Drinking Calpis

No!!! Not that! CALPIS!

Calpis is the unfortunate-sounding-in-English brand name for a series of milk-based beverages sold in Japan. It originally comes from a made-up word that combined the words CALcium and sarPIS (butter flavor in Sanskrit). Here's a photo of Calpis Soda in a local supermarket:

Calpis was first sold in Japan in 1919 as a powdered, just-add-water beverage. It now comes in a variety of flavors, carbonated and non-carbonated, and no-calorie (diet or Zero) versions. This is Calpis Water (the non-carbonated version), Calpis Water Zero, and Grape Calpis Soda Zero (on the left edge in the photo):

I first tried Calpis in Japan last year and have been a huge fan ever since. My favorite is Calpis Soda mixed with shochu and ice but I just got into the Calpis Zero Grape and shochu in Osaka this year. And, no, you don't need to drink Calpis in a Chuhai to enjoy it. Even though it's made from milk, it's not like drinking watered-down or carbonated milk (and I can't even begin to wrap my brain around where the "butter flavor" in the original name comes from). I've written and deleted about ten different attempts at trying to describe the flavor but I've given up. You've gotta' trust me on this one that it's really good.

If you're in the U.S. and very lucky, you might find Calpis products as they're now sold there under the Calpico name. I guess they re-branded so that they could free themselves from their bovine-urine-sounding name.

Anyone up for a yummy chuhai?

Visiting Kofun

Probably the most famous of all large-scale burial sites in the world are the Egyptian pyramids. The pyramids are giant and are quite amazing to see in person. I am lucky to have gotten the opportunity to visit them earlier this year:

Similar in shape but different in purpose are the Mayan pyramids. Here's a photo of my visit to Chichen Itza in the Yucatan in November of 2009:

Actually, the last two photos have nothing to do with this story but I wanted to share them anyway... :-)

Relatively unknown outside of Japan are burial sites known as Kofun. Japanese Kofun are a type of Tumulus, or raised mound of earth and stones over a tomb, which were built from approximately 300 A.D. to about 700 A.D. This Kofun, which I visited near Nagasaki, is one such Tumulus:

The largest Kofun in Japan is the Daisen Kofun and is located in Sakai City, south of Osaka. It is the burial place of the 16th Emperor of Japan, Emperor Nintoku. Since it is about a ten minute walk from the shrine that I visited to see the Futon-Daiko festival recently, and because it's supposedly "the largest tomb by area in the world", I just had to go. This is an aerial photo of Daisen that I found on the internet:

The Kofun have been constructed in a variety of shapes over the years but the keyhole design shown above is the most common. There are two water-filled moats surrounding this Kofun, the smaller of which (the outer one) is difficult to see in the photo above. It looks like a thin line cut in the surrounding trees. The photo below is of that smaller moat, which is actually pretty large. It helps to give you an idea of the scale of the whole site.

Unfortunately, you only get to cross the first moat. There is no bridge across the larger moat and you can't actually get on the mound. It turns out that the mound is considered sacred ground and they don't let the public on it. Also, very little excavation has taken place over the years so there's no museum or other things to visit. Fortunately, I didn't make a special trip to see it but I did get this photo with the Kofun in the distance past the Torii gate:

While researching information for this story, I learned that there are burial mounds all over the world including some in the U.S., mostly in the south, which are the work of native-American tribes. I also found out about some that are located near a city that I will be visiting in the next month or so. Stay tuned... :-)

Reading eBooks

I've spent a lot of time this past year reading as much as I can about as many different topics as possible. Most of this reading has been using my beloved Vaio laptop for things I've found on the internet. What I've been missing though is some good, old-fashioned books. There's been a couple of problems with that. First, finding a reliable, affordable source for English-language books while outside of the U.S. has been tough. Amazon's everywhere but you should see what it costs to ship books from the U.K. or the U.S. Second, carrying around one book, much less the next few on my list gets heavy. During my last visit to the U.S. I decided to purchase an e-book reader since it seemed to solve these problems.

I looked into four options: the Apple iPad, the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and a variety of Sony readers. The iPad was expensive, heavy, and way too large for what I was looking for. They are beautiful and are probably a good choice if you are looking for a single device that can pretty much do everything but I already have a laptop and was looking for something that's easier on the eyes.

Cue the "e-ink" options. The Sony readers, as with all Sony's products, were beautiful but expensive. I then checked out the Kindle but I found two problems. The newest version seems very nice but it wasn't yet available (it is now) and you can only read Amazon-bought books on it (which I found out later isn't really true but what I was led to believe by the reviews I had read and Amazon's site). I went to a local Barnes & Noble near Philadelphia and liked what I found with the nook. Here's a photo of mine:

The Nook is relatively light weight (12 ounces - the iPad weighs twice as much) and the screen is excellent for reading for a long time. You won't even notice that you're not reading a physical book after about 30 minutes. The Nook has built-in WIFI, which allows you to wirelessly purchase and download new books as well as go online using a no-frills-but-functional browser. I can use the web feature to access my Google Reader and gmail but not much else. The book prices are good too. Most books cost between $10 and $12. It's a good price for a newer book that you'd have to buy in hardback for $30 but bad for a "classic" that'd cost $5 for the paperback version. You can also download/read free PDFs, out-of-copyright free books (Google Books, Project Gutenburg, and more), and "borrow" books from real libraries over the internet. I figure it'll take me about 20 or so books to recoup my e-reader investment but the easy-on-the-eyes reading, the light-weight, and portability are worth what I've spent.

There have been a few drawbacks though. The "e-ink" screen is great for reading (especially outside in sunlight) but it isn't back-lit like a computer or iPad or something else. You need to read with a regular light (just like you would with a normal book) if you want to read at night. Not really a problem, but something that might bother some people. Second, you can DOWNLOAD books to the Nook anywhere in the world, which is great and what I wanted, but...you can't BUY books from B&N if you are physically outside the U.S. Doh! I played with a couple of options, none of which was a great solution. I got as far as adding the books to my shopping cart on the website but couldn't complete the purchase. Finally, I called my brother in the U.S. and asked him to login to my B&N account and hit the "Pay" button for me. It worked like a champ--thanks Kevin!!!

Another drawback, shown in the photo below, is, as with all electronics, that it doesn't like being dropped! If you look closely, on the left side of the screen, there's a gray line running just to the left of the text. That's the result of me dropping my backpack with the Nook inside.

Fortunately, the damage hasn't made it a problem for reading as all the books that I have loaded are centered outside the "gray stripe" and everything else still functions. The e-reader has been great for me. I've polished off more than a book-a-week (seven) since owning it--probably more books than I have read for leisure in the last few years combined. If I can just keep from dropping it again...