Tonight’s post is about food and beer and gluttony. Today my sister-in-law and her husband stopped by for supper and that means this post is being written under two conditions: full and drunk.

One of the impressive things about She Who Must Be Obeyed’s family is how much food they can put away and still remain reasonably thin. Today we had a tray of sushi, a small tray of sashimi, several roll-your-own sushi rolls, and a plate of the Japanese version of cold cuts, which included fried chicken, sausage, three different kinds of shrimp, potatoes and skewered chicken. A few bottles and cans of beer were also involved. Then they brought out dessert.

I first learned about their eating prowess very early on after She Who Must Be Obeyed and I got engaged. As part of the celebration we went to a Korean Barbecue restaurant in Itoigawa—for those who don’t know what this is, it’s a place where they trick you into cooking your own food and then charge you extra. We proceeded to eat and eat and eat. I felt it important that I hold my own in order to preserve US pride and my own omnivorous reputation. I think it’s fair to say we consumed an entire cow and an entire hog each, including large portions of innards, and a handful of vegetables. They kept handing the leftovers to me and I went “Well, you know, I really shouldn’t, but I’m going to” and then ate what I was handed.

After consuming all that dead animal flesh, I’d pretty much reached the limits of my consumption ability. That’s when they said “Do you want rice or noodles?” That’s right, after all that, they intended to top off the evening with carbohydrates. (Please remember, though, that THEY cheated by giving ME all the leftovers.) I chose ishiyaki bibinba (a rice and meat dish cooked in stone bowl) and somehow managed to force it all down.

The part that still amazes me is they always eat like this. Some of my friends got to see them in action at KC Masterpiece during our US wedding. I’ve learned to pace myself better, even when it leads to constant rounds of “Don’t you like it?” “Does it taste bad?” “Do you want something else?”

The fun part is, tomorrow we’ve got fresh sashimi coming in from She Who Must Be Obeyed’s cousin’s fish shop. It means we’re going to do this all over again.

One of the common effects of visiting Japan on a visitor to Japan is the formation of a series of falsely profound conclusions that seem rather, well, profound: Kanji is SOOO deep. It’s like pictures. Each picture is made up of smaller pictures. It has meaning beyond its meaning. It’s SOOO much deeper than the Western alphabet. (Well, yeah, that’s kind of true, although writing with pictures is actually pre-alphabet and the easier versions of Japan’s four alphabets are slowly taking over, and, well, WHICH Western alphabet?)

Writer/Activist Arudo Debito describes this as Gush and Mush–Gush is Japan rocks; Mush is Japan sucks–and ascribes it mostly to journalists in town for a few days. In my experience, though, Gush leads to Mush.

Gush: Japan is SOOO modern; it has the fastest broadband internet connections and everything is SOOO modern.
Mush: There’s no free wi-fi except in Starbucks and the parking lot of 7-11? Japan is SOOO backward.

I personally believe this a consequence of commenting on results without understanding the causes. (Japan hasn’t needed free wi-fi because people have been surfing the net on their cellphones for over a decade and are used to the expense. They’ve been doing that because landlines were expensive. Etc.)

I bring this up because this is a common reaction to the design of Japanese houses and the way that design impacts the lifestyle of people living in them.

One of the falsely profound conclustions is that Japanese families are closer because they all sit together in one room. Rather than having central air, Japanese rooms are heated and cooled as necessary. “This is SOOO much more civilized than the west and brings families closer because everyone is gathered together under the kotatsu and can talk and share values. This is SOOO much better than the selfish isolationist Westerners who sit in different rooms surfing the internet. Also, it’s SOOO much more energy efficient to only heat the room you’re in rather than waste energy on the rooms you’re not using. West bad. Japan good. I love Japan!” (Gush.)

There’s a lot to unpack in that, but I’ll start with a general tendency for the Japanese to build crappier houses—partly because of earthquakes and partly because the value of land is the majority of the cost of building a house. This leads to a lack of insulation, especially on older houses, and a lack of central air. The only way to heat and cool a room is to buy a heater and an air conditioner for that room. This means it’s cheaper to heat only one room.

As for the notion it’s more energy efficient, I don’t believe it. The one room may be warm, but at least one wall is uninsulated and is up against an unheated hallway or room. For example, in winter, my in-laws hang out in one room. That room has a flimsy sliding door that bleeds heat and energy into a hallway that’s so cold that going to the restroom just down the hall feels like going to an outhouse (albeit one with a heated toilet seat that washes and dries your backside.) In summer, you can feel the heat and humidity from the hallway bleeding in through the door, requiring the air conditioner to work all the time.

As for Kotatsus, well they are great until one’s nether regions start baking. Also, because the kotatsu is baking already stinky feet, I’ve been told that I’m lucky I have no sense of smell. As one of my friends said to the comment that the kotatsu is great “So is insulation! So is central heating!”

Also, that “heating only one room is SOOO awesome” conclusion changes by the middle of winter as the person is huddled under a kotatsu and wrapped in blankets: “I can’t believe my coffee table is heated but my apartment is not. I hate Japan!” (Mush.)

Also, although everyone’s together in the same, they are watching TV whilst teenagers surf the net on their phones. At times, it’s no closer than being stuck with people on a crowded train.

For those who dismissed my psychic and omen reading ability as mere pessimism: Today we had an hour long blackout because of wind and discovered Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed needs a second surgery because national health care doctors don’t listen to patients. She’s doing well but her return home will now be delayed, disrupting the lives of quite a few people.

Proof that I’m almost human completed, let’s whine a little.

The only thing I hate about visiting my in-laws is their furniture. It’s designed for small, flexible people with good knees. I am large, not flexible and have bad knees (hence the lack of flexibility).

The living/family/dining room is a tatami mat room just off the kitchen. My in-laws, kids and She Who Must Be Obeyed have little problem sitting seiza or lotus, but for me I have to sit side saddle and support my weight with my arms, or sneak up against the wall or hutch to find back support. My in-laws do provide an arm chair that looks like an office chair that’s been cut off just under the seat. It’s more comfortable than sitting on the mats, but I can only sit with my knees up. It’s a bit like sitting on an easy chair with the foot rest stuck up. It’s fun at first, but it either induces gradual knee pain or recurring nap attacks.

Eating dinner involves me sitting side saddle and trying to sit straight enough to eat without dropping food all over my legs or the floor. The taller table, which reaches to the middle of my calves, allows me to get my knees just under, but the larger table, which is shorter, doesn’t have room for my knees, making eating a meal an experience in contortion and yoga. They have a back room which is more western style, complete with proper sofas.

Your zen koan for today’s meditation: What is an improper sofa?

Once again, however, they are a bit short for prolonged loafing. The main problem is that despite my preferences for being alone, when I’m at the in-laws I do feel compelled to stay with the family and, at minimum, practice Japanese. (My brother-in-law, though, just heads off to an upstairs room and disappears for most of his stays. I’m getting to that stage, albeit slowly.)

Also, if I have any work and/or writing to do, I end up with the laptop on my lap, but at an odd angle (or I have to put my legs at an odd angle.)

By the time I return home from a week at the in-laws, my knees and back are sore even if I’ve been keeping up on my exercises and stretching. (Some other day I’ll write about the weight I put on from the heavy eating and drinking forced upon me.)

I bring all this up because it’s possible Mother of She Who Must Be Obeyed may no longer be able to sit on tatami and this will require a lot of rethinking and redesigning of the house and her habits. I may have a few suggestions for how to change things.

A short one today as I recover from travel and hope I can tether through my phone.

Today the oldest and I traveled to the in-laws house but before we left, I got to show off my psychic powers. Before that, though, I have to talk about the omens.

First Omen: after a hot but relatively dry summer, the day we were scheduled to travel typhoon 11 decided to arrive and dump a bunch of rain on us.

Second Omen: the rain that arrived was in a storm front, depicted in red (bad) and maroon (damned bad) on the weather map, that followed our exact path straight into Niigata.

Third Omen: several bullet train tracks had already been shut down.

Fourth Omen: it was raining hard enough that the drain on our balcony began to back flow in a new way. It didn’t flow onto the balcony, but it was noisy, as if it were mocking our attempts to travel during a typhoon.

Fifth Omen: about an hour before we left, the rain began to stop but it was raining just hard enough that we would need to carry umbrellas. However, as we left our apartment, the rain had become little more than random sprinkles and we didn’t actually need umbrellas. My psychic powers—which some say is simply pessimism—kicked in and I told our oldest to bring her umbrella anyway. I told her that about halfway to the station the rain would fall and fall hard.

Sixth Omen: Sure enough, almost exactly halfway to station we had to rush to get our umbrellas out as the sky opened up in downpour that left me soaked from the middle of my thighs down to my toes. The joke here is that once we were at the station, we’d be indoors or on trains the entire rest of the trip, meaning we no longer needed the umbrellas and they were just dead weight.

After that the trip went pretty well. The only real problems we had were the storm had swung to the Japan Sea and the wind slowed down our express train from Echigo-Yuzawa to Naoetsu. Luckily we were able to catch our local train and are now happily resting at the in-laws.

Seventh Omen: Too happily.

Today the oldest and I both had the day off (well, sort of, I had to do some “work” in the morning, for six hours, no really, six hours, officially). Because of this, and despite the heat, we mustered up the energy to go down to Tokyo and visit Tokyo Sky Tree, which is the tallest tower in the world and, for now, the second tallest structure in the world.

Tokyo Sky Tree is just a short walk from Asakusa and the Asahi Brewery Headquarters (which is designed and colored to look like a tall glass of beer) and the Asahi Beer Hall which is famous for, well, let’s just say I had to explain to our oldest that it was designed to look like a hibachi and flame but apparently no one told Philippe Starck that the design looked like the standard Japanese cartoon depiction of poop.

The adventure, as all things tend to do in Japan, involved an hour waiting in line. Oddly we didn’t complain as, unlike Tokyo Disneyland/line, the wait was indoors and air conditioned. Once we had a ticket, we were hustled to an elevator and whisked up to 350 meters (1,148 feet). At this stage, there are restaurants and shops and a ticket counter for getting tickets up to the highest deck. I splurged and we were whisked up another elevator, this one with a glass top and glass doors to 440 meters (1,443 feet). At this point, to get back down, you have to walk up what’s basically a glass tube to get to 450 meters (1,476 feet) and the down elevators.

Oddly, at this point, I wasn’t having too many issues with heights.

The elevator takes you back down to the 350 meter deck and you then have to walk down to 340 meters (1,115 feet). At this level, which is the bottom of the three level lower deck, there’s an area with a glass floor. Our oldest walked out on it with no problems. In my case, however, the different parts of my brain had a short chat. My logical/reasoning brain, as small as it is, pointed out that there was nothing to fear as not only was the floor well designed, there was a actually a second floor below it. My lizard-brain responded with “Gyahhh! No! No! No! Danger! Bad! Fall Bad! Splat Bad! Glass fail! People fall! People die! People stupid! Me smart! You die!”

I took a step on to the glass, took a picture, then stepped back off as my logical/reasoning brain started listening to my lizard-brain and realized that the reason there was a second floor was because it was possible for the first floor to fail.

Part of the problem was there were dozens of people around and on the glass floor. If I stood in place trying to get my courage and focus built up, I was constantly getting jostled. If I could focus, it wouldn’t be as much of a problem. For example, I no longer have problems with the skywalk in the NS Building in Shinjuku because I’m able to relax and focus.

I crossed around to the other side of the glass floor near the window determined to try it again, but the view and the realization we were hanging over nothing made even my logical/reasoning brain shout “Fly, you fool! Fly! Er, I mean FLEE not FLY because FLY is totally what you want to avoid! Although, technically it’s FALL not FLY.” Of course, my escape was cut off by a little old lady who refused to move which meant I had to listen to my logical/reasoning brain snap and start comparing the glass floor to the Moon Door in Game of Thrones.

Eventually we went back down to the ground level and had lunch. Then, since our oldest had never visited Kaminarimon and Senso-ji, we took a brief side trip down Nakamise Street to eat agemanju or deep-fried sweet bean pastries (which, against all reason, are among my favorite sweets in Japan).

Unfortunately, we too hot and tired at that point to enjoy the temple, so we packed it in and went home. Luckily we woke up before our stop.