Who says 13 is unlucky?

Happy 13th 17th (yesterday)!!

The hotel I'm staying in (at a conference*) actually has a 13th floor - maybe only the 2nd or so time that I've seen that.



*My excuse for being a day late? Giving a talk tomorrow at this conference in Minneapolis, trying not to spontaneously combust before then!

A Fortnight in Japan - Day 9 in Hiroshima

May 10 - After breakfast at the hotel, we started out for the train station to make our train reservations. About halfway there, I felt for the camera (which I had been keeping on the strap to my shoulder bag). To my horror, there was no familiar chunk of metal, no strap hanging out of the zipper pocket; the bag was empty. Panicking a little (so many pictures on there! So many left to take!) I gaped at Brian and blubbered unintelligibly. I quickly unstrapped my pack and left him on the sidewalk, running the route back to the hotel and scanning the sidewalk for any sign of the camera. I was also a bit worried about missing the train (not really a huge deal, since we were now on the railpass and could catch any one but you know, when it rains...). At the hotel, I searched the breakfast area (no luck), and then I got the key for the room we'd checked out of. After a few seconds of frenzied searching, I flipped the sheets onto the bed and found it, our beloved camera, lying on the ground. Phew. Sprinting back to Brian, we resumed the trip to the train station and made it in plenty of time. Can you imagine, having to finish the trip with disposable cameras?! (Or more likely, we would have wasted some time buying a new digital camera, but still.)

On the platform at the train station, finally, sweaty and gross. Yuk. At least Operation: Camera Recovery was successful.

After about 2 hours on the shinkansen, we arrived at Hiroshima Station and dropped our bags off at our hotel, which was only a few minutes away. Though the area around the station was nothing special, I loved how convenient it was. Since most visitors to the city go for the sites related to the atomic bomb clustered in Peace Park, there is a convenient streetcar that runs from the train station to the park. We rode the streetcar to the end, and alit right outside of the A-bomb dome. This is one of the buildings that wasn't completely demolished when the bomb exploded (at 8:15am, Aug 6, 1945. Yes, I have that memorized - by the end of the day, we had heard or read the time/date a million times!) It was pretty moving, since they preserved all the debris and twisted metal of the building.

The ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the A-Bomb dome

View along the Motoyasu river. The A-bomb dome now resides alongside a beautifully rebuilt city.

We walked around the monuments in the park, and spent a long time at the Peace Memorial Museum. Here are some of the sights.

The Memorial Cenotaph, under which lies a stone coffin that holds the names of all victims of the bomb. In the background you can see the A-bomb dome, and between the two is the Peace flame, which will be put out when all nuclear weapons are gone (unfortunately, this won't be for a long time ).

The Children's Memorial, erected by Japanese elementary school children. On top is an image of Sadako Sasaki, the little girl behind the story of the 1000 origami cranes. She was dying of leukemia after the bomb, but thought that if she could fold 1000 cranes before her death, she would be granted one wish. There are conflicting reports about whether she actually finished them, but nevertheless she died and became yet another child victim of the bomb.

Near the Children's Memorial are a few small rooms where cranes from people all over the world are displayed. There must be a million of them, it is quite touching.

Some of the cranes folded by Sadako, in the Peace Museum

The Gates of Peace, a series of ten 9ft high gates that are inscribed in49 languages. 18 alphabets are used, but they all spell the same word: Peace.

The museum is highly recommended - there is a lot of information about what brought about the bomb, what residents of Hiroshima were doing when it went off, and what happened after. There are lots of haunting images and artifacts, like watches that stopped at exactly 8:15, and remnants of children's clothing collected by their grieving parents. We watched a couple of movies about survivors in English, and there is an area where you can watch videos of survivor interviews. One thing I found quite poignant was a wall of copies of letters sent by Hiroshima mayors to every city where nuclear weapons tests have been conducted. There are far too many of these up there (there have been over 2000 tests conducted since 1945 - most recently, N. Korea conducted tests just a couple of weeks ago.) Not knowing much about it, I was surprised to learn that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty basically prevented countries from starting up nuclear weapons programs (good) but allowed those that already had them at the time to keep them (stupid, stupid). Obviously an overly-simplistic summary, but that's the gist. Kind of ridiculous.

Though we think of Japan as one of the bad guys in World War II (and certainly my [Chinese] relatives have some strong opinions), in truth, atrocities are committed on all sides in times of war. Regardless of whose side you're on, seeing the consequences of such an act of total devastation, the effects of which are still felt today, was incredibly moving. Especially since so many who were affected were civilians, innocent children. There were many stories of kids who were helping to build firelanes that day, and were terribly injured in the blast, but somehow dragged themselves back to their houses. How awful for their parents. Or to have to go out and search the streets for your child/brother/mother, and find a part of them strewn among the rubble and ash and fire. Or to think that your child survived unscathed, only to have them develop purple spots on their skin and die slowly from "A-bomb disease" within a year. Tragic.

We left the museum somber and starving, and decided to go on a hunt for the real-deal okonomiyaki. There is a building called Okonomi-mura which has several floors entirely devoted to this dish. Literally, when you get off the elevator on any of its floors, you are greeted by 5 or 6 identical stalls with a cook tending a hot griddle. We picked one and sat down. There was a baseball game on that day, so many of the chefs were glued to small TVs in their stalls. The local team is called the Hiroshima Carp - how cute is that?!

The menu was the basic pancake, with optional additions of thick or thin noodles, cheese, squid, or shrimp. I had one with noodles and cheese, and Brian had one with squid.

Our chef expertlytends to our mounds of cabbage and pork

The chef ladles out some batter and smooths it into a crepe, cooks some cabbage, pork and the add-ins, piles that on the crepe and tops it all with a thin disk of scrambled egg. He paints the egg with some of the ubiquitous dark, tangy sauce, sprinkles it with flakes of seaweed, drops a small pile of pink gari (picked ginger) on top, and shovels it over to you. We were given small metal spatulas to eat with, straight off of the hot griddle. Pretty tasty, and very filling. Different from the one we had in Kyoto, where all the ingredients were mixed with the batter, and pan fried together.

Part stirfry, part pancake, part pizza. All delicious.

In the plaza right outside of Okonomi-mura, we stopped to watch a dance 'show'. I hesitate to even call it a show, because it consisted of a handful of guys and girls dressed in sock-hop type outfits dancing to music from the same era, but in no organized fashion. We kept waiting for a routine or something (hey, their outfits matched, we figured their moves would too), but nope. It was just a bunch of people twisting around randomly. A couple of the guys really liked taking their shirts off. Apparently no one else was entertained either, because there was no clapping when the music finished. (Not very) Interesting.

Random dancing. I forget what the names on their jackets were... "Cool Kidz" or something like that.

After that we walked through some of the shopping area around there, and headed back to Peace Park to finish up some of the monuments in the North end of the park that we had missed earlier. As night fell, we took the streetcar back to the train station. There we had dinner at a restaurant that had really tasty Tsukemen, a noodle dish native to Hiroshima where the noodles and other toppings come separately from the broth/sauce. We had one with cold sauce (probably mostly soy sauce, but with a sweet, oniony base) and one with warm miso sauce. You could specify the amount of spice (on a scale from 1 to over 20) - we went with level 2, the recommended 'starter' heat. Because of the potential splash-and-spray that could come with dipping and slurping, there were paper bibs on the table and we were implored to don them when the food came. It was all very delicious and refreshing, and I wish we had eaten there again! I later looked up the restaurant, and was pleasantly surprised to see that it is a branch of Bakudanya, the restaurant that is thought to have invented this style of Tsukemen. Yay culinary serendipity!

All bibbed up and ready to go. Actually, these bibs were more like aprons - with a tie at the waist, too!

Mmmmm, cold refreshing and actually pretty healthy. The eggs in Japan were always this vibrant orange color, and seemed tastier than eggs at home

And off we went back to the hotel to bed...but first, more evidence of the cuteness that is Japan:

You might guess that this is the storefront of a comic
shop, or toy store... nope, it's a real estate office!

A Fortnight in Japan - Eating in Tokyo and Kyoto

You may have noticed that the posts so far have really been more about the sights than tastes. You might be asking yourself, what happened to them? Were they too busy running around shrines and temples to enjoy the culinary wonderland that is Japan? Never fear, a significant portion of the trip was devoted to seeking out, consuming, and documenting the deliciousness that is everywhere there. I had written out a list of things that we wanted to eat, and we struck off every single item. We took pictures of almost all of it, and put them in a separate photo album on Picasa, all 196 photos. Definitely check them out if you want to build up an appetite quick! In this post, I just want to highlight some of the meals and snacks we had in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara.

Kara-age (fried chicken) buns at a bakery in a train station.
Japanese fried chicken is amazing, wherever you have it. Always
garlicky, flavorful, and crisp, even cold.

A typical vending machine at the entrance of a fast-food restaurant.
Put in your money, pick your poison, press the button and it spits out
a ticket that you give to your server. Genius!

Tasty, refreshing cold noodles in a lightly vinegary, sweet sesame oil and shoyu sauce.

Co-Co curry, a fast food curry restaurant found all over the place.
Huge portions of tasty, hearty curry and rice, with whatever you want
(here - fried chicken, and tonkatsu. We later had it with clams too.)

A huge bucket of fish roe for sale in a foodhall (sampling allowed).

Yesssss... Takoyaki... little balls of custardy batter with octopus
chunks. It starts out all liquidy, covering the whole grill, and then
the cook expertly pokes and flips it into these ball forms. you can
have it topped with mayo, seaweed flakes, bonito (dried fish) flakes,
cheese, and/or tonkatsu sauce. Beautiful.

Sushi at the Y100 restaurant on Pontocho Alley, Kyoto.
Scallops, mantis shrimp, and crab tomalley, all for about $6!

A bruleed egg tart in the shopping arcade in kyoto. It wasn't cheap,
but it was definitely creamy, sweet, and delicious.

Shabu shabu set up in Nara with a subtle, milky broth.

Beef and veggies cooking in nothing but buttah (in Nara).

Is your mouth watering yet?!

A Fortnight in Japan - Day 8 in Nara (from Kyoto)

**New photos will be posted to our Picasa site in the morning, a Kyoto/Nara sights album as well as the food album, with (almost) everything we ate on the whole trip. A little intriguing, no? That's a lot of food!**

Though you could easily spend 3 days (weeks, years) in Kyoto, we decided that we wanted to make the trip out to Nara on our 3rd day in Kyoto. The biggest attraction there (literally) is the Daibutsu (big buddha) housed in the Todai-ji temple, but there are also other temples and gardens around (plus, lots of deer, if you like that sort of thing!)

Figuring we could make a half-day trip out of it, we took the train to Nara station and headed straight into Nara-goen, to the Kofuku-ji temple complex (some of the buildings date from 669 AD). There we saw a beautiful, tall pagoda and paid a few hundred yen to see a pretty large collection of buddhist statues in the Tokon-do hall.

5-storey pagoda at Kofuku-ji

Walking through the garden, we saw lots of deer wandering around and, more annoyingly, lots of deer crackers for sale. I had the same feeling as when I was in the Piazza di San Marco in Venice, watching the other tourists feeding pigeons. Ew. Don't people worry about rabies, or fleas, or other gross things that wild animals carry?

Fine. Here you go. Deer in Nara-goen.

We made our way to Todai-ji, where a bunch of other gaijin (foreigners) were milling about and taking photos. On the approach to the big buddha is, you go through the Great Southern Gate and immediately catch sight of the big wooden building (Daibutsu-den), the largest wooden structure in the world. In and of itself, pretty impressive. Throughout our trip, we kept marvelling at how difficult it must have been to build these massive structures without modern technology. Of course, having thousands of slaves...er... forced labourers... probably helps.

The Great Southern Gate, with Daibutsu-den beyond.

Big buddha lives here!

Inside the cool hall, the daibutsu is really a sight to see. Apparently, when it's time to dust him off, you might see 4 or 5 monks standing in his upturned palm. He has been through plenty of fire and earthquake damage and rebuilding, which makes him all the more impressive. It's worth making the circle around the the Daibutsu-den to see the other statues and things around, including a small hole in one pillar that little kids try to squeeze through. Apparently this reserves them a place in eternal paradise. No, we didn't try it. Our North American-sized bodies just wouldn't allow it.

Daibutsu, the big buddha. This picture doesn't really show the scale...

This side view is a bit better, compare the size of the man's

head at the bottom to the buddha's head!

Leaving the giant buddha behind, we went uphill to Nigatsu-do, a sub-temple with pretty good views of Nara. From there we walked south to Kasuga Taisha, Nara's holiest shrine laden with lanterns made of stone and bronze. Must be beautiful when they're all lit up!

Lovely patina on bronze lanterns hanging in Kasuga Taisha shrine.

Coming back downhill from the shrine, we stopped at the Shin-en garden, known for its wisteria blooms. Though it was a bit early in the season, there were a lot of the beautiful hanging tendrils in the well-kept garden.

Wisteria blossoms in Kasuga Taisha's Shin-En garden.
No desperate housewives to speak of.

Hoping to still do a few things in Kyoto, we ate lunch and got on the next train back. When we arrived, we decided it was time to check out the train station. Most stations are pretty utilitarian, but stunning Kyoto station is known for being pretty controversial. Sleek, modern and dark, the locals were not pleased when it was first built in the 90s because it contrasted so much with its more traditional surroundings. But people have come to appreciate its angles and open-air design, you don't really realize that it's not an enclosed space until you're standing in it. I was excited to check out the Astro-boy statues, garden terrace views, and especially the 10th floor, which was seductively named the "Ramen restaurants floor." (We were a bit disappointed that it was not, in fact, a whole floor devoted to ramen and only ramen - what the heck is an ice cream stand doing there?! Nevertheless, there were about 7 stalls selling ramen... guess that's ok). Not actually hungry, we just had a snack of takoyaki (with cheese... silly Brian was pleasantly surprised at the tastiness of it, but I knew it would be good all along).

The surprisingly airy interior of Kyoto station

Astro boy!

Our next stop was Nishiki (the market this time, not the restaurant!) an arcade of food stalls. Mostly pickles (a local specialty), fish and candies. Some were shutting down for the evening, but it was still pretty cool.

Pretty little candies

Big barrels of tsukemono (pickled vegetables) in rice bran

Nishiki leads to a regular shopping arcade, which we spun through and then exited to head over to Pontocho Alley. This is one of the two areas in Kyoto famous for geishas and red lanterns. There were lots of people sliding down the narrow alley, and every few feet to the right or left was a mysterious walkway that just begged to be explored. We stood at a restaurant window watching a chef spend ages rolling out noodle dough, but got impatient and never actually saw him cut the noodles.

Pontocho alley, maybe better back before it went all neon-y

We spent too long watching this guy roll and re-roll out the noodle dough.

For dinner, we stumbled upon a sushi restaurant that promised sushi for Y100 (about $1US) each, which sounded pretty darn good. Of course there was a bit of a catch, a Y350 surcharge (which got you a seat and an appetizer, and, to their credit, was pointed out to us for our approval on our way into the restaurant), as well as a minimum of 2 pieces per order. Not too shabby (scallops in Japan are delicious!).

After dinner we crossed the Kamo-gawa river to the Gion district, the other geisha area. I think we only saw a few geisha that night, though we saw many over the course of the trip. The buildings in Gion are of interest because they are old and wooden, but otherwise it was pretty quiet.

Gion district

Red paper lanterns all over Gion

Back in the direction of our hotel, we walked through the shopping arcades and streets in search of some shaved ice for dessert (something we had been talking about all day in the hot sun), but came up emptyhanded. Other snacks took its place, and soon our sore feet dragged us back to the hotel. In the morning, we would be on the move again, this time to Hiroshima!

Here's a fuzzy self-portrait of us in the pajamas provided by
the hotel (all the hotels we stayed at had either nightgowns like
these or a top-and-pants set for our use)

A Fortnight in Japan - Day 7 in Kyoto

Our second fantastic day in Kyoto started just out of the city, at Fushimi Inari and would end in the western suburb of Arashiyama, with our dinner reservation at Nishiki Restaurant.

In the morning, we trained out to Fushimi Inari, where those rows upon rows of orange torii gates are found (Brian posted a picture in an earlier post). It is romantic to think, wow, those tens of thousands of gates have been standing there for hundreds of years, guarding an important religious pilgrimage. But the truth of the matter is that they are basically for sale to whoever can afford them, which buys both advertisement (most are purchased by companies, whose names are painted on one side), and blessings. They are renewed every 10 years - no lifetime blessings bought here! Though they are packed in quite tightly, we saw some empty post holes, presumably where a company let their blessing subscription 'lapse'. Still, they are a beautiful and iconic sight.

Torii avenue at Fushimi Inari

From Fushimi Inari, we headed back on to Kyoto on the train, stopping first at Tofuku-ji temple. Here we got our first glimpse at a zen rock garden, where the gravelly sand is carefully raked into forms around the carefully placed stones. You are supposed to sit and meditate on these gardens, drawing your own meaning from their usually abstract form. However, our schedule didn't really allow for such lengthy contemplation! Really though, I've never really tried to meditate, and I'm not sure I would be very good at it - too much noise always filling my brain!

Ripples in a gravel pond at Tofuku-ji

There was also a lovely moss garden at Tofuku-ji.

Back in the city, we took the bus to Tetsugaku-no-michi, Philosopher's Walk. We walked along the canal path heading north. A few weeks earlier, it would have been framed by delicate, overhanging cherry blossom trees, but when we were there it was peaceful and green. The path was quiet, with very few other people, so it was quite jarring to me when we reached the end and emerged at the entrance to Ginkaku-ji (the Silver Pavilion), with its tourist shops and cream-puff stand. Along the way, we had stopped for lunch at a tiny restaurant that basically looked like a woman's home kitchen. We had our first taste of okonomiyaki, a sort of pancake made with cabbage and thin slices of pork in batter. This would be a very different version than what we would later have in Hiroshima, which is known for their okonomiyaki.

Philospher's path, which runs between Nanzen-ji temple at the south end,

and Ginkaku-ji at the North end.

Okonomiyaki, what is often, I think erroneously, called Japanese pizza.

At Ginkaku-ji, the Silver Pavilion was not, as you might have thought, leafed in silver (though it was supposed to have been, they just never got around to it). It was actually under restoration while we there, and years of wear made it rather unsightly. Around it were some zen rock garden formations, most strikingly a meticulously raked gravel 'sea' that flowed around a stone cone representing Mt. Fuji. The cone is permanent, but the sea around it is apparently reshaped every day.

We got a glimpse of Mt Fuji after all, just on a much smaller scale...

After the Silver Pavilion we felt the need to upgrade metals, so we took the bus West to the Kinkaku-ji, or Golden Pavilion. Originally built in 1397 as a private estate, it was later turned into a Buddhist temple. Each of its three levels was constructed in a different architectural style,, but only the top 2 storeys of the pavilion and the phoenix that crowns it are, true to its name, covered in gold leaf. It is stunning and gaudy at the same time, especially since I prefer white metals to yellow ones, heh... Platinum Pavilion, anyone? It is probably really beautiful at night (if lit well), and in the fall when the maples around it are lush and turning red and orange.

Kinkaku-ji, reflected in the Mirror Pond. It's much shinier in person.

We were a little worried about time (dinner was at 6:30pm and it was about 4), but to Brian's consternation I decided that we would run up to Ryoan-ji, another temple complex that was pretty far NW. Otherwise, it was unlikely that we would make a special trip out to it the next day, and we didn't want to miss it. So we bussed out there, to see Japan's most famous zen garden. On the approach, you walk alongside what seems to be a lantern depot, with stone lanterns of all shapes and sizes, which was pretty fun. The zen garden has 15 stones placed so that no matter where you stand (within the viewing area), you can never see all of them at once. This garden was very abstract, definitely needed more time than we could give it to truly appreciate it, I think.

Found in the lantern depot, one cute statue

Rock garden at Ryoan-ji (the picture does it little justice;
this is just a small part of the large garden).

We rushed back to the hotel (the biggest difference between the bus and the metro is of course that the bus is dependent on traffic, so it took longer than we wanted) and changed for dinner. We decided to take a cab - our first and only cab ride in Japan - for fear of being late. We had a bit of a mixup which involved the non-English speaking driver heading in the wrong direction, a lot of one-word broken English and Japanese, and a call to the restaurant (the driver put ME on the phone - what good was that?!?!) In the end, though, the driver figured it out, we relaxed, and arrived at the restaurant early. Whew!

Nishiki Restaurant specializes in kaiseki, the Kyoto cuisine which uses very fresh, seasonal ingredients. Two geishas met us at the door and led us into our private tatami room, with a view of the Hozu-gawa river. They didn't speak English, but we were soon joined by one who did. She was our server the whole evening, but unfortunately, we didn't get her name - she was really sweet and took care to explain each of our dishes to us. Soon after we sat down (cross legged on the floor), the courses started to arrive. Since it was a 10 course meal, I won't post photos of all of it, just some of the standouts. (You can see the complete set of pics on the Picasa site.)

Because of the complaints that we aren't in any pictures... here we are,
happy to be have made it and to be eating such beautiful food in a lovely setting.

Crispy tofu - the outside of this was so delicate, it almost shattered when I broke into it.

A bunch of different small portions served in a beautiful lacquerware box.
The unassuming broad beans in the middle of the top compartment were
wonderfully tasty, sweet and creamy. The bottom compartment was
actually a drawer that pulled out of the box.

Our server explaining all the little dishes in the box.

Brian's favorite course, a grilled mackerel-type fish topped with grated daikon in a light broth.

A whole deep-fried mini-eggplant, stuffed with a thick, sweet ginger-miso sauce.
Delicious and rich - I actually opted not to finish the whole thing
since this was only course number 6!

As you can guess, we were stuffed and very pleased at the end of the meal. Everything was quite flavorful, fresh, and lovingly presented. We were quite glad that we had chosen it as one of our few splash out meals, as it was another experience - like the previous night's cooking class at Emi's - that gave us a very unique and personal experience. Nishiki is one of the more affordable kaiseki restaurants in Kyoto, and it was perfect for us.

A short after dinner stroll (ok, we got a little lost finding the bus stop), a bus ride back to the hotel, and we quickly fell into a deep, satisfied food coma.

A Fortnight in Japan - Day 6 in Kyoto

Early on the 7th, we left Mina's (goodbye, home sweet homebase!) and made our way to Tokyo Station, where we would pick up a Shinkansen (bullet train) to Kyoto. We had purchased 7-day Japan Rail passes before we left Chicago - they are unlimited passes only available to tourists, so you can't buy them in Japan - but we weren't going to activate them until we were leaving Kyoto. So while we were in Tokyo, we had bought tickets for the fastest train available, the N700 Nozomi. Woohoo superfast trains! It's a shame that rail travel isn't as easy or advanced at home, because it was pretty pleasant (and so much less hassle than plane travel!)

The front of the train - different models had different 'noses,'
and it even looked like the headlights were made to look like
nostrils. Everything's so cute in Japan!

I'm thinking, "let's get this show on the road... onwards to Kyoto!"

The ride between Tokyo and Kyoto is about 2.5 hours, so we bought some food for the train. All train stations have a lot of food for purchase, but I think the Shinkansen ones in particular have a lot of bento boxes for sale - food sets that have several different small dishes, usually a rice dish, prettily prepared in a cute box. We got one that ended up being a Japanese take on Chinese food:

Beautifully packaged bento for the train

Arriving in Kyoto, we quickly stashed our bags at our hotel (a Toyoko Inn, part of a huge chain of business hotels in Japan. These are great and highly recommended wherever you go; they are small but affordable and consistent. Breakfast is always included, as is internet access) and were on the move again. We had a busy plan for our 3 days in Kyoto, so we didn't want to waste any time! Again, the rain was falling hard, and we were armed with umbrellas, but the day would prove to go by in a bit of a blur because the rain made it kind of a challenge to really enjoy seeing the sights.

Kyoto, once the capitol of Japan, has gotten quite used to its status as a tourist destination, and is pretty user-friendly for foreigners. Though there are two subway lines running through it, the extensive bus system is really easy to navigate. All major sights are easily accessible by bus, all stops are announced and signed in English, and we got a very helpful map available at the info centre in Kyoto station with every stop listed. All this, and an unlimited day pass for 500Y ($5), = smooth busing.

We took the bus to Kiyomuzu-dera, one of Kyoto's famous temples. Our plan was to make our way North through the smorgasbord of temples and shrines that flank the Eastern part of the city. On the way to Kiyomuzu-dera, we stumbled upon the cutest little ceramics shop. Foolishly, I didn't buy anything, thinking that there would be a hundred more like it along the way (there weren't - turns out this was kind of a gem in terms of actually having handmade, unique pieces, as opposed to the standard tourist crap you can find everywhere). But not to worry, we got back there and I ended up buying a couple of cute pieces.

Storefront of the cute ceramic shop on the way to Kiyomizu-dera

I'll just post a few pictures from the sights that we saw on that walk, as there isn't really a need to explain much about them. Like I said, the rain made it a bit of a blur. At some points, we weren't quite sure what we were looking at, or we would arrive at a place that we thought we had just visited... Stupid rain!

A huge statue, the Ryozen Kannon - a monument to WWII soldiers.

A pretty little path in Maryuma park

Gate to Kiyomizu-dera, through a sheet of rain

Gate and pagoda at Kiyomizu-dera

A huge San-mon (three-gate) that we actually got to go up and
inside - access is apparently only allowed for a couple of weeks during
the year, lucky us! There are a bunch of kannon statues in that top level

A "tree" at Heian-Jingu. It kind of looks like it's full of cherry
blossoms, but the blossoms are actually paper tied to the tree, on
which people have written prayers and blessing requests

We made a special effort to get to the Murin-An gardens, and were very glad when we got there. it is a meticulously cared-for little green oasis, worth a spin through.

Pretty Murin-an gardens

On the way there, we had checked out the hard-to miss giant orange torii. Can you imagine having this in the middle of the city? Right over Michigan Ave, perhaps.

Giant torii near Heian-jingu

We also stumbled upon this cute shrine dedicated to rabbits, where people go to pray for... any guesses? Anyone? Blessings of childbirth (and probably, conception). I guess Japanese rabbits are just as...prolific as American rabbits!

Rabbit sculpture at the washing area of the Okazaki shrine

As night started to fall, we made our way up to the Kyoto University of Art and Design. There, we were meeting Emi Hirayama, with whom I'd made arrangements for a private cooking class. I found her through the Rough Guide (and her own website), and had emailed with her before we arrived in Japan. Kyoto has a distinct style of cooking which is very pure and simple, involving the freshest, seasonal ingredients and simple preparations such as simmering, grilling, and steaming. Emi invites you into her home and shows you how to cook whatever you want - in this case I had asked her to show us some dishes with yuba (soy bean skin), fish, chawan mushi (egg custard), and sweets.

Emi picked us up at a bus stop and immediately I loved her. She was very sweet, and had closely read my emails before our arrival ("How do you like Chicago? You are a PhD, what do you study?") Her English was very good, but she would say a sentence in Japanese first, think for a second, and then translate it into English. It reminded me of the time that I was talking to Brian's grandfather in my laboured Mandarin at dinner, thinking hard about each sentence before I spoke aloud, and he basically announced to the table that my Chinese was... very laboured :)

Anyway, we spent 4 lovely hours in Emi's little kitchen, cutting, peeling, mixing, and, best of all, eating. Each course used similar flavors - dashi (soup stock made from kombu seaweed and dried bonito fish flakes), mirin (cooking wine) and soy sauce. We ate more than enough, and then had fun making the little mochi balls with cinnamon and green tea. Mochi with cinnamon? Brilliant!

Brian rubbing down on some veggies

Me filling the rice mold with green pea-sticky rice to make a
gourd shape. We liked this so much we bought a couple
of rice molds later on!

The banquet (clockwise, from upper left): bamboo shoots in miso,
chawan mushi with shiitake mushroom, eel, and shrimp, yuba-wrapped fuki greens,
rice with green peas and ginger bud (note the lovely gourdy shapes), grilled sawara fish

Fresh green tea and cinnamon mochi balls, ready to
be dressed with red beans and soybean powder

Emi's class is highly recommended, for a personal take on Kyoto. (Oh, and remember how the Tokyo tourism office wouldnt' make recommendations for us at a Kyoto restaurant? I had emailed Emi while we were still in Tokyo and asked her if she would make the reso for us, and she did. So nice.) At the end of the class, as we were saying goodbye at the door, I kind of leaned in for a hug - that's how awesome I thought she was... But there were no hugs, I didn't want to force myself on her because I wasn't sure of what is customary. Brian laughed at me for this, because he knew exactly what I was thinking when he saw me lean in with misty eyes...

Us and Emi

After that lovely, filling meal, we rolled ourselves back onto the bus and back to our hotel. My feet were wet and achey from the distance we covered, but it hardly mattered after such a great day!

A Fortnight in Japan - Day 5 in Tokyo

**Brian has posted an annotated album of our Tokyo pictures on our Picasa site, found here. We'll post up albums after we finish posting about each city, so you're not totally inundated with pics! We put the food photos into another album, which will go up soon as well.

May 6 was our last full day in Tokyo. Having dumped the Mt Fuji trip, we finished up some areas that we hadn't seen (leaving Ueno and Asakusa for the day or so we would have on the way back to Narita). Again, we woke up to a cloudy, overcast day with sprinkles of rain threatening a repeat of the deluge from the day before. We were smarter today, though, and borrowed two of Mina's umbrellas before we headed out.

That's me, with the orange umbrella under the big wooden torii leading to Meiji-jingu

We began at Meiji-jingu (jinja/jingu = shrine), which has a lovely approach path. There were several weddings, or wedding portrait sessions around the shrine on this day, probably because it was a holiday. It is hard not to stop and stare when you come upon one of these wedding processions, as they are beautiful and the attire worn by the bride and groom is much different than the usual western wedding. Some examples:

This picture was about 20 minutes and 2 arrangers in the making...
the fold of the kimono had to be just so.

Wedding procession at Meiji-jingu

While we were waiting for the first procession to pass, a man was getting his son to take a picture of him with the procession in the background. Brian nudged me and said, "is that Brian Grazer?" and yes, yes it was. He's a big producer, of the film A Beautiful Mind and favorite TV shows of ours Friday Night Lights, 24, and Arrested Development. We didn't talk to him, but I did manage to catch a photo of him on the sly (check it out in the Picasa album). 

Next, we checked out the Yoyogi National stadium, a gymnastics stadium built for the 1964 Olympics. Designed by Kenzo, it (and the smaller stadium next door) resembles a big ark. On this day there was a very long lineup of young girls in gymnastic uniforms sitting outside, probably a meet going on. (Side note, people here are great about lining up for things, even if it's just to get into a store when it opens, or, most appreciated by us, to get onto the subway trains.)

Yoyogi National Stadium

We then took the subway to Ebisu station to check out the Japanese Metropolitan Museum of Photography at Ebisu Garden Place. In some cases, "u" is not pronounced so it actually sounds like "Eh-beese." Anyway, we paid for two exhibits, the first on historical Japanese photography (meh, a bunch of faded old daguerrotypes). The second one was a phenomenal display of recent work called Nomachi's Sacred Lands. Beautiful, emotional pictures of people and landscapes in Iran, India, Africa and the Andes. The exhibition only ran until May 17 (I feel very lucky to have seen it!) bu you can check out the work on Kazuyoshi Nomachi's website.

For lunch, we bought nigiri sushi from the department store in Ebisu Gardens Place, a huge box for about $12, and a big cream puff. Loving the price of sushi! (We had first checked out the fancy Joel Robuchon complex of 3 restaurants on 3 floors, where we were told in not so many words that we were not properly dressed to eat there... but decided that a lower-brow lunch would do the trick.) A quick, dizzying ride up to the 38th (restaurant) floor afforded us some more nice views of the city.

Seriously, about $12! Mmmmm

Though the rain was coming down heavily, we were foolishly emboldened by our umbrellas. We trekked a long ways to the Meguro Parasitological Museum. Yes, this is a showcase of bugs and worms and other gross things. The kind of thing that gives you the willies but is impossible to turn away from. It was actually really busy, and Brian remembered that one of the guidebooks said that it has surprisingly turned into a popular date destination! Most impressive by far was this, extracted from some poor guy's...um...nether regions:

Um... 8.8m long... tapeworm... extracted... ewwwwwwww

After we finished cringing and shuddering, it was pouring (hello) kitties outside, so we re-thought our plan to walk around Naka-Meguro, the area near Mina's house. We walked too long to a store she had recommended, unfortunately named BALLS. I was really, uncomfortably wet, and didn't particularly enjoy squishing around what was otherwise a very cool store, with mod, stylish home furnishings. After that we were pretty fed up with our drippiness, and decided to just go home and warm up. Given how hard we'd been going for several days, a couple of hours off of our feet sounded pretty good... After a couple of hours of resting up, we had noodles close to Mina's house and called it a night. We packed up and got ready for our next adventure... Kyoto, here we come!

Gratuitous picture of adorable little schoolkids on the subway. The
pack on the very left has a little rain guard on it!