Musing and simultaneously doing nothing at my desk

The Japanese address system is, in a word, impossible. The typical address follows this hierarchical order: prefecture, city/town/village, cho (I can't find an English equivalent for this, just a smaller unit within city/town/village consisting of several blocks), and block number. Most streets do not have names, and unless you've been living in that place for a while, it's impossible to find a place given just the address. Most directions given are relative to landmarks, as in "take a left at the bookstore," or "keep going until you see the udon shop."

This phenomenon may be linked to the fact that Japanese people rarely leave the area in which they were born. Many teachers at my school were at one point high school or junior high school classmates. Yuko and Masa were elementary school classmates from Yonago. When Kaneda-san took me along on her errand trip yesterday, she knew everybody she met by name, and knew where everybody lived (she was delivering thank-you notes to families who helped the Nakayama-Temecula cultural exchange)--it turned out that she was born in Nakayama and has never left in her ~40 years. Besides the immediate cultural/traditional causes, the high housing cost may be a factor: I heard that in Tokyo it's not uncommon to find 100-year mortgages being taken out and passed down to your children, and their children's children.

Of course, these conjectures apply only to semi-rural areas that I've seen. But most of Japan, in terms of area and not population, is semi-rural, which explains the self-sufficiency of town/village units.

One evidence of self-sufficiency: meat and produce in supermarkets are mostly produced locally within an hour by car (you can almost always find the place of origin listed on the label). They gotta be supplied daily. Supermarkets routinely put leftover produce and meat and bento boxes on severe discounts (over 50%) daily after 8pm. I've tried to take advantage of this but the pickings are slim and the shelves are usually empty by then. It's amazing how perfectly these markets are tuned to the supply/demand curve.

One side-effect: the groceries here are outrageously expensive (side note: apparently Brits don't know the word "grocery," they also use "half ten" to denote "half past ten," and they are ignorant and indignant of the fact that British food is bad--thanks to Pam and Adam for their contribution to this insight). The only thing that I've found cheaper than the States prices is fresh seafood and that's only because Sakaiminato, a seafood town with a smelly reputation, is only 30 minutes away. I think everything else is more expensive, even in the backcountry. I can't give an exact comparison because the portions are generally smaller and the units are in metric, but it FEELS more expensive. At least I can console in the fact that they are always fresh.

Considering that you are only in danger of ingesting salmonella bacteria if the eggs aren't fresh, I have no problem eating the daily-fresh raw eggs here. In fact, raw eggs are almost unavoidable in Japanese restaurants. Raw eggs in ramen broth, raw eggs in gyu-don (that yoshinoya beef bowl thing), runny eggs in egg and ham sandwiches. I love this raw egg thing, makes me feel all Rocky-like.