Ramen is one of the most favourite foods in my life. I believe I will be excited to talk about how much I am obsessed with ramen, what the best ramen for me looks like or take people to my go-to place in the future. Plus, since I have worked at a ramen restaurant in Vancouver for almost two years, I believe I am the one who is most enthusiastic about ramen in Vancouver.

To begin with the general idea, Ramen is a type of Japanese noodle soup dish that typically consists of wheat noodles served in a meat or fish-based broth, often flavoured with soy sauce or miso, and topped with various ingredients such as sliced pork, seaweed, green onions, and boiled eggs. It is a popular and versatile dish with many regional variations in Japan and has also gained popularity worldwide, with numerous ramen restaurants serving different styles of ramen across the globe.

Speaking of Vancouverian Ramen, we can typically find Tonkotsu-based ramen restaurants and then come with less salty soup than the Japanese version. Every restaurant is prone to have the vegetarian option because Vancouverian expects all restaurants to have a vegetarian menu as a common standard but in case people want some gluten-free noodles, that tends to be a headache for the restaurant. There still would be a low chance of no gluten noodles and they might end up getting complaints about that. Plus, Canadian people don't much appreciate the salty taste and hot soup as Japanese people expect Ramen, we most likely experience less salty getting cold ramen to meet local demands. 

Let me tell you how I usually give advice when choosing the best ramen local. When people ask for recommendations, I tend to start with the question "Are you in a mood for rich or light" to figure out their preferences. If people choose rich, I take them to some tonkatsu ramen restaurants, if a person chooses light, then I take them to my go-to place which has more Japanese authentic options with shoyu or shio ramen. 

Interestingly, there is a huge difference between Canadian and Japanese preferences when it comes to ramen. We are less likely to share our opinions or feedback on the certain ramen that we eat simultaneously. Similarly, it is applied to Sushi which Canadians tend to imagine as Carifolnia roll compared to Nigiri Sushi. So basically I would try to see if the person prefers the Japanese version or Canadian version of ramen. Don't lose hope whenever they go for a Canadian taste of ramen. Don't be disappointed because we are in Canada... 

Me, because I am from the northern part of Japan where ramen is the most popular meal for every occasion, I would say, I love terribly way richer fish flavour ramen with thick noodles which is perfect for a harsh winter. Unfortunately, most Canadians specifically dislike this taste and flavour but still looking forward to meeting someone who becomes a big fan of my home taste someday indulging in the same ramen in a cold winter. 

ミレニアム世代-飲酒が楽しい最後の世代

I ended up quitting my Japanese restaurant job last weekend because my new work permit effective on March 24 is specified to the current employer offers me full-time work, which doesn't allow me to work for any other company located in Canada.That affects me a lot in a way both financially and mentally. I am devastated. You wonder why. You might be like, You will be free on weekends! Yes, I will. Listen, quitting the Japanese restaurant job means losing my coworkers to get them to drink alcohol after work together. Let me tell you how. As you know, I love drinking. I drink 4 glasses of whiskey with soda every night alone at home. If I were at the restaurant, I would drink more than usual. 

I have lovely women in the restaurant who are several years older than me and can drink at the same level as me so that we can feel comfortable drinking the amount and time that we consume. I was looking forward to taking them and grabbing drinks after work once a month or every 2 weeks. Now I am going to lose them. That means I have no one drink alcohol around me, including family, friends and coworkers.

Right after coming to Canada, at that moment, I had been surrounded by young people in college where no one drinks daily. That 100% made sense to me because, generally speaking, international students are broke. Besides, I as a marketer in Japan, had several opportunities to find data saying gen-z tend not to drink alcohol anymore maybe because they are more health conscious, and can say No to their boss who no longer forces them to drink with them in usher of the age of everything-could-apply-to-harassments. Hence, I was convinced to some extent that most likely we around the '30s could be the last generation appreciating drinking alcohol daily with much pleasure. 

The thing is, even after joining a company where I have been working for a year, no one drinks even though they are all older and richer than me. Of course, there are some inevitable cases for example, there is someone who had cancer before or any other disease that caused them to stop drinking. But still, we have many people who don't drink at all. That's why I end up having no chance of drinking after work with company expenses. That is too bad to work. That is the most toxic environment for me. Poor myself. These days, I started wondering if it only applied to my situation or not. Let me take a look at some data regarding alcohol consumption.

According to the Global Drug Survey, in drinking frequency, Canada does not rank in the top 10 countries globally, even falling below the global average. But strangely enough, on the measure of "feeling drunk", Canada jumped to the sixth spot, just behind the US and the UK. That is super funny because that means Canadian people don't drink that much yet feel drunk enough. That is super funny. I can say, they are kind of highly efficient to be drunk with a little alcohol consumption.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64311705

Further to the frequency, according to the World Population Review, ratio of the drinking alcohol is 8.81% in Canada, in comparison to Japan, it says 10.09% in. By the way, Global alcohol consumption varies widely, top 10 Countries with the Highest Alcohol Consumption in 2019 are Latvia, Moldova, Germany, Lithuania, Ireland, Spain, Uganda, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, and Romania. In summary, European countries generally have the highest per capita consumption and Middle Eastern countries, influenced by religious views, have the lowest.

Surprisingly enough, Japan is not ranked in the top 10 in the world but keeps the highest percentage among Asia, top-ranked followed by Laos. Okay, Probably I need to convince myself this discrepancy of 1.2% of the alcohol consumption ratio brought me no friends drinking in Canada. I should believe it. Put all effort into doing so.

By the way, while looking up Google about the alcohol consumption data, I found something interesting.

The other example might be unconventional. I have many people who want to tell me something positive. In most cases, in my case, I don’t need it. For example, when I talk about what I gave up in my life and what I will do in the future, sometimes people say “You are too pessimistic”, “You can do anything you want to!” I am like “No. I am just realistic to make my life best.” The other example is when I talk about how few I could become friends. People like “Poor you, I have a party tonight. You should come if you don’t have friends” I am like “No. No need. By the way what I was telling you that I have a few friends was not a sad story, though.” This is when they are telling me something positive that I don’t need. I don’t know why they tend to be loud and they are proud of joining the party. Then I found the word “Toxic Positivity” which convinced me perfectly. I was like this was how I wanted to express my situation!

February was “a terrible hospital month” for me. I went to the ER *emergency room for the first time in Canada due to severe back pain which caused me hard to breathe. Also, I had been suffering from ear and eye problems for over two weeks. Luckily, everything has been cured and is back to normal.

Throughout this experience, I found that explaining symptoms is one of the most important skills to survive here. Otherwise, of course, our symptoms might be mistakenly overlooked, and then we are likely to miss the best treatment to cure them.

Overall, the experience in the ER was not comfortable. First of all, we did try our best to find out the best hospital by reading the Google reviews of the ER throughout Vancouver carefully because my nearest hospital had the worst review “It was chaotic with people screaming suffering from drugs and waited over 15 hours to see a doctor.” Our decision was relatively not too too bad, because there was no one screaming out but still, I waited for 7 hours in total. Later I found out that waiting time is determined by how emergent people’s symptoms are on the first quick interview in the reception so a long waiting time means they determined you as it is not urgent. That’s rude but fair to some extent. What’s unique about waiting time is blood test carts are around to take patients’ blood in the waiting room, and a nurse comes to take blood in turn which is not commonly seen in Japan.

By the way, it was my first time to be required to explain what my pain looks like in English. I somehow managed to tell my symptoms understandably but let’s say I could only understand roughly 60% of what a nurse was asking. So today let me tell you 5 questions that I was asked by a nurse during the first check-up. Of course, these questions are not likely to be asked if there are any medicines or symptoms you have been taking care of or any other medical history you have. It should be only applied to something you experienced unusual or for the first time.

No.1 Have the pains been constant or intermittent? This question is to see how often you suffer from pain or if the pain occurs due to some movement. No.2 Can you describe the pain/discomfort? Is it sharp, dull, stabbing, throbbing, burning, etc.? This question is asking what kind of pain you have. To be honest I only know the word sharp or dull so I said it was sharp. No.3 does it spread anywhere else? This question is trying to determine if the pain covers wide parts of the body or stays at a specific point. I said it was not spread and stayed on my back. No.4, Do you have any other symptoms accompanying the pain/discomfort? Such as nausea(なーじゃ）, vomiting, dizziness, shortness of breath, etc. Nausea is a feeling of sickness or discomfort in the stomach that may come with an urge to vomit. Dizziness is the false sense that you or your surroundings are spinning or moving. I answered I had dizziness and shortness of breath.

It was stressful to think about answers in English that required a big effort no matter how severe pain you have in your body. Besides, several nurses were not friendly and truly heartless. I ended up crying while I was alone in the patient room. I understand they also face stressful situations but I was like “How come these people can treat me such! It doesn’t have to be mean to me! I have terrible back pain waiting for 7 hours! I wanna go back to Japan! I love Japan!” Now I can make fun of what happened to me on the day, but that was a nightmare at the moment.

That’s everything for today’s episode. Let's get yourself ready for that bad day that needs to explain your symptoms to the terrible nurses!

キッチンドランカーはじめましたのよ

I am not 100% sure if this episode is practical or not but let's talk about cooking today. 

I have been in a mood for cooking. Cooking is now where I can show my best talent of being efficient and acquiring a strong sense of accomplishment in my life. Honestly, I am quite new to cook. I was too lazy to cook while I was in Japan, no the truth should be our culture has been too convenient to start cooking by ourselves. For instance, it is straightforward to find qualified inexpensive foods no matter where you live thanks to convenience stores. Many people know about Japanese convenience stores which are different from Canadian ones we call it "convini" in Japan. They are playing a crucial role in our lives to enhance our quality of life because not only do they have everything we need but also an incredibly wide variety of good deal ready-to-eat meals with the best quality. What's more, they are sold in small quantities. That means we indulge in several meals at once that never make us boring.

That means we no longer have to cook in Japan! No one can blame me for the truth. Then I ended up with almost no cooking experience until moving to Canada. 

After coming to Canada, we were kind of forced to do cooking daily due to the cost of dining out at the restaurant which is ridiculously expensive. Even the prices of ready-to-eat meals are outrageously high. No options for me. 

But for the first year of my cooking journey, I kept cooking sandwictches with same ingrediants such as ham and rettuces or sometimes pasta with simple canned pasta source or instant ramen. That's it. It was mainly because I was living in a shared house all the year which requires us to take turns to cook in the shared kitchen. In case, I didn't enjoy cooking even once just always rush, rush every day to finish cooking in a timely manner. However, now I have my own kitchen! Plus, now I know how to cook rice without rice cooker! Once this happened to me, my cooking journer begun. My usual diet completely went back to Japanese version which is rice-centered. Now I could count up to 23 Japanese authentic meals that I can cook! 

What's most important is my time efficiency of cooking. I still don't agree with the idea of sacrificing time for good cooking. Therefore, I cook only twice a week and cook multiple meals simultanously. Bragging is not my thing but I found myself an expert of multi-task work by breaking tasks into manageble pieces and trucking time precisely to finish it quickly. Say the least, I excel at this. Besides my lovely friend "whiskey with soda" gives me extra cherish, happiness and desire the cooking time. Yes, she does for sure! Usually four of my friends are with me every night for your information. By the way, I only cook basic Japanese cuisine such as nikujaga, curry, omurice, humburg, chicken karraage, buta don, gyoza other than some Chinese food like Mapo tofu, hoikoro, stir fry and Mexican taco! But recently I started cooking some no-name meals by following my inspiration. That could bring me to the next level of high-efficient cooking. So it is your turn. Do you like cooking? or is you are also an expert of efficient cooking, any tips for efficient cooking? Give me some advice.

お好きなわけない