THE SQUEAKY WHEEL

Hiroshima

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:15:00 +0000

Here's my trip to Hiroshima in a nutshell:

My room. Cute, but the chick in the bed next to me snores.

Tempura udon from this weird serve yourself kind of udon cafeteria. Order your noodles, choose your toppings, pay and then pump soup broth from a dispenser. It was surprisingly good! (¥445)

Went to the peace museum on August 5th. Heart wrenching displays like this, Hiroshima before the bomb.

And Hiroshima after.
It's really too much to try and take in. I didn't look at everything but I tried. Afterwards I took a 40 minute tram ride to the inland sea and then a ferry to Miyajima to see this very famous site:

The island is full of deer. You can smell them as soon as you get off the ferry. They are very comfortable (a little TOO comfortable) with humans, I saw one eating a map while a flash was going off in it's face.

This morning I got to peace park right before 8:15 in time to hear the bells being rung to commemorate the exact time the bomb was dropped. Thousands of people from all over the world bowed their heads and prayed silently. Later I saw each and every one of them at the mall.

I have to say, there is something about being here that makes it much easier to imagine what nuclear devastation really is. You feel chills thinking that in the time it took for those bells to ring this city and 100,000 people vanished. You start imagining every person in the park incinerated in a flash. I mean, I knew coming here would be heavy but it just really hits home. I don't know how to explain it, it's hard to believe there are trees growing again and kids playing at the site of so much destruction. I watched the beginning of the lanterns being floated down the river:

And then had dinner, check out what I got from the super market for ¥300!

Soba, yam tempura and tekka maki.

Then I went back to peace park and saw the real lantern floating thing and it was amazing!

Now im in bed with my brand new earplugs. Leaving for Kyoto in the morning.

Dining in Kyoto

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:06:00 +0000

Kyoto is the place that I knew long ago that I would splurge a little on food. I had planned to treat myself to a ¥10000 kaiseki meal but the owner of my guesthouse said that they don't usually serve kaiseki for parties of one. Kaiseki is elaborate, full course Japanese dining and requires specialized shopping for the ingredients of your meal so naturally, nobody wants to go to the trouble for one person. Anyway, I found some good suggestions in some guide books and tried some local Kyoto specialties. Yesterday I had omen noodles which are similar to udon but served with a selection of vegetables and crushed sesame seeds on the side. It was great, and exactly what I needed after walking around all morning. I found the restaurant completely by chance, just as I was minutes away from a low blood sugar meltdown.

Soup and noodles served separately, add noodles and veg and sesame to the soup to taste. Comes with a little dish of kinpira gobo (burdock root salad). (¥1100)

Today after visiting the zen rock garden at ryoan-ji temple I was feeling anything but zen. It was tourist hell in there. Unsupervised children running around, every other person counting the rocks out loud as there are 15 rocks but only 14 are ever visible at one time. Probably the least enjoyable thing I have done in Kyoto. Anyway, as you walk through the rest of the temple grounds you come upon a Yudofuya, a buddhist tofu restaurant where they serve one thing, boiled tofu.
I had been wanting to try some so I stopped in and seriously, if you are in Kyoto I would say skip the rock garden and just go to the Yudofuya. It was very serene, in it's own little garden, and there were no tourists from anywhere but Japan. (and one from Canada).

The restaurant.

The thing they put your pot of tofu on.

The yudofu. You ladle this into a bowl with soy sauce, ginger, green onions and sesame and make a kind of tofu soup. It may not sound like much but it's delicious! It's great quality silken tofu, better than anything I've had at home. (¥1500)

This being my last night in Kyoto, I wanted to treat myself to a nice dinner so I took a recommendation from my room mate's guide book and ended up at Ikumatsu. The book correctly states that the décor is nothing to write home about but the food is a very good value. Here's what I had:

Surprise box. What's in there?

All of this. Simmered veg and fish, broiled salmon, chicken stuffed with veg, edamame, wakame seaweed, sardine, fish cake, omelet, tofu, some kind of gingery fish in the little white dish, squid and other unidentified sashimi.

Then tempura, rice, miso soup and pickles.

I ordered a little bottle of saké too and all this came to ¥2840. Definitely a good value. It's been hard because there is just so much food to choose from here so if you are indecisive like me, you could spend all day trying to pick a place. Leaving for Nagano tomorrow where it will be back to my ¥1500 per day budget.

Kyoto!

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:20:00 +0000

I've been in Japan for almost two weeks but I'm finally seeing Japan for the first time. Wow! When I was in Tokyo I was reminded of other cities but here in Kyoto you could only be in Japan! The guesthouse where I am staying is down a tiny, narrow alley just off a street where geisha are out shopping. My room has walls made out of rice paper and perfect, artful décor! I'm in Japan-o-phile heaven! Of course, I'm in the very touristy area of Gion but there's nowhere I'd rather be staying. My guesthouse houses 10 guests and I have two female room mates who are nice, not loud and not annoying at all. I think I totally lucked out and someone might have to pack up my stuff and ship it over here.

My room.

One of the sweet innkeepers.

Geisha.

My neighborhood.

Fireworks that were so amazing it made me jump up and down and clap my hands.

More food!

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 12:06:00 +0000

Here's some pics from "the kitchen of Kanazawa" the Omi-cho market.

The grilled fish place.

Another grilled fish place.

The shellfish place.

The fish place.
There's also the crab place, the oyster place, the seaweed place, some vegetable places, sweets and, pretty much everything.

Saigawa

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:40:00 +0000

This morning I rented a bike and rode about 10km along the Sai River to the sea of Japan. As expected the seaside was nothing to write home about (the usual, garbage everywhere and a family with loud watersport toys barbqueing and smoking cigarettes) but the bike ride was great! I passed industrial areas, rice fields, wetlands and an old fishing village which I guess is technically part of Kanazawa but feels a million miles and a thousand years away.

The Saigawa

The sea of Japan

My feet in the sea of Japan.

My lunch (¥473) eaten by a big Shinto shrine..
(that big roll is wrapped in some kind of bread instead of nori!)

And followed by..

Watermelon flavor with chocolate "seeds"!

After that big ride I went back to Kanazawa and the 21st century museum of contemporary art. Saw this...

And this..

It's a labrynth made from salt.
Sorry I forgot the artists names. I'll look them up later.
Earlier I went to a gallery and saw a great photo exhibit by Kayo Ume.

By the time I was done at the museum I was pooped and starving so I had this..

(¥500) tempura and rice, cold soba and pickles. And then I went to a sento that was so hot I only stayed half an hour. Now I am in the lobby of my hotel, sunburned and drinking an Asahi. Did I mention it was super hot out? Good thing I live in the desert or I might actually notice!

Food!

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:44:00 +0000

You may have noticed that I have been eating a lot of packaged foods and there's a couple of reasons for this. Number one is that I am on a strict budget. My original food budget of ¥2500 per day got whittled down to ¥1500 after I exchanged my $ and didn't get as much ¥ as I expected. Also, it can be so much easier to walk into a grocery store and buy what you want than to try and figure out a Japanese menu. So far my ¥1500 budget is working. For example today:
Rice to go with pickles and miso I bought yesterday ¥158
Udon soup in a restaurant ¥530
Sushi bento from department store food court ¥525
mochi snack ¥84
That's ¥1397.
Don't worry, I'm still going to splurge on a ¥10000 kaiseki meal in Kyoto but I'm counting every yen until then!

Food court O-nigiri! What a selection!

Food court sashimi. So cheap!

My dinner/ part of tomorrow's breakfast on ¥525! Check out those rolls wrapped with greens instead of nori!

Post From My iPhone

Kenroku-en garden

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:30:00 +0000

Today I visited one of the most famous gardens in Japan. It was lovely, this town is lovely, the weather was lovely. I also went to an old samurai neighborhood and a geisha zone. Kanazawa provides a loop bus that stops near all the main attractions but I actually wound up walking most of it. Here's some pics from the garden.

And a shrine

And samurai town

and my lunch

And some plums out in front of a house.

From My iPhone

Kanazawa

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Aya booked me a hotel in Kanazawa and while it's not the four seasons it's pretty good for $35 a night! It's 3 blocks from the station and has wi-fi in the lobby!

Unlike in Tokyo I also get my own bathroom!

-- Post From My iPhone

Sayonara Shiogama

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:18:00 +0000

I left Shiogama the day after the show opened to head for Kanazawa. It's about a 6 hour trip, mostly by bullet train. Could not get a reserved seat for the 2nd leg and was forced to stand in the vestibule between cars for 40 minutes. Btw, the Japan rail pass is GREAT. I just show that at the ticket counter and the give me a ticket to where ever I want!

My attempt to photograph a bullet train.

Train station bento.

Japanese national pastimes: coloring hair mousy brown and sleeping on trains.

Done.

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:00 +0000

Okay so, everything got done, some people actually came to the opening and I gave a slide presentation about my time living in my van. Everyone was so sweet and seemed genuinely interested in my work. We ate snacks and afterwards Aya took me out for some famous Shiogama tuna and sake! But no pics yet as they are on my other camera. Here's almost everything else I ate in Shiogama instead.

Salmon and rice and miso soup and ume for breakfast. Heaven!

Rice with adzuki beans, pickles, salad and mochi bean thing for dinner.

Miso, rice, tuna, salad, pickles, ume and fruit for breakfast.

I also got to eat one of those pregnant fish, head, tail and everything. I was scared to eat the head first because I thought it would be gross but actually it's the best part!

My iPhone

Installation

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:59:00 +0000

This was one of the more difficult installations of my life. I didn't realize before coming here that the walls at Birdo space are textured plaster, very gorgeous but no nails or pins allowed! So I had to use industrial strength double sided tape to hang dozens of plexi glass frames. Well, with the texture of the walls that was really difficult. Without a ton of tape the pictures would fall off the wall sometimes breaking the frame! Good thing I mailed more than I would need!
So every night Aya would put pillows under the pictures. It was stressful and took a really long time but it got done and I hope everything is still up. Here's a pic of Aya carefully taping the backs of the frames.

-- Post From My iPhone

Shiogama

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:18:00 +0000

Shiogama is famous for salt, tuna, sake and a great art gallery called Birdo Flugas which means birds are flying in Esperanto. The director of Birdo space, Aya Takada met me at Sendai station and showed me around before we took the 30 minute train to Shiogama.

-- Post From My iPhone

Gaijin in the Sento

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:45:00 +0000

I'm feeling a little proud and emboldened that I took the plunge (ha!) and visited a public bath house. I thought for sure those naked ladies would think I was a hopeless idiot when I made some mistake in bath etiquette but I think all I did wrong was stand there dripping while I opened my locker after my bath. One of the ladies handed me my towel. Turns out you are supposed to bring a small one in the bathroom for washing, putting on top of your head in the bath, sitting on the little stool and wiping some water off before you go to the locker room. Anyway, the bath was great. Four different pools. I'm not sure if I liked the naturalish one with the stones and fountain the best or the one with sandalwood smelling bath salts. Ten minutes in the massage chair and I'm ready for 6 more hours of aimless walking. I wanted to get in on a little gossip session with the girls but Im pretty sure they were actually gossiping about me!

-- Post From My iPhone

Japan thrift

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:08:00 +0000

I found thrift stores today! Look at what I got for about $1 each!

-- Post From My iPhone

Pics

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:06:00 +0000

I'm posting lots of pics on facebook. click here to see. I did not bring my computer so you'll only see pics taken with my iphone. Leaving tomorrow for Shiogama to start installing my show. It's been raining a lot in Tokyo and I love it. Doing some bike sightseeing today! More soon!

Harajuku

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:08:00 +0000

I met up with Naomi today who was my blind date I met through a website called Aitai Japan. This site allows tourists to review profiles of Japanese people who want to volunteer to be their guides. Naomi and I met in harajuku and went to the big Shinto shrine and then to daiso, muji, uniqlo, oriental bazaar amd my new favorite store, tokyu hands.

My feet are sore and I'm going to bed!

-- Post From My iPhone

New Koyo Hotel

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 00:47:00 +0000

I booked my room at new koyo months ago. It's the cheapest place to stay that I could find,¥2700 a night. My room is about 7x7 feet and has a locker, a TV, a futon, a blanket and a pillow. It's bare bones budget travel. No complaints so far.

-- Post From My iPhone

I've arrived

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 14:35:00 +0000

A ten hour flight and hotel check in and beers with Craig Howitt means I've now been up for 24 hours. I'm about to turn in in my cozy futon. Here's pics of the first things I ate. Tofu and mackerel. More tomorrow, I'm knackered!

-- Post From My iPhone

This is just a test.

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:06:00 +0000

Making sure I can upload pics okay.

Going to Japan!

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:29:00 +0000

I'm leaving tomorrow for Tokyo and I'll be posting info here about my travels and the food I eat. Check back soon!

-- Post From My iPhone

Citizenshift

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:18:00 +0000

If you are wondering why I'm not posting very often here it's because I'm now writing a blog for the National film board of Canada website. The section is called Citizenshift, media for social change. I'm doing a sort of advise column for people who are trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing conditions of the environmment. It's called Ask the Green Queen, sage advise for green living. I want to change it to Ask the Green TEAM though, want to be on my team? Click here to check it out.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Recently someone posted a comment on my Topanga blog entry saying "Brian Freedman is a con man...of course he was helpful to you, there was a camera crew there." I know that it was left by someone at the biofuels company that Brian used to own and is now in a heated legal battle with over rights and ownership. I would like to say that first of all I have no interest in being involved in your ridiculous campaign of negativity. Secondly, by leaving comments like that you are only making yourself look like an asshole so kindly stay off of my blog.

Pioneertown

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Wow! After 11 months of living in my van I now am the proud renter of a house on 2.5 acres of high desert in Pioneertown, near Joshua Tree, California. In addition to the house we have a big garage to use as a workshop and art studio and plenty of space to park the Airstream trailer that we just bought. It's all very exciting! Our place is 4 miles from downtown Pioneertown which was built as a living movie set in 1946 and is now home to the best bar in California, Pappy and Harriet's.

Our neighbors have 10 horses and 3 dogs which I am going to care for when their owner, Paula is off on the rodeo circuit! It's a dream come true for me and Blendy so I hope you'll come visit soon. Click here to see a little slideshow.

Moss Landing

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 16:30:00 +0000

Moss Landing is situated right at the middle of Monterey bay, on the central California coast. It is surrounded by the Salinas valley to the east, the Santa Cruz mountains to the north and Big Sur to the south. The entire area is like a nature refuge full of seabirds, sea otters, California sea lions, dolphins and in the spring there are even jaguar sharks that breed in the estuary called Elkhorn slough., Apparently it's the only place in the world where you can watch sharks breeding from the shade of an oak tree.

We are looking after the world's best dog, named Bleu and three cats, Guzzi, BeeBee and Buddy.

So far I've collected grease from the Moss Landing café which does a brisk business selling deep fried artichokes which were probably grown in the field across the road. The Salinas valley is all agricultural and is known as "America's salad bowl". John Steinbeck grew up here and several of his novels were set in the valley.

Brian from True Biofuels came up to shoot some scenes for the documentary project and we discovered a goldmine of grease at the giant Asian buffets over in Salinas, 10 miles away. I also collected some great stuff at a Japanese restaurant in Santa Cruz, 20 miles north. We have been getting most of our supplies in Santa Cruz at the farmer's market and Staff of Life market. There is B99 biodiesel available at Pacific Biofuels for only $3.59 a gallon, when most of the diesel sold around here is about $3.65 per gallon.

In short, I am quickly falling in love with my temporary home. It offers everything I need and then some. I'm in love with the stark beauty of the Salinas valley and the towns like Castroville and Watsonville where you can visit Mexico without leaving California.

Topanga

noreply@blogger.com (The squeaky wheel) — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:18:00 +0000

The morning that I was planning to leave to go to Moss Landing and house sit for my old friend Krista I had arranged to meet with Brian from True Biofuels. Production of a documentary about his innovations in alterntaive fuels had just begun and they planned to include a segment on selling on eBay from the road, as I have been doing for over a year now. Brian and the film maker, Marc came over and talked to me as I packed up and filtered the last of my grease for the long drive. We had a really enjoyable talk and agreed to keep in touch about their documentary which will include traveling through the country in a 1967 Mercedes tour bus that runs on vegetable oil. Brian helped me to purge the air out of my fuel system which I believed had gotten there when I ran out of fuel in the valley. Before leaving he even said to call him from Moss Landing if anything went wrong with my van and he and would come up and fix it and bring the film crew to document the repairs. Wow.

I headed out north on 101, driving on diesel as I planned to wait until the engine was hot to try switching to grease. I pulled over at Topanga Canyon road to fill up the diesel tank and try switching a few times before getting back on the freeway. After the first couple of attempts at switching it became apparent that there was something a little more serious wrong with my fuel system. So as to not drain the battery while attempting to restart the van I called Brian and said "I need help NOW."

Brian was a few minutes away since he was headed back to his place in Topanga so he said he would come to the gas station and give me a hand. When he got there he spayed starting spray, AKA ether, into my air filter and jump started the van and we drove off down the winding canyon road to his place in Topanga.

Brian really knows his way around the vegetable oil system, having built over 1500 of them himself. The task at hand was to pinpoint where air was getting into my fuel line which we discovered to be a leaky valve on the bottom of my fuel filter. Brian replace the valve with a tight fitting hose and bolt combination as a temporary measure. With that done we thought we were pretty much in the clear and began to test drive the van. Topanga canyon is all steep hills and narrow roads and as we were climbing the hill by his house I said "I really hope I don't stall on this hill." and then I did. I rolled the van down the hill to a safe parking place and we tried to resart the van until the battery started to lose it's charge and we tried jumping it to no avail. At that point it was getting dark and we decided to pack it in and continue in the morning.

In the morning the engine would not turn over at all and it seemed that we had killed the starter motor. The battery wouldn't jump start so with Brian and Bob's help we pop started the van as we rolled it down the hill and drove it to Glendale to have Brian's mechanic look at it. It turned out that the alternator that I had just had installed was not charging the battery and needed to be replaced. That would explain the battery dying so quickly when I'm trying to restart the van with air in the fuel line. We left the van at the shop and Brian drove me over to a friend's place. We met the next morning when my van was ready and everything was finally working the way that it should be except that my glow plugs were not working properly. Thankfully my van has a manual glow plug switch on the dash and I can heat them that way.

Finally, in the early afternoon, only two days late I left for Moss Landing.