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Eating Guide in Tokyo

Apr 26, 2006 by Javantea

Eating Guide in Tokyo
by Joel R. Voss aka. Javantea

April 24, 2006 10:31 JST
[permanent link]

It's 20 days into my trip and I'm still doing really well. The food is good, the price is right. I think you can be vegatarian over here if you know the language well and have a knowledge of what button connects to what ingredients.

I haven't been vegetarian, but I've been avoiding meat-only dishes. Even that may change. Curries usually have beef added. I think that they are cooked together. Ramen often uses beef or fish broth though it could be different in each shop. Beef is usually cooked with the vegatables. The keywords are:
ラーメン ramen /(n) Chinese-style noodles
天婦羅 [てんぷら] tenpura /deep-fried fish and vegetables/tempura
蕎麦 [そば] /(n) soba (buckwheat noodles)
饂飩 [うどん] udon/(n) (uk) noodles (Japanese)
焼そば [やきそば] yakisoba /(n) fried soba
冷麦 [ひやむぎ] hiyamugi /(n) cold noodles/iced noodles

If you're going for vegetarian, here's how to do it: first off, look for the cold soba noodles. They're usually around 200 yen. You can be confident that the noodles are just wheat cooked in water. That's just grain, so you'll eventually need some vegatables, beans, nuts, etc. You can get vegatables at the convenience store. If you're a good cook, you can get vegatables at the supermarket. They even have frozen vegis for bad cooks like me. Salted mixed nuts can be bought also, but are expensive. Osembe is rice crackers usually with peanuts. As far as I can tell, it's rice and wasabi.

From Tokyo Tower to Yasakuni via Temples

Apr 23, 2006 by Javantea

April 15, 2006

This one took a while to make it into my blog (yes, I'm self-censoring), so here it is. I spent the day with my good friend. He's my father's age. We went to a bunch of places. First stops were Tokyo Tower, a Buddhist temple next door, the graveyard behind the temple, and a few notable temples. The Buddhist temple was extremely interesting. They were praying for a person who had passed away a few years ago. The Buddhist priests prayed in a song that was very moving. My friend is a Buddhist and prays everyday.

We went to the highest ground point in Tokyo which is a comical 26 meters. It's kinda funny geographical spot because it has a 26 meter tall stairway and is only large enough for a big temple and nothing else. He educated me on various things including Shinto ancestor-worship, the meaning of things, who owns what, how, and why every building in Tokyo is tall: municipal code requirement. He showed me how to pray at various temples although I couldn't do it correctly because I was too self-conscious. We went to a bunch of awesome koi ponds, certainly the best public koi ponds in Tokyo. I noticed a trio of high school boys throwing rocks at the koi proving once and for all that neither Japanese nor American boys are saints.

We went to the Emperial Palace and saw the place where the 47 samurai committed harikari. It is an actual spot and I stood there for a moment (wow). I also sat where the palace used to be during the Tokugawa era (wow).