Where to find eggnog in Tokyo

The best thing about making eggnog for 50 people is when the checkout ladies at the grocery store try to guess what you might be doing with all those eggs and all that cream. "Are you making some... cake?" Once I explain what eggnog is, they want all the details. Is it served warm or cold? In a mug, juice glass, wine glass? They ask a million questions, repeat all the ingredients like they're going to be tested on it later, and then one goes in the back and brings out a half dozen new containers of cream, saying they're fresher than what's on the shelf and will be more delicious.
It's the first time they've ever said a word to me beyond "Do you have your point card?" and "Here is your change." They wave as I leave, still chatting and laughing to each other.

I use this easy eggnog recipe with great results every time. It tastes good after sitting overnight, and the second (and third) batch whipped up in the middle of the party is great right away, too. Cheers!

Ho Ho Home invasion Santa

Japan doesn't really have chimneys, because Japan doesn't really have central heating. That has some nice results, like cozy evenings cuddled up with the electric carpet or under the kotatsu, and some unpleasant results, like GAH it's freezing in here! But the most important unexpected consequence is that Santa has nothing to slide down. And so he climbs up. Santa-on-a-ladder is something of a decorating theme around here. Here are a few I've seen around the neighborhood. Send your pics along if you'd like to add or link them!

Stumbling unawares toward an oncoming train

Now this is what December posters are meant to be about. Tokyo Metro warns that some 60 percent of platform injuries involve alcohol. (Is that all?)
Someone on Twitter (I'm sorry, please tell me if you remember who it was) points out that he's so drunk he's about to get himself accidentally killed, but not so drunk that he'd forget to bring a little gift.

Cellphones!? Where are the drunks!?

"Do you have to use your mobile phone here?"

I could have sworn the last four Decembers were mannerized with posters about drinking and/or being drunk on the train. It's no coincidence. In December, everyone is drinking and/or drunk on the train. It's a thing. So what's with the ever-green cell-phone scolding!?

What's with the trash!?

"Why is there trash here? The train is not a garbage can."

I was out of the country at the beginning of the month when the posters changed. (I'm squeaking it in here under the wire for the Tokyo Metro manners posters completists out there!) You do see the occasional bottle or wrapper on the trains in Tokyo. On the whole, though, Japanese public spaces have a few orders of magnitude less litter and grime than comparable public spaces in US cities. It's weird, getting back to the states; until your eyes adjust, you see little problems everywhere that seem easily fixed. "Why don't they repave those dangerous potholes!?" you think. "Why hasn't this paint been touched up in the last 20 years!? Who let the shelves at the grocery store get so untidy!?" And, "Oh my god you have got to be kidding me, why is the cashier waving around the wine chiller she's ringing up for me and shouting at the woman at the next register that she would like one of these for her birthday which is in three weeks and none of y'all better forget!?"
After a few days, though, questions like "Why is there trash here!?" start to seem pointless, and you stop noticing the blemishes. Until, that is, you get back to Tokyo and a piece of garbage out of place seems noteworthy again.
If history is any guide, December's poster will be about public drunkenness. Check back soon!

Wonderful Life with the Elements

What we really want to know about an element - how do I say it in Japanese, and will it make my voice sound funny?

I was excited when No Starch press offered to send a copy of Bunpei Yorifuji's Wonderful Life with the Elements to check out. The book is a delight! Am I supposed to be objective? I don't know, I've never done a book review before. My sense is that I'm supposed to say if I liked it or not, and I did. The drawings are charming (I wonder how many Bunpei character tattoos there are out there?) and the information in it is deceptively rich. I can imagine this book could capture the imagination of a kid at just the right moment, when they're deciding whether to stick with chemistry or write it off as something they'll never really get.

My high school chemistry teacher used to warn everyone to keep both feet firmly planted inside the chemistry train and hold on tight, because "the chemistry train keeps chugging along, and once you fall off, it's real hard to get back on!" He'd check in with everyone from time to time, asking, "Okay? You still on board? How many atoms in a mole? Right! Don't fall off!" I pretty much stayed on, at least through the second semester of organic, in college. (Isn't that enough?) I was never particularly into Japan or Japanese stuff in high school or most of college. If I had been, though? I probably would have papered my dorm room with the pages of this book.

I wrote more about Elements on Japan Pulse, where I am now editing more than writing.

Kinmokusei 金木犀: this is what that smell is

Japan smells like perfume for a few weeks in the fall. The reason is the fragrant olive tree, or kinmokusei in Japanese. It has dark,　pointed oval leaves like a regular olive tree and clusters of little bright orange flowers. I don't remember ever smelling this at home. The sweet smell was so strong in my neighborhood in Miyazaki that it was almost nauseating on warm evenings. I wondered if it's ever actually used in perfume.
It turns out that it is used as a fragrance, but not very often. And this is not without reason—from the 70's to the mid-90's, kinmokusei was the only game in town when it came to toilet deodorizers. For the majority of Japanese people old enough to remember, the smell is too closely associated with bathrooms to be repurposed. Way to ruin nature!
It seems like this may be changing, though, as other scents like lavender and soap take over bathroom duty. I bought some hand cream the other day, a fall-only limited fragrance called Osmanthus. It smelled nice, but not familiar. I gave some to a coworker to try, and she looked up the name and said "Ohhhh, of course! Kinmokusei! You know that tree, right? Everyone knows that tree!"

Mister Softee is parked in Tokyo

Chocolate banana, off the secret menu

Mister Softee has joined Auntie Anne's, Ben &Jerry's, and Bubby's in conspiring to keep me well (poorly) fed in Tokyo. (Yes, there's a new-ish Wendy's, but I don't really care about it and its foie gras stuntburgers. Which, incidentally, may not be doing so well, as they had people standing on the street handing out coupons this weekend. You heard it here first!) I helped our writer put a little story about it on Japan Pulse, and then I headed over to see the place for myself over the weekend. I expected a certain dissonance in seeing that classic logo nestled among expensive Italian chocolate-covered figs, but it worked. The woman who runs it, Andrea Fisher, was very friendly and totally impressive. There's a long version of her story, but the short version is that she loves ice cream and brought Mister Softee here by sheer determination. She's also a Julliard-trained flautist and runs her own bag company and didn't stop driving her ice cream truck around Brooklyn even when an angry Armenian slashed her tires. (Alex and I left feeling excited by the reminder that there are people out there getting stuff done in a big way and more guilty than ever about our own little unfocused projects.) She's coming up with new flavors to make in their fancy mix-in machine every day. She told us a few of the ones she's working on to add to the lineup of berry, cactus and apple pie. There's one in particular in the works that I don't think I'm supposed to reveal. But I have a feeling that once she starts selling it, you'll hear about it.

Hanging with Ernesto Neto in Tokyo

This is not Ernesto Neto.

We found some very cool art to climb around in. It's a huge installation by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto hanging above, of all places, the Louis Vuitton store in Omotesando. Not exactly a place that conjures images of taking your shoes off and giggling in mid-air. You feel like you've stumbled into the lair of a space spider.
It's open til the beginning of January. And it's free! Gorgeous sunset view.
Pop into the the Louis Vuitton shop and hang a very, very quick right to get to the elevator that goes right to the Espace Louis Vuitton gallery.
Thanks to Jason Jenkins for the tip!

Death (flowers) in the cemetery

How appropriate.

I walk through Aoyama Cemetery one or two mornings a week, sometimes three. I love it. There's no place where I more consistently feel gratitude for my life here. Starting simply with being on the right side of the marble slabs. And from there to everything else: that my legs and feet and knees are cool with walking a few kilometers, that it's a pretty route, that I have a job to walk to, that it's work I enjoy that pays well, that my friendly co-worker keeps the office stocked with fresh boxes of cookies. And there's the cemetery itself. I like knowing I could take a slightly different path through it every day and not run out of variations for a long, long time. I love how it smells a little different each time I'm there, with something new always sprouting or withering. This week the hell flowers were in bloom. I'd forgotten about discovering the flowers of the dead for the first time last year until I stumbled over them near a few graves. They appear suddenly and die fast. 

Catching an unexpected glimpse of them is just one more thing to be happy about in the cemetery.