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Let it be known; I have been mildly busy the last couple of weeks. Okay! There are a few things I have learned, and I'm now going to share said knowledge with you, The World:

1 - The Dark Knight (a.k.a. Batman 2) is pretty much an okay movie! It's like, "What if Batman was in the Real World!?" Not MTV's "The Real World", of course, but like, oh I don't know, Chicago? WHAT IF. Also (spoiler!), Batman's Spider-Man.

2 - If I marinate salmon in miso for two days, and I accidentally BURN the freaking hell out of it, it basically turns into the best salmon I've ever eaten.

3 - Achewood is so incredibly funny, I lol out loud every time I read it. How have I missed this webcomic? How is babby formed? Read it from the beginning if you dare.

4 - I'm not interested in traveling; I'm really only interested in Japan. I've talked to several people about travel, done research on traveling in East Asian countries - it really isn't my thing. I care absolutely nothing about Europe, South America, anywhere else in Asia... I know, I know, I sound like some uneducated moron. I would like to go to New York... for an afternoon, maybe? I would also like to go into space. It isn't that I *hate* those exotic locales I've never seen. I simply feel like any time I spend in England/France/Greece/Russia/Mexico, I could have spent in Japan. Now, if someone is willing to pay my way, however, I'll go just about anywhere. Not Florida. Not Las Vegas or Mexico, either.

5 - The GIMP is much better than it used to be, but can still be damn frustrating if you are used to using Photoshop CS3 all day.

posted by tangentbot @ 7:53 PM

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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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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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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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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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I haven't really had time to post anything, so I'm going to just start posting food! I've been busy studying Japanese, cooking and coding, in addition to preparing for our upcoming trip. I was kind of derailed last week with a cold that kept me from being as productive as I normally am, but I'm okay now! I made hijiki for the first time, a great success, and several other delicious dishes that I will try and post pics of soon.

I have been doing a massive code-clean-up on this site - offline of course - that will allow me much more flexibility in the future. I've also been looking at moving all the posts/images/etc. from my old Japan travel-blog, japanbot, to this blog, in a travel section of sorts. So much to do! I have a million pictures I want to post, recipes to write, music to write, a language to learn...

posted by tangentbot @ 10:05 PM Links to this post

So we went out tonight to one of our favorite Greek restaurants, Taki's Mad Greek, and stuffed ourselves with a variety of yummy food! Chris Harris accompanied us, as we were all going to see Busdriver at Neumos afterwards. We walked, since the venue is less than 10 minutes from our apartment. The doors opened at 8 pm, but we didn't get there until 8:45, and we were worried we'd have to wait, as every other Busdriver show I've been to has been packed.

The place was empty. There were literally less than 10 people milling about. We met our friends, Jennifer, Jason, Geoff and Lisa, and stood around and talked. Then Busdriver came out and started futzing around with stuff. We all kind of moved up to the stage, unsure of whether he was doing soundcheck or starting. There were only about 20-30 people there, but he started the show, thanking us all for coming out early. He played his set for around 30 of us, the dedicated few, joking and making the best of things. I've seen this dude five times, and it's always been packed. His show kicked ass as usual, although it was a bit short, and he went completely crazy on stage. That's why nearly ALL the pics we got were blurry. We bought a rare collection of his songs at the merch table afterwards and waited for the next band, The Gray Boy All Stars.

We waited an HOUR for them to saunter up to the stage. By this time, Neumos was filled to the brim with drunk frat boys and their girlfriends. The band sounded like every 5 piece funk/jazz combo from the 1970s. The drummer looked like a Reservoir Dog. The bassist looked like an out-of-place Texan. The guitarist looked like every hipster in Seattle, the organist like an out-of-work music teacher, and the sax/percussionist looked like... you know what? It doesn't matter, they were boring. Talented, energetic, and boring as hell. I wanted crazy turntablist-jazz-hiphop and I got The Cosby Show. Not a good follow-up to Busdriver. I think I nailed it when I described the genre as "Sportscoat and Bluejeans Jazz". Also, it was 21 and up, and it just sounded too... grown-up to me. We left about four songs in. 'Evs, Busdriver kicked ass, as you can clearly see.

posted by tangentbot @ 11:41 PM

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posted by tangentbot @ 12:49 AM

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I updated the recipes portion of this site with a recipe and picture of yummy curry potato croquettes I made tonight. They're easy to make, go check it out!

posted by tangentbot @ 1:29 AM

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When my sister and I were very young, Sesame Street played a huge role in our upbringing. This clip from Sesame Street, (which I only recently, accidentally, found a link to) to us at the time, was probably the funniest, weirdest and best thing on Earth. Whenever I am pouring, buying or drinking milk, I have to resist a sometimes uncontrollable urge to sing the accompanying song. This has been the case for over 20 years now, and now that I have re-discovered it, I hope it will stay with me forever. To paraphrase Sir Elton John, it was, and is still, weird and wonderful.

posted by tangentbot @ 9:47 PM

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Don't get me wrong, I'm not some kinda fruit hater, I just like what I like. I like bananas, just not all the time. I also like Bing cherries, Satsuma, honeydew melon, Galia melon, cantaloupe, concord grapes, figs, blueberries, strawberries and peaches...

/tangentbot

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