Japan Series: Week 6
3/4/19–3/10/19
Betsubara (別腹)
Terazawa-san invited me and my mentor over for a gyoza (potstickers to use Americans) party after work. I figured cool, he’ll probably prep it the night before and just cook it when we arrive and we will hang out (kind of the America dinner party way). I was super wrong. We went to the store after work, bought all the ingredients, bought the alcohol and walked to his place and started prepping. About two hours of hanging out and prepping. 90% of that is rolling the meat & vegetable mixture in paper-like dough and folding the edges. Honestly, this was an awesome experience getting to make homemade gyoza by hand. After finally starting to cook the gyoza, I did the math. We made 130 pieces. No way 3 of us could finish that many.
The liquor started flowing. I introduced the guys to Blue Moon (thankfully, it is sold here in Japan — quite expensive though). They loved it as of course anyone who tries Blue Moon would (I’m not bias). I also got to try some different nihonshu, aka Japanese alcohol from my understanding. I think it was a rice wine. Also, I think there was some whisky mixed in that night somewhere. All I remember is that the gyoza was demolished, the hours flew by and I learned my new favorite Japanese word.
Betsubara; literally it means, “another stomach.” You say it in reference to a food that you could eat indefinitely. No matter how much you previously ate or how many times you’ve eaten it that month, you can always find a place in your stomach for it. It’s actually super simple to use in a sentence. I’m not sure how it works with grammar and they just assured me that it should be used like this. Betsubara ga gyoza desu. English is, I have another stomach for potstickers. Now the guys at work have already realized this but, betsubara ga choko desu. If you don’t know me, it’s chocolate. It kind of runs in the family. I actually relate this to my great grandfather because he was always known for saying he had a dessert pocket. Doesn’t matter how much he ate, he taught me there is always room in a Klussman’s (my mom’s side of the family) stomach for dessert.
Cosplay Street Fest
Mainly photos here.
I went to a cosplay street fest in Osaka at the invitation of a friend, Barun. I’ve never been an anime, manga, or anything of the sorts fan (except Tom & Jerry — just a classic man), but it was still a fun time. There were some I knew: Star Wars, Gundam (Japanese robot), and the Harry Potter characters. My favorite was the bronze tux character. Still cannot figure out what his character is from though. Unsurprisingly though, the photographers (mostly male) were gathered around the girls wearing the least amount of clothes. Coincidence?
The best part of this experience though was probably Kuromon market actually. Barun is a Osaka tour guide so he has relationships with a lot of the locals and he lives just around the corner from this street market. I’ve come across a couple other street markets here, but haven’t tried much from them due to lack of being able to read some of the kanji signs. But, with Barun’s communication and relationships to help, I tried pufferfish, some pretty good chicken drums, and sakuramochi. sakuramochi is a Japanese sweet. Sakura is the Japanese cherry blossom. So the sweet consists of cherry blossom rice, sweet red bean paste, and wrapped in a pickled cherry blossom leaf. Definitely a unique sweet I wont forget.
Enjoy the cosplay pics!
Sometimes it pays off to be a foreigner in a country. Every time Barun and I rolled up to a crowd of onlookers, the cosplay models typically gave us some good attention maybe just because we looked so different.
