FANTASTIC JAPAN：日本の常識は非常識!?

Did you know that the Hydrangea plant ("Ajisai" in Japanese) is native to Japan and China?  Since moving back to Japan this last year, I started noticing that many houses around our neighborhood had them growing in their yards, as well as in my own.  The flowers started blooming in our area in late May and are still going strong.  I also see them dotting the tollways when I drive through the mountains, as they seem to be growing wild in random places.

日本は梅雨ですねぇ。でも私の住んでいる地域は例年に比べて雨がとても少ないように思います。みなさんの地域ではどうですか？　東京や九州ではかなり降っているところもあるようですね。このころになると、紫陽花（あじさい）の花があちらこちらで咲いてかたつむりなんかもでてきますよね。　

この紫陽花って日本が原産国らしいですが、知ってましたか？
 
It is very popular in Japan to put the flowers in a vase and display them in your house.  One example of how popular they are here is when I casually mentioned to one of my neighbors that I had just cut some of the flowers to put in a vase.  She then got excited and started pulling buckets out of her house filled with her own hydrangea to show me a couple of varieties that she had.
 
この写真のように花瓶に花をかざるのは日本特有なようですね。
 
 
日本人にとっては、この6月あたりに色々なところで咲く紫陽花ですが、外国の方にとっては珍しい花で、見たこともない人もたくさんいるようです。

日本の四季、それぞれの季節で趣のある風景がいろんなところで見られる日本って素晴らしいと再認識しました。その素晴らしさを海外から来る人たちにも経験してもらいたいですね。
 
There are a supposedly thousands of varieties of hydragea with one even being named "Kyushu", which is the island of Japan where I live.  The type growing in my yard have the mophead shape and currently have a purple color. The ones I picked are shown in the vase above.  My in-laws have what is called a lacecap variety and have white flowers.  These are shown in the pictures below.  The lacecap kind have smaller flowers in the middle surrounded by larger flowers around the outside.

外国人が日本に来ても、なかなか緑茶を飲む機会もないかも知れないが、回転ずしに行けば、いくらでもお茶が飲めるから、これが日本のお茶だ！といってどんどん飲ませたらいいとおもいますｗ。日本茶がどんなものか試すにはいいのでは？

There is a nice selection of fresh seafood ranging from salmon, salmon topped with cheese, tuna, squid, shrimp, ikura (salted salmon eggs), scallops, etc. There is also french fries, fried chicken, ramen noodles, udon noodles, and tofu squares, among others. You can also order soft drinks, beer, or a variety of fruit juices.

You might also be surprised to see a delicious looking parfait come scooting by your table. Other desserts I've seen are chocolate pie, cheese cake, and various ice creams. On this particular visit, I chose to try the mango ice cream cup.

最近ではいろんな種類の寿司ネタがでてきて、デザートなんかも充実してきているし、今後ますますいろんな種類のものが出てくるんだろうね。もっともっとおいしいネタが気軽に楽しめるようになるよう期待したい。2000年ころ、アメリカで焼肉店なんてどうかなぁなんて思ってたけど、最近はどうなんだろう？

Once you are finished eating, you push the button next to your table and soon a waiter or waitress will arrive with a ruler in hand.  The ruler is placed next to your stack of plates so the height can be determined.  At this particular restaurant, the circular plates are all the same color and price, which makes this measuring practice possible.  Some restaurants have different colored plates with varying prices, which requires each place color to be counted manually.  At this place, different priced plates have different shapes.  Once your plates are counted up and a price is calculated, you then receive your ticket to pay and be on your merry little way.  

Usually each plate at these type of places will cost anywhere from around 100 yen to 300 yen, so don't forget to keep an eye on your plate count while eating.  I have seen some before that have an all-you-can-eat option for around 2000 yen.  Unfortunately these all-you-can-eat Kaiten Zushi probably go out of business soon after a gaijin, such as myself, move into town.

What is your idea of sushi? Expensive? Healthy? Yucky? Wouldn't ever touch it with a 10 foot pole?

日本人にとって寿司とは何なんだろう？ 生ものを好む日本人は変な目で見られてたりしてるのかな？でも、そんな生ものの食わず嫌いの人が、寿司を食べてハマる外国人を何人も知ってますｗここの寿司屋は日本人の僕にも魅力的です。


 

Sushi is vinegared rice topped with raw seafood, vegetable, egg...etc..  In the U.S., I've seen sushi come in a wide variety of quality and price.  If you visit a high-end Asian restaurant that hires its very own professionally trained sushi chef, you will pay a pretty penny.  On the other hand, if you go to a buffet style all-you-can-eat place, then you most likely aren't getting the full quality sushi experience.  You might want to stay close to the toilet too depending on how long that sushi sat out on the buffet before you came along and decided to try it.
 

海外にある寿司ってカリフォルニアロールだの、ドラゴンロールだの、フルーツロールだの、ほんと日本の本物の寿司とはかけ離れたものが多いですよね。日本人の想像を超える寿司をよく目にしますｗ　数年前にロサンゼルスで寿司を食べたときも、ビュッフェ形式で並べられていた寿司を照らすライトが青で、食欲減退させられたのを覚えています。


In Japan, if you eat at a sushi restaurant, you can enjoy good, fresh seafood sushi for about $25. Of course, you can also have very expensive Sushi, such as the $300 or more kind in Tokyo where President Obama ate.  I have to say though, Japan holds sushi in such high regard, that I have had a hard time finding anywhere that I could honestly say served bad sushi.  There are definitely quality differences even in Japan, but the US obviously has a lower threshold for what can be labeled as sushi and served at a public restaurant.

この間、オバマ大統領が食べた「すきやばし次郎」なんて特別なお寿司もあるけど、近所の寿司屋さんでも、そこそこ美味しい寿司が食べられる日本ってホント最高ですよね。ましてや、スーパーでも普通に寿司が買える日本ってホント素晴らしい。アメリカにいるときって、1時間以上かけて州都にある日本食レストランに行ったりしたけど、今思えば大したレベルではなかったなぁ…


There is one trick to buying good quality sushi for very cheap in Japan.  If you read our other article about grocery shopping, then you know that Japanese people like to buy fresh food usually on a daily basis.  This cultural practice results in the grocery stores having to keep fresh food in stock, so they have to try and get rid of their inventory as fast as possible.  If you time your shopping just right, you can catch some great deals for very good sushi, such as the 40% off one in the picture below. The original price was $5.50 and it became $3.30 for 10 pieces!  Around 8pm or 9pm, just before the supermarket closes, you can get 20%-40% and sometimes 50% off! If you want to try sushi of many kinds for the first time and do not want to spend much money, then the supermarket sushi is a smart place to start.
 



初めて外国人が日本に来た時には、スーパーの寿司や、回転ずしに連れて行ってあげれば、充分楽しんでもらえると思います。さて、寿司食べよっと。

 Also, when you come to Japan, you should visit a Kaiten Zushi Restaurant (Train Style Sushi).  We will write about this Kaiten Zushi soon in a separate article, as it is too interesting and amazing to bundle in with this one.

Japan has categorized its driver's licenses slightly more than my home country.  This is very similar, in my mind, to when you apply for a concealed handgun license in the U.S.  When you take the test, if you use a revolver for the shooting portion, then you are only legally allowed to conceal carry a revolver.  When it comes to taking the driving portion of the test in Japan, if you drive an automatic car, then you are not legally allowed to drive a manually shifted automobile with that license.  

I can see this distinction becoming more and more difficult to determine with new automobiles blurring the lines between automatically and manually shifted transmissions.  And to also throw you for a loop, I think I even recall reading somewhere that some states in the U.S. were no longer requiring you to use a semi-automatic pistol during the firing test in order to carry that type of weapon.  Sometime in the future your car will begin to drive itself. I wonder what will become of the driver's license then.  Even more of a concern is when the guns start to shoot by themselves too.


先日、日本における運転免許に関してのブログを書いたが、日本では「オートマ限定」というのがあり、ちゃんとマニュアル車と区別されているが、アメリカではオートマで試験を通って、運転免許を取得しても、マニュアル車も両方とも乗ってもよいのだ。免許を取った後に自分でマニュアル車の運転技術を身に付けなくてはいけないのだ。なんと恐ろしい！


アメリカにおける「銃」のライセンスは、日本人にとっては銃はあまり馴染みがないが、レボルバーがついた銃とオートのピストルではそれぞれ別々のライセンスが必要になるらしい・・・が、しかし、ある州では、ピストルの発砲のテストもなくライセンスが取得できると基準があいまいらしい。使い方が分からないのに、銃を所持して発砲する！なんてことがあるのだろうか。


将来的に運転しなくても勝手に車が動くという社会になっていく中で、この運転免許というのはどのようになっていくのだろうか？　乗って行先をいれれば勝手にたどり着くなら免許はいらないですもんね。