On Monday, we decided to try and get our tickets for the Imperial Gardens in Kyoto. We took the subway to Ginza and then walked over to the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately, you can't really see much of the palace, but here's a picture of one of the entrances.
The palace is gorgeous; it is surrounded by a moat that has a bunch of white swans swimming in it. That bridge on the left side is supposed to be pretty famous. As you get closer, there are other areas with beautiful trees plants. To get the garden tickets, we had to go to a gate, where we were given name tags and instructed not to "stray from the course." We then went into a government building where we had to show our passports and eventually we got our tickets. So we didn't stray from our course, we immediately left and headed back into the Ginza district.
The first place that we went to was the Sony store. The PlayStation 3 had just come out that day, so there were demos all over the place. I got to test out a racing game that was pretty fun, and there was a tennis game that was really realistic. On the next few floors, they had tons of mp3 players, cameras and TVs. It was too bad because the top floor used to have robot toys, but they took it out and put some weird clothing store on top. Sorry, I'd have pictures of some of the new technology, but they didn't allow cameras.
Next we went and looked at a few other camera places, and then headed over to a new building called Roppongi Hills. Roppongi Hills has condos and a shopping mall, and is supposed to be the new place to go to see a Tokyo city view. We took an elevator up some 56 floors, and since it was a clear day, we got a great view of the city.
In the picture above, you can see Tokyo Tower, also a viewing tower in Tokyo. In addition to the viewing windows, there was a museum on the top floor, which at that time was showing Picassos. We didn't have a ton of time, and I'm not into art at all, so after we walked around a bit, we decided to go over to the Tokyo Dome, which is where the Tokyo Giants play.
Unfortunately we couldn't see much, and the baseball museum/hall of fame was closed. We were able to shop in the Giants store, so I bought Andy a jersey. Outside of the Dome was a huge roller coaster and a spokeless ferris wheel. It looked like a lot of fun, but everything seemed to be closed. We should have taken that as a hint as to how the rest of the day would go, but we didn't.
Since everything was closed by the Tokyo Dome, we tried to head over to Ueno Zoo, since I'd never seen a panda before. By the time we figured out where it was, we walked up and it was completely closed. Apparently nothing is open in Japan on Mondays. There was supposed to be a paper shop in the area that sold authentic Japanese rice paper, so our genius selves then tried to walk there. Long story short, we got lost in the middle of some part of an old-town Tokyo and had to take a cab to Tokyo Station. My entire body wanted just curl up in a ball and go to sleep at this point, so I was really glad when we met up with Katsumi and he suggested that we go out for sushi.
The sushi place that we went to was in Shibuya, so we took a cab from the hotel. It's a really tiny place, with only enough room to fit about 10 people. The owner is a friend of Katsumi's. Dad and I kept wondering how chefs like this guy made any money, and Katsumi said it's because he has friends who come to eat at the restaurant all the time; they are such regulars that they all have tabs.
One of the things that I learned is that when you go out for sushi, you are supposed to start with sashimi, and then move on to eating sushi. We started out with Katsumi's wife's favorite, halibut. We each got two really thin slices of this beautiful white fish, and we were supposed to dip it in a vinegar/citrus sauce that Katsumi said is called "Ponzu." Let me preface our entire meal here by saying it was all delicious.
The next thing that Katsumi ordered for us was octopus. It was really thinly sliced, and we were supposed to put a dab of wasabi on it, dip it in salt and eat it. This was the first time I ever had real wasabi instead of that bright green stuff that we get here in the States. The bright green stuff is from a powder, but in reality, wasabi is a root that looks kind of like ginger. It's grated and then put on your plate in a little pile. The color of real wasabi is still a bit green, but it was a more earthy/brown tone to it. It's also not quite as hot. It still cleared up my nasal passage pretty well, but it wasn't as ridiculously spicy as the powder. Instead, it had almost a vegetable flavor to it. The tiny bit of wasabi and salt were the perfect accompaniment to the octopus, which was tender and crunchy at the same time.
In the States I've never had the opportunity to try abalone; it's really expensive, but also I'd always heard that it was really tough. At the sushi restaurant, we had baby abalone, which was thinly sliced. It was amazing. Instead of being chewy and tough, I could bite into it because it was so tender. Katsumi said that it was because the abalone was younger, and hadn't developed a toughness yet.
Katsumi then ordered some mackerel slices, which were unlike any mackerel I've had here. Since there's a lot of Mercury in the water where they are fished, they soak the mackerel in a vinegar sauce for a while. It gave the fish a darker color and a slightly saltier flavor. We then had scallops, my absolute favorite shellfish. Instead of eating them raw, they were grilled and wrapped in a small sheet of seaweed so that we could eat them with our fingers.
The chef also grilled some whole shrimp for us--hooray because the Japanese also eat the yummy head. This was a very basic but delicious course
It was then time to move on to sushi. The first thing that we had was fresh saltwater eel. It was grilled for a bit, brushed with a sweet sauce and served as sushi. The eel pretty much melted in my mouth, it was so tender. It was definitely one of my favorites.
Next was tuna, another one of my favorites. Katsumi ordered one regular tuna and one fatty tuna so that we could taste the difference. The regular tuna is the same kind we would get here if we were to order tuna nigiri...But the fatty tuna is a more pastel-y colored pink with ribbons of fat running through it. It practically fell apart over the rice because it was so tender. Supposedly two pieces of the fatty tuna can go for $40 dollars in Japan! (We apparently got a deal.) There is a huge difference in taste, too. Knowing how valuable the fatty tuna was, I tried to eat it as slowly as I could, methodically chewing, but it didn't really work because it melted in my mouth. So much for that. It was delicious, but so was the regular tuna.
We also had a sushi roll. One of Katsumi's favorites is a roll of raw diced squid mixed with ginger and Japanese basil. The ginger and basil mix to give the roll a really unique flavor, and the squid adds texture to it. Definitely one of the more interesting things we ate that night. The only thing I didn't enjoy was a cod egg sac. It looked just like raw fish when I saw it in the display area, but then I looked closer and it looked almost like an internal organ because it was about six inches long, shaped like a liver, pink, and had a vein running along the outside. The other group of people was eating one, so I was curious as to what it was. Katsumi said it was cod roe, and ordered it. The chef prepared it by grilling the egg sac, slicing it and then serving it with lemon.
It looked like it was going to be good, especially since salmon roe is one of my favorites. Unfortunately, this was not the case with the cod roe. It was cooked in the sac, which had the texture of sausage casing, and then the inside was really grainy and salty. Not really my thing.
I was so full at this point that I didn't really need to eat anything else, but I loved the eel so much that we all had another piece. After that, we headed out and took a taxi back to the hotel for the night.
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