28/11/12
Our day
started by having breakfast at our lovely ryokan. Today was our last day in
Kanazawa, and we wanted to make the most of it. What better way to do so than
with a hearty breakfast?
Afterwards,
we gathered our things, and went to check out. We gave our gratitude to our
lovely host, Mai, who like always, was very graceful and appreciative for us
staying there. She said “thank you very much for your long stay.” From this we
gathered that most people must only stay one night or so, but we enjoyed our
three nights in Kanazawa, as it gave us ample time to explore the town at a
relaxed pace.
We had a
fair amount of time left before our train left for Kyoto in the afternoon, so
in the meantime, we decided to see Kenroku-en, the garden that we saw at night
at the beginning of our time in Kanazawa. The daylight and pleasant weather
would give us the opportunity to appreciate its full beauty.
And
beautiful it was. I can see why it is ranked as one of the “top 3 gardens in
Japan”. Firstly, it is massive, and each area you visit has its own detailed
design and purpose – one area is a plum blossom grove, so during the
springtime, it flowers and looks stunning, whereas another area has a lot of
trees that have leaves that turn red during the autumn season. It’s all very
well designed – no matter what time of year it is, there is always beauty to
behold within Kenroku-en.
One practice
which we had noticed around Kenroku-en (and Kanazawa as a whole), is that trees
all over the park were having their branches tied to tall poles at the center
of the trees. This puzzled me for a little while, until I realised that winter
was coming. They were doing this to help preserve the trees through the heavy
snowfall that Kanazawa experiences. This way, the pole in the ground and the
strong ropes would take the weight of the snow, and the tree’s beauty would be
preserved for the following year.
There is a
real “castle town” feel to Kanazawa – I’d say it is mainly because of the
excellently preserved districts and the amazing castle and gardens, but I did
notice one other thing that I’ve never seen anywhere else before – when you
looked to the sky, you could constantly see birds of prey circling, looking for
their next meal. It definitely conjures up imagery of a feudal-Japan age.
After
spending a good hour leisurely strolling around Kenroku-en, and taking in its
beauty, we headed to our next spot for the day – the Nagamachi Samurai
district. I didn’t really have much of an idea what was there, but I heard the
word “Samurai”, and I was instantly keen to check out the area. It was a fair
walk from Kenroku-en, but Kanazawa is a fairly small city, so it was only 30
minutes or so on foot. A bus trip would have saved us plenty of time, but we
weren’t in any particular hurry, and the weather wasn’t an issue, so we decided
to walk.
The area
wasn’t all that well-defined. It sort of just blended from regular residential
buildings into this samurai-styled canal area. It was very pretty, and it had
definitely been preserved quite well. As we walked around, we stumbled upon
another of Kanazawa’s big attractions which we had no idea actually existed. It
was the “Nomura Samurai House”, a house that was once owned by a renowned
Samurai family. We had a look through it, where it had several examples of
Samurai armour and weaponry. It also had a very picturesque garden at the back
of the house. Very much an interesting detour in our sightseeing.
It was
starting to get close to when our train’s time of departure, so we started to
walk back to our ryokan. Along the way, we stumbled upon the “Life Coordinate
Store”. From what Emma and I could deduce, it was the Japanese equivalent of a
Crazy Clarks. Nothing had prices on it, so we didn’t know how much anything
would cost until we got to the register. Thankfully, most of the things we
bought were only 105JPY, so it wasn’t an unpleasant surprise. I bought a few
different types of candy – some tomato flavoured ones (yes, tomato), and ones
that I like to call “THE MYSTERY PACKET” – it has no picture of what the candy
contains, and there was no English description anywhere on the packet. I think I’ll
give them as a gift to one of my unsuspecting friends. It should be interesting.
We then
headed back to the hotel, got our bags, and made the long trek to the train
station. At the train station, we bought tickets to Kyoto, and we were finally
able to secure reserved seating this time. Huzzah! We then bought some nice
bento boxes for some lunch, and boarded our “Thunderbird 32” train bound for
Kyoto.
What
followed was a very smooth and relaxing 2.5 hour journey on the train. After
eating our lunch, we actually dozed off for an hour or so. There wasn’t all
that much to see out the window – it was getting dark, and the train was
speeding by too quickly to really take in what we were looking at. We did see
some lovely forests and mountains though.
When we got
in to Kyoto, it was literally a three minute walk from Kyoto station to our
ryokan. I’m really digging this “short walk to accommodation” thing. I should
do it more often!
After
checking in, we decided to just relax and watch a bit of Japanese TV. Yes, it
is a weird as everyone says it is. It’s bloody bizarre, in fact. These days
though, with so many weird youtube videos online, you sort of become
desensitised to it. That is, until you realise that there is an
anthropomorphised tiger dressed as a waiter in a French café dancing around,
trying to sell you a laptop/tablet device by Intel. Yes, this is an ad for
Intel, the CPU manufacturer. And this is considered normal. Our ads are really
boring by comparison! Also, every single advertisement seems to end with a 1.5
second jingle of the company’s name. I think it gets to the stage where when
every company has a jingle, they lose their effectiveness.
For dinner,
we went to “Maragume Udon”, a place that we visited last time we were in Kyoto.
On our way there, we had a slight moment of panic, when we thought temporarily
that it had closed down. Thankfully though, it was just in a different place to
what we remembered. The food was just as awesome as last time, for me at least.
Since our last visit to Japan, Emma has become gluten intolerant. Even though
the Japanese use low-gluten wheat flour in most of their cooking, Udon noodles
are made completely out of this flour, so they contain a considerable amount of
gluten in them. As such, Emma’s meal was pretty much a bowl of food poisoning. She
decided to eat it regardless, even with the consequences that would follow her
for the rest of the evening.
We then went
into the nearby “Loft” department store. When you come to Japan, visit a
“Loft”. They are the king of awesome things. They sell pretty much everything
homewares and clothing-wise, but it isn’t really ordinary stuff. There’s loads
of stuff that makes you say “holy crap that’s awesome”. That’s saying a lot
with the sheer amount of awesome stuff that is in Japan.
29/11/12
The
highlight of today, and really the only thing we actually did with our day, was
a Japanese home cooking class. The day started with us catching a bus to a
fairly northern area of Kyoto – fairly far away from most of the touristy
areas. We had been told to meet Taro-san, our instructor there. When we got off
the bus, there were four other young, Caucasian people waiting at the bus stop.
Without saying anything to them, I knew we were in the right spot.
A few
minutes later, Taro-san arrived. He apologised for making us all wait, even
though he was only a minute later than he said he would arrive! I love the
punctuality of the Japanese people!
We then
walked a short distance to his house. When we got inside, he introduced us to
his wife, Yoshiko-san, and his adorable daughter, Haruko-chan. Throughout the
whole lesson, Haruko-chan played happily away, as all four year olds do. She
was incredibly cute. We all then sat down and Taro-san took us through the
recipes that we were going to cook. As we chatted away, we soon discovered that
not only were all six of the students in the class today from Australia, but we
were all from Brisbane! Bloody Aussies, we’re everywhere!
Two of the
members in the class, Nathan and Isabella, were cooking the famous Kobe beef,
so as such, Taro-san gave us a bit of background on the exact definition of
Kobe beef.
Essentially,
it is a high-class brand of beef that comes from only specific bloodlines of
cattle, which are farmed by only specific farms in the Kobe region, and then
are slaughtered in only certain slaughterhouses in the region. The entire
process is highly regulated, with a certificate of authenticity given with each
piece of beef sold. Did I mention that it is expensive? Well, it is. According
to Taro-san, at a restaurant, a small sized steak of Kobe beef will set you
back between 12,000 and 15,000JPY, or between $140 and $180 AUD. For a single
meal, that’s mind-bogglingly expensive!
A good way
to think of it is like Champagne – only wine created in the Champagne region of
France can bear its name. Clearly, it’s a highly exclusive delicacy.
Taro-san
then took us through the preparation for each of our dishes. Today, we made
quite a few side elements, as well as a main dish. We learned how to cook
Dashi, the basic “stock” that is used in many elements of Japanese cooking,
primarily soups. Additionally, we learned how to make Miso soup, stir fried
root vegetables, various pickles, Japanese omelettes and other small side
dishes.
Having eaten
all of these side dishes quite regularly over the past week of being in Japan,
I found it amazing to see how much effort went into creating them – here I was,
every time I was eating all of these things, thinking that they just came from
a packet and were just mass produced in some factory, but no. We learned how to
make each of the elements, and they all tasted just as authentic as the side
dishes I had with multiple meals over the past few days.
Our main
meal which we cooked was Tsukune, which was a minced chicken dish. We used
several elements in the dish, including ginger, soy sauce, mirin and Hikiji,
one of the many types of seaweed used in Japanese cooking. It had a great
“teriyaki” style flavour to it, but it was definitely a more refined flavour
than what you get at your regular Japanese eatery place in Australia.
While we
were cooking, and Taro-san instructed us, he answered any questions we had not
only about the food, but about general Japanese life and things to do in Kyoto.
While I really enjoyed the cooking experience itself, I found Taro-san’s
insights into Japanese culture and general lifestyle equally as fascinating. It
was wonderful to be able to chat with a local about Japan, without any form of
language barrier between us. As I’ve said previously in the blog – I love being
able to see a city from a local’s perspective. And while Taro-san didn’t
exactly lead us around the city showing us the sights and sounds, I found the
conversations I had with him about Kyoto to be invaluable.
After we had
finished cooking, it was then time for the even more enjoyable part of the
class – the eating part! Yoshiko-san, Taro-san’s wife, had laid out the table
in a wonderfully ornate manner, just like at a Japanese restaurant. We all said
“itadakimas”, and then tucked into our freshly cooked meals. Needless to say,
it was all delicious. We chatted away over our early dinner about everybody’s
experiences so far in Japan. The other class members had gone to some really
interesting places in Japan that I hadn’t gone to yet – definitely adding them
to the “next time” list!
Then, we
thanked Taro-san for the wonderful afternoon, and then headed back out into the
cold, wintery air of Kyoto. A long, peak-hour bus trip later, and we were back
at Kyoto station. We decided to get some bento boxes for dinner, which we kept
for much later in the night – we were still so full from Taro-san’s food!
Overall, I
can’t recommend this cooking class enough. Don’t expect to go in and cook
“Kaiseki” (Japanese haute cuisine) – expect to experience how people of
everyday life in Japan prepare and cook their meals, as well as a fantastic
insight into the modern Japanese household.
Tomorrow:
Kyoto, and its fascinating temples!
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