Travelogue: Spirited Away

[Peter Green]

As with most of my travel bits, this begins in an airport. It doesn't really matter too much which one, as they're all really starting to look alike....well, with some noteable exceptions, but I'm not going to Penh or Luang Prabang or Ulan Bator, so let's stay relevant.

I've gone to ground in the Cathay Pacific lounge, which is a nice enough place. Clean, internet access, and stuff in steamers if I get peckish.

I did try some of the first item up. It was a beef and broccoli with vermicelli. It had been stir fried at some point, so I guess the steamer was only there as a stay-warm item with some class. It did look a lot nicer than those baine-maries we usually see.

That bit of elan was muscled aside and off the shoulder by the wine. I'm sorry, I don't expect my wine to come in a box when I'm in a business lounge. Okay, there's only about four of us in here, but still, you think, with only one choice of red and white, they could open a bottle for the evening?

By the by (or is that "bye") it's a Stanley Wines' Smooth Dry Red. They're very apologetic about the name change, as this used to be known in Oz as a Red Burgundy, but the EU has gotten on their case and said they can't call a wine a Burgundy if it doesn't come from Burgundy.

Bundaburgy would be an interesting name for a wine......

Anyways, after apologizing for this Euro-foisted impingement upon free speech, they put "Red Burgundy" in big letters under the "Smooth Dry Red" label anyways, so I don't think anyone's too put out.

In downloading the shot of the noodles, I also came across Yoonhi's shot of our backyard earlier today.

She's having them take out the concrete in the patio out back, and repour it so the rain doesn't drain into the house.

Jackhammers for the next five days, they estimate.

And I'm not there to share!

Okay, I'm going to go back into my notes and stuff for awhile.

Cheers,

Peter

[anpanman]

Um. This is great, but why is it on the Japan board?

[dockhl]

See Post #1................

[prasantrin]

Hey!  Weren't you the one that said there weren't any "bad" areas in Japan?

Is this going to be on par with my Hotel 88 Bencoolen stay in Singapore?

(Not to worry, I've watched enough Takashi Miike films to expect the bizarre    )

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I think Shinsekai might be more fun--more food, and more transvestites. How can transvestites not be fun? Just watch your pockets or they may be picked.

[smallworld]

Hey!  Weren't you the one that said there weren't any "bad" areas in Japan?

Is this going to be on par with my Hotel 88 Bencoolen stay in Singapore?

(Not to worry, I've watched enough Takashi Miike films to expect the bizarre    )

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I think Shinsekai might be more fun--more food, and more transvestites. How can transvestites not be fun? Just watch your pockets or they may be picked.

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And with the average price of a night's stay about 500 yen, he'll have more money to spend on food...

[johnnyd]

Awesome.

After our Japanese Deathmatch here in Portland Maine, I'm ready for the real deal. Lots of pictures please!

[prasantrin]

And with the average price of a night's stay about 500 yen, he'll have more money to spend on food...

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Remember, it's gentrified. Plus you must include tax in the price, so it's probably at least Y1050 now.

There's a huge Spa World there now, I read. That would be fun...maybe...

[helenjp]

Shinsekai is the place to try blowfish, if your tastes run that way.

When we were in Osaka recently, we raced in to Zuboraya - not the main restaurant in this photo, but in their slightly food-hall-ish Annexe (Bekkan) nearby, as the main restaurant was full. While the restaurant was rather lacking in atmosphere, the 1,700 yen fugu teishoku (set meal) was good value, including fugu tempura and a sharply spiced vinegared fugu dish as well as the conventional sashimi. Fugu sashimi is more thrill than flavor, but fugu tempura is very good.

We spent about 15 minutes in the shop, from ordering to running for our train , but if you have more leisure, they also serve fugu nabe, Japanese beef sukiyaki, octopus, etc.

Another product you will see in Shinsekai is Billiken cakes and cookies, shaped like the malicious-looking Billiken figure that has become a kind of good-luck charm in Osaka. My husband was determined to buy some for his workmates, but decided they looked so unappetizing he left them alone. (Don't bother visiting the gold one behind glass - housed in Tsutenkaku, I think??? - it's a replacement anyway, and you can't rub its feet, head etc in the approved manner, whereas the resin fakes lining the streets are quite available for a friendly pat).

[Peter Green]

Shinsekai is the place to try blowfish, if your tastes run that way.

When we were in Osaka recently, we raced in to Zuboraya - not the main restaurant in this photo, but in their slightly food-hall-ish Annexe (Bekkan) nearby, as the main restaurant was full. While the restaurant was rather lacking in atmosphere, the 1,700 yen fugu teishoku (set meal) was good value, including fugu tempura and a sharply spiced vinegared fugu dish as well as the conventional sashimi. Fugu sashimi is more thrill than flavor, but fugu tempura is very good.

We spent about 15 minutes in the shop, from ordering to running for our train  , but if you have more leisure, they also serve fugu nabe, Japanese beef sukiyaki, octopus, etc.

Another product you will see in Shinsekai is Billiken cakes and cookies, shaped like the malicious-looking Billiken figure that has become a kind of good-luck charm in Osaka. My husband was determined to buy some for his workmates, but decided they looked so unappetizing he left them alone. (Don't bother visiting the gold one behind glass - housed in Tsutenkaku, I think???  - it's a replacement anyway, and you can't rub its feet, head etc in the approved manner, whereas the resin fakes lining the streets are quite available for a friendly pat).

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Mmmmm....my initial reaction based upon experiences in Seoul long ago, would have been to blow off the pufferfish (sorry). However, the idea of tempura fugu does sound really good. I'll have some time on Thursday after I arrive before my accomplices free up, so maybe this good be a good entry point. Can you pass me some explicit directions (landmarks), please. I'm rather dense.

And "transvestite" sounds so......Romanianly painful. Why not "gender reclassified" as they say at Bumrungrad Hospital?

[Peter Green]

The flying tube has dumped me out in Hong Kong at Lan Tai. I must say, this is the nicest lounge I've ever been in. Lots of space, big ceilings, tasteful lighting, no crowding like Schiphol, and there's a Noodle Bar with DaDienMien, udon, and about two other selections. Plus there's Asahi in the fridge!

But me, I'm watching my girlish figure. Really, there's just enough time between flights to get in a Merlot, a shower, some pictures, and this post.

I am now close enough to Japan that I'm hearing it constantly in the background. For a Japanophile like me, that's a comfort (I recall, in 1984 flying from Houston to Seatac to be picked up there, and folks listening to the Japanese announcements. Their comment? "People shore do talk funny English up here"). I know that, as far back as the first of the Jesuits that came here, the Japanese tongue was referred to as "clickity clackity" but I really do like listening to it.

Can't understand 99.999999% of what they're saying, but I like the resonance.

Okay, next flight.

Next stop.....Narita.

[Peter Green]

Yeowch! 430 yen per minute internet access here at Narita (it's my own fault, I know).

I'll start posting more when I get to Osaka tomorrow.

Peter

[Chufi]

Peter, I can't wait for this travelogue to unfold. I am so looking forward to following it in real time (I read through the entire Korea thread yesterday, how did I miss that?).

[lemoncoke]

Peter, I love reading your Travelogues! I feel like I am there in person also! Thanks for taking us along!

[SheenaGreena]

LIKE I SAID, HURRY UP.

Tell the pilot you have lots of hungry people waiting for you here on the internet (:

I kid I kid...hope you and Scud have a great time and stuff your faces with lots and lots of food. Why is Serena not going? school?

[Hest88]

Hubba-hubba, Peter's back!

[Peter Green]

Hubba-hubba, Peter's back!

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Peggy, I'm blushing!

Hey, is that an emerald or a tsavorite you're using for your image?

[Peter Green]

Okay, in order to keep Sheena and the others at bay, I'll post my airplane food pictures.

After Lan Tai I sharpened up and remembered to pull my little Canon out of the bag so I could use it. (The food on the earlier leg was nothing special, a smoked salmon plate to start, and then a breaded lamb with potatoes....mind you, there was a nice Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc from Marlborough, a decent Medoc, and some Dow's Late Vintage 2001 port) so that made up for a lot).

But on this route Cathay laid on a Champagne Deutz Brut; a Domaine de La Baume Viognier 2006,; a Watershed Margaret River Chardonnay 2005 (unoaked), a Peter Lehmann Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon 2005, and an Ada Minotauro Rojo Nafarra 2004. Plus they still had the port there.

(here's a shot of the champagne.... and we can still get peanuts and other nuts to eat! they're not banned out here yet).

Anyways, the lunch/dinner they put on wasn't what I was expecting. I mean, I've flown a lot of business class, and there've been good moments (like the pheasant on KLM last time to America), but this was just plain pretty.

What we have here is a crisp king prawn with scallop and tuna tataki; a "frisee" with green apple, raisins, and walnuts (with a lemon myrtle dressing); and nameko mushroom soba.

There's a nice bit of kelp there under that extraneous bit of lettuce, too.

And a good soba, helped along by the "noodle sauce" in a little plastic bottle that you add to it.

The salad was very good, too. Darn, I'm left with nothing to whine about. I can't even whine about the wine, as the chardonnay was quite a nice thing to sip while watching the film start up, and then the Voignier went very well with the plum sauce with the fish.

And then there was the red. I went for the Rojo, as I was having the pork belly for my main.

Pork belly on an airplane! I'm in love. Braised pork belly with preserved vegetables, steamed rice, and a mix of Chinese vegetables, which included lotus root, one of my favourites.

The photo does no justice to the gooey, fatty luxury of this dish. Fat just turning to liquid in your mouth in a Homer Simpson moment.....Why can't I get stuff like this on KLM or BA (and I have no delusions whatsoever about Northwest, AA, or Continental)?

And after a gargonzola and a good, soft French cheese (robu-something or other, I was having too much fun at this point with the movie to keep up my notes).

I'll mention the movie in passing, and then get a fuller posting up in a more appropriate place.

Le Grand Chef - a Korean film in the great tradition of tear-jerkers (if you cry over cooking scenes). What's really important here is that, after Helen mentioned fugu, and I made my comments earlier from Lan Tai, this film opened with a really good fugo poisoning scene.

The premise revolves around a cooking contest between two rivals years after the poisoning. The knife of the king's chef is being handed back to Korea by the Japanese whose ancestor "acquired" it. The story is that the master chef used it finally to cut off his own hand so that the invaders couldn't force him to cook for them.

Great food porn movie, with lots of extra windows flying in to highlight the food. And the dishes look like the things that Doddie and I had seen back last year when we did the food expo (on different days) in Seoul. Great eye candy! Plus, the Koreans can always wrench a tear or two out of you (the cow scene is really sad).

Sheena, you have to see this one.

I won't say any more on that (although there is a Japanese angle), but I'll get it in the food movies section (when I have time).

Now, why am I using up Osaka time writing for you lot when I should be eating?

Tomorrow, Rona and I are going to Fushimi to see the Torii and get an education on sake.

Cheers,

Peter

[insomniac]

I may be a liittle biased Peter but I have had some amazing food and wine on Cathay Pacific ( and the cabin crew are a delight)

On the HKG-LHR leg a few weeks ago with a stellar chinese broth with wolfberries, an individually steamed plate of grouper with ginger and spring onions, tofu steamed rice (and then cheese... OK I can't resist) I was sipping Krug and a brilliant grand cru Louis Max mersault followed by a Lynch Bages premier cru....unfortunately it was 2am and even I could only force down a glass or two

ps. endearing Japanese movie about a coal mining town whose women gave the place a new lease of life as a Hawaiian hula resort when the mine closed....a classic

pps. are you there yet, are you there yet, are you there y.....

[Shelby]

*faint*

I've never been to a restaurant that served food like that, much less on a FLIGHT???!!!

[Peter Green]

I may be a liittle biased Peter

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A little biased? You?

What are you doing awake?

Am I there yet?. Yes, in the words of Buckaroo Banzai....Whatever you do....where ever you go....well....there you are

I'll post more after a few more Asahis. (I found a vending machine)

I think I like Osaka.

p.s. - no katoeys to be seen. I think they're just winding me up.

[prasantrin]

I think I like Osaka.

If you like Osaka, you might not like Kyoto so much. But Osaka is just a hop skip and jump away, so you can always hop back for a visit.

Where are the food pics?

p.s. - no katoeys to be seen.  I think they're just winding me up.

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Or maye they're soooo good, you can't tell what they are! Just a little taste of Thailand fo ryou.

I'm al ittle tipsy, and must sleep now. I hope neither of us is hung over tomorrow. It might nt make suckh a good impression on our hosts!

[Peter Green]

I think I like Osaka.

If you like Osaka, you might not like Kyoto so much. But Osaka is just a hop skip and jump away, so you can always hop back for a visit.

Where are the food pics?

p.s. - no katoeys to be seen.  I think they're just winding me up.

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Or maye they're soooo good, you can't tell what they are! Just a little taste of Thailand fo ryou.

I'm al ittle tipsy, and must sleep now. I hope neither of us is hung over tomorrow. It might nt make suckh a good impression on our hosts!

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Ahhh, isn't it fun being "cultural ambassadors" Hee hee! (I promise to be good, even if I have been seeing Lupin III's face on every pachinko parlour tonight)

[Hest88]

Hey, is that an emerald or a tsavorite you're using for your image?

Neither. Demantoid, actually. Relatively close to a tsavorite.

[Peter Green]

March 14 (just two mornings ago)

You’d like to arrive at a destination with tales of discovery and grandeur.

Instead, I was at a Hilton.

It had been a long day. I’d been traveling since leaving work the day before, and it was already after 9 p.m. when I checked in.

I suppose I could’ve pushed on from Narita, but it seemed far wiser to get a night’s rest and be ready for the ‘morrow. So, after a brief tour of the hotel (and finding that the pool’s hours, as expected, weren’t going to coincide with mine, I did something I don’t usually do.

I skipped the bar and went to sleep.

Shocking, eh?

I usually dread hotel breakfasts, but this morning was not a problem. A nice piece of fried salmon, some very glutinous fried rice, properly prepared bacon (not burnt to a crisp), and, best of all, the traditional fry of mushrooms included little tobikos.

On the bread front, I had no complaints regarding the croissant; flaky, not the boiled thing we see in hotels in the Middle East (there is no other way to describe the glotty texture of what gets put onto a baked goods tray in North Africa and the Gulf). And, better than croissants, they had sweet bean buns. You can tell what it is by the heft of the thing, that layer of pale goop in the bottom giving it a wonderful balance in your hand. If you’re ever involved in a major food fight in Asia in at a hotel breakfast buffet, go for the sweet bean buns.

That was a bit of advice you needed, right?

Where was I? Breakfast….there was also a congee (what’s the Japanese word for congee?) station, with enough condiments to keep Yoonhi happy, and a soup. But I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. What I needed was coffee, and I was content to work my way through a couple of pots while checking out the paper.

After breakfast it was fold things up, pull aside clothes for a day, and check out. I would skip the gym, as my main interest is swimming, and I wasn’t about to use up two more hours here waiting. Plus, the health club has strict rules on not allowing anyone in with hotels, so there wasn’t going to be much of an opportunity for sightseeing.

I found out later that having a tattoo in Japan is a great way to be ostracized. No onsen, no health clubs, not much of anything is open for you. What would happen to Angelina Jolie?

Before leaving, I had my luggage forwarded. This is a great service, saving me the sweatbath effort of hauling 20+kg of suitcase around behind me in the morning. The bellhop had a station with a sign of two black cats, a mother carrying a kitten in its mouth. For about $15 I had my burden taken off of my hands, and only a piece of paper to carry in its place.

My plan involved me getting back to the airport, renting cell phones, and then getting the train to Osaka. En route, we were advised to have our passports ready, as there would be a checkpoint on the way. When we hit it, there was a large illuminated sign advising that the Chiba police were on a full anti-terrorism alert. This state of tense intrusion of security was played out by their politely stopping cars, boarding busses, checking passport photos, and then bowing to everyone.

I really do like good manners.

The phones went without a hitch, with me picking up two. I checked and, unlike Seoul, I can return these at the departures level office, rather than having to go to the exact same booth.

And the train booking was simple, the young lady putting my connections through Tokyo station onto the #83 Nozomi to Shin Osaka.

Piece of cake.

And so I found myself entrained, detached, and wrapped up in images outside the window; a splash of colour from a plum tree coming into bloom; a stand of bamboo, some 30’ in height, shifting in the wind from the train; a large pagoda pushing its head up like Godzilla from behind a brand new Aeon shopping mall in Narita Town; a small citrus tree of some sort with bright orange fruit (too small for oranges, though), grows apparently untended by the station.

The cart lady comes through, quietly announcing the availability of coffee. Her tray is loaded with Pocky and bags of snack foods. When she finishes her trip through our car, she turns and bows.

Outside, the compounds of houses have given way to the first of the boxes of apartment blocks. The buildings are all getting taller, and soon the fields are gone and we’re into the suburbs of Tokyo. A skyline of telephone poles and power lines against a sky of low clouds, just now letting loose with drizzle.

The transfer in Tokyo is a little nerve wracking, but, as everyone has time to help, it would seem, I’m directed in stages to the right platform for my train.

And then the exit from the city is performed in reverse but over a longer period of time, it being a long, continual stretch of megalopolis for quite some time. I try to use my phone to call ahead to confirm my arrival, but the tunnels on this stretch give me about a two minute window in which to try and figure out what the person on the other end is saying.

I figure I’ll wait, and call when I’m there.

Did I mention manners? You don’t use your phone in the compartment, but go to the back section, through the doors and by the toilets. People would take their silent phones, glance nervously at the displays, bow, and race to the back. No threat of having the person next to you screaming at this office beside your ear.

Past Nagoya I see the Knorr and Ajinomoto factories cheek by jowl as we speed past.

The Dream Pub, a square box of a building in the middle of open fields, perhaps half a kilometer to the nearest house.

The trolley lady does another pass, and the lady next to me has a nice bento, a wooden box with cardboard top, with mushrooms, peas, scallops and rice. Some pickled ginger too.

At Kyoto, the rain is beating down even more, now. A relentless Vancouver like misery that puts me in the mind of Witch Hunter Robin and long trench coats.

And, at least, we approach Shin Osaka. From here I finally phone my landlady, and takem my instructions on how to get to Dobutsuen-mae. The subway system for tickets is similar enough to the Korean and Thai that it’s not too much of a bother to get my ticket, and from there it’s a few minutes on the red line to where I need to be.

I arise from the underground at the Festival Exit, an entrance of stylized waves. Above me I can see a rollercoaster track perched up on the building. Samantha comes from the apartment to meet me, and I’m where I’m supposed to be at last.

Next: Finally some food pictures

[rarerollingobject]

If you’re ever involved in a major food fight in Asia in at a hotel breakfast buffet, go for the sweet bean buns.

I love it! Sig-line worthy!