Tonynet Explorer

While I was in Tokyo this week, my colleague, friend, and ramen fiend K1 (his name is actually Keiichiro, but since ichiro means one in Japanese, he goes by "K1") took a few of us to his absolute favorite ramen place -- Ramen Jirou.

As it turns out, this shop has a cult-like following among the Japanese. Ramen Jirou is completely different from other ramen places I've been like Ippudo or Kyushu Jangara (some purists don't even consider it to be ramen.) People have compared the place to the restaurant of "Soup Nazi" fame. To begin with, the branch we went to kind of dirty, more like something I'd expect in Beijing, not Tokyo.

There's nothing to order besides ramen -- no gyoza and if you want something to drink besides water, you can buy it from the machine outside. There are only a few seats, and often a half-hour line. You sit when a seat opens up -- no waiting for enough room for your party.

There's only one basic menu choice -- a super-rich pork-based soup with thick and dense noodles (vs. the thin ramen noodles or lighter udon noodels), a few slices of pork, and a pile of cabbage and bean spouts mounded on top. It has none of the classic ramen toppings, no egg, no menma (pickled bamboo shoots), no cod roe. It's not a really visually attractive bowl frankly -- kind of monochromatic and slopped in vs. the carefully composed look of most Japanese food. The only choices are whether you want a big or small bowl with extra meat or not. You buy a chit from a machine that specifies your preference. I ordered a small bowl with a normal amount of noodles and meat. It was 600 yen, a little over USD$6.00.

When the chef hands you the bowl, you specify whether you want garlic, vegetables, more pork fat, and additional soy sauce (K1 says it's too salty with additional soy sauce). You have to order in a specific way, like ordering a latte at Starbucks, or you will be met with derision. (I had to memorize the order in Japanese before I sat down; naturally I had it with everything except the additional soy sauce. You say "yasai, niniku, abura" for "vegetable, garlic, fat") Once the bowl arrives, you eat silently, seemingly as fast as you can. Once complete, you put the bowl on the upper counter, wipe off the counter, and leave quickly.

OMG -- it was fantastic and unlike anything I had ever had. The soup was amazingly rich and tasty with blobs of pork fat suspended in the soup. The noodles were dense and chewy, the meat tender, and the veggies added enough crunch and variety to balance the thing out. A few shakes of white pepper kicked it up even a little more. I slurped up my bowl in a few minutes with a huge grin on my face. There's nothing subtle about it. Just pure porky goodness.

K1 has described the various stages of Ramen Jirou addiction. Early on, other ramens taste wimpy. Apparently at the last stage (the one he's in), you can't think of anything else. He dreams of Jirou incessantly and goes there first whenever he lands in Japan. It's not just K1. There are a lot of write-ups on Ramen Jirou including an NPR story, a CNN article, a Guardian UK article declaring it one of the 50 best things to eat in the world, and more.

I'm fast on my way toward Ramen Jirou addition too.

Some pix:

The line outside Ramen Jirou. All of the official branches have this yellow awning sign.

The scene inside as I look longingly from outside. There are a few few seats at the L-shaped counter and two people working inside.
 

This is the machine you order from. The row on top are the small bowls, the lower row is the large bowl. The choice on the right is extra meat.

The master at work. He kind of just slops everything into the bowls. You can see the sliced pork at the bottom.

The bowl of happiness. It doesn't look like much, but damn, it's good.

As I mentioned in a post a long time ago, my family and I love the Motoyama Milk Bar in the Roppongi Hills mall in Tokyo. Since I'm in Tokyo right now, I thought I'd stop by for a lovely coffee milk and to bring some of their luscious caramels back to my loving family (who would love me a lot more if I brought back Motoyama caramels, I assure you.)

Imagine my surprise when I saw it was closed. Out of business. Kaput. The sign  on the left basically said, "Thanks. Really thanks. We closed on January 17. If you have questions, call this number xxx."

Goodbye, MMB! I will always remember your flan, those cute little milk jars, and your cute waitresses...

The boys are way into Chuck Norris jokes these days; apparently they're all the rage right now at school (last year it was "your momma" jokes).

Andrew (12) generally gets the genre and has come back from school with a few good ones like "Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice." or "When Chuck Norris jumps into the water, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Chuck Norris'ed."

Michael (9) doesn't quite understand what makes these funny but is still trying to make up jokes, like "Chuck Norris doesn't rob banks. He just walks in and they give him the money." We'll have to keep working on this with him.

Here's a list of funny ones I found. A few of my favorites:

"Chuck Norris doesn't breath. He holds air hostage."

"When the boogeyman goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris."

As you've all undoubtedly heard by now, Google has decided to (someday) to stop filtering search results for sensitive content in China. They're apparently trying to help people in China circumvent the firewall through the ads they show too. As you can see below, there's an ad in the China Daily for a VPN (virtual private network -- a way to "tunnel" your internet connection out of China through another country). Even better, the ad was shown on an article about this spat between Google and the Chinese gov't (which the Chinese gov't doesn't seem to care too much about.)

Coincidence?

Although I thought winter had past (we had a few warm days already), we got a bunch of icy snow last night. After the snow here, armies of people set out to clear the sidewalks using shovels and brooms. Here's a shot of the action in front of my office building this morning. You can see the big brooms made of clumps of twigs tied together. Not many people use sand and salt on sidewalks because of the cost. (The crews who clear the roads use snowplows, sand, and salt -- more like the crews in the US.) I saw this scene repeated dozens of times in front of shops and office buildings on my way into work this morning.

As I've pointed out before, it’s interesting to see how Western media (Australia, in this case) and Chinese media portray the same issue. Here are two articles on the same event – new changes in how individuals can register websites in China.

The Age shows this as a new restriction in the Chinese internet while the China Daily shows this as a loosening of a previously tightened rule. Both seem factually correct, but the tone and interpretation are different.

As I mentioned before, it's probably best to read multiple news sources and form your own opinions.

The article from The Age:

China launches strict new Internet controls

February 23, 2010 - 9:35PM

China's technology ministry moved to tighten controls on Internet use Tuesday, saying individuals who want to operate Web sites must first meet in person with regulators.

The state-sanctioned group that registers domain names in China froze registrations for new individual Web sites in December after state media complained that not enough was being done to check whether sites provided pornographic content.

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that ban was being lifted, but would-be operators would now have submit their identity cards and photos of themselves as well as meet in person with regulators and representatives of service providers before their sites could be registered.

It said the rule was aimed at cracking down on pornography.

China has the world's biggest online population, with 384 million Internet users. The government operates the world's most extensive system of Web monitoring and filtering, blocking pornographic sites as well as those seen as subversive to communist rule.

The new regulations come as the government is in talks with Google Inc. about whether the U.S.-based Internet giant will be allowed to continue operating in China after saying in January it would no longer cooperate with the country's Web censorship. The two sides have given no details of the status of their discussions.

Chinese authorities have launched repeated crackdowns on online pornography and the government says nearly 5,400 people were detained last year.

The article from China Daily:

China resumes individuals' website registrations

By Zhao Chunzhe (chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-02-23 14:12

Individuals in China are now allowed to apply for websites, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, but applicants are requested to hand in a full-color photo, cnr.cn reported today.

The administration said both companies and individuals are allowed to register a website. Authorities will evaluate an applicant’s information in 20 weekdays and keep the information secret, the report said.

Individuals' domain name registration was called off December 14, 2009 in fighting against pornographic websites.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post on Chinese New Year fireworks in Beijing, the action is fast and furious and often very close to buildings. Last night, The Place, a shopping mall across the street from our apartment put on an hour-long show in the bike lane directly in front of their buildings. We watched from our apartment for a while, then Andrew (12) and I went down to the street to get a front-row view.

It was absolutely nutty as you can see from the photos. The flaming bits regularly hit the buildings with some parts flying up over the buildings on nearby rooftops. I suppose it's not a real danger, but it did give me pause. I don't think you'd ever see this in the US; maybe we're just too wimpy...

View from our apartment:

At street level you can see how close these are to the buildings.

This is a 1/90th second shot (pretty short for fireworks shots). You can see how bright it got. Lots of boom.

Andrew really enjoyed watching the fireworks up close.

I saw this on one of my co-worker's Facebook profile. It caught me a bit by surprise, although I guess it shouldn't.

Happy Tiger New Year! (Oh, and Happy Valentines Day too!) We spent New Year's Eve in our apartment in Beijing this year. The fireworks were absolutely crazy. They started around 6:00pm and kept going until well past 2:00am, non-stop.

There are no "official" fireworks shows like you'd think of them in the US. These are just random people who buy fireworks at the million fireworks tents that pop-up around Beijing near CNY. They drag their load onto random street corners and then light them off. As you can see from the photos and video below, these are often pretty serious shows, very close to buildings. You can buy a "show-in-a-box" for around $75-150 USD or maybe even higher; light one fuse and the step back.

I imagine the scene was repeated on virtually every block in Beijing (if not more, since we live in an area with lots of expats and hotels.) Spring Festival lasts two weeks, so we have a lot more fireworks to go...

This was probably the coolest set of the night, next to our apartment.

We were pretty much right underneath this one.

Here's Michael (9) playing with a sparkler.

Here's video I shot from our apartment at midnight. You can hear a roar in the background; that's from fireworks going off all around us. The big dark spot in the scene is a construction pit, so we have an even better view of the mayhem near by. The light colored building in the middle of the scene is the Shangri-La Kerry Centre Hotel.

Last night, Michelle, our good friend Stacy, and I went to Apothecary, a hot new-ish bar in Beijing. It's in Nali Patio (next to Mosto) in the expat-friendly Sanlitun area.

The place has a clean feel with good service and nice jazz and standards filling the air. The drinks are definitely the highlight, with a strong emphasis on classic drinks made well. The menu is a delight, with nice explanations of the drinks. I had a great Manhattan, a stellar Old Fashioned (with Old Overholt -- kind of a nice twist) over one of the now-ubiquitous hand-shaved round ice balls, and an equally great something else or another (now lost to the drink haze). The ladies' drinks were equally well made and perfect.

The food was a bit mixed. Stacy and I shared a really delicious pork pate po boy (Michelle doesn't like pate) -- it was well-balanced with just enough pickled veggies to add a little bite to the pate. The beef sliders were probably the best burgers we've had in Beijing so far; we ordered a second plate of these -- great beef on sweet potato buns. Again, nicely balanced with a perfect proportion of meat and bun with just enough pickley stuff to kick it up a bit. Unfortunately, the gumbo and red beans and rice were terrible; they were bland, blended smooth like baby food, and served as almost a veneer or topping on too much rice. I'm biased towards Michelle's stellar Southern cooking, no doubt, but this was not good.

Fortunately, the drinks more than made up for the spotty food. We'll definitely go back for drinks and snacks.

3/F, Nali Patio, 81 Sanlitun Beilu, Sanlitun
三里屯北路81号那里花园3层4
5208-6040

(Note: they open at 7pm. We thought they opened at 6:00 and wound up milling around for a while.)

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I may need to start writing letters again just to send stuff with the upcoming Calvin & Hobbes stamps on them. Awesome.

For more on this and the other comic book stamps coming, check out the article from Comics Alliance.

I'm a big fan of the Bird's Nest Stadium (even though they're not quite sure what to do with it now.) I think it's a lovely piece of architecture, especially from inside the shell. Here are a few shots I took earlier.

Last year, I wrote about the icy fun Beijingers enjoy on the frozen lakes here. This year, we decided to try it out ourselves. We had a rare combination of a warm (for a Beijing winter anyway) sunny day with clear skies (read: little pollution) -- perfect for day of riding ice chairs at Houhai (a lake near the Forbidden City). It's a picturesque area surrounded by old Chinese buildings including the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower (see in the pix below.)

Our driver gave us a great tip -- avoid the first two skating areas (first one is too small/crowded, the second is primarily for ice skaters) -- so we headed straight for the third and last skating area. We bought three tickets for 10RMB (about USD$1.50) to get on the ice and another 40RMB for unlimited use of two ice chairs (plus a deposit of 80RMB each to make sure we returned the chairs.)

As you can see from the photos below, the chairs are pretty rudimentary -- just a welded steel frame with two seats covered with a little scrap of carpet.

After you pick out your chair, you choose the poles you'll use to propel yourself on the ice. These are literally just screwdrivers welded to sharpened steel shafts. It's something of a miracle that none of us came back with new holes in our body.

As it turns out, you can really get going on the ice on one of these chairs. Obviously, this is super fun. Our driver explained that they all used to do this because they didn't have money to buy skates before.

Andrew (12) quickly figured out how to do spins on his chair and started doing 720s. Invariably, Michael (9) decided that ramming Andrew was more fun.

There was really quite a scene on the ice. There were vendors right out on ice selling drinks, cotton candy, kebabs (chua'r), and such plus midway-style games even including the electronic free throw basketball games.

Trains of ice chair riders were pretty popular. Somehow, it seemed pretty nuts to have so many with sharp sticks in such close proximity.

There were other ways of getting around on the ice. Ice bikes were a popular rental. These looked pretty fun and got moving pretty fast too, although sometimes the wheel would just spin.

There was also a guy with a sleigh pulled by some animal (alpaca?). I didn't see anyone riding the sleigh.

You could even rent an electric powered cart. These were clearly repurposed bumper cars. I only saw fat, smug boys riding these.

I have to say, it was a very enjoyable afternoon. There were families, couples, old folks, young folks, and piles of friends all having a great time. People were all smiling, pretty polite (even apologizing if they crashed into you), and clearly having fun. Even the vendors were nice (the cotton candy guy even offered me a cigarette). This was pretty different from our usual experience in Beijing and was evidence that at it's best, Beijing is an awesome place. We'll undoubtedly go back to Houhai for more ice play again.

I saw this sign at the entrance of a neighborhood near our place in Beijing. Not sure what they're banning. Car bombs? Burning cars? Couples arguing in the car? Whatever it is, I don't want it in my neighborhood either. Seems like an important sign...

Here are a few shots from my office window in Beijing of yesterday's eclipse. I've never seen an eclipse like this before. Amazing.

At first, I thought it was a Chinese Death Star coming to blow Google China off the map, but it was just an eclipse.