delicious.

Sashimi consists of slices of raw fish on some crunchy refreshing salad, with wasabi and soy sauce.  This was the first proper sashimi I've had since coming to Japan, and it was the best I've ever eaten.  The fish was really thick and meaty, and the wasabi was the best I've ever had, too.  It wasn't too badly priced either, nor were the drinks; I had two big glasses of Asahi.  The whole experience was a very nice, civilised way to start the evening!  The only thing I was a bit miffed about was that we only found after receiving the bill that there was a 300 yen entrance fee per person.  I think that's a bit rich, as you're paying them for the food and drinks anyway, which they must make a profit on.  I can understand an entrance fee for clubs and places like that, where you pay for the music and the work of the DJs and all that, but paying to enter a place where you again pay for food and drink?  I think that's a bit cheeky.  

But anyway, afterwards we went in search of a bar.  Whilst walking down a side street we were startled to see a very excited little Japanese man come running at us from inside a bar shouting "hai, hai, hai, douzo, douzo, irasshaimase, irasshaimase" (yes, yes, yes, come in, come in, welcome, welcome).  After having a look at the menu we thought it seemed pretty reasonable, so decided to stay there!  Then we saw on the menu an option for 飲み放題, nomihoudai, or all you can drink.  Ahh, the Japanese nomihoudai.  They are much more prolific here than in the UK and pretty much the only viable option for a student going out into Tokyo.  We paid about £10 for an hour's 飲み放題, in most small bars it's about £5-6 a pint, so this was definitely worth it.  When Japanese people select the nomihoudai they seem to just get a couple of drinks over the course of the whole hour, which seems a little bit pointless.  Of course, hulking great Westerners like myself certainly get their money's worth!  I had four pints of Suntory beer and a G&T in the hour, which worked out at £2 a drink.  In the centre of Tokyo, the most expensive city in the world!  

It was in this bar that we met a group of drunk, funny Japanese people.  None of them really spoke any English, so it was a great chance to practice our Japanese!

 

My Japanese seems to dramatically improve after a few drinks, or perhaps everything that comes out of my mouth then is just rubbish.  Whichever the case, we exchanged email addresses and agreed to meet up in Kichijoji next Friday night.  I was originally meant to go to Kichijoji with ICU people on Friday night, but everyone ended up being busy, so we're due to go tomorrow night instead!

I'm certainly enjoying my nights out in Tokyo :)

James

First Day of Lessons at ICU & Watching Shameless

So here I am, having just finished my homework after my first day of lessons at ICU!  The lessons were more fun than I had anticipated!  I had two Japanese lessons this morning, from 10:10 until 12:40 (with a ten-minute break at 11:20), as I have every day from Monday to Friday.

In the first lesson, everyone from level 3 Japanese was in the same classroom, where we each wrote a 作文 (sakubun, or creative-writing piece) on any topic we wished,  with a checklist of all the grammar we should have learned prior to level 3.  In the second lesson we split up into two groups, A and B, to do smaller group activity.  In group B, we did some self-introduction stuff, like 'I was born in X, grew up in Y,  Y is famous for Z, its climate is...', and learned some grammar on transitive and intransitive verbs.  

I'd covered all of this back at Leeds a few months ago, and I could understand everything the teachers said during the lessons, so I found it quite easy!  I might be speaking too soon, though, as it's bound to get harder!  But at the moment, it's all good revision.

I was all done at 12:40, so I went home, stopping off at my local konbini to buy some sushi for lunch.  This afternoon I watched the two latest episodes of Shameless online.  I was worried that I would miss out on a lot of new British programmes whilst in Japan, because BBC iPlayer, 4OD and the like are unavailable outside of the UK;  they don't even work through UK proxies.  But I found a way to watch all my favourite programmes through ahem, certain websites.  *Cough* Sockshare *Cough*.  A big thank you to the person who uploaded every episode of The Inbetweeners onto Youtube, as well!!

Tomorrow I have my two lessons of Japanese again, as well as English as an International Language, which is during the so-called "4th super-period", which is an hour and 45 minutes long and cuts into lunchtime.  

Tomorrow evening I'll be going with a few friends to a British pub in Kichijoji!  I was going to go on Wednesday, but everyone else ended up being too busy.  I'm looking forward to seeing Japan's take on our pubs!

James

ICU Course Registration

Today I cycled into university to register for the modules which I'll take this term.  Just before leaving the house this morning I got a call from Ayaka, an ICU student who was in Leeds last year on her year abroad, saying that she and her boyfriend Shunyo would be getting to the university to register for their courses at about the same time as me and that we should meet up.  I'm so glad we did!  The whole registration procedure seemed a bit pointlessly overcomplicated, but with their help I got there in the end!  I picked Japanese level 3, and then my other module was English as an International Language, which isn't, as some people thought, me taking the easy option of 'learning English'; that would be English as a Foreign Language.  Tsch.  It's more of a linguistic/anthropological course than just learning a language.

After registering on the campus computers for those courses, I had to print off a form to take to my advisor, who has the same role as a personal tutor, to approve of my selection and sign it, before taking the form to another room to make the whole thing official!  

By 12 o'clock we were all finished, so the three of us went off to an Italian restaurant nearby for lunch.  Shunyo had オムライス, or omrice, which is an omelette made with fried rice, whilst Ayaka had spaghetti and seafood bolognese, and I had a pizza.  It was delicious and really did taste authentically Italian!

Tomorrow I start my first day at ICU!  I have two periods of Japanese 3, from 10:10 until 12:40!

James

Skyping Home

If there's one thing I had to say made this trip much easier, it's Skype.  I feel really connected with my parents and Ayu, even at such a long distance.  I suppose I'm lucky to have this technology available; I really don't know what I would have done if I had come to Japan for a year twenty or even ten years ago!

After Skype conversations, which are generally happening at least once a day with Ayu, and quite often with Mum as well, I always feel really happy and upbeat, so I definitely recommend it to anyone who's abroad for a long time and is feeling a bit down or homesick; it really does put you right!  I was worried before coming to Japan that Skyping a lot would remind me of the things and people I'm missing, and make me really homesick, but it does the opposite.  It instead reminds me that the world really isn't a big place, and the people I care about are just a couple of clicks away.

It's also been nice to Skype with people from Leeds at other universities in Japan, so we can compare notes and stuff!  I'd like to be able to find more time to Skype other friends back in England, and once everything has settled down here I promise to make time!  So sorry to anyone who feels neglected or forgotten, I'm not neglecting you and I haven't forgotten about you!

James

Placement Test Result

I'm in level 3!  

That's a big relief, because Leeds uni expects us to be in that level at the start of the year, so that we progress enough to deal with Leeds' end of year exam here (yes, we still have to take the Leeds exam in Japan!), and then the workload next year back in the UK.  Because my Japanese has become a bit rusty over the summer, I was worried that I'd end up in level 2, and not be good enough next year!  But as it turns out, I need not worry any more!

The Japanese language course here consists of levels 1-6 and you can take one unit of standard Japanese per term, plus another module or two, or intensive Japanese, where you just take the Japanese course but have more contact hours.  For example, if you started the year with no knowledge of Japanese, you could do the intensive course and cover levels 1-2 in the autumn term, 3-4 in the spring term and then 5-6 in the summer term.  I plan to do level 3 this term, plus another module, level 4 next term with another module, and then take intensive Japanese levels 5 and 6 in the summer term.  

Now I just need to decide which other module to take!  I think I'll do one tought in English this term, then next term, when my Japanese is better, take one tought in Japanese.  

But yes, I'm relieved!  Tomorrow I officially register for my classes, and then they start on Thursday; excited!

James

ICU Japanese Language Placement Test

Today I had the placement test at ICU, the results of which decide which level of Japanese class I'll be put in for the term.  On our timetable for the week, it was due to be from 9:00 until 12:30, which I was absolutely horrified at the thought of!  But it turned out to be from 9:10 until about 11:40, with 10 minute breaks in between the sections, which I was okay with.

The first and longest part was the comprehension, where you had to decide on an appropriate response, choose a particle to fit a sentence, and all that sort of thing.  The second part was reading, writing and vocabulary, and the last part was the aural, or listening.  The entire test was multiple choice (quite how a writing test can be multiple choice, I don't know).  

As it was a placement test, many of the questions were more difficult than I would be expected to be able to do, so I wasn't too worried when I couldn't do half of them!  As it was multiple choice, it was tempting to guess some of the answers I didn't know, but that wouldn't have been a good idea as, if I had by chance got a lot of guessed ones right, I would have likely been put in a level that was too high for me and struggled.  For the first two parts, I could answer a good deal of questions, which I was happy about, but the listening bit was absolutely hellish.  Let's hope I did well enough in the other parts to compensate!  We'll find out which classes we've been put in tomorrow.

After the test it was lunch time, and Charlie and I cycled to a nearby ramen restaurant and ate there.  Then, when we were outside a konbini (convenience store), Charlie found the contents of someone's wallet, including some credit cards, their ID card, and the like.  He took it to the adjacent police box, where after 15 minutes of form filling he came out and told me that he'd been offered 6,000 yen (£48) as a reward for finding it, but had refused.  I bet he regrets that one!

In the afternoon we had some talks about course registration, and an introduction to the IT facilities, before I came back home and fell asleep by accident!  I've done that a few times since I got to Japan.  I'll just be lying on my bed, waiting for a video to load on the internet or something, and the next thing I know, I'm waking up an hour later.  I guess it's these busy days where I'm experiencing a lot; they just tire me out!

Tomorrow we have some more introductory talks, before finding out which level of Japanese class we've been put in; I'm looking forward!

James

Armageddon?

Yesterday morning I awoke thinking the world was ending.

Sirens similar to those used in London during World War Two to warn of impending German bombing raids filled the air, along with loud, fast instructions being called out in Japanese over loud speakers.  This was happening in at least two different locations near to me.  The only time I've heard these sirens being used in Japan was when I was watching footage of the March 11th earthquake and tsunami in the Tohoku region on the news.  Because of this, I was rather unnerved and worried.

After everything stopped suddenly and returned to normal, and I could see people strolling leisurely on the streets outside my window, I sat down on my bed, thoroughly confused.  I carried on with my day in a similarly perplexed mindset, and it wasn't until that evening whilst looking at this page on the BBC News website that I found out that September 1st is the national earthquake drill in Japan, where people practice the procedures in the event of an earthquake.

I suppose you could call this one of my first instances of 'culture shock'.

James

ICU Matriculation Ceremony

Today was the Matriculation, or Introduction Ceremony, for ICU.  We received an email last night saying that it might be cancelled because of an approaching typhoon heading towards Tokyo, but it turns out that it went south-west instead and hit the Kansai region (Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, etc).  Even so, it was a rainy old time during my 15 minute bike ride to the campus (I still need to do a blog post about my new bicycle), so I was thoroughly wet through by the time I arrived.  

The ceremony itself was in the (un-air conditioned) university chapel, and ran from about 9 until 11.  We picked up our new student cards going in.  The picture on mine is terrible, but oh well.

We also received various information sheets and pamphlets, like when I started at the University of Leeds.  

The ceremony itself consisted of a variety of speeches about the university and its founding principles, a performance of ICU's anthem by the university choir , and a roll call of every new student there.  When our name was called, we had to stand up and shout "hai!".  At the end of the ceremony we were made to sign the student pledge, whereby we 'solumnly pledged' to abide by the International Declaration of Human Rights.  I thought that sort of thing was a given, but there you go.  

After the ceremony, we stood out on the lawn in front of the chapel for a commemorative photo.  The sun was in our eyes the whole time, so there will be some very interesting expressions indeed in that photo!  From there we went for a welcome lunch in the cafeteria, where we all chatted, and I met a few nice new people!  Towards the end we were told a little bit about the Japanese placement test, which will be held on Monday, in order to decide which level of Japanese class we get put into during the year.  I'll have to do lots of revision this weekend!

Predictably, whilst the sun and humidity had been out in force since I got off my bike after arriving at the university, making the whole ceremony uncomfortably hot, the rain greeted me as I went back towards my bike to go home. Sod's law.

James