Japanese Lifestyle II FOOD

After my 6 week stay in Tokyo, I will have to go to see my GP for a check-up, because I am afraid I might have soy milk blood, seaweed connective tissue and tofu organs... As much as I learned to like Japanese food and appreciate how healthy for you it is...Does everything really has to taste and smell like soy and sea????

BREAKFAST
this is what I call "the breakfast box" -tamagoyaki, rice balls, fried chicken, ginger, radish



"Tamagoyaki" (fried egg)
among all, my absolute favorite from that box, which actually fits into my "European" idea of breakfast

tastes something between omelet and pancakes

Rice balls- seaweed, rice, filling



I am not sure why they call them "rice balls" instead of "rice triangles" Hasn't anybody noticed that they are not round? Anyway, this is probably the most popular snack. You can have it with tuna, salmon...seaweed...not really sure what else, maybe meat. As visible on the picture, you can never be sure what you are getting before you open it. I always pick the ones with red signs on the pack and luckily it's almost always salmon!

FAST FOOD

"Tako-yaki" very popular "fast food" balls made of octopus, vegetables and flour;
come with different sauce variations on top




soup in the convenient stores



GROCERIES STORE
I feel like Marco Polo on ihis first discovery trips to Asia every time I walk into the supermarket trying to figure out for hours what should I have for dinner this time...

wide range of seaweed...




DESSERTS

Japanese ricecake with red bean


DRINKS

Macha latte- not really sure if that is "green tea" latte or something else. You can find it as instant powder in the supermarket, in the convenient stores or even have it at Starbucks. I personally like it. My flatmate thinks it is disgusting. De gustibus non est disputandum- there's no accounting for taste!



Calpis or "the" Coca Cola of Japan (in my personal opinion), in terms of popularity. Tastes like sweet water



Red beans soup



Corn soup



*Last two in the category of drinks, since they taste sweet and you can have them in a can from the vending machines

...and the story goes on and on... I was trying different food every day and still I can't say that I know a lot about Japanese food. Typical food from the north, food from the south, food from Hokkaido, food from Okinawa...from Kyoto...from Nagoya, from Hiroshima... everywhere different things...It takes a lifetime to know it all...

Sometimes I sit and think, sometimes I only sit!- a typical casting day of a model in Tokyo

Wake up. Go to the agency. Meet the manager/driver/speaker and the other girls. Get a coffee . Sit in the car. Drive to the first casting. Take the elevator. (Mind the doors!)Wait your turn. Stand up and smile. Don't understand anything being spoken about you from your manager and the clients. Wait for the other girls. Take the elevator down. Get into the car.

Go to the next casting.

See the cars of the other agencies in front of the building. Shit! (longer waiting)!Get out of the car. Take the elevator. Wait your turn. Stand and smile. Try clothes on. Try small shoes on. Try other shoes on. Try 3rd pair of shoes on. All small! NO bigger size shoes, no smaller feet?!? No job.

Go back to the car. Get a drink from the vending machine. Sit in the car. Drive to the next casting.

Arrive before the other agency's vans at the 3rd casting. YES! Get out of the car. Take the elevator.(doors!) Meet the client. Smile a lot. Take a polaroid. Get back into the car.

Next casting. Get out of the car. Go to the elevator. Get out of the elevator. Find the bathroom. Go to the bathroom. All the girls come to the bathroom. Meet the client. Show your book. Smile. Doesn't work! Wait while the other girls are trying the clothes on.

Go to the other casting, but CHANGE THE CAR before. Take out your bag from the car and move to the other car. Drive to the casting...take the elev...go out of the...smile...go down...FIND CONVENIENT STORE. Get a salmon rice ball and a drink.

Drive to the next casting. Listen to loud music in the car. Be stupid. Talk a lot. Get out of the car. Get into the building. See the client. Smile a lot. Try clothes on. (shoes fit! yes!)Make polaroids. Go to the bathroom. Get out of the building. O, it's dark. Drive to the next casting.

Arrive at the next casting...Don't have that one. Stay in the car and wait for the other girls to finish.

...

21.30h Go to last casting! Crawl out of the car. Take the elevator....
We've been throught this haven't we?!?!

Than you have two possibilities. Either you have a job next day or another day of castings. If you have castings, you are told what time should you meet and you get dropped off in front of your apartment. (don't have to walk)

If you have a job, you are happy that you don't have to go through another one of those days just described above. But you have to go to pick up your details from the agency and walk back home. Than most probably wake up really early next day.

First day here I thought: "Great. At least I will have plenty of time to think about my life." But than you realize that the less you use your brain (because you don't have to plan the day, you don't have to think how should you get to the next casting. And eventually, when you get there, you don't have to present yourself, you don't have to talk to the client- it is all done for you) the less you can think about anything at all. So you just end up, sitting in this car with empty thoughts and numb body and you get even lazier, so that at the end of the day you even get upset when you have to walk the last 200 meters to your flat. Model's life can be tough when it's all so easy!

Japanese Lifestyle

LIVING

interior... (no Japanese home, but interior design in some studios or shops)

* "Japanese" in sense of "in Japan", not in terms of origin or tradition











exterior


















PERKS& TECHNOLOGY (cool stuff)

pocket heaters



Those are not tea bags, but bags filled with carbon (so I was told) to keep your hands in your pockets (or wherever you put them) warm for 18(!) hours!
Something so simple and sooooo good!

changing room



Not enough changing rooms for the models??? No problem, we can pull up a changing room for 2 minutes...

garage and car parking

The fallowing video is an exclusive bulgarianprincess production. All rights reserved :P



and not only this but the doors of the taxis open and close automatically...it will be quite an effort to catch that on a video...but when I first saw it I could hardly believe my eyes








BEAUTY& COSMETICS





massage rollers for practically each part of your body
...you would think that Japanese girls have no better things to do



and different masks for shaping your face too...

CONCLUSION: Is there something in this world, in any sphere of life, where the Japanese haven't put any thoughts in order to make life easier/better??? Apparently the answer is: NO!

Got lost!

Today I had to take the subway on my way to the studio...and got lost. Not in the subway, as much as I was terrified, trains here are like everywhere, but when I got out...anyway, made it on time..

Not surprised by the fact that many are taking a nap since they work till 10-11pm!









Advice: Keep your ticket with you till the end of your journey, the machine at the end wants it back! And if you have bought a cheaper ticket, you have to pay the difference. Otherwise you're stuck!







"Women only " carriage! Brilliant idea!



Than I'll keep bothering you with what I had for lunch, because I find it fascinating each time! ...this time those bowls!!! I think I might have hard time finding real good Japanese food once I'm back in Europe :(

and now some corrections:

1) Hello Kitty is not everywhere, as expected! Actually it is NOWHERE...so the news is: Hello Kitty isn't a hero in Japan anymore...

2) I figured out that plastic is nonburnable garbage...weird!

HOT HOT HOT...

It's 6 degrees Celsius outside, really warm compering to Europe right now...but the air conditioning in every car, building, office is keeping around 27-30...so whenever you go out you are just freezing!

Anyway, I had the hottest winter outdoor shooting EVER! It was soo cool! They had gas heaters and the sun was shining...When I heard I was supposed to shoot outside I knew I'm gonna be frozen to dead by the end of the day, but I had a beautiful day by the Pacific Ocean instead!

Sunrise...


Location...


Lunch!



Sunset and drive back to Tokyo...


...where the work day didn't end! I had to join the others for 7 more castings, so it was a 5am-11pm Friday! And it seems like it's gonna be a busy weekend as well!

Hello Kitty...errrrm i mean HELLO!Tokyo... (1st very jedlegged thoughts...)

I don't know where to start, but I think I'd better start somewhere since already 100 people have asked: " So, how is Tokyo?"

Besides, I think first impressions are important, since they change shortly- so here what problems I had to deal with in the last/first 48 hours, which seem to me like one unbroken sequence of fast-forwarded events...no sleep, difficulty to remember people's names, names of places, locations ...loss any sense of orientation. Looking out from the car window, it seemed to me that weve been driving in a circle all day. This is a whole different world, to begin with. The greatest problem of all is THE LANGUAGE. Now, I realize how much words actually mean. In any other western country you could at least guess what all those signs mean...by the shape, color, font...but here you are completely lost- names of shops, street signs, food, any kind of instructions on any place, shop&object- be it a remote control, a pharmacy, billboards...all illegible!

so to come back where we started:

problem nr 1:

FOOD I know what sushi is, I know miso soup, maki, teriyaki and green tea too. But those are the most "harmless" things you could eventually get...I have no idea what 99% of the food and drinks over here are e.g Vinegar drink or corn / red bean soup in a can... I just buy them blind-sometimes I get lucky...sometimes I throw them away, which leeds me to:

problem nr 2:

recycling I have 3 different rubbish bins in the flat. And of course, plastic and glass are supposed to be collected in seperately by default, so that don't count. Two have sings on them- burnable and unburnable, the 3rd if probably paper...In my opinion everything is burnable...I meanapart from metal things you could burn anything, right??? But I still haven't had time to read the 3- page leaflet I got from the agency concerning this subject and figure out where to throw away what...

...Mentioning the flat: as I said, 1st time I realize how much we don't appreciate our ability to read, or simply understand signs. It took me quite a long time to find out how to adjust the right temperature of the air conditioning, since all the buttons are in japanese, of course. The red button(in this case purple) is easy, ON/OFF, but for all the rest I have no clue, I just tried them all till it finally got warmer.

problem nr 3: WC

take a lok at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU_vNb_XkTM&feature=related ...no comment. Those "washlets" are quite cool...sometimes the flush button is tricky to find, but sometimes they do it all alone, sing you a song and the seat is always warm! The real problem is: Why don't we have those in Europe???

problem nr 4: bathroom

Why isn't a curtain for the shower in my all-made-of-plastic bathroom? Not that I care that much, but the toilet paper gets wet when I take a shower. Well, it looks like some kind of very thin rice toilet paper anyway, so it dries very quickly. Besides, if there was a curtain, it would basically block the whole one-square-meter bathroom so you would either be behind or in front or underneath this hypothetical curtain... so basically problem number 5 is that whenever I take a shower the whole bathroom is totally showered.

problem nr 5: fruits&vegetables are quite "luxurious" goods, you buy them piecewise, perfectly polished,wrapped almost as a present. A kilo of apples costs almost a fortune...

problem 6:
japanese banknotes are quite big, well, at least much bigger than euro! don't fit in my wallet! I need a new wallet!

problem 7:
how do i deal with this mobile phone the agency gave me...it's a bit weird...

Funny how, when they gave us the phones and the chargers the other girl was like: " So do you need to plug it in to charge it?" Because, well this is Japan, here everything is done by itself...They still plug their phones to charge them and don't use some kind of wireless electricity! Weird...how very old-fashioned is that! LOL

8: sliding doors
Whenever you go into an elevator which happens to us 20 times a day at least, the doors bite you in the ass before you make it in... No time to lose!

I could go on for a while like this...but those were some small domestic problems. Well not really problems, but first things to get used to. The real problems go much deeper than that, such as: When and where and how to bow? (whenever you greet someone) And how many times? And how deep? Do they actually expect me to bow? Because sometimes I try to be kind and bow, and they give me a hand for a "normal" handshake. But if I don't bow and they don't give me a hand- do I look impolite? And if it comes to an awkward situation- do I smile? Cause I've been watching them, it seems like they laugh when they are embarrassed or shy, not when it is funny... And so far nobody made any joke... And basically, they bow even when they speak on the phone and say "hi"...I guess we also shake our heads sometimes unconsciously, when the other party actually is unable to see us...And do Japanese feel as weird as we do when they are oversea? And does our food seem awkward to them as well? But what could they not like? How long can I keep a tuna-rice-ball in the fridge?...

And now another problem: BIG IN JAPAN? What are those Guano Apes lyrics actually trying to say? Who is supposed to be "big in Japan"?

AND last but not least, although it's been only 2 days, there are A LOT of cool stuff over here! Basically, I think there is nothing that you couldn't find in Tokyo! I love the drinks vending machines everywhere where you can get cold and hot drinks, I love trying the "weird food", I love how kind everybody is, I love the lights everywhere, the zillion of shops, the CONVENIENT STORES open 24/7such as LAWSON, AM PM, 7Eleven, Family Mart...the the the... the whole everything is just SUPER COOL!