2015-03-20: Vital Science

Day 1 in Nagoya: We have to get things sorted for our life here.

The only way this will happen is with priorities.

Priority 1: Which Beer do we drink from the local convenience store?

Food & Beverage Review: Convenience Store Beers

Suntory Highball: At least it isn't disgustingly sweet. Effectively soda water with a hint of scotch and dry about it. Would drink if on an island and a case floated up. 3/10 Not a good start really.

Suntory Rich Malt: Completely drinkable. Mild bitterness. Not as sweet as Harnas. 6/10

Suntory All Malt: Weird aftertaste and almost no flavour. Ewa says the first sip is a 3 but then a few minutes later it is a 6. I think she has just gone all "Japan is weird, I'm going to roll with it"

I guess knowing what Nogodoshi is might make a difference

Kirin Nogodoshi: It's new, it's a 5. Another fairly tasteless lager. It does have technology elaborated Nogodoshi. It doesn't seem to have made that much difference.

The Brew: No malt, hint of bitterness. 6.5 maybe.

Asahi: Silver can does make it easy to identify. 5

Kirin Green Label: "Good value and Quality" I think that is a fair description. Another 5. No finish to it though so if you want a beer without any aftertaste to it this is your boy.

Grand Kirin: Bitterness, no malt. I like some malt or at least interesting hops

Suntory Masters Dream: Bitterness, no malt. I think this is just a different bottle but the same beer.

One Cup Sake: I only got these because we don't have any glasses at the moment. It's okay but I can't see us drinking a lot of it.

Rating: 5/10 (The Brew wins just. Plus they usually have it in 6 packs rather than individual cans)

Google translate is a tool I have used quite a bit on our travels. As Japan is The Future Envisioned By The Eighties I figured it would work well. Better than Polish for example. I guessed this because techy people are more likely to work on their own language and a cool language. So Polish would really get only the Poles working on it. But Japanese I expected would be high on the list of "languages I think are cool" for many English speaking techy people.

The only thing it got right here was water level and I already figured that out

This admirable logic is completely flawed. I don't remember what I was reading but this 手羽幸通信 translates as "Fortunately Hand Feather Communication" which I think is referring to a quill and might be to do with email. These are the contorted stretches I am making in a bid to understand.

Chicken curry and Gyoza. The Gyoza were actually edible and better than some I have had in restaurants

We don't have forks yet... chopsticks are not designed for this

After a hard day buying stuff for the apartment, unpacking and testing all the beers we had convenience store dinner. We are on the main street and surrounded by restaurants but we were tired.

The egg was a nod towards healthy eating

The convenience stores do have a much better range of microwave food than I am accustomed to. Time differences also meant I did a little bit of a "give me one of each fried thing you have there" at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Priority 2: Armour

I need new armour as I have left mine in Poland. The plan is to leave armour scattered around the world so I don't need to carry it with me all the time. It does weight about 20Kg so is an easy target for the Travelling Light plan.

So many sticks!

It is nice to be able to have the guys measure your head and hands and know that everything ought to fit well. In Australia we had to order off the net and doing the measurements yourself often ends up with odd fitting bits and pieces.

Might have to grab a handful of these for gifts

They also keep your measurements on file for a couple of years. So in future I will be able to order new armour before I arrive which is super handy. Ewa is unlikely to be training for a couple more weeks and is a pretty standard size so we will organise hers when she can walk without crutches. I expect that to take a while as they do have lots of pretty stuff.

Achievements:

• Beer chosen
• Armour Ordered
• Unpacked

I thinks makes us close to ready for living like civilised people.