- heart felt robots
- take on the toughies
- codelove
- whimsiart
- yugamae
- thisischris
- how-to language
- jeff the fish
- beluga calf
- three ninjas
- rod danz
Sunday
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
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.
Labels: food, Japan08, Kyoto, Osaka, train
posted by tangentbot @ 1:34 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!
I got a bento from Tokyo station while we waited for the train to Osaka.
I got some cool train videos, too. I freaking love trains.
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!
Labels: Japan08, Osaka, train, travel
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.
We took five pictures. Three of them were food. Here they are.
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.
Labels: Akita, Aomori, food, Japan08, train, travel
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.
Labels: Aomori, Japan08, ramen, scallops, train
posted by tangentbot @ 6:03 AM
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