Uh Huh…Tofu

A few days ago I was shopping for tofu at a local supermarket.  I wanted to buy firm "momen" grade tofu but there was only soft "kinu" grade tofu in stock.  Well almost.  I spotted the following and went ahead and purchased it. 

To me this product fits the bill as it's the grade I wanted...and it's precut for use in making mapo tofu...which is what I intended to make.  I can honestly say this is the first time I've seen tofu sold this way.

I mentioned this to my sister and she asked what its price is.  I checked my receipt and saw it was ¥98 for a 350g block.  Not too expensive in my books.  My sister sent me a screenshot of firm tofu sold online in Canada.  Oh.  A 350g block of firm tofu is C$2.99 on sale.  Regular price is an eye popping $3.99.  I shudder to think what that store would charge for a 350g block of precut tofu to use in making mapo tofu....

A Pleasant Surprise

When I parked my car in my driveway yesterday afternoon I spotted something very striking looking which I hadn't expected to see.  It was  the bright red bloom of a flower which was a striking motif in the anime Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl).  The catch being that I didn't know the name of it.

Later in the evening whilst having dinner, I asked Kazuki, the fellow sitting next to me, about its name.  He told me that it's 彼岸花, higanbana which is known in English as red spider lily.  According to him they are relatively rare here.  I recall that there is a garden down in Ibaragi or Gumma which is famous for having a large number of them...or perhaps I have that mixed up with a different flower. 

Today the second set of buds on the plant bloomed.  To make sure I don't pull the plants out while weeding I made some plant markers out of plastic card which I had originally had purchased for use when making ship models. 

There are a couple more tucked behind the prickly bush whose name I also don't know.  That bush also has red flowers and it bears small hard green fruit that resemble shrivelled up miniature apples. 

Curry Time

For some reason or another the weather took a bit of a downturn.  Last night there was a bit of thunder, lightning, and rain.  Today was mostly overcast with light showers.  Nonetheless the weather didn't quite turn down the heat on the first curry festival held at the Nishijo Tenman Park.

The format of the festival was a row of food vendors along the eastern edge of the park grounds.  On the western edge were a few clothing vendors and a local craft brewery drink service stand. Centre space was for tables and chairs under tents.  The permanent structure was home to the PA system and DJ.

For ¥1500 pattons got three curry vouchers and one for a nonalcoholic drink.  I started off with a green curry from Cafe Towa...

This curry was relatively spicy and flavourful.

Next up was a lamb biryanni served up by spicemamire...

The nice touch here was that they used long grain rice, something of a rarity in these parts and not even served at restaurants run by Asians.  I assume they didn't use saffron in their recipe.  Another good point is that they didn't go for an overpowering level of spiciness   

Last up was a spicy lamb curry...

Unfortunately the rice here was a touch underdone.  The curry was certainly spicy though.  The addition of a piece of sweet pickled myoga was a nice touch. 

So the wet and cool weather combined with the low key promotional activities (essentially it was all word of mouth) kept the event a modest one.  But the quality of the food was good and there was at least one adventurous curry; bitter melon butter curry.  Hopefully the event was successful enough to warrant edition in the future.  

“Kago”

The above is written as 「過誤」and translates as "mistake".  The minor mistake on my part is that I hadn't opened a sealed postcard from the Yamagata tax department.   It was buried under stuff I had unloaded on my dining room table.  

When I opened the postcard I was greeted by this;

...which sort of translates into "mistake tax funds transfer notification"...well, at least something along that line. 

The gist here is that it appears I'm entitled to a prorated refund of my prefectural vehicle tax on my previous vehicle...roughly 75% of what I paid in the spring.  

Initially I had thought what I was looking at was a tax bill.  Except it didn't look like one.  Then there were parts about receiving funds.  Lastly I noticed the section with my previous car license plate number.  At which point I went through the deciphering steps above.... 😅

Derailed Train of Thought

First off, I had thought about going out for lunch.  Then I realized I didn't have enough time to make it to my destination for the last order call.  So I just took a seat to contemplate my options for the afternoon; I could drive up to Yamagata to catch the 3:30 screening of the latest Patlabor EZY movie...or delay my departure and catch the 5:15 screening.  Then there's the question of whether to make a pit stop to unload some rubbish at the Chiyoda recycling and transfer station in Nanyo.

Amongst other things that popped to mind were things like the question of what to post about here.   I've assembled and painted a handful of kits this past month, more than I've completed the first six months of this year.  Then there's the bit about a buddy who skipped town on all his debts.  I did retrieve the "bottle keep" I had at his business, a bar tucked away on the second floor of a building which once housed a ramen shop I frequented a few times after my arrival in Japan.  Which brought to mind the silly novelty shot glass I had given him as a souvenir from Vancouver.  The glass was shaped somewhat like a woman's torso and had a red bikini painted on it.  There was another shot glass I gave him after a previous trip back which was a lot more conservative than the bikini one. 

I've been culling my collection of anime figurines and model kits since moving in to this house.   One thing I have are a few sets of "Koppu no Fuchiko" (Ms Fuchiko of Cups) mini figures.  These little figurines as met to rest on the rim of cups.  I remembered this feature once the recollection about the shot glasses hit me.  I could display these little figurines with the few shot glasses I've collected (!).

Speaking of my anime figurines collection, I've started to take some which I've had in long term storage out of their boxes and put them on display.  Examples of which are the Hanshin Tigers Lum set and Takoko the OL squashed on a commuter train figure.

The damage to the packaging and discolouration hints at their age.  These are a couple of the ones which I've decided to keep...for a while longer.

Then there's the girl on a bike set from Bakuon!, a short lived anime series which I watched one episode of.  In the past I had only put the motorcycle on display.  I finally relented and placed the "little" (157cm tall according to the set's stat sheet) high schooler on her mount.  What struck me next was that she didn't look quite right on the bike.  It looks too big and she looks too small.  Dunno...never have seen a 5'2" high school student on a 400cc motorcycle in real life. 😅

1/700 IJN Kaiyo

Assembling this ship kit came down to picking something to work on while rummaging through boxes of stored model kits.  I believe my initial goal was to locate a model of the battleship Conte di Cavour.  I did find that kit and so relieved myself of the temptation to put in a bid for a copy in an online auction.

At the start of the build things were straight forward; I painted the lower hull plate hull red and glued together the two halves of the hull.   Then I realized I was missing the kit's instruction sheet.  The quick remedy was to take screenshots of its pages hosted online by a store I frequent (and where I occasionally make purchases).  So in short time we got to this stage;

That was just the first day.  

A couple of days later it looked like this;

Then work started on the flight deck;

Whereupon I realized this kit has no decals.  I checked online and yes it was sold that way.  So my flight deck stripes had to be painted on.  First, sprayed on the primer then base colour.  Next masked off the parts that weren't going to be painted white.  Then sprayed the thing with gloss white paint.

After that there was the finicky task off masking the stern round down to paint the red candy striping.  Then the ship's boats, deck supports, and stern AA gun platform were glued in place.   Finally the flight deck, which had warped a bit while drying in the hot summer sun, was glued onto the hull.

Voila!  A model ship kit assembled in less than a fortnight. 😁

Hotel Reservation? SNAFU City….

So back in early June I attempted to make a reservation at the Anshin Oyado capsule hotel in Akihabara.  Unfortunately there was nothing available on the days I wanted.  I then made a reservation at their Shinjuku hotel.  When I checked the confirmation email I noticed I had only made a one night reservation instead of two nights.  Rushed in and made a second reservation. 

Got back to Japan today…went to the hotel in Shinjuku…system couldn’t find my reservation.  Staff looked at my confirmation email…it was for the Shinbashi hotel.  Oh gawd… 🙄

Staff at the Shinjuku hotel kindly phoned the Shinbashi hotel and cancelled my reservation.  Also advised me they had vacancies but I could save a little if I made reservations online.  Thus I made on the spot online reservations at the Shinjuku hotel while standing at their front desk…got a discount for having arrived by express train by doing that. 😅

Speaking of express trains...today I took the NEX to Shinjuku instead of my usual Keio bus to Tokyo station.  Last time I took the NEX I had a small problem; I dropped my ticket on board the train.  Found out it was missing when I got to the exit turnstile.  The staff there let me pass through after I correctly answered when asked what the fare from Narita to Shinjuku was... 😅

The livery of this train is different from the livery worn by NEX trains at the time of my missing ticket incident.