Day 6: Balls! Rice balls!

You will be happy to know my attempt to ensure I didn't lose my inhaler worked! Got up, was a big baby about going out in the cold and then when I hit 2km I warmed up and got over it. A fairly medeocre run all in all.

I don't know if it is just the run or if getting up 30 mins earlier but I am much better at getting ready on days that I run even though I get back from my run the same time I wake up. So despite the hating of the actual run, it makes my mornings less stressful (Once I'm over the initial stress of waking up knowing I have to get out into the cold).

I get back from my run, jump in the shower, iron my shirt, pour my cereal into a bowl, go to get my milk out of the fridge and guess what is missing? My fridge, it was just gone....nah, I had no milk. So instead I had to buy my breakfast from the convenience store. I'll use this opportunity to introduce one of the things I love about Japan but am also very confused by; おにぎり, onigiri (Rice ball)

Japan has some fun food shapes eh?

The one on the left is an おにぎり, the thing on the right is 手巻寿司 (te-maki-zushi) or hand rolled sushi. Onigiri are "Balls" (Usually triangles), of plain white rice, with some kind of flavour in the middle, above is tuna mayo, but there is also salmon, fish eggs, pickled plum, seaweed and more. The hand rolled sushi is exactly the same but with the flavour is all the way along the middle, not just a blob in the middle, like in my incredibly detailed diagram:

I am currently taking any commissions for diagraming

And now we come to the point of confusion for me. Which of the above distributions would you prefer (The flavour is the shaded area)? Equal amounts of flavour to rice with every bite, or 3 bites of nothing but white rice and one with all the flavour? And can you guess which of these is more popular in Japan? Thats right, The one with flavourless mouthfuls of plain white rice. Sometimes if you are lucky you get something like this:

See, I have real range with my diagramming

Yeah, thats おにぎり gold.

Anyway, I really think these need to be all around the world (The evenly distributed flavour ones), they are a brilliant snack/ replacement for sandwiches. Generally onigiri have lower calories, have less unhealthy crap as the filling and, I think, are more filling. Also, I don't want to get into Japanese sandwiches again (I explained before the fact that they are awfully filled, in fact they are filled very much like the above diagrams), onigiri are much better. However, I can not wait to get a brown bread BLT when I return home.

Thought that maybe my diagrams were not enough to give you a proper understanding of the filling

Off to bed now, gunna place my inhaler on the "Don't lose me" spot again, then run in the morning, teach a day at school and then work out. After all that I get the pleasure of preparing a turkey for Saturday's thanksgiving party, I will have to resist the urge to cook and eat the whole 7kg turkey all to myself!

Day 5: I would walk 5km, and I would walk 5 km more

I write this as I walk around my local area, up a very steep hill and around one of the coolest parks I have ever seen. Who says men can't multitask? I'll explain why in a long and surely too detailed story:

I awoke on time and keen to run today (well as keen as you can be at 6:20am). In my clothes, ready to go, got my phone for music, my water for thrust and inhaler for... Wait where is my inhaler? 

That's right guys, I have Ass-mar. I would say that I have never had an attack, more of a tickling, maybe a light prodding, bad enough it's bloody uncomfortable, it cause me difficulty to exercise but won't ever kill me. I suppose that is better than killing me! But either way, tickle or prod, I need my inhaler to run, 2 puffs and I'm raring to go. Not this morning however!

This is my front door, I shall not be losing my inhaler tomorrow!

I could stretch the story out like a mystery novel but instead I'll just say that I looked for it for 30 mins, gave up and found it under the shirt I picked up looking for my keys to go to work. ( I have never pretended to be tidy) 

Because of all this I haven't been for a run today, but it turns out to have been a bit of luck. See, yesterday my friend who runs a lot told me that running everyday would equal bad body stuff (I studied biology at uni for 2 years, that's an official term). So I should rest/go for a walk 1-2 days a week, so here I am, walking a 5k.

Finished! New goal for tomorrow, I will run twice the pace I walked today

It all worked out too, because Wednesdays are both a gym day and a karate day, so I think that maybe running a 5k on top is asking for trouble. Wednesdays will be my rest day, so every Wednesday I'll walk 5k instead of run it.

Day was pretty bland, normal teaching, then hit the gym after school. I was abysmal! Turns out that just saying one day to your body "Hey, you know all that stuff I wish I could do? Well, we are gunna start it all at once" doesn't make for the happiest body. But tough titties, never give up, never surrender.

After that I had 75 mins to get food, get home, cook, eat and go to karate. It all came together and even though it was reminiscent of my ramen adventure, it was absolutely fine eating that close to jiggling your body about only 10 mins later!

I may, or may not have been too eager to eat it all, oops

I made a random dish of onions, tomatoes and mushrooms, fried with chicken and mixed with white rice. A bit of Cajan spice for flavour and Worcestershire sauce. Not gunna win any Michelin stars (unless they have really lowered their standards), but delicious enough. I would probably normally add some mayo, but not this month! 

Another win tonight (if cooking edible food can be called a win), I didn't get beaten up by any 12 year olds at karate! It really is great fun, (karate, not getting beaten up by a 12 year old) if it was on every day I would do it instead of my 5ks, it would give me the added bonus of being able to do more if I ever got in a fight than running away really fast! 

Ah, I have arrived at the park, and I know you have been waiting to find out what's so amazing about it. Well the park itself is pretty dull, in fact too much path not enough grass for me, but it is all about this:

Lots of climbing frames, nets, a wheely slide, 2 other slides and more!

Is that or is that not the sweetest adventure playground you have ever seen? (Hint: yes it is). Also, I can neither confirm nor deny that sometimes when alcohol has been consumed that my friends and I have been up here to play on it. Neither confirm not deny....

Anyway with that I can happily finish my walk, 2k left, and wait to tell you about more excitement tomorrow! 

DAY 4: Sushi!

There are 2 types of people in the world, those who are good at this kind of joke, and those who aren't.

Nah, really there are 2 kinds of people, night owls or morning larks. People who either prefer staying up late and waking up late or those who prefer waking up early and going to bed early. In Uni I participated in a study that said I was an extreme night owl. That could either mean that I am an owl who likes to to do jet skiing while snowboarding at night (a possibility) or, that I really like to stay up very late.

It's the latter.

Because of that I had a little trouble going to bed last night, which may or may not mean that I woke up at 6:30 then cursed at my phone and rolled over. This meant I didn't run this morning. And that I sort of ambled through my day and had to run after a full day of work. It turns out running after only a few hours sleep and a full day of work is crap.

There is a part of me that is upset about those two 59's it just makes me feel uncomfortable

However, I did manage to keep my pace below 6min/km, a whole second below! WOOOP, I really need this month of running!

Then I went for my healthy dinner, cheap sushi. All the plates were ¥94/$0.94/58p. Thats right, for the exact same sushi you would be able to get back in the sushi shops in the UK, sometimes for a tenth of the price.

The middle thing isn't a new liquid sushi, it's soy sauce and wasabi mixed for dipping

This sushi is delicious, and cheap. Whenever I tell any of my Japanese friends or students about the prices of sushi in the UK they cant believe it, and nor can I. Seriously, I would spend about 3 times what I spent here and still leave the restaurant hungry. It's not right! Just as you imagine, this is conveyer belt sushi, so all the food comes round on a conveyer belt. This is both a blessing and a curse, good because you can get your food straight away, but a curse because you can watch the sushi you want and been following on its little tour of the shop get snapped up by the family in the booth before you. I'm not bitter, I promise.

And of course, even the food you order comes round on the belt. You use the touch screen pad to order your food and then when it arrives it sings a little jingle to let you know your food has arrived.

This is perfect healthy food, so I think if this is how my healthy month is gunna go I can handle it and it is such a nice change from the ramen, but a little part of me misses it.

Day 1, 2 & 3: One Month AFTER Ramen Begins

You probably didn't notice but my blog has had a wee hiatus for the past 4 days. So the idea was that I would start on Thursday, but then (conveniently...) I had a work conference that I had to attend for both Thursday and Friday. And, I am sure you know what it is like, you go to these events, and you haven't seen people for months, and won't for months after, it is rude to not drink, right?

Also, I stayed over on the Thursday night so I couldn't go for my morning run. This all together lead to my month of being "Healthy" becoming a "month" of being "healthy". The blog is now One Month After Ramen, as this is my recovery month, Enjoy. (I felt adding speech marks to the title would be silly)

Yes, you could alway scroll up but ain't nobody got time for that!

If me using "Healthy" is confusing you, I will explain why I'm using the speech marks. The internet is full of people telling you what is healthy. I mean, on just one site you can find out that the baby food diet, a 2 liquid meals a day diet (This doesn't mean Liquid Lunches, sadly) and the damn paleo diet are all called healthy. So whatever I do it's going to upset someone as being unhealthy because its either too far one way or another.

So, here are my rules

Starting Saturday 16th November and Ending the second I step on the plane home on December 13th:

1. I will run a 5k everyday
2. I will do weight training 3 days a week
3. I wont snack on things like chocolate, sweets, crisps, chips, etc.
4. I will try to eat relatively healthily, lots of protein, veg and as few processed foods as possible
5. No Alcohol
6. ABSOLUTELY no ramen!

No, no, no, no, no

I started on Saturday, I ran my a terrible 5k and refrained from having a relaxing beer. My run was partly so terrible because on Thursday we played dodgeball and wow, if that didn't mess me up! Turns out I suck at both dodging and throwing (AKA: Playing dodgeball), but also doing those things I sucked at caused me pain in many different places of my body for the next 2 days.

I don't really know how to take a good pic of me running so here was one of my views

Sunday came about and I ran an even worse 5k, as suggested, because of the dodgeball. Following that I went to a culture festival where I wore my Kilt and got more photos than I can count taken of me and so many of them were amazed by my height. Oh and of course I scared an unbelievable number of Japanese children.

Literally scarier to Japanese children than Freddy Krueger 

Finally, today I woke up at 6:30 (Never knew that time existed) and ran another abysmal 5k, Heres hoping my body improves or this will be a sad "month" for me. After school I went to my school gym and did my usual work out, but I'm thinking of changing it up. I won't bore you with details, thats for next time....

Day 31: There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story

And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain....wait wait wait, those aren't my words (but it is my way). But the end has arrived. And it is welcome! I had, what has become my favourite combination, Kotteri ramen and butakimchi, the pork and spicy fermented cabbage (It really does taste better than it sounds).

The smile says "I am happy it's over", the dead eyes say "I will always remember you"

For my final ramen I was joined by 3 of the people who live in the same building as me and we had a little ramen party. We are pretty much celebrities now, we got seating straight away (There were only 3 people in the restaurant), they gave us free drinks (all the water we could drink) and they asked to take our photo (I mean I asked them to take our photo).

This is how we party!

And just like that, it was over. What a whirlwind it has been: A different bowl of ramen or side every night, dining with men and women alike and oh the glamour! I decided that you guys have been missing the real stars of the show, the ones who made all of this possible, the staff. So I decided to get a photo with them.

You can tell by their headgear they mean serious ramen business

I saw one of these two every day for the past 31 days. I really don't now how they will cope without me! The guy on the left if a massively jolly man, who has remembered how I like my ramen and the other guy is usually the chef who gives me a big smile when I arrive. I couldn't have done it without them. Literally, if they weren't there no one would have cooked me ramen or taken my order.

The whole experience was interesting. I am glad I have done it, but I won't be doing it again. I feel that it was great to not have to cook for a month, or do the dishes but I do miss controlling my daily food variety. 

I also think that there is not a food on earth that I would be happy eating every day for 31 days. Ramen was/is one of my favourites and if I can't happily do it with that, the there is little hope for any other food. However, if an other companies wish to offer me a month of their food free, I would definitely accept that challenge! HINT HINT

For those who don't know these are 4 other massive food chains in Japan. The last one is curry, not vomit.

Health-wise, it really hasn't been that bad. I had a cold for a couple of the weeks but I don't think you can blame the ramen. I had a stomach ache for the end of the first and 3rd weeks, which I think you can probably blame the ramen for, but they went away. I have yet to go to the BMI/Body fat machine because the wrong side was being used for men today at the public bath. I could have gone into the other side but I feel all the naked women would have had something to say about it (and you do not piss off old Japanese women!)

I have actually finally weighed myself, but with a different scale so this isn't exactly good science (Cause this was going to be in a journal before this) but I weighed 74.5kg. If you look back to the prologue you will see that I weighed 77kg at the beginning. Meaning I lost weight by eating ramen everyday. 

We will have to wait till tomorrow to see how much of that was muscle and how much was fat, but all in all this is very surprising. I will add a before and after picture tomorrow (I'll be honest I tried the after picture tonight, but the light was all wrong). The only thing I am worried about is the sheer amount of sodium I ate, and I think that could be a problem so I will be cutting back on that for a while. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is what it has all been about:

As a final note, if you liked my blog and thought "Maybe he should write about ramen less" (maybe you missed the reason for the blog) then you are in luck. I have decided to continue my blog, that way you can trak my month of recovery following my month of ramen. I have decided to live a "Healthy" life for the next month until the day of my flight back to the UK for the first time in 2.5 years.

I will be running everyday, eating healthy and the worst of all having no booze. So tomorrow it will all start again on day 1. Feel free to follow my recovery from this previous month. Or not, I know it won't exactly be the ramen-centric blog you have come to love. 

Oh the photography......

The above was my last hurrah until I get on that plane. If you choose to follow me, tomorrow I will explain all the rules of my coming month as well as the before and after picture and my BMI/fat percentage. we live in such exciting times!

Day 30: Second to Last Day, Dun Dun Dun

Sorry for the delay, Just had one of those days, you know the typical kind where you are busy planning 2 upcoming lesson, then having to dress up as a monkey for your English clubs late halloween party, then straight to the ramen shop, then an evening class. Ok maybe not a typical day, for anyone, but still that was my busy day. 

Oh my god, a monkey loose in the classroom. Oh wait it is just a 6 foot man in a monkey outfit.
That's less terrifying!

The school halloween party was good fun and I am a particular fan of their version of russian roulette. They made おにぎり(Onigiri- Rice ball) with a mixture of different fillings ranging from pickled plum, chocolate and jam mixed with margarine.

Am I the only one thinking that cow is staring creepily at me?

Oh and the best one, wasabi, lots and lots of wasabi. Out of 25 onigiri, 4 of them had wasabi in them, and you will never guess who got one of those, 4/25 odds, wasabi onigiri. Here is a hint, have you ever seen a monkey cry?

Following this I headed to the ramen shop for the penultimate bowl. Not 48 hours after mocking it, I decided to get the mini ramen. This is less because of the size and more to do with the fact that I was not really looking forward to enduring the ramen for a 30th time in as many days so I wanted to make it as painless as possible. This will come back to bite me later, you will see why.

Gyouza demolished! Oh, you! I forgot about you, you little piece of ramen!

Oh, and I did get a side dish of gyouza but I got a little too eager and ate them all before I took the picture! Oops.

I was talking to my friend who comes with me every Tuesday, I mentioned the blog and one of the servers overheard me and asked "Burogu?" (Blog?) and I said "Hai, burogu" (Yes, blog) and he said "Anketo" (Questionnaire). Pretty sure he said more words than this but my Japanese isn't good enough to catch or remember anything else (The quote for me is pretty much verbatim). Then he showed me this:

It's sad when a Japanese persons English is written in better handwriting then you own!

I am not 100% on what that says but it says something like "I read/heard about this place from a blog i read called "1 month of ramen" by a British man called Steve. It was delicious" So to you mystery man/woman (They wouldn't show me the name, there is a lot of secrecy in the ramen world....Have I said too much???) thank you very much for both showing me that real people read my blog. Also, to everyone else who reads my blog, I want to say, shame on you! This is real dedication, and reading my blog all the way in the UK or America (or even you in Honduras!) is little excuse for not coming to my restaurant and leaving a nice message for the poor sods who have had to see my face everyday for a month now.

This was actually a massive boost that I hope will get me through the final day. Oh and remember when I said getting the mini was going to come back and bite me on the ass? Well at midnight I decided to get up and go and get this:

I won't say what it looks like but we all know don't we

It looks a hell of a lot grosser than it is. It is rice with fried beef and onions on top with a topping of 3 kinds of cheese and chilli sauce. Thats right, the mini only kept me going for a few hours then I had to get a top up with this beauty/monstrosity (however you wish to see it). Lesson learned, never go for the mini ramen.

Tune in (is that really still usable? I mean even for TVs nobody tunes anything anymore, and on blogs there is most certainly no tuning. Anyway, I digress) tomorrow for the grand finale of this far less dramatic version of supersize me, I will weigh myself and try to measure my BMI and body fat percentage again. It all depends on which side of the onsen I go to with the fat measuring machine is allocated to men. (I don't think real writers have these kinds of problems). I will also give you the low down of how I felt it all went. don't miss it, or do, it's the internet, nothing is ever lost on here.

Day 29: The end is Nigh. Thank God!

As predicted I ordered the plate of meat, the beautiful, delicious, sexy plate of meat.

It's times like these you wish they would invent computers where you can put your
hand in the screen and grab whats on it.

Awww yeah! Looks just as good, and almost identical to yesterday. However, I think that I may have actually received an extra slice! Now that is living.  However when I got to eating the ramen I really was not in the mood for it, I was both full and thing I have plateaued with my enjoyment of ramen. (My stomach hurts a little just thinking about all the ramen I have eaten)

I am so thankful that I only have 2 days remaining, just 2 more bowls and then I am planning a month of being healthy and that will most certainly include not eating any ramen! Then I will be heading home for 3 weeks, for the first time in 2.5 years (That means I have to eat 2.5 years worth of food I've missed right?) That 3 week period is most certainly not going to be about being healthy, but nor will it involve any ramen if I can help it.

Wait! Sepia? Was this ramen really from today or from 1900?

Above is the ramen that I ordered, as you cans tell see I ordered the egg ramen and so on and so forth about all that ramen stuff....... I will say though that no matter what the ramen is I don't think I would have enjoyed it, I am over the whole ramen thing. Eat it once a month, or once a week, or maybe everyday for 7 days, everyday for 14 days, I would stretch as far as to say 28 days. But after that, stop.

Whats that? An empty ramen bowl? Haven't seen one of those in forever

I sound bitterer than I am, I have enjoyed it but I am definitely looking forward to the end, and I have also gotten into some very bad habits. Mostly that after eating such salty food I have a massive craving for sweet foods. This also makes eating unhealthy, fatty noodle soup all the more unhealthy. This week almost everyday I got either an ice-cream, some chocolate or something similar. That's not a good way to live your life!

Anyway, 2 bowls left, 2 days and then I can happily say that I have eaten a whole month of ramen in my lifetime. That can count as an actual achievement right? One of those things where people say "What have you achieved in your life?" and I can hold my head high and say "One time, in Japan, I ate a bowl of ramen every day for 31 days!"

On second thoughts maybe not. I think I will have to keep working on this lifetime achievement thing.