Category: experiences

The Japanese government is very concerned with the wellbeing of their citizens and residents. Some time in April, every household receives invitations for various health checks, most screenings for cancer. These are generally offered at very cheap prices, usually around 2000 yen or even less. If you happen to be of a “certain” age, you even get a free coupon.

Last year, I turned 50 (yes, I’m officially old now), the “certain” age where you’re eligible for a free stomach cancer screening. At first, I didn’t want to go: it involves swallowing a gastric camera, and since I have a very strong gag reflex (ask my dentist), it’s not something I’d volunteer for. Technically, there is the possibility of asking for an anaesthetic to knock you out temporarily, but I don’t know if this is an option in Japan – or how to ask for it. So, I let it sit.

That is, until my doctor told me about the barium solution option and painted the examination in a light that I could not refuse. So, early last month, I had an appointment that led me all the way to Yamashina in the outskirts of Kyoto.

The examination was not at a hospital, but in a bus parked at the ward office. Somewhere in the building, two forlorn looking clerks helped me fill out the required questionnaire (too many kanji, still) and let me to the bus. There, I was asked to exchange my jeans for some jogging pants in ugly green.

Next: the barium. First, I had to take some granules that quite pleasantly reminded me of popping candy. Then, the barium meal, white, tasteless – and very heavy, literally: The paper cup I had to empty weighed as much as metal, I was quite surprised. I was cautioned to keep it down because when you throw up, the stomach constricts, and it defeats the purpose of the examination.

Finally, the fun part I was coming for. I was led to a kind of table that could move in many directions. First, I had to turn around myself three times, probably to make sure the barium meal could coat the entire stomach. From then, the operator did the rest: the table moved left, right, horizontally, I even stood on my head once. Every now and then I had to hold my breath for an X-ray image, but that was the extent of my involvement in the procedure.

When I was finished and dressed again, I received a bottle of water and some laxatives – apparently, the barium solution couldn’t come out naturally again? – with instructions to take two pills right away and “if nothing happens in the next 6 hours, take the other four”. I’ll spare you the details.

The experience lived up to my expectations, it was just as much fun as my doctor promised when he said “this is perfect for you!” Sadly, I couldn’t see the technician’s point of view; according to my doctor, “he can see the liquid sloshing around…” I didn’t even feel any sloshing, so that’s the one slight disappointment here.

The aftermath was swift and happened roughly three weeks after the exam. I received a little postcard (see the image) which, in terse language explained that

1. Congratulations, you’re fine.
2. This is the current state of your health and not indicative of the future, so
3. please have this test regularly once every two years from now on.

So it seems I might have more chances to observe the sloshing myself, perhaps?

It’s an exciting week: a friend of mine is on vacation and has allowed me to help with catsitting. She has two cats, Tora and Ko-chan (short for Kotora, little Tora), and I visit them once a day.

Ko-chan is very friendly, she needed just a few minutes (and a few treats) to warm up to me. She now purrs and sits next to me, even gives little head butts and makes biscuits… Lovely little one.

Tora on the other hand is quite suspicious of me. He runs upstairs when I come, but eventually peers in from the door to check on what’s going on with Ko-chan. Today he even came into the livingroom for a bit, but he did not stray far from the door, just to stay safe.

It’s a fun thing to do, and my friend is very generous – she even left treats for me on her kitchen table. I’m happy to do this any time again!

Sorry for not writing, I’m quite busy again, with writing for elsewhere…

However, I’m taking some time off tonight for – you guessed it – a BATI-HOLIC concert. This time, it’s with two bands visiting from Australia. I’m expecting great music and a lot of fun. I do need the mood-lift…

Last Saturday was Valentine’s Day and I treated myself to my very own shinkansen, and I tried to mimic its natural habitat. For a short while. Ahem.

In general, I stick to the cheaper options, however. And a few years ago, I have discovered Tim Tam, chocolate cookies, pardon: biscuits from Australia.

They are two rectangular biscuits with chocolate cream in between and covered in more chocolate (double and even triple coats are available). As a side note, I just found out that in Australia, there is a “National Tim Tam Day”, conveniently just after Valentine’s Day on February 16.

They were created in 1964 and are still made by Arnotts exclusively in Australia. According to wikipedia, at their Sydney bakery, the production line turns out about 3,000 Tim Tams per minute and uses 20 tonnes of cream filling and 27 tons of chocolate coating each work day. Sounds like heaven.

I liked them from the beginning, but I never thought that they were that special. And then I discovered the Tim Tam Slam.

This is a special way of eating the cookies that involves coffee (traditional) or milk tea (my choice) or probably anything else as long as it’s hot. So, first, bite off two diagonal corners of your Tim Tam. Then use the Tim Tam as a straw with which to suck the beverage. When the biscuit is all soggy, you’re allowed to eat it. In fact, you have to slam it – eat it in a single bite – before it falls apart.

And you know what: This tastes absolutely fabulous! The melted chocolate and the soft cookies are heated just enough to create a veritable taste explosion and go perfectly with the hot tea. It got so far that now, I cannot imagine eating Tim Tams in any other way.

Great. As if my chocolate addiction needed an upgrade…

It’s that time of the year when it’s freezing in Kyoto, literally. After it snowed all day last Sunday, we’ve had temperatures around and just below zero since then.

Monday night at around 2 in the morning, the temperature must have dropped considerably, because that’s when my alarm clock stopped. When I woke up, there was a beautiful white gleam coming from the outside, and the room temperature was exactly zero degrees.

Pumpkin stays as close as possible to me, during the day he sleeps in his kitty bed in the living room which is equipped with a heating pad. Right now, he sleeps in his bed in my office, and he will come upstairs with me later to snuggle next to me just in case.

Even though I don’t like the cold, I love the snow, but by now, everything has melted again, thanks to the rain we had all day. For the next two weeks, the temperatures are forecast to rise again, up to 17 degrees this Sunday. I’m sure the people running and watching the Kyoto Marathon will appreciate this.

Anyway, on Monday last week, I went to Yoshida Shrine for their setsubun festival. We went around noon for lunch at the food stalls – I desperately wanted karaage fried chicken and ichigo daifuku and of course, there were baby castera as well. We all ate too much. It was glorious.

Yoshida shrine has the largest setsubun festival in Kyoto, and they always have a large lottery with goods from local companies. Prizes vary: sake and food items, household items like glassware, cutlery, electrical appliances like heaters or rice cookers… The main prize was a (small) car.

My friends and I all bought a ticket, and we jokingly agreed to “share” – I wouldn’t know what to do with a car anyway, but the bicycle on the other hand… Sadly, none of us won anything, not even a pack of pickles. Maybe we all should’ve bought more tickets?

Sorry for not posting; despite my best intentions, I was a bit under the weather right after the holidays and now have to play catch up pretty much everywhere. And that although the weather was, so far, rather balmy for the season with 15 degrees and more during the day!

Those days are over, however, today there were even warnings of heavy snowfall in Kyoto until Sunday. And, looking out of the window, it is indeed snowing right now! I hope there will be lots of snow tomorrow morning! Pumpkin is snuggling up to me already, I guess he’ll be sleeping underneath the covers tonight.

The other day, I went out for a little shopping spree. There are two second hand shops nearby that I find hard to resist, and I’m glad they are not directly on my usual way to town.

Anyway, the other day I dropped by both of them. Result: A gorgeous red winter coat in 60% wool that fits me perfectly. And they had sales, so I got it for 50% off, in other words: 500 yen.

At the other store, I found a treat for Pumpkin: A nice and sturdy cat carrier in plastic, in a somewhat ugly brown color, but hey, it’s not meant for decoration. It needed a bit of cleaning, but otherwise, it’s in perfect condition. Price: 1000 yen.

I was so happy about my purchases that I decided to do get some groceries as well. And I dropped 4000 yen on a bag of rice… To be fair, those five kilos will last me several months, but it still hurts. That’s double the price from 2 years ago, and we’re even talking a special offer here!

Oh well, can’t be helped. I’m glad I lost so much weight over the last couple of years, surely that will help with my grocery bill in the long run. Right?

Happy 2026 again!

I had some wonderful days off, perfectly bookended by two BATI-HOLIC concerts on December 27 and January 5. Last year’s concert was especially exciting. Their 2-man show with the Shamisenists – a group with two tsugaru shamisen and one drummer – was practically perfect, even though I was the only one dancing. Not that this is something that needs to be captured on camera. Or shared with a wide audience…

https://x.com/Iris_Reinbacher/status/2008567925167587443

Monday’s concert was a blast too (as you can see above, I’m still dancing), even though the first band was not quite so good. The highlight here was that I could get a BATI-HOLIC T-shirt for more than 80% off since the band is moving to a new practice space and wants to reduce the baggage they have to carry. Also: I fit into an S-size now. Also also: I’m still eyeing some of those half-priced tenugui…

Other than this, the days were very quiet, and comparatively warm for the season. I even took some strolls up my mountain and explored the wider neighborhood.

As for new holiday traditions, I tried toshikoshi soba on New Year’s Eve for the first time. This is a Japanese-style buckwheat noodle soup that is traditionally eaten late at night, when all the preparations for New Year are done. And today, I had a bowl of nanakusa gayu. I tried this dish before, and I have to admit that this time a) I did stoop so low as to just buy a pack of dried herbs and b) it did taste nicer than what I cooked up myself all these years ago. So much for my cooking skills. Ahem.

And now: back to work for realz.

The new rice harvest has arrived and – the prices are now around 4200 yen and beyond (tax not included). Given the price hikes over the last year, I would have been very surprised if rice had become any cheaper, but still, this is a surprise.

However, there were and still are essentially two options of buying cheaper rice. One of them is Calrose rice, rice imported from California. In all the years I spent in Japan, I have never seen foreign rice sold anywhere (except specialty rice like Basmati or Risotto rice in small quantities), so this is definitely new. Generally, Japanese people don’t buy foreign rice (as the country is self-sufficient) and I have heard that, even though this is marketed as “Japanese rice grown in the US”, it is not really up to scratch for Japanese cuisine. I’m not a gourmet, so I probably wouldn’t notice even if I tried.

The other option is the surplus rice from the government. The first I’ve seen arrived in Kyoto only about two months after the official announcement, but it was sold out so quickly, my supermarket had to opt for the “one bag per household” limit. They reappeared sporadically over summer, and I finally managed to get hold of a 5 kg sack a few weeks ago, for the old price of 1980 yen (plus taxes).

I’m glad that rice is just one of the staple foods I eat, I’ve always been a pasta girl, and potatoes and especially bread are on the menu regularly as well. Therefore, I hope that this sack of rice will last me over winter. I guess by then, the government rice will have sold out, and the prices for conventional rice will stay where they are for good. Oh well, can’t be helped.

Last week, I got a surprise email from somebody I lived with at Ebisu’s – all the way back when I first moved to Japan. So, we decided to meet up and as Monday was a holiday with a special free event sponsored by Kyoto Prefecture going on in the Botanical Gardens, this is where we went.

It was lovely to reminiscence a little and talk about the old days and what the future might bring too (maybe she’ll be back in Japan soon?) All the while, we were taking in the scenery. I love the Botanical Gardens!

And, I got a lovely present: Chocolates! I’m not a big fan of dark chocolate, it’s too bitter for me in general. However, there is this exception: Le Daniel Chocolates from Rennes. I have no idea what they are doing, but their chocolates are fabulous, super smooth, not bitter at all, and the fillings… absolutely scrumptious!

And for once, I even managed not to eat the whole box in one go. It seems I’m getting better at restraining myself. Finally.

I’m still busy with my big project, and last week, I went to the library for some “real” research. In other words: I looked up a few scientific articles on my topic that I couldn’t find online.

For all of you who don’t know: Scientists publish their research in journals (after lengthy peer review). These journals are sold to libraries, mostly research libraries of universities, but some other libraries also carry them. Depending on the journal, the libraries get them monthly or quarterly; there are also special editions of conference proceedings.

The latter are usually already bound by the publisher, since they are made available to the participants during the conference (I recommend, just for the smell alone: Springer LNCS – Lecture Notes in Computer Science). The other journals are bound by the libraries themselves into large books containing at least one, but sometimes several, years of a journal’s output. This makes looking at the “real” journal so much more fun than doing it online: You can browse a year of two of it and often discover other papers that are related to your current research.

Now, if you want to see one of those papers, you go to the library and ask for the book they made – journal title, year and volume is usually enough. If you’re lucky, the journals are in open access, so you can just pull them off the shelves. Otherwise, they are somewhere in storage (often underground, books are heavy) and the librarian has to do the picking for you.

In my case, I had to ask a librarian for help, unfortunately. There is something almost magical of wandering among shelves and shelves of volumes that all look the same, their only distinguishing factor the number on the spine. I would’ve loved to do that, but it wasn’t possible. This time.

It was nice to go back to uni, so to speak, and I’m expecting to do more research like this. It is fun and oddly soothing – I guess I’m still a researcher at heart.