So. . . my gas was cut today.

Fall has arrived in Shirakawa, and with it come both typhoons (there's one scheduled to hit Fukushima this weekend) and plummeting temperatures. So what could be better than waking up after a long, cold night to find that there's no hot water coming out of your shower?

Things like this are an annoyance in one's home country. In a foreign country, they're terrifying. Not only did I have no clue what was happening-- was my bill somehow not drawn out from the bank? Was there something wrong with the apartment building itself?-- I had no real way of even directly finding out what was wrong; it's not like I could pick up the phone, call the utility, and have any hope of either getting my message across or understanding them in return. I had no choice but to send an email to my supervisor, who (as I would learn later) just happened to be on holiday. Wee.

I spent all morning in a state of near panic waiting for a reply from my supervisor, but none came. I was so messed up today that not only was I late for one of my classes (which. . . bad), but I actually cut off one of my JTE's while I was driving to work! Fortunately, it was two of my JTE's who ended up helping me out of this mess. They talked to the board of education, and they in turn managed to get my gas reconnected. It was the weirdest thing; the gas company, no doubt after seeing the continuous consumption of hot water from room 201 of Castle Eight, reached the obvious conclusion that there's no-one currently occupying room 201 of Castle Eight, and shut off the gas.

In any event, I've got hot water again. But now I'm worried that other utilities have made the same mistake as the gas company, and that I'm going to wake up on Monday morning with the power cut off.

Japan. It's a gas.   

Man, I suck at this.

Sorry for taking so long between posts. I honestly just haven’t had that much to write about – or rather, what I did have to write about I didn’t want to right then, if only because I didn’t want to think about it right then.

Anyway, you know how I was saying in my last post that I didn’t want my blog to devolve into just a catalogue of cool stuff I’ve been doing? Well. . . forget that, at least for this post. Here are photos of my rainy weekend trip to the Aizu Wakamatsu samurai festival. It’s not much, but it’s something for now. I hope to go on more trips as I get more comfortable with, well, everything, and I’ll also start doing posts on various aspects of life in Japan, like driving, the typical school day, etc. Stay tuned.

Look at me! I'm a narcissist!

I was originally going to write a post about writing a travel blog whilst maintaining emotional and thematic depth, and not merely descending into a list of "things I did", a la the Newfoundland posts (which I still haven't finished for precisely that reason). I still intend on writing that post.

But for now, fuck that.

'Cause food.

Specifically, I'll be talking about the food that I've cooked or otherwise prepared at home, and not restaurant food or pre-packaged combini food. Since I have been in Japan for nearly a month, I'm sure you'll find it no shock that I've prepared a full three distinct dishes at home. The first, shown above, is my typical breakfast: a bowl of cereal with milk, yogurt, and fruit. I did pull one variation on this formula: once, when I forgot to buy milk, I went to a nearby vending machine and bought chilled cafe au lait ('cause you can do that here) and used it as my milk substitute. I leave it up to you to decide how it went.

Next, of course, is spaghetti and meat sauce, here shown in the process of becoming awesome. It took a shockingly long time for me to even buy cokware, let alone start cooking. Part of the problem was that my apartment came furnished with and induction stove. The principle behind these stoves is pretty interesting, at least for people with a physics background. Basically, the stove consists of a wire coil, through which flows a very rapidly oscillating current. This current, in turn, creates an oscillating magnetic field. This oscillating magnetic field, in turn, creates rapid vibrations in any magnetic object, like a pan or pot, placed above the coil. These vibrations then cause said magnetic object to heat up. The result is that the cooking vessel itself if heated without any heating of the stove surface.

Which is all well and good until you try to use it on a non-magnetic pan. Then it's fucking garbage.

Yes, of course, I bought the wrong pan. But not before I bought a whole bunch of meat to cook on that pan. And of course, I only realize its the wrong pan after I lose the damn receipt! Which is not to say that I'd wanna try returning a product with my Japanese as it is. . .

Anyway, it all got fixed, I have a ferromagnetic pot and pan, and now I'm cooking. . . occasionally. This lovely dish consists of a Neapolitan sauce with minced beef, fried onions, and few drops of extra virgin olive oil, 7-Eleven brand parmesan (I know. . .), served atop spaghetti noodles. For my next attempt, I'll try adding eggplant and garlic, assuming I can even find garlic in this backward godforsaken--

Ooh! Bacon!

That's right! Two slightly overcooked land-of-the-rising-sunny-side up eggs with three slices of bacon and Hokkaido-buttered toast. And the best part? I cooked this an hour ago! Now breakfast's for dinner!

(I now calmly await the arrival of a brutish man, brandishing his own belt as a weapon, who will sternly inform me that breakfast is, in fact, not for dinner).