Christmas in Carouge

The past week I was stuck with deadlines and end of the semester events so I apologize for being a bit late for my posts! I am in break now and getting some well-deserved rest after survining on 3-4 hours of sleep for the past few days.

A small trivia: I live in the canton of Geneva, but I actually don't live in the city of Geneva. I live in a commune "suburb" called Carouge. Although with the small scale size of Geneva, I live a block away from the city proper so I don't see much of a difference. But the neighborhood is to die for. It's not so historical like Old City settings but the area itself is very traditional European with cute small shops and cafe surrouning the entire neighborhood. It has a bit of a hipster-like setting and you can see many Genevoise coming out to brunch or to the farmers market on the weekends.

There's also a very nice Christmas market which I unfortunately missed. But there was an "Open Sunday" event in which participating stores around the neighborhood kept their doors open for Sunday for all the last minute Christmas shoppers. This may not seem like much to you but when all the stores are closed on Sundays, this is a big thing. Many flocked here to take a nice stroll around the area. Of course, everything that was sold was absolutely not affordable with my meager student budget but nevertheless it was fun walking around lively streets on a Sunday afternoon in my neighborhood!

Ramen at Yukiguni

As a Japanese you miss certain things when you're overseas: sushi, miso soup, and ramen. Among them, I never trust eating ramen overseas. Many foreigners think that ramen is a better version of instant noodles but there's so much more to it! The broth needs to be made hours, even days in advance in the perfect ratio with all its ingredients and complex broths. The noodles need to be fresh and boiled with percision. So when my classmate told me there was a ramen place open in Geneva, I was skeptical. It is usually run by a non-Japanese person who's only had a few real ramens in his lifetime.

But this place was different, the chef is Japanese and there were neumerous certificates on the wall that cerfities him with a chef license. The menu and toppings were very simple (just the way most Japanese people like it) and the restaurant was tidy and clean.

I do have to say it's one of the best ramens I've had outside of Japan (but you also do have to understand I rarely eat ramen outside of Japan since I don't trust them). The noodles were perfect and the broth was fit to my liking. The only gripe I have is that the soup was not hot enough! But I suppose for foreigners not used to eating boiling hot noodle soup I do have to give credit to the chef for being consideration of this point. Nevertheless, I must also stress it was the most expensive ramen I ate... 22CHF for a plain shoyu ramen?! I could've gotten the exact same one near my old appartment in Tokyo for about $7!

But should I get a sudden ramen urge, I know where to go now!

Small venue but the place was packed! Shows how much ramen popularity is growing worldwide!

Santa Claus Run

As crazy as it may seen, I ran yet another race the following week. Back to back 5k races - I really have not done this since my high school days! The event was held in Lausanne (about 30-45minutes away from Geneva by car or train) and one of my classmates who lives there helped organized the event. Initially we were going to have Santa and reindeer costumes sent from the US. But when that plan fell through, it was time to get creative. I happen to find some mustaches and corny lighted up Santa hats so..why not? This is how we look, not too bad huh?

An interesting thing about this race is that it's held at night! Our race started at 9pm but thanks to the beautiful light up around the Old City district of Lausanne, the roads for the most part were mostly lit up. As you can imagine from the race name, almost everyone was dressed up in costume which added to the fun!

Pre-race beer

Pre-race shot!

EVERYONE was a Santa, we felt a bit unoriginal!

All the shots taken at the starting line & during the race were taken by Jamir. Special thanks for being the camera man and team manager and holding our things during the race.

T'es prête?

Unfortunately, as has happened with my other race, we got to the starting line quite late so we were pushed back to the middle pack - again my first kilo was zigzagging through crowds in which immense energy was taken away. But in all since this was my second race, I got to enjoy it a bit more - fortunatley the weather was quite warm for December and the ambiance of Christmas and costumes made it enjoyable. However, the city of Lausanne is considerably more hilly than Geneva. Some of the hills along the course almost made me gag. Note to self: work more on hills!

I look so ordinary compared to the other runners!

Afterwards we were invited back to my classmates' house where we were greeted with baked goodies, hot wine, and a "marmite" brought by my Genevoise classmate (this story to come in another post). The race happened to fall a few days before one of our assignments were due so we were quite stressed but nevertheless, it was fun to experience a race in a different Swiss city and feel a bit of the holiday love.

Post race!

Munchies after the race

Story of the Escalade Part II: Procession

It was a cold and rainy weekend, a perfect night that would've laid out the events that happened over 400 years ago in Geneva when they fought against enemy forces. All weekend long, there are events going on in Old City area but the grand finale was the procession (parade) held on Sunday. I was cold and tired from working on my papers but I've heard good things about it so I headed my way over to the parade routes.

And they were right, I was taken away by the traditional costumes and the amount of pride the Genevoise have for their city and history. Hot wines carts leaded the procession which was great since it kept me warm throughout the parade.

It was a long procession, over 2 hours long with over 300 people marching plus horses, mules, geese, and donkeys!  This is a terrible comparison to make, but it reminded me of the colonial pre-Revolutionary times in America. I'm sure Europeans are deeply offended that I make this connection with the historically new US but I think is the closest thing I can think of when trying to paint an image of this event.

I wish I would've gone to the other events during the day - apparently they have a tour to some of the passages which is only shown to the public during this time. Plus there are performances, food stands, and demonstrations throughout the weekend. Too bad I had too many assignments due but hopefully next year!