Tripping Far Side

Today after work, we went to a Beer Garden atop Hotel Keihan in the Avanti Building just south of Kyoto Station. Take the elevator to the top of the building, and you can't miss it. The price per person is 3300 yen which amounts to about $27 US with the current exchange rate. It's a flat fee that you pay before you enter at the ticket booth.

Let me explain the concept of a "Beer Garden" in Japan, since it's different from the States.

First and foremost, the beer. It's nomihoudai, which means all-you-can-drink. !!! It's draft beer, poured diligently for you by the attending staff.

And of course, I heart Japanese draft beer--it's the smoothest lager that I've had. I've tried Japanese beer in the States, but it's just not the same. To me, "clean" is the word. Makes you wanna say "Ahhhhh" from the very first gulp. Every tip of the glass is refreshing, and importantly, there's no aftertaste. Well, there's a tinge of sweetness to me (probably because I love it). Doesn't weigh you down either. I've been drinking a lot of beer lately, and I haven't gotten any hangovers when I don't mix. This beer garden served Asahi Super Dry (yes!)

I've found that here, most Japanese seem to prefer the top fifth to be a creamy, white head of foam. Draft beer is served like this at every place I've been to. So, I like to say "awa nashi de", which means "without the foam". Just gets in the way when I'm getting my drink on.

Down the way, was a machine to automatically dispense the beer just right. Put the mug there, press the button. Then watch as it tilts the glass, pours the beer, untilts, and then dispenses the foam. You guessed it--I like to pull the mug out just before the foam starts. Now this is the kind of kegerator I like.

Of course, they also serve all-you-can-drink chuhai, in all kinds of various flavors. Chuhai is shochu (which I think is made from potatoes, like vodka) mixed with a fruit-flavored soda, like lemon, lime, orange, grape, or even Calpis (yogurty flavor?). Pretty popular in Japan, but I'll stick with the "biiru".

The other part to a Japanese Beer Garden is the all-you-can-eat food. !!! All kinds of servings of foods that go good with, well, beer. Lots of fried foods in Japanese-style, as well as yakisoba, dumplings, or such. The poster for this one had pieces of steak, but actually it was slivers of beer. Still tasty.

And all for $27 US. There's just no downside to it.

I've been to various beer gardens in Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, and Himeji. The formula is all the same: top of a building, outdoors, and flat fee all-you-can-drink-and-eat. Generally at the top of hotels or big department stores--look for posters on the bottom floor entrance (can't miss them). You should familiarize yourself with the katakana for beer: ビール. And, they're only open during the Spring and Summertime, so I say, plan your trip to Japan wisely.

We went for another round at Miho, for Okinawan "Aomori" liquor. Stiff stuff! I really like going out with the Japanese coworkers! We went out on a Thursday night, since Friday is a company holiday. TGIT!

(My pics aren't very good, since blogging wasn't on my mind then).

Today is a special day. We were treated to a really special restaurant in Kyoto's Gion district, near Hanami-koji (street) with the famous geisha teahouses.

The restaurant's name is only one Japanese hiragana character う, which is a vowel that sounds like "oo" as in "too". Not coincidentally, the specialty of this restaurant is unagi (うなぎ), or eel. You can see from the first picture's chopsticks that the character う is artfully shaped like an eel.

A bit hard to find, as it's nestled among the old but well-kept Gion alleys and stone streets. In fact, the restaurant is in a machiya (町屋) that Wikipedia describes as a "traditional wooden townhouse" (which are historically old). And it feels like stepping back into time as we slip off our shoes immediately inside--just like a Japanese home. The tables reserved for us are upstairs.

As you walk up them, you know you're in for an experience.

The townhome-now-restaurant is architecturally built for the Japanese summer seasons, when the weather can be deathly torrid. The room is simple and open, and easily ventilated by sliding the paper fusuma doors. Tatami mats and the vaulted ceiling offer more breathability so the heat can be less of a bother.

And to top it off, eel is the kind of meal served in the summer, so everything just blended so well together in the theme. All that was missing was the sound of crickets! (and thankfully, the hot and humid weather!)

They only serve eel here, but there's a variety beyond just the meat. The food is prepared in the style of Tokyo, which uses steam in the cooking process to tenderize an already soft meat. Can't remember all the dishes, but they're all presented beautifully with some part of the eel.

In the first picture on the left, I think, is eel liver. Then served purely without the sauce, then wrapped in egg, then in raw form, and finally the main dish in a special wooden cooking/serving bucket with unagi-soaked rice. I'm not describing it with justice, so the pictures will have to do. And it's better to leave it to your imagination.

I'll just say that it was really satisfying dinner! Gochisosama deshita!

Oh, and one more thing. The experience was made a bit more special when the waitress was asked how often foreigners visited. She said pretty much never. [grin]

A dish described like that sounds like a cruel dare. Except in Japan. Here's a picture of maguro yukke (pronounced you-kay, not yucky). I had it yesterday at Kaitenzushi Iwamura, which is on the northeast end of Kyoto Station.

That speckled stuff is a raw quail egg. Having lived in Japan for awhile, raw eggs are a safe, common topping. I've grown accustomed to it, although I won't go out of my way to order it.

That white stuff is yamakake, aka tororo, which is grated mountain yam/potato. The texture looks like grits, but it's real slippery and gooey at the same time. Not too bad, but definitely handles weird with chopsticks. I had a green version of it again in my miso soup today.

That red stuff is raw tuna mixed in a sweet soy sauce.

And together, I have to say that it was amazing. I dig it. I've had yukke with raw beef before as well, and that was really tasty too. Certainly an adventurous dish by American standards, but rewarding to brave palates.

I saw some other interesting sushi dishes on the conveyor belts though. White chicken meat, Arkshell, Bream, Yuba (Kyoto's Specialty Tofu Skin), and other stuff that wasn't translated to English. Eh. Right now, I'm infatuated with yukke so much that it's my dish of choice. It's really that tasty to me....

I'm posting again, which means that I'm back in the Far Far West. I only say that because right now, Japan feels decidedly Western to me, yet far far from it. I admire how Japan can take a foreign concept, and vastly improve on it to make it their own. To go where no Western man has gone before.

Now, people in America are no strangers to toilet humor. But as much as some of us chuckle to scatological funnies, we leave it at that. We don't analyze it. We don't engineer it. We just shit. No fancy pants. No messing around. Yes, shit's funny, until we all get into the science of it see?

We went from outhouses to a basic functional toilet, and shit, evolution ceased--for decades! Where's America's uber-toilets? I'm using the same toilet today that I did when I was a kid (yes, boo freaking hoo). The only innovation in my brand new home's toilet is that it's supposed to be more efficient. Like I'm going to get all uppity about flushing with the least amount of water. I demand more as the spoiled generation!

Now I know lots of my friends love toilet humor, but they'd never be so far-out clever to come up with this. The proof is in the pudding, eh? You gotta try it to believe it. It brings new meaning to sitting and shitting, on the same scale when people realized that squatting wasn't the only way of life.

Electricity has done a lot for the world, and so with the toilet. There's a seat warmer. There's a fan to clear the odor (brilliant!). There's a water jet to clean the derriere. Superior to toilet paper (and leaves!). It even sprays warm water, while you can dial the nozzle pressure--shocking! Or it can automatically oscillate. For you OCD'ers, the nozzle is cleaned automatically. I mean what more can you ask? I ask, what more can you ask...

So I have two more weeks to philosophize in my new second office. Well, it's not that exciting really. Just a moment of anticipation when you return to Japan, and realize what you've been missing. There is more to life, even in the mundane. But isn't that where we derive our simple pleasures?

...cue music... So here's to you, Mr. fancy-toilet-clever-innovator-man (Mr. fancy-toilet-clever-innovaaaator-maaaan!)

Today, Dante took me to Shin-Yokohama station, where there's a ramen museum. Kinda neat to know that Yokohama (near Tokyo) is where they say ramen originated in Japan.

There's a bunch of ramen restaurants to sample, each with a unique style home to various areas. I even read that it's a recent phenomenon; popularity skyrocketed after World War II. So that would explain the older decor, with Japanese posters drawn with the flicks of the age. Kinda felt like I was in a movie--should I be expecting Godzilla or something?

We went a little after 1 PM, so it was packed. I suppose it's considerate that an electronic billboard with the wait times for each of the 8 restaurants was outside. We went to wait in a line that Dante said was the longest when he was here last. We read the English brochure and found that this place is called Ryushanhai and they served karamiso ramen from Akayu.

It was so busy, we had to share a table with 2 Japanese girls. Too bad they didn't speak English, as it was awkward. But the ramen was good. I'd like to come back and try some of the other ones.

And off we were to Narita airport. But, as Dante says, a chain of errors made us miss our flight. Badly. We both misjudged the flight time, the time it would take the trains, and the correct terminal. I was really bummed and cranky since I was really looking forward to coming back home today.

Oh well. We're staying at Washington Hotel near Narita airport. Pretty nice for the cheap price! I even had dinner at a place called Belle-vue, haha. But it's not home for sure. What a cruel joke on April Fools Day. :( Anna, I'm coming soon!

So Saturday. I crashed at 8 AM, and slept until 3:30 PM, so today was pretty shot. I felt pretty hungover, but I think it was much better thanks to Dante's ibuprofen.

Anyway, Dante and I went to go meet up with the 2 wild ones of the Miki Crew, Laura and Gareth in Kobe. These two are always the life of the party; it's never a dull moment. It felt really natsukashii to hang out with them again. We started off by catching up at my favorite Indian restaurant in Sannomiya, called Chalte Chalte. Awesome awesome curry, and in my opinion, better than any Indian restaurant that I've tried in Seattle so far.

We walked to several bars around Sannomiya. The first was Second Chance, but I wasn't in the mood for reggae music or nomihodai (for shame!).

Then we walked to Trinity, where we had a round. Funny, I paid the waiter 500 yen, but it was really 600 yen. So I gave him 1000 yen and got my 500 yen back. So, he owed me 500 yen, but gave me back 1000 yen. Yay, a free Sol beer!

We went to go wait for Laura's boyfriend Shige at what I call T&A park (AKA Tits Park AKA Oppai Koen AKA Concrete Park). A popular place to wait and meet people, or just hang out with a few beers and chat. Often, bands are here playing music. The nicknames for this area makes sense when you see these mounds of concrete that look like boobs. And recently, a weird statue of naked asses got put in. And look at Gareth giving the reach around!

After we met up with Shige, we went to Ryan's, an Irish pub. I have to mention that Shige is kickass at junken. He beat all of us like 8 out of 10 times we played against him. Gareth was explaining that there's a world rock-paper-scissors championship in Toronto, and that Shige should compete. We had a round here until, what looked like the Japanese salaryman band started playing.

The next stop was the Hub, an English pub. Another round here as well. I saw that they served Absinthe so I made an order. They said it was the real thing, with wormwood, but who knows for sure. Anyway, Gareth said that there's an awesome absinthe bar in Shinsaibashi, so we'll go hang there next time.

I couldn't make the night past last train though. A few beers tonight was all I could do (for shame!). But I'm sure I'll be coming back to Japan sometime again, so there'll always be time for the Miki Crew.

TGIF! Friday after work was a hell a of a good time!

Paul took us to Aho for dinner. A curious name for a restaurant since it means "stupid" in Japanese. To get there from Shijo station (on subway), go east until you see the Starbucks. Take a left down the alley, walk for a bit, then take a right at the next big street. Then, a short ways down, it's on the left. I'm writing this down so I can remember how to get back here.

Hashida, Paul, and Yumiko ordered some awesome choices. Let's see, we started with this corn-flavored tofu topped with sea urchin and wasabi. Then we had awesome sashimi. Hashida could tell it was really fresh. He said one trick is to dip the sashimi in soy sauce, and the sauce won't stick if the fish is oily, so it's really good. We had tori kara-age, and also some deep-fried pork-wrapped roll, among other things.

But the kicker is the delicacies. We had some raw horse and whale. They brought out whale tongue, whale skin, whale meat, and whale bacon. Am I gonna burn in hell?

Okada-san, Tsuji-san, and Wada-san joined us to go the next restaurant. It's at the beginning of Teramachi on Shijo side called Mugen. Downstairs, the restaurant played some awesome rock music, and we had a flirty waitress named Ai-chan. To start of course was beers for everyone, and edamame.

Now, there's a game here. Someone plays the waitress in junken (rock-paper-scissors), and if the waitress wins, then she chooses how much edamame to serve. If that someone wins, then he can take as much edamame in one scoop as possible. And somehow, I got picked to play. So in squaring off against Ai-chan, I got lucky after the 3rd tie, and won. A fun way to kick-start the night.

We all drank a lot. Tokunaga-san joined us that night too!! Good people, good beer, good food, good conversations will bring about a good time. Of course, there was flirting with the waitress. Of course, we gave each other good ribbings. Of course, there was arm wrestling involved. Of course there was a torch involved in cooking the vinegar-cured mackerel at the table.

The next destination was karaoke until 6 AM (yes, again!). On the way, why not play some soccer? :) And at karaoke, one of the most memorable karaoke nights I've had. I have a lot of pics, but too bad I can only post up a few per post here. Let me know if you want some copies.

On the way back to Osaka, I had to stop off at Jujo Station to ahem, "feel better". That makes it the first time doing it at a train station. I have a story about doing it while inside the train, so I'm improving. :)