Tsukiji fish market

Before heading home from Japan, I finally made it to the Tsukiji fish market - one of the largest wholesale fish markets in the world.

It was an amazing experience. Every kind of sea food as far as the eye can see. There was also an enormous tuna auction, where after each fish was sold, a guy with long metal hooks would get a good grip on the fish and then hoist it up onto a tram. (I arrived basically too late to see the auction, but attached myself to a group of retired Israeli tourists who pushed their way in.)






There were also lots of other kinds of fruits and veggies sold, including Japanese eggplant!

On Language

This trip to Japan was the first time I had spent a significant amount of time in a country where I did not speak even a bit of the local langauge (unlike previous trips to the UK, Australia New Zealand, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, or Israel). Even in Egypt I could pick up little bits of Arabic with my knowledge of Hebrew.

That said, I was sometimes reminded of what my elementary school principal once said about himself, which is that "I have a good ear for languages." On this trip I finally realized what he meant: he was good at figuring out context.

(I had a nearly deaf friend in college who also was just so smart that she could almost always figure out exactly what was going on in a conversation because she could infer from context.)

One example was in the airport, where my Air Canada boarding pass didn't list my UsAirways frequent flyer number. I went to the counter and asked, and the person turned to his colleague and said a few sentences in Japanese. Hearing the words "USAirways" and "Star Alliance" I immediately knew what he was asking, and so said "Hi" (Yes), starling the individual who thought I did not speak Japanese. Well, to a good extent he was right.

(Title borrowed from William Safire, zicrono livroho)

Baseball!

For my birthday, my colleagues and I went to a Japanese baseball game. I was struck by a few things, including:

1) The size of the stadium. We went to one of the two major stadiums in Tokyo, and forget the lack of fancy new frills (a la Bob Herbert's recent column), the stadium was tiny. It felt more like the Durhman Bulls or Redding Phillies than like like even an old school American major league stadium (like the Vet, Yankees Stadium or Three Rivers).


2) Everyone had little umbrellas (since the team was the Tokyo Swallows), and so would stand and wave them on cue whenever anything exciting happened



3) The ice cream cone I got was so frozen solid it was almost completely inedible

4) The following sign, which is something like "beware of foul balls." Apparently, the Japanese are so engrossed in either the game or their electronic devices that they need to be constantly reminded of this.


5) The fact that it otherwise looked exactly like an American baseball game

Octopus

Yes, in Japan, you can buy octopus in the convenience store. Yuck.

Two Jewish notes

Two quick stories about Jewish communities out here that I don't think I've mentioned yet:

1) In China (PRC), it is actually illegal for the Chabad in Shanghai to have any interaction with Chinese citizens, because of the government ban on proselytization. This law does not apply to foreigners (whose religious needs organizations are allowed to serve), so anyone holding a passport of another country (or permanent residence) is okay. But, unlike in Japan, where you can have a conversion class, such a formal outreach to anyone interested would not be a good idea in China.

2) I am generally amazed by hiluni (secular) Israelis, especially the way that Judaism for them is traditional Orthodox or nothing. A group of Israeli architects visited the new Jewish community building here in Tokyo. When entering the space designated for services (where they had to be reminded to put on head coverings out of respect), they repeatly asked where the women were supposed to sit. Their host continually replied that men and women sit together, and so there was no separate women's section.

Later, when seeing the gorgeous tiled bathrooms, they remarked that the building must have been built on a budget, because the sinks don't have automatic hand sensors. Their host explained that, no, there were no budgetary concerns here, but, rather, the automatic hand sensors would cause a problem on Shabbat. This perplexed the Israelis, who seem to not be able to wrap their heads around a shul that sat men and women together, yet cared about automatic hand sensors on Shabbat.

Apprently, in their world, once you don't discriminate based on gender for ritual participation, you might as well throw out all of the laws of Shabbat and kashrut!

Umbrellas in Japan

I've noticed that the Japanese tend to have very large umbrellas. So large that people have almost run into me on the street because the have their umbrellas angled forward and so can't see where they're going. (There's also a trend toward clear, transparent umbrellas, which would mitigate this problem.)

But what do you do with your umbrella when you go inside? Well, in some office buildings, you can lock it up (for free):


Alternatively, you can use one of these fantastic contraptions. Basically, you put your umbrella in from the top, and then jerk it back toward you.


The result is an umbrella that is tightly wrapped in a narrow plastic bag. This prevents your wet umbrella from knocking up against anything and getting it wet, and keeps the dripping water inside the bag and not on the floor.

Go Phillies!

Excellent article in the New York Times about the Phillies, going into the NLCS.

Here's the best quote:

The fact remains that they still have Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, the switch-hitting speedsters who ignite their offense at the top of the lineup. They still have Chase Utley and [Ryan] Howard, the left-handed sluggers. They still have [Jayson] Werth, who has become increasingly dangerous, and now they also have Raul Ibanez, who was one of four Phillies to hit at least 30 home runs. Over all, the Phillies led the N.L. in runs, in homers, in slugging percentage, and perhaps in intimidation, too.

Game 1 begins 8:07 PM EDT on Thursday. Let's go Phils!