Japan, Day 8

Saturday, November 18, 2006

We had to wake up really early because everyone wanted to get to see as much of the museum as possible. Dad and I met up with Auntie Lorraine and Uncle Lionel for breakfast in the hotel downstairs. The breakfast was pretty huge; we had an American-style meal of eggs, toast, and sausage with orange juice and coffee to drink.

Then, we met up with Tiffany and her friend Kim to walk over to the A-Bomb Museum. Before we went to the actual museum, we went to look at the "A-Bomb Dome." The Dome was almost directly under the bomb when it was dropped on Hiroshima. Since the atom bomb exploded in the air over the city and then spread outwards, the building that was directly below it somehow managed to not be completely decimated. It's been restored since the bombing, but the structure shown here is what was left immediately after the bomb dropped.

Next, we headed over to the museum. The admission was something like 100 yen (about a dollar), I think because they want to encourage as many people as possible to go see the museum. It's split into two parts with an elevated walkway connecting the wings. The wing seen on the left side has the museum entrance. There is an entirely new area there that was donated by the Clinton administration. It has information on the Japanese history leading up to World War II, the build-up to dropping the atom bomb, and the reasons for dropping it.

The wing on the right side contains Japanese artifacts and dioramas showing the effects of the bombing and the aftermath. That side has a lot more of the really gruesome photos, bloodstained clothing, but also the heartbreaking stories of individuals who had initially survived the bombing (only to die a few days or even hours later).

Uncle Lionel had arranged for us to have a private tour of the museum and the grounds, so we were originally shown around by two volunteers, a man and a woman. The woman showed us around the museum itself, and then we were taken to the Peace Park outside with the male tour guide.

It had been said by the Japanese that nothing would grow in Hiroshima for something like 75 years after the bombing due to the toxicity of the area. Plants began growing much much sooner. This tree in the Hiroshima Peace Park was thought to be dead after the bombing, but somehow continued to grow. You can see the indent in its trunk where it almost seems to be protecting its scars and attempting to grow over the damaged areas.

This is another memorial from the Peace Park, which is a beautiful park stretching across the front of the Museum. Different memorials, each dedicated to various groups that perished in the bombing, are scattered around the area and surrounded by beautiful plants, trees, fountains, and rocks.

My favorite memorial was this one:

It's dedicated to the children that perished in the bombing. One girl who suffered what eventually became fatal injuries decided to fold 1,000 paper cranes for good luck--both for her and all the others in Hiroshima. Even though she folded over 1,000 cranes, she died shortly after.

Because of her, there are tons of little shelters that hold tens of thousands of paper cranes that are brought every day. You should be able to see the shelters standing behind the bell.

Up close, they are packed with cranes. One of them was open with barely enough room to fit a string of cranes, and there was a note on it that said that it had only been open for one day!

On our way back to the museum for a quick snack, we stopped at this memorial, which is right in front:

I believe that this one is generally dedicated to the city of Hiroshima. Behind the arch is a large reflection pool.

We then said goodbye to our other tour guide, and headed inside. We ate in the tiny cafe that they had at the museum. Nothing to write home about, they only had microwaveable stuff. I tried one of the maple cookies that seem to be all over the southern part of Japan. They look kind of like leaf-shaped mooncakes, but in fact are soft and spongy, and the one that I had was filled with a chocolate-y paste. It was okay; not something I'd crave. We had some time before our meeting with the Hiroshima survivor, so everyone wanted to get a closer look at the museum exhibits.

This photo is of a watch, stopped at exactly 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when the bomb was dropped:

One of the new exhibits was a diorama showing what Hiroshima looked like before the bombing:

There was also a video playing, showing footage of Hiroshima beforehand. It was a happening city with a really big nightlife. After the bomb, everything was entirely floored:

This is a photo taken a few days afterwards:

The A-Bomb Dome looks pretty much the same as it does today...The bridges you see in the background are what we believe to have been the targets in the bombing.

Next to these photos and dioramas was text written by the Clinton Administration on why the bomb was dropped. Some of the most disturbing information was that the U.S. government wanted to drop the bomb on a city with a lot of civilians so that they could study the results scientifically and have a lot of subjects. In order to have a lot of victims, warning papers were not dropped over Hiroshima before the A-Bomb was dropped.

The next photos I have are of some very disturbing footage at the museum. I'm not posting too many since this is a food blog, so if you would like to see more, go to Uncle Lionel's postings):

This one has photos of all of their travels: http://www.teachingassistant.net/photos/asia2006/

This one includes photos from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Uncle Lionel knows a lot more than I do so I'll let you read his commentary and I'll stick to food as much as I can: http://mindobserver.com/compassion/

I thought that this photo was one of the most powerful. It was taken just after the bombing. It's in black and white, so at first I wasn't too taken by it. But then I noticed a caption below that explained that all of the black on these people's clothing is actually blood. The photo does the rest of the talking:

As I said before, the opposite wing, the Japanese wing of the museum, had more graphic images and artifacts. As we crossed over from the left wing of the museum, I felt the air get distinctly cooler. The lights slowly got dimmer and I looked to my right:

This diorama portrays children after the bombing. I read the book Hiroshima by John Hersey in an English class at Cal, which described a scene somewhat like this. One of the survivors described seeing her clothes being completely burned off of her, hanging in shreds. She then realized that it was her skin hanging in shreds, having melted with the fabric.

The rest of the wing has photos of the victims and artifacts collected after the bombing, such as blood-stained clothing and journals. There was also a cement step from a building that had a shadow of a woman burned onto it because the rays from the bomb were so powerful.

Another area was dedicated to the aftermath of the bomb. Not only were people killed from the bomb itself, but those who came into Hiroshima immediately after the bombing to try and rescue family and friends were killed also. The "black rain" killed anyone who was exposed, and the drinking water was lethal.

Again, there are a lot more photos on Uncle Lionel's site, so I definitely recommend checking it out.

We walked around for quite a while, but then had to head down to the basement to meet with a Hiroshima survivor. She was twelve years old when the bomb was dropped. You can't really see from the photo, but she has had something like 7 corrective surgeries since. She talked with us for about an hour about her experiences. Much of the information she gave us was about the bombing in general. Then, she told us personally what it was like during the bombing and afterwards.

One thing that we don't tend to learn about is what it was like for the survivors many years after the bombing. The corrective surgeries weren't available until much later, so while growing up, she was shunned even by the Japanese. People refused to sit next to her on the subway, and she was unable to find a husband. She did end up raising her brother's children, but from the way that she spoke, there was clearly a great deal of pain associated with not being able to find a husband.

It was quite an amazing experience to hear her talk. There are not many people who get to meet an A-Bomb survivor, and as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer. One of her messages, and the message of the museum, is to spread the knowledge of the tragic outcome of nuclear war. She and other survivors attend meetings, write letters, and give talks so as to teach the younger generations. In addition, to help keep the memory alive, the museum has been collecting survivor artwork for years, and she has contributed:

The museum was a very powerful place to visit. It's easy to be hardened and non-responsive to the Hiroshima bombing by sitting in class and just reading about it, or seeing a picture in a textbook. But looking at these photos, the artifacts, and speaking to a survivor really changes that. I'm so grateful for what I experienced in Hiroshima, and I feel that everyone would benefit from visiting.

There isn't any graceful way of transitioning from the museum to food, so I'm just going to go for it. After a mental break, we headed out to go try the food of Hiroshima...Okonomiyake.

Our guy's stall was in a four story building in downtown Hiroshima. Each floor had about 8 stalls exactly like this one--how to tell the difference between them all I have no idea, but when we left, each stall was completely packed with customers. To make Okonomiyake, he starts out with a pancake.

It then gets covered with fresh cabbage and spices.

The one I ordered had squid, so on top of the cabbage, he cracked some deep fried squid on top. Next, come chinese noodles (he recommended these over Udon noodles), tonkatsu sauce, a fried egg, seaweed and green onions. This is the final product:

There are other things you can get in it as well, such as kimchee, other meats and seafood. It's pretty gigantic--they give you a pie cutter type thing so that you can cut it into fourths and eat it in pieces. I'm not the biggest fan of Okonomiyake, but I think it's definitely something that everyone has to try in southern Japan. For me, there are just too many flavors packed into one place. It is, however, very filling and somewhat healthy. If anything, it's fun to go just for the experience and entertainment of watching them make it.

Japan, Day 7

Friday, November 17, 2006

Okay sorry for the delay on postings. The holiday is over so I'm going full-speed ahead now.

On technically our last day in Tokyo, we packed up our suitcases and headed over to Katsumi's to do laundry. It's weird--for a country that is so far ahead of us, technology wise, the washers and driers are really slow! I would have thought that they'd be pretty advanced considering that people in Tokyo are no longer allowed to hang their laundry outside, but I guess not.

At Katsumi's house, we watched a lot of Japanese TV, which is highly entertaining. They were focusing that day on the acquisition by the Red Sox of the Japanese baseball player, Matsuzaka, and also did a heartwarming documentary on a teacher turning around a "rough" neighborhood.

As we watched, Katsumi cooked up a huge breakfast for us: ham and eggs with mushrooms, rice, soup, nato (fermented soy beans--something like 90% of the population doesn't like these), cucumber rolls and fruit. It was a pretty amazing spread, but I found that I'm one of the 90%. Nato is GROSS.

Since Katsumi had to go to a work meeting, he called a cab for us to go to Tokyo Station. It was time for me to experience the bullet train (Shinkansen) for the first time ever.

This is a picture of a Nozomi train, the more expensive, faster one. We didn't ride one of these because they cost extra on top of the rail pass price. It doesn't stop at all of the stations, so it sometimes flies through, making a "BOOM!" and then flashes by in about 3 seconds (according to Wikipedia, it goes 300 mph).

These are some of the trains that we rode on (Hikari); they're still really really fast...

The trains are nice and smooth and have tons of leg room, and the ride was really smooth and relaxing after our week of pretty much non-stop sightseeing. I got some good reading in (Time Traveller's Wife--SO GOOD!), which was nice, and Dad slept. Fortunately, the train has instructions in English as well as in Japanese so it was pretty easy to figure out our stops.

The hotel that we stayed in while in Hiroshima was picked out by the Chans. It's called the ANA (not to be confused with the APA). Compared to the bare-bones of the hotel we stayed in at Hiroo, this place was absolutely luxurious. Everything was really clean and they even had CNN in English! Here's a picture of the room, courtesy of Uncle Lionel:

The Chans hadn't made it into Hiroshima yet, so Dad decided to finish his laundry down the street. I sat down and got some more quality reading time in--at the time I was reading The Time Traveller's Wife, and I couldn't stop. It was recommended to me by Catherine at work and Margaret. Originally, I thought it was going to be a cheesy love story that I'd hate, but they had recommended it, so I thought I'd try it. Unfortunately, it was a cheesy love story but it was so good. Fortunately Dad took forever at the laundromat so I was able to bawl for about 30 minutes as I finished the book. "Henry, no!!" Very good, but it's definitely a book to finish in private.

Finally Dad came back and the Chans knocked on our door. Tiffany and her friend were supposed to be coming in from Shanghai, but were having some transportation trouble. So, we decided to go out to get some noodles while we waited. The hotel recommended a place down the street, so we headed over there.

It was a pretty standard ramen place--they had that thick pork broth, same as the ramen place that we went to earlier, but it was a lot thicker and fattier. I ordered ramen with pork slices on top, and both Auntie Lorraine and I could not even finish the meat because it was so fatty. The gyoza that we ordered was pretty good, though, and so were the radishes. It was the first time that we had to really fend for ourselves going out to eat. I had never realized how hard it would be without Katsumi!

We were all really exhausted from travelling so all of us went to bed really early that night. Tiffany and her friend didn't even get in until after we had gone to sleep...

Japan, Day 6

Thursday, November 16, 2006

We set out kind of early on our last day in Tokyo because I wanted to do shopping in the fake food district, called Kappabashi (kitchen-town). Most of it consists of restaurant/cooking supplies, but the reason I went was for the fake food. I ended up buying a ton of sushi magnets (so cute!) and some food key chains.

They also have actual dishes that are entirely made of plastic, but they look very real. It's amazing how the quality of the fake food at a restaurant would sway my decisions as to where I wanted to eat, so I guess the fake food is pretty important. This chef guy is kind of a landmark for the area.

After I spent about half of my money at one of the stores, we set out to try and find the sumo museum. The sumo museum is located at a stadium where sumo wrestling is held, so it wasn't too hard to find, but the museum itself was kind of hidden. We searched around for a while, and finally found a door that advertised something for 900 yen. We assumed that was the price of the ticket, so we bought two, and headed over to the museum with our "free" sumo wrestler posters in hand. As soon as we found the museum, though, there was a sign that said that the entrance was free, and English guidebooks were available. Oops. Anyone want a sumo calendar?

The museum was really small and unfortunately, the guide was more of a booklet of information on sumo wrestling, not the exhibits. I think that it would have been a lot more interesting if we could have had a guide to tell us what all of the artifacts were.

Along one wall, there was a wrestler's kimono on display, which was so big I almost started laughing when I looked at it. Along the other wall is a sort of hall of fame with pictures of the top wrestlers.

We started to get hungry, and there was a really long line for the sumo restaurant (soup called chanko-nabe). Dad said that it might be fun to try a Japanese McDonald's, so we did that instead. Honestly, it's exactly the same, down to the portions. They even have a two-sided menu with Japanese on one side and English on the other. The bathrooms were a lot cleaner, but that was about the only difference.

When Dad first started coming to Japan, he said he played on some type of clay court near where his friend Rob was teaching. I forget what type of tennis it is, but it's played with a one-sided racket on a clay court. Sadly, everyone who was playing on it was using regular tennis rackets, so we moved on to go meet Katsumi for dinner at Kushinobo. Chris Cornell, a family friend, is working in Japan right now, so he met up with us too.

Kushinobo has an English website: http://www.kushinobo.co.jp/1950/1950_e_main/1950_e_index.htm

I think it's sort of a chain, actually, because they have locations throughout Japan. The one that we went to is on the top floor of a mall. It's a pretty fun restaurant. Everything on the menu is on a skewer, and it's deep fried. We sat at the counter, where they gave us unlimited bowls of fresh raw vegetables. When we finished each skewer, we were supposed to put the skewer into the mouth of a clay fish. Then, at the end of the meal, the waitress would count the skewers to determine how much to charge us.

We had so many things that I can barely remember it all. One of my favorites was a crab skewer that was wrapped in tin foil and then deep fried. We also had vegetables, chicken and fish. Another one of my favorites was the deep fried oyster (who wouldn't like that?).

For once in Japan, I wasn't able to keep up with everyone else, eating-wise. This place made me so full. Everyone seemed to be pretty exhausted, and even though it was our last day in Tokyo, we turned in early.

Japan, Day 5

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Kamakura was one of Zoey's favorite places when she visited Japan. Kamakura is a part of the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan. It's pretty easily accessible by the JR train from Tokyo, and the sites we visited were within walking distance of the train stop.

The first place that we went to is a temple called Kotokuin. It hosts "The Great Buddha," which is the second-largest monumental Buddha in Japan. The Buddha is outdoors and made of bronze; it is 13.35 meters tall and weights 121 tons. Originally, it was built inside of a temple in 1252 A.D., but the temple was swept away by a tidal wave in 1498. Later on, the Buddha was worked on so that its body could move freely on the base so as not to be damaged in the case of an earthquake.

We then headed over to Hasedera, a temple on the hillside in Kamakura. The temple has multiple levels, and a different feel to each area. At the bottom level there are a bunch of bamboo fountains that feed water into moss-lined reflecting pools. There's also a cave carved into the side of the hill as well, and we were able to go inside and see all kinds of engravings.

Up at the top of the hill, there is a beautiful view point where we could see almost all of Kamakura.

This is the temple at the top of the hill. It was pretty big, and had all kinds of rooms with candles, incense, etc. Everything was in Japanese, so I don't have too much information on the actual temple.

This is called a Kyozou; inside is a rotating book rack called a rinzo, that holds important Buddhist sutras for the temple. Supposedly if you rotate the rinzo, you can earn the same merit as from reading all of the sutras. Dad tried it, but I didn't notice too much of a difference in his spirituality...

Next, we went out for lunch at a soba place. The soba was okay, but it was just nothing like the place that we had gone out to with Katsumi. I ordered hot soba (in soup) with a yam, which I thought was a tempura yam like we get in the States, but actually the yams that they put in the soup end up being a goupy white thing. It wasn't bad, just not great either.

In Japan, the schoolkids are all required to learn English, but it's really hard for them to find people to practice with. We learned that often, they are sent to major tourist attractions with a list of questions to ask foreigners. The kids would look at me, get confused, look at Dad (for those of you who don't know, he's obviously white), and then get really excited. Most of them had to ask us where we were from, what we were visiting, etc. There was one group of girls that started screaming and wanted to take a picture of us when they found out that we were from California.

After we walked around for a while and saw some lacquerwear (that's what Kamakura is famous for aside from the shrines), we headed back on the train to meet Katsumi, who was taking us out for a special dinner that night.

Before we met up with Katsumi, though, we had some time and Dad showed me around a ritzy Japanese department store. In the basements of most of the department stores, they have really nice specialty food shops. To give you an example of the great prices in Japan, check this out:

For 12 fresh strawberries, they charged 2800 yen, which is equivalent to about $25. For one of those cantaloupes, it was 5000 yen, which is about $45!

After that fun experience, we found Katsumi at Tokyo Station and walked over to a really famous yakitori place. Isehiro serves solely Yakitori, and is supposed to be a popular place for Japanese businessmen to take guests (as we found out, the Western guests often don't understand that they need to take off their shoes!).

Here is the website for the location that we went to. On the main page, they talk about the amazing quality of the ingredients they use:

http://www.gnavi.co.jp/gn/en/g133300h.htm.

We were able to sit at the bar right in front of the chef. It's a really small bar with just enough room for four people. Katsumi had to reserve it a month before we flew in! It was so neat because we got to sit and watch the chef cook, and all of our food was fresh off of the grill.

Yakitori is basically chicken skewers, utilizing all parts of the chicken. Isehiro is famous because they use the best quality Japanese coals and get fresh chicken from their own farms. Since they know how fresh the chicken is, it's often undercooked. I'd never had undercooked chicken before, but it was really good. Before the chicken is cooked, it's dipped in yakitori sauce. In the States, it usually tastes the same as teriyaki sauce. In Japan, the sauce is smoky, understated and not overly sweet. It's also a lot less viscous. Katsumi said that during the war, the one thing that a lot of families saved was their yakitori sauce because it lasts for hundreds of years.

Another neat thing was that the restaurant had patented a fork-like device that is meant to push the chicken off of the skewer onto the plate, and then eaten. It was pretty neat and kept me from stabbing the inside of my mouth with the skewer.

We had the 9 course meal:

(1) Bits of chicken breast barbecued with salt and served with wasabi, (2) Chicken livers cooked in yakitori sauce, (3) Chicken gizzards barbecued with salt, (4) Chicken thighs sliced thin with green onions, mushrooms and green peppers, (5) Chicken balls made of ground chicken meat with flax seeds, barbecued with salt, (6) Chicken skin, (7) Chicken thighs cut in chunks with green onions and green peppers, (8) Duck meat chunks barbecued with salt, (9) Chicken Soup, pickled cucumber, and organic vegetables, (10) Chicken wing barbecued with salt.

I wasn't the biggest fan in the world of the gizzards, but other than that this place was awesome, even just for the experience of getting to watch how precise they are about cooking. We learned that in order to be a yakitori chef, one needs to work his way up from making the skewers all day, running food to customers, refilling the coals, and then finally cooking.

It doesn't look like the most filling meal, but I was stuffed afterwards, and really tired from walking around all day. Speaking of which, this was a really long day to chronicle on here and I'm tired. Til next time.

Japan, Day 4

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

On Tuesday we woke up as early as possible to go to the Tokyo fish market. Unfortunately, tourists were really disrupting the auctions, so that part was closed to visitors, but we got to go to the market itself. The second we turned into the market area, we were practically run over. Everywhere we looked, there were people running and pushing carts, mopeds driving and motored carts moving in all different directions, all at high speed. I really want to know how many tourists get run over and killed every year there.

Ahead of us was the market, which looks like a gigantic covered parking lot. It looked like it was about the size of a stadium--I couldn't even see to the end. It's set up so that there are narrow aisles going forward and slightly wider aisles going across, where the carts zip through. We had to look both ways a million times before wandering across. While walking down the narrower aisles, we had to also watch so that we didn't get hit by fish pieces, water or running fishermen. Chaos is the word that comes to mind. You can't even see to the end of the market because it's so big. It's just stall after stall...

That's a huge pile of tuna. The ones sitting there are frozen solid--they just throw them around like it's nothing, but Katsumi said that they can go for up to 2 million yen!

Sometimes, they use huge picks and hack away at the bones. The fish are completely frozen, so when I stood within a few feet, I got sprayed by tiny bits of frozen tuna.

Then when it's a whole fish, they cut it with electric table saws, as if the fish are just pieces of wood.

One of my favorites, salmon roe! It's still in the sac (not something I'm a big fan of), but still it looked pretty good ("That makes great bait."--Andy).

Here are some live eels. Dad tried to convince me to stick my hand inside, but I wasn't really about that.

Another one of my favorites, I've been told that these are scallops. I never knew what they looked like in the shell until now.

This stand had just a ton of octopus. After our sushi dinner, I got really hungry looking at these--just a little bit of salt and some real wasabi, mmm...

Some beautiful, colorful, giant shrimps. Still alive, but not for long.

I have no idea what kind of fish these were, but they were gigantic. Really fat, too.

We walked around for quite a bit. To be honest, it was a really stressful place to walk around in since we were constantly having to dodge carts, fish, and those motorized cart things. It took us like 15 minutes just to try and get out of the place. Eventually, I figured out that if you pick out a local looking person and just run behind them, you can usually get out safely.

On our way out, we started to get really hungry, and not for fish, so we stopped at a family restaurant called "Jonathan's." It was pretty much a Denny's, Japan-style. We both got a stack of pancakes, which were really cute but definitely Japanese-sized, meaning about a quarter of the size of any pancake you'd get in the U.S. I was pretty full anyway, so after our pancakes, we headed over to the zoo to see the panda.

The first animal we saw at Ueno Zoo was a red panda. He was almost like a raccoon, but so cute.

This is the giant panda. Unfortunately, I didn't understand how to use the picture stabilizer on my camera, but you can probably get the gist of how cute the panda was.

Normally, I wouldn't think that seeing lions and tigers was a big deal, however at Ueno Zoo, it is totally worth it. When I'd go to the zoo at home to see lions and tigers, there would be a glass wall, a moat, an electric fence with barbed wire and then another moat. In Japan, there is a stone wall in some areas and a thick glass wall. We were able to get within inches of the animals! This is the one male lion...

And one of the female lions...

We were also within inches of the tiger. There were a bunch of little kids at the zoo who were not about getting up close to this window.

When we were leaving the zoo, there were tons of kids walking all over the place. According to Katsumi, the zoo is a really popular place for schoolkids to go on field trips. There was one group of kids that were absolutely adorable, they had made little binoculars out of toilet paper holders, and were walking around the zoo trying to look through them. I just hope that the panda's area is sound proof because when we walked by the cave he was in, all we could hear were screaming kids.

Next, we met up with Katsumi (who was ditching work!), who picked us up and we drove out to Yokohama. Yokohama is a really gorgeous city that is right on the water. We went out for dim sum because Yokohama is supposed to have the largest Chinatown in Japan. Leave it to the Japanese to have the cleanest, nicest looking Chinatown I've ever seen. The dim sum place that we went to was pretty decent, but I just couldn't fathom the fact that it was relatively expensive. My experiences with dim sum are paying $5.00 for take-out and still having leftovers, so I was a bit confused. Either way, it was still pretty good and I was full.

We walked around Yokohama for a bit too. Since it's a port city, they host a ship that used to be the only way to get from Japan to the States.

Next, we drove out to take a look at Kei-Oh University. It's a university that also hosts the high school that Kohta goes to. The campus was really nice, and had great facilities. We weren't allowed to go watch Kohta's rugby practice, so we decided to go back to Tokyo and get dinner.

That night, Katsumi decided it was time to introduce me to real soba noodles. The restaurant was within walking distance to our hotel, so we just parked at Katsumi's house and walked over. On the way, I noticed some interesting restaurant names that I'll just let speak for themselves.

For once I was smart enough to take my own photos of the meal! We started out with what my sister and I call "rags," the skin of the tofu that is peeled off during some stage of making it. It was served with a little bit of real wasabi. You can click on this picture to get a closer look at the wasabi.

Next was seaweed covered in fish roe. It was a little bit sour, as if the seaweed had been pickled. It was also really crunchy due to both the seaweed and the roe.

Next was probably the most interesting thing I ate on the trip. Now, looking at the food below, it looks pretty appetizing...Without any questions, I began to pick some of it up and was about to pop it into my mouth when Dad goes, "What is it?" Katsumi told us it was whale right before I began to chew. Ugh. I kept it in my mouth to try to be polite and was really weirded out when I started to kind of like it. The part that we ate was the blubber, which was boiled down and then served cold. It wasn't greasy/fatty/oily at all. It was actually kind of like the "cloud" fungus that Paw Paw puts in Wintermelon Soup, only a lot lighter. It kind of melts in your mouth, but has a bit of a crunch to it. The taste isn't fishy, but you can definitely tell that it comes from the ocean. It's served with a lime wedge, so there's some citrus flavor to it as well. Anyway, I really liked it, and so did Dad, but it was a little bit disconcerting ("You ate SHAMUU!"--Andy). Plus, I really couldn't waste it, because it's a delicacy in Japan. Margaret says that they justify whale hunting by saying that it's for "scientific research." Might as well...

Now for one of my favorite parts of the meal. Restaurants that serve soba noodles also serve tempura...But not sushi. That's one of the things that most people, including myself, tend to get confused about. In the U.S., when we go out for Japanese food, you can get noodles, soup, sushi, and tempura at the same place. In Japan, there are restaurants that only serve sushi, and other restaurants, like this one, that serve soba and tempura. The tempura that we had was eel tempura. It was awesome. Really tender and flavorful on the inside, and unbelievably crispy on the outside. It was also served with little tempura green peppers.

For me, Katsumi ordered cold soba noodles, and also a plate of udon noodles (on the left) so that I could compare. The noodles come cold, served on baskets. That soup in the front is piping hot, and really strong in flavor so that I could take the noodles, dip them in the soup, and then slurp them up. Though I liked both noodles, the soba were definitely my favorite. I was very proud because Katsumi said that it was very "Asian" of me to like them better.

Soba noodles are very hard to make, especially to make good ones. Katsumi is in the process of learning, which is supposed to take at least three years. It's something that has to do with achieving the perfect mix of ingredients, otherwise they fall apart. Plus, they have to be made fresh every day, otherwise they don't taste right.

The last thing that I tried were these little fish. I have no idea what kind they were. They weren't salty enough to be sardines...They were dried, so they were really chewy and slightly salty. Very good.

After this meal, I was about to slip into a food coma, so we started to head back to the hotel. It was another really eventful and filling day.

Japan, Day 3

Monday, November 13, 2006

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.

Japan, Day 2

Sunday, November 12, 2006

On our second day, we woke up pretty early and met Katsumi outside of our hotel to go get breakfast. Katsumi suggested that we eat at Bagel+Bagel, the New York-style bagel place upstairs from the teppanyaki place. The menu was almost exactly like what you'd see at Noah's or something around the Bay, minus the soy and edamame bagels. Those bagels were bright green and had edamames baked on top. I ordered my favorite, poppy seed bagel with cream cheese, lox, tomato, onion and capers. Dad got the same thing, but with sesame seeds and Katsumi got a BLT bagel. At the register, there was a basket with "french toast bagels." I pointed them out since they looked interesting, and Katsumi picked them up for us to try. They also had great cappuccinos there, which I needed desperately.

Unfortunately, I'm not the most adventurous person when it comes to breakfast food, but I did really like what I had. The coffee was done really well (I like my cappuccinos dry), and my bagel was delicious. They served it with a little lemon sliver inside the bagel hole, which actually gave it some good flavor. The only thing I like better about New York bagels from New York is that the originals are chewier...The bread and all food in Japan tends to be softer (Dad attributes this to there not being any preservatives in the food). The french toast bagel was okay, it could have been soaked more before it was cooked, because the bagel was kind of tough. Otherwise, I really liked this place. Plus, I was pretty entertained during breakfast because I guess U.S. rap music is huge in Japan, so they were playing an Eminem mix tape, all lyrics in-tact. Nothing was censored, so he'd be swearing away over the speakers while everyone just sits there eating like it's classical music.

As soon as we finished breakfast, we walked up the hill to Katsumi's house. Katsumi lives in a high rise complex, and on that day there was a view of Mount Fuji from his house! Katsumi got a few things together, and then we started out to Kohta's rugby game. The drive was pretty long because there was a fair amount of traffic. It's amazing how nice the roads are in Japan--they start repairing them before anything is broken. Plus even the pavement vehicles are nicer. They are kept clean and dent-free; apparently you can get a ticket in Japan if your car has dents in it.

As soon as we got to the park where the rugby game was, I had my first vending machine experience. Vending machines are everywhere in Japan, and you can buy soda, cigarettes and even alcohol! Tea is everywhere, too, you can get hot or cold bottles of tea in the vending machines.

The rugby game was actually a semi-final game for the high schools in Tokyo. Kohta goes to a school called Kei-oh. It's one of the premier schools in Japan. Unfortunately, he was injured and not able to play, but we went to the game to root on his school. I tried really hard to understand the game but I didn't get much except that Kohta's school won by a lot. Dad was excited because we could see Mount Fuji from the bleachers. He said it's pretty rare to be able to see it. You can guess where those photos are.

After the game, we headed back into Tokyo. All of us were starving, so we stopped in an area near Tokyo University to go get some ramen. I thought that the parking lot was really cool, so I took a picture. Instead of having a parking attendant, they have these locks at each of the parking spots, so that when you back into a spot, it holds your car there until you pay. It's kind of nice because then you just pay for the amount of time that you were parked.

The ramen place that Katsumi took us to was tiny. He said that it's a place that a lot of students go to since it's next to the university. The set up was pretty cute--there is a big bar and we sat on old crates covered with wood and duct tape. The cooks have these huge pots of boiling water and they drain the noodles right onto the floor. It actually reminded me a bit of the places I used to go all the time in Berkeley when I felt like having a cheap meal.

All of us ordered the same thing--chili ramen with bamboo shoots, bean sprouts and green onion. Katsumi told us that the broth they use is a pork broth. They boil pork bones down until they get soft, and the broth has a whitish look to it. It makes for a really flavorful, almost thick broth.

This is what mine looked like. I really liked it, it was definitely unlike any other ramen you can get in the States. The noodles were fresh, which made a huge difference, and the chili sauce was delicious. Since it was a really cold day, the soup warmed me up immediately. If I drank beer, I think it would have gone along with the food wonderfully. Water was pretty good with it too, though.

When we were done, we headed over to the Harajuku/Shibuya area of Tokyo because I wanted to see all of the punked out teenagers. Unfortunately, it was pretty late, so we didn't get to see too many dressed up teens, but we did get to walk around the shopping areas. Even around 8:00 p.m., it was really happening. The entire street was packed with people and all of the shops were still open. In other areas, there were bands playing live music and tons of food stands.

Some of the stores were hilarious; they sold what to me what looked like costumes, but I'm not really sure. There were a lot of leathers, chains, and fishnet tights. There were also a lot of funny store names. Ladies at the Women's Community Clinic, be proud:

Actually, this was a candy shop, so I'm not really sure where they were going with that. We then walked a few blocks over to an area that I think is called Omotesando. It's still a shopping area, but it's more adult, and has very high-end stores. The Christian Dior store was particularly neat looking. It was entirely made of glass and steel.

After walking around some more and looking at all of the things I couldn't afford, we drove back to Hiroo, where I began to learn about Katsumi's insatiable appetite. Since he wasn't allowed to go home yet (his son was studying at their house), he suggested that we go out to eat more, so we headed over to a local bar.

Unlike the gross bar food that we get in the States, this place served beer and yakitori. One of my favorite things was actually the pickled vegetables that they put on our table. I expecially liked the pickled bean sprouts. While Dad and Katsumi had beer, I had tea. As soon as the food came onto our table, I changed my mind about being full. Yakitori is grilled chicken skewers (no, not just chicken breast, but all different parts). We had chicken breast with wasabi, cartilage with various chicken parts, green peppers with onions, and chicken wings (my favorite!).

Finally full, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed.

Japan, Day 1

One of the main reasons I went to Japan was for eating. No joke. I'm posting my Japan journal online so that you can see and read about the things I did, saw, and most importantly ate.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Our first day in Japan! We flew into Narita, the airport located outside of Tokyo around 2:45 p.m. The flight was about 11 1/2 hours (we left on Friday morning, PST), and easier to take than I thought. Dad had to sit in the middle next to some guy who was going on a mission trip in Japan...Converting all of the heathens I guess...They showed the Lakehouse movie with Sandra Bullock, which was great because it looked like a really sappy movie that I wanted to watch without having to ask Andy to rent it for me. It was sooo sappy but sooo good. Anyway, on to the fun stuff. Japan! Surprisingly, I wasn't too tired, but it was drizzling and kind of cold outside, so it helped to wake me up. Katsumi picked us up and drove us directly to our hotel--the APA (Always Pleasurable Amenities--haha, no that's really what it stands for but you're supposed to call it "Appah") Hotel in Hiroo.

Bear with me, I had to download these photos from the hotel's website since Dad lost his camera and sadly the memory card was lost with it. This is a picture of the outside of the hotel. It's a business hotel so Dad and I each had our own room. The nice thing about staying in Hiroo is that we were about a 5 minute walk from Katsumi's apartment. Plus, it's a really nice (what isn't?) and convenient area of Tokyo.

This is a picture of a room at the hotel. Definitely not mine. For example my room had only one window at the foot of the bed, and my bed looked more like a twin bed than that bed. The bathroom was immaculate, but tiny and kind of spaceship like. There was no closet space either, because these hotels are meant for businessmen who are far away from home and need to spend the night. I found that navigating places like the airport can be really easy since everything is written in English and Japanese--however as soon as you need to figure something out, such as how to use the TV, how to flush the toilet...the English conveniently disappears.

There were some pretty cool things, though: when you take a shower, the mirror has a square that is heated so it doesn't get fogged up; also, all of the lights in the room, the alarm and the A/C can be controlled from the headboard (because it was soooo big and I couldn't walk six inches to reach the light switch). This is a picture, courtesy of Uncle Lionel, of the cool toilets in Japan. They come with deodorizers, bidets, sprays, and special flushing noises to mask any other noises you might be making. I was really curious about the bidet, but it seemed kind of suspect to use one in a hotel, so I stood next to the toilet and decided to try and figure it out. I pushed the button and this little arm came out of the toilet. As if in slow motion, I realized that it was going to start spraying water right into my face, so I moved away as quickly as I could, and the water shot into the bathroom door. Pretty powerful stuff. Kind of embarrassing, but fortunately I had the privacy of my own room.

As soon as I set my suitcase down, Katsumi took us for a walk around Hiroo, and we ended up at a tiny local restaurant. I know this is a food blog, but it's going to be impossible to tell you how to get there and what to order should you find the place. I'll try just for kicks. Katsumi said that the restaurant is called "Tomiya." It is located about a block away from the subway station in Hiroo, one floor underground (you have to get in an elevator to get there), below "Bagel+Bagel," yes, a New York style bagel shop in a tiny walkway next to a Starbucks. Good luck. If you get to a place that seems remotely like what I described, the people inside should look and cook like this:

Tomiya is a neighborhood teppanyaki place. Teppanyaki is I guess what you could say Benihana tries to be. The chefs have a hot grill in front of them, and they grill veggies, meat and seafood, pretty much seasoning with only salt, pepper, and garlic. I'm so sad because we had more pictures of this place and the amazing food, but they were all on Dad's camera. Now if you get this far, you still probably won't eat what we ate because you don't have Katsumi with you. Sorry. He ordered everything for us, which I will now describe in great detail.

We started out with a pork dish ("Satsuma Pork"), which Katsumi said is his son Kohta's favorite dish. It was very beautifully presented. We were given about five very tiny (maybe 1.5 square inches), thin slices of pork that were grilled and seasoned with some salt. We had to take pieces of lettuce and wrap the pork inside with some mild shaved white onion and red chili pepper sauce. When I first saw what we were eating, I didn't think I'd even be able to taste the pork because there was so much lettuce. I was wrong--the pork was so flavorful that it shone through everything else.

Next came these new Japanese mushrooms which are not yet available in the U.S. They are called aringi mushrooms, and they are grilled in a bit of oil/butter, sprinkled with salt and pepper and then served with a lemon wedge. I'm still craving these mushrooms. They are so crunchy and meaty--unlike any other mushroom I've had, because it's mostly the stem that you eat. This little guy here is also an aringi mushroom. Sort of. Katsumi got me 3 of these when we left because he knew how much I liked them. I don't think this one would be too stoked about being eaten.

Katsumi then ordered a vegetable plate, which again was simple but packed with flavor. We got thick lotus root slices (that's what the guy is cooking above--the mushrooms are on the far left, lotus root in the middle, and taro root on the right), which were grilled until each side was golden brown and had a crispy, almost fried texture, taro root--also cut in thick slices, and giant green asparagus spears. All were lightly grilled, sprinkled with salt and served as-is on simple black plates. It was gorgeous.

We then moved onto seafood. Katsumi ordered garlic shrimp, which was prepared by grilling jumbo shrimp on the grill and sauteing chopped garlic until it was crispy. The garlic was then put onto the shrimp and grilled for a bit longer. This was served with a mayo-based dipping sauce. The garlic stuck to the outside of the shrimp so we could pick it up with our fingers. It provided a really crunchy exterior until I got to the meatiness of the shrimp on the inside. Since the garlic was cooked for so long it wasn't too strong, just perfect. Since November is supposed to be the best time to get oysters in Japan, that was what we got next. Already shelled, we were given a giant plate of oysters piled on top of one another. The chef put them on the grill for a good two seconds, maybe just to firm them up a tiny bit. They were seasoned with a vinegar/lemon/garlic sauce. Even Dad liked these, and he never eats oysters. They had the consistency of raw oysters, and also had that very fresh taste and smooth consistency.

Finally, the last two dishes we had were more carb-based. The first was a kimchee pancake ("Okonomiyaki"). The chefs mixed kimchee and fresh cabbage together, grilled it, and then put a sweet BBQ-like sauce ("Tonkatsu") on top and grilled it for longer. So long that the sauce was kind of chewy on top. I liked the idea of cooked kimchee, but I'm not really into the whole sweet sauce mixed with a savory chili sauce. It wasn't bad, just not one of my favorites. The other dish was similar--the chef mixed kimchee, squid, shrimp and octopus together with fresh cabbage, and topped it with more Tonkatsu sauce. This was grilled in the same way as the other pancake, but then he added noodles. To add to the madness, this was formed into a pancake and topped with dried seaweed and a runny fried egg. Again, I'm not a fan of the kimchee mixed with Tonkatsu sauce, but I really really liked the octopus. Unlike at home, it was bite-sized and crunchy, not chewy.

As we finished up our meal, Katsumi told them that the reason we were taking so many photos was because I had a food blog. I think they thought that I have a food blog that people (lots of people) read on a regular basis, so they were thanking me profusely and gave me their card. I'd post a picture of the card they gave but it's all in Japanese. So, if you can read it and decipher the address and map on the back, I might even give it to you.

After dinner, I started to get really tired, so we headed back to the hotel. The A/C wasn't turned on in the hotel, so I ended up having to sleep with the window open. Tokyo is no New York City (or even Berkeley for that matter)...I didn't wake up once because of sirens or homeless people yelling at the top of their lungs.

That's all for now, I have to go get bread and soup for my sad sick boyfriend. More posting later.