Japan Trip Update Number 1

Well kiddie winkies, it’s that time! However, I am not going to do this “About-my-Trip” update in the usual sense. This is because everyone hates to read chronological accounts of trips. No no, don’t deny it, I know it’s true. It’s like telling someone about your dream–no matter how well you tell it, it’s never, EVER as exciting to other people as to you. So, I’ma update by topic! Pictures and stories will be all mixed up, but I’ll cover everything. And for those of you who insist, I will provide a chronological listing as my very last post.

Also, even though I’m putting them behind cuts for the LJers, I’m still doing linky thumbnails, cuz there are just lots of pictures.

So, let’s start off at the bottom of Maslow’s triangle, and with a relevant quote from the trip.

“This orange marmalade is the balrog of breakfast application.” –Andrew

Foodies!

Let’s just start off by saying I am fortunate in that I like Japanese food. A lot. Sushi to riceballs, yum yum, all for Lisa. Andrew and I kicked off our adventure by snacking in our room at the Nagoya youth hostel. Of course I got my hands on pocky the moment I could. Green tea is tasty yum.

From Japan Trip
From Japan Trip

It wasn’t long into the evening before I was ravenous for dinner, and what better meal to start Japan trip out with than ramen. For-real ramen, it is noted, tastes so many degrees better than poor-starving-college-student ramen, it is a number of degrees unable to be expressed in mathematical terms.

There were two instances in which I was a good polite girl and finished absolutely everything on my plate for dinner. One was in Tokyo, when Andrew and I wandered into a restaurant for some YUMMY tempura. It became clear that this was a place where the locals came to drink, no foreigners in sight, but not a problem due to Andrew’s excellent skills with the language. Since we were wandering in on local territory, we were polite. The tempura was DELICIOUS, but I also ate every last bit of food on my plate…including the pickled radish. It was like a marathon.

The second time was when Andrew got me wrangled into a kimono by his Japanese teacher and her friends. They dragged me to a pretty park and took tons of pictures (to be featured in a later post), then we sat down to have bento boxes for lunch. “Oh horrors,” I thought, as I looked down at the beautiful kimono they had wrapped me up in. You see, many of you who are close to me can attest to my eating problem. Try as I might, as careful as I can be, no matter how much effort I put against it…I…I just tend to eat like a velociraptor, and food goes flying. Everywhere. I can’t not make a mess. But this one miraculous time, eating a bento off my lap no less, I was able to not only finish up all its contents, but also do so COMPLETELY mess-free. Yoko, Andrew’s teacher, clapped and cheered at my finishing the bento, but remained unaware of the higher victory.

If anyone has watched Spirited Away with me, they know that when that part comes when they are on the balcony and eating dumplings that I will tend to freak out and exclaim “OH GOD THAT LOOKS SO GOOD I WANT ONE SO BAD” or words to that effect. “But Lisa!” They may say. “You’ve never had one before! How do you know you want one?”

Well I took care of that right quick in Tokyo. BLISSFUL BLISSFUL DUMPLINGS!!

From Japan Trip

Note to self: in Tokyo I discovered that Aji is another favorite on my sushi list. I have NO idea what kind of fish it is, but damn is it tasty.

In spite of being a geographically small country, Japan’s every region has some kind of dish it is “known for.” At Fuji, this dish is Houtou-men, thick tasty noodley goodness that you cook at your table.

From Japan Trip

Coffee shops are not in the norm, I suppose, but the one at Fuji had the best freakin hot chocolate I have ever tasted in my life. EVER. Also, we discovered that Andrew’s nose is simply not spoonable, whereas mine appears to quickly develop a symbiotic relationship with the spoon, and it doesn’t leave until I bid it to do so.

From Japan Trip

I have weird soft drink preferences. Before I came on the trip, I had to have a meditative session of preparing myself for there being no soft drinks I like in Japan. I would not find Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper or Root Beer, so I was just going to have to get over it then, before I went. I learned two important things in Tokyo. First, CC Lemon tastes like Mt. Dew. Not exactly, but it’s in that family, and enough so that I converted it to my new drink of choice for the rest of the trip. After this discovery (which took place at a Wendy’s–I told Andrew we could eat where he wanted that night), the fates decided to be nasty to me by making CC Lemon–once so common at every convenient store–suddenly vanish from existence. The second discovery took place. We were in a Sunkus in Shinjuku; I was scanning the rows of beverages desperately, thinking that CC Lemon may have just been excruciated upon my finding my like for it, when there was…suddenly…a Dr. Pepper. No way. My meditative preparation had me blinking at it in disbelief, before I verified quizzically with Andrew (who was just as surprised as me), “is…that a Dr. Pepper?” Yes it was. Consumed. Bliss. Moving on

Kanazawa! Cheese curry and mango shakes. YUM

Also, okonomiyake, which is basically “cook whatever you like.” Dinner pancakes at the table. This is also where we saw the Yakuza guy, I’ll tell about that later.

From Japan Trip

Bamboo forests are EVERYWHERE. I tried to sample the goods, but I apparently fail at being a panda.

From Japan Trip

While adventuring through Kanazawa, we stopped at a natural spring. Andrew filled up his empty tea bottle, but since I wasn’t quite done with my current CC Lemon, I helped myself to the ladle. Yummy water.

From Japan Trip
From Japan Trip

Kaiten sushi, the kind on the conveyor belt, can add up quick. It just rolls on by and keeps ending up off the belt and in front of me. SUCH YUM.

From Japan Trip

I obviously can’t write about every riceball and 711 munchie I consumed, but on the whole, I was never displeased with a meal, even if that meal was CC Lemon and chippies, with pocky for dessert. Japan gets +100 points for food. Stay tuned for more.