Jamie’s Japanophile Blog – Part 1: To the land of old and new

Japan has always been on my Must-Go list. Over a decade of being exposed to Japanese culture through language & cultural studies, not to mention that all the anime, manga,and Japanese friends I’ve had over the years have built up my desire to go to an almost fever pitch.

So at 10pm on the 31st of October 2014, a mere decade after making the decision that going to Japan would definitely happen, my girlfriend and I boarded a flight to the rising sun– an adventure that we could hardly believe was really happening.

At around dawn we woke up, peered out the window to see Japan rolling into view. Just past the coast was something that explained more in one viewing than all of my research into Japanese mythology than anything else: the forests of Japan, swathed in morning mist.

Suddenly I found myself taken back to the stories of forest spirits and demons and lonely samurai wanderers. An instant reminder that I wasn’t in Sydney any more.

Japanese bureaucracy is beautifully efficient. Have your documents sorted, make sure you’re in the right line, and you’ll be through in no time. What was expected to take us a good hour just waiting for customs and immigration to get through with us was done in about 20 minutes, including the time to get our bags, and, after a bit of a wait to get our rail passes, it was off on the first of many…many….MANY trains we would take during our stay. Getting anywhere requires a bit of planning. Getting from A to B can be a chore when you look at just how many different lines each train rail company runs.

Japanese trains are amazing. I never thought I’d be praising public transport but I love it. While walking from platform to platform can be a bit of a slog, the trains themselves are very regular, punctual to an almost unsettling degree, and full of quiet and polite Japanese people who are far better than we Westerners are at realizing that personal space is a purely mental thing.

My girlfriend and I are staying in Asakusa (pronounced asak-sa) in Tokyo for this leg of our Japan trip, then back there again at the end of the month. We chose the location for a few reasons: great-yet-cheap hotels, very tourist friendly, close to pretty much everything, and more dripping with history than an encyclopedia.

No more than two blocks from our hotel  is the Sensoji temple complex. This includes two incredible entrance gates, Sensoji Temple itself, and a beautiful five story pagoda that overlooks it all.

Despite the heavy rain we were quickly approached by a group of students wanting to practice their English by taking us on a tour of the temple complex. Explaining the history of each structure and their mythological basis. We gave them each a couple of Caramello Koalas as a thank you gift. I think we made some friends here already.

Later that night we hit up the Shinjuku district for dinner and a wander through the night life. Shinjuku is everything I imagined and more from a night-life district in Japan; strange, alive, crazy, and pure Cyberpunk. I feel like I’m walking through the opening chapters of Neuromancer around here.

All in all a pretty packed first day in Japan.

Stay tuned for the week one round up.

It’s amazing how much baking someone can do when they have a lot of more important things they should be attending to~ Alayna Cole

2 cups of SR flour

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ an onion, diced

3 rashers  of bacon, diced

1 cup of grated cheese

2 eggs

¾ cup milk

½ cup olive oil

1. Combine flour, sugar, and baking powder in a bowl.
2. Add onion, bacon, and cheese. Fold to combine.
3. Make a well and add eggs, milk, and oil. Fold gently until just combined.
4. Place muffin papers in a tray and ¾ fill each with mixture.
5. Bake for 20-25min at 200°C, or until golden. Test that muffins are cooked by inserting a skewer into a muffin. If it is clean when removed, then your muffins are ready.

Did you know that the first issue of Life magazine had a cover photo by Margaret Bourke-White? Not that you would know, because photographers didn’t get a by-line back then. Also, the fact that she was the first female photojournalist for Life magazine is huge, considering it was November 1936.

Bourke-White was also the first female war correspondent, heading to Germany in 1941.  Hanging out of planes to snap pictures of bomb ravaged areas and accompanying the soldiers into Bunchenwald Concentration Camp in 1945 was just part of her job. I know if you have ever studied World War II, you would have seen Margaret’s photos of the corpses they found in Bunchenwald in the text books. I remember some of them, and they still make me ill.

This woman was a trail blazer; she loved taking pictures from atop the gargoyles on the 61^st floor of the Chrysler building in New York City. She found a way to take pictures of the Otis Steel Company in the early 1920s, which was a feat in of itself. Film at the time was far different, sensitive to blue light, and with the ladles of bright orange and red molten steel, the image would show up as black on the photos. Using flares, she took some of the most iconic photos of industry in the American industrial era.

Margaret had seen the atrocities of war and hardship, and took photographic evidence of the beauty in her lifetime. She went places women had never been before, worked her way to respect and high acclaim. But all the skill in the world couldn’t save her from her last and longest struggle. In 1953 she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. She fought hard, having to revolutionary brain surgeries to try and get her body and mind to work together.  claimed her life 18 years later.

Now I know this documentary is over an hour long (and there is a section of audio missing), but I do urge you to take a look. It isn’t stuffy and Margaret is… pardon the pun, rivetingly portrayed by Sally Matson.

As an aside, if you’re a B&W film buff, there’s an old film about a female photographer trying to make it in New York on youtube. Again, it runs for just over an hour… link to Double Exposure from 1944

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Bourke-White#Photojournalism

http://readingworkbook.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/margaret-bourke-white-great-photo.html

http://youtu.be/5u2JbVaxE9s

War is breaking out in the draconic lands. For the first time in many generations humans have invaded. With their advanced weaponry, the forty-two dragon clans are going to have to put aside their differences and work together to survive. If they can retrieve the stolen Axinstone – a powerful magical talisman – from the humans they may manage it.

Haeraig Anzig is chosen to lead the expedition, and several clans offer dragons to undertake it with him. Though he has been leading his own clan since his father left to battle in the south, he is not confident that he can keep his small group under control. Keeping different clans in line will be difficult enough without expecting them to follow the visions of a seer that no one else trusts.

Dragon books are not something that I’ve read much of. Don’t get me wrong, I love dragons, I just haven’t gotten around to that section of the fantasy genre yet. Despite not knowing much of the genre, it’s easy to deduce that Coates’s dragons are quite different to the norm. They’re small, for one. More the size of a dog than a mini-van. Like most reptiles, they need sunlight to heat up and are lethargic without it. The different dragon clans are also interesting, with some built for fighting, some for magic and others for tough terrain. The thought and effort Coates has put into how the dragons function goes a long way to making the world-building work.

Having the story told from three different first person perspectives is probably the most jarring aspect of the novel. The voices are not distinctive enough to be able to identify the sections by tone alone, so I was regularly flicking back pages to remind myself who I was reading.

Information trickles rather than flows into Axinstone. As the story is told from the perspective of the dragons, it’s hard to tell what stage humans are at technologically. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that this isn’t the traditional medieval dragon novel that we might have been expecting. Assumptions are often wrong in Axinstone, and it’s a lot of fun to see where Coates turns dragon lore tradition on its head.

Axinstone is a great transitional novel for teens who are moving into high fantasy. It has a lot of those trade-marks; epic quests, political intrigue and magical artefacts, but is accessible and a little simpler.

Axinstone – J.F.R. Coates

Jaffa Books (December 19, 2013)

ISBN: 9781922061133

Triple Chocolate Tim Tam Cake Pops

For our first Cook Club, Bel was hoping I’d go a little easy on you all (but mostly her, I suspect!) with something simple. So, wish granted – it doesn’t get much easier than my no-bake Tim Tam Cake Pops. I use this recipe HEAPS, it’s so quick and flexible, there’s minimal mess (always a good thing in my kitchen. I’m allergic to washing dishes…) and you can make the pops as simple – or as complicated – as your imagination will allow.

WHAT YOU NEED

1 packet of Milk Chocolate Tim Tams. For those of you not in Australia and therefore unable to get hold of the world’s yummiest treat – use Oreos.

80 grams of chilled cream cheese, such as Philly.

1 packet of dark chocolate melts.

Chocolate sprinkles for decoration (or, you could GO FOR IT and try coloured sprinkles or drizzled white chocolate or crushed M&Ms)

Cake Pop sticks. These are basically lollipop sticks, available for your local cake supplies shop or $2 Shop.

HOW IT’S DONE

Using a food processor or blender, give your whole pack of Tim Tams a quick blitz for about 20 seconds, just to break them up a little. Then add the cream cheese and blitz until the mixture all comes together in a ball. Note – if your kitchen is hot, or it’s a particularly warm day, you might find the mix gets a bit sticky to work with. If this is the case, just pop it in the fridge for ten minutes.

Take rounded-teaspoon sized scoops of the mixture, and roll into a ball. You should get about12 – 16 from the mix. Place on a plate or tray lined with baking paper, and chill for around half an hour.

Take a coffee cup, and fill it half way with chocolate melts. Using the microwave, melt chocolate in 10 second bursts, stirring in between. It’s really easy to ‘seize’ or burn chocolate if it’s over-heated, or you get any moisture into it (keep the water WAY away!), so be careful at this point. Once melted, dip one end of your Cake Pop stick into the chocolate – about 1cm – and push into your chilled chocolate ball, then back into the fridge to allow them to set.

Prepare a small dish or bowl by filling it with your chocolate sprinkles. Then, using the same microwave method, melt more chocolate. This time you need to almost fill the coffee mug. Dip each cake pop into the melted chocolate, giving it a tap on the side of the mug to help remove the drips (probably the trickiest part!), then dip the top if your coated pop into your sprinkles. Use a glass or mug to stand your completed cake pops in while the chocolate sets.

And that’s it! All you need to do now is taste test them. Have a look and see what my tribe of chocoholic boys have to say… (Hint – not much, their mouths are too full of cake pops to speak!)

Enjoy, Bel and gang. I’m sure you’ll do just fine!

Ps – if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask me in the comments section below. I’ll be keeping my eye out and will be here to answer.

 Belinda’s Chocolate Cake Pops!