Please bring us some food

I’ve noticed a few things about Japanese culture as we travel around. Mostly, I contrast it to our time in Beijing and Shanghai. I recall one night in Shanghai, when we were simply trying to turn right out of our hotel parking lot on our tour bus, when we were stuck for 40 minutes as a typical Chinese traffic jam played out in front of us.

Tokyo is definitely vast and crowded but it’s all so orderly. Despite all the cars on the roads, no one ever honks. I can cross the street without fear and I haven’t seen anyone run a red light. When we rode the subway from Shinjuku to Shibuya, the car was absolutely silent, despite being so crowded that I was on the verge on a panic attack. There’s a proper way to do everything here: hand over a business card (two-handed and presented like a gift), bow, eat your noodles. I blow protocol every time I make a purchase – I try to hand over my cash or credit card. You’re supposed to use this little tray on the counter but I can’t ever remember. Instead I try to shove some coins into their hands and I’m reminded that I’ve blown it when point at the tray or push it towards me. There are so many coins that I get overwhelmed trying to count out the purchase and forget about everything else. There’s a 1, 5, 10, 50, 100 and 500 coin and they all look pretty similar to me when I’m in a panic not to make a fool of myself.

My takeaway from Tokyo is that I came prepared not to like it and I was surprised to find that it’s fantastic (well, not the food, but I realize that’s a function of my limitations and not the limitations of the Japanese people).

And I’m once again reminded that, although I like to travel around on my own, it’s also fun to be on a tour and let someone else do the planning. People who travel are generally people with interesting stories and backgrounds.

One thing we’re bonding over on this trip is the food. If you’ve been to Japan, then you know what I’m talking about. If not, well I cannot do it justice.

But let’s try.

We’ve traveled to a town called Kaga specifically so we could stay at an Onsen hotel and try the Japanese spa thing but bathing suits are forbidden and I’m a wimp so I’m out. We also got a chance to wear yukata, Japanese bathing-type robes:

The picture above is from the specially, lovingly prepared dinner that was supposed to be some sort of celebration and bonding experience for us. And while we did bond, it wasn’t in the way Gate One tours hoped for, I don’t think.

Here’s part of the menu, which had us worried from the get go:

Here’s a couple of things we were served, which I hope conveys that gelatinous thing I keep mentioning to you:

One thing that impresses me is the ingenuity of the young people we’ve brought along. Faced with a lot of sushi and a little mini-grill that held…octopus?brains?…Cooper, Mikey and Grace started cooking their sushi on the grill, impressing me but probably moving the dining staff to tears.

I feel like Ron sums it up best, although I can’t remember what he was trying here.

From Kaga, we’re headed to Takayama. We stopped at Kanazawa briefly to tour Kenrokuen Gardens. The Japanese really excel at the garden thing. It’s all about presentation here, I think. In a garden, that’s a good thing. In food, I just feel it’s not.

Look – here’s a first – me and my sister on a tour together! This is right outside Kanazawa Castle.

And here’s one last shot from a charming little street in Kanazawa. Grace found a little bag of walnuts here for $10 and grabbed them up in case it’s the last protein item she gets to eat until we hit that Delta flight on the 11th.