Parks - a creation

There are numerous parks in any city or village. I like what they do to the parks. There is normally a design and a plan. There is a conscious landscaping with fountains, ponds, lakes, streams and hills. This takes me back to a short story i read (i think in reader's digest) about a city lady buying a wineyard in rural france. She goes onto make some very good wine. She hires a landscaper to make a garden with a swimming pool that would clean itself and keep up a regular supply of clean water. Now that i talk about this lady with a wineyard, this takes me back to another article i read here in the "Daily Yomuri" about a girl who has taken up her father's business of making Sake. She is a the master brewer and her variety of Sake has been winning the national prize in Japan for 2 years consecutively. It was nice to read about her determination and resolve in mastering this art.

Coming back to parks after the diversion above, i have visited a few parks here like the one in the imperial palace premises, Yoyogi park and so on. Have always been impressed with the creativity exhibited in making something out of it. Would love to have something like this done in my "estate" sometime in the future..

Nature here in Japan..

Nature is another aspect that i love about Japan. Inspite of its industrialization, there is little pollution and a marked abundance of trees and grenery. One can't say greenery as the colors change in every season of the year - be it the cherry blossoms in April or the greens in spring or the colors in autumn. Imagine seeing greenery in Tokyo - an equivalent of Mumbai city. Be it a city or the rural area, greenery can at times get to be an eyesore. I have travelled to Nikko, interior Nikko, Hakone, Yokohama, rural side of Tokyo and never has there been a barrenness akin to what we see in india.

Milk Mystery - quite confounding

I found it quite surprising that the benefits of milk and poulty products were unknown to the Japanese till way into the 20th century. The general belief was that milk was for the small ones of the cows or the horses. People seemed surprised when milk was used for drinking by the westerners during Meiji Restoration. I think, i remember reading about Laflacio Hearn consuming milk (or was it someone else?) and people being quite shocked.

Chickens were bred for their eggs and not for their meat. In the travels by Isabella Bird, there was this section, where her guide bribes villages to get chicken so that they can be killed and cooked. There was this funny incident when a villager after parting with her chicken was so traumatized that she returned the money and took back the chicken grieving as if a family member was being affected.

The Western Affiliation, yet the lack of eloquence in Eigo!

I keep thinking about why the Japanese rushed into adopting all things that were western. This is in full view today. Most Japanese are fascinated by everything western. As in india, there is a clamour here for protecting the culture. Again, what confounds me is that inspite of the prevelant affinity for anything american or european, this seems to have penetrated the society very less. Very few people speak english. Is the english tongue so hard to master? Considering that the Japanese language is by itself so complicated considering the multitude of Kanjis that one needs to memorize. However, i remember reading a translation by John Brennan (About the life of Mitsuyo Ohira) where there is a mention of the english language being leant in schools way back in the 80s and 90s. Why then is there a marked absence of eloquence in this subject?

Hakone - Owakudani

Owakudani nature trail was a good one. It gave a feeling that one is walking in the midst of a volcano with the steam seeping out of the rocks. It must be due to the hot springs. Not sure though. People are warned not to stay on too long as there is a concentration of toxic gases at times. It is like the earth has opened up partially here and shows itself through smoldering rocks & poisonous gases.

Another unique thing about Owakudani is the volcanic eggs. Don't go by the term "volcanic eggs". The eggs (regular ones) are boiled in the water coming from the hot springs. Not sure again. Due to some chemical reaction, the outer surface of the eggs turn black. Nothing different with the boiled egg inside. It tastes like any other boiled egg. They claim that having one such egg increases your lifespan by 7 years. Well, we get a pack of 6 for 500Y. It was selling like hot cakes..:).. Lot of people wanting to live long i guess.. or just soaking in the experience.. :)

Hakone - Amazake Chaya

I am going to be talking about what is it that i found nice about hakone. Things that are good memories.

Between Moto-hakone & Hakone Yumoto is a small restaurant - Amazake Chaya. Hakone-Tozan bus #5 stops there. We get sweet, warm sake. Nice taste. Costs around 400Y. They also give some nice looking stuff to eat. Din't venture it though. Its a nice way to end a tired day before you hop onto another Hakone-Tozan bus and head for the railway station.

Nice warm and cozy atmosphere. What i found interesting in the place is that all the tables & chairs are carved out of trees ( i know most furniture is.. but there was something different about this furniture that made the atmosphere feel one with nature)

Hakone trip

Hakone is a nice one-day trip from Tokyo.

What is attractive about Hakone?
-> 5 modes of transport in the round trip across hakone (esp ropeway & the trip across lake ashi by a pirate boat
-> Trip to an onsen
-> Owakudani
-> Trail between Hakone machi & Moto-hakone
-> Views from different locations
-> The beauty of nature

One needs to leave very early in the morning though. The 2 day pass provided by Odakyu railways is worth it. I suggest pay an extra 900Y and use the romance car. The journey is shorter by 40 mins one way. (Takes only 80 mins by romance car)

End of day, it was good memories & good snaps to refresh the memories

Kappabashi

Kappabashi is a nice place to visit for a few hours. In this dori(street) you can get everything that is needed by restaurants in Tokyo.

Niima with the chefs cap is a 5 storey building and is the entry to Kappabashi. You get items from plastic displays of food, lanterns, furniture, interior decoration, items for a kitchen (different types of cuisine), uniforms for waiters & waitresses and what not. The pic with beer in glasses is a plastic model of what is put up outside a restaurant representative of what you can expect inside. Also is a poster of a shop selling only lanterns. I saw a shop called Kitchen museum. They have kitchen implements from the past as well. There was another shop selling only knives.

We need to use the Ginza line and get down in Tawaramachi station.

Dynamic Dining @ Harumi Triton

Well.. the experimenting bug sure caught me again today.

Thanks to you Tushara.. i am turning more into you and you into me now..

Friday afternoon, weekend to recover.. :).. so thought why not experiment. Had Honoze, Tirtha & Raghavendra for company, and we went to Dynamic Dining. This is on the 3rd Floor in Harumi Triton. (There does not seem to be a concept of ground floor here.. It starts at 1st floor even if it is just parking.)

Well.. figured now that it was a Japanese restuarant.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.harumi-triton.jp%2Fshopinfo.php%3Fid%3D91&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

There was this option of a buffet of salad & desserts with a choice of either of the 6 items listed as main course.

I had the option of chicken fry pieces with rice.. and a raw "sun" part of the egg on top of it. Well, have been wanting to try out this raw "sun" part of the egg with the underlying food for quite sometime as this seems to be a popular food item around here. Well, doesn't suit me. I know it now. :).. i bet the rice and chicken was good.. but mixing all of it in raw egg.. no no.. will never do it again..

Honoze & Tirtha were lucky to have fried salmon.. (brings me memories of smoked salmon.. another story.. sometime later.. ). All of us kinda forgot that Raghavendra was a vegetarian by preference, well.. he had a torrid time.. :)

As regarding the buffet.. there was some interesting stuff.. some others whose either taste or smell assaulted the senses..

Looks like processed food is a no no for me here... Raw veggies are fine.. (there was a time when even veggies was a no no.. well.. i am sure.. Tushara, my mom & in-laws would be delirious to see i am eating raw veggies.. and consider it a safe option for me here.. )

We then picked up something that looked like ice cream.. well.. it was not.. that .. nor was it yogurt.. didn't like it.. have to figure out what that was..

Menu at restaurants

The thing i like about japan is the menu. You have life size models of the food that you can expect inside the restaurant. They are made out of rubber. In fact there is a place in tokyo where you can buy these rubber menus.

This is very good esp for a "gaijin" who can't make out the japanese script

Advertisement

This kind of advertising kinda bowled me out. People stand at the busy centres like the exits/entry to the subway. They distribute these small packages.

The packages contain tissue paper with a pamphlet inside. The tired people use the tissue paper to wipe away sweat and in this process end up reading the pamphlets. These packets are small and easy to carry

The higher version of the same is distribution of wet tissues. This might obviously be costing quite a bit.

Katsu Kobo Wako @ Harumi Triton

Had lunch here. It’s a restaurant in the 3^rd floor of Harumi Triton (pronounced as “Ha-roo-mee Tho-ree-thon”. Just walked in. Started with the green tea. I chose “Hana”. Did not quite realize what I was having till it reached me. It was 2 fried cutlet pieces of pork and 2 fried pieces of shrimp with lots of cabbage that was cut in length. Further, there was a bowl of rice and a stew. Not sure what kind of stew it was. It had vegetables so was glad.

Cost 1480 yen. Now that I check this up on my Jap to English translator. I guess, it was one of the most expensive meals in the restaurant.

The service was good. Very nice waiters & waitresses.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fr.gnavi.co.jp%2Fg505917%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Translation from Japan to English

Found the language translator in google.

www.google.co.in/language_tools/

Any www link or set of words or paragraphs can be translated from the native script of any language into English.

This has helped me a lot in Japan. Most of the websites are in japanese. This utility gives me a somewhat good picture of what i am looking for. At times, a portion of the page may not be translated. However, with some playing around with the links we can achieve what we want to.

Alice Collection @ Harumi Triton

This is like a mini-canteen with lots of over-the-counter food establishments. It is something like a food court in a mall. Lots of variety here. My favourite - Ebi Raise. This is prawns+curry+rice + a soup which is part of the set. A different variation of the same dish would be prawns+pork+beef+chicken pieces with curry & rice. The soup forms the part of the set as well. These taste good and have it regularly.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fr.gnavi.co.jp%2Fg505910%2Fmenu1.htm&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

There are other variations like raise+beef curry or raise+pork curry. Now pork can be fry or small chunks of soft pork. Do not like the soft chunks part. Its quite slimy. Have this innate aversion to anything that feels or looks slimy.

Harumi Triton

The office I work in – nikkociti group is located in Harumi Triton in the area of Kachidoki. It is pretty close to the Kachidoki station on the Tsukishima bashi side. (bashi – bridge). It has a few towers with lots of companies having their offices here. We are located in office tower X. A starbucks shop at the entrance is the landmark.

It has a lot of shops, including a LAOX (shop were stuff is got duty free, I believe). Good dining options. There is an Indian restaurant there called Bombay Café and my god!! It’s always full. People here like Indian food.

It is very scenic around that office. There is a canal where you always have people fishing. There are some good landscape gardens around the towers. I always take a walk trying to get the atmosphere to sink in.. esp after lunch.

www.harumi-triton.jp

Some background..

I reached Narita airport - Tokyo on 29th Oct 2007. Well, not sure how long is this assignment going to be.

First impressions on reaching Tokyo airport..

-> Language is going to be a problem. I need to pick up some Japanese for conversation
-> People are very friendly, helpful and polite.
-> This is like any other developed company.
-> Most signboards are in Japanese. Do i need to learn the script? Heard that is it pretty complicated
-> Its damned expensive here. Min taxi fare is around 650 yen. If one converts it to indian rupee which is roughly divide by 3. It is quite frightening.