Japanese Delights

One of the many great things about travelling is the variety of food available to try. I like to consider myself as an adventurous person when it comes to trying the delicacies of foreign countries. There are some things that I will not try under any circumstances, things such as insects or snails (mainly because insects and snails make my skin crawl – even when they are alive), but just about anything else is fair game.

I thought I had seen it all on my travels, particularly in China where they eat just about anything. However, Japanese food proved to be just as challenging, and I found myself in a position where I had to pluck up a hidden wedge of courage from a cache that I didn’t know existed within me.

My first encounter with authentic Japanese cuisine came on my very first day in Tokyo. Mrs PM and I visited a small bar/snack bar in the early evening. We sat at the bar, along with everyone else, and watched the bar staff serving beer and cooking food in an open kitchen. The initial idea was to grab a beer and introduce ourselves, slowly to Japanese social culture and watch the people. Mrs PM is far more adventurous than I am and suggested that we try one of the snacks on offer. She signalled the barman who presented us with a small menu written in Japanese with English translations next to it.

Here is what we were given:

I stared at the menu in disbelief. In case you can’t read it, here’s what was on offer:

Trachea, spleen, large intestine, rectum, uterus, small intestine, spinal column, organ (whatever that was – my mind truly boggled), throat, testicles, choice uterus, brain, birth canal.

It looked to me like something out of a hospital or medical laboratory.

The barman offered us “his choice of three items” in broken English.

“NO!!!” we both wailed and opted for a couple of safe items (two lots of bacon and shoulder meat).

A few days later we had immersed ourselves in an authentic Japanese hotel in a place called Hakone, near Mount Fuji, where we enjoyed traditional Japanese experiences such as bathing in an onsen and walking around in kimonos.

We also had to eat in the hotel (it was half board) and we were subjected to a traditional set breakfast and evening meal.

This meant that we basically had to eat everything on offer, no matter how bizarre. Here were some of the choice things we were given for evening meal:

Steamed abalone, conger eel sushi, jellyfish, eel stew, seaweed, bamboo shoot, raw bream.

I had eaten eel stew before in China and I hated it. The Japanese variety was actually quite nice. The thought of eating jellyfish filled me with dread, particularly because these creatures make me shudder with revulsion. Nevertheless, I remembered a time in China when I accidentally ate jellyfish.

“How can you accidentally eat jellyfish?” I hear you cry.

The truth is, I had popped it into my mouth and was busy chewing it when one of my Chinese colleagues asked me what I thought of the fish I was eating.

“It’s a bit rubbery and tasteless,” I replied.

When he told me what it was, it was too late so I simply carried on eating it. Mrs PM wasn’t keen to try it in Japan but when I ate some, she gave it a go.

If I’m honest, had somebody told me it was jellyfish before I had it in my mouth I would have refused with a look of utter disgust.

For breakfast, we were offered things that we wouldn’t normally have considered eating as our first meal of the day. Here are some of the things we were presented with:

Sesame tofu with noodles, fried horse mackerel, miso soup with crab, sashimi squid, sea urchin.

As odd as those things are, nothing had prepared me for sea urchin. I dipped deeply into my reserves of courage and found something that enabled me to try it. I was pleasantly surprised; it wasn’t as bad as I had initially thought – quite tasteless really.

Having eaten in an authentic Japanese hotel restaurant, both Mrs PM and I were no longer worried about what to eat and what not to eat. We ate Japanese food for most of the remainder of our stay, in particular enjoying sushi.

In Kyoto, in a specialist sushi bar, we ordered mixed sushi for lunch. As we were eating, we noticed two older Japanese men next to us, both of whom were quite drunk. What followed was a brilliant exchange with me and Mrs PM speaking to them in English and them replying in Japanese. We had no clue what was being said – and neither did they.

However, the most talkative guy started pointing at the menu as if to say “try this” We politely refused because we had had enough, but before we knew it, he had ordered yet more sushi for us. We guessed it was his favourite fish – and very nice it was too.

Before we knew it, he had bought us a beer each. The one English word he knew was “American” so we spent the rest of our twenty minutes together trying to convince him that we were English. Finally, we bought them a beer back and they took this as a signal that we wanted to carry on drinking with them. They paid and signalled to us, with a variety of hand signals, that we should join them in a bar crawl of Kyoto.

We had to politely refuse because we had a bullet train to catch. I resorted to showing him a photograph of a train to push my point home.

As they wobbled out of the sushi bar, I remarked to Mrs PM that it was a good job he hadn’t bought us something less appetising than sushi. Japanese people are extremely polite and I would have struggled to eat it just to accept his hospitality.

Before I go again, I guess I need to learn the Japanese for:

 “I’m sorry I don’t like birth canal, uterus, brain, testicles and organ (whatever the hell that is)”

Left My Soul There Down By The Sea

When I need to unwind and relax I conjure up a picture in my mind.

I see myself relaxing on a beach, lying there in the warm sun as it rises or sets. Next to me is Mrs PM, holding my hand and leaning her head against my shoulder. The waves are gently lapping against shore.

The image at the start of this post was taken in Port Douglas, Australia on the morning of our arrival as the sun rose over the Coral Sea and, although it was almost eight years ago, I still see it every single day, both at work and at home.

Why?

Because the image is my background picture on my work laptop, my home laptop, my desktop and my Nexus 7.

When I feel the need to escape from the stresses of everyday life, I find that by staring at that image, I can momentarily immerse myself into the tranquillity of the memory invoked by the photograph.

Ultimately I would like to retire to the seaside, whether it be a cold and breezy British shore or a warm and relaxing southern European beach somewhere.

I’ve even strolled along the promenade at Blackpool on Boxing Day with a biting, icy wind blowing all of the cobwebs from my addled mind; the cold wind and the sound of waves crashing on the shore brings a clarity to my mind – and peace.

I am happiest when I am by the sea – but not in the sea.

I am quite happy to watch the waves, smell the sea air and let the wind carry me away to a restful place in my mind. The thought of stepping into the sea summons an altogether different feeling – one of fear.

I’m not such a scaredy cat that I won’t actually set foot in the water (although Australia is the exception on that front); I just don’t like the things in it.

First of all, I’m not a huge fan of sand. Some people love walking barefoot on the beach and letting the wet sand cling to their feet.

I hate it. Sand gets everywhere. I hate the feeling of it in between my toes and under my toenails. The feeling makes my teeth itch. When I walk on a beach I have to wear sandals and even though they protect me from most of the sand, I still find myself having to wash the sand off my feet as I leave.

And I have another confession, dear reader. I hate seaweed. I hate the feel of it and the look of it. It all stems from an episode in my childhood. I was around five years old and sitting watching television, safely in my own living room with my parents at my side.

Dr Who was on.

I loved Dr Who – I still do – but this particular story scared the shit out of me. It was called Fury From The Deep and basically featured monsters made out of seaweed that terrorised a North Sea gas refinery.

Fast forward a couple of years and I found myself standing in the sea in Brighton, screaming blue murder while standing in about five inches of sea water.

My dad rushed to my aid and asked what was wrong. I pointed down to my feet and he simply laughed – but saved me all the same. My legs had become entangled with seaweed and in my immature and childlike imagination, the seaweed monsters had come to get me.

Even now, when I swim in the sea, I find myself shuddering in utter disgust if seaweed touches me or drifts to the vicinity of where I am swimming.

I love waves as long as they are small. Big waves are bad.

On a holiday to San Sebastian in Spain, I decided to go for a swim. I noticed that the waves were pretty big but I thought I was a strong enough swimmer to cope with them. I waded out into the sea and started swimming away from the shore. The waves were getting quite big so I stopped swimming and decided to turn back. To my horror I found that I was out of my depth and my feet couldn’t quite touch the bottom.

I decided to tread water and let the waves carry me back ashore. It worked – sort of.

I was floating in the water and noticed a young woman about twenty feet ahead of me.

And then I saw it.

A huge wave was approaching fast.

The woman pushed herself up to try to ride the wave. She failed. It hit her full on and I saw her silhouette in the water as it washed over her and bowled her over completely. I saw feet where her head should have been and as the wave reared up in front of me like a giant leviathan, only one two thoughts entered my head:

        “I hope there isn’t any seaweed in that wave."

    “OH SHIT!!!!”

The wave hit me and I kind of lost track of time for a few seconds. All I remember is being overwhelmed by the sound of water smashing against my head. I had no sense of where I was and had no idea what had happened. I was like a marionette and powerless to fight back against the unknown forces assailing me.

When the ordeal was over, just a few seconds later, I found myself lying on the beach having been washed ashore. My swimming trunks had opted to give a few people a great view of my arse. Thankfully I was face down and I managed to pull up my trunks before too many people reeled back in horror.

Sadly that was when I realised my trunks were full of sand – and seaweed.

I staggered out of the water like a demented seaweed monster from Dr Who, much to the delight of my mates who had seen the entire thing from the comfort of their sunbeds.

The final horror of the sea are the creatures that live within. Billy Connolly once said that we are not ever supposed to be in the sea but are too stupid to take the hint; the hint being that creatures in the sea bite us, sting us and eat us.

I refused to go snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef because of box jellyfish, irukandji and sharks.

I have been snorkelling in Barbados and the Bahamas but on one occasion I almost added my contribution to existing marine excrement when a huge grey fish swan past me.

Of course it was just a harmless fish but to me, viewing it underwater and without my glasses, I thought it was Jaws ready to have Plastic Mancunian for lunch.

In conclusion, I want to be beside the seaside – not in the sea. My ultimate plan is to spend my time strolling by a beach somewhere in the world, watching the sun rise or set and enjoying the beauty and tranquillity of nature.

Here are a couple of relaxing songs that remind me of the peace, beauty and tranquillity of the sea.

And my dearest hope is that the writers of Fury From The Deep didn’t base the story on real life events.

Invasion of the Jellyfish

I may never dip my toe into the sea again. I’ve just read an article that has turned my legs to jelly, which is quite apt really because it is all about jellyfish.

To be fair, I’ve always been a little nervous about exposing my naked flesh to the great oceans of the world or more accurately the creatures that reside within those vast expanses of brine. We all know that there are dangers there. I mean, who hasn’t seen “Jaws”? But at least you get a warning with sharks. If you are on the beach in a warm climate the chances are that the telltale dorsal fin will warn you of a shark’s approach.

Jellyfish, on the other hand are another story.

I first became aware of these odd beasts on a holiday in the north of England as a child; washed up on the shore was a strange creature with tentacles that looked like an alien creature from hell. “Don’t touch it,” yelled my Dad. “It will sting!”

Well that was enough for me. I have a fear of any creature that will bite or sting. I was off the beach before you could yell “Jellyfish”, whipping up a major sandstorm in my wake.

My next encounter with a jellyfish, or should I say a fluther of jellyfish, was on a ferry between Vila Real de Santo António in Portugal and Ayamonte in Spain. I was a student, travelling around Europe with two friends and we were taking the early morning ferry. The sun was peeping over the horizon, the air was cool and comfortable and I was at peace. My two friends were staring into space and I decided to observe the tranquil sea. However, it wasn’t tranquil at all. Swarming around the boat, like a pulsating nightmare of rubber were literally thousands of huge jellyfish. I had never seen anything like it. The worst thing about the creatures were their horrifically long tentacles. There were so many that if I had been crazy enough and completely lost my mind, I felt I could have slipped over the side of the boat and walked to Spain on their backs. They were big and they terrified me. Later on our holiday, we visited a couple of places in Spain next to the coast and I swear that I refused to set foot in the water; I had to be persuaded to even walk on the beach in case one of the monsters washed up onto the sand.

Three years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Australia. On my very first day in that beautiful country, I wandered onto the beach and saw this:




The jellyfish I saw in England was small; the ones in Portugal and Spain were big. The one represented by this sign, a box jellyfish, looked huge. In fact the sign made it look more like a giant octopus. I suppose, in many ways, it is good that the creature is so large because at least you can see it coming have time to get over your blind panic before swimming away like a creature possessed.

This venomous monster looks like this:



The box jellyfish can often be found on or near to beaches that the human population of Australia are attracted to. Thankfully they only appear in the Northern Australian seas. It is named because of its box shaped head – I think if I’d named it I would have called it something like the Killer Jellyfish.

I did some research on this monster and discovered that it weighs up to 2 kg and has up to 15 tentacles on each corner that can be up to 15m in length. Each tentacle can have up to 5000 stinging cells. Why in God’s name would a creature need 75000 stinging cells? It makes me wonder whether there is another much larger creature out the in the Australian seas that feeds on box jellyfish. Why else would it need to defend itself so vigorously?

You may think that a beast such as this can only move slowly. Wrong! It can propel itself along at speeds of up to 4 knots (about 5 mph). Avoiding it is therefore not easy. So much for me thinking that I could outswim it in a blind panic.

But it gets far worse than that. You cannot survive being stung unless the venom is treated immediately. The pain is excruciating and the likelihood is that if you are stung, you will almost certainly go into shock and drown before you reach the shore. The treatment is to pour vinegar over the stings as soon as possible. The warning sign came equipped with a bottle of vinegar and instructions on what to do. You would have to be insane to step into the water on your own. In fact if, in a fit of madness, I decided to chance it, I would insist that there were at least twenty life guards swimming around me; not to rescue me, but to get in the way of any box jellyfish that happened to be in the vicinity.

But there is something worse in the seas of Australia and unlike its cousin, the box jellyfish, this creature is tiny – so much so that you can’t see it. I am talking about the Irukandji. This demonic little beast is only 2cm in diameter. It has a single tentacle on each of the four corners of the bell but at 50mm in length they do not help to make this tiny creature visible. Because of its diminutive stature, it can evade any barriers constructed to keep out box jellyfish by simply swimming over under or through them.

If that wasn’t enough, the Irukandji is almost transparent, making it difficult to see in daylight should it be washed ashore. In the sea, the damned thing is practically invisible. It looks like this (not that it will help being so microscopic):



Now, if you thought that this insignificant creature was harmless you would be totally wrong. The sting itself is not actually that painful. The problems occur about half an hour afterwards. All of a sudden, the victim begins to have a severe headache and backache accompanied by shooting pains in their muscles chest and abdomen. As the venom takes hold, the victim suffers from extreme nausea and vomiting. In extreme cases the patient suffers pulmonary oedema or fluid on the lungs, which is fatal if left untreated.

The symptoms I have just described were afflicting bathers in the seas off Cairns before the little terror was actually discovered. Back in 1964, a doctor called Jack Barnes speculated that a jellyfish was responsible for these symptoms, called Irukandji syndrome and named initially after a tribe of who lived in the Cairns area. So how did he go about finding the culprit? He spent hours in the water with a wet suit searching for new jellyfish. By chance, one of the little blighters swam past his mask so he caught it. And what did he do to prove that his little captive was responsible for this horrible ailment? He stung himself with it! Yes that’s right – the idiot actually allowed the little beast to sting him. As if that weren’t enough he felt he needed a better test so he stung his own son and also a surf life saver who happened to be with them. If I had been with him at the time, I would have hit the guy for even suggesting that I allow a jellyfish to sting me. Maybe it was a macho thing; three big manly Australians can take a little itty bitty sting from a tiny marine creature.

Well the inevitable happened and all three of them ended up in hospital. Many people called it dedication. I call it gross stupidity! For his efforts Dr Barnes’ reward was to have the jellyfish named after him – carukia barnesi is the official Latin name. I bet the life saver was a bit pissed off about that!

So, back to the article that rekindled my fear of jellyfish. According to the article, the US government has warned that armies of killer jellyfish are marauding around our beautiful oceans. What’s so bad about that I hear you say, safely, sitting in your comfy chair reading this post? Well these brutes are reported to weigh up to a quarter of a ton and some of them are the size of fridges. A QUARTER OF A TON!!! THE SIZE OF A FRIDGE!!!!

Not only have they invaded the seas, they are actually damaging ships. I can imagine the captain of a boat peering over the side and saying

“Look at that – some swine has dumped a fridge in the sea. Wait a minute – that’s no fridge. It’s got tentacles – RED ALERT! GET US OUT OF HERE!!!”

Well - maybe not.

Now I don’t know about you but all of this is a fantastic reason never ever to dip my big toe into the sea again, not even when a wave gently washes up on the sandy shore. There may not be a fridge-sized leviathan in the water, but there may be a tiny little invisible irukandji waiting to kill me.

The sea is their domain. Leave them alone, I say. And if you must head to the beach, don’t forget your vinegar and personal army of paramedics and life guards.