Hiroshima and Fukuoka

After Kyoto it was on to Hiroshima. I again didn’t have any time to write. This time, I clocked the train at running up to184 mph in between stations. That may not be entirely accurate, though, since the app on my cell phone was having a problem maintaining a signal, which interfered with its operation. While running at top speed, I really didn’t seem to have a cell signal, either. It seemed like that train was running so damn fast that my cell phone couldn’t keep up a stable signal.

While here, I of course hit the historical monuments and museum to the atomic bomb dropping. I then took a day trip outside the city to Miyajima island in Hiroshima bay. This was a pretty neat place as it had lots of interesting shrines and temples, the most notable of which is the floating Torii they have out in the bay (which I think became the picture of the trip). It also had a nice hike up at the top of the mountain.

The very best thing about Hiroshima, though, was the okomiyake. At first I almost didn’t get this for lunch, since I had just had one in Nara a few days earlier. I’m certainly glad I changed my mind. This one was less omelety, with less of an egg batter. The other notable difference is that it included fried noodles right in it, and went a lot heavier on the vegetables (cabbage and sprouts). In essence, it was a bunch of stir-fried veg and noodles, which a batter-based crepe top and an egg-based crepe bottom. This guy only applied a single sauce, and then you could apply your own mayonnaise and bonito flakes. While the okonomiyake in Nara was good, this one blew it away. It cost $7, was a massive pile of food, and was likely the single best thing I had eaten the whole trip.

One of my suspicions was also confirmed in Hiroshima. I went to an izakaya for dinner the first night, and towards the end of the night got into conversations which the two chefs. We eventually got around to talking about food, and they started asking what I liked and didn’t. As part of this, I realized they had all kinds of things in stock that didn’t appear on the English menu. This is something I had expected for a long time, that the English menu (if they have one) is just standard items that they always have in stock, and that the specials and possibly some of the more interesting stuff they presume a gaijin won’t ever be interested in doesn’t even make it into the menu. I can’t say I blame them for this. It appears that outside of Tokyo and Kyoto, even that places that are recommended in Lonely Planted often will only get 1-3 foreigners a night, so it’s probably not even worth investing the time to have to translate and update the foreign menu every time it changes.

I also have figured out why so often I have such a hard time finding specific places. Many of the restaurants from my guidebook, and most all the places I get sent to on personal recommendation, have neither English signage nor have the name of the place spelled in romaji (that’s Japanese written with that Latin alphabet). More often than not, it’s just all Kanji, Katakana, and Hirigana chicken-scratches. (Yes, the Japanese have four different writing systems including romaji. I’m amazed kinds here are able to read before they get into high school.) Usually Google Maps will get me to wherever I’m going when I travel. It must be said, though, that Google Maps definitely does not function as well in Japan as it does in all the other foreign countries I’ve been to in the last four years. It can usually get me within a block of the place, but after that, if there no English or romaji signage, I’m left going sign by sign and comparing chicken-scratches until I find what I’m looking for. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, maybe not so much. Do these two sets of characters look that same to you?

 

Me neither. I can see the resemblance, but I certainly wouldn't recognize these as being the same. I asked the guys in the izakaya about this, and they said it was because they are in different fonts. Uh-huh.

The last night in Hiroshima was probably the best, though. I went to a yakitori place and ended up meeting a local and his lady-friend visiting from Vietnam. Afterwards, they brought me to one of these small, hidden bars on the 4^th floor of an office building nearby where the proprietor made me some local “Hiroshima food”, which was essentially a sea-urchin and spinach bruschetta. With lots of sake. Good times.

I wrapped the trip up in Fukuoka. There’s not as much to see here in terms of big-ticket cultural sights, but it’s a large and very cosmopolitan city with great food, shopping, and good-looking women (or so I read). There’s some credibility there regarding the shopping, as I did pick myself up a nice new pair of shoes, which is something I’ve been looking for for quite some time now. The local specialty of tonkotsu ramen was pretty good, too, although neither of the two versions I had topped the ramen with pork belly I got in Tokyo.

I was only there a single evening, but it was certainly an eventful one. I went to a yakitori place on my last night, and as usual made some new Japanese friends and drank a little too much. After that, I checked out a local salsa club that wasn’t too far from my hotel. Not a bad scene, although it was pretty small, despite the fact that it was a Saturday night. Some of the dancers were pretty good, although the music was a little lame, and during the 5 songs they played while I was there they never played anything other than salsa.

Not feeling particularly motived to dance, I split. I did meet an American and an Italian expat on the way out. We struck up a conversation, and they took me out to a couple gaijin clubs in the area, which was kind of interesting. Both places were dives, and had your standard mix of meat-heads and drunk hos, just with a very international flavor. (I actually wasn’t aware Sweden had meat-heads.) Not being too particularly inspired by this place, either, I decided to pack it in and head back to the hotel at around 2:00 so I could get at least a little sleep, and maybe one last bowl of ramen, before my long flight they next day.

Overall, I have to say Japan has been one of the very best trips I’ve taken. It doesn’t have as much in the way of important historical sights or art as places like Italy, Spain, France, or England, and much of what is historical, such as the temples or shrines, are somewhat obtuse to me. However, this place is, bar none, the absolute greatest place in the world to go out and eat, drink, and be merry. I’ve never been to any place where the people are so friendly, and it’s what really makes the country special.

Kyoto, Nara, Ise, and the Redemption of Soba

I spent a whopping 8 nights and 7½  days in Kyoto, as it’s the cultural center of Japan. Similar to Tokyo, I was also planning on taking several days trips to take advantage of my unlimited-use rail pass and the incredible train system they have here.

Speaking of which, those Shinkansen bullet trains they have really do get you from point A to B in a big damn hurry. On my first Shinkensen leg from Tokyo to Nagoya en route to Takayama I actually didn’t seem like were going that fast. I found and installed a speedometer app on my cell phone, though, and found out that we were in fact cruising around at a top speed of 167 mph, which we were able to get to just a couple of minutes out of each station. I guess that shows you what I know.

At first I was very worried that Kyoto wouldn’t suit me real well. My first night there, I got some ramen that was tasty but definitely didn’t match the stuff I got in Tokyo (or even the two bowls I’ve gotten in Chicago, for that matter). Worse yet, I realized it was a chain restaurant (bleh!)! I got the sinking feeling that Kyoto was going to suffer badly from what I call the “Venitian disease”. This is what can afflict a city that is relatively small and gets so many tourists relative to its size that its local native charm is completely overwhelmed and driven so far underground that going there becomes more like a trip to Epcot Center than like a visit to a real, functioning community. Those of you that understand real regional Italian food and have been to Venice and seen all the soul-crushing picture menus printed in 6 languages with bullshit “Italian food” like spaghetti and meatballs, fettucine alfredo, and the cafeteria-style and location-inappropriate “ragu Bolognese” that is criminally served with spaghetti instead of tagliatelle will know what I’m talking about. In addition, the locals can become so jaded and callous to the hordes of tourists that as a foreigner it will be very difficult to have an interaction with locals that isn’t commercially motivated. Don’t get me wrong, the good food and authentic culture is there, it’s just that you have to get way off the beaten path and look really, really hard to find it. Throwing this on top of the massive language barrier that I have in Japan, which would add an additional level of complexity to finding the good stuff, I was beginning to worry.

Everything sorted out OK, though. The 2^nd night, with a little good advice, I was able to locate a very traditional izakaya near downtown and away from any tourist centers that turned out to be great. It was a typical dive with very good food, packed with locals. I didn’t end up getting in a conversation with any true Kyotoans, but I did end up eating and drinking with a Japanese businessman there for work from Tokyo. Being from Fukuoka originally, he was also able to give me advice on several good places to hit on my night there. The food at this izakaya was also very good. The big standout was the pork belly which was braised (apparently) with a mixture of soy sauce, mirin, sake, and ginger. It’s basically the same thing as Chinese red-cooked chicken. This may be a bit Kyoto thing, as I saw it on several menus around town.

I similarly had some great luck on night #3. This night I went to Ponto Cho, a street I was told has lots of traditional izakaya but also has a large quantity of other tourists. I found a place with no non-Japanese signage that was filled with what appeared to be locals and gave it a shot. As was common, initial reception was a little cool, but within about 40 minutes I was again swapping drinks and food with the guys sitting next to me. I ended up closing out the place with a couple young local guys, at which point they invited me to join them at a kyabakura. Kyabakura are a somewhat peculiar feature to Japanese culture. Known as “hostess clubs” in English, these are essentially bars where Japanese men go and pay pretty young women for very attentive conversation. You can see these in the big nightlife areas of any major city you go. Note: these are NOT strip clubs, and they are definitely not brothels. All the kyabajo (as they are called) are fully-dressed, and stay that way.

The concept of paying a 22 year-old girl to have a conversation with me seemed a little strange (normally, you’d have to pay ME to have a conversation with a typical 22 year-old), but I figured it would be an interesting cultural experience. It definitely exceeded my expectations. A couple of the girls actually spoke fair English and had sufficient life experience to hold a decent conversation for at least 15 minutes, at which point they would rotate out the girls. Nevertheless, my curiosity was satisfied pretty quickly, at which point I excused myself and one of my new buddies, gracious as always, insisted on covering my tab for me.

One great day trip I took while in Kyoto was in Nara, a former capital of Imperial Japan. Most of the sights there were pretty ho-hum, but the 15 meter-tall bronze Buddha statue housed in a gigantic old wooden temple building was pretty fantastic. What made the experience extra interesting was the active religious ceremony that was going on while I was there. I have no idea what it was, but there were hundreds of monks chanting and banging on drums, which made it pretty atmospheric even despite the hordes of Japanese tourists and school kids and other gaijin there checking out the statue.

The park that holds all the historic buildings in Nara is also populated with a herd of tame deer. It was mildly amusing to watch them descend on the young kids unfortunate enough to be holding food. The big downside, though, is that they were pooping all over the place. To my horror, I realized I was likely going to have to take my shoes off, in typical Japanese style, when I entered the shrine with the Buddha. Because things are so clean here this doesn’t bother me everywhere else, but I realize that if I do that here, I will almost certainly get some deer poop on my socks when walking around inside, as surely someone will have transferred at least a bit of the deer poop inside the building some way or another. I’ll then get deer poop in my shoes when I put them back on, which will then get transferred to all my other clean socks every time I put my shoes on for the rest of the trip. Having deer poop on my socks will inevitably lead to it being somehow transferred to my other clothing (say when I put on or take off my jeans), and even worse, getting it on myself, from which I transfer it to all my clothes as well as the other belongings. In essence, taking my shoes off in such close proximity to all the deer will surely result in absolutely everything I brought with me on the trip becoming enpoopified. As my mind is racing through the sequence of events that will result in me wallowing in deer poop the rest of my trip, I’m also deciding if I even want to go into the building at all. Maybe I could just check out the statue from the outside? I’m sure you can understand my relief when I found out upon reaching the building that you do not have to take off your shoes. Total enpoopification averted.

Aside from the Buddha and the deer excrement, the other notable thing about Nara was the okonomiyake lunch I got on the way out of town. Okonomiyake is often described as a big savory pancake (although in my opinion it’s more of an omelette) that contains all kinds of seafood, veggies, and meats, and is cooked up on a griddle in the table right in front of you, slathered with two different kinds of sauces, and drizzled with mayonaise. I opted for the “special” option, which included octopus, squid, shrimp, pork belly, and beef. You then dress it up as you like with shredded dried seaweed and katsuobushi flakes (that’s the dried, fermented, skipjack tuna flakes that are so common in Japanese cuisine). Yummy. Upon eating this, I realized that okonomiyake is basically the same thing at takoyaki, which is a little fried dumpling about the size of a golf ball with a piece of octopus in the middle. It seemed like the batter and the sauces were all the same, and that you even dress it up the same way. (I was familiar with takoyaki as we showed up with a box of takoyaki as our offering when we went to the tranny bar in Tokyo).

I was also able to check out Osaka one night while in Kyoto. It’s just 30 miles away, so it was easy to pop in on the train for dinner. Fortunately, there’s a good neighborhood filled with izakaya right by the train station. I hit a yakitori place and made a bunch of new friends, although this was more of a mixed international crowd with and Australian guy there for work, an English couple, and a couple locals.

I also took a side trip to Ise one day. This is the location of the most important Shinto Shrine in Japan, so I thought it may be a good thing to check out. While culturally important, there’s actually very little to see there. However, the good part is that the 5 hours I had to spend on the train allowed me to finally get caught up on my blog. I’ve been badly behind on writing on this trip for a couple reasons. First the trains get you to wherever you’re going so damn fast that the time on those is usually fully-spent making detailed plans for my next stop and catching up a bit on critical emails from work, and I don’t have any leftover time to blog. Second, I just don’t ever have that much down time. Usually during vacation, I’ll have some nights on a trip where I finish dinner early and don’t have something social to do that sounds particularly interesting, and as a result have time to get caught up on my blog. That’s hardly ever the case here. There’s always so much to eat and so many people to talk to, that I simply haven’t had the free time on this trip that I usually do.

Other tasty treats worth mentioning I had will in Kyoto include the Japanese fried chicken and marinated Saba fish I had on Kyabakura night. Also I got some grilled beef tongue I picked up at a tempura place one afternoon. I do love me some tongue. The tempura at this place didn’t impress me—I thought it was too greasy—but the beef tongue, served in little slices individually grilled on a big pile of shredded cabbage with some of what I believe was a slightly spicy mayonnaise was pretty awesome.

Soba has also redeemed itself in a major way. Every time I had eaten it so far, it was just plain noodles which you dip into sauce. It’s good, but nothing special. However, I finally got around to having a hot preparation, and it was awesome. This was soba noodles with in a hot, presumably dashi-based broth, with a couple pieces of the sweet-pickled oily fish which is so common here, a squid cake, and fixings. It seemed easy enough to make, I may actually try it myself some time at home if I can find the right recipe and source the necessary ingredients.