Marathon preparations: You can't give a baby booze!

Something I love about Japanese marathons is how skew-whiff they can be. As I approached the expo centre to pick up my race number, I spotted a bored looking young mother, baby strapped to her front in an ampanman contraption, iPhone in one hand, and a can of Asahi in the other. Because there's nothing that says "pursuit of athletic excellence" like waggling a premium lager in front of a baby.

Yakiniki

Tonight we went out for Japanese in Wan Chai; to Woo Tung on St Francis Street. We'd been to another Japanese restaurant round the corner on Monday, but a combination of grumpy service and a need for novelty sent us to Woo Tung instead. After we'd spent a couple of minutes struggling with a completely egregious touch-screen computer display outside, somebody ushered us inside and up to the bar on the first floor.

A salutary lesson about car hire in Japan

This morning was a bit difficult; after waking up with hair that appeared to have exploded, and a mouth like dessicated coconut, I had a nutritious breakfast of French fries and croissants. I didn't boast too much about how I'd got a taxi home last night, rather than walk for a couple of miles from the station to the flickering beacon of the ANA Gate Tower Hotel. Then we went over to the airport to pick up our hire car.

Unfortunately, to hire a car in Japan it's a legal requirement to have a Japanese translation of your license.

Meeting up in Osaka

Because I know absolutely nobody in Osaka, I went on to meetup.com and looked there for people, and arranged to have dinner at a Canadian pizza restaurant north of the main station. Because I enjoy partaking of local customs, and when in Osaka, what could be more culturally appropriate than Canadian pizza?

Too much Japanese food, too much information?

This evening I went out to dinner with the rest of my team from work, to Haniguchi, a Japanese restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong.

It's in a rather unfortunate location, next to the fake Irish pub, and in Lan Kwai Fong, although that's slightly less oppressive now half the bars have shut while Alan Zeman turns the whole place into a corporate hell-hole of Hard Rock Cafes. (I wonder if there's space for a Planet Hollywood too, to really demean everyone drinking there.) A year ago, LKF would have been rammed full of drunken gweilos, but on a cold Thursday in February, it's eerily deserted. Perhaps the Rugby Sevens will bring the drunks back. I hope so.

The Calamari Wrestler

Dorsher leant me some very suspect DVDs, and tonight we got round to putting one of them on: The Calamari Wrestler.

Now, it's not often that you get to watch a film about wrestling, where the hero is a bloke in a big rubber squid suit, who buys sardines from local fishmongers and spends his downtime meditating in a temple while a Buddhist monk hits him on the head with a ceremonial wooden plank.

Jokes about different countries: Japan

I get on well with Japanese people. I think that's because the British and the Japanese have many similarities:

• We both live on islands
• We both talk about the weather a lot
• Neither of us are famous for the quality of our dentistry
• ... and we both have a lamentable history of tourism in China over the last two centuries

What do they *do* all day?

Every so often, the tram at Happy Valley is filled with Japanese tourists. I wish I had been more diligent in learning Japanese, so I could have asked them what they were doing on it. It seems a little bit of a strange way to spend a holiday - up at 8am and bouncing out of your seat on a ramshackle tram - but they seem happy enough with it. Usually it's a bunch of middle-aged or elderly Japanese, but today there was one in full kawaii-regalia; a little fur jacket round her shoulders, a short white dress that looked like she was a bridesmaid, and her face made up with huge eyelashes and all the other warpaint you might expect for a night out.

This was preferable to the bored businessman in a suit who is now sitting opposite me, but really I'm a bit confused, not so much because she must have chosen to get up early to prepare her face. It's more to do with where they disembarked the tram; right in a filthy part of Wan Chai. What attraction can that hold? Perhaps there's something of historical significance that Japanese people, young and old, want to see. Perhaps they're on an excursion to Dusk Til Dawn. (If that's the case, I'm both impressed and intimidated: what kind of person can manage to start partying at 8:30 on a Monday morning?) Or maybe there's a ferry crossing, although that last, most prosaic possibility seems far too rational to explore.

I think one of these days I'll follow them when they get off the tram and find out where they go. Or be mistaken for some sort of stalker (who only stalks groups of Japanese tourists) and then I'll get beaten off with a tourguide's umbrella. Sometimes research is tough, you know.

Year of Eating Differently (68): Geisya, Dean Street

This is more like it. Went to the South Bank last night and saw the Kneehigh Theatre put on a production of Rapunzel, which was very good, but like all pantomime about ten minutes too long. I think the Jenny liked it, although being American and not having a tradition of being dragged to the panto, probably hard for her to contextualise it. Anyway, after that strolled off to dinner, and had a woeful time at Wagamama's; weak miso soup, noodles that seemed to be in an arrabiata sauce - yeuch.
So today when an friend from out of town turned up and said she wouldn't mind Japanese, I was stoked, because I've been walking past Geisya for a while. Went in there (after getting lost and walking up and down Frith and Greek Streets instead) and disconcertingly we were the only diners - so it was us and the nervous waiter, plus a plasma screen with the Christmas Number Ones for the last 20 years playing. Thus, ambience scores about nil.

Food was great though - I think this is properly Japanese run, because the miso soup actually tasted of miso for a change, and the tempura was light and crunchy, rather than the soggy mess that Soba presented me with. My friend had sushi and apparently the fish was "like butter" - or poisson comme buerre, I suppose? Maybe I should have paid more attention in GCSE French.
Anyhow, the waiter was incredibly nervous, and I think Japanese (the handwriting gives it away, plus the terrible feeling of guilt I had when he had to come back and apologise for my first choice of meal being off) and then there's the qualm of whether you should tip or if that's actually a real faux-pas (it is in Japan, but if you're in London, who knows?), but this is irrelevant when the food is up to scratch, so all in all, all good. Shame I can't go back for the rest of the year, but hey.

Year of Eating Differently (56): Abeno, Museum Street

Headed east in search of okonomi-yaki today. This may have been slightly ill-advised; last night I left the office at 6 and then ran to Vernon Square, before doing two hours of shorinji kempo - one of those tough sessions where by the end of it you go down to the floor and then can't bring yourself to get back up again. Possibly it was the ten minutes of battering pads continuously that did for me, but today my legs feel screwed and I just want to sleep.
It's not a good look to pass out at your desk, so at 12 I nipped down to our faithful newsagent and bought some Frazzles - unfortunately, if you've just had a packet of crisps, ordering miso soup and okonomi-yaki may not be the best decision.
Good stuff though - once you've ordered, the food comes back and gets fried on the hotplate in front of you (although this does mean that by the end of the meal you feel significantly overheated) - and the miso soup actually tasted like miso soup for a change, after the miserable examples from Abokado and Soba in recent weeks. Service was a teeny bit slow (5 minutes to attract attention and get the bill) and tofu isn't the most fun thing to eat (I was jealous of my companion's bacon, and think the Osaka-mix okonami-yaki might be a better bet for those carnivores amongst us) but at least it felt like a Japanese restaurant rather than some strange English approximation thereof.

Year of Eating Differently (43): Soba, Soho Street

Back from Japan and nostalgic for miso soup already, so a quick dash to Soba to get some takeaway - udon noodles in what appears to be a feeble attempt at miso (far too watery to taste of anything much at all), and some vegetable tempura. Frankly, the tempura is rubbish; tastes very greasy and not at all crispy; I suppose it may be unfair to compare a takeaway in London with the genuine article in Tokyo and Nagoya, but for goodness' sake, how hard can it be to do things right?