Monthly Archives: July 2020

Isuien Garden in Nara – Don’t skip it

Posted on by

The area around Toudaiji and the Deer Park in Nara is constantly packed. If you’re looking for something that is less crowded, don’t skip the beautiful Isuien Gardens.

Isui-en Garden
Isuien Garden

One creative feature in Isuien Gardens is their use of stones tied with rope to indicate areas that guests should not enter. This is great. The stones are aesthetically pleasing, blend in with nature and the parks scenery, and are still easy to spot.

Isui-en Garden Stone
Stones tied with rope indicate no-go zones for visitors.
Isui-en Garden Stone
Beauty stone STOPS YOU IN YOUR TRACKS
Isui-en Garden Stone and Path
Beautiful Scenery at Isuien Garden

Isuen Garden is a short walk from Kintetsu Nara station. You can easily do the garden, Todaiji, and the nearby famous deer park in the same afternoon or morning.

There is also a nice little tea house in the garden where you can take of your shoes, sit on tatami, and enjoy some tea and traditional Japanese sweets (or soft cream).

Visiting Isuien shocked me into really feeling like I was “in Japan” again. It’s amazing how much the environment can change once you enter the garden grounds. As there were hardly any tourists when we went, it was quiet, free of any litter, and seemed that everything was in place. We were there in the morning and could hear what sounded like a bullfrog, and there were small bugs suspending themselves on top of the pond. Really a great environment. If you’re in Nara, don’t miss it!

Links:

Isuien Garden [Wikipedia]

Japan Guide: Isuien [Japan-Guide.com]

Official Isuien Garden Website [English / Japanese]

Finding Board Game Deals Online

Posted on by

Board games are great. I have bought, sold, and traded for quite a few over the past few years. One thing to know about board games is that their prices can fluctuate wildly. It’s not uncommon to find relatively new games on sale for 30-40% off of the MSRP (Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price) on major online shops like Target, Walmart, and Amazon.

Of course, it’s always best to support your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Shop) if they have the game you want. These local shops keep the hobby alive and build the community.

CamelCamelCamel.com: This website provides price history graphs for most products listed on Amazon. You can also specify a price point and receive an alert when the product price falls to that point or lower. If you’re not in a hurry to buy something you can set an alert and pick it up when it reaches an all-time low price. You can see in the screen capture below that Skull (awesome game) fluctuates between 25$ and 15$ quite frequently.

CCC Example of Skull
CCC Example of Skull board game price fluctuations

Reddit r/boardgamedeals : The r/boardgamedeals subreddit is full of board game enthusiasts who watch price swings like hawks. You will often see people mention “CCC all-time low” on this Reddit sub. This means that the current price is the lowest price ever recorded on CamelCamelCamel.com.

Here are some of my favorite Social Media Accounts the track Board game deals:

@Tabletop_Deals https://twitter.com/Tabletop_Deals

@Bgl_Deals https://twitter.com/Bgl_Deals

@BoardGamePrices https://twitter.com/BoardGamePrices

@tabletopbellhop https://twitter.com/tabletopbellhop

Facebook Online Board Game Deals Page: https://facebook.com/OnlineBoardGameDeals

These resources are mostly focused on U.S. prices. There are some similar resources available for people in other countries but I am not as familiar with them.

If you’re looking for more (and frankly for practically every reputable price drop source) you can find a list on the r/BoardGamedDeals subreddit page.

Here’s another comprehensive blog post with money saving tips on BoardGameSquad.com.

Of course, if you’re trying to control your spending, or cull your board game collection, avoid all of these sites at all costs. You have been warned.

Patchwork Game Box
Patchwork Game Box and Epic Cardboard Buttons

Review: The Chess Game at Japan Toys R Us by Portable Series

Posted on by

I was looking for a cheap tiny chess set to use with my kid while hanging out at the in-laws. Something that I could leave behind tucked away in a corner that wouldn’t take up much space. Something not heavy that I could bring on short overnight trips. Something so inexpensive that I wouldn’t cry if it got lost.

The Chess Game by Portable Series
The Chess Game by Portable Series. Made in Japan. Like 5 USD.

This is fine. It cost less than 550 yen when I got it in February 2020 in Osaka.

The Chess Game by Portable Series

The fold up plastic board can store the pieces, and it comes with a trifold instruction manual. The manual is Japanese only and unnecessary if you know how to pay chess. You have to punch the pieces out from the plastic mold yourself, but it wasn’t difficult and I didn’t break any pieces in the process. I’ll probably get a small bag of some sort to put the pieces into before putting them inside of the board to prevent everything from rattling around like cheap a cheap baby rattle.

The Chess Game by Portable Series
You need to break the pieces apart yourself

The pieces are easy enough to tell apart. They are extremely light hollow plastic. Not satisfying to move at all, but hey, didn’t buy this for that feeling anyway.

The board has indented plastic spaces to prevent the pieces from sliding around, but the spaces are circles that are much larger than the bases of the pieces.

The Chess Game by Portable Series
Plastic indentations keep the pieces from sliding around. It’s not magnetic.

As it was so cheap this was a worthwhile experiment since I’m trying to keep up my kid’s interest in chess. I mainly set up one move checkmate situations and other chess puzzles that I find online, and my kid enjoys solving them. Soon I think we’ll be able to play a game together! For that sort of training, this cheap set is worth it. If you’re looking for a permanent travel set that you enjoy playing games with, keep looking.

Shochu Culture with expert Stephen Lyman

Posted on by

Do you want to really geek out on Japanese Shochu? Check out these two videos featuring Stephen Lyman, America’s leading expert on Japan’s national distilled spirit: shochu.

Deep-Swig of Shochu Culture with expert Stephen Lyman
Japan Society NYC – Shochu: Japan’s Best Kept Secret

Shochu is a nice, distinctly Japanese drink. Like whisky, different shochu labels have memorably different tastes and qualities. You can drink shochu on the rocks, split with warm water, with seltzer water, you can even do hot water and put an umeboshi into the glass.

As you’ll learn in Stephen Lyman’s videos, shochu is almost exclusively produced and consumed in Japan. Most shochu is made in Kyushu, and much of it is from relatively small distileries. Exploring the world of shochu might be fun! Give it a shot.

Drinking in general is not good for your health. However, among all the possible alcoholic beverages you can consume, Shochu isn’t the worst. In fact, Stephen documented his weight lost results when switching to a “shochu diet.” Apparently shochu has far fewer calories than other drinks. Another plus of shochu is that it is normally cheaper than whiskey or sake. A nice bottle of shochu, in Japan, will rarely exceed 4000 or 5000 yen. Very good bottles can be had for about 3000 yen. Very reasonable.

Still curious? Need more shochu info?

Interview with Stephen Lyman on Nomunication.jp: https://www.nomunication.jp/2019/06/18/kampai-samurai-stephen-lyman-shochu/

Wondering which Shochu were introduced in Stephen’s (@shochu_danji) interview with @jjwalsh? Here they are!