Semi-invisible Gaijin

Visiting Tokyo with Kids - Introduction

Published by Marshal Wong

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This is the first of a series of blog posts that I hope will encourage more families to travel to Japan and Tokyo. Along the way, there will probably be digressions into Japanese language and culture as I won’t be able to help myself.

Introduction

As a brief introduction, I lived in Japan for a total of 8 years. From 2012 to 2016, my family, consisting of my wife, my two daughters, and myself lived in Toyosu, Koto-ku1, Tokyo. My two daughters went to a Japanese public school, while I worked, at first, in Tokyo, and then in the next prefecture over, Chiba. In the five years that we were there, we were able to experience life as a Japanese family would, down to me working “salaryman" hours and barely seeing my kids. But that’s for another time.

More importantly, for you, is that we were able to see beyond the tourist areas like Ginza, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya, and Harajuku, and experience Tokyo like a local, with kids. I hope you will be able to get a glimpse of that too in your travels.

Words of Caution

My daughters were six and three when we first arrived in Japan, so my experiences, and most of what I will show you are aimed at the three to eleven year-old age range. If you’re looking for very young or teenage experiences, some locations may work, but I haven’t test-run them. As they say, “your mileage may vary".

Tokyo with Kids - Safety and Stamina

As many people would tell you, Tokyo, and Japan in general, is a relatively safe place to visit, even with kids. While there are relatively a lot of people (with an estimated 9 million people living in 600 some square kilometers that make up the 23 wards), even if you get separated from your kids in the street, it is likely they will end up in some police box (“koban") near by, or right where you left them with some elderly Japanese grandma watching over them (do expect a bit of a scolding from the police or grandma though). I’m not saying that you shouldn’t keep an eye on your kids, but it’s a lot safer than many other places. You can be completely lost in Japan and still be perfectly safe with the people around you trying to help with their horridly poor English.

That being said, it is a big city with lots of bikes, vehicles and trains, so physical safety should still be a your first concern, especially in the train and subway stations, and when walking on the sidewalks. In Japan, bicycles are ridden in the sidewalk generally, so keep an eye out for them.

After safety, the second thing you should consider is physical stamina. As a tourist in Tokyo, you probably won’t be driving. I never drove in all the years I lived there. So there will be a lot of walking. Which means that you may have to deal with tired and whining kids as you walk up and down the stairs to reach the train platforms. It’s even worse if you’re carrying a stroller. There are elevators, but it’s usually faster to take the stairs. I don’t want 30% of your trip being waiting for elevators. Get good walking shoes and start training, because there will be a lot of walking.

If you’re traveling with a stroller, I recommend getting a sturdy but light-weight collapsable stroller. A brand that my Japanese friends swear by is Macleran. We used a Japanese brand call Aprica (sorry, website only in Japanese). You may be carrying them up and down stairs, so keep that in mind when selecting strollers.

The next post will cover getting to Tokyo. Please feel free to leave comments and if there is anything you’d like me to address.

  1. “ku" 「区」 = ward, but is usually translated as “city". Tokyo is not a city, per se, but actually a “to" 「都」(pronounced with a short ‘o’, like the first part of “tow"), or metropolis and more like a prefecture, province or state. Tokyo has 23 wards, which comprise central Tokyo) ↩

4HCwK - Lesson 01 +2 Variation - Jude's Chuck Roast

Published by Marshal Wong

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In the last Four Hour Chef with Kids (“4HCwK") post, I showed us cooking Braised Osso “Buko". As I mentioned, we also prepared the Jude’s Chuck Roast the same day after putting the Osso “Buko" into the oven. My eldest doesn’t like lamb, so we needed an alternative.

This recipe is stupidly easy.

Ingredients we used:
(See 4HC for full recipe and alternates)

approximately 1kg of pot roast
1 can of beef broth
1 can of onion soup
1 can of beef consommé

Tim’s recipe calls for 15oz / 425g cans of each of the soups. Things are bigger in America, as I could only find 284mL (9oz) cans at Safeway in Canada. But this worked out perfectly as the recipe has two options, using a slow cooker or using a Dutch oven. We had neither available (I only have 1 Dutch oven, which was already in use), so we used a casserole dish with lid. The casserole dish is much shallower than the Dutch oven, so we couldn’t put as much liquid in. The main thing to remember about braising is to have the liquid cover 1/2 to 3/4 of the item being braised. (I almost said meat there, but you can braise vegetables also)

Prep

Step 00 - Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C)

Step 01 - Get your meez ready



Pickup

Step 00 - Put roast in Dutch oven (or in our case the casserole dish)

Probably not that way though…

Better.

Step 01 - Pour 1 can each of broth, soup and consommé over the meat.

Consommé

Make sure to have a good sniff. Just don’t cut yourself on the open can!

Actually pouring now.

French Onion Soup


Beef Stock

As you can see, the casserole dish was already filling up, so we just poured enough beef stock to cover over 1/2 of the meat.


Step 03 - Cover and bake for 2 1/2 - 3 hours.

At the end of the day, our spread looked like this:

The Jude’s Chuck Roast is in the Chinese noodle bowl.

The great thing about these two recipes are that they are so easy. I asked the kids to recall how they made them, and they could pretty much recite back the recipe. Of course snapping the carrots with their hands was their favorite part.

Lessons Learned

  • It’s a lot of food. I’m still eating left-overs and it’s the following Friday (we cooked this on a Sunday).
  • I would braise the beef longer even. There were still some connective tissue that was a bit tough.
  • It would have been interesting to try adding three halved cloves of garlic and 10 peeled cupollini onions to see how it would change the flavor.


Four Hour Chef with Kids - Lesson 01 - Braising Osso "Buko"

Published by Marshal Wong

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I am working my way through Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Chef (“4HC"). However, I also have a family with two kids, which I am trying to raise in a way that will prepare them for when they are older. One thing that I believe that all human beings should learn, is how to cook. So why not combine the two together, I thought. If the idea is that anyone can do it, then why not have kids try to learn. Sunday was my first attempt at this, and with the braising recipes almost idiot proof, I gave it a go.

We made both (Osso “Buko" and Jade’s Chuck Roast) braises, since my older daughter does not like the smell of lamb. For this post, I will cover the Osso “Buko", which we prepared first. Given than the Beef Braise takes longer, if I were to do it again, I would have done the beef first.

Ingredients we used:
(See 4HC for full recipe and alternates)

4 lamb shanks
1 bunch carrots
1 can whole San Marzano tomatoes
3-finger pinch of garlic powder
2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (“EVOO")
1/3 bottle of dry white wine
Salt and Pepper (“S+P") to taste

Prep

Step 00 - Defrost meat. Our meat was not frozen, so we didn’t have to defrost.

Step 01.1 - Wash the carrots


My older daughter is using a peeling sponge that we bought from Japan.

Step 01.2 - Practice holding your knife. Remember pinch the blade.

My younger daughter has a tendency to have her index finger along the top of the blade, like how you would hold a dinner knife, so we need to practice holding a chef’s knife. The smaller blade is a “practice" blade from Japan. It’s a bit dull but still cuts. My eldest has cut herself a few time cutting with that blade when she was younger, so maybe leave 4HC with kids until at least age 8 or so.


Step 01.3 - Cut the ends off of the carrots and then snap them in half with your hands

It helps if you have nice crispy carrots so they actually snap.


Step 02 - Get your meez ready

From left to right: lamb shanks, canned whole tomatoes, garlic powder in the small glass bowl, white wine, EVOO, salt, pepper, carrots on the chopping board.


Pickup

Step 00 - Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Place a PanSaver, if using, in the Dutch oven.
I couldn’t find PanSavers at the Safeway closest to home, but the roasting bags are essentially the same thing.

(hmm, I wonder how those carrots got in there first…)

Step 01 - Place the carrots in the pot to create a bed for the meat to rest on.


Step 02 - Add the 4 lamb shanks


Step 03 - Open the tomato can and crush the tomatoes.
For safety, we poured the can out before crushing.



The original recipe calls for squishing the tomatoes with one hand before dropping them into the Dutch oven. Unfortunately, I could only get San Marzano tomatoes canned in puree, so just dumped the crushed tomatoes along with the puree over the meat. Our final result had a lot more sauce than what Tim’s picture showed. Next time, I will have to try just pulling the tomatoes out of the can.


Step 04 - Sprinkle in the 3-finger pinch for garlic powder, although for the younger ones, it may be a 4-finger pinch.


Step 05 - Drizzle in about 2T of EVOO. Not sweating about precision, so it’s a good opportunity for kids to practice their guesstimating.


Step 06 - Add enough white wine to cover 1/2 to 3/4 of the meat. Don’t cover completely.


Step 07 - Add pepper and salt.
I don’t have a pepper grinder, so it's a few shakes from the jar.


The salt is also another time to practice the 3-finger pinch.


Step 08 - Cover the pot, put in oven, and come back 2 hours later.


Before being put in the oven.


Step 09 - Enjoy!


Lessons Learned

As you can see from the above, there is a lot of juice/sauce, which may be from the tomato puree in the jar. Next time, if I can use just tomatoes, I think that would be better.

My wife, who enjoys lamb, said that it could use a little bit more flavor, like having rosemary added to it. The recipe as it is written still ends up with a very game-y flavor which can turn off some people. So adding rosemary might help.


Four Hour Chef with Kids - Lesson 01 - Braising Osso "Buko"

Published by Marshal Wong

Permalink

I am working my way through Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Chef (“4HC"). However, I also have a family with two kids, which I am trying to raise in a way that will prepare them for when they are older. One thing that I believe that all human beings should learn, is how to cook. So why not combine the two together, I thought. If the idea is that anyone can do it, then why not have kids try to learn. Sunday was my first attempt at this, and with the braising recipes almost idiot proof, I gave it a go.

We made both (Osso “Buko" and Jude’s Chuck Roast) braises, since my older daughter does not like the smell of lamb. For this post, I will cover the Osso “Buko", which we prepared first. Given than the beef braise takes longer, if I were to do it again, I would have done the beef first.

Ingredients we used:
(See 4HC for full recipe and alternates)

4 lamb shanks
1 bunch carrots
1 can whole San Marzano tomatoes
3-finger pinch of garlic powder
2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil (“EVOO")
1/3 bottle of dry white wine
Salt and Pepper (“S+P") to taste

Prep

Step 00 - Defrost meat. Our meat was not frozen, so we didn’t have to defrost.

Step 01.1 - Wash the carrots


My older daughter is using a peeling sponge that we bought from Japan.

Step 01.2 - Practice holding your knife. Remember pinch the blade.

My younger daughter has a tendency to have her index finger along the top of the blade, like how you would hold a dinner knife, so we needed to practice holding a chef’s knife. The smaller blade is a “practice" blade from Japan. It’s a bit dull but still cuts. My eldest has cut herself a few time cutting with that blade when she was younger, so maybe leave 4HC with kids until at least age 8 or so.


Step 01.3 - Cut the ends off of the carrots and then snap them in half with your hands

It helps if you have nice crispy carrots so they actually snap.


Step 02 - Get your meez ready

From left to right: lamb shanks, canned whole tomatoes, garlic powder in the small glass bowl, white wine, EVOO, salt, pepper, carrots on the chopping board.


Pickup

Step 00 - Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C). Place a PanSaver, if using, in the Dutch oven.
I couldn’t find PanSavers at the Safeway closest to home, but the roasting bags are essentially the same thing.

(hmm, I wonder how those carrots got in there first…)

Step 01 - Place the carrots in the pot to create a bed for the meat to rest on.


Step 02 - Add the 4 lamb shanks


Step 03 - Open the tomato can and crush the tomatoes.
For safety, we poured the can out before crushing.



The original recipe calls for squishing the tomatoes with one hand before dropping them into the Dutch oven. Unfortunately, I could only get San Marzano tomatoes canned in puree, so just dumped the crushed tomatoes along with the puree over the meat. Our final result had a lot more sauce than what Tim’s picture showed. Next time, I will have to try just pulling the tomatoes out of the can.


Step 04 - Sprinkle in the 3-finger pinch for garlic powder, although for the younger ones, it may be a 4-finger pinch.


Step 05 - Drizzle in about 2T of EVOO. Not sweating about precision, so it’s a good opportunity for kids to practice their guesstimating.


Step 06 - Add enough white wine to cover 1/2 to 3/4 of the meat. Don’t cover completely.


Step 07 - Add pepper and salt.
I don’t have a pepper grinder, so it's a few shakes from the jar.


The salt is also another time to practice the 3-finger pinch.


Step 08 - Cover the pot, put in oven, and come back 2 hours later.


Before being put in the oven.


Step 09 - Enjoy!


Lessons Learned
As you can see from the above, there is a lot of juice/sauce, which may be from the tomato puree in the jar. Next time, if I can use just tomatoes, I think that would be better.

My wife, who enjoys lamb, said that it could use a little bit more flavor, like having rosemary added to it. The recipe as it is written still ends up with a very game-y flavor which can turn off some people. So adding rosemary might help.


Starting up again in 2016

Published by Marshal Wong

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I had quit my job in November of 2014 with the intention of spending time freelancing and creating a startup. That did not happen. Around the time I made the decision to quit, a former client of mine asked me to join them as a consultant acting as their interim controller. It is now February 2016 and I'm still there. I have also lined up my next job back in Canada to start in September.

So obviously the blogging full time and startup idea is not flying. This is for various reasons. I do have a family, and my wife does not work full-time or make enough to support us, so I remain the main breadwinner.

That doesn't mean I have given up on the whole thing. Seth Godin in Tim Ferriss' podcast suggests that everyone should blog and publish. Write to come up with original ideas and publish to maintain intellectual integrity, i.e., if you contradict yourself, there is no hiding from it. Seth also recommends writing, even poorly, until you start writing not so poorly.

So no guarantees that I will have anything interesting or original to say for the first little while (or ever) but one must start. And feel free to call me out on any intellectual dishonesty.

Till next time,

Marshal

Sanrio Puroland

Published by Marshal Wong

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For those with young kids and those young at heart with a liking for all things cute, you can't really go wrong with Sanrio Puroland.

My family and I went there with my older daughter’s ballet teacher the other weekend. I expected it to be super-kitsch like a Chinese knock-off of Disneyland, but was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining it was. Maybe my standards are low, but I felt it held the right combination of cute and substance to keep both parents and kids entertained. More Pixar and “New Disney" (Brave, Rapunzel, etc.) than “Old Disney" (Snow White, Cinderella).

For example, we watched the show "Hello Kitty in Wonderland" where Hello Kitty goes off to Lewis Carroll’s fantasy world. The story is very basic with the antagonist “Joker" AKA “Black Rose" stealing the Queen of Heart’s heart and crown. Hello Kitty saving the day. Song and dance. Etc., etc. Given that half of the intended audience is under the age of 5, this is probably all that’s really needed. However, the other half also got things like
  • the King of Hearts leaving the Queen of Hearts to go on a Hawai’ian golf vacation causing the Queen much sadness and loneliness,
  • the Queen of Hearts keeping herself youthful through the magic of her crown,
  • a cross-dressing, cross-dressing character, i.e., a man playing a Takarazuka (宝塚) (the all-female Japanese musical theatre troupe) playing an otokoyaku (男役) or male role, and
  • lines like the Queen’s “because I have no heart!" when asked why she was so mean in asking Hello Kitty for her heart back.
There was a very amusing prelude to the “Hello Kitty in Wonderland" show. The show was written and produced in collaboration with Takarazuka, and is probably expected to be a child’s first introduction to Takarazuka. There was an instructional video about when and how you should clap during the final dance segments after the end of the musical proper. At first, I thought it was just giving the principles. “When Hello Kitty pauses at the end of the dance, CLAP!" “When the kick-line is going, clap with the beat!" But then it kept going! “When Hello Kitty and Daniel pose after their pair dance, CLAP!" “When Granny and Grandpa Kitty pose after their pair dance, CLAP!" “When Kyle poses after his tap dance routine, CLAP!" And, on and on and on through all the dance numbers for what felt like ten minutes, or at least long enough for me and the ballet teacher to fine it amusing and all the kids in the theatre to completely lose interest. It was one of those “Man, Japanese like order" moments, similar to the climbing wall with all the climbing holds arranged in a grid that my friend Brian and I found while running through Atami.

Hello Kitty in Wonderland - Japanese with English and Chinese subtitles on side screens

Other events and attractions we visited:
  • My Melody & The Legend of Star and Flower show - Japanese only
  • Sanrio Character Boat ride - be warned that there are some ups and it looks like it’s going to “Splash Mountain" you, but it’s all pretty flat.
  • My Melody & Kuromi - Mymeroad Drive - get ready to have your picture multiple times on this ride!
  • Little Twin Stars (Kiki & Lala) Twinkling tour - visit the Little Twin Stars house. After playing the “Pop the bubbles and collect the animals" game, it’ll take your picture. Scan the QR code to see the picture online.
  • Lady Kitty House - visit Hello Kitty’s mansion and get your picture taken with Hello Kitty.
  • 'Omoiyari (Consideration) To You’ Parade - if you want a good spot, be like the Japanese and camp out a little early.

Food

We only ate at the food court. While pricey (over 1,000 yen for a meal), the volume made up for it. We were thinking that they would be kids meals like, so ordered one meal each for our daughters. It ended up being too much, which meant that I was extremely full after eating my meal and the remainder of my daughters’. It was a lot of rice.

Kitty Burger Waiwai (noisily exciting) Plate with souvenir plate (1,500 yen)

Hello Kitty Mogumogu (munching) Curry (1,000 yen)
Notice Hello Kitty’s ham bowtie.

Left: Ome-rice (1,000 yen?)
Right: Fairy Tale Katsu Curry (1,000 yen)

Kid’s Curry (680 yen)

My Melody Bun (meat bun) (300 yen)

There are other dining options, including a buffet where the characters will come and visit your table.

All in all, it was a fun day.

Sanrio Puroland
Website: English or 日本語
Station: Keio Tama Center (京王線多摩センター駅)
Price:
Weekdays - Adults - 3,300 yen, Children (3-17) - 2,500 yen
Weekends - Adults - 3,800 yen, Children (3-17) - 2,700 yen
However, you can save 100 yen per ticket by buying online through Puroland's website.

Save even more by buying the tickets ahead of time at a Sanrio Shop!
Adults - 3,000 yen, Children (3-17) - 2,000 yen
List of stores (Japanese only, sorry)
Some stores may not sell tickets, but for sure the Hello Kitty Japan store in Odaiba does.

Quit my Job, Started a Blog

Published by Marshal Wong

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Earlier this month, I informed my partner at my firm that I had decided to leave. I have been with the firm for over 9 years and had never given any indication to anyone that I wanted to go, beside one senior manager. Needless to say, he was surprised. I’m not a vocal complainer and tend to keep to myself, so there weren’t any rumours about me going around. I also try to be a high-performer regardless of whether I’m satisfied with work or not, so there was no indicators on that front neither.

Probably due to my poor Japanese and to the fact that I really don't have a ’traditionally acceptable’ reason to leave (such as a definite better opportunity), I wasn't able to explain to the partner, nor to the more English-proficient senior manager why I had arrived at this decision.

So WHY HAVE I? Or better yet, how have I tricked myself into thinking that this is the best choice for now?

You can probably blame it on Tim Ferriss and The Four-hour Workweek. In the book he defines “laziness" as “to endure a non-ideal existence, to let circumstance or others decide life for you, or to amass a fortune while passing through life like a spectator from an office window." (Let’s ignore the fact that we’ve just defined a verb while “laziness" is a noun. You get the idea.) I have gotten lazy and the best way out was to create a fire under my ass, like not having a steady income.

Since graduating from university, I have always wanted to own a business. My parents owned their own business and I saw and experienced the benefits such as accrual of all benefits - i.e., if you work harder and the business makes more money, then all that accrues to the owner, as opposed to busting your ass as an employee to pay for your bosses’ golfing habit. I also saw the disadvantages, such as being tied to the business and never being able to step away, like I saw happen to my dad. However, I chose to get married at 26, have kids, study to be an accountant and got a job at my current firm. To keep everyone (wife, in-laws, maybe parents) happy, I put aside the “owning a business" plan to be a responsible husband, father and main breadwinner.

The first few years were tight and there wasn’t much to spare with a mortgage and kids, so I focused on working hard. The result was that the pay check grew until it passed the "Happiness point". Then Maslow’s hierarchy of needs kicks in and self-actualisation started becoming more important. I thought I was good at what I did, but I was just good, not great. In my time outside of work, I was learning stuff more interesting than what I was doing at work. Along with the hours (which made me feel guilty about missing my kids' childhood, something I promised myself that I would not do), and stress, there was a growing discomfort and boredom with my job.

You're probably thinking that starting and owning my own business still won't help with the hours, and you are right. The business may become my job and I will spend all my time dealing with it. However, The Four-hour Workweek, along with The E-Myth, shows ways to minimize this. It is a risk that I am willing to take for the benefits of being in control. And I figure, if it gets too much, I can always just call it quits and go back to a job.

Of course, owning the business is just the means. The ultimate goal is to start really enjoying life, NOW, while I’m young and can take advantage of the energy I have. There are so many other things that I want to do, learn and experience that it would be a waste to spend it tied to a location and a job. I know it can be done. Others have done so. So the question is, “Can I (and my family) do it?"

So I quit my job to try to really start living and enjoying life. I started this blog hoping that you’ll join the journey with me. There will also be many side trips along the way about, mostly about Japan. Any comments and ideas you care to share will just make it that much more interesting.
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Marshal Wong

Marshal Wong

Chinese-Canadian. Lived 8 years in Japan. From the outside, I look Japanese (more so than my Japanese wife). I also really like certain aspects of Japanese culture, particularly taiko, matsuri, Shinto, and go. But there are times where I'm sure I drive the natives mad... Views expressed are my own.

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