Akashi 明石

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On Sunday we went to Akashi for an afternoon of classical music. The vice-principal at Joe's school performs in a regional choir, and was kind enough to give us tickets for their December concert in Akashi, where they performed Beethoven's 9th. It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and also a nice opportunity to see another city in Hyogo. We also enjoyed dinner near the station before heading back home. The photo below is the area around JR Akashi Station from Pastel, the pasta chain restaurant where we ate.
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Kobe Luminarie 神戸ルミナリエ

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After our Osaka day of museum-going and dinner of Indian food, we headed to Kobe Luminarie, a light festival that commemorates the Great Hanshin earthquake of 1995.
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We expected crowds, but were greeted by what felt like half the population of Japan. According to the Luminarie website, over 600,000 people shared our Saturday evening, and over three million passed through Luminarie in the two weeks it was open.
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This map shows the area around Sannomiya, where Luminarie is held. We exited at Motomachi station, in the upper left corner of the map and snaked through the path marked by the arrows. The actual lights of Luminarie are only in the dark red area. It took about an hour of waiting to get from the station to the lights.
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We made it! What I love about this photo is not the actual lights of Luminarie, the hand-painted bulbs donated by the Italian government that are exhibited in different designs each year, but the lights from the hundreds of cellphone cameras (look closely at the bottom of the photo).
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The main street of Luminarie. The 2008 theme was 'Infinite Light'. There was also light classical music playing along the street.
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Luminarie has a reputation as a romantic event among most people, but one of my (all-boys Tech High School) classes told me that it is bad luck to go to Luminaire on a date. Joe and I joked that the date problem stemmed from the massive crowds; this was definitely an event that required stamina, patience, and comfortable shoes. Anyway, here is the photo to prove the class wrong, a happy, if tired couple at Luminarie.
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At the entrance to the light tunnel.
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Half way through the light tunnel.
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At the end of the light tunnel (for lack of a better term) was a huge cathedral of lights. We observed from the outside, but didn't have the energy to force through the crowds to go inside. Also, the lights were set to turn off about 15 minutes after we took these photos, so we decided to go catch our train a little bit ahead of the crowds. Overall Luminarie was very beautiful, and we felt lucky to have perfect weather for it, but I think next time I will be prepared for the crush of people and try to attend on a weekday.
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National Treasures of Miidera Temple 国宝三井寺展

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On Saturday we headed to the Osaka Municipal Museum of Art to catch the special exhibition of the National Treasures of Miidera Temple in its last weekend here (it travels to Tokyo in February and Fukuoka in April). As evidenced by the exterior, the museum building dates from the 1930s. The main foyer was quite beautiful, with stained glass and large arches of marble (if my memory serves me correctly) surrounding an open area that contained a huge chandelier. The exhibition spaces were pretty standard, and matched the era of the building. The exhibition itself contained about 250 objects, many of which are categorized as National Treasures. The exibition was organized to commemorate the 1,150th year of the return of Enchin (a head priest of Miidera) from his journey to China. Among the many impressive objects were the Heian Period Ki Fudo hanging scroll, the Kamakura Period Standing Ki Fudo wood sculpture, and Joe's favorite, the Heian Seated Shinra Myojin sculpture. I was also left with strong impressions of a huge embroidery of the 33 Kannon Pilgrimage sites of Western Japan, the Kano School paintings, and the Diamond and Womb World Mandalas. Many of the objects exhibited are rarely brought out for the public, so it was a treat to see them all exhibited in one place, even if the crowd was thick. Sorry to say that images of the objects are hard to find online, so you'll just have to find a copy of the catalog at your local library if you really want to see more.

The weather was beautiful on Saturday, and we enjoyed strolling around Tennoji Park, where the museum is located, enjoying the many flower gardens before having Indian food for dinner and heading to Kobe for Luminaire.

Gochisoumura ごちそう村

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It's the weekend again. With a busy Saturday and Sunday planned, we decided to take it easy on Friday by having dinner out and catching up on the Daily Show. We walked to one of our Ono favorites, Gochisoumura, a local chain. This was the first restaurant we went to when we arrived back in August, and for a while we ate at Gochisoumura (roughly translated as feast village) every Friday night. While we have since diversified our rotation of restaurants, an evening at Gochisoumura is still enjoyable, especially because they change their menu seasonally.
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We had sara-udon (udon plate, a dish of noodles, shrimp and veggies in a clear gravy, a Nagasaki specialty) and fried camembert, both pictured above.
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We moved on to have nabe, a winter hot-pot dish, and a pressed fish dish, pictured in the lower right hand corner (I can't remember the name...). This particular nabe included salmon, cabbage, tofu, winter greens, carrot, and sprouts in a light broth.
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To finish we had a few pieces of yellowtail sushi.

Some of you may be wondering about my consumption of fish. For many years I did not eat fish, as I lived in the American Midwest. While I living in Japan I have made the concession to eat fish, as it is very difficult to be a strict vegetarian here, but I try to keep it to a minimum. While I enjoy the taste of fish (unlike meat and poultry), my concern is with the environmental impact of (over-)fishing. Whenever possible I try to consult the wallet-size fish-guide card that my mom bought me (for a similar list of environmentally stable fish populations click here), and I try to cook vegetarian meals at home. The challenge here is finding good sources of protein, as we have a limited variety of beans at our local grocery, and although there is a wealth of tofu, I don't like to eat tofu everyday. Even so, there is often a communication barrier we have to face. For example, at dinner tonight I asked if there was meat in my pasta dish and told our server that we don't eat meat. She responded by saying, oh, you are vegetarians, and I replied, yes. After all that, our salad still came with bacon on it (but the pasta was clean!). While I sometimes question my language abilities, I know she understood, as she acknowledged what I said. Of course, this type of thing happens just as often in my own country, and is one of those things that I, like many vegetarians (or pescetarians) have come to accept.
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Kotatsu こたつ

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It finally became cold.
Actually, it's not that cold. Temperatures during the day are in the 40s or low 50s (about 8-10 C) and overnight we have approached freezing for only the last two nights. I grew up in Chicago, where there is snow and temperatures at this time of year are well below freezing, and I love winter sports, so it should be easy for me right? The thing is, indoor heating is quite different in Japan. Our house, like most houses, is not insulated, has single pane windows, and lacks central heat. At work, the classrooms are not heated in any way (some of the boys classes keep the windows open!), and the staff rooms are heated to about 65 (sometimes). So, we have adapted to the Japanese way to keep ourselves warm. We have small space heaters for each of our rooms, electric blankets to keep us warm at night, and our beloved kotatsu. The image above is our upstairs living room, where we spend most of our time when at home. The kotatsu, or heated coffee table, has a heat mechanism underneath it, so when one sits on the tatami chairs (in brown) with the blanket pulled up around them it is toasty warm. We use the same table in warm weather, but the blanket, which is sandwiched between layers of wood, comes off for summer, and the plug for the heat mechanism detaches. A google image search of 'kotatsu' confirmed my suspicion that my cats would love to sleep under the blanket, there are many images on various blogs and photo sites of Japanese kitties, and a few small dogs, relaxing under the kotatsu. In reality, it is quite efficient to heat only the room that one is using, but I think the drafty windows and lack of insulation might negate some of that efficiency. Regardless, I enjoy the kotatsu, as well as the Japanese phrase that is equivilent to the couch potato, the kotatsu muri (kotatsu snail), so termed because when sitting under a kotatsu with only your torso visible, people take on the appearance of a snail (see the image below, found via an image search). And really, the weather isn't that bad, it's great for wearing comfy sweaters and drinking hot chocolate. Here's to the joys of winter!

Interesting Japanese Products I

Japan is a land of many wonders, including interesting and amusing foods. The point of this post is not to say that the U.S. isn't full of strange/weird/funny things (such as fried twinkies or beef jerkey), but just to point out some Japanese products that I have found facinating.

To start, Wine Paring Snacks. Joe found these at the local convenience store. Yes, Frito Lay has come out with chips paired to the 2008 Beaujolais nouveau! These classy chips include two flavors, Cheese Fondue and Garlic Toast. Really I was reminded of Cheese Sunchips and Doritos, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that they kind of matched the wine. I really love the image of the man at the top.























Next up, Pepsi White. I was hoping this would be good, but it tasted like a tart cream soda.



















Last, and certainly not least, tortillas masquarading as pizza crust. To find flour tortillas was really exciting, especially considering that our favorite Osaka Mexican restaurant just went out of business. But, why are they labeled as pizza crust? The same store sells regular pizza crust and flour tortillas labeled as such. A mystery....

Okonomiyaki お好み焼き

Ah, Friday.
We had a crazy storm come through overnight, complete with high winds and lots of blowing rain. Sometimes I am reminded that we live near the ocean. During the day the warm air blew out and the chilly December air came back in, so when deciding where to eat tonight we went with a warm choice, okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is one of my favorite Japanese foods. It's kind of like a pancake, kind of like an omlette. It is savory and served with a spicy barbeque-esque sauce, and topped with mayo, bonito (dried fish flakes), and aonori (dried seaweed). I know it sounds funky, but it is soooo good! Our local okonomiyaki restaurant is about a 15 minute walk from our house (see above photo).





















At the restaurant, there is a griddle set into the table, which is one reason why okonomiyaki is so great on a chilly night; the table gets quite hot. Our local restaurant (which is a chain) serves konnyaku as a free appetizer. Konnyaku is a love/hate thing. It has very little taste and is rather rubbery in texture. I am coming around to liking it, and the broth that it is served in is pretty tasty. Apparently it is quite healthy.

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Tonight we ordered kimchi okonomiyaki (background) and Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, which has noodles in it (foreground).

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Yum!

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This is the kitchen, which is visible right when you walk into the restaurant. The blur is from the glass panel that separates the grill from the entryway. You can see the variety of toppings available on the grill. おいしい！

If you want to try okonomiyaki for yourself, the sauce is easily found in the U.S. at Asian markets like Mitsuwa, and you can readily find recipes on the internet (click here). If you are in the Kansas City area, try the delicious One Bite Grill in Overland Park.

Thanksgiving

Just like the pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone. We had a simple meal of Rosemary Grilled Salmon, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, and Greenbeans with Mushrooms and celebrated the holiday the weekend before. Thanks to the thoughtfulness of my parents, who shipped us a can of pumpkin (organic at that!) and a jar of pumpkin pie spice, we had a tasty pie for dessert. Actually, we had two pies, as the pie pans available at our local housewares shop are significantly smaller than American pie pans. On the actual holiday we enjoyed a quick weeknight meal of Rotini with Pumpkin-Sage Cream Sauce. This year was certainly no match for the large gatherings of friends and family that we have hosted in past years, but it was nice to celebrate nonetheless.
Perhaps the strangest part of being abroad for the holiday was going to work on Thursday morning. I have been overseas for other holidays, but as Thanksgiving is my favorite, it was a little bit sad. As I was walking to work though, my Ipod came through for me and played some upbeat and distinctly American music. Some days I feel like that thing can read my mind...
On Friday morning, as our family and friends were gathering for the holiday I was again walking to work. The weather was pleasant and I was thinking of all the things I am thankful for this year- the health of our family and friends, the opportunity to live abroad, how great it is to live in the internet age when we can video chat with our family and our pets half-way around the world, books, travel, education, the fact that I don't live in poverty like so many people on this planet.
The rest of our weekend was relatively uneventful. We ate dinner out on Friday and tried fugu (poisonous blowfish, ok that was kinda exciting), we spent Saturday doing housechores, grocery shopping, studying, and reading, and on Sunday we spent the afternoon in Kobe doing some holiday shopping. I feel so grateful to be as fortunate as I am, that my weekends consist of questions like where to eat on Friday night, what PBS program to watch on the internet, or how late to stay up reading and not where will I find clean water, where will my next meal come from, or how can I heat my home. I hope that this Thanksgiving season life finds you well, that the pies were delicious, and that you have much to be thankful for.