$700 toilet seats, New Years Dinner

Yesterday we walked around Kuniko's parent's neighborhood. The roads are small and buildings are quite compact. We checked out an electronics store which is sort of like a Best Buy on steroids. It was 5 floors and was absolutely packed with stuff. In addition there are tons of bright signs and people yelling into microphones pushing sale items. I was pretty fascinated by the floor that had home appliances, including 500-700 dollar toilet seats which pretty much everyone seems to have- they even had one at a restaurant we went to. I am not even sure of all the features they have. They have integrated bidets (which you can't even see- basically you press a button and a small door opens up and the bidet comes out). The seats are heated and also when you sit on it some sort of very quit exhaust fan comes on. I am sure they do all kinds of other stuff too- but I am afraid to start pushing buttons- everything is in Japanese. You can also buy a $700 dollar rice cooker that uses some fancy technology to produce great rice. The refridgerators are really neat- they are much smaller than ours and have lots of different compartments for different foods. Pretty much most of the appliances are smaller as people's housing is generally much smaller- the use of space is very intelligent here.

We saw a restaurant that specializes in blowfish- these are the fish that have an organ that contains a very strong poison that will pretty much kill you instantly. Kuniko assures me that no one dies anymore from them- I guess each restaurant is licensed and the sushi chef is specially trained. Not only is the (supposedly nil) chance of dying when eating this it is super expensive- starting at $150 per person. I declined the offer to get this...I need to save something for the next trip. Below are the blowfish in the window.


New years food. Where do I start? First of all Kuniko's mom spent 2 days preparing food for New Years. She was up until 2am on the 31st - cooking. The food started in the morning- I can't even remember all of the stuff. We had a very traditional soup that contains mochi (pounded rice) and veggies that was great. Each of the dish has a meaning/symbol about going into the new year. After our walk we had dinner with Kuniko's aunt and uncle and 2 cousins. Again there was a ridiculous amount of amazing food- sashimi (including toro), duck , veggies, monkfish hot pot (broth made with monkfish liver), sushi rolls, and for desert we had sea sparrow's nest with melon balls. This is definately worth explaining. Sea swallow's nest (per Wikipedia) is the most expensive animal product consumed by humans- and (per me) once of the weirdest. It is a chinese delicacy and naturally (supposedly) has all kinds of health benefits which probably won't interest you as much as what this stuff really is- basically these birds get seaweed from the ocean and make their nest on the edge of tall cliffs WITH THEIR SALIVA! I think maybe they eat this stuff and regurgitate it with their saliva to make their nests. Then someone who has the luck of having a career of climbing old bamboo ladders on the edge of a cliff in a third world country risks their life to obtain this delicacy- on occasion folks do fall and die. As for the taste of this winning combination of bird saliva and seaweed- it's pretty much without flavor. The best way I could describe it is it's sort of like a gelatinous noodle- it's not unpleasant to eat so long as you don't focus on the fact that you are eating bird spit.


Below is a picture of Kuniko's mom on the right with her sister (who is wearing a Kimono).