Disclaimers:

1) These are just tourist pictures, the cheesy ones that everyone takes on vacation, and are not meant to be viewed as professional photography.  We took only one camera, a couple of zoom lenses and no lights: we were on vacation afterall!  We’re definitely not seeking employment with National Geographic here.  

2) We’re not experts on Japan, Japanese culture or religion so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Estimate that I’ll have my facts right about 54% of the time.

3.) To see our pro work (like weddings and portraits) and skip vacation pics, feel free to browse our blog by category!

OK, enough temples and deer, let’s get to what you really want to know about… food.  Lots of people asked what the most disgusting thing we ate over there was and the truth is that, while not everything was agreeable with our Western palates, nothing was so far out in right field that we gagged.   But here are a few of the more interesting items we consumed along the way complete with the verdict:

1.)  Fried eel spine   Sam: not a fan, Mel: kinda crunchy but pretty delicious

2.) Eel liver:  Sam & Mel both: not bad, a little like calamari

3.) Octopus balls (balled octopus meat, not what you’re thinking): Sam & Mel both: would have been delicious if it weren’t for the lighter fluid that got in there somehow

4.) Nato/fermenting beans: Sam: its OK, Mel: nasty

5.)  various diaphragms and intestines of small animals:  Sam: delish, Mel: meat shouldn’t go crunch

6.) black sesame seed ice cream: Sam and Mel both: delish, we’ve gotta figure out how to make it

7.) curry doughnut: Sam and Mel both: while its not the flavor you expect to encounter while biting into what looks like a plain sugar/cinnamon doughnut, once you get past the shock its actually pretty good  

The opportunity to try both raw horse meat and whale meat at sushi restaurants came and went, thoughts of Mr. Ed and Shamoo led to better judgement.

So on to pictures….

One nice thing about visiting Japan is that most restaurants display plastic versions of the menu in their windows and this makes ordering a meal a lot easier when you can’t otherwise read the paper menu.  While you may not know exactly what’s in a noodle bowl from a plastic model (chicken? tofu? eel liver?) at least you know you are ordering a noodle bowl.  Now whether its served hot or cold… you might be surprised there…  Needless to say, eating in Japan is a great adventure.

The plastic food models have to come from somewhere, right?  Welcome to Tokyo’s Kappabashi Dori, a street famous for its restaurant related wares, where you can buy any kind of plastic food imaginable.  Just be prepared to pay upwards of $20 for even a small piece of plastic sushi, good looking plastic food doesn’t come cheap!

Fruit in Japan was amazing, in fact we now believe this is where grape flavoring was invented… Have any of you Americans ever tasted a grape that tasted like Welch’s grape jelly, grape juice or grape candy?  Go to Japan, you’ll be addicted to grapes!  While visiting Nagano, we were given an apple as a gift and this thing was the size of my head… and the most delicious apple I have ever tried.  Both Eve and Snow White were probably handed Nagano apples, you are powerless to resist it:

Vending machines were one of my favorite things and they were everywhere, about every 30 feet.  You can buy both hot and cold drinks from a vending machine and while I can’t say vending machine coffee is good the hot chocolate isn’t bad.  You can also buy a variety of other things from vending machines including beer, creamed corn, ice cream and even french fries… the vending possibilities are endless in Japan.  The sheer variety of available sodas made everyday a beverage adventure, here I am sampling what turned out to be one of my favorites: Lucky Cider with KiraKira Sparkle.  You can totally taste the KiraKira sparkle….

Notice Tommy Lee Jones posing for Boss Coffee… does this remind you of something you have seen before?  Santori time, perhaps?  With intensity?

The Japanese take their breads and pastries very seriously, we were really quite surprised.  Here are some plastic display cakes from an awesome looking cake shop in Kyoto station and a shot with friends Amy and Susan:

The most visually amazing part of food was the seafood: street corner markets would open and close daily and everything was so fresh…

Baby eel:

How ’bout some crab snacks?  Just pop them in, shell and all, and crunch away…

Speaking of crustaceans, we thought of doing this on our Christmas tree too but it looked expensive.  Yes, this is a small Christmas tree outside a Chinese restaurant, the Japanese love Christmas almost as much as we do… (almost)…

Speaking of seafood, meet the venomous blowfish, or fugu.  While we weren’t adventurous enough to try it ourselves, its considered a delicacy despite certain death if its toxins aren’t properly removed (there is no known anti-venom).  You would see tanks like these throughout high end districts where fugu was served.  Just make sure the cook likes you.

While in Tokyo we checked out the famed Tsukiji Fish Market, which required getting up at 5am to catch the tuna auction.  Fascinating as it was, it was so busy on that Monday morning that we were constantly getting in the way of some very serious business.  We almost got run over a few times by motorized fish hauling flatbeds but we did get to see some crazy seafood that we never would have imagined destined for a plate…

Three words for America: sushi-go-rounds.  They are brilliant, we need more of them.  Our favorite variety was the hundred yen sushi-go-round where, not only was each plate of sashimi roughly a dollar but for every five plates you threw down a chute at the end of your table you got to play a game of video slots to win prizes that rolled out to you in balls dispensed from the ceiling.  Just when you thought sushi couldn’t be more fun…

Here’s a shot of our travel companions, Susan and Eric:

Have a great weekend and tune back in next week, next stop: the onsen town of Kinnosaki. 

Posted by Mel @ 4:02 am, in Personal | 2 Comments | Permalink

I know, the disclaimers are getting old but you never know when someone new will tune in.  And while we can’t imagine how anyone could be anything but glued to our silly vacation photos, if you are in fact seeking our professional work, don’t forget that you can view this blog by category (weddings, wee ones, etc.)… just a helpful hint! 

Disclaimers:

1) These are just tourist pictures, the cheesy ones that everyone takes on vacation, and are not meant to be viewed as professional photography.  We took only one camera, a couple of zoom lenses and no lights: we were on vacation afterall!  We’re definitely not seeking employment with National Geographic here.  

2) We’re not experts on Japan, Japanese culture or religion so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Estimate that I’ll have my facts right about 54% of the time.

Nara was the capital of the empire for a stint in time and makes a great day trip from Kyoto.  Famous for Chinese architectural influence and the plethora of deer that roam the old section of the city like large, horned squirrels, its a trip we highly recommend.  We were definitely missing animal companionship and took an immediate liking to the deer, who in turn took a liking to us because we usually had food on hand.  Deer biscuits are for sale at nearly every shop though its not uncommon to see a gaijin tourist such as ourselves munching on them mistakenly since we can’t read!

Here’s some photos of Sam making friends as well as a photo of a deer who stole a map from an unsuspecting tourist…mmm, tasty.

Todaiji temple is the largest wooden structure standing on the planet today and it houses a massivie bronze buddha known as the Daibutsu Buddha.  I just think its a cool temple because it has horns:

Housed within the temple gates are the most amazing wood sculptures I have ever seen, a pair of massive warriors carved in the 13th century who guard the temple.  Unfortunately the picture below doesn’t do them justice due to the protective wire mesh and general lack of scale but they look as though they could spring to life at any moment.  Similar but smaller scary looking dudes were in the main hall of Todaiji but they don’t come close to the guards.

Here’s more photos from inside the temple of the Daibutsu Buddha:

Speaking of the Buddha, in the back of the temple there is a pillar with a hole carved in it, legend has it that its the size of the Daibutsu Buddha’s nostril.  Legend also has it that if you can crawl through the Buddha’s nostril, you are guaranteed enlightenment… not a bad deal if you happen to be small.  Its a big attraction with the school kids, this little guy had to corkscrew himself a bit to get through!

Tomorrow we’ll take a break from Buddhism and talk food…. Mmmm…..

Purifying myself before entering a temple:

View of Nara:

 

Posted by Mel @ 7:44 pm, in Personal | No comments | Permalink

Once again, let’s begin with the disclaimers…

1) These are just tourist pictures, the cheesy ones that everyone takes on vacation, and are not meant to be viewed as professional photography.  We took only one camera, a couple of zoom lenses and no lights: we were on vacation afterall!  We’re definitely not seeking employment with National Geographic here.  

2) We’re not experts on Japan, Japanese culture or religion so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Estimate that I’ll have my facts right about 54% of the time.

Zen is something I have tried in ernest to learn about but the best any academic can do is scrape the surface: it takes years of intense meditation to “get it” and even if you do, its something that can’t be explained and has to be realized.   Its a word that is regularly misused in our culture but at least we’re trying to embrace the idea in some way.

It was simultaneously delightful and disappointing to learn that temples in Japan function more like tourist attractions than places of worship: the paths leading to their gates are lined with food vendors and chachka shops, admission fees are charged, tours are given, fortunes and prayers are for sale, so on and so forth.  The disappointment probably comes from a Catholic upbringing where silence equals sanctity in a place of worship.  The delight came from the volume of people who actually wanted to go to a temple on a random Wednesday morning, our church couldn’t attract that kind of crowd on a Sunday!   I appreciated the fact that a temple visit could be fun, many temples offered a unique activity for procuring luck such as walking through a dark hall and dragging your hand along the wall to feel the key of enlightenment or locating a love stone with your eyes closed to find your true love.  Kids on field trips were ever present, school girls squealed as they read their fortunes, incense filled the air, and bells rang out as individuals stopped to pray.

The gardens, while often lacking the opportunity for solitude, did offer a more quiet and contemplative atmosphere.  It was on the long and winding paths through temple grounds that we escaped the noise and could take in all the natural beauty.  One advantage of visiting Kyoto during the high tourist season is that many temples light up their grounds and gardens for night visits, a time when the temple is ordinarily closed to the public.  Night visits were different all together: candles and lanterns against the dark lent an air of ritual and mystery.  Uplighting in the gardens made the trees and buildings come to life in a dramatic way: perfectly symmetrical and opposing worlds met on the surface of still waters, challenging the viewer’s view of reality:

Here’s another from from Daitokuji Temple at night:

Chion-in is the first temple we saw in Kyoto and the experience stands out.   As we walked past the Great Hall and into the gardens, we heard monks chanting in an adjacent building.  At first we thought it might be a recording but then we heard movement and realized that the sound had too many layers.  It was mysterious and beautiful.

Our favorite garden to walk through was Ginkakuji (the Silver Pavillion).  While the temple itself is under renovation and currently unavailable to the public, the gardens wind on a path up through the mountains for breathtaking views.  It poured as we walked through but it was still our favorite:

If you look down in a Zen garden and look carefully you might find a play on scale.  Mosses are very important to Zen gardens and, when carefully arranged with small bushes and covered with the miniature leaves of Japanese maples, you might begin to believe that a tiny forest exists beneath your feet.  This too helps a Zen student reflect on what they believe is real or true… which scale is correct?  Are you normal sized or a giant?  Or….

Here’s a table display with the “Very Important Mosses” to be found in the garden (like VIP)

We were told that the rock garden at Ryoan-ji is the quintessential Zen art piece.  While this isn’t a good picture of the garden itself, we can be forgiven since its impossible to get a good view: there are 15 stones in the garden but it is impossible to see all 15 from any given vantage point.  A scale miniature of the garden shows you where they all are but its true, we couldn’t see all 15 at once.  I love this picture Sam took because all the forms of people mimic the rock forms and could almost look like part of the garden itself:

That’s all for today but tomorrow we’ll hit one of our favorite desitinations: Nara, the Daibutsu Buddha and map eating deer.

Posted by Mel @ 5:14 pm, in Personal | No comments | Permalink

Before interest in our big trip wanes entirely, its time to get some visuals out there for those of you who have waited so patiently!  Here are a couple disclaimers we have to slap up here before I begin though:

1) These are just tourist pictures, the cheesy ones that everyone takes on vacation, and are not meant to be viewed as professional photography.  We took only one camera, a couple of zoom lenses and no lights: we were on vacation afterall!  We’re definitely not seeking employment with National Geographic here.  

2) We’re not experts on Japan, Japanese culture or religion so take everything I say with a grain of salt. Estimate that I’ll have my facts right about 54% of the time.

That being said… While our trip actually began at our friends Susan and Erik’s place near Zushi city, our first destination was the famous city of Kyoto.  As capital of the Empire for over one thousand years, it’s home to more historic temples, shrines, castles, gardens and districts than a tourist could possibly digest over the course of a full week.  Even with the time we blocked out to explore, we still had to pick and choose.  Kyoto is a huge and modern city and not quite the shangri-la its often described as, particularly when you visit during a high tourist season.  That scene in Lost in Translation where Scarlett Johanson is alone in Kyoto… um, no…so not possible in a scarf wearing season!

While temperatures in Japan were similar to those we came from back home in Virginia, their fall peak occurs much later than ours so we got to experience the spectacle of autumn twice.  It rained more than half our days in Kyoto, which isn’t unusual.  We stayed at a traditional guest house or ryokan in a section close to the University.  As you can see, we didn’t exactly fit in most traditional Japanese structures:

We had an awesome view of the city from our room, which seemed only fair since we had to climb 93 steps to get home each day.  Here’s Sam at our breakfast nook and me refusing to get up in the morning, you can tell we are morning people.  When you stay in a ryokan, you sleep on futons on the floor and stow your bedding in closets during the day so that you can eat meals or drink tea in your room.

One of our stangest/fondest memories of Kyoto was the night we ran into a geisha.  It was early on, we were jet lagged, and were standing at a bus stop waiting to go home in the famous Gion district.  Suddenly a gaggle of business men in black suits spilled out of an obscure side door and poured onto the sidewalk, drunk and laughing.  As they came toward us and the crowd thinned she became visible in the middle, gracefully walking in impossibly high platform geta (or sandels).  Now its not unusual to run into “geisha” in the Gion district, I put them in quotations because the vast majority are tourists playing dress up for a day and walking around, awkwardly in those shoes, to get pictures.  But she was the real deal, painted like a perfect doll, moving and smiling like a perfect woman, the paint on her back was what really struck me.  One of the men stopped her with his buddy to take a picture and 3 tourists jumped in with cameras to take pictures too.  Award winning photojournalists that we are, we just stood there and gawked.

OK, enough text, here are some pictures, I will add captions or info where I can…

This might be a good time to discuss English as we saw it in Japan.  Much like we Americans find kanji (Japanese script) to be cool looking and therefore use it as graphics on t-shirts or get tattoos at the age of 18 that we believe say “happiness” or “tranquility” (but probably really say “boob”), the Japanese like the look of our script too (but do not approve of tattoos).  Since neither Sam nor myself studied Japanese, we were illiterate in almost every way…. except for the ability to read completely nonsensical phrases printed on bags, storefronts, and clothing.  It was like having very special reading powers since we couldn’t understand anything useful, only entertaining things.  Here a few phrases I remember seeing as well as their contexts, we really should have written it all down:

“The Great Bathing Ape”:  printed on a man’s shoulder bag, we think it might be a brand because we saw it more than once

“Glorious Milk”: on a storefront selling men’s hipster clothing

“Spice Meets the Groovy Night”: a nightclub

“Girl saves the World. Loveboat saves the Girl” : on a shopping bag for a store called Loveboat

“Aggressive Leathers…. and Meat” : a leather store, we did not see any meat in there, only clothing

Ponto Cho, a historic alleyway, still active but a remanent of Old Japan:

Outside Nijo castle with Japanese school girls.  This is a good time to tell you that the “peace sign” we’re all giving in Japan means “I am happy and having a good time”.  While most Japanese were content to ignore us, we always got love from the school girls wherever we went.   If we were passing on the street, a hush would fall over the group as they geared up to say (or more accurately, yell) HELLO just as we were about to pass.  When we said HELLO back with a reciprocal amount of enthusiasm they would explode into a fit of squeals and giggles, sometimes one would even scream.  We loved it.

Mel on the Philosopher’s Path:

A bamboo forest in Arashiyama:

There is no lack of Japanese maples in Japan, in case you were wondering.  Lots of ginko trees too:

To say prayers at a shrine or temple, you ring a bell or clap three times to wake the gods:

Unaccepted fortunes tied to trees.  When visiting a temple, you can buy a fortune printed on a piece of paper and the process of procuring it is fun: you drop a coin a box, shake a cylinder until a stick comes out of the cylinder, match the writing on the stick to writing on a drawer and pull out the first printed fortune in that drawer.  If the fortune you receive is bad or mediocre, you tie it to a nearby branch and leave it behind so that it won’t come true.  I only got to buy my fortune once at a place where I knew they had an English translation, otherwise I wouldn’t know whether to keep it or leave it behind!

Historic Shimbashi Dori in the Gion district:

Kinkakuji, or the Golden Pavillion

Happy, and having a good time at Kinkakuji:

View of the city from Kiyomizudera, the temple on stilts:

There’s much more to come, I will try and post every day with a new theme or place.  Tomorrow’s topic: Zen gardens and temples.

Posted by Mel @ 3:49 pm, in Personal | 3 Comments | Permalink