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Our goal for Monday was to go to Ueno, Okachimachi, and just sort of hang out and buy toys and stuff. We ate a yummy breakfast at Jonathan's - an American chain family-style restaurant (with a wide variety of delicious Japanese foods.) Lots of kids hang out at these places and it is really relaxed.

Ueno is about a 15-20 minute walk from Akiba. There's a huge park, a zoo, tons of museums, a shrine... it's pretty rad. There is a big lake in the center of the park, and last time the water was hardly visible due to the forest of 'fuki', or butterbur plants growing up out of the water. A lot of the plants were dried out and dead this time - I think they are more of a late-summer/autumn thing. Like some other parks we've seen, Ueno park is home to many of Tokyo's homeless.

We climbed up some steep stairs to the shrine that sits at the top of the hill, next to the park. There were kitties everywhere, just hanging out, walking around. There were lots of people there too, enjoying the weather, eating their bentos, or just walking around. We aimlessly wandered around, and there was this huge mural advertising a manga convention, so we got a picture of it.

We eventually made our way to a sort of "commons" area, and there was a massive bonsai show going on!. There were several rows of stalls full of bonsai of all types - mostly flowering. We took a bunch of pictures, but I'm going to only put a few up here... We actually skipped seeing one of the rows... we just missed it... and we were sooo tiny-tree'd out by that time. But here's a bunch of pics! If you hate tiny trees, you'll hate the next 17 images...

Apparently, bonsai aren't cool enough for people under 60 here, as we were half the age of everyone else there... ev's. So what, I like little trees! Anyway, we headed across this pedestrian walkway that was actually the roof of the train station, and made our way across the street to one of my favorite toy stores in the world; Yamashiroya. Seven floors of awesome. Dragonquest, Ultraman, Godzilla, Ghibli - FTW. Purchases were made. Hunger struck. Luckily, there are a ton of conveyor belt sushi (kaiten-zushi) places all around here. Luckily, we were armed with this data ahead of time - so, kaiten-zushi it is! (A lot of Westerners think Japanese food is all about sushi... this was the only sushi place we ate at. I like to show more of what the average urban Japanese eats.)

It was okay. The fatty tuna and the kohada were excellent. Afterwards, it was time to walk through the Okachimach marketplace in search of katsuobushi and katsuobushi kezuriki. I found a little shop selling vacuum-sealed katsuobushi, which I thought had a better chance of getting through customs. I immediately found the katsuobushi shop that I remembered from last time, and so I purchased a shaver from them. They were very friendly, and the guy tested it for me on some katsuo to show me it was a sharp blade. Then an Annoying Foreigner Thing happened. Remind me to write about it later - it's too much for this post.

Newly won katsuobushi and shaver in hand, I was good to go. I had my knives, my pots, and my katsuobushi and katsuobushi kezuriki. Time to head back to Akiba and drop this stuff off!

Toy store time. Manga store time. We saw so many little shops - I don't see how they all stay in business. We went into a store that sold maid uniforms, "clothing", "toys"... it's right next to Akihabara station, across from that Curry House restaurant place. It's weird to walk through a store, looking at all the awesome anime stuff, turn a corner and slowly realize "Oh...umm, I guess this is the dildo section of the toy store... hmm...". We did manage to find this place that sells tons of old school transformers and other toys, crammed to the ceiling with awesome stuff. Money was spent, but I really forget what was bought where. You could spend a week just going to toy stores in Akiba and not see the same one twice. Of course, after all that walking and shopping it was maid cafe time. The cafe on the menu tonight is called "MaiDreamin". Here are some pics I found online of the interior.. Sandy took the cute coasters they made for us.

Then it was arcade time! I played two crane games and won cute stuff! Sandy won stuff too. I typically do not feed money into crane machines, but for some reason I was inspired, and I wons a prize on the first try on each of them. We mad our way back to the hotel, swinging by Family Mart to pick up snacks, and watched Back to the Future in English with Japanese subs. We also saw a crazy food show where they put jam, eggs, milk and rice in a rice cooker and made a yummy, custardy dessert! I totally want to do this!

Breakfast at Denny's.

Last time we were in Japan, we found this little town called Adachi... well, we thought it was called Kita-Senju, but it turns out that is just the name of the train station in Adachi. There's really nothing too special about it... just markets lining the roads, cute winding neighborhoods, nothing touristy. Okay, so it's population is larger then Seattle's, but it seems like a little town. Anyway, a common practice in Japan is to paint murals on the doors of shops that are closed, and Adachi had a lot of cool ones. They had cool decorated tiles embedded in the sidewalk too.

We walked up and down the market streets, through winding alleys (which are actually neighborhoods) and to a small shrine.

We were kind of thirsty and a tiny bit hungry, so we stopped in as little smoky cafe and ate yummy cake and iced coffee. Afterwards, we saw two shops worth a mention. I wish I would have gotten pics of the first one, which was a kids clothing store, but I never know if it's okay to take pictures in a store, and there were too many watchful eyes at the time... but OMGOOSES - Best Shirts Ever. The only one I recall said "Beans Club" on it, but seriously... if they made these in grownup sizes, I would have bought tons. We also found a little shop where Sandy bought a handmade ceramic Totoro from three adorable obaasans. When we walked in, they began nervously panicking over how little English they knew - I got that much - and they were giggling the whole time over it.

Making our way back to the station, we found out that the nearby mall had a Tokyu Hands store in it - one of my favorite Japanese stores. I was pretty much stocked up on bento boxes by this time, but Sandy wanted to buy some crafty stuff there. The top floor of the mall had a ton of restaurants in it - mostly of the European variety. You have to remember, though, this is Japanese "European". We decided on a place named "Rakeru" which had yummy, yeasty breads and omelets. Sandy loved the bread so much that we bought an extra loaf for later!

We shop a bit more, and Sandy finds a place that sells really nice sets of hiragana stamps... so she bought a set. Loaded up with stuff we get on the train and head back to Akiba to drop it all off at the hotel and roam the arcades. More prizes were won from crane machines, which can work up an appetite... so ramen it was. I've had ramen quite a few times around Tokyo, but we keep coming back to this place in Akiba. It's just so good.

posted by tangentbot @ 10:11 PM

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EDIT: This is the first in the series of our last week in Japan. Sorry for taking my sweet time to post everything; it's kinda been a crazy couple of weeks.

We got up early Saturday morning and went to Coco's for breakfast. Now, Coco's is an American chain, but the Japanese version offers very little in the way of American fare. We went here a few times on our last trip to Japan, simply because it is cheap and good and really close to our hotel. I had tonkatsu, miso, rice and pickled vegetables. Sandy had tuna don and miso.

After breakfast, we hopped on the Yamanote and went to Harajuku. Harajuku is a ward of Tokyo, as well as a famous shopping district, and the way people dress here is awesome. Lots of custom clothes, shoes and bags, if one is willing to pay the very high prices. The store layouts and architecture are really cool as well, and you stumble onto quirky, expensive places hidden down back alleys and in basements. As for the offering of clothes; Sandy found quite a few things, some of which I had to talk her into getting. On the other hand, I found nothing I liked that would fit me. I found plenty of stuff I liked, as well as stuff that would fit - but not both at the same time. Oh well.

It began to rain. My tiny umbrella was not enough for the plum rains, and we were starting to get hungry anyway, so we ducked down a stairwell and into a traditional-looking Japanese restaurant. We sat on tiny stools at tiny tables and ordered food and took some candid photos of the place.

I had the Sanma Set Lunch and Sandy ordered the Ginger Pork Set Lunch. Very delicious.

The rain and the delicious meal and the shopping and walking made us sleepy, so we got on the train and headed back across Tokyo to Akiba, to drop off our purchases at the hotel. Our goal this evening was to find a maid cafe. We headed out, after resting a bit (and watching a few sumo matches on TV), into Akihabara in full Saturday night mode. Now, if this had been Shibuya, or Roppongi Hills, we would have been greeted by drunken foreigners, drunken club girls, and a string of bars and nightclubs... luckily it wasn't. Instead, crowded arcades, packed manga stores, lines outside of electronics stores, geeks huddled outside in the rain, watching a video game trailer on a huge flatpanel, girls in maid outfits handing out fliers and tissue packets and maps to their cafes of origin, kids lined up outside of Don Quixote's eating freshly made takoyaki and crepes... this is Akiba on a Saturday night.

We went into a manga/anime store and looked around for a bit. I haven't really been keeping up with the new anime releases, except for Spice and Wolf, so I wasn't familiar with a lot of what was offered. Next door was a maid cafe that we saw last time we were here, but never got to go into. It was called Cafe with Cat (or is it Cafe Witch Cat?). Okay, so not a typical "maid" cafe; more of a catgirl/witch/maid cafe. Since photos are strictly forbidden, no food pics ensued. I had this really good, not-too-sweet strawberry shortcake and neither of us can remember what Sandy had... probably a parfait or something.

Despite the food, walking through countless electronics and manga stores, feeding 100 yen coins into crane machines and walking around made us work up an appetite. By this time, it was late, and the only thing open was a kebab stand! We saw kebab stores all over the place last time, but never tried any of them. The dudes working spoke both Japanese and English, which was easy, and we ordered food. Sandy got a gyro and I got the "kebab don"; kebab on rice. It was all so greasy and delicious, and the cooks were yelling in some Middle Eastern dialect and everyone was super nice... rad city. Here's what I ate:

As is our routine, we stopped by Family Mart, a "combini", to look for weird food. I found "Milk Curry" and whisky in a can! I didn't know if it was actually whisky, or some carbonated whisky-flavored alchoholic beverage... it was whisky and water. It was pretty good too! (I will eat the Milk Curry later)

We watched a bit of crazy TV and then it was bedtime.

On Sunday, we wanted to go to that curry place that we frequented last time we were in Japan, called "Homemade Curry", right next to the Akiba JR station. This is one of those ticket-based places. You put your money into a vending machine, push the buttons of the food you want, and it spits out tickets. You hand the tickets to the person behind the counter and they hand them to the cook, who makes the food happen. I like that nobody has to handle money AND food in these places.

We took a train to Shinjuku just because! Maybe it was because this was a Sunday, or maybe we took the wrong exit from the station... or maybe it was just too early in the morning; Shinjuku was empty. The mall next to the station was closed. We saw maybe 10 people outside. Shinjuku also has some awesome architecture.

We followed signs to Shinjuku-Chuo park, which has a very cool waterfall at the entrance, across a large courtyard. The park also has a tiny "tent city"; the homeless of Japan seem to all live in these little cubes, which are essentially a light wood/metal frame with a blue tarp covering it. They are very tidy and clean inside; like little houses. I peeked into one last time we were here and saw a small propane grill with a tea kettle on it, laundry hanging on a line... just so much different then America.

We found a little shopping district on the other side of the park, and it was kind of like a mini-Akiba. Eventually we made it back to the station, where there was a department store that was open. We found one of those little "American/European" style cafes called Orange Cafe, and ate lunch. I was the only dude in there.

They had cute individually-wrapped sugar cubes too...

We went up a few floors to the kitchen stuff - I love looking through the kitchen stuff at any store, but in Japan it is even better. I ended up buying some really cool bentos and two Japanese-style cooking pots. We also looked at the toy section of the store, where Sandy bought some cute presents and I exercised restraint.

Once again, loaded down with stuff, we made our way back to Akiba.

On the search for food again, and preferably a maid cafe, we headed out. There were some loud, pulsing noises coming from a few blocks away, that we had been hearing for awhile but only just noticed. We decided to investigate. Turns out, there was a taiko drum festival in the middle of the street. The sidewalks were lined with people, clapping and cheering, and the taiko drum dudes were dancing around and yelling and beating huge drums. I've seen live taiko drumming before (which is really the only way experience it), but never this energetic and cool. They didn't block the whole street off - cops were directing traffic around them!

After that bit of cultural win, we walked around a bit and found a maid cafe called "Maid Cafe Pinafore". There were three or four maid cafes in this building, and we went to "MaiFoot" on accident the first time - MaiFoot serves foot massages and foot baths; which neither of us really wanted. So it was up to Pinafore, where we proceeded to wait in line. This is fairly common at maid cafes, as they are pretty popular hang-outs. An adorable, very outspoken maid girl approached us and YELLED; "NICE TO MEET YOU!". Sandy managed a meek "Umm, nice to meet you.. too?". After some confusing exchanges and a bit more waiting, they sat us at a table downstairs. Adorable maids, good atmosphere, good food - this was Sandy's favorite place. (I still love Cafe Chocolatte, our first ever Maid Cafe experience) There was a bit of confusion as to the ordering of food, and I only got an iced coffee - Sandy got curry. I was kind of curried-out, and I wasn't very hungry, so it was fine. She got a photo card for ordering that particular meal, of a girl in costume who was sort of Rei Ayanami-esque. There was also a crane machine outside, where you could get tiny photos of the girls in costume - which we did!

We went toy store hopping. It's tough to remember which ones we had already been in, and everything connecting maze-like does not help. We eventually found a multi-story toy store that had everything. Vinyl toys, gundams, figures, manga, anime, cards... everything. Also, since there was a line at the elevator, we took the stairs - and got some awesome dusk-pictures of Akiba all lit up.

I bought some Azumanga Dioah figures and Sandy bought some manga, and it took us about an hour to work our way up through all the floors. What to do now but - go to another maid cafe!

We had been to JAM Akihabara on our first trip, and some getting lost in the back alleys caused us to find it again. JAM is another fairly popular place, but tonight there was hardly anyone there. Maybe it was too late (8:30 PM)? Anyway, Sandy wanted to buy maid toys and more socks, and this place had both. They also had a cute tiny bathroom. They also had not-too-expensive food.

Okay, so we were on our way out of JAM, and we stopped to feed our money into more gashapon machine, when this lanky Japanese super-otaku in school uniform approached us. He had the biggest smile on his face, but he wasn't drunk or anything - just a super geek ecstatic to be in the mecca of super geeks! He wanted to take a picture with one of us! He was all "Take picture? Take picture?" I thought he just wanted one of us to take his picture, but he handed me his camera and pointed to the button. I said "Here Sandy, you are better at the photo stuff then I am" and handed it to her. She aimed the camera and he said "No no no, with you! With You!" pointing at me! So I stood next to him, mimicking his raised hands, and somewhere, in Japan, some Japanese picture has this random gaijin on his camera. Later, it occurred to me that he wanted his picture with Sandy, not me (since he handed me the camera), but he really showed no preference at all. Who's to know? Weird.

Whew! This incredibly full day came to an end, sadly, and it was now sleepy-times.

Stay tuned to the exciting continuation of TANGENTBOT: JAPAN EDITION! Will our heroes make it back to America alive? Will Mathias ever try Milk Curry? Will they talk a beautiful Japanese girl into coming back to America to live with them? *Who's to ever know?! (*Answer: You, dear reader!) See you later!

posted by tangentbot @ 7:53 PM

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Just a quick update; I have a week's worth of posts and images to upload, and I will still be uploading them. Don't lose hope! We saw some crazy and awesome, some would say "crazy awesome", things, and I want to share them with everyone! Also, I've been awake for nearly 30 hours! I got my katsuobushi and katsuobushi shaver! I got two excellent knives! I'm going to try and sleep now but ultimately fail!

I told a lot of brave souls that Sandy and I would be attending Fool's Play, but alas... I feel sleepy. I feel... asleep.

posted by tangentbot @ 7:58 PM

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Sandy and I spent the morning waiting in our hotel room for a non-smoking room to be cleaned, and what better way to pass the time then watch sumo matches on TV! Seriously, I actually, officially, like a sport. Sumo is unlike anything I've ever seen. There's a cool shinto quality to the whole thing, and the matches themselves get pretty vicious. I'd like to see a match in person.

We finally moved into our new room, on the tenth floor, and headed out on the town. If Sandy had her wish, we would eat curry for every meal, so we went to this newish looking place near the train station called "Curry Kitchen Spice" but forgot to take pictures of our meals. It wasn't excellent, it was just food. We then hopped on the Yamanote train line to Sugamo, one of our favorite little wards of Tokyo.

Sugamo is all old people. All the stores are old people stores, but everything is so cute and non-touristy. We saw only one gaijin there, on the train platform, and he looked lost. We bought a bunch of treasures at this little place crowded with old Japanese women, and they were all so sweet and nice to us. I bought a jinbei, but with long pants instead of the shorts shown in the picture. It is soooo comfortable, for serious, and since I bought it in Sugamo, it was only about 15 bucks! We also found a place with black sesame ice cream. Freaking delicious.

Since Sugamo is the only place (besides Osaka) that we have seen taiyaki in Japan, and since taiyaki are Sandy's most absolute favorite dessert thing, we had to hunt down the little taiyaki stand we found last time we were here... and we did. We didn't take any pictures because we were too busy eating them.

So we ate taiyaki on these little chairs and walked around a bit afterwards, eventually boarding the train with a million kids just out of class and heading back to Akiba. It was very warm that day, and we wanted a Cooling Beverage, so we went to Excelsior Cafe for iced coffee drinks. Excelsior Cafe is sort of like the Starbucks of Japan... even though there are Starbucks stores all over Japan. It was overpriced but okay.

After a short nap in the hotel, we set out once again, this time eating ten don (tempura don, not tendon) for dinner. Mine had oysters, octopus, chicken, shrimp and vegetables! Yummers! Somehow though, we only got a picture of Sandy's meal.

I bought a manga, which are half the price over here then in the U.S. I figure that translating it will help me read Japanese quicker, as it takes me a bit to decipher stuff. I try to read everything we pass, and I'm recognizing a few kanji as well (I just need to know how to pronounce them). I have also tried speaking to everyone, which is frustrating at times, but it really helps me.

Wait - vending machine dining time. There are vending machines everywhere. In Akiba, they are more than everywhere. I didn't see it as much last time, but recently they have started offering quite a few hot, canned meals in vending machines. Oden, udon, ramen... so I was intrigued. I got the ramen, which had a piggy on the can, because ramen broth is made of piggies.

It was hot, ready to eat, and came with a little fold-out plastic fork. For some reason I totally trust beverages from vending machines, but food from them makes me a bit uneasy.

The noodles were a cross between wheat and rice, kinda rubbery, like shirataki noodles. The broth was salty and oily, and the slab of fatty piggy slice looked boiled and tasted just fine. It was okay. I would eat this crap if I were homeless and they wouldn't let me into stores and restaurants, but I'm pretty sure if you ate this for a week you would get all oily and just die. I want to try some of the other stuff now.

posted by tangentbot @ 7:26 AM

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So, we checked out of our hotel early and opted to take a taxi to the Shin-Osaka station. Given that we had accumulated an extra bag of stuff, and the price and hassle of the subway while laden with said stuff was something we did not want to deal with, we were glad with the decision. It was about 25 bucks and took us 15 minutes or so. The subway would have been 10 bucks and taken 30 minutes, including a transfer, plus walking up and down stairs with luggage, plus dragging our crap onto already overcrowded trains... totally worth it.

We got bentos at the Shin-Osaka station, and ate them on the 3 hour trip to Tokyo aboard the Shinkansen. I got a picture of the inside, with the train official stamping tickets in the background.

We arrived in Tokyo, took a quick train to Akihabara, and checked into our room. Somehow, something got mixed up and they put us in a 'smoking' room - and the A/C blew cigarette smoke air. We requested a non-smoking room, which they told us we could move into the next morning, as the hotel was currently booked.

It was only 3pm, so we headed out into Akihabara, or Akiba, as the locals call it. Akiba is a ward of Tokyo, and the mecca of otaku worldwide. Girls in maid outfits hand out tissue-packets to passers-by, loudspeakers blast videogame soundtrack music, multi-story video arcades are on every corner, and shops catering to every hobby imaginable proliferate. Salarymen crowd the manga stores in their suits next to kids in their school uniforms. If you want cake and coffee served to you by girls in maid outfits (or get a foot massage, or play video games with them...), maid cafes are everywhere. If you want to buy a particular school uniform costume that appeared in some manga or anime episode, they have a store for that. If you build model trains, collect replica firearms, mod out action figures or eat, sleep and breathe video games, this is the place for you. It is simply one of the most awesome places I've ever been.

We walked around a bit, paid a visit to Don Quixote, and bought some little toys and stuff. I bought a gundam shirt and a tachikoma shirt, and we fed our 100 yen coins into tons of gashapon machines. We came to the conclusion that shipping stuff would cost a lot, so we are just going to buy one big piece of luggage and check it in on the plane. After awhile we got hungry, and there was no argument over where to eat; our most favorite ramen place was right around the corner, and it was as awesome as ever.

There were two tables of Chinese people in there and they were LOUD! They were right next to each other YELLING IN MANDARIN. Every other time we've been here in the past the place has been nearly void of conversation, even when packed with people; just the sound of slurping noodles and low murmuring. I have a problem with people disregarding local custom, and I do believe in the whole "you are an ambassador for your country" when traveling abroad. (Based on my experiences, I NEVER want to visit Europe... okay, maybe the U.K. and Scandanavia, but that's about it. The Americans and British we've encountered here are sort of oblivious and culture-shocked, but still nice; the Europeans have been outright arrogant, disrespectful and embarrassingly rude) /rant

We headed back to our smoky hotel room to retire after this slightly exhausting awesome day.

posted by tangentbot @ 2:42 AM

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Our day starts early, and we had a quick breakfast in our room before leaving. First, we checked out a few shipping options via the helpful folks at the Osaka Tourist Info Center. Next, it had to be ramen for lunch. We found this place nearby and the ramen was a bit odd, but still really good. I had the miso ramen, and the noodles were thicker and softer then I have had before. They put sesame seeds in there as well, and huge slices of broiled pork. Very yummy. Sandy's ramen was not as spicy as mine, but still had a subtle deliciousness to it.

All full up of ramen, we set out to spend money. I bought two knives from an old dude in Namba, for less than I had anticipated. They are really good knives, however; I got a vegetable knife and a sashimi knife, both single edged. Now I have to learn to sharpen them without messing up the blade(or better yet, find someone locally who can do it for me).

This awesome lady made us yummy okonomiyaki-esque things for only 120 yen each! We sat on little chairs along the main shopping arcade and ate them.

There is a store in Japan called Tokyu Hands, and I swear, if I lived here, they would have my money. They have everything, all high quality, from kitchen to craft to toys to science stuff. It's just a department store, but how many department stores have a guy that stands outside and fixes your bicycle for free? So many Osakans rely on bicycles on transportation, and Tokyu Hands provides this as a public service; you don't even need to walk into the store. I bought some bento toys and a banana holster.

After much walking, we returned to our neighborhood. We happened to wander into another local curry house, and it was absolutely amazing. The dude spoke no English, as is the norm, but was totally rocking American country music on the stereo. Like, the 'not good' kind. The curry was unlike anything I had ever tasted, and the cabbage/cardemum pickles served with it was also incredible. Sandy had naan and curry, and I had katsu curry. So freaking good, for serious.

We returned 'home' to clean, pack, and get to bed early for our final day in Osaka. Tomorrow, we go back to Tokyo for the remainder of our trip, and we are kind of sad to leave Osaka, as it has really grown on us.

posted by tangentbot @ 7:46 AM

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Tuesday became our Kyoto day, as Monday did not turn out exactly as we wanted it too. We left our hotel a little late, found a quick train to Kyoto, and ended up in some underground supermarket. Supermarkets in America cannot compare with Japan, so it's unfair to even apply the same term; but that's essentially what it was. They were selling this really great sencha that we had to buy. Seriously though, they totally grok the idea of 'service industry' in a way that I really believe America never will.

We rode the subway down to the Nishiki market and went on an extended search for food. We eventually got some food at this weird little place that was out of plain rice(!) but had rice-dishes all cooked with the ingredients in them. Very strange, but good. We made our way through the market, looking at all the pickled vegetables(tsukemono), candies, vegetables, fish, baked goods and tea. I stopped by the little knife shop that I wanted to buy knives at last time and looked around. Their knives looked to be of equal quality with the knives I found in Osaka, but at twice the price! I left the shop, and we eventually grew weary of seeing white people everywhere, so we bid farewell to Kyoto. I grew up in a tourist town, I know how the residents of Kyoto feel, and it makes me feel the same way. It was back to Osaka for us...

...for more shopping! We found even more underground shopping malls, a sprawling network of commerce meets mass transit. Everything was nearing closing time, and we were hungry, so we found this strange little place that serves curry udon. OMGOOSES. It was so delicious;

...and Sandy grabbed something she thought was a napkin, as it was really messy, but it was actually a big paper baby bib! And she wore it! See?

Okay, so we crashed after that day, and we planned for Wednesday to be our Big Osaka Shopping Day, and we needed to research shipping costs and stuff... so it was early to bed for us.

posted by tangentbot @ 5:43 PM

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The shopping districts in Osaka are, in a word, overwhelming. I have never, in my entire life, seen as many stores and restaurants sprawled out over such a large area. I really don't even know where to begin, except to say; if you like shopping even a little, there is something for you here. If you hate shopping but you like food, even a little, this is the place to be. Curry, katsu, don, ramen, udon, oden, soba... Italian, Thai, Indian - they are not messing around when it comes to food choices. One row is entirely Korean food. There are bakeries, sweet shops, and cafes, and as ethnically diverse the selection is, the food offered remains unique in its Japanese interpretation.

We didn't eat at any of those places though. We had Mos Burger for breakfast! Ok, so we left our hotel before any cool restaurants were open, and we were hungry... but Mos Burger is still pretty good.

Upon arriving at the same place we left off the day before, we pretty much immediately lost ourselves in the labyrinth of shops. The first street was entirely devoted to shops that provide restaurants with equipment and utensils. There was every level of quality you could imagine. They had handmade, one-of-a-kind dishes, knives and bento boxes. Thousands of trditional Japanese cooking tools, gas ranges, little fridges, chopstick rests, rice cookers... I was in heaven. I bought a bento box at one of the shops, and I think I'm going to buy some knives at another, as I will definately be going back.

Sandy also lucked out, as there were about a bajillion stores with clothes, purses, shoes and jewelry. We stood in line at a takoyaki stand and had authentic, Osakan takoyaki. We are going to have to try okonomiyaki next, another Osakan invention. So, here are the dudes making the takoyaki, and some pics of the store. It's nestled between a ramen shop and a place that features whale meat dishes. Rad.

Ther is so much to see here, we just took a ton of pictures. There are a lot more; these are just the most interesting. There's a Don Quixote with a ferris wheel! Cool!

We got home late, rested a bit, and went out to look for food. I swear, when nobody else is open, Indian restaurants are. It was either that or combini, and we wanted to actually sit at a table and have food brought to us. I don't know if it is just me, but Indian food in Japan has so far been awesome. It's kind of strange to hear Japanese spoken with an Indian accent.

Oh yeah, I forgot; we didn't take pictures. Here's the thing; if Sandy and I are in a serious/quiet/grown-up place, like a restaurant, and we are the only people in there, we get the giggles. Long story short, I made Sandy spit chai all over the table by reciting the first three words of a poem I just happened to make up on the spot. Just sayin'. So... no pics.

Monday was our Kyoto day. The first mistake we made was not eating anything before our adventure. The second mistake was to not research our day trip. Our third was to opt out of using the subway to get around. It was a lot of wandering around, bored, looking for the Nishiki Market. It was not fun, like, hours of not fun. It was warm, I had blisters, and we were both pretty hungry, although still determined to find this freaking marketplace. Was it near the station? Did we take a subway to our hotel last time? Maybe? Walking around a bit more, we decided to take a subway to a part of Kyoto which we thought looked right. We eventually found a market, not THE market, but it had food. We ate at a don place, which is basically rice with toppings. We didn't take pictures, because by that time we were so hungry, we didn't even think about it. It was still really good food. They put a layer of shoyu-swoaked nori in between the rice and fish, and I am totally going to start doing that now.

We bought some really good tea from a little tea shop run by an adorable couple. More wandering ensued, through a covered marketplace, kind of like a mall, but more like a street with a roof over it and no cars. There must have been some fieldtrip to the market, because there were hundreds of kids, from elementary to junior high, everywhere, along with a few chaparones. The little kids had these yellow rain hats on and it was super cute. Slowly, things started to look familiar. We finally found the Nishiki Market, but unfortunately everything was closed.

Upon returning to Osaka, via a fast limited express, we ate dinner at this little curry place called "Indy Curry House". It was amazing and very different from anything else I have tasted. There was one dude, running everything, and he was making all the curry dishes from scratch to-order.

With some solid planning on our side, and a sort-of wasted day (how could you call a day spent in Japan wasted?), we retired to our hotel for Japanese doramas(dramas) and sleep.

posted by tangentbot @ 1:34 AM

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If you will find it in your heart of hearts to forgive me for not posting for awhile... where did we leave off? Oh yeah;

I've heard for awhile that Osaka and its denizens are considered to be kind of crazy by Tokyo standards. Let me just say, Aomori seemed more like Tokyo than Osaka does. The people are just more laid back here, a lot like Americans. In fact, Osaka really could be a city in America. People just walk accross the street, regardless of the traffic light (people in Tokyo patiently wait at every light). They stand on the right side of the escalator (the rest of Japan stands on the left). They talk on the trains, constantly, which are usually dead silent. I've been panhandled by a bum already, the city is filthy with litter, and we've seen tons of foreigners. I even walked into the first public bathroom in Japan that was too gross to use! Seriously, this place seems so much like home that it freaks me out.

So today, we woke up early and it was already warm. Gross. I keep the AC running in the hotel all the time. It's supposed to be in the 70s/80s. We set out, looking for this fabulous shopping and food reputation that Osaka has. Walking, walking... we found some restaurants, mostly udon, but next to zero bustle. The only stores we saw were kimono and fabric shops and a bunch of crappy 100 yen shops. We were hungry and tired, having walked for an hour and a half and finding nothing. We saw a tiny Indian restaurant, that had a fairly inexpensive lunch set, so we went for it. Indian food in Japan. It was some of the best I'd ever had (it was no Gateway to India, but it was also kind of in it's own class). The naan was huge and delicious, and they had this really spicy tamarind curry sauce that was amazing. If you get naan, the meal doesn't come with rice, which makes sense, but this is the first time I encountered it.

We returned to the hotel, full and ready to research this crazy town. We didn't even know where were we were relative to anything else, so I Google Mapped it. Two subway stops later put us in Namba. Tons and tons of shops, arcades, places to eat... it was overwhelming at best, and I'm not a huge fan of malls in the first place, but they still had a lot of cool stuff. There was an awesome electronics store, a Toys r Us "Select", and some amazing restaurants, so we will absolutely be back. We ate lunch at an udon place; I had kitsune udon, and Sandy had tempura udon. We had coffee at a cute little cafe themed like American Old West.

Finally, a trip on the subway that was quick and painless, a stop by 7-11 to pick up some water and tea, and it was back to the hotel for us. We spent the evening planning our trip to Kyoto and our return to Namba, as well as a bit more sightseeing throughout Osaka. After all, there's Osaka castle close by, and a few shrines, so we are not lacking stuff to do. There's also an aquarium that has whale sharks, so we will probably do that too. We still need to find a way to ship stuff home, as it will be a pain to carry all our stuff back. Next trip, we are only bringing backpacks, fer serious.

posted by tangentbot @ 8:16 AM

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NOTE: I'm going to have to put a hold on video uploads for awhile, at least the ones in consecutive order... but I *will* post them as soon as I can, I promise. The uploading is taking forever, and it keeps timing out for whatever reason, so I'm done with it holding me up.

Friday. I'm not sure how many miles we traveled, but if we hadn't luckily grabbed an early limited express out of Aomori, we would have had to hunt down a hotel in Osaka on Friday night. The limited express got us from Aomori to Hachinohe in an hour, whereas the local express made the same trip in two and a half hours. In Hachinohe we almost missed our transfer on the Shinkansen, being noobz and all. We asked an officer and he motioned to us to wait where we were and full-on sprinted across the station to grab transfers for us so we wouldn't miss the train that was leaving in 3 minutes. Hectic and awesome. Again, JR people are the best. I think we spent a total of eight hours on trains that day. Here's some Shinkansen!

After a long, pleasant trip on the Shinkansen, we found ourselves in the Shin-Osaka station. We made our way to the subway lines, taking many wrong turns but eventually getting on the right trains. Note to visitors in Osaka; your JR pass is only useful on the outskirts of Osaka. If you plan on traveling around downtown, the subway is your best bet, but unfortunately is not owned by JR. That means every trip starts at about 200 yen each way. Anyway, we took the right trains and the wrong exit gate, so we ended up walking all over the place, looking for any landmarks that made sense. Streets in japan do not make any sense, and Osaka is especially crazy, which I'll talk about later, so we asked a cop. He broke out a stack of maps, explained to us in Japanese where our hotel was, and showed us how to get there. It totally made sense, so we thanked him and started off... and he insisted to escort us there! He spoke zero English, but talked to me the entire way, and some of what he said I actually understood. He jokingly heckled some kids who were standing around, which was pretty funny; one of the dudes kinda freaked out and his friends laughed at him - good times. Anyway, police escort to our hotel... what else... oh yeah! The place we are staying at is AWESOME! You can even watch a video of it.. later! I've tried to upload this freaking video file about five times already, so if and when I get everything uploaded, I will post it. Yay!

So the video in question JUST finished uploading, of course, after I complained. I guess sometimes you do carry an umbrella to prevent it from raining. Enjoy!

posted by tangentbot @ 3:45 AM

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So Thursday was our trip to Akita. Let me preface this just by saying we were warned by a friend, "You don't want to go to Akita; Akita is downtown Kent." Akita is also the birthplace and hometown of the author of my favorite Japanese cookbook, Gaku Homma. Akita also hosts the National Fermented Foods Summit, in which I am very interested. That was enough to make me at least want to see for myself if it is "downtown Kent". We got to the train station about 2 hours before the Limited Express leaves, so we had a quick breakfast first and hung out in the train station for awhile. The train ride was long, but very smooth. It took us just over two hours. I'm not really going to talk about Akita that much, other than to say that the mall is where it's at - and that's not saying much.

That place we ate lunch at was f expensive, for serious. It was good, and the waiter was really funny as he tried out his English skills on us, but we paid twice as much for food as anywhere else we've been. Sandy got a crepe for dessert and we walked over to check train schedules for the trip back to Aomori... we had less than 5 minutes before the last train left! We friggin booked it, making it onboard at the last minute. The express train we took to Akita was a one-time thing, it turned out. We now had to look forward to a 2 hour ride to Odate, waiting for 40 minutes for a transfer train, and another 2 hours back to Aomori. Ugh.

We ate dinner at a place we saw earlier that week and it was very delicious. You aren't tired of looking at awesome food, are you?

I had oyakodon (chicken and egg over rice), pickled vegetables and miso, and Sandy had braised pork and vegetables on rice. We went to bed, disappointed in Akita but looking forward to Friday, when we will travel from Aomori to Osaka via regular train, two Shinkansen, and two subway trains... but more on that later. I leave you with a video of rice paddies - again - on our nearly five hour train ride back to Aomori.

posted by tangentbot @ 3:51 AM

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Our original plans were to visit the Pacific coast at some point, as it is supposed to be amazing. We looked at some maps and researched a bit, only to discover that a trip to the Pacific coast would mean we would have to ride the same tiny train across the same area we saw on the way up here, for 3+ hours, ride it back to Aomori, then take the same route the very next day to get back to Tokyo. So we decided instead to travel down to Akita, on the Japan Sea side, on Thursday. This means today, Wednesday, we are doing a bit of shopping, relaxing, and hanging out.

For breakfast, I wanted ramen. We found a little place on the main strip called Osanai, which featured the local favorite, hotate (scallop) prominently in a multitude of dishes. I have heard that hotate-don (scallop rice bowl) is amazing, but as soon as I saw hotate ramen my mind was made up. You know how you get scallops, and they are these white hockey puck things? Well, these scallops were all dangly and complex, like they left all the good stuff on them! Which they did! Sandy had a noodle dish with a thick sauce, also with scallops. They were both awesome and delicious.

We walked around afterwards, buying up Aomori-themed souvenirs and checking out some of the places we had passed earlier. If you are planning a visit to Aomori, keep in mind that everything opens at 11am and closes at 7:30pm, unless you want to hang out at Family Mart or Lawson's every night. It was a nice, cool, rainy day; my favorite kind, and so we went back to that little bakery I mentioned in an earlier post and got some yummy momo pan and iced coffee. We sat in the smoky upstairs and listened to Japanese women gossip and it was all delicious. Except for the smoky part. We also got these cheese, katsu, egg bread abominations that were greasy and awesome.

Let's see, we hung out in a bookstore and read Japanese children's books, we walked in the rain through downtown, we drank some really good sake (Hanakizakura, in a pink bottle, if you can find it...), had curry for dinner, watched an hour long show on the scientific principles behind making perfect yakisoba, watched some kids shows... All in all, we pretty much beat this town already. Except for some museums and the Jomon-period ruins, the only other things I would want to see here happen in August, so a return trip is a big possibility. Tomorrow is a day trip to Akita, through the mountains, and Friday we ride the rails to Osaka.

Before I go, here's another video from the little local train ride here, just showing how empty it is and stuff... I forgot to post it before.

posted by tangentbot @ 6:03 AM

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We woke up early, I did some laundry, and we headed out to have a better look at this little town. Aomori is very windy and cool, despite being sunny all the time. There's a tiny bit of tourism here, but I've only seen four 'whites' since we've been here. We walked down to the waterfront, literally less than 5 minutes away, and I got some cool pictures of Mutsu bay, a large train ferry (Japan's first!) and some very interesting architecture.

We walked a circle around the downtown area, as it's not a very big city. There was a cute "burger" place called Dom Dom, which we ate breakfast at. My burger was a fishcake with a hard fried egg and some sauce on it. Sandy's was also a fishcake with bonito flakes and sauce.

We found a huge fishmarket at the bottom floor of a mall, with tons of fresh scallops (Aomori's specialty) but no way to cook anything if we bought it. And then, the apple stuff, apples being Aomori's specialty as well. Cookies, cider, pudding, ice cream, apple curry... seriously, they are crazy about them. The apples are huge too! An old Japanese woman cut some up for us to try; two very different, distinct local apples. One was very light and sweet, the other had a tangy edge. I bought two of the sweet apples, and some juice with a dude on it!

We stepped into a little bakery and Sandy bought some sweet stuff for herself. They had bread with ham, egg, and cheese baked on top, so we are going back there later for breakfast or something.

We returned to the hotel and Sandy slept for a bit while I researched Aomori. The ruins would be cool to see, but they are a bit out of our way, and we can't use our rail passes to go there. Although the trains are fairly easy to ride, the bus system is daunting. So instead, we walked to Aomori Park and took some pics:

Then, we found this huge shrine in the center of town. We bought some trinkets and walked around. It's cool to see the rice balls and little bottles of sake sitting on the alters. My favorite thing about shrines are the torii (the large archways), as you can see.

After walking through the city for awhile, we went into a mall. We ate at this place called "Clambon Cafe", an attempt at some sort of American/European cafe. Their specialty was omeraisu (omelet rice), so that's what we had - plus some iced coffee that was delicious. We shopped a bit - there was some awesome Engrish to be had, if you were willing to pay 5000 yen for a t-shirt, which I wasn't. However, I was willing to buy a bento box that made me flip out. I bought a lunch bag as well.

Long day. We bought some snacks and went back to our hotel and watched CRAZY gameshows until bedtime.

I anticipated this little town being just a place to sleep, but I'm really liking the laid back feeling. We do plan on using our rail passes to see a bit more, before our trip to Osaka on Friday, but there are still a couple of interesting things to be seen around here. There are some local pottery places with handmade bowls and stuff, and a footbridge out over the water, and some really good tiny restaurants all over. We'll see what happens; I don't make set-in-stone itineraries for a reason.

posted by tangentbot @ 4:23 PM

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(EDIT: Sorry about the 'not able to comment' thing - fixed!)I did not sleep well last night, as in, I've been awake since 3am. Tonight I will sleep well, though. I spent a good amount of time trying to make sense of the Shinkansen timetables, and I must say, learning the advanced rules for Battletech was easier. We decided to just do the right gaijin thing and ask someone at the tourist info booth. So our breakfast that morning was, literally, iced coffee and half a tamago-yaki each. We checked out of our hotel, hurried to the Yamanote line, got lost in the Tokyo station more then once, and finally ended up in the right place to exchange our Rail Pass vouchers for real passes. We booked reserved seats on the next Shinkansen to Hachinohe and had about 7 minutes to run to the platform, find the right train, and board. The Shinkansen is fast, but Sandy and I had to sit apart from each other, flanked by strangers and hungry. I tried to sleep but couldn't. Three hours later...

Ahem... Three hours later found us lost in the Hachinohe station, eventually finding our way to an empty platform, and boarding what looked like the correct train. There were maybe 20 other people on board, and about three in our train car. Empty. This was a tiny local access train, so there was less and less English to be seen, all the announcements were in Japanese, and stops were mostly little hick towns and dirt roads - not on any of our maps. In my opinion, this was perfect.

We saw awesome little farm towns, dreary villages, lots of water and mountains, and all the locals stared at us when they thought we weren't looking(and lent a hand if we made understandable mistakes).

(Note:the JR info desk people are very helpful and patient.) We finally rolled into Aomori city, in the Aomori prefecture, after two more hours on the local express. It would have been warm, but it was very windy, which was good. Aomori is tiny, quaint and adorable. It is very "small town", and we saw lots of old people and kids. Every other person is on a bike, which looks like suicide to me, judging from the way folks drive over here. After checking into our nice hotel room (of which I give a tour), we were on a hunt for curry. We had only eaten the tamago-yaki and iced coffee that morning, and we were famished; a kind of hunger only Japanese curry can quench.

We did a bit of shopping afterwards, just a tiny bit, and wandered around, mentally planning our activities for tomorrow. I bought a crazy awesome delicious dessert, and Sandy got some stuff too. All-in-all, the day was a major success.

posted by tangentbot @ 2:41 AM

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Okay, so here's the thing; Japan is awesome. Also, we spent three weeks here about a year and a half ago, in the same hotel, so we are pretty familiar with the neighborhood. There are a few new, incredibly awesome toy/manga stores, but it all looks the same as last time. The Japanese like to keep their toys, manga, video games and porn close together. We found a lot of new Totoro displays, so that means I have to buy Totoro stuff. We are going to wait to buy stuff until the last week, so we won't have to lug a ton of crap around.

So, today, we ate breakfast at Dennys - I had mackerel, pickled vegetables, a chilled tofu salad, miso and rice. Sandy had salmon, natto, miso and rice. It was a fairly standard Japanese Denny's breakfast. Afterwards we stopped at a cute coffee shop - that's ice cream on top, not whipped cream...

We walked to Ueno, to my favorite toy store, and since we agreed to buy stuff until the last week IT WAS TORTURE! We walked through Okachimachi, a busy little shopping row, and

/tangentbot

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