Tales from The LG 12th Floor Garden...

Hello!

Lately Tokyo's weather has been absolutely beautiful.  Crisp cool mornings, pleasantly warn days and brisk evenings.  It looks like fall is finally here.

Things are going well in the garden.  I believe the spider mites have been eradicated (I tossed the original tomatoes and the strawberry plant - the last infected plants), and I also got rid of some more pesky caterpillars.  I planted some new plants and I inherited some new planters.  Everything is just lovely.

First, say hello to some heirloom purple tomatoes:

There were only 8 seeds in the package.  So far, six have sprouted.

I also planted 9 seeds (banana peppers and peperoncinis sent from my mother) and I don't remember which is which so I guess it will be a surprise!

So far six of those have sprouted.

Finally, welcome aloe vera to the garden:

I have no idea how to take care of this so I started reading up.  My favorite part so far is that aloe vera plants have babies.

Anyway, that's all the news that's fit to print.  Happy gardening and happy weekend!

Lost bicycle...

So one day I had to go to the ward office to renew my health insurance.  Since I hate the bus and I love riding my bike, I decided on the latter.  The ward office is not very far from my house.  It's a straight ride down a main road.  After that I decided that I would jump on a train at Shin-Koiwa station and head to Ginza to pre-order iPhone 5C which was a special offer for older phone holders.

I rode to Shin-Koiwa and parked my bicycle in what I thought was a safe location.  Many other bikes were parked there and I figured I wouldn't be gone too long.  There is where things started off wrong.

At SoftBank Ginza, on that day there was only one English speaking staff member and she was beyond busy.  I waited forever until she finally came to help apologizing profusely the entire time.  The rest of the pre-ordering process was pretty painless but seemed to drag on forever.  I began to sweat, worrying if my bicycle was still where I parked it. 

Finally, I left SoftBank and returned to Shin-Koiwa some two hours after leaving it.  The bicycle was gone.  Shaky and near tears I headed to the Koban.  In broken Japanese (which becomes worse when I am upset) I tried to explain to the police officer that my bike was not where I left it.  After much agony and some tears, I learned that it was either stolen or picked up.  I received a paper with the location where picked up bikes were housed.  The place closed at 6.  The time was 6:05.  Exhausted, defeated, upset, I tried to stifle tears as I got in line for the bus which would take me home.  On the bus, I lost it and started sobbing and sobbed the whole way home.  Why do I always have to cry when I don't have tissues with me?  Besides the bicycle situation what upset me the most was not a single person offered me a tissue (surprising in the land of free tissues).  I can only assume it's because I am a foreigner.  This, of course, made me feel worse.

The next day Super Boyfriend called the place and determined that my bicycle was picked up and I could get it back for the low low price of only 3000円 which I paid albeit reluctantly, but in the end I knew it was my own fault.  I also cringed as I rode by 800円 bicycle parking lots on the way home.  Despite all that being on the bicycle again was the best feeling in the world.  I love She-Ra, Princess of Power.  She and I have been through a lot together and I'm not ready to give her up just yet.

This marks the 2347665760027518th time I've cried in Japan.  Awesome.  Even though it was a hard patch it had a happy ending.  All's well that ends well.  I've definitely learned my lesson about bicycle parking.

A vegetarian foodie in Japan...

Today (because it is a holiday) I whipped up a bunch of things.

I made these awesome cookies:

Totally worth ridiculous import store prices.

Then I made some banana muffins:

For no added sugar these are unbelievably delicious.  I'm not a big fan of chocolate chips so I added mini caramel chips.  Such a good choice!  I will be making these again and I want to try them with raisins!

I also made this killer quinoa salad:

I'll be stocking up on quinoa next time I'm in America for sure.  I use it so often.

Previously, I made this salad:

Words cannot express how good this was.  It barely lasted a day.

I also made some baked zucchini fries:

I used panko, so they didn't brown like bread crumbs.  However, they were still good with some Ranch.

In Adventures in Dining, I stopped by Urth Cafe again and this time had the Caprese Sandwich:

Always good at Urth.

Next weekend I'm heading to Kyoto and I'm excited to try some veggie cafes there.  I didn't realize there were so many!  I'll surely update about that!

Happy eating!

Tales from The LG 12th Floor Garden...

Wow, I really thought that last post would get more attention.

Anyway, things are looking up in the garden.  Since I was able to remove the spider mites from the majority of my plants, things have been growing as normal (or much better than before).

These peppers had really stunted during their infestation.  They refused to grow.  Since the spider mites have been removed, they are growing taller and flowers have appeared which means peppers soon!

In other news I purchased a parsley plant:

Yesterday some of the plants received new more spacious homes.

The mint and blueberry bush now have more room to grow.

I also replanted the red romaine into bigger containers.

My butter lettuce and regular romaine are growing nicely:

As are the yellow tomatoes and red and yellow peppers:

Finally, I trimmed the tomato plants down to this:

These plants are STILL infested with spider mites despite numerous treatments as well as washing.  I threw out the bases and the soil, and they are currently isolated.  I'm really trying my hardest to save these two remaining plants because they are what got me in to gardening in the first place.  I kind of have a soft spot for them.  I hope they will be okay.  Also, STILL infested is the strawberry plant which I've pruned almost down to nothing.  The ultimate fate of these plants is still unknown.  I will try to save them.  I hope they survive.

That's all the news from the garden front.  Happy gardening!

ロボットレストラン。。。

In Shinjuku's seedy Kabukicho district you'll find hundreds of lights, host clubs aplenty, tattoo'd people and prostitutes.  But this is also where you'll find Tokyo's ロボットレストラン or Robot Restaurant.

An otaku's wet dream or tourist trap (you decide), Robot Restaurant assaults your senses with flashing lights, scantily clad dancing girls, and robots of all shapes and sizes.  This visitor and occasional blog writer loved every minute of it.

There are different shows and currently they are running a show featuring dinosaurs!  Outside the restaurant, you'll find an animatronic T-Rex and brontosaurus (not to mention a really busty cavewoman?).

Within the show there are several different shows.  Let's start with a badass tattoo'd chick playing a trumpet:

Pole dancers on top of robots, okay!

Throw in some drummers both on the robots and on the ground:

More robots?  Why not!

But these are evil robots who can only be defeated by bikini clad Captain America!

And also some badass chicks on a dinosaur:

Mini intermission, have a glow wand:

Ready to be assaulted by lights?  I hope so!

The finale is the girls riding around on a light up tank and plane:

It's definitely the coolest part.

Here's one of the robot girls up close:

You may have seen them driving around Shinjuku:

Anyway, my verdict is yes!  If you get a chance to see this show, go!  It's definitely exclusive to Japan and likely (if you're visiting) a once in a lifetime experience unlike anything you've seen.

(And I apologize that some of the pics are not super clear.  Everything moves pretty fast at Robot Restaurant.  It's hard to take clear pics on iPhone.)

Oh Japan...

Here's an anecdote about Japan!

So tonight I went to the local Daiei building to buy shoes with support because apparently all of a sudden I am 100. 

A bit of back story here: I am one of two white people in my neighborhood.  The only other foreigners are Indian.  While upstairs in the 100 yen store, a lady was in front of me talking the clerk's ear off and buying 100 things.  My turn came and I purchased my seven items.  Meanwhile, this woman (she was older maybe 50s) had forgotten her 101st item and ended up behind me.

More back story is needed here.  I have 8 tattoos.  Some are large.  So in addition to being a white female in Japan this makes me stand out even more (as if the first two didn't make me black sheep enough).  During this recent shopping trip only a few (and not even my biggest ones) were visible.

The super shopper who was now behind me noticed my tattoo and by all accounts she said 「怖い」 which if you don't speak Japanese means "scary."

As an aside, this is the tattoo she saw:

Now I get stared at all the time by older folks.  There may never be a way to escape that.  The youngns love my tattoos and often want to touch them oddly enough.  (By the way, they just feel like skin unless you've had a shitty artist.)  But for a complete stranger to say this to me in public was quite rude and something I've never experienced before.  Now there is a chance she said　かわいい which sounds very similar and means "cute" but I doubt it.  My feet may be going but I'm pretty sure my hearing is good.  Plus, it's not really cute. 

Another aside is that this is meant to be read separately but most Japanese want to try and read it together as that's the way to read Chinese characters in Japanese.  In Chinese, these characters mean 希 hope and 忠 loyalty.  They also exist in Japanese but more characters are needed to make them say the same thing.  Together in Japanese they don't mean anything.

From this point she proceeded to ask me if it was Japanese and I said in English: "Chinese."  She said some other things but I was feeling awkward and uncomfortable so I practically ran out of there.

Of course, not five minutes later I HAD to run into her downstairs in the drink aisle.  She gave an "ah!" like "I know you!"  Great.  She began to speak to me first about fruit flavored water which she called juice.  She was sad because it was all gone.  After that, we talked about cheap bottled water.  Then came the standard barrage of questions:

What country are you from?
Where in America?
How long have you lived in Japan?
Do you live near here?
What do you like about Japan?
REALLY PURIKURA?  What about anime?
How about manga?
Are those [tattoos] from manga?
Oh they are from books?
Japanese books?  Do you like Japanese books?  Anime?  Manga?
Oh English books!

Okay some of those questions aren't standard.  This experience was awkward but hilarious especially her trying to get me to profess my love for anime/manga.  I'm not sure how old she thought I was.  Also, I have no idea how to say in Japanese that I used to like anime but not so much any more. (Sailormoon fans out there?)  It's easier just to say no.

She also said many times how impressed she was with my excellent Japanese after only one year.  (Maybe trying to make up for calling my tattoo "scary".)

Aside from how awkwardly hilarious this experience was, I was grateful that it happened.  It gave me a chance to speak Japanese in a real situation with no one there to help me.  (In case you're wondering, yes I did speak to her in Japanese on the 1st floor.)  If you've ever even read this blog you know that just jumping in there and speaking is difficult for me (now there's something that's really scary).  All in all, it wasn't the worst experience I've ever had in Japan.