Curry Nights at Thali Spice

Dinner at Thali Spice in 2012.

Something of a tradition here for the Kagawa JETs. Usually on Thursday evenings, almost every week, members of the foreign community in Takamatsu (and the nearby area) descend on the Thali Spice restaurant in the Shotengai shopping streets. It's a Nepalese and Indian restaurant, and it's damned good.

This tradition mostly started by having dinners with departed-ALTs Jasper Wood and Danny Blackwell, as well as Arran Chambers. The four of us would frequently meet during Jasper and Danny's time in Japan, occasionally joined by a few other people. In addition to that, I often found myself coming along with non-JET American Sam Jones, where we'd often get together and talk movie reviews or just hang out with a group. Eventually these traditions just sort of stuck, Thursday after Thursday.

With Matt Katch (left) and Sam Jones.

And so, as more and more foreigners have started to come more and more frequently, the restaurant finds itself full of foreigners nigh-on every Thursday night. With good reason, too; the curries are exceptional.

My traditional set.

For my own part, I'm afraid I'm not usually terribly adventurous; I usually get the same meal every time I go, because I enjoy it so much. In actual fact, the waiters can repeat my order back to me before I even give it these days (which may give you an indication of how often I go there). I almost always getting the mutton masala, spice level three, with a huge butter naan bread and a lassie to drink. At least I'm consistent.

I have to say, it will be a sad day when I finally leave Japan and I won't be able to have any more of these curries again. Until then, well, expect to see me there on Thursdays.

Movie review madness.

Round One

One of the places our place of JETs frequently visits in Takamatsu is 'Round One'.

There are several 'Round One' venues across Japan, and if the one in Takamatsu is anything to go by, then they're all quite incredible.

The 'Round One' in Takamatsu consists of several floors of entertainments and amusements. The lower floors are filled with slot machines and pachinko, while a little further up is a full bowling alley complete with several lanes. Slightly above that is a full rollerskating rink, along with a whole host of video-game arcade machines and air hockey (there must be at least more than fifty in there - all free when included in the price of entry). Above that, you'll find a pool hall and a massage lounge, spa, and (I think) a gym, which is all next to one of those fake bulls that you can ride before falling off onto an inflatable floor.

Above that, you'll find a huge sports hall. This includes a football pitch, a badminton and tennis net, mini-golf, a pool for fishing in, a baseball practice area and basketball hoops. Oh, and a driving range for golfers, among many other things.

As you can imagine, it's an amazing place to spend an evening. If there's any criticism, it's that the food isn't quite so great.

On Friday 4th October, we visited 'Round One' as part of fellow ALT Gary Wilkinson's birthday celebrations for his girlfriend Risako. As you can tell from these photographs, we had a fantastic time, though I'm afraid I barely captured even a fraction of what's available there.

Luke and Angie's Eikaiwa Birthday Celebrations

Joint Eikaiwa Birthday-Fun!

There were even more birthday celebrations being held before the end of September. Following Angie's birthday party and another drinking event for the ALTs for Luke Beatson, the eikaiwa group held a birthday dinner for both Luke and Angie in celebration of their birthdays. We went to a local restaurant in Kozai named Ofuku (which I'd never been to before), for a lovely buffet meal of traditional Japanese food.

At Ofuku; a small restaurant operated by two elderly women.

Dinner time!

Angie and I cycled in, and arrived just a little late - as everyone was already seated and waiting for us before they began eating (whoops!). In Japan, parties often don't start until formal speeches are made welcoming everyone (and, again, parties don't normally end until someone makes a formal speech either). We arrived and jumped straight into the speech - which was fine, because we were all feeling pretty damn hungry!

The spread laid on was absolutely fantastic. I spent more time eating it than photographing it, which you can see.

Angie and Luke both received a series of gifts from members of the eikaiwa, too. In addition to home-baked goods and traditional Japanese calligraphy writings, Angie and Luke received stamps of Pokemon characters - hand-made by a small boy from erasers! I also received one as a bonus present for myself (along with some baking) - a nice little surprise, considering my birthday was all the way back in May! The stamps had been chosen to try and correspond with our favourite Pokemon; Mew for Luke, Eevee for Angie, and Charmander for myself.

Angie's home-made Eevee stamp.

Rival Pokemon champions.

The evening was also particularly memorable for me as I finally undertook my first-ever Pokemon battle with Japanese kids. I happened to have my Nintendo DS in my back-pack, and the kids weren't shy about challenging me to a game. The Zushi sisters had no hesitation, and had a team composed of several legendary Pokemon which I couldn't stand a change against. Meanwhile, myself and the Masami boys teamed up to battle them in a team battle of 2 vs 2.

Sadly, we lost with a final score of 3-1 to the girls. Disaster! Still, we put up a good fight. The lesson here is to never underestimate Japanese kids when it comes to video-games.

I'm getting my bum kicked, here.

The boys team takes on the girls.

The following night, we held a special "party" class at our eikaiwa. Along with Luke and Angie, Stephen Branston made a return appearance (following his visit last year where he performed this fun wee sketch with me). Luke did a presentation on party games, before hosting a game of "pass the parcel", and we were treated to a birthday feast - including two amazing chocolate brownie cakes (one for Luke, one for Angie) by Hanyama-san. We lit the cakes up with candles and sang group renditions of "Happy Birthday" for them both.

Guess who's back!

Chocolate brownie cakes!

Party time.

After our feast, we shared out party poppers amongst all of the class members and showered Angie and Luke in confetti and streamers. It was a great little way to end the evening, and cap what seemed to be a month of continued birthday celebrations.

Angie's 24th Birthday Party

Happy Birthday, Angie!

Angie's 24th birthday was on September 24th, 2013. I organised a small birthday party on the Friday before to celebrate the occasion. Our group made our way to Spaccanapoli - Angie's favourite Italian restaurant - for an evening of celebrations.

From left to right: Angie, Tamara, Luke, Laquichia and Rainer.

Clockwise from lower left: Sayuri, Stepehn, Shiori, Yaseen,

Julia, Lily, Saad, Julia 2 and Niall.

We had a great help from Sayuri Uematsu, who booked the table for us in advance. On the eve of the party, I was in somewhat of a rush. The time period fell right into the week where I was practising for the annual Takamatsu speech contest every night after school. The party was set to start at 7pm, but I didn't get home until around 5.30pm. A very fast turnaround needed indeed - and I wasn't the only one in a rush, as several other ALTs found themselves in the same position.

Lily and Saad arrived a little before I did, and ran into Angie at the train station. As the party was intended to be a surprise, they pretended to be doing their own thing, while contacting me via text as I headed across town to ask me what they should say to her. They made their way to the restaurant ahead of us. I met Angie and Rainer at Kawaramachi station, before leading them to the restaurant. If there had been any element of surprise left, it would definitely have gone now, as I turned up with bags of presents which Rainer had to help me carry!

With Angie.

We had a great turnout for the meal, and it was wonderful to see so many people come to greet Angie. The food was wonderful, as always, and the company was grand. I waited until everyone was engaged in conversation to try and give Angie her presents without gathering too much attention, but I was caught and photographed by Laquichia, sitting across from me.

Present time!

Cute animal cups!

Sweater.

I bought Angie a few things (including jelly beans, animal cups for her kitchen, and a sweater she had wanted to buy), but the main present was a photo album I'd prepared which contained photos of her time in Japan over the last year, with her friends and I. I also included a personal handwritten note which said a lot of nice things, which seemed to go down well.

A personal note.

Angie and I look over her photo album.

We asked the restaurant to bring out the cake which Yas, Julia and I had prepared the previous evening. Unfortunately, they slightly messed it up a little! The cake arrived with little fanfare; no candles attached, no rendition of "Happy Birthday" and not even a dimming of the lights. Luckily, I had brought a supply of candles with me, and with the help of Rainer Wessels (who lit all the candles) we managed to get the cake ready for action. It must be said that Angie was very pleased with Yas's design choice of a Jammie Dodger.

The finished cake! Now with candles.

Rainer cuts the cake.

After Angie blew out the candles, Rainer cut us all a serving and I managed to finally taste our home-made cake. Sadly, a lot of the filling had disappeared during the leakage the evening prior, but the sponge turned out great, and what remained of the filling was delicious.

Home-made cake!

Angie takes a bite.

After dinner, we made our way along to the pier at Sunport, where many more JETs and other friends were waiting to meet us that couldn't make it along to the dinner. I brought along the bottle of whisky I'd cracked open the previous evening, and we spent the night enjoying quiet drinks by the sea. Angie often likes to spend time in that area, and it turned out to be a great way to spend the evening intimately with friends, rather than losing contact with everyone in a loud bar.

Overall, I was really happy with how the party turned out, and really pleased that so many people turned up to show their love of Angie. Here's hoping she enjoyed her birthday celebrations.

So... Happy Birthday, Angie!

Birthday Cake Bake Night

Yas and Julia in the kitchen.

For Angie's 24th birthday, I invited two of Angie's closest friends (Yaseen Akhtar and Julia Collie) over to my place to help me bake a special birthday cake from scratch.

Julia prepares the filling.

Julia and Yas made their way over to my place the day before I'd scheduled a secret birthday party for Angie the following evening. Yas had come up with the idea of creating a Jammie Dodger cake, in celebration of Angie's love for the famous biscuit. A quick search on Google revealed a recipe which suggested using two Victoria Sponges on top of one another, and we decided to give it a try.

Cutting out the heart shape.

We picked up the ingredients at our local Aeon store fairly painlessly. A bigger problem was actually baking the cake. Ovens in Japan are notoriously rare in small flats; most homes only have a single hob and a microwave. Luckily, I'd bought a small toaster oven a while ago (with which I'd previously baked scones), and we decided to push it to it's limits in order to bake the cake.

The cake would be filled with three layers of fillings; butter-cream, strawberry jam, and clotted cream. The heart we had cut out in the middle with a cutter would be filled with strawberry jam, to try and recreate the look of an authentic jammy dodger.

Yas spreads the cake.

As we were waiting for each of the sponges to cook separately, we cracked out a bottle of Glenlivet whisky and some salsa and tortilla chips. Yas and I spent a fair bit of time playing each other at a Dragonball Z fighting game on my PS2, while Julia enjoyed playing with my iPad. A fun way to pass the time, and the evening ended up being a lot of fun as an event in it's own right!

Disaster! The filling runs out the sides.

We made a small boo-boo by not letting the fillings set in the fringe long enough before putting them back together again, resulting in all of the filling running out of the sides. Whoops! Nevermind, we were novices after all.

Fixed, and now with a jam love-heart centre.

Julia and Yas left just around midnight after a solid evening's work. It was a great team effort, and we were greatly anticipating Angie's reaction at her birthday party the following evening.

Team photo!

The finished article; dusted with icing sugar.

風立ちぬ (Kaze Tachinu): "The Wind Rises"

Kaze Tachinu (2013).

Following our recent trip to the Pokemon movie (and Man of Steel a few days prior to that), Angie and I decided to head along to 風立ちぬ (Kaze Tachinu) on Wednesday evening. The new film from the acclaimed Studio Ghibli and director Hayao Miyazaki (called "The Wind Rises" in English), we were excited to watch it - albeit without subtitles, as with the Pokemon film - making it the third film we'd seen in the space of a week (I was also keen to check out World War Z and Star Trek Into Darkness, which have just been released here, but I haven't gotten around to those as of yet).

Unfortunately, I currently have quite mixed feelings about this film.

It appears to be the personal labour of love (and swansong) of director Hayao Miyazaki (famed for Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle and other Ghibli classics). As what has been announced to be the final film of his career as he head's into retirement, a lot of people don't quite know what to make of this film, as it's been attacked by both the political left and right in Japan (on the left for being too kind to Japan's war effort, and on the right for being too harsh on it).

To put things into context, I have to make it clear that without subtitles it is very difficult for me (with my limited Japanese language ability) to understand the full context of the visuals and dialogue of the film. Reading it purely on a sensory level, however, the whole thing appears to be a bit overly simplistic, with a rather dubious moral position which suggests that the pursuit of one's creative spirit is fine if that individual is ignorant of the acts of war their creations are used for.

The film's protagonist: Jiro Horikoshi.

In this case, we are asked to accept a very positive reading of the film's protagonist - Jiro Horikoshi (based on a real historical figure, making this something of an animated biopic) - who designed planes which were used by the Japanese military during World War II. I'm not one to delve into the politics of this in detail, but it is a bizarre choice for a film studio to make which is usually associated with child-like wonder and fantasy (with some exceptions, of course, such as Grave of the Fireflies).

It's incredibly frustrating, because without the necessary language abilities, I can't really interpret the film accurately or appropriately. I'm missing a huge chunk of the context, and I feel that my subjective opinion is really difficult to validate without a deeper knowledge of the language. I'm only interpreting from what I saw, which could well be off the mark.

It's worth noting that, as always with Studio Ghibli, the animation is simply sublime, and the music is breathtaking. Just listen to this stunning theme; it will take your breath away.

It's very, very difficult to read this movie impartially.

I'll definitely be watching this again with subtitles, and giving a more thorough analysis of the movie then. Right now, I'm trying to reserve judgement until I really know what I'm talking about. At present, I've found this particular article from the Asia-Pacific Journal very useful in contextualising the film, which I'd highly recommend to anyone.

Regardless; a curious film, by all accounts.