Today marks the beginning of the 13th Japan Filmfest Hamburg with the world premier of Black Dawn, based on the successful Japanese tv-series Gaiji Keisatsu. In the wake of the great 2011 earthquake terrorists are planning an attack on a nuclear reactor and it’s up to this special police force to stop them. The movie will be running in the Metropolis Cinema, which is one of the festival’s 4 venues. All of them are located in convinient distances to one another and considering the weather report for the next days, I’ll definitely bring my bike with me for quick trips from one cinema to the next.

The festival will go on until the 27th and I’m already planning to visit quite a few films in addition to the ones where I’m going to hold the opening speech. So if any of you would like to meet me there, just check my personal timetable below

23rd of May:

• 20.00 Black Dawn (Metropolis Cinema)

25th of May:

• 15.00 Sumire Ningyo + In Sunny Family (Metropolis Cinema)
• 17.00 About the Pink Sky (Metropolis Cinema)
• 22.00 Zombie Ass (3001 Cinema)

26th of May:

• 13.45 Children who chase lost Voices from deep below  (Metropolis Cinema)
• 16.00 Sukiyaki (Metropolis Cinema)
• 18.00 Godzilla vs. Biollante (Metropolis Cinema)
• 20.15 Godzilla vs. King Ghidora (Metropolis Cinema)

27th of May:

• 10.00 Movie breakfast at the Projektor Cinema

I hope to see a lot of you in the movie theaters with me to enjoy the Japanese cinema we’re presenting this year. This year’s selection offers a broad range of different films for everyone, so if you’re interested in Japan or Japanese movies you should definitely find some film to fit your taste. Let’s enjoy the festival!

And to everyone else I can only try to raise some awareness that the problems are far from over and there is much to be done. Despite the Fukushima-centered media coverage around the world, the damage from the tsunami has probably more direct influence on the people from East Japan. If you have the time I can recommend the following two videos. One is a documentary of a Japanese, who’s coming back to his tsunami-struck hometown, while the second one is a trailer for a documentary that also deals with the life after the tsunami and has already received some international reputation.

After the Wave:

http://www.after-the-wave.com/

The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom:

http://www.thetsunamiandthecherryblossom.com/

Thank you, Japan!

Nishin Soba is a typical dish from Kyoto, which consists of a soba noodle soup with sweet marinated dried herring added. As Kyoto is far from the seaside, it was hard to bring in fresh seafood from the coast, so dried herring established itself as one of the easier to transport fishes and became one of the important sources of proteine in the past.

As you can guess from this description, I ate this dish when I was in Kyoto in December, but I still wanted to put it up here, because it remained in my head. The taste of sweet herring together with a traditional Japanese soup flavour was completely new to me in that situation and at first I was a bit at a loss as to how I should judge it. But I grew to like the taste very fast and appreciate its difference to the other dishes I’ve eaten in Japan and also back in Europe (Yannik didn’t, btw. ). For me, the subtle sweetness did fit very well with the broth and made for a well rounded meal together with the soba.

If you want to try it yourself, the following recipe might be helpful. I found it under this link and translated it for you (hopefully without mistakes ). Enjoy your cooking!

http://www.rakuten.ne.jp/gold/suginoki/c0312.html

You will need (for 4 persons):

• 400g soba noodles
• 1 sweetly cooked herring (you can either buy it or prepare it this way(scroll down))
• 1 leek
• 4 sheets of dried laver / seaweed
• 7 cups of dashi broth
• 120ml of mirin (sweet soy sauce)
• 120ml of soy sauce

Preparation:

1. Mix the dashi broth, mirin and soy sauce in a pot and let it boil up to prepare the soup.
2. Boil the soba in plenty of water until they are boiled thoroughly. Pour the water and put the soba in 4 bowls. Add the soup to each bowl.
3. Add the finely cut leek, the dried laver and the herring on top. Enjoy your meal!

But as some of them are really cheap and can even compete with hostels, I gave it a try and stayed in a capsule hotel in Asakusa on my trip to Tokyo last week. It was located directly next to Asakusa station and from the public bath in the 8th floor, you had a really beautiful view over the Sumida River and towards the famous Asahi Building, as well as the soon to be completed Tokyo Sky Tree. So obviously I went up there every evening, went to the sauna, took a hot bath  and enjoyed the sight from there.

But back to the capsules. I was actually a bit surprised how spacious those seemed to me, as I hadn’t expected to be able to sit upright in one, which was perfectly possible. Space to the sides was also no problem at, only the length would have been more comfortable had it been 5-10cm more. The way it was, my feet were constantly scratching at the curtain, which closed my capsule once I was inside. The television presented me with 10 Japanese TV channels for free every evening, so no need for complaints there as well.

And now please have a look at a few pictures

Again it’s time for a small break from the sightseeing articles and instead a good moment for a food-related post. After all, who doesn’t like tasty food, especially if it’s sweet and nice-looking

Therefor behold the mighty fine dessert that is Matcha Parfait (see below). Now first of all, matcha is powdered green tea and is also the tea that’s used in tea ceremonies. It’s definitely not cheap, but the taste is really unique and i can only recommend to try it, if you have the chance. I guess, you might even find it in asia shops in Europe, although i don’t know about the quality in that case.

But back to the parfait. When you have something as nice as matcha, it would be a waste to only make tea with it, so there are various products featuring the matcha taste, for example icecream, desserts or sauces. The picture below shows a parfait of matcha cream, cookie, matcha icecream, yoghurt icecream, mochi and fresh fruits – a very delicious combination! It might have cost me around 1200 Yen, but it was definitely worth it