Top 10 food experiences

In no particular order...

Okonomiyaki

Okonomiyaki is a kind of savoury cabbage based pancake from the Osaka area. Some people call it a Japanese pizza, because you can top it with whatever takes your fancy, but the connection to pizza ends there.

At an okonomiyaki restaurant, you sit at a booth, and the table has a built in hotplate. At some restaurants, they will make the whole okonomiyaki for you right there at your table, at others, they will make it in the kitchen, and then bring it to your table and place it on your hotplate. From there, you take your spatula, cut off a piece, put it on your plate, and enjoy. It's communal eating at its best.


Shabu-shabu

Another fantastic communal eating experience is shabu--shabu. This time, instead of a hot-plate in the middle of your table, you have a large pot of simmering broth. Into this, you briefly place thinly sliced vegetables, meat and tofu. The small pieces of food are cooked in no time, and you can fish them out again with your chopsticks, and enjoy.

It tends to be on the expensive side, but with all-you-can eat, and is both healthy (as long as you remember to include vegetables), and very tasty.


Sashimi restaurant

If it comes out of the sea, then you can eat it at a traditional Japanese restaurant, and most likely, you can eat it raw. Not only that, but it will also be beautifully presented, like the raw fish platter to the right, where you can see slices or raw fish presented between the head and tail of the fish that you are eating.

Unless you're naturally adventurous, it's best to experience this sort of food with a local, one who genuinely enjoys eating this kind of food, as there's a good chance you won't enjoy all that much of it, and it's not cheap. Personally, I don't mind certain kinds of raw fish, although it doesn't excite me either, but raw squid is awful and I haven't been able to bring myself to try raw octopus, although half-cooked stuff was a struggle to get down. I've written more about one experience here.

Despite the somewhat negative sentiments of the above paragraph, this is something that you should try, it's a real Japanese experience, and I know Westerners who love it.


Sushi Train

If you're on a budget, a sushi train gives you an opportunity to taste lots of horrid stuff above cheaply. You can try most of the standard raw Japanese seafood at a reasonable price (our local one was 105 yen a plate). Once you're enjoyed the masochistic experience of trying all the stomach turning weird and wonderful options on the menu, there is also a decent selection of the kinds of food that would look appealing to the average Westerner.


Yakitori

Yakitori literally means cooked bird. Our favourite restaurant charged 280 yen a serve, whatever it was. 280 yen for a drink, 280 yen for a plate of two skewers, 280 yen for a bowl of salad, 280 yen for dessert. Among the chicken with plum sauce, chicken meatballs with cheese , and fried battered chicken were also chicken hearts (chewy, but edible) and bowls of deep fried cartilage (rather nasty). Nevertheless, there was plenty of delicious stuff on the menu, and we could eat our fill for between $10 and $15.

Ramen
Ramen is basically a fancy version of 2-minute noodles, usually served topped with spring onions and pork slices and/or half a boiled egg. It tastes great, and is fantastic in winter as it warms you right through. No it is not healthy, but then, most Japanese food isn't.



Gyudon

Gyudon, literally beef on a bowl (of rice), was our fast food.All it was was beef and onions stewed in a sweet-soy sauce, and served on top of rice, but when dinner costs only about $4, and is delivered to you in minutes, who can complain?


Yakiniku

Traditionally a Korean-style cuisine, yakiniku has become incredibly popular in Japan. Yakiniku (literally cooked meat) is another breed of cook-it-yourself Japanese dining. With Yakiniku, you order plates of raw materials (meat, including lots of offal on offer, and vegetables), and cook them on a grill in the centre of the table. You can then dip the meat in your choice of sauce, and enjoy it hot and tasty.


Soft-serve ice-cream
Go to any tourist trap, and you'll see plenty of ice-cream stalls, all selling soft-serve. As well as the standard vanilla, and not-uncommon chocolate and caramel, there are plenty of other flavours to be found. Green tea is incredibly popular, it's actually easier to find than chocolate. Other flavours include mango, blueberry, strawberry, grape (tastes like hubba bubba), rockmelon, orange, pineapple, pumpkin, sweet potato (not bad), dark sesame (surprisingly tasty), soybean (not soymilk), and cherry blossom (pretty awful). I have actually tasted all the above listed flavours, and I suspect a few others that I have forgotten about.

Festival food

Takoyaki

Festival food is awesome. Yakisoba (fried noodles with cabbage and pork), okonimiyaki on a stick, chicken and leek skewers, fried battered chicken, beef skewers, jacket potatoes, toffee strawberries and much more. There was also the ever-present takoyaki - balls of okonomiyaki batter with bits of octopus inside. Takoyaki was a local rather foul local speciality, and rather unappetising, but after an initial taste, I only bought it to inflict on visitors.

Sakura

The day we left Japan, the first cherry blossoms in our area were just coming out. Somehow, I didn't ever post my sakura photos from last season, as I was still sharing Hunter's laptop at the time. This year's flowers should be approaching their full glory, but I don't get to see them. This resulting an incredible amount of moaning and complaining, however, the trees continued to do their own thing with no regard for my desires. To somewhat compensate for this, here are some of my best photos from last season.

While cycling

When cycling is the primary mode of transport, you see some interesting bike set-ups on the road. Below is a small selection of what I saw, unfortunately, usually by the time I had my camera out, the opportunity was lost.



Carrying large loads:

Off to work in the office:

Riding through a covered mall:

Riding with a parasol (or umbrella):

Carrying another bike in the front basket (this was a once-off, but I got a photo):

Taking the kids to school:

This one was just funny:

Also regularly observed but not photographed were:

• Talking on the phone while cycling
• Texting while cycling
• Carrying a seated girlfriend/family member on the rear luggage rack
• Cycling in a really short tight skirt

Andy claims she once saw a man in a suit, on the way to work, shaving with an electric shaver.

The rubbish cycle

The rubbish cycle in Japan is incredibly involved. Click the below image to enlarge and see the level of detail we had to work with.

Also, there's no such thing as a wheelie bin, or anything similar. You simply keep your rubbish inside until it is time to dispose of it, and then put it out in the street where it is picked up by hand and thrown into the back of the rubbish truck.

Home!

We're home again, except that it feels strange, not quite like home anymore. We flew in early yesterday morning, and were met at the airport by Dad, Val, Mum and Dave.

It feels really strange to be here. Everything is familiar, and yet not. I see a lone person and think "There's a Westerner!". Everything is so spacious to the point where I still feel uncomfortable at times, because there's just too much space. The people (on average) are huge, both tall and wide, and poorly dressed. I need to stifle the urge to speak Japanese to shop attendants, and not to say "sumimasen" as I squeeze past someone blocking my path. Australian accents sound so strong and coarse. I keep bowing. I have to stop myself from speaking slowly and gesturing. No doubt these effects will wear off soon enough, but it's unsettling how foreign (in many respects) home has become.



Note: I still have a few updates planned with things from last week that I didn't quite finish, so if you're interested, please check back.

About to go

We're all packed up and ready leave for the airport in about 2 hours. Japan has farewelled us with miserable weather and pouring rain, but tempered that with the first cherry blossoms of the season coming out today on our local cherry trees.

We'll fly out late tonight, and arrive at the Gold Coast early tomorrow morning. I hope to see many of you soon!

Quck status update

I still have some catch-up posts to do about the things we've been up to in the past two weeks, but I'll just fill you in with some up-to-date information.

Penny, the new AET who will be living our apartment arrived last night. The apartment is stripped of anything ours, and we are fully packed except the things that we are still using: clothing for tonight, tomorrow, and laptops.

For the past few days I have been alternating between running around over-managing all the preparations to leave and driving Hunty crazy, and getting all sad about leaving Japan, also driving Hunty crazy.

We had a dinner with one of my teachers last night, and lunch with Dave (our supervisor) and his wife Mariko today. Farewells are all done now, except to other AETs.

We just have a few minor tasks left, and we will be ready to leave tomorrow afternoon, although there's probably going to be a bit more of me driving Hunty crazy between now and then.

No more monkeys

On Tuesday, Hunty and I went to Arashiyama. I needed to say my farewells to the monkeys, and there were a few other things that we wanted to do there.

The first order of the day was to hike up the monkey mountain to see the monkeys. Every time we have gone to Arashiyama, that has been the first thing we have done, so we kept to our traditon.

Not a monkey, but he seemed to fit in among them

Lord of his domain

After feeding and photographing the monkeys, and promising them I would be back again someday for a repeat, we hired a row boat for an hour and paddled around on the river. To Hunter's great amusement, every time I picked up the oars, I started working them backwards, but eventually I figured it out, and we had a lovely time bobbing around in the sunshine, though we moved very slowly upriver, and only marginally faster back down.

After lunch, we caught the "Romantic Scenic Train" that wound it's way upriver from Arashiyama. I'm not sure about the "Romantic" part, it was crowded and there were heaps of kids around, but the train travelled along the river pretty much the whole way, except the frequent tunnels, and the views of the river were stunning.

A new friend from the train

Once we arrived at the train's destination, we needed to find a way back. We had a few options, and decided to take a boat down the river, which first meant getting a bus to the boarding location. It was expensive, $40 each, and I suspect we wouldn't have done if we'd known in advance, but buy then we'd been 10 minutes on a bus, and would have to retrace our steps back to the train station, and then find a way back, so we decided that we might as well pay up.

The cruise, or whatever you call it, was amazing. There were three men working the boat. One in the back with a rudder, and two in the front moving the boat. The one on the right used an oar/paddle, the one on the left poled along the bottom, and occasionally of rocks. I'm not quite sure how it all balanced out, but it seemed to work well.

Sometimes we just drifted down the river, enjoying the stunning scenery, the peace broken only by the creak of the oar. Other times, the water got rough and we raced between rocks and down small drops, often passing extremely close to the rocks either side of us. It got shrieks out of many of the passengers, and whoops of excitement of me, though the men manning the boat treated it all as routine, which I suppose it was. The boat was always well controlled.

Towards the end of the boat trip, once we'd reached the calm, broad expanse of the river near the town, a floating food vendor pulled up beside us for a few minutes hawking his wares. We passed on the squid, octopus, and everything else he was selling.

Soon after that, we arrived at our destination, and we wrapped up our last sight-seeing day trip for Japan.

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 6 - Bicycle friendliness

Brisbane is supposedly a bicycle friendly city. They've put in a few bicycle lanes, which are mostly frequented mostly by lycra wearers? Japanese cities like Takatsuki are genuinely bicycle friendly. Firstly, nobody wears lycra. People wear whatever clothes they are planning on wearing at their destination. This makes cycling practical.

Then there is the infrastructure. There is dedicated bicycle parking near the station/shopping centres, free for the first 3 hours.

There is undercover parking dedicated to bicycles. I love parking my bike there. It is staffed exclusively by men almost at retirement age, and they are unfailingly friendly. A few of them know my bike, and frequently, at the end of a day, before I've handed over my ticket, one of them is already jogging off to fetch it. It costs $2 a day, and if you go outside of peak (park after 9:30, collect before 4:30), they give you a $1 refund. If I come by myself, they always ask where my husband is.

However, if you just need to duck into a shop, it's normal to park in front of the shop, ignoring any no bikes signs.

If you need to walk your bike up a steep slope, for example, out of the underground bike parking, or to pass over or under the railway line, there is a mini bike escalator, so you can put on your brakes, and just walk alongside the bike.

There are bikes everywhere. This means that motorists are on the lookout for bikes, and are used to sharing the road. Need I say more?

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 5 - The Combini

Family Mart, Sankusu (Thanks), 7 Eleven, Lawson, and other chains besides. The combini or convenience store is truly convenient. They are much like the Australian petrol station shop, but without the petrol, and with much better food. They are also always open. Hence they are much more convenient.

A day spent sight-seeing always involves lunch. Bakery food is nice, when it can be had, but bakeries can be a bit hard to find. Restaurant food is tasty, but can get expensive. Then there's the combini. You never have far to walk before you stumble upon an combini, and for under $3, I could get myself a carton of chocolate milk, and a niku-man (steamed dumpling with meat inside).

Winter fashion in Japan

Winter is coming to an end, maybe. It warms up and then hits us with another cold snap. However, I'd like to comment a little about the some of the interesting aspects of winter fashion over here.

• Crocs. OK, it's bizarre that the Japanese consider this to be a shoe acceptable to wear in public. However, the fact that you can buy warm inserts for your Crocs is just beyond strange.
• Legs. I noticed in summer that in Japan you can pretty much get away with showing any amount of leg, but even a hint of cleavage is going too far. Guess what, nothing's changed. Most of the girls I taught spent all winter running around in tiny little short shorts (often trimmed with furry stuff, for all the good it must do). Combine this with long socks that come just past the knee, and a longish stretch of purpling thigh.
• Leg warmers. Leg warmers are cool here. They are frequently combined with the before-mentioned short-shorts, going over the long sock to cover from ankle to knee. They can also be worn over jeans. I have actually purchased a few pairs, but I wear them under my jeans just to provide an extra layer.
• Fur. There is way too much of it, down to furry leg warmers that look plain scary.
• Ear muffs. I'm not sure if these are cool or not, but they're definitely pretty common, at least for the girls.
• The changing of seasonal clothing. By midwinter the shops were already clearing out winter stock to bring in spring clothing. It's still way too cold for spring clothing, I'm still wearing my down jacket a fair bit, and we had a bit of snow on Monday, but all the clothing in the shops would have you thinking it was lovely balmy weather out there.

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 4 - Yodobashi

Yodobashi Camera is a chain of (mostly electronics) store, s, with a store in all the major cities. They are most famous for their range of competitively priced cameras, but they sell just about anything. I am really going to miss Yodobashi when we go home. There's one in both Kyoto and Osaka (our two closest cities), both within easy walking distance of the main station. In only 15-20 minutes on a train, I can reach a larger selection of electronics (and many other things) than is available in any one location in Australia, certainly more than is available in all the electronics and electrical stores in Toowoomba put together.

Hunter and I have spent a lot of money at Yodobashi. My laptop, my new big camera and any number of accessories, external hard drives, puzzles, a Thermos and cute food containers, puzzles with frames, a remote control car for Hunty, new fancy headphones for Hunty, and any number of oddments. Want to buy a mouse? There are aisles to choose from. Want a camera bag? The camera bag section is bigger than any camera store I've seen in Australia. There's pretty much a whole floor devoted to cameras and camera accessories, and they're not small floors, either.

Yodobashi-Umeda (Osaka) has 10 floors, plus parking levels. You can get to it from the station without ever going above ground, as you can in Kyoto.

From bottom to top, the floors contain:
B2: Software, PC books, stationery, bicycles, computer bags and luggage
B1: Computers, and peripherals, printers and printing equipment
1: Mobile phones and accessories, beauty care and cosmetics, laptops and an Apple Store
2: Cameras, video cameras and all the peripherals, watches, brand name bags and other expensive brand name goods
3: TVs etc, audio equipment, BluRay/CD/DVD equipment and hobby (puzzles and modelling)
4: Fridges, washing machines, air-conditioner and all the other white-goods, rice cookers, vacuum cleaners and anything else you might need to chew electricity and help with housekeeping, lots and lots of toys.
5-7: Fashion zone, not actually Yodobashi but independent stores leasing space from Yodobashi
8: Yodobashi the Dining. This is not a food court, this is a floor of full on restaurants.
9-13: Parking

Just to re-enforce the size of this place, although I'm sure you're getting the picture, there are two sets of escalators, one at each end of the building. You know how when you walk over to the escalator, it seems you always go to the wrong end? You want to go down, but they only go up, or the other way around? Not so at Yodobashi. There's a bank of four escalators facing each side, so you can go up or down, come down or up, whichever side you happen to go to.

Did I mention that I'm going to miss Yodobashi?

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 3 - Vending machines

You can buy just about anything from vending machines in Japan: drinks (hot and cold), ice-cream, alcohol, batteries, hot soup, ties, snack food, cigarettes and rice. Ok, so I don't like the fact that you can buy cigarettes, and I'm not sure about the alcohol, but on the whole, it is convenient. Of course, I've found myself spending money where I wouldn't have otherwise, but a hot drink from a vending machine is wonderful when one is frozen through.

However, vending machines are sometimes taken to extremes. In cheap restaurants, sometimes you order at a vending machine, and then take your ticket up to get a meal. At tourist destinations, it's very common to purchase a ticket from a vending machine, take the ticket to the person manning the ticket booth (who is doing nothing and looks bored), where it is exchanged for a real entry ticket.

The red are hot, the blue are cold

Doko doko don don

Last Saturday morning, we attended a Taiko (Japanese drums) workshop, organised by the Takatsuki Daiko group, one of the groups we saw perform a few weeks ago. First, they performed for us, with great flair and skill.

Then they got us all in a circle with a drum each, and we learnt some of the basic rhythms of taiko. After a bit of practice, they split us into two groups, and we took turns beating out the rhythm, then did different rhythms at the same time. By the end of the couple of hours, we were able to do a fairly complex series repeating and alternating between 4 different rhythms, at times alternating between the two groups, at times working together, and at times working on contrasting rhythms. With a couple of skilled drummers keeping an fancy beat rhythm going, and another overlaying a bit of fancy drum-work, we made some wonderful noise. We certainly didn't look the part, and we made mistakes, but still, the sound was great.

It was some of the best fun I've had in Japan, and had me wishing all over again that it wasn't almost time to go home, I wanted to learn more.

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 2 - Park performances

I have never seen a busker in Japan, but it is not uncommon to see a performer or performers set up in a public park and just play. Every time I have seen one of these performers, he or she has been very good, much better than the quality of the average Australian busker, and it lends a wonderful atmosphere to a walk through the park or along the river.

Performer at Osaka Joo Koen

Wonderful things about Japan - Episode 1 - Legwear shops

In Japan, there are stores devoted almost exclusively to legwear, namely socks, stockings, leggings, and legwarmers. The two big ones in Takatsui are Copo

And Tutuanna

This is actually a Kyoto store, but there are at least two in Takatsuki

Tutuanna has nicer stock, but Copo is more conveniently located. I have discovered the joys of lacy socks, coloured stockings, and legwarmers, and have spent a lot of money in these two stores.