hanami with V & S

One of the things I meant to write about last year was the question, did I like (going back to) Japan. It had been twenty years, after all; the past, as they say, was a different country, and I was a very different person from what I was at twenty, never mind eighteen and younger.

I suppose that this was a silly question. How could I not like Japan? How could I but love it? It is no Eden, to be sure, and I have only a tenuous grasp on the challenges and problems facing any foreigners trying to make a living in Japan. But in a substantial and foundational way, it is home for me. It is where I grew up, and this cannot but leave an imprint on who I am today.

Back at Nagoya Chubu/Centrair airport.

Souvenir-shopping.

Airplane lunch with a Japanese twist (soba noodles; teriyaki chicken; matcha purin).

Snack, somewhere between the Urals and landing: yaki-onigiri, fried rice balls.

..and that’s it for the photos.

Sam says:

And then it was time for our last supper in Japan. It was late and we were tired, so instead of wandering around town hoping to find an interesting restaurant, we headed to the department store complex on top of Nagoya station – which include, in one building, restaurants covering floors 12 and 13, so there was plenty to choose from. And boy did we get lucky: they included a tofu restaurant, where pretty much everything on the menu was or contained tofu in some form. It turned out to be one of the best meals of the whole trip.

First they brought a big bowl of steaming hot freshly-made tofu - and some seasoning. It was fantastic stuff - tofu gets pretty bad rep in the West, but we could’ve gorged ourselves on this alone.

Pretty happy already! We ordered two different set menus - I got some starters..

..And then they brought this square thingy full of soymilk..

..and then V got some food; and for me, the food kept coming..

..and coming!

It was all great.

Oh, but what about the square thingy?

It was on a hob, and had been heating up. Now you could see it had developed a skin – so you took two sticks like so:

..and voila:

This is called yuba, or tofu skin. Pick some up, put it inna bowl, add seasonings, and munch away. Fiddly, but fun, and tasty too.

Sam says:

And then it was Friday the 15th of April and we headed back to Nagoya, where we started from. Nagoya is a bit of an outlier, in the sense that although it’s the third largest urban area in Japan (Greater Tokyo first, Greater Osaka second), it’s not particularly known as a tourist destination. Which also means, although of course there’s lots to see, I had no idea what’s there.

Not that we had time to do more than walk around a bit, and do some last minute souvenir shopping!

For lunch, we found a noodle place where the thing was green tea soba noodles served on a scorchingly hot roof tile. Huh? Well, yes, but it does make for nice crunchy noodles.

And then shopping in an arcade right next to - what else - a Buddhist temple..

It was an oddly cool day, so a nice hot freshly-made taiyaki was a welcome treat. :)

Sam says:

What do eat for dinner in Ise? Why Ise-ebi of course – rock lobster. “Could we have one for two people, please!” “How’s this one, sir?” (still alive!)

Half as sashimi; half grilled; and the shells used for miso soup.

And then some other little tidbits, like hotaru-ika no tempura (deep-fried tiny whole squid), scallops & asparagus, and a tofu thingy. And some almond jelly for desert.

Sam says:

The last shrine of the trip! This is Ise Geku, or the Outer shrine, which was a couple hundred yards from our guest house.

It was late in the day, just before closing, and the place was effectively deserted. Such a serene place, it really feels like a holy place (well, it would).

In the middle picture, you can see a structure next to a plot with black and white stones – when it gets rebuilt (every 20 years), they build it on the now-empty ground, and leave the other side empty.

Sam says:

Train back to Ise; snacks!

Walking around Ise town.

Our guest house.

Sam says:

Then we took a bus to Futami, to see the Meoto-iwa, or ‘Married couple rocks’ (as Wikipedia translates it): two rocks just off shore, tied to each other with a huge rope, symbolizing marriage etc etc. On the way, the bus stopped at a historical amusement park – can’t say it was exactly packed with crowds..

Sam says:

Right next to Naiku there’s an old-fashioned shopping street full of eateries, souvenir shops, and the like. Some of the buildings are actually old, others just built to look like 19th-century structures. We’d had a little something before going in the shrine (tea & sweets, at the top there); now it was nearing lunch time so we stopped for – craft beer & oysters! Deep-fried oysters onna stick, no less. And very tasty they were.

Sam says:

Thursday, 14 April, we visited Ise Jingu, the holiest Shinto sites, the shrine at Ise. There’s a couple curious things about this shrine. First, it’s in two locations, about 5km apart, called Naiku and Geku, or the Inner and Outer shrines. Second, they rebuild the entire shrine every 20 years: the current buildings date from 2013, and you can see how light-coloured the timber is.

Sam says:

Sam says:

Sam says:

We had a quick cuppa (and a slice of cake), and then it was time to find some bento lunch boxes and hop on the train to Ise. This turned out to require a bit of running around, looking for a bento shop. Finally I found a tiny store, where the inevitable old lady sold me two out of her three remaining bento – throwing in a discount to boot!

Sam says:

Walking through Katsuura to the station..  Have I written about how fruit in Japan was outrageously expensive? Like 1€ per banana – but this time of year, most of the local fruit were types of citrus: here, ¥100 (80c) for a bitter & sour orange, or ¥200 (1.5€) for a bag of three sweet seminoles. Also, the varieties were things unseen in Europe. It took a few purchases to find the nice ones..

Those souvenir foods are mostly fish – but the bottom left side are whale, as you can see from the illustration..  Whale was on the menu in many restaurants in this part of the country; the infamous Taiji is a few miles down the coast from Katsuura.

Sam says:

Sam says:

For some reason, in Japan a buffet is called a ‘viking’. Maybe vikings eat a lot? Or something? Who knows. What we do know, is that in maguro/tuna-town Katsuura, there was a LOT of tuna for breakfast. V’s breakfast tray looks sensible, but yours truly hit the raw tuna pretty hard. And loved every bite.