Japan - D3

I got to know a lovely Japanese lady on Facebook, and she invited me to her house. Wednesday was the day of Gastronomy - with her. :)
She lives not far away from Tokyo. We started the introduction with quite long, several-dish menu lunch in a local restaurant. It was really very Japanese with a great atmosphere.

 

This is our menu card. Our choice was the second column in the first row :)

Started with a really strong aperitif drink, tasted like vodka.

Let's check the dishes:
The first one is a plate for two. From the bottom left corner: some white root with algae. Above it soba-sushi! Instead of the rice the base is from soba noodles. The orblet had a sweet potato like taste. The round studd is filled with tofu cream. In the small plate you can see tofu with miso-cream. The last one was vegetable tempura.

The second dish was misocream grilled, sweet taste! Hmm, maybe yakimiso? :)

The third dish was soba dumpling with leek, wasabi and salt/soyasauce.
The water in which the soba was cooked is used ad  a drink. I wouldn't have thought it is a nice choice, but it perfectly matched to the dishes.

The fourth dish: vegetable and fish tempura. With salt and soysauce.

The fifth: soba noodles with leek, wasabi and soysauce. I gave it up at this stage :) Belly full.

Oh, I got a compliment by the waitress how properly I use the chopsticks :) However I still find it not easy. If anyone tried to eat noodles covered with black bean sauce with Korean chopsticks... they know what I am talking about :D

The city is quite small, but they have a lovely shrine and a famous bigger one on the ocean-side, where sometimes the imperial family takes a visit.
The beach:

The shrine:
There are some small mini-shrines on the right side of the road: for dead children, pets, pregnant women, against cough (did not help at all :(), etc..

I prayed by the last one and my friend taught me how to make it properly:
You go to the well, grab a wooden spoon and with right hand you dip it into the water.
Pour a little water on your left hand, try to wash it, then you change your hands (spoon into the left one, wash the right one).
Take the spoon back into the right one, pour again water onto your left palm and get a slurp. Do not swallow! Just turn it around in your mouth and spit it out. Please not into the well, but onto the stones below :)
You pour out the remaining water also. Now you are clean and ready for praying.

Find a shrine, for example this one:

1. Pull what you find there (bell, drum, bang of a little girl..)
2. Throw a small amount of coins into the coin-box
3. Deep bow twice. With respect
4. Clap your hands twice (guys quite loudly, grils are quite shy, you even cannot hear it - I was a boy this time :)
5. Put your hands together and pray
6. Deep bow once more
7. Leave and deep lightly

Voilá, your wishes may come true :)

I prayed a lot of times for a better future, let's see.

Small statues always remind me to an anime, what Jucy recommended me. The small white stone is a wishing stone. You have to touch it and  pray (description above). If the stone will be moldered, you are lucky enough ;)

My friend, Toshie lives in a lovely 2-floor house. She loves French things very much, so the house has a really interesting Japanese-French mixed interior. Very harmonic, female lodge. :)
I went through on a tasting session: she gave me several types of wagashi (Japanese sweets), umeboshi made by her aunt (got some pieces to bring home - her mother was really very funny and kind: when I put the whole plum into my mouth, she snorted... as they said foreigners do not like it. I loved all Japanese food so far, even natto is ok!)
The best wagashi was the mochi filled with dried apricots. I already made it with strawberry, absolut favourite!
And here it is a real treasure: cherry blossoms put into very salty water. Toshie's family eats it only on special occasions. Hmm, it should not be bad with vodka!

I managed to find a small empty hole in my belly: here is our dinner: sukiyaki. Oh my gosh, this was marvelous! The side dishes also excellent: tofu, green bean with misopasta, pickled ginger.
The sukiyaki is from very thinly sliced beef, grilled with a sweet soysauce mixture. Offered with noodles, tofu, leek, Chinese cabbage, mushrooms etc... and the bites are sopped into raw egg.

Just to make it more slippery: we drank sake with soft drink and also pure warm one.
Puuuukkkk...............

Japan - D2

I would have want to visit the Tsukiji fishmarket, if I could get up early :) But no chance for this, that's why I could run through a small market next to it, but it was really very interesting and wonderful.

I did not know most of the vegetables, but this place was still a miracle - maybe because the activity I love the most is eating :) There were lot of fishes, freshly fried foods, sashimi "restaurants", pickles, ceramics, knives, dried seafoods and bonito flakes in different size:

 

My ultimate favourite is unagi, sea eel, pured with a sweet sauce, just simple delicious! I found a small stand, where they sold it and behind the stand a very small room equipped like a bar. Lot of small places have this interior, started to love it! Water and green tea is for free, still!

Next stop: Ginza. The Mekka of expensive stuffs, the first Western style shopping district in Tokyo - so far they have more, but it preserved the special place feeling. You can see here elegant middle age women, young girls in f*cking expensive clothes or guys in leather jacket coming ut from an Armani shop with two big bags :)

At a corner a priest found me, and on a very tricky way he managed to get a quite big amount of money out of me... I still feel ashamed :D He stopped me, smiled and gave me a lucky sticker. Then he pushed a paper and asked me sign up for praying. I was  so happy that someone talked, that I started to fill out the sheet. Aaand did not see the last column... which stand for donation. The amounts were really big! He did not ask how much I want to donate, just saw the biggest one. Without accepting a denial. I tried to make a bargain, but... I do not dare to tell ya the final amount. Just for the sake of world peace. Whatever, I got a wooden praying bracelet. I swear I will wear it till I die :D I really hope he was not swindler, just jumped out from the office in lunchtime :)
Not far away from this a very cute girl invited me to their shop. They had photo, postcards.. which are phosphorescating, changing colors blabla... her favourite was 2 jumping delphins, if you move the card they get higher and higher and at the end they kiss each other. Quoting her: "Kiss, kiss... Japanese souvenir, soooo sweeeeet" :))) I did not buy this, but the one with the Fuji... they got me, I'm a fan of this mountain.

Kabuki - a very interesting theater style - at least for Europeans. Only male actors play in it, covered with very heavy make-up and beautiful colorful dresses. The actors play a female role called onnagata. Mostly very old guys play in it, but there are some young gems, for example he, my favourite :) One of the most sexy "woman" I have seen... and the interesting thing is: he is equally sexy as a guy!

The original theater, Kabuki-za is next to the fish market, but right now it is under renovation. The shows are currently held in Shinbashi Enbujō.

I bought a ticket for Friday :) They have two shows per day, both are 4-5 hours long. The pieces changes in every month and also the matinee and the evening show is different.
Buying the ticket was really very funny: the young girl could hardly speak English, but she used Google translator :) And they had a picture from every seat: how you could see the stage. I could not believe that someone sat in every seat and took a photo! Why no one introduced it in Europe? :o

But the day is still young: had time to visit the Imperial Palace and the park around - at least the public part.
It is surrounded with gutter, occupies a really big area (if you look onto a Tokyo map, the green big part in the middle is this park). The trees in the park look like big bonsai, with medieval era style houses and guardians in modern clothes, skyscrapers around the park. On the grass or on the benches people having their lunch. You got totally confused and this is only the beginning! I am wondering whether Tokugawa Ieyasu shogun could imagine when he chose the small fisherman village, Edo to the capital city, that once this small place will be the most populous and bizarre city of the world? However Shanghai already took the first place in population :)

Just got back to my hotel, it turned out Ikebukuro isn't that shy at nights: the streets are full with clubs, pachinko, karaoke bars and girls.

 

No, I tried out only a sushibar: was sitting on a bar seat again, ordered 2-3 pieces. Not full yet, ok, next piece please. Again, only guys were in the restaurant. The waiter showed me everything: how to order, where is the tea (free again! slowly get used to it), the chopsticks, soy sauce etc.