Blue Lotus

Happy New Year!

This is our nengajo (New Year's postcard) for 2009, the Year of the Ox. Or Cow, as it is more commonly rendered in Japan. Not that I know the difference between a cow and an ox. Is there a difference? Anyway, I wish you a very happy New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Apparently we had a White Christmas yesterday, and I slept right through it. I'm up in Nasu (a hot spring resort; I'm writing this on my phone) and last night I headed to bed early while my friend stayed up to soak in the rotemburo (outdoor bath) and she says that shortly before midnight snowflakes began to fall. And by the time I woke up this morning there was a blanket of snow on the ground and I could have my first ever bath in a rotemburo during a snowfall (a quintessential Japanese experience if ever there was nne). It was just gorgeous and I wish I could have taken a picture, but as I'm not quite willing to go to jail for this blog (the baths being full of naked women who don't react well to cameras) you'll have to content yourselves with this view from our room. Somewhere beyond all that white space is range of mountains that must be really beautiful, so try to imagine those and it might make the picture a bit less crappy.

I hope all of you have/had a wonderful Christmas!

Autumn Sunday

Last week Hideaki and I went out to say goodbye to the autumn leaves. We started at our local park, where a few momiji (Japanese maples) were still showing their colors. That was pretty much it, with all other deciduous trees in the park having long lost their leaves, except for these fiery red bushes (I don't suppose anyone knows what they are?)

Then we took the subway to Roppongi for what we thought would be brunch, but it turns out that our favorite brunch spot, Roti, doesn't really do brunches anymore. Not knowing what to do, we stayed and just had lunch: I had a very nice salad (with apple, blue cheese, pecans and beets) and some crab cakes (dry and a bit bland) and we shared some fries. They came with shaved Parmigiano and truffle oil, which were tasty but unnecessary, since the fries were really good to begin with.

It wasn't a terrible meal but it wasn't brunch so we couldn't help but be disappointed, and now we are on the lookout for a new brunch place (if anyone has recommendations do pipe up in the comments).

From there we walked to Aoyama, stopping at the Honda showroom to see the cars and motorcycles. We also got to see Asimo, Honda's robot mascot, doing a little demonstration of the stuff it can do, which is pretty much just walk around, wave, and play pre-recorded messages in an annoying voice. I think I was supposed to be more impressed. After the demonstration people lined up to get their pictures taken with Asimo, and in most cases the dads were way more into it than the kids (they guy above was wearing a Honda jacket and had a little Asimo action figure). My husband, a Honda fan himself, was more into the motorcycles, and he had a little fun sitting on his dream bike.

Next it was Icho Namiki (Ginkgo Avenue), the street that connects Aoyama Dori to Meiji Jingu Gaien. The ginkgoes that line the street were a touch past their peak, having lost many of their leaves to the previous weeks' wind and rain, but were still a beautiful sight. We weren't the only ones who thought so, and the place was packed with people enjoying the view, including lots of families. It was so cute to watch the little kids' reaction--they were just delighted to see the piles of yellow leaves on the ground, and every single kid's first instinct was to grab a pile of leaves and throw them in the air. I don't know why they are all compelled to do that but it sure is cute, and made me wish I was a bit less shy about taking pictures of strangers.

At the end of the street Jingu Gaein was transformed into a festival to celebrate the leaves. We had a few snacks and checked out a section where people could write down their wishes on little ginkgo leaf cut-outs. The Japanese seem to love this kind of thing, and when seasonal occasions like Tanabata (where wishes are written on strips of paper and hung on bamboo branches)and New Year's (when wishes and prayers are written on wooden ema votives and hung at shrines) aren't enough, they'll just go ahead and make something up like this.

A little example of wishes is above. The middle and bottom left leaves wish for a Hanshin Tigers victory next year (funny, since Meiji Jingu's main point of interest is Meiji Jingu Stadium, home of Tigers rivals Yakult Swallows). The top right leaf is a wish for Masayuki and Hiroko to be together forever, and the bottom right leaf wishes to win the lottery.

May all those wishes come true (especially the Tigers victory)!

More pictures here.

Mitake Hike

On the last day of November a friend and I went to Mitake-san (Mount Mitake) in the Okutama area of western Tokyo for a day of hiking. It was my second visit to the mountain, but as I haven't been in over a decade this time pretty much felt like my first.

Mitake is just 929 metres high, but is popular with hikers and has been an important sacred mountain since it was founded in 90 BC. Many pilgrims and regular tourists choose to spend the night--there are a number of minshuku (inns) as well as a hostel and shrine lodgings--but as Mitake can be reached from central Tokyo in under two hours, most people make it a day trip. The mountain is most easily reached by bus and cable car from Mitake Station; alternatively it can be reached on foot from Mitake, Sawai, Kawai and Kori Stations, which will give you pretty views of the Tama-gawa river before you get to the mountain. Once on top of the mountain there are a number of hiking courses, including paths that connect to other spots in Okutama like Hinode-yama and Otake-san.

We chose the easy way to get there, taking the bus and cable car, but had a full day of hiking after that: once we'd visited the shrine we walked through the "Rock Garden" (a valley full of moss-covered rocks with a path that follows a pretty stream) then headed to Hinode-yama (another small peak). And finally we had a wonderful soak at Tsuru-tsuru Onsen, a popular hot spring at the foot of Hinode-yama, before taking a bus to Musashi Itsukaichi Station on the JR Itsukaichi Line.

All told we walked about 10 km: just enough to be challenging, but as there was more downhill walking than uphill it really wasn't very hard. And we had beautiful weather--cold and sunny with beautiful blue skies--and saw some very pretty autumn colours, with the momiji (Japanese maples) just at their peak. It was a great hike, and there isn't much more to say: I'll let the pictures tell the story (more pictures from the hike can be seen in my Mitake album on Flickr).

To get to Mitake, take the JR Ome Line (transfer from the Chuo Line at Tachikawa and the Seibu Shinjuku Line at Haijima) to Mitake Station. To the left of the station is a Visitors Centre (pop in to grab a map--the English one isn't great so get the regular Japanese one as well) and across the street is the bus stop. The hike can start here, or take the bus (270 yen, marked Takimoto or Cable Car Shita) partway up the mountain. After getting off the bus a short walk up the road leads to a paved path up the mountain on the left or the cable car on the left. The cable car (570 yen) takes you to Mitake Village, which has another Visitors Centre as well as souvenir shops, restaurants, and inns, and from there it's about 20 minutes to the shrine. Paths to the Rock Garden and Hinode-yama are fairly well-marked, but often in Japanese only. Once you're on the way to Hinode-yama look for signs to Tsuru-tsuru Onsen (also called Bijin no Yu) and follow those to Hinode-yama; the signs will continue to guide you down the mountain. Once you've descended you'll hit a main road: turn left and it's a few minutes to the onsen (800 yen, not including a towel: bring your own or buy a small one for 200 yen). From there you can take the onsen's own bus (390 yen, a touristy thing designed to look like an old-fashioned steam engine) to Musashi Itsukaichi Station on the JR Itsukaichi Line, which will bring you to Haijima where you can transfer to the Chuo or Seibu Shinjuku Lines.
Further information in English here and Japanese here.

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Gurutto Walk

Way back on November 22nd I joined the Kokyo Gurutto Walk, an annual 11km walk around the city. Don't ask me what the walk is for (I thought it must be charity related at first but it turns out its not) but I do know it's free, has a route that changes yearly but always includes interesting and seldom-visited neighborhoods, and is undertaken by 8000 people each year, who receive a handful of little prizes when they finish.

I also know that it's planned by really boring people: participants are assigned starting times from between 9 and 11 in the morning, and are required to cross the finish line between 11:30 and 2:00, which means that participants are meant to finish the walk in 2 1/2 to 4 hours, passing through all those neat neighborhoods without stopping to look around, take pictures, shop, or eat lunch.

Luckily I did it with my husband, sister-in-law, and her family, who are total rebels. We knew from the beginning we didn't want their lame trinkets (past prizes have been cell phone straps, bath salts, energy drinks and the like) so we took our sweet time. Especially my niece Marya, who has only just ditched her beloved stroller and moves at the pace you'd expect a recently de-strollered 3 year old to move.

The route began (and ended) in Hibiya Koen, and went through Ginza, past Tsukiji Market, over the Kachidokibashi Bridge and on to Tsukishima, over the Sumidagawa, by Suitengu Shrine, over the Nihonbashi Bridge, past the Bank of Japan building, around the Imperial Palace, and back to Hibiya Koen. Quite a route, full of places I've never been to or haven't been to in ages, and I venture to say that was true of most of the other participants. We all had maps, plus every major intersection along the way was staffed with volunteers to show us the way--a nice touch, and perhaps a reason why the walk is so short (I imagine not many volunteers would be keen about standing on a street corner all day long).

Hibiya Koen was lovely, with most of the trees in autumn foliage mode. These ginkgoes, unfortunately, were barely yellow, but still managed to look lovely against the perfect blue sky.

In Ginza we walked over some of the most expensive real estate in the world, built up with an interesting mix of traditional Japanese shops and modern fancy designer shops. In the picture above is the Kabuki-za theatre, where Kabuki plays are held. None of us had ever seen Kabuki and we all agreed that it would be nice to go someday, but we'd never actually buy a ticket ourselves. Funny, I feel the same way about pretty much every traditional performing art/sport/cultural event in Japan (except sumo, which you couldn't even pay me to see).

One thing that we all really do like is pottery, and we spent some time poking through a lovely Japanese pottery shop. The only reason we didn't stay all day was that Marya kept insisting on picking up each and every dish she fancied and giving it to one of us, and that got old pretty fast. She does have good taste though.

We managed to pass by Tsukiji, the largest fish market in the world, without stopping for a bite to eat (we were saving ourselves for lunch), but couldn't resist the smell of freshly roasting coffee beans coming out of one shop so we stopped for a coffee break. Tsukiji is known for its fish but actually handles food products of all kinds, and plenty of non-edibles like knives and such. I would have liked to have spent more time here, but we needed to stay on track at least until lunch.

Next we crossed the Sumidagawa River on the Kachidokibashi Bridge. It's easy to forget that Tokyo was built on rivers and these bridges (or their wooden predecessors) once were vitally important to the city.

The river is still well-used, especially this section (it meets the ocean not too far away). We saw a wide mix of vessels including garbage boats, fishing vessels and pleasure craft.

That's Tsukiji market above, and those docks were once extremely busy, with all of the market's fish arriving by sea. These days the vast majority of it comes from land (much of it trucked in from across Japan and around the world via Haneda and Narita airports), but those two yellow fishing boats show some fish is still delivered the old-fashioned way.

And then were on Monja Street in Tsukishima. The street is lined with some 75 restaurants serving monjayaki, a Tokyo delicacy that was to be our lunch. Monjayaki is Tokyo's answer to okonomiyaki: both are pancake-like savory snacks based on a simple flour batter and sliced cabbage and cooked on a teppan (iron grill) by diners themselves, which is fun and usually involves alcohol.

But the similarities go no further: monjayaki has a very thin, watery batter, more finely chopped ingredients, and is eaten with a tiny spatula instead of chopsticks. It is also about a thousand times less visually appealing than okonomiyaki, perhaps being the nastiest-looking Japanese food there is (and that's quite an achievement, as at least in the eyes of a westerner there are a lot of nasty looking Japanese foods). It is most commonly compared to freshly spewed vomit, and I'm not going to expand on that (partly because I don't want to gross you out too much, but mostly because that's such an apt description that there's no more to say).

The monjayaki shops were all striking examples of traditional Japanese aesthetics. This is a fine example: note the subtle elegance of the clean lines and the refined simplicity of decoration.

This appears to be an old-fashioned koban (police "box"), although the blue light is a bit strange (they usually have red lights, used to indicate whether or not they are manned).

There is apparently an art to finding a good monjayaki shop. You're supposed to be leery of shops that appear too new, too clean or too attractive; windows plastered with autographed photos of celebrities who've eaten there and framed copies of mentions in magazines are a very auspicious sign; and the best shops of all are said to be off the main street entirely, hidden in alleys like the one above.

We were tempted by several restaurants but none seemed to be quite good enough. And then we came upon this sign for a shop called Monja Fukuchan, decorated with colourful packets of cheap children's snacks (Baby Star Ramen and other salty snacks are are often added to monjayaki). The sign led us down an alley to a dirty, cramped old little shop, and although it lacked the celebrity photos it more than fulfilled the other criteria, so we crammed in. All five of us were seated around a little table fitted with a teppan that back home would have been considered a two-seater, but that crowded cozy atmosphere is (supposedly) part of the charm of a good monjayaki joint.

Monja has its roots in a humble children's snack originally called monjiyaki (literally letter-grill, as it was poured in the shape of Japanese kanji characters) but now comes in endless variations, with some pretty wild combinations. The basic recipe is flour, water, cabbage, tenkasu (balls of tempura batter) and Worchestershire Sauce; frequent additions are sakura-ebi (tiny dried shrimp), kiri-ika (thin strips of dried squid), katsuobushi (flakes of dried bonito), Baby Star Ramen (a dried ramen noodle snack), pork, and benishouga (pickled ginger), and from there you can add pretty much anything you can think of. Our first order was the classic combination of mentaiko-cheese-mochi (spicy polluck roe, rice cake and cheese), ingredients shown above.

Next we had buta-kimuchi (pork and kimchi) and then corn beef curry, shown above. The ingredients are brought to the table stacked into a single bowl (always way too small). The special toppings are on top, the flour and water batter is at the bottom, and everything else is in between.

A whole slew of condiments are offered, from oil to grease the griddle with to aonori seaweed flakes to use as a topping. Monjayaki is usually quite strongly flavoured and salty, which makes it perfect to drink with: beer would be the standard choice but sweet drinks are also popular: there's my nama grape sawa (grapefruit sour), freshly squeezed by me in the true spirit of do-it-yourself dining and Hideaki's umeshu soda (ume liqueur with club soda).

The server will offer to do the cooking, at least for the first batch, and many tourists take up that offer. Luckily we had seasoned monjayaki cooks among us who knew just what to do. The first step is to pour everything out of the bowl, except for the batter, and let it cook for a few minutes using metal spatulas.

When the ingredients are well-cooked they are carefully formed into a ring. It's important that the ring is evenly shaped with no gaps, and the above ring is an almost perfect example. (These pictures are all mixed up from different batches, by the way: the picture above and two below are of the corn beef version, the others are the mentaiko batch.)

Now the liquid batter is slowly poured into the ring, with care taken not to overflow the ring.

It is left to cook for several more minutes while being carefully watched: any leaks need to be fixed and overflowed batter gently pushed back in.

Finally it's all mixed up and formed into a rough circle. It is now ready to eat.

A tiny spatula is used to scrape off part of the monja. It can then be either shoved straight into your mouth, as above, or pressed into the grill for a moment for further cooking, as below.

The latter is preferable as it causes the underside to burn slightly, which is completely delicious (especially if cheese is used). The bit above is perfect.

We also made yakisoba (fried noodles) for Marya, who fell asleep as soon as they were finished. Oh well, all the more for us. It was all totally delicious (way better than it looks) and it turns out Monja Fukuchan is a great place. Those celebrities don't know what they're missing.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we left, completely stuffed and smelling a bit smoky. The walk had long ended and we had no hope of getting our finishing prizes but we continued on, following the map for a little while longer.

We crossed another section of the Sumidagawa and entered the Monzen Nakacho area.

Along the way we saw some nice fall colours, like these pretty ginkgoes. In the distance we had spotted the masts of a large sailing ship and were eager to see what it was doing in the area.

It turned out to be landlocked and behind heavy iron gates, but I did read the name of the boat: the Meiji Maru. A little research has shown that it's a historically important ship, once host to the Meiji Emperor on some voyage or another and now housed on the campus of Tokyo Kaiyodai (Tokyo University of Mercantile Marine). Apparently it's open to the public every year on Marine Day (the holiday commemorating the Emperor's voyage).

We went a little further, but eventually gave up around Nihonbashi and after a quick break at Mister Donut we parted ways and went home. I would like to walk the full route someday on my own, and do more walking around Tokyo in general: getting around on foot shows a different side of Tokyo than you get from using the trains and subways. Hopefully I won't wait until next year's Gurutto Walk to do it.

JapanSoc it!