why winter is nice

Well, I've become ridiculously busy recently. My week starts with a long, but peaceful train ride into the middle of nowhere. Actually, the train runs next to the mountains along the coast. It then crosses the vast rice paddies in a valley. It's one of the older trains in Japan—something you don't see very often anymore. The final destination is a town called Tsurugi, which has a massive high-tech university just outside it. It's the kind of place that generates the newest ideas and technology. My class is in the building where ethical debate on artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights occurs.

Anyways, I wanted to relay this story to you all. it has recently started snowing in Kanazawa. Beautiful, thick snowflakes falling slowly. Winter here is really great, not only because the city really shows of its 'shibui' flavour. (Shibui means tasteful, sober, or austere). On snowy days, Kanazawa's samurai district probably looks much like it did 200 years ago. The snow resting on the traditional, black tile roofs, look so exotic. The other (much tastier reason) why winter is good is that the fish get fatty to protect from the cold. Winter is the time of feasting, nabe, crab, and great sashimi.

Recently, I walked through the market, always congested with shoppers trying to get the best deals on seasonal fish and peach-coloured crab. The main intersection is particularly packed with old men yelling out 'irrashai!' and pedalling their goods. When I walked through there that day, for some reason, everyone moved away. I stubbornly kept walking and found myself staring the biggest, ugliest fish in the contorted eye. It was about 1.5 meters in diameter, and looked more like a 'real fish' got steam-rolled than that it was actually born so ugly. I remember seeing the fish in the Osaka Aquarium, where they have to put a net around the glass so that it doesn't hurt itself by continually running into the glass. (So, I guess it's stupid as well as ugly. Great combo, God! Where you drunk the day you made that thing?!) Anyways, despite being ugly and stupid, the fish has a nice name (in English): Sunfish...The japanese name, 'Mambo', is more appropriate.

The people i talked to have never eaten it. It's very rare, and in some places a delicacy. But would you really want to eat such a hideously ugly thing?