To start the product reviews off, I decided to go with Pocari Sweat. There's a good reason for this which I will go on to explain later.
First though, the product;
Pocari Sweat (ポカリスエット Pokari Suetto) is a Japanese Sports Drink that actually has no sweat in it at all. (I know, terrible marketing). The purpose behind the name "Sweat" is to show what the product intends to supply - all of the electrolytes and nutrients lost when we sweat. It comes in 500ml and 1.5l bottles, Cans and has a powder to be mixed with water.
It is becoming ever easier to obtain pocari sweat in the UK. A few years ago it was an almost impossible task (for me anyway) but now the majority of Asian Supermarkets I have visited stock this beauty. Off the top of my head, if you live in london, Japan Centre on Shaftsbury Ave and Arigato on Brewer St are the best places to go. If you're in Edinburgh, Mathews on Inglis Green Road and Pat Chungs on Leith Walk.
The only way I can describe the taste is a very faint citrus, almost grapefruit like flavoured water. It is not carbonated (Non-fizzy for those that like it simple) and on average in the UK costs around £1 per bottle. Which is around the same as a Lucozade. Pocari sweat has been a life saver for me on many occasions, usually I try to stay away from energy/sports drink but this one is different.
I seem to suffer with a strange light headed-ness when walking around shops. It's a weird, probably lack of energy based issue. It seems that extended hours shopping and walking around shopping centres leaves my head feeling distant, however a bottle of Pocari sweat usually helps dramatically. Hence my reason for posting this as this first review
It is not by any means a miracle drink, but in my personal opinion it does exactly what it says it does.
It tastes nicer and does a better job than it's UK counterparts and doesn't usually cost much more.
So if you haven't tried it yet, get yourself down to a local Asian supermarket and pick yourself a bottle.
Today I thought I'd write a little post about Sumo Wrestling.
Before writing this post I knew absolutely nothing about Sumo, however I have done some researching and as per usual I will write my understanding and you will (hopefully) enjoy it and share it on (hint hint; share it on..)
Before we start an interesting fact, Wrestler in Japanese is "Rikishi"
That might cause a light bulb to go off with a few folk.
The interesting looking guy above is your stereotypical Sumo Wrestler. Sumo wrestlers (would you believe) live a very regimented life, they require a very strict diet and even worse living conditions.
I say living conditions loosely, what I mean by that is how they are expected to live, not necessarily the conditions in which they live.. (It's all a bit confusing right now, but bare with me - I'll explain)
Your typical Sumo would start training at 5am every morning and train for around 2/3 hours. Training would consist of many different exercises and spars (I assume - but I have no plans on becoming a sumo wrestler so I didn't really research how they train)
By the time 8am rolls around (rolls, ha, no pun intended)..
Anyway, by the time 8am rolls around the sumo wrestlers are ready to prepare what is known as Chanko. Chanko is the name given to the foods eaten by Sumo Wrestlers.
Here is an example of Chanko;
Looks pretty appetizing right?
Consider this, Chanko is usually made up of;
Chicken, fish, Beef, Noodles, Rice, Vegetables and a soup broth.
Still not too bad, I agree, however that one bowl you see up there is actually enough to feed two people (roughly, it's a pretty big bowl)
A sumo wrestler would never have just one bowl of that, they would be eating in stupidly large quantities and any left over (which I doubt happens much) will be used as a broth to make more the next day.
So, you think it sounds nice, Imagine eating 3/4 bowls of that for breakfast..
After that I'm guessing the sumo doesn't really do that much, who would?
So the next part of Sumo Wrestling -
To our right we can see what is called a "Dohyo"
You should be able to pronounce that if you
read the last post "Hirigana Lesson" ;)
So the dohyo is... a ring.
A ring made from rice straw bales.. I just get the feeling that there is a little too much rice in japan..
But hey, they work with it, and my god it works well. (That'll be talked about more when I discuss food at a later date)
Anyway I've gone off track the dohyo ring is made from rice straw bales and is roughly 5m in diameter. Usually mounted on a base platform of clay, then covered in sand.
Inside the ring are two white lines, these are called Shikiri-Sen. I believe they are just used to determine the wrestlers starting positions.
Around the outside of the ring is very very fine sand refered to as Snakes eye (ja-no-me). As the sand is so fine it allows the referee to determine whether a wrestler has placed any part of his body outside the ring.
Which leads me on to how it is played.. (is played the right word to use? who knows..)
The idea of Sumo is very simple (as with every sport there are 100's of different rules that I suppose you pick up the more you watch/partake)
You start in your starting positions, which you know are behind the Shikiri-Sen.
The aim is to do one of two things;
Either force your opponent to touch the ground with any part of their body other than the souls of their feet
Or to force your opponent to step out of the ring.
That's it, that's how you partake in sumo.
Of course there is so much more to it, but as far as actually playing a match (again that doesn't sound right, can you play a match of sumo?) It's very simple.
Matches often last only a few seconds, but are then followed by Ritual Ceremonies and the likes.
I have included a video below of some Sumo Wrestling highlights I found on YouTube.
Enjoy it, and I hope you feel you have learned something today. I certainly have.
As always you can follow us on twitter @TurnChapanese
Okay, so I'm going to attempt to teach you some basic Hirigana. (if you want information on the Japanese Language, then please read my previous Cultural Note post)
If you have read it already, then great I will get started.
There is a great trick I have noticed since learning Hirigana - Almost everything sounds the same.
Well it sounds completley different, but if you can learn the 5 basic Vowels then almost every japanese phonic after that includes a Vowel. Once we get started you will know what I mean.
The first phonics to learn when learning Hirigana are the 5 vowels I mentioned above.
These are the same as in english - A E I O U
Let's get started - I will set it out like this from now on:
Japanese Hirigana / Romanji Letter/ Pronounciation
あ / A / Like you would pronounce the A in fAther
え / E / Like you pronounce the e in bEar. Like saying the word there quick. A Very Short "Eh" sound.
い / I / Like you would pronounce the ey in kEY or the e in Cheese
お / O / Like you would pronounce the o in cOugh or pOt
う / U / like you would pronounce the u in jUpiter.
Sorry, I did have pictures for the characters, then blogger decided to not show them, so I had to make do.
So they are the 5 main vowels and how to pronounce them. There are hundreds of youtube videos telling you how to pronounce the vowels if my words are not clear.
Now you will start to see what I mean:
Hirigana is segmented into what I call Series'. The above syllables are the A series. Next in line is the K Series which consists of;
Ka / か
Ke / け
Ki / き
Ko / こ
Ku / く
All pronounced exactly like the vowels were, but with the addition of a K at the beginning.
There is a Hirigana Chart below to check how the rest of the Syllabary looks. For now I will write the series and the hiragana from my iPhone.
The S series (this includes an exception to my trick)
Sa / さ
Shi / し
Su / す
Se / せ
So / そ
The T series (another exception)
Ta / た
Chi / ち
Tsu / つ
Te / て
To / と
The N Series
Na / な
Ni / に
Nu / ぬ
Ne / ね
No / の
The H series (which had the exception of Hu/Fu - it can be pronounced both ways)
Ha / は
Hi / ひ
Hu/fu / ふ
He / へ
Ho / ほ
The M Series
Ma / ま
Mi / み
Mu / む
Me / め
Mo / も
The R series (which is pronounced by placing your tongue in between where you would for a D and an L sound)
Ra / ら
Ri / り
Ru / る
Re / れ
Ro / ろ
There is a couple other hirigana characters. Three Y's - Ya Yu Yo (やゆよ)
The N - ん
Two W's - Wa Wo (わを)
They are something to look into further at a later date.
For now read over the series and get a little understanding of it.
I would recommend (if you have an iPhone) to go into your settings and add a Japanese keyboard to it.
That can be done by going to Settings > General > International > keyboard.
This is what it will look like..
From left to right you have the A series then the K, S, T, N, H, M, Y, R, emoticons, w and N and finally all punctuation marks.
With this try making some simple words using the hirigana above and your iPhone keypad.
Start with these words and then try to find your own; [almost all of these words will have a kanji but ignore that for now)
I will start of by combining the characters Su + Shi;
Sushi - すし
Katsu (A form of Japanese curry) -
Sake -
And if you want to be really adventurous..
Konnichiwa -
(That last one is pretty difficult so if you think you have it/ want clarification/ or just want the answer then give me a shout on twitter)
There is a lot more to discuss, a serious amount more. But this is at most the very very basics and a good starting point.
Here is the Hirigana Chart:
Once again I can't thank you enough for reading. I know there was a lot of information in that post, I really can't stress how little is actually there.
I hope it helps in some way or another.
I understand my writing style and teaching methods are a bit wild and scattered. So excuse me for that.
As I said above, if you want to get me on twitter then follow @turnchapanese
Please also share this blog around. It's building slowly. I'll keep putting the effort in as long as you put the time in to read it.
