Hangaku bento

I have a bad habit that I am trying to convince myself is actually budget conscious. I picked it up a few years ago, when I was teaching English in the boonies of Chiba. My work days would end at 9 or 10 pm and since lunch time had been at 1pm and I had normally been teaching straight right through the afternoon, I was exhausted and hungry by the time I left my classroom. If I didn't have something in the fridge waiting to be heated up for dinner I'd often swing by the big 24 hour grocery store on my way home, stopping at the prepared food section to grab dinner (many days I was so hungry that dinner didn't make it home in tact, I would munch on it as I walked through the dark streets to my apartment).

Early in the day the prepared food and bento section would be well stocked with a variety of freshly made meals and separate packages of all sorts of different foods - sushi rolls, rice balls, sandwiches, salads, noodle dishes, dumplings, stirfrys (or is that stirfries?), breaded pork cutlets, tempura,... and the list goes on and on. By the time I'd get there, however, the pickings were usually pretty slim and somewhat random. I'd end up with a couple of skewers of yakitori and a caesar salad one night, and a cheese and roast beef wrap and shrimp tempura the next. It was a bit of an adventure never quite knowing what I might find! Given how tired I was some nights not having to make a choice was very much appreciated. The real bonus, however, was the price. At that hour most things were 10% or 30% off, or even half-price.

Supermarket prepared foods have a limited shelf-life. In some stores there is a set time of day when all the remaining foods go on a certain discount. An employee will go around with a sticker machine, affixing bright red and yellow discount stickers to the plastic and styrofoam containers. Often times the employee will be followed by a trail of shoppers who swoop in and grab packages of certain items as soon as the sticker goes on. One grocery store near where I used to live closed at 10pm. At 5pm the bakery counter closed and baked goods went on various discounts. Prepared foods were 10% off after 5pm, 30% after 7pm, and 50% (if anything was still left) after 9pm. At 24 hour places, however, food tends to be prepared at different times during the day, and so the discount stickers will go on items based on how long they've been sitting out. The older the item the better the discount and the more likely it is to be snapped up by an eager shopper.

Now that I am back in an apartment and have a kitchen, I do find myself cooking a lot more than I did when I was in the dorm (when I all but lived off of the discounted prepared foods and bento from a network of different grocery stores). I especially like to make up a big pot of soup or stirfry or stew and freeze individual-sized portions for later meals. But there are also days when I have evening classes and find myself sizing up the discounted prepared foods at my local grocery store...

on the menu for tonight: salad, kara-age chicken with a spicy Chinese sauce

note the big red and yellow sticker emblazoned with "taimu sabisu" or time-service, and a discounted price

and one of my all-time favourites, negi-toro maki (rolled sushi with green onion and tuna belly)

at half-price (han-gaku) how can you go wrong?!!

Perhaps not the best way to ensure a healthy balanced meal, but still a cheap way of getting a quick and yummy late meal (or breakfast, if you dare to defy the eat-before time stamp and save a couple of things for the next morning - I've done so a number of times and lived to tell the tale!)

My Favourite Place

The subject of this month's Japan Blog Matsuri is "My Favorite Place in Japan" hosted by Nihon Sun.

My favourite place in Japan... that's not one I have to think about very long, the answer is simple - I have two.


I first visited Nikko Toshogu just over a decade ago. It was a magical experience, and I've gone back likely a dozen times since that first time. I've gone in the fall and seen the stunning fall colour, I've gone in the winter and shivered in the chill drizzly rain, I've gone in the summer and baked in the humid heat, I've gotten a sunburn at the spring festival



and interviewed by a local TV station at the fall festival,



I've lined up with the ojisan with their huge cameras to photograph the shrine lit up at night, I've gone alone and I've taken friends. I love the contrasts of the shrine - the explosion of colour and goldleaf covering almost every surface


contrasting with the natural simplicity and silence of the surrounding cryptomeria forest.



I only have to close my eyes and I can be standing in front of the Yomeimon


or admiring the intricately carven panels running from either side of the gate


or standing in front of the simple grave of Tokugawa Ieyasu - the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate and the deity enshrined at Toshogu


or wandering down the path lined with stone lanterns.


In my mind's eye I can see the carvings of the famous sleeping cat


and the see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil monkeys


or the climbing dragon


or beautiful irises



Nikko Toshogu is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Shrines and Temples of Nikko. Huge numbers of Japanese and foreign visitors visit every day. My other favourite place in Japan, however, is not on a single tourist map. It is found about a half an hour from the city of Kagoshima in the southern part of the island of Kyushu.

It looks like your average old Japanese home as it sits part-way up a hill overlooking rice paddies and small vegetable patches. The carport is covered in climbing plants, and the garden beyond is overrun with greenery. Squeezing past the car, you pick you way along a path of old weathered stones to an equally old sliding door. The hallway you enter into is dark with age, as is the entire house. Grandfather sits in the main room at the low table, reading the newspaper with a magnifying glass and practising his calligraphy. Grandmother putters about, straightening out things in the other room, fixing tea, and washing dishes. A few cats have free run of the place - jumping from between the papered sliding doors to the garden beyond.

When the younger two generations descend upon the house father inevitably turns on the TV to watch baseball - causing grandfather to complain about the noise while also muttering that he can't hear what they are saying. Mother complains that grandmother won't sit down and rest. The girls tease their grandfather and lounge about. And the odd looking older sister cradles her small cup of tea and smiles. She may have grown up an only child in a country on the other side of the world, but this place, these people, are home.