Christmas is present in Japan too. The shops have Christmas decorations, and people hang all kind of flashy things to their windows. The city of Sendai decorates one park ‘theme of season’. To Japanese people the new year is the most prominent holiday of the year, and while Christmas is celebrated, it’s usually holiday for lovers, who go to restaurant for romantic dinner and end the night in a hotel. This custom is bit different from the Euro-American family Christmas. Here’s some video of the main festive park in the downtown Sendai.

Glittering lights were plentiful, and small vendors sold foods and drinks all over the world (well, from Turkey and Japan at least). Below image me attacking a skewer of beef.

The Pegeant of Starlight, annual Sendai custom to bring light into dark winter.

We had the bounenkai-party of my lab last week. We went to a fine restaurant and had a 10 course French dinner. Our laboratory head, Prof. Kawashima apparently paid this all from his own pockets. Below can be seen image of your humble correspondent and his benefactor.
The dinner itself was gorgeous, we had lobsters, giant crab claws, huge clams, good two kilo roast, and lots of salmon prepared different ways, baked goodies and fried beef-tongue. This was accompanied by cheese-tray and fruits tray with lovely slices of Italian ham, French style fish soup and carefully prepared stew. The image is slightly bad, but shows two of the food trays.

For body and mind

Japanese food and eating in Japan. As you might know/guess, they eat quite a lot of fish, rice and noodles here. But I won't talk about that kind of Japanese food now, instead I stuff I have encountered. In both good and bad.

1.) School food

Japanese school cafeterias are really, really good. The one in medical campus has three separate kitchens, one for noodles, one for curry and one for various other foods. The ‘various’ kitchen is the most interesting one. You can freely pick your meal among the dozens of small plates. One plate might have fish fillet, second might be a cup of rise, third might be salad, etc.

In the image you can see lunch I ate while ago. The larger battered thing is chicken fillet, while the smaller one is fish. Other stuff you can probably recognize. You can also see the receipt. If you look closely to the receipt, you can see that it tells you more then just the price of the products. Indeed, the said paper slip tells me how many units of proteins (2.0), how many units of salad-stuff (1.2) and how many units of glutamates (6.7) I got. The larger number is the amount of energy I got got from this meal (793 kJ).

While this is bit odd, it helps you eat in a healthy way.

2.) Nattou

See the link for the description. The image probably tells how it tastes... (forced smile much)


3.) Sometimes you just want honest normal Finnish food. I felt like that while ago, and spent good 2 hours making meat soup. The end result can be seen below.

Some bonus images near my living place.
The road leading down from the dorm to the heart of the city (and medical campus)

Temple that I pass every morning. I can't remember what this temple was called, but it probably explains why there are 3-4 graveyards around our dorm.

...arrows of outrageous fortune

As some of you might know, even before coming to Japan I've been practising kyudo for three years . Japan being home of kyudo, I was thrilled when I was given a chance to practise with local teacher. For some reason the kyudo-club of the medical campus didn't accept me, and since the univeristy club dojo is far away from my lab, I now practise kyudo in girls high school dojo. This is possible becase my kind teacher, Sato-sensei asked a permission for me to practise here with the students, as he frequents this dojo himself. The kids are quiet and uneasy around me, but I can't really blaim them for that. The usual athmosphere of practise is silent and serene though.


The said dojo is quit humble, and as all the archery dojos in Japan, an open air place. Nowdays the temperature at night is around 5-10 C so it's not actually that cold. When one practises, the body stays mostly warm... excluding index finger of left hand which is not doing anything.

The makiwara at the dojo is actual makiwara, see below

In the image you can also see my bow I bought when I got here (if anyone from Hikari is reading this, the bow is 11 kilo renshin). I spend most of time in front of these straw piles when I practise. This is partially because I don't want to disturb the students who are shooting at the mato, but also because my teacher told me to that makiwara practise would do good for me.

Practising with someone that experienced is very, very intresting. My shooting form has been almost completely re-shaped, and we have discussed everything from breathing to neck muscle usage. Nonetheless, whether I am in Japan or in Finland, when I'm shooting I feel relaxed and comfortable. Guess that's why I keep doing this rather challenging sport.