Attributed to French Author Anais Nin

This quote can apply to “seeing” but can also apply to eating and tasting as well. This re-scripting exercise may help you enjoy the food you are eating at home just as much as the food you enjoy out at a restaurant.

You will need a nice quiet place where you will be able to concentrate and feel comfortable. It may also be helpful to do this exercise shortly before you have a meal so that your natural desire for food is high. You will need a pen or pencil and a small piece of paper or notebook. You will also need to have been out to a recent delicious meal at a restaurant. If you can’t think of a recent positive experience, take this as an excuse to treat yourself to a nice dinner out before continuing.

Part 1

A night out for Japanese

Start the exercise by taking a few deep breathes to calm your body. Let your mind settle down. Think back to the last time you went out to a favorite restaurant. Remember the atmosphere. Think back to whom you were with or if you were by yourself, the sights you saw. Remember the atmosphere of the restaurant and how you felt as you went in to eat.

Recall how the plate looked when it arrived and how you felt as you tasted the first bite. Without being critical of the words, write down the words that come to mind on a small piece of paper. Keep thinking back on this positive experience of what a meal can be until you have 5-10 words written on the paper. After you have completed your list, spend a few minutes looking over the words. Are there any words there that surprised you? Which of the words hold the highest impact for you?

Part 2

Now, change the setting of this reflection to your home. You are sitting down to the table in front of your favorite meal at home. Everything is presented just like you’d want it. Imagine how it smells. What are you going to eat first? Imagine this meal at home providing the same enjoyment as the meal in the restaurant. Describe this meal with some of the satisfying words you used to describe the meal you enjoyed earlier. Now envision this meal as complete and yourself as satisfied. How do you feel?

Reflection:

“We see the world as “we” are, not as “it” is

Through this exercise you have begun to change. Do you think you can use this experience and the positive thoughts associated with the “at home” imagery when you next approach a meal at home? Tonight when you are at home eating look for where those positive experiences play a role.

Take my friend Stu, for instance, who manages our food service at school. He has worked as a cook in a variety of places including an Indian restaurant. Some facts about Stu – he makes a mean curry and butter chicken, is from Australia and doesn’t have an ounce of Indian blood in his body. With a largely  Indian front staff, I remember asking him one day if he was allowed to show his face outside of the kitchen. “Not really”, was the answer and you can imagine the reaction from customers if their favorite Indian dishes were discovered to be prepared by a guy from OZ.

Missing Japanese food and feeling probably a bit bogged down by the sudden change in diet I went into Whole Foods to get some nori maki rolls. The man behind the counter didn’t look particularly Japanese but then again this was North America and he didn’t look Not-Japanese either. At home in Japan, people use fashion and hair style as some ways of helping distinguish between the Chinese, Koreans and local nationals. Overseas I figured my normal tricks of Jean styles, shoes, shapes of glasses, and hair might not give me as much to go on since I’m not particularly familiar with the nuances of Asian cultures outside of Asia. I took the gamble and started speaking with him in Japanese.

In broken English he told me he didn’t speak Japanese and was from Taiwan originally. He said he had learned to make sushi after moving to the US. Earlier in the week on the plane over to the States I had had a conversation with a Japanese/American Sushi Chef who had filled me in on the recent increase of sushi schools and how many people were getting into the art of sushi preparation. Ready with my new conversational repertoire I asked the man working at Whole Foods if he had been to one of the sushi chef schools.

He replied with some difficulty, “Yes, something like that.”

I then asked him if his school was in California or someplace else. He answered again, “Yes, something like that.”

It was at that moment that this Taiwanese sushi chef in Massachusetts taught me something about English. Having been through the learning curve with Japanese my first few years in Japan, I remember learning a number of key phrases that serve two life saving purposes: to effectively answer a question posed to you that you have no idea how to answer and to keep the conversation moving so you can figure out what you are talking about. “Something like that” is one of our gem phrases in English.

After the second round of “something like that” I clued into what was going on with the conversation and dropped it – hopefully taking all pressure off the chef letting him just get on with making my lunch. If his experience in the US is at all similar to my early days in Japan this probably came as a huge relief as he was free again just to go on thinking his own thoughts or something like that.

This was a demanding week. Lots going on at school Monday and Tuesday. Then things picked up for the end of the week with the skatepark, high school dance and presenting on wikis at the Apple iSan Summit in Tokyo on Saturday.

I can see the effects of all that here in this photo. At just about 18k into the ride, I’m not right yet. I can see the stress in my cheeks. It wouldn’t be for another 15k before I’d start to feel like myself again.

Today’s ride was pure recovery. Usually recovery rides are reserved for those days following long days in the saddle. This recovery ride was to put those late nights of preparation, planning, and graduate school into perspective.

Oddly I thought I’d feel worse. I thought my upper body might be tight and my legs weak. I expected to look down at my speedo and see something depressing like 32kph that I couldn’t get past. In spite of my mental readiness for pain and suffering I actually felt pretty good and sat on my normal speeds, relished in having to push against headwinds and went out of my way to find some good climbs. Even this close to the ocean I got in over 200m of climbing in my short 40k journey.

What I see in this photo is that I need to figure out a way to get out at least 3 times per week and I can’t over commit myself like I did over the past week. Once in awhile this much stress is probably unavoidable but in the long run it just isn’t good. Praise Jah for cycling to turn things around.

The Sumo are in town for the next two weeks and we were in Tokyo today to see them. There were some highlights including one fantastic last minute flip where the outcome almost looked decided and just before the wrestler hit the ground outside the ring he flipped over landing on top of the other to win the match. As you can tell, I don’t know many names or really much about Sumo. The most I can claim was recognizing some of the most famous wrestlers from the news and other matches I have watched over the years.

More than anything, after a few years in Japan it was great to be out in a new culturally significant venue. I have long grown tired of Tokyo’s crowds and congestion so that alone often keeps me away from things where long lines or endless waiting kill whatever fun was meant to be had. Sumo was surprisingly relaxing.

Spectators are free to arrive first thing in the morning to see the lower ranking Sumo wrestle. The top notch professionals come on at 4pm. The result is that people filter in over the course of the day and the atmosphere is relaxed with moments of excitement mixed in for good measure. There is lots of time to talk, people watch and generally enjoy the spectacle. Kids are fine. No one gets annoyed at anything really and it just works.

Freedom Philosophy is often about creating the opportunity for fun where others don’t see it. Sumo is by no means a secret but it has all the outward signs of being another Japanese event for the masses. To great surprise, it was one of the most enjoyable professional sport events I have ever been to.

Click for the Video

One of the things you’ll notice are the banners paraded around the ring. These are the sponsors that today ranged from food products to camera companies.

The Sumo in blue on the far side of the ring is Takami Sakari and my personal favorite. It was disappointed to see him lose. The winner of second match is a Bulgarian named Kotooushu. He is obviously non-Japanese but is widely popular in the sport. He pushed his opponent out with ease today.

Many thanks to the Kanpai Club for the Event!

The good thing from the course was the quality of the learning experience. No kidding I really learned a lot from this one. We had two major assignments with one being a resource critique of a health education brochure and the second being a teaching project.

At first glance these sound pretty straight forward and they were – straight forward into a lot of work. At the end of it all, I am much better prepared to evaluate the materials I use to teach health related topics and understand how thorough the process surrounding a teaching session can and probably should be. I did the resource critique on depression and the teaching session on technology addiction so really worthwhile considering the issues I see at work.

On other fronts, I am becoming busy with del.icio.us and twitter and hope those help with organization of on-line resources and networking respectively. Find me on twitter and we’ll see where it leads. OK, I am glad to be back!

AC getting crafty with the self-timer

I am now back from the TOK workshop in Hong Kong. Interesting trip with decent learning during the workshop and some great stuff going on in the evening.

I had some good food and some really solid skating at the Mei Foo skate park just slightly north of where we were staying in Kowloon. The whole trip was a good escape from the daily demands and a welcome break. It is great to be back in Yokohama and I am looking forward to this weeks Thurs. Sk8 Session at Shin Yokohama Stadium.

Click here for some short footage of Mei Foo Sk8 Park

photo by Sergio Mejia

This week sees me back from the middle and high school ski trip to Norikura Kogen in Nagano. We had great conditions this year and quite a turn-out of students with over 60 on the trip ranging from grades 7-11. I am back in Yokohama for almost two weeks then I go off to Hong Kong for an IB conference.

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