Dead Programmer's Cafe

Month: June 2006

  • People of Japan in 25 Pictures

    A policeman in his booth.

    Rikshaw and his passengers in Arashiyama.

    Outdoor eatery – Japanese really use a lot of space heaters.

    Ryokan owner in Kyoto.

    Snack vendors. The surgical masks are worn mostly by allergy sufferers – which due to a high number of pollen-producing Sugi trees planted are about 1 in 5.

    Some take pictures of the cherry blossoms, others take a more traditional approach.

    Riding on the Shinkansen.

    Kids visiting Zeniarai Benten temple.

    In a museum.

    Akihabara girl handing out promotional packs of napkins – kind of like a booth bunny without a booth.

    On a JR train.


    .
    Consulting a fortuneteller.

    I was rather surprised at home many people wear kimonos. I noticed that a lot of shopkeepers wear traditional clothing, it must help with projecting the traditional image

    Another snack vendor.

    Shinkansen driver. Don’t the white gloves make you feel safer somehow?

    Squid on a stick vendor

    Celebrating Hina Matsuri – Girl’s Day.

    Cloth painter. My wife bough a shopping bag with sakura blossom design.

    Fishermen.

    Lumber vendor in his shop.

    Restaurant worker.

    On bikes.

  • You Put The Beer in the Coconut

    I pick my houseplants following a simple rule: they either have to be very exotic or they have to be edible. Preferably both, like my pineapple plant.

    A couple of months ago I purchased a coconut plant, complete with the coconut it grew out of, all for something like $10 (at IKEA of all places). And this morning I found a bonus – overnight a few mushrooms spontaneously sprouted in the same pot.

    Do you think these are poisonous?

  • Deadprogrammer Visits Japan Part IVc : Day of the Tentacle

    Of course, seafood is not the only thing that’s sold in this gigantic market.

    You can buy just about everything seafood related around there, rubber boots, for instance.

    There are a lot of knife merchants around that sell mostly Japanese-style knives. I already have a decent set of Japanese Deba Hocho knives, but I just had to buy a souvenir gaff, a miniature version of a hook that everybody in the market used to grab boxes and fish (they are on the right of this display box.

    Here’s a merchant sharpening a knife on a waterstone. I have one of those too. Because of their single-sided concave edge, Japanese-style knives are significantly sharper and easier to sharpen than Western knives. Still, getting a really sharp edge is a bit of an art.

    There are numerous food stalls around the market. Here’s one of the cooler ones, with a giant steaming pot of something and a dude with a yakuza-like pompadour haircut. This was one of those few places in Japan that refused to serve us, gaijin.

    Instead, we went to a sushi place with slightly disturbing decoration: a doomed fish in an aquarium that watches you as you eat. The sushi was very fresh and reasonably priced, but not significantly better than what I am used to in New York.

  • Deadprogrammer Visits Japan Part IVb : Day of the Tentacle

    The variety of smaller sea creatures sold in the Tsukiji market is mind boggling. Here’s a small sampling of the pictures that I took.

    First of all, there are many, many different tentacled monstrocities.

    These seem to be destined for sashimi.

    Live tiger shrimp.

    Deep red color occures more in fish here more frequently than I am used to.

    I think this is some kind of sea robin.

    This seems to be Alfonsino.

    All kinds of unfamiliar bivalves.

    There’s stuff that I can’t even identify.

    And then, there’s stuff that I, sadly, can identify. This is whale meat. The price tag, if I read it correctly says 3800 yen per kilo. That’s about $20/lb.

    Japanese whailing is a highly controvercial practice, and I highly disapprove of it. Having said that, I have to mention that I’ve had whale meat a few times. In the Soviet times whale meat was sometimes sold in stores. People bought it not because it was particularly tasty (it wasn’t), but because regular meat was not available. Fried, it was very tough in texture, and in taste it was like a mix of pork and beef, yet with a fishy aftertaste.

  • Deadprogrammer Visits Japan Part IVa : Day of the Tentacle

    Tokyo has an awesome tourist attraction for those suffering from jet lag – Tokyo Metropolitan Central Wholesale Market aka Tsukiji fish market. New York’s Fulton Fish Market used to be a similar tourist attraction, but now it moved to South Bronx, and I am not even sure if it’s still open to the public.

    Basically Tsukiji is a labyrinth of hangar-sized buildings and outside stalls surrounded by a sea of traffic.

    You are surrounded by running people, zipping bikes, scooters, trucks, forklifts and funny little vehicles propelled by a gas-burning engine of some sort.

    Some prefere a more old-fashioned method of transport.

    The heart of the market is the famous tuna auction, where buyers bid on giant frozen tuna carcasses. We arrived after it was already over. Sadly, the auctions were closed to the public in 2005, so it seems I missed my chance to see it.

    I did get to see the aftermath of the auction – floor littered with 300-500 pound frozen fish that fetch about $20/lb (wholesale). I guess there’s a few hundred thousand dollars worth of sashimi in this picture here.

    The fish get picked up by dealers

    and taken to be cut up. They are frozen solid, so they can use woodworking saws to cut them up into blocks.

    Once thawed, tuna looks much more appetizing.

    In fact, big chunks look like giant rubies.

    Even the smaller pieces get special treatment.

  • Empire Strikes Back

    As I was channel surfing, I caught a snippet of one of the terrible new Star Wars episodes. As I could not pay any attention to the wooden acting and turgid dialogue, I noticed something interesting in the background. What is Empire State Building doing on Coruscant?

  • Mr. Anonymous-No-More

    Those of you who only read the RSS feed, might not have noticed that I added two new sections to Deadprogrammer.com: About this site and About the author.

    Now you can learn my secret identity, find out what equipment and software I use, and even add yourself to my Linkedin network.