The good, the bad and the umami

 This final post is dedicated to all things edible on our trip.

Let's start at the end, because we seemed to have jumped the gun a little and posted our last blog post too soon.  Our final evening meal was also our final lesson, which in fairness we should have learnt by now.

We aimed to eat some sushi at least once on this trip, for obvious reasons.  So... we found a highly rated restaurant nearby, but as it happens it was booked out (perhaps because it is so highly rated).  We don't accept defeat that easily, so we found and booked another.  When we arrived we were welcomed by an eccentric looking heavily pierced Russian with green hair dressed in a kimono looking thing (but not quite).  After some discussion, we settled on a few dishes and they were all really nice.  Well..those that actually made it to our table.  We waited patiently for the rest until about 9:30pm and decided to call it a night.  The Russian said no more food coming.  OK.

So we pay...OK.

Except...here is our lesson.  You need cash or physical credit card to pay.  Who carries physical credit cards any more??

Jake tried his hardest to negotiate and find a solution, the ideas man that he is.  He even tried to pay via uber eats service whilst he sent me home to get a physical credit card.  The Russian says NO!

So, I handed him the little bit of cash that we had with us and off I went to grab a cab.

Guess what?  You needed cash or physical credit card to pay for that particular taxi (all others on this trip have accepted paywave).  Thank goodness for Google translate!  The old Japanese taxi driver patiently waited for his money as I trotted off to get it from our room.

All is well that ends well.  Home by 11:30pm...still hungry.

Besides sushi, it seems that Ramen is a staple dish in Japan.  Ramen is a thin egg noodle soup in various types of broth (from thin salty light consume, to thick cloudy chowder like liquid).  It usually comes with some sliced meat like chicken or pork and weird looking veggies that we don't eat in Australia, like bamboo shoots and seaweed.  Sometimes, they throw in a half boiled egg and provided you drown half a jar of chilli powder into it, it is quite nice.  We had it a few times, including a particularly good one in Kanazawa.  

 

(yes...these are dumplings hehehe)

In Tokyo, there is an area called Omoide Yokocho.  It is full of tiny BBQ joints that serve yakitori, which is kind of like little bbq meat skewers (you know, satay chicken skewers you get for an entree at Regent Thai 😀).  Sorry, no pic.

Another delicious selection was Tonkatsu pork, which was one from a list of recommendations given to us by Joe the Hawaiian sake guide.  Kinda like a delicious fat Japanese style schnitzel with Asian BBQ sauce.  

The other thing we tried off his list is fluffy ricotta soufflé pancakes for breakfast.  They were the bomb!

I had lemon ones and honestly, the presentation was amazing. It came with perfectly cut cubes of lemon jelly on the side.

On a sweet note, although overall the Japanese deserts per se aren't to our tastes, we thought the waffles were amazing.  The Japanese just know how to get them to taste crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle.  They are almost as good as polish gofry.

 

A classy culinary experience was in the TeamLab precinct.  We just sat down to grab a quick drink before our booked session.  The ceremony that was our welcome was overbearing and too theatrical and we felt obliged to order $30 parfait for desert.  They were truly spectacular, assembled with surgical precision and delivered to our table by waiters wearing white gloves.

Jacob's reminded me of old ice cream place in Lodz, Poland called Hortex (which sadly is no longer there).

Don't think it's all fine dining over here. Jake had a hotdog which turned out to be a serving for 4.

And found some KFC flavoured chips 😀

Now to head home to practice making some Ramen Aussie style (with real vegetables in it minus the seaweed) and for some 'proper' sushi at Sydney airport.

Samurai, Geishas and Old Japan

 What a lovely way to finish our taste test of Japan.

We didn't anticipate Kanazawa being quite so far away from Hakone, but the bullet train ride (the Shinkansen) made it more than bearable.  I caught up on some work (such a business woman that I am now 😁) whilst Jake relaxed with my feet up reading a book.  Oh well....someone's gotta pay for our trip hehehe

After a relaxing but simple accommodation in Kawaguchiko infested with mosquitos, we welcomed the floral scented lobby of our hotel and the crisp white bed sheets.  Though, the bed made Jake walk like a cripple - it could be just be his age...

Another city, another garden.  Serene, peaceful and beautiful.  

We got to experience a Geisha serving us tea at a teahouse there.  Jake wasn't impressed with:

1. sitting crossed legged on the floor

2. drinking the creamy, traditional matcha tea from a bowl.  

He literally said to me: 'given they have had thousands of years to practice this shit, why can't they just perfect a cup of English Breakfast?!'

After this delicious treat, we saw some castle ruins, which were nothing to write home about and had some petty good mint chocolate soft serve to finish off the morning.

We did say, it is a cultural place...so in this vein, we also visited the D.T. Suzuki Museum.  Suzuki was born in Kanazawa and was a famous philosopher and a spiritual teacher.  Suzuki is a pioneer in bringing the Eastern philosophy / Buddhist teachings to the Western world.  The place was unlike a typical gallery or a museum.  It had  only 3 rooms, none overloaded with information and was more of a contemplative space than anything else.  It really resonated with me, and Jake didn't even hate it.

Next, off we walked to the Samurai district.  Yes, we walked pretty much everywhere here.  The options are limited to walking, buses or taxis (which apparently are hard to come by these days).  

Look, we didn't see any samurais, or swords or anything like that...but it was a cool little place to walk through.  Very quiet.  It took all of 10min 😁

We don't usually like to describe things in a chronological order, but it seems like the right thing to do here.

So, the next (and the last day), we took another walk (actually 2) to the train station to get our tickets back to Tokyo so we can get home. Bit of a saga, but not all trains showing on the net, then not all machines take payWave, so took about as long to get the tickets as the Shinkansen does to get back to Tokyo.

Last afternoon here was spent wandering the markets. Very much an Adelaide Central Market vibe, but a bit smaller and VERY focused on seafood.

We finished off with a gold leaf ice-cream - something Kanazawa is famous for.  It was our the culinary highlight of the markets.  

Last on the list was the Geisha district.  Apparently there are 3 of them in Kanazawa, but we could only be bothered with one, so we chose the most convenient and picturesque one called Kazuemachi Chaya District.  Again, we saw no Geishas and I spared Jacob having another tea, but we had a good look around and took some pics:

All in all, Kanazawa was pretty slow paced and there was not a huge amount to actually 'do' but it was a nice slower pace place to just be for a few days, and to get a bit of the history fix we hoped for.

Bloody hot here - very humid and 35 degrees - so returning to the southern hemisphere winter with some colour in our skin.  Oh, we know you are very jelly :)

See you soon Adelaide - the most beautiful city in the world.

Where are you Mt Fuji???

 It took us a good part of a day (about 7% of our total trip) to get to Kawaguchiko to see Mt Fuji.  

This is what we expected to see:

This is what we actually saw:

For the first 2 days that is.  It cleared up enough on the morning of our departure so we could experience it in its' full glory from the front verandah of our glamping tent:

It reminded us of a similar experience in 2014 in Rio where we climbed to the top of a mountain to witness Christ the Redeemer in the Steamer :)

It wasn't all doom and gloom of course.  At one point at sunset, the view was pretty specky:

This place is truly beautiful.  The camping site was set up half way up a mountain,  above a small sleepy town set on the lake.  We hiked a bit, drank vodkas and beer waiting for the glorious mountain to reveal itself whilst talking to a local who happened to have lived in Adelaide for a year and was very excited to meet us.  We cooked our own food (OK, some of it was 2min noodles),  hung out in the hammock by the fire listening to music and reading books.  

We feel recharged enough after the hectic adventures in Tokyo, ready to tackle our next adventure in Kanazawa before heading back home.  

And as a goodbye present, I received some hickeys from some lovely Japanese mozzies: