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So one of the great things about it getting cold in japan is nabe! Nabe means ‘pot’ and nabemono is associated to eating out of the pot. It is basically stew.. but the pot is usually a large ceramic pot that you put on a stove and boil everything in it. Pretty good stuff..
A better description is here.
This last weekend I went to a nabe party at a friends house. We had a untraditional vegatarian nabe for the veggiemites and bisshu(sp?) nabe for the meat eaters. I had the bisshu nabe.. it was quite good. We used chicken and chicken gizzards (although I am not a big fan) and alot of veggies on top of that. After a few plates of that we moved on to mongolian nabe, which consisted of mutton and vegtables. I have not had mutton in years, so I endulged. Although I normally don’t like lamb, this was extremely delicious and very sweet.
Mixed in with the beer and 3 bottles of wine the 4 of us drank, it was a good time.
On a sidenote.. california muscat wine is bad.. chilean cabernet is good.
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New browser based on firefox… integrates blogging, del.icio.us and flickr.. along with some other nice features. Test driving it now. I really like the sychning of your favorites to del.icio.us…
Technorati Tags: firefox web browser flock “social networking”
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Who’s using google talk? I’m on it.. it’s my google email account.. using adium so no talkey talkey..
This weekend was the Saijo sake matsuri. In addition, this weekend there was an aikido seminar with Fujita Shihan (8th dan, one of the few surviving uchi deschis of O’sensei) and my aikido sensei coming back from Tokyo for the weekend. So all round busy weekend.
The Sake matsuri is quite amazing. This matsuri is quite famous and has people from all over japan coming to it. There were sakes from all over japan here including okinawa. It’s 1500y to get in and all you can drink. So this means a lot.. A LOT.. of drunk people. As I had an aikido seminar to go to Saturday night and sunday morning, I couldn’t drink TOO much. So L2 and I went on Saturday around 12:30. In order to maximize our enjoyment, we decided to drink only the daiginjyo (大吟醸) grade sake. This is the premium stuff.. the 30 year single malt scotch of japan.
At the matsuri, there were maybe 14 or 15 of these.. maybe about 11 of which were still available when we arrived. We spent about 2 hours drinking our share of sake, enough me to realize that I would have fun training that night. We decided to leave and get some food.. me, chicken on a stick. Absolutely fabulous! 
(Almost all japanese matsuri food is on a stick by the way.)
After that we headed back to the apt so I could rest for 15 minutes before I was picked up for aikido.
Continue reading ‘Saijo Sake Festival (200510_08-09)’
Tsukiji Fish Market - Tokyo Central Wholesale Market handled 615,409 tons (2,246 tons a day) of marine products, 498 billion yen (1.8 billion yen a day) total in 2003. Some 450 kinds of fish are received; this figure is unparalleled in the world. Marine products sections are set up in three markets: Tsukiji, Ohta and Adachi. Above all Tsukiji Market, handling 89% of the total amount, is one of the biggest markets in the world. Thats alot of fish!
Tsukiji is huge! We were rushing through it and still skipped maybe a 1/3 of the actually facilities. You could easily spend 3 hours walking through the place looking at all they have to offer. Words of advice, do not wear sandals or open toed shoes. In fact, I would recommend boots. They are filleting fish as you walk through, and on more then one occasion you’ll get sprayed by fish juices.
It’s best to go in the morning time, as thats when the main hustle and bustle is going on. We went about 8ish, maybe a little late.. but good enough. Go in the morning and eat breakfast in tsukiji. Nonething like same day fish. There is a little mom and pop sushi shop called Tsukiji Sushi. Good prices and great fish, the owner even speaks a little english. Tell ‘em large marge sent ya.
My favorite:
20lb hamachi steaks… 60$ mmmmm
Continue reading ‘Tokyo Review continued’
It is a little late in coming, but here it is: My review of Tokyo. This will be broken up into a few parts.
We left from hiroshima early on a Sunday morning via Shinkansen [ nozomi super express.] Transit time took 4 hours with a few brief stops near Osaka, Kyoto and Yokohama. I used this time to sleep.
Once we arrived in Tokyo, we headed to our hotel in Shinjuku. After navigating through Tokyo Station we finally found the correct train and platform and headed to Shinjuku.
Shinjuku is the ’seedier’ part of Tokyo. Here is where ‘Kabukichou’ is. This is where a majority of the hostess , prostitutes and strip clubs are. Pretty fun place to walk around and get a neon tan. After checking into our hotel, we decided to head to Harajuku. It is two stops from Shinjuku and interesting during the day.
Continue reading ‘Tokyo Review… or the biggest and most expensive city in the world’
