Hakone

Today Kuniko’s dad drove us to Hakone to stay at an Onsen (hot spring). On the way we stopped at a gas/service station and he had his oil changed. While we were waiting I used the bathroom- I know you are asking yourself why am I blogging about using a bathroom in a service station.
Every bathroom I have ever used in a gas station, oil change place, service station, etc has always been pretty gnarly. This gas station had a granite floor AND granite floors, a fancy toilet (ie 600 dollar and up toilet seat), and was spotless…amazing.

We went to Odawara and went to the castle there. For 200 yen each (about $1.90) we got dressed up in Samurai (Kuniko dressed like a princess) it was really funny. Odawara is famous for eel (Unagi) and we went to a well known restaurant that is 140 years old to eat it. We started with squid in it’s own intestines (shiokara) which I have never eaten before- it pretty much looks like worms in a slimy sauce. Kuniko loves the stuff and gets it whenever she can when we are out for sushi- until today I haven’t partaken. I pretty much found it to be gross- slimy and pretty fishy- the sauce was pretty good though. Then we had the eel (grilled) on rice…it was SO good- truly amazing.

We stopped in Chinriu to stop at a famous umeboshi store. Umeboshi are preserved salted plums- they are salty and sour and I absolutely love them and for some strange reason have the ability to distinquish between OK ones and very good ones. They are made with an herb called perilla which I also really like. Anyway this store had all things ume and perilla and I was like a kid in a candy shop and spent like 75 bucks on a variety of umeboshi and perilla products to bring back to Boston with me. Kuniko’s sister shares my love of ume and also loves this store.

We drove bit further to Hakone and stopped for a coffee at Fujiya hotel- very beautiful hotel….coffee was like 8 bucks a cup.

We then arrived at our Ryokan/Onsen (traditional Japanese inn/hot spring) which has 14 rooms and is on beautiful grounds with stunning gardens. There is an outdoor hot tub that overlooks the grounds and also in indoor one. The water is supposed to have various healing properties. In a Ryokan you eat dinner in your room- they bring you in course after coarse of food and you sit on the floor and eat it at a small table. The food was ridiculously good. We started with appetizers that included sesame tofu, baby octopus, sea urchin on tofu skin, a strange looking mussel, shrimp and a piece of sushi- fish unknown to me. Next we had clam soup. This was followed by a ridiculous amount of sashimi that was killer. Next came some seawead, bamboo shoots and cod eggs. Next we got some fried fish that was unbelievably good- probably my favorite course. Next came octopus in with a mustard sauce. Then we got smoked fish. At the end came white rice and miso soup. The whole thing was incredible- both in quantity and quality. Ryokan website: http://www.kansuiro.co.jp/eng/

4/8/08 Tokyo

Today we went to Kuniko’s favorite Soba restaurant which was also her Grandfather’s favorite. Soba is a type of noodle made of buckwheat. Up until now I always liked Soba but didn’t love it- today’s Soba changed all that for me. Like with most food its often the subtle things that make the difference. The texture of these soba noodles were different from other one’s I have had. We had different flavored ones today also- perilla and cherry blossom.

Then we headed to Kuniko’s university- Wasada as she had to meet with her advisors regarding her dissertation. Then we headed to see her holistic doctor called seitai which is extremely difficult to describe- it combines mind body medicine, movement, manual treatment and energy work.

From the seitai we went to Kuniko’s aunt and uncle’s house for dinner. Her uncle made okonomiyaki which is a Kansai speciality- he is from Nara. His recipe includes a lot of mountain yam (yamaimo) which is one of the few Japanese foods that I have a strong aversion to- it is very very slimy. Kuniko forewarned her aunt that I don’t like it, but her aunt thought that maybe because it was cooked I wouldn’t mind it. Under normal circumstances I would have just eaten it, however, Kuniko clearly stated that I should tell whether I liked it or not because if I said I liked it then I would get it every time we visit. Kuniko prefaced this with in any other Japanese household I am not to say I don’t like something. Her Aunt had a backup piece of salmon for me which she cooked perfectly.


Her Uncle drove us back to Kichijoji and on the on ramp to the highway they were conducting on the spot breathalizer testing which is something they do every spring. In Japan they recently instituted a policy in that fines the driver and the passengers a huge amount (something like 2000 USD per passenger) if in a car with someone who is driving under the influence. Her uncle passed with no problem.

Japan..Raw Horse....mmmm good!

I arrived in Japan yesterday and took the bus to Kuniko's parents house (2 hours from the airport). One of the many things I like about Japan is the language is niceto hear and they use very pleasant female voices as recordings (on the bus, subway, etc). Ahh I am so happy to be back in Japan!

Kuniko's mom prepared a fantastic meal- Kurobuta pork hot pot with a miso based soup in the hot pot. I can't emphasize enough how freaking good the Kurobuta pork is- it is so flavorful and tender- nothing like the pork you get in US supermarkets- ie dry and flavorless. Kuniko's dad also went out and bought some excellent sake that went perfectly with the meal.

We spend most of the day walking around Kichijoji (where Kuniko's parents live). It is a very cool neighborhood with lots of great shops and restaurants. There is also a great park with a pond. I got rip in jeans so I needed to find a new pair- which proved to be a challenging task- given that I am just a little bigger than most Japanese men. We did find a par in Uniqlo http://www.uniqlo.com/jp/ which is kind of like the Gap but much better and much bigger. They just opened the first US store in NYC. The jeans needed to be shortened and they had them finished in 45 minutes which was really amazing to me given how big and crowded the store was.

We had a killer lunch at a Japanese pasta place. Its this really small place down a narrow street and they make the pasta in the front of the restaurant. Its a funny thing but this Japanese-made Italian food was way better than what you find in most American Italian restaurants (North End excluded). The Japanese just don't mess around or half ass anything- which is one of the reasons it's such a pleasure to travel and eat here. Our lunch cost 16 bucks for both of us- everyone talks about how expensive it is here which isn't always true.

There are lots of places you can get shiatsu or a foot massage and we found one that was pretty cheap- 60 minutes for around 45 dollars (don't have to tip here). I have never paid that little in the US.

During our New Year's trip here we didn't have time to go for horse meat which I was keen on trying to we went last night. It is so good.

We got 3 different cuts sliced like sashimi- raw. It is very tender and has a subtle flavor. You put a little fresh ginger on it and dip it in a thick sweet soy sauce...so good.

We also got baked eggplant, clams and cabbage, these little fish that were grilled, gobo (burdock) tempura- first time I have had it this way- it was fantastic. Burdock is a fibrous root used extensively in Japanese cooking and I happen to really like- it is kind of crunchy and strangely satisfying to eat. Then we had horse sushi and finished with miso soup and shared some Sakura (cherry blossom) ice cream- so good. All of this plus a couple of beers was like 80 bucks.

Last day in Hong Kong

I took the bus to Stanley which is on Hong Island but its on the opposite side of where the city is. It is a wealthy area that isn’t as developed and populated as the city. There are beaches there and it sort of reminded me a little bit like Sausalito. I road on the top of a double-decker bus to get there. It was actually a pretty cool ride. The road was very narrow and winding and its definitely different being that high up in a vehicle. There is a market in Stanley- the Stanley market which sells clothes, knick-knacks etc. I don’t find most of the stuff for sale here very compelling (with the exception of all the veggies, raw meat, etc found in the food markets). So I explored Stanley and the walked around. The view of the ocean and surrounding small islands is stunning.

I headed back to Hong Kong and then took the tram up to the Peak. They build a funicular tram a long time ago up the side of a mountain to the top of a mountain overlooking Hong Kong. It was since been updated a couple of times and is quite fast and provides for fantastic views on the way up. I walked around the top which has hiking trails, shopping plazas, restaurants, etc. Side note- there are pretty much shopping plazas and malls everywhere here. Clearly there is a ton of money here and people come from all over the world to shop here. The sheer volume of high end stores is dizzying- and they say that Americans are consumerists. I would have to say that Hong Kong is much more consumeristic (I don’t think that’s a word) than the US.

Anyway the hiking and views from the top of the Peak are wonderful.

I then headed to the tailors to pick up my finished clothes. The whole process of having these clothes made was really interesting. They take a bunch of measurements of you and take pictures of you (to get a sense of your posture I believe) and you pick out what you want- ie shirts, pants, suits, etc and you pick the fabric. You can pick the style of collar and cuff. Then you go back the next day and they have you try on a rough version of the pants and jacket to check the fit. In my case they had to completely redo the shirt because of the height of the collar was incorrect. Then you go back and try everything on again and they make more adjustments as needed and then they make everything you want based on those measurements. I have actually never had a suit or jacket properly fit me in my whole life- basically because of the size of my shoulders. Usually I end up getting stuff tailored off the rack and it still never fits right. Anyway the suit these guys made for me fits absolutely perfect. The beauty is they keep your measurements so you can order more stuff later (they will mail you fabric samples). A custom made shirt cost about $60 bucks- in the US it would be $150 and up. So I am now ready to start my new job with my properly fitting stylish clothes.

There are Indian tailors all over Hong Kong (since it used to be British) and let me tell you these guys are aggressive. You are lucky if you make it one block without one coming up to you and trying to pull you into his shop. It pretty much forces you to completely ignore them as they are talking to you which initially feels really rude but quickly becomes normal behavior to avoid them. There are also people who come up to you to try to sell you fake Rolexes and such. Needless to say I completely ignored them as well.

I dropped of my new clothes and headed back to watch the laser show again (it was cloudy last night and it was really clear tonite- I am glad I did check it out again because I could see the lasers much better. I then headed back to Hong Kong to go to a specific restaurant I noticed while walking around a couple of days ago-

While amidst the vegetables, raw meat and fish while exploring the Graham street market a few days ago I noticed a little hole in the wall Cantonese BBQ place with a newspaper article about food network’s Anthony Bourdaine which included this little place. For those of you who don’t know he travels around the world and eats ethnic food and has a TV show and book about it. He raved about the roast suckling pig so I opted for this. The “cook” or guy who cuts up the meat with a cleaver didn’t speak a lick of English so this lady (cashier?) helped out- I asked for the roast suckling pig which she didn’t understand and I said baby pig- which she did and then she told the chef and he picked it up and then she proceeded to touch it with her fingernail to indicate that’s what it was- I prayed that my piece wouldn’t include the part she touched (she was outside smoking before hand). I sit down on my plastic stool at a plastic table facing a whole bunch of dead carcasses of pigs, baby pigs, ducks, etc. It is a very strange feeling to eat something while staring at the carcass of the same thing…it’s a little creepy but I got over it- especially when I bit in to the crispy, fatty, meaty piece of pork. We Americans need to start utilizing the skin of the pig in our food- it’s quite good- crispy fatty goodness.

Lantau, Buddha, and heinous bathrooms

Yesterday I headed to Lantau island to check out the huge Buddha that is on top of the mountain. I took the subway to a gondola that takes you up the mountain. The gondola ride itself is absolutely spectacular- check out the video below:



They have build this sort of village/theme parkish kind of thing on the top of this mountain where the huge Buddha is. They even have this multimedia cartoon movie about the Buddha- its kind of weird but is well done.


There is some spectacular hiking there and I did a short walk to the "path to wisdom" which is a walk to a place where there are these wooden columns with the heart sutra (a Buddhist scripture) carved into them- see picture below. In the little village they had a place where you can get a foot massage- given that I have been walking at least 4-5 miles every day my feet were killing me so I thought it would be a good idea. It was kind of strange. They started it by having me soak my feet in some water that looked like black tea or something. Then this lady rolled up my pants and started to jam her fingers into my knee which was quite unpleasant. She did the massage very rapidly it wasn't very relaxing but at least it was cheap.

I took the gondola back down and headed back to Kowloon and grabbed some food. I had this fantastic duck and pork with rice and veggies- it was killer and also very cheap. I then made a very crucial mistake- I went to the bathroom after eating. The bathroom was absolutely disgusting and filthy- no exaggeration I nearly threw up my food. Many of the bathrooms here have been unpleasant experiences- I can't wait to get to Japan where the bathrooms are clean and the service is a million times better than here.I then headed to the waterfront promenade facing Hong Kong to watch the evening light/laser show that is put on every night. The Kowloon waterfront is really well done with a large promenade and walking area that includes a tribute to Hong Kong movie stars with bronze stars embedded in the ground with names of famous actors and such. The view of Hong Kong at night is absolutely stunning from this area. At 8 PM every single night they put on a light/laser show over the harbor and buildings on both sides have lights that also flash. After watching the show I boarded the Star ferry which takes you between Kowloon and Hong Kong. It is really cheap and provides a great view of both Hong Kong and Kowloon. I then headed to Wan Chai which I hadn’t explored yet. It has lots of bars and restaurants, including lots of host bars which seem like a very strange thing to me. As I understand it they employee attractive females who are supposed to entertain you and drink with you and I think the drinks are really expensive. They are quite popular in Asia and Hawaii. I just don’t get it. Anyway they were super aggressive in trying to get me into these places- literally grabbing me to try to pull me in- I couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

Macau

Part of what I like so much about traveling- especially in foreign places is that you just never know what is going to happen, what you are going to see or do. Today was one of those great days of travel for me. I took a ferry to Macau which is a peninsula off of China that used to be a Portugese (colony?). So I got on the ferry and found my seat and noticed a bunch of fingernail clipping in my seat which was kinda nasty- at least put them on the floor for God’s sake. Naturally I didn’t want to touch them so I blew them onto the floor and took my seat. A couple of minutes later this couple sits down next to me and the guy is on my left. I took a breath and noticed a number of unpleasant odors. The first thing I smelled reminded me of how my hockey equipment smelled at the end of a season- which isn’t pleasant at all. Then I noticed more current body odor superimposed onto the stale hockey sweat stank- seats were assigned so I tried to ignore it for my one hour ferry ride. The ferry was incredibly fast- 45 knots or something like that.

Kuniko has a classmate from Grad school living in Macau and he was cool enough to pick me up and give me a grand tour and tell me all about Macau- prior to getting here I didn’t know anything about it. I had about 5 hours in Macau and Sean helped me to absolutely maximize that time. First we headed to the older section (name I don’t know) which was really cool- narrow streets with sort of an old European style that was a bit run down but still charming. I was a bit hungry so I ate 2 egg custards and had a bubble tea (more on the custards later). We checked out some famous church that burned down twice, however the façade remains. We then headed to the first casino build in Macau.

As of 2007 Macau exceeds Vegas in gambling revenue. Sean works for the Venetian so he knows a lot about this subject. Anyway I already forgot the name of the first casino- we had lunch there at this place that makes the noodles fresh,- really cool these guys have a big piece of dough and use some sort of small tool thingy to slice the noodles into hot water. It was really good.

We then headed to the Venetian, but stopped for more egg custards. Sean took me to the best place that apparently created the egg custard. So it is basically a ridiculously buttery pastry shell king of thing filled with sweet egg custard and is served warm- these things are amazing. Apparently the owner of this place died from a heart attack in his forties- that is how good they are.

Next we drove to the Venetian which is the 2nd largest building in the world (the first being Boeing’s plane hanger/factory in Seattle. It is also the largest casino in the world. Not only that but they are also building a whole bunch of other casinos to make a strip of them. It may actually be the largest construction sight in Asia right now. Apparently the Chinese absolutely love to gamble and the high rollers consist of Chinese factory owners who are making shitloads of money- think about that when you are shopping in walmart- you may be helping to support a wealthy Chinese factory owners trip to Macau. Apparently the hotel has 3000 rooms- all of which are suites. It really was mind-blowing. It has a huge shopping mall- I think 300 stores and an auditorium for concerts and a convention center- crazy.

We then headed back to the ferry and I returned to Hong Kong. Luckily no one sat next to me but there was someone eating something that smelled like old beef jerky and it was really an unpleasant odor but luckily only lasted a few minutes.

I then headed back to the tailor for a fitting/adjustments to the clothes I ordered. After that I headed to the Temple street night market which is basically a bunch of stalls of people selling cheap Chinese made stuff and cheap jade and such. I then managed to spend about 15 bucks on a face and palm reading that was ridiculous- I didn’t realize until after I gave the guy the money that he essentially knew 5 english words- but he had a picture of him with Jackie Chan and had a newspaper article about him in English so I went for it. What an absolute load of shit. First off the guy just kept pointing to my face and these lines on my hand and saying “beautiful” and “lucky.” He then would point to something on my hand or face and then refer to his notebook which had phrases handwritten in English. He told me I as going to make lots of money. He also told me I have a good wife and then later found out I was single and then told me I would get married when I was older (wow- that is pretty insightful!). He also told me I had 2 sons (does he know something I don’t know??). The other thing is he touched my face a bunch of times which I didn’t like one bit and couldn’t wait to get back to my hotel to wash my face. He also said if I started a business I would be successful. He didn’t say anything negative at all- apparently 2008 is supposed to be a good year for me. I am pretty much done with fortune tellers and palm readers- especially ones that don’t speak English and consult a notebook to tell people their fortunes.

Hong Kong

So I woke up at 4am this morning- wide awake- it was a shocker- love that jet lag. I am staying in Kowloon at the Eaton Hotel: http://hongkong.eatonhotels.com. I ponied up a little more money to stay in a hotel rather than a hostel and I am really glad I did so.

The public transportation here is fantastic- the subway is fast and runs frequently. I took the subway today to Hong Kong and did a ton of walking. The map that came with my lonely planet books isn't exactly detailed and that combined with the fact where I was is on a hill meant I pretty much didn't know where I was going. I spent about half an hour trying to find a dim sum place that lonely planet raved about. I was incredibly hungry and could not find it, despite asking for directions- both people nodded and pointed me in the wrong direction. I scrapped that plan and settled with a sandwich that was actually quite good. I then headed to the Hong Kong and Shanghai bank building which is quite impressive and a funny thing happened with the ATM: first of all the ATM took my card very slowly and then nothing happened on the screen for literally 3-4 minutes- the bank guy was like "software updating" I was mildly concerned cause its a bank of Hawaii ATM card and attempting to get a replacement in Hong Kong would be a joke given the way Bank of Hawaii...oh ya and then the ATM informed me I would get a fee for using it- but didn't tell me how much the fee is- hmm hopefully not too much. I then headed on foot to Graham street market which was killer. It is basically an open air market with veggies, meat, fish, etc. I saw various animal body parts and still am not sure what all of them were. The stink at times was nearly enough to cause me to throw up my sandwich.













I then walked around the Soho area (south of Hollywood road) and stumbled upon the Man Mo Temple and I managed to inhale more incense smoke in 10 minutes than I have in my whole entire life- there is literally incense hanging from the ceiling in coils and hundreds or maybe thousands of incense sticks burning.


I then met up for a coffee with a friend of Kuniko's who is working here. After that I headed to the tailor for a fitting- the custom made clothes thing is really amazing- that is to have something made specifically for you and having it fit so well. After that I had some fantastic BBQ pork and veggies and tried not to think of the funky raw pork I saw a few hours earlier.