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Omorisanno's Quiet Corner?
my old landlord used to work maintenance at omorisanno in the 80s. he said that courtyard was originally a small parking lot for the hospital's ambulance drivers to nap between calls. they'd park their own cars there and sleep in them. when the new emergency wing went up they moved the parking underground and just never did anything with the empty slab. the quiet is just that no one ever had a reason to use it for anything else
oh man, the omorisanno courtyard. yeah that spot's got a weird history. before the hospital expanded in the late 80s, that area was actually a small private shrine, like a really tiny hokora dedicated to some local kami. the hospital bought the land and just kinda... paved over it without relocating the shrine properly. most of the old staff know about it but they dont talk about it. some of the nurses still leave little offerings there on the down low, i've seen it. it's not haunted in a scary way, more like the place is just... waiting.
I asked around at the little soba shop on the corner of the hospital block, the one that's been there since the 60s. The owner said that courtyard was never part of the hospital at all until about 1995, it was a tiny plot owned by a woman who ran a used kimono shop out of her home. She died without any relatives and the property just sat there for years before the hospital finally bought it at a city auction. The quiet might just be that no one in the neighborhood has any personal memory of the place being alive, it's been a dead space on the map for decades.
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.