Q&A
Q. How have you occupied yourself during these long train rides?
A. S read The Lovely Bones and some fresh manga she bought here to further her Japanese. I read The Defining Moment and The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
Q. Is it true that Japanese people like luxury goods?
A. I’m not sure I’d generalize to all Japanese or all goods but I will say that in Kyoto we stopped counting Louis Vuitton items as we walked around towns. If the car of choice in Beijing was the Audi, LV is the preferred brand here for wallets, hand bags, shoulder bags, carry-ons, etc. For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen anyone in North-America travel with a LV carry-on or suitcase. Here, where your luggage is always at hand in the train and the risk of thievery is very low (as far as we can tell), we’ve seen plenty. Compared to the US, we are sure these are no fakes.
Q. What restaurants would you recommend?
A. In the order of cities we visited.
- Kakusho for sure.
- Qulio in Kyoto. After walking the charming alleys across from Gion a few times, we couldn’t miss our chance to eat there. Although the dishes were small, the set menu of modern fusion cuisine was reasonably priced. With a view of the canal, the art-deco setting with lounge music ambiance was a welcome change from the traditional restaurants and diners we’d been eating at. Note though that the other customers ordered few dishes but plenty of drinks.
- Gion Oishinbo in Kyoto. Given how expensive restaurants in the Gion neighborhood are, this corner place away from the trendy touristy streets gave us a good taste of a Kyoto Kaiseki meal at a very reasonable price. We also appreciated the modern funky setting.
- Cui-daoré in Osaka. Being so near Kobe, we had to try its most famous export: beef. Books will tell you this is a marbled feast. I think it has more fat than meat. This contrasts sharply with our Seattle eating habits where we’re careful to buy super-duper-lean beef at 9% fat or, better yet, to get our meat at the Ballard farmer’s market from Skagit Valley Ranch. This restaurant was recommended for its sukiyaki cuisine. For a reasonable price, we each had 4 thin slices of golden cow with appetizers, plenty of vegetables and tofu. S loved it. I had to trim off some of the fat.
- Kyubey in Tokyo. With our trip ending, we decided that we couldn’t leave without good sushi. This is the place to go in Tokyo. No doubt the best sushi we’ve ever had. My favorite piece was the unagi served with salt and grated lime. S loved the uni. On the way out we even bumped into the chef-owner in the elevator who enthusiastically asked where we were from and how we’d heard of his restaurant.
Q. What affordable Ryokan would you recommend?
A. Frankly, we had no bad experiences. Thus, we have to recommend the International Tourism Center of Japan for setting good standards. Still, there are a few places we’ll go back to.
- Ryokan Asakusa Shigetsu in Tokyo, Ryokan Uenoya in Takoyama and Ryokan Nunoya for their location and the friendliness of their staff.
- Ryokan Terazuya (email: terazuya@mable.ne.jp) in Matsue. This is the house of the Terazuya family. What we liked the most was their friendliness and the service. For an extra ¥1000 we each had a wonderful dinner the evening of our stay. The next morning, at no extra charge, we had bread, jam and coffee. Before heading out, one of our hosts sat us down for a demonstration of the Japanese tea ceremony.
Q. Shops you enjoyed the most?
A. The specialty shops:
- The miso shop in Takayama’s San-machi-suji. After trying out the local red miso, we’ve been lugging a few pounds of miso around Japan to bring it back to Seattle.
- Confectionary shops. Since macha tea is bitter, sweets can be found all over Japan. The city you’re in though will have its own specialties. We bought a box in Matsue.
- The paper shops in Kurashiki. Firstly, you’ll find those that sell paper sheets (which you might use in origami for example). Secondly, there are those that sell decorative goods made of paper. Some of the items are simply gorgeous.
- The fan shops in Kyoto. Kyoto is full of shops selling classic Japanese goods; hand painted fans are the ones we enjoyed visiting the most.
- Nijusan-ya in Kyoto. Specializes in combs and hair clips made of wood.
Q. Did you really visit the Osaka aquarium?
A. If we hadn’t, we probably wouldn’t have pictures of big fish.
Q. Why did you visit the Osaka aquarium?
A. Because upon arriving in Osaka for our day trip we read in our Fodor bible that the castle was rebuilt in 1931 in ferroconcrete. That killed any interest we had in visiting the castle.