Nikko

Last weekend we went on our first overnight trip by ourselves. We took the train to Nikko and then jumped on a bus that took us a couple hours higher up the mountain to snowy Yumoto Onsen.

When we got off the bus in the middle of what seemed like a deserted parking lot there was only one other vehicle, a small van. The driver of the van jumped out when he saw us disembark: "McCarthy-san?" He drove us the two short blocks to our hotel, where a front desk person was waiting for us, not at the front desk, but outside in the snow. She checked us in quickly, gave us our assigned time for dinner and brought us to our room, where she then proceeded to make us tea. She served us the tea on the black lacquer table in the middle of the room (where the bed would be put while we were down at dinner).

The rooms come with a set of yukatas that everyone wears all over the hotel, to dinner, to the onsen, around the room. They are quite comfortable. There is a heavier jacket that you wear when out in public.

Dinner was traditional ryokan fare, which means an endless array of bowls filled with things.

so

many

things.

Under each lid was a new mystery.

Below is their star attraction: tofu skins. The skins aren't bad. Those little red leaves are incredible.

Below that is another preparation of the skins. Here, shredded and deep fried.

The next day, after a quick dip in the sulfur-rich onsen and a hearty Japanese breakfast, we took the bus back down the winding road to Nikko. Nikko is most known for its multiple shrines and temples, that are World Heritage sites. They are all nestled up on hillside in a National Park area with lots of pine trees and hiking trails. It is very quiet and easy to walk from one to the next.

Apparently there are wild monkeys running around during certain times of the year (harmless unless you are eating something they want - but you shouldn't be strolling around shrines eating anyway). When we were there, the only monkeys we could see were from the famous "Hear no evil..." wood carving of Toshu-go below.

Other interesting carvings depicted animals that the artist created either from a very poor memory or from hearsay I guess: an elephant with claws and hair on the right and some inexplicable teal thing on the left.

my new *easy* bake oven

For six months now we have gone without an oven. It was okay at first. There are plenty of things I can cook with our two gas burners. Plenty. But it was starting to wear on me something fierce. Simple things like casseroles and frozen pizza started to take on these magical, exotic properties in my mind, that they have no business having. Sure I could go buy a brand new oven, but that seemed like an unwise investment at this point in our lives. I instead decided to start browsing the "sayonara sales" online to see if I could find a used oven for an affordable price. For months I responded to every ad I saw, only to be informed that I'd just been scooped. A couple weeks ago, however, my patience paid off. A gal in the southern part of Tokyo was heading back to her home in Singapore and agreed to give me her oven/microwave/grill for FREE! My only job was to get down there and bring it back on my own. Thanks to Ryan's clever thinking, I was able to strap it down to one of his big bags that has a handle on one side and wheels on the other. It took me about three hours round trip, but I managed to wheel the thing down the big hill she lived on, onto the subway (yet another "crazy gaijin" moment) and lug it back to our neighborhood, all by myself. Success!

So for my first baking feat, I decided to start off small (literally) and simple by making some brownies in the world's tiniest baking pan. I don't know if the fork for scale really conveys how adorable this pan is. I think it is only 5" x 5" or so.

Since the only recipe I could find for simple brownies (I had cocoa powder but no semi-sweet chocolate) was for a 13"x 9" pan, I decided to halve the recipe. Partway through the proceedings, however, I realized that the recipe called for 3 eggs. I decided to change course midstream and go 2/3rds and thus threw in a quick splash/dash of everything I had already measured to that point. I'm sure you can see my folly.

Although my non-scientific approach to cooking works in many situations, baking is apparently not one of them. Between the messed up proportions and the position of the pan in the bottom of the oven (shouldn't things in a convection oven sit somewhere in the middle? I think I need to buy a rack), my brownies had a very, very gooey (ok, totally liquid) center. But then, of all the things that could go wrong with a pan of brownies, partially molten gooiness in the middle is probably the best. Ryan agreed. They were pretty awesome.

on a boat

This weekend we joined some friends on a boat cruise around Tokyo harbor. We embarked on our journey from a small dock in a channel near Tsukiji and then proceeded through the harbor to Odaiba, hung out for a short while and returned to the dock.

Altogether I think it was about a three hour tour....a three hour tour (fortunately for us the weather never got rough). We were invited by Julian, here in red (take a picture, Julian: we're on a boat!), who took Japanese lessons with Ryan up at the kita-ku community center. Julian's wife organized the outing as a venue for a live performance of Japanese traditional comedies.

There was a ton of food --sushi, rice, fresh shrimp, salmon rolls, even cheese!-- and as much beer as we could drink.

Also, they cooked tempura right on the boat and just kept bringing it out. We enjoyed what seemed like an endless array of deep fried shrimp, fish, sweet potatoes, peppers and squash. All of it was incredibly fresh and served up hot with our choice of the dipping sauce or coarse salt.

In Odaiba, the boat cut its engine for a little while so that we could hear the main entertainment. This man with the microphone is a sort of actor/comedian. After a brief stand-up routine, he performed a very animated traditional Japanese story. Armed with only a small paper fan as a prop, he acted out multiple characters, each with a different voice. Even though we couldn't really understand the story, his expressions and range of voices were fabulously entertaining.

And the views of Tokyo at night were just stunning. A lot of other boats were out enjoying the lights as well.

At one point during the night, a small boat pulled alongside ours and tied up. The boat driver then proceeded to sell some of his foods to the folks in the kitchen. He made them small plates of food and sold them a few boxes of things. He then opened up the sales to passengers via this window.

The kitchen crew later came around and shared some of the treats (the small bits on the plate next to the turnip covered in mustard). We couldn't quite tell what they were. They were kind of fishy, kind of salty, but not terribly offensive.

Oh and I almost forgot: one of our fellow travelers, Todd-a-tron, documented the whole night for his youtube channel. He did a nice job of editing the footage down here.

Yokohama

In our continued effort to do more exploring in Japan, last weekend we took a day trip to Yokohama, which is only about 45 minutes southeast of us. It happened to be a holiday celebrating the coming of age of Japan's youth. All twenty-year-old gals donned fancy new kimonos (with fur stoles) and the guys all wear suits and they head to the main center of town for a big ceremony. Here we see a couple of gals on the train en route and a few gals getting their grub on at AM/PM post-ceremony. It is quite rare to see people eating on the street in Japan, so to see these girls doing it in their finest dresses on a busy street was really strange to us.

The Ramen Museum was our first stop in Yokohama. It basically is a large building housing a 1:1 replica of a Tokyo neighborhood from 1958 (the year that instant ramen was invented or first put on the market or something). There are about 8 different working ramen shops inside showcasing the various styles of ramen available in Japan (each region has a specialty). Plus there are just a bunch of antiques (not necessarily related to ramen) thrown in to give it the right ambience.

Then it was down to the waterfront Minato Mirai area, where there are amusement park rides (ferris wheel, roller coaster, log ride and boat swing all occupying the same small chunk of land) and this weird disney-style lane of candy stores and game shops.

At some point during the walk, we decided to cut through a building, inside of which we saw a line forming around this orange kiosk. Pretty much our guiding philosophy here is that if we see a line forming around something selling food, we just get in it. No questions asked.

In this case, Leonard's, which we came to learn was originally a small stand in Hawaii, sells hot, donut-like things rolled in your choice of either sugar or sugar/cinnamon. They were pretty good (I mean, who doesn't like just-fried donuts?) but I don't really think the long line was justified. Perhaps no one else in line knew what they were queueing up for either.

Then we made our way out to the red brick warehouse area (Akarenga Soko) for some shopping and browsing, but no ice skating (though we did stand around reminiscing about skating in central park in our early dating days).

After that we walked along the waterfront and headed toward Chinatown behind this guy in his interesting jacket (click to read).

Yokohama's Chinatown is apparently the biggest chinatown in Asia (outside of China of course). Encompassing several densely packed streets, it was home to more restaurants than you can imagine, all of them offering what seemed like exactly the same things. After attempting to find some perfect combination of traits that we wanted, we finally, out of pure exhaustion, just settled on one in a quieter section of town.

For a set price of roughly $30, we just kept ordering small plates of things by number from the rather expansive menu. Here is one of the prettier items, peking duck (really just the skins thereof) with crepes and hoisin sauce.

Kamakura

On Sunday of the holiday weekend, we decided to head to Kamakura. We got a rather late start (shocking) so had to confine our trip to just a few sites. In Kita-kamakura, we went to the Engaku-ji shrine, which happens to be the most peaceful of the bunch and represents shrines from the samurai era. We didn't know that at the time. We just lucked out. Incidentally, it also happens to be the closest shrine to the exit of the train. The grounds have some interesting features that cut into and incorporate the surrounding cliffs and caves.

Sneak picture of Ryan examining strange stone marker near Engaku-ji.

Next we took the Enoden train to Hase-dera, which has a temple that dates back to AD 736 and thousands of tiny Jizo.

Here is a small Buddha with a tiny New Year's mochi tower in front of it. The mochi tower I guess used to be two balls of mochi (smashed rice paste) with an orange on the top. Modern towers consist of a plastic container with mochi inside (presumably to keep the mochi from drying out) and a fake plastic orange on top. The tradition is that sometime between the 7th and the 10th of January, you eat the mochi in a soup of sweet red beans.

At the Hase-dera you can place incense in a large vat as a sort of prayer. However, I think the incense are supposed to slowly burn over time in a cloud of smoke and not go up in the fiery rage shown below.

There is also a prayer-go-round:

Inside the wooden center are stacks and stacks of prayers. When you turn the wheels, it is thought to be the equivalent of saying all those prayers. Quite efficient!

After a 10-minute stroll down the street from Hase-dera, we arrived at the bronze Daibutsu, Japan's second largest Buddha. It was once housed in a huge hall but the building was swept away by a tsunami in 1495. You can climb steps and look out windows that are essentially at Buddha's shoulder blades, but the line was really long so we skipped that. In the summer you can do a lot of hiking around the hills of this area and even trek down to the beach below. As it was, it took all of our strength just to get out of the cozy train (with its built-in seat-warmers!) and walk around a bit. Have I mentioned how cold we are here? Friends, we are FREEZING!