Japan Adventure #11

Friday was my last day in Hiroshima, so bright and early Saturday was checkout day. I grabbed the streetcar around the corner from my hotel, and headed for the JR Hiroshima station. An aside, the local streetcar system, called Hiroden, is sort of a museum of streetcars. There are some on the system (like the one I had when I arrived) that are obviously every bit of 40 years old, and there are some (like the one I had this morning) that are nearly brand-new. My car had a placard in it that said 2005. I arrived in the station about 30 minutes prior to my train’s departure, which is more than enough time since there is really no security – you just buy your ticket, put it through the turnstile, and go. An aside – the turnstiles in the train stations are pretty neat. They have RFID readers if you have a reusable pass, but they also have ticket readers. You insert your tickets, which could be printed tickets for something like Shinkasen, or could be a fare pass for the local metro lines with a fixed Yen value printed on them. The reader accepts the tickets inserted in any direction, orients them, reads them to determine validity and proper value, and usually stamps them and returns them, or if this is your final destination, retains the ticket. This is even if you have to insert multiple tickets for a multi-train trip, such as the one I am making which involves the Shinkasen to Tokyo and the N’EX to Narita. Pretty high-tech compared with something like the DC Metro’s farecard readers.

When I went to purchase my train ticket back to Tokyo and Narita, I found out that the train I wanted to take was sold out of reserved seats. Fortunately, there are 3 cars of non-reserved seats, so I had the attendant book me on a non-reserved ticket. An unknown (to me) upshot of this arrangement is that the ticket is several thousand yen cheaper, and it is not tied to a specific train. So, when I spied an N700 series (newest series of trains) train on the platform destined for Tokyo, I could hop on, even though it was an earlier train than the one I had planned to take.

I found a seat in car 1, which is apparently far enough removed from the smoking car (3) that there was no smoke odor. On this train, car 1 is actually in the back of the train. Japanese trains make a note to proudly proclaim which series they are. This is groups of trains which were manufactured based on the same design and as far as I can tell, the cars are numbered based on the series number (ie 600 series means car numbers are 6nn and so on). Usually the series of train identifies features and configuration more than differences in speed. All of the Shinkasen Nozomi superexpress trains travel at the same speed, but the N700 series, for example, has AC power near some seats. So, I’m sitting on the train, tapping away at my laptop with 100VAC feeding it, so that I don’t have to worry so much about finding a plug to charge it at Narita before boarding my 12 hour flight.

One of the nice things about being on the train during the day is that I can actually see some things out my window. Well, I can when we aren’t in a tunnel, that is. Apparently, the area near Hiroshima is fairly mountainous, and so we have spent a lot of time inside of tunnels. Often we’d exit one tunnel at the base of one mountain only to enter another into the next mountain a few seconds later. The tunnels really aren’t lit on the inside (one light every 7-10 seconds), so it just goes black. Once you leave the tunnel, the speed is more obvious, but it still doesn’t feel as fast as it actually is. I’m going to try to capture some video when we get a long stretch outside the city that may give an idea of the speed.

Once we get outside of the cities, you start seeing lots of rice paddies and other types of gardens next to individual homes. I have noticed that there are quite a lot of solar panels, both PV and hot water on both homes and high-rises here.

The girl came through with the food cart, and I chose some snacks, since I had to skip the hotel breakfast this morning. I grabbed some “Smoked Salmon Dry Chips” which are basically the equivalent of Salmon jerky. They’re good, less salty than most beef jerky, a bit more fishy tasting than fresh salmon might be. I noted that the outside of the package definitely has a nice example of Engrish on it – “Quarity and Natural” but the actual logo from the manufacturer has “Finest Quality” spelled properly. I completed my breakfast with some chocolate covered almonds and a drink.

Wow, that was nice. The train has just stopped in Osaka, and a lot of people boarded. The man in front of me turned around and warned me that he was going to be reclining his seat, so that I could move my laptop back and avoid it getting caught in the seat. The Shinkasen seats raise to fully upright – perpendicular to the floor, so you have to recline them a little in order to be comfortable, at least if you’re my height. They definitely recline further than airline seats, so I imagine it’s easier to sleep on a train like this. I definitely have plenty of legroom – a full foot between my knee and the seat in front of me, even at maximum recline. Approximately $200, 4 hours travel time – I say again, US, UR doing it wrong! I’m pretty sure that the electronic display is currently saying something about the train being good for the environment, as I just saw CO2 and ECO interspersed with a string of Japanese characters. I think it may also carry some news headlines, as I just saw NASA scroll by as well. Unfortunately, many of the messages on the board are not translated into English – so far, only the destinations and a security message (report suspicious activity) have been in English. The Japanese use of English is very inconsistent. While many official things (trains and airports) are bi-lingual, things like maps posted in public places, street signs, business signs, are often only in Kanji. However, if you watch Japanese TV, many of the commercials, brand names, etc have English words interspersed with the Japanese. And this is not just for words which don’t have a Japanese equivalent, it was common words as well. Common Japanese brands – Toshiba, Panasonic, Fujitsu, and even Japan-only brands I have never heard of often have their logo and corporate motto in English, often announced at the end of the commercial in English. Then there are shops and businesses that use English words that, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya, do not mean what they think it means. Plus, they pretty consistently use Roman numbers, despite the fact that there are Kanji equivalents.

Japan Adventure #10

Breakfast is included in my hotel fee, and so every day I go one of two places – the hotel has a French restaurant Le Platine on the top floor (22) of the hotel, which has fantastic views of the city of Hiroshima. They opened for breakfast specially for IETF, and have a mainly western spread. It has been interesting to try the Japanese take on things like French Toast, bacon, sausage, etc. All have been quite good, but just slightly different. The French Toast was less sweet and more eggy than you would expect, and there is usually an option for things like salads, cheeses and other savories, even at breakfast .Where I have ended up most days is the restaurant in the lobby, Frutier, which also has a buffet, but it is a mixture of Western and Japanese-style breakfasts. While I didn’t eat much of the miso soup or other very traditional Japanese breakfast items, (rice gruel doesn’t sound particularly appetizing). I did have several interesting things. They had multiple types of fish, such as small sardine-looking fish that looked to be heavily salted, and usually some cabbage, rice, etc. Their version of smoked salmon is much less salted and smoky, and more like salmon sushi – almost raw, and very delicate in texture.

One thing that I found I liked a lot was Chawanmushi, or egg hotchpotch. It is a steamed egg-custard, usually with some vegetables in it. Another was a “Japanese Omelet” aka Tamagoyaki. The hotel doesn’t appear to make it in the traditional way, cooking a thin layer of eggs, rolling them, then repeating, but rather cooking a well-beaten (frothy) set of scrambled eggs into a brick, and then slicing into near bite-size pieces. I also had boiled fish paste, which is another item cooked into a brick and sliced. It has little “fishy” taste, but it is a bit strange in that it has roughly the same consistency of very firm gelatin. One thing that was nice is that they always have fresh Kiwi fruit, usually cut in half and with the end cut off, so that you can basically scoop the fruit out of the skin with a spoon.

Japan Adventure #9

Tonight, we went to another sushi restaurant, Sushi-Te. Not much different about this place, except that we sat at the bar, and the chef served us on banana leaves. It was amusing that all of the staff would literally yell a greeting when anyone came into the restaurant. We had a really excellent sushi roll that had crab meat plus scallions, and one of the sushi platters that we ordered came with this huge piece of eel. Normally, eel is served just like any other type of sushi – a more or less bite-sized piece with some rice. This one was about 4 bites, approximately 1 foot long – I think it was the whole filet (if that’s the correct word) of the eel, with rice under one bite’s worth, and the rest just eel. It was good just like the eel is normally, it was just an interesting presentation. There was also a sushi roll that consisted of the standard rice and seaweed, but was topped with marscapone cheese. It was savory and creamy, not sweet like you’d think of marscapone in an Italian dessert. Very tasty.

Japan Adventure #8

Today, I had dinner at the hotel’s teppenyaki restaurant. Instead of beef, tonight I chose to have seafood, so I ordered a Scallop, which came in a Japanese basil sauce, and a shrimp, as well as a rice soup with sea bream. The chef started by sautéing paper-thin slices of garlic in lots of oil. This had two purposes – one is that it gave you these nice crispy garlic chips to munch on, and two is that it infused the oil with the essence of the garlic. He collected up all of the oil on his spatula and put it into a pan for use throughout the cooking process. The scallop was fairly straightforward. The cooking of the shrimp was more interesting. First, he started with a live prawn. He put down some oil, then either some water or rice vinegar and covered the whole thing with a copper bowl. This quick-steamed the shrimp, while searing the outer shell. I'm not sure how long the shrimp survived, but it probably was not the most humane of deaths. He then trimmed the shrimp, and further cooked the end of the tail tail and flattened the body (except the head) so that you could eat the rest of the meat available in those parts. This was served with a single leaf of Japanese basil, fried until crispy, a slice of lime, and Japanese sea salt, which was pink, for garnish. The sea bream soup was somewhat build your own. He kept the broth hot in a little earthenware teapot while he lightly seared the sea bream. He then put the bream on top of a scoop of rice, and then I got to pour the broth over everything myself. Quite tasty. We finished the evening with some dessert, which was a semi-sweet chocolate cake served with sweet cream, vanilla ice cream, and a mint leaf. The meal was a bit pricy, at 10000 yen/person, but quite good.

I walked off dinner by spending some time looking at and taking pictures of Hiroshima’s Dreamination, which is a display of lights (like Christmas lights, but not formally affiliated with the holiday) that they put up every year along about 4-5 blocks of Peace Boulevard for about 6 weeks. This year, Hiroshima prefecture decided to put out their display 2 weeks early so that it would be up while the IETF was here. They really have gone out of their way to be welcoming to our group! Among the highlights, there is a pirate ship, a carousel, a solar-powered Christmas tree, laser lights, and a 30M high Christmas tree called the Miracle Tree.

Japan Adventure #7

For lunch today, I went out to a restaurant around the corner from our hotel. It had a buffet lunch special, which was 1000 yen per person. This is the same that I have been paying for a box lunch at the hotel, so that’s a good price, given the variety of food available. There was a noodle dish, some sweet and sour-style chicken, salad, miso soup, and a few other things. The food was good, but I don’t think I had anything all that new and different.

Tonight was Sushi. In a lot of ways, it’s not that much different from the standard US Sushi place, except that we went to a small place that we had mostly to ourselves, and had to take our shoes off and sit at a low table, somewhat like I imagine a traditional Japanese home might have. The restaurant had an English menu, so that made ordering a bit easier. They had a great selection of the standard sushi fare and rolls, but we also had a few things that are not as common. We had squid, which is one of the few types of sushi I have had that I didn’t really enjoy. It’s not that it tasted bad – it has a pretty neutral taste, but the very chewy/slimy texture was pretty foreign, and hard to get past, especially compared with the butter-soft, melt-in-your mouth texture that many other types of sushi has when it’s very very fresh. I had trouble suppressing a gag reflex, solely because of the texture, but I eventually got it down. We also had some sushi rolls topped with salmon roe, as well sea urchin, which was very soft and buttery, and light brown in color. We were able to get a plate of sashimi, which included Toro (from the fatty underbelly of the Tuna), and something I have never tried before, truly raw shrimp. While I have had sushi-style shrimp plenty of times, it is simply cooked, trimmed, and served cold, sort of like shrimp cocktail. This was shrimp served whole, on ice, and the body was split so that you could simply pull the tail out and eat it. It has a very different texture than the cooked shrimp, almost like a noodle. It tasted a bit more “briny” than a cooked shrimp, and the fact that I haven’t had any gastrointestinal distress (I’m writing this two days hence) tells me that it was VERY fresh. Topped that off with a good bit of Asahi beer, and it was a good evening. Given the quality of the sushi, 13700 Yen for 3 people including beer is pretty good in my opinion.

In Honor of Veterans' Day

Today, I found myself with some free time because I didn’t have any sessions I needed to attend immediately after lunch. So I took the opportunity to walk over to the memorial set up for the dropping of the Atomic bomb on Hiroshima, which consists of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, the Peace Memorial Park, and the A-Bomb dome. Little did I realize what an effect it would have on me. I started out by being mildly amused at the irony of visiting this memorial on November 11^th, which is the day set aside to honor our war veterans in the US. It stopped being amusing nearly as soon as I set foot on that hallowed ground. I have some mixed emotions, because I do have a WWII veteran in my family. My grandfather, Wesley E. George, Jr. served in the Navy aboard the USS Sigbee, which was attacked by a Japanese Kamikaze plane, and nearly sank. He survived, but that made this somehow all the more powerful.

As a citizen and representative of the country responsible for this unspeakable act of violence, that caused death and destruction and impacted so many innocent people on such a massive scale, I somehow felt like my mere presence was an affront; that I was intruding on something very private, like walking into the middle of a stranger’s funeral. This isn’t because of anything anyone said or did, it was just the way I felt – very much a foreigner, stranger in a strange land.

My only hope was to learn about those who suffered and died, to honor their memory, and to absorb the spirit behind the memorial – one of peace and in support of abolishing nuclear weapons so that those many thousands of people did not die in vain. I walked through the Peace Memorial garden, looking at the different monuments and statues erected to honor the dead. At the Children’s Peace Memorial, which is to honor the children killed in the bombing, there was a school group (one of several that were touring the area) assembled, and singing a song. I have no idea what the song was, or what it meant, but it just felt…right.

Across the river is the A-Bomb dome, which is the ruined outer structure of one of the few buildings left standing after the bomb. This is near the hypocenter of the bomb detonation, and gives a real sense of the destruction that the bomb created. Nearby is a statue and some gravestones which were exposed to the heat and radiation, and have obvious permanent shadows and damage to what was previously smooth stone.

As I was struggling to take this all in, and make some sense of something that really seems senseless, all the while still feeling like an intruder, something happened which helped to set things right in my mind. As I walked through the park, I was repeatedly approached by groups of schoolchildren, probably late primary or early secondary school-aged, who wanted to say hello, ask where I was from, what was my name, etc, in order to practice their English. They would then want to shake my hand, and have their picture taken with me, giggling all the while at the funny way English sounded and the nervousness of talking to a tall stranger in a foreign language. They were even more amused that I attempted to say a few words in Japanese. You can’t help but smile, and be encouraged that the emphasis of this memorial – peace, was found in that small way.

From there, I went into the actual museum. I didn’t have time to walk through the entire thing, but there was a special exhibit in the basement, featuring two things. First was a series of pictures taken at different points after the bomb – immediately, a few years post, and approximately 10 years post. It showed the desolate wasteland, and its transformation as the city began to rebuild.

The next exhibit really struck me. It was a collection of drawings from the survivors of the bombing. It included notes that they had written on the back, and each one was a picture and a first-hand account of the absolute horror, talking about those who survived only to die shortly later in agony, thirst, and either alone, or in the company of those who were powerless to help them.

I couldn’t even bring myself to take pictures here – it felt like a desecration. However, I can say that some of those images will haunt me for a long time to come.

There was a map which showed the hypocenter, as well as a radius – you would never know that my hotel was less than 1 Km from that point. Hiroshima now is a vibrant, bustling, beautiful city.

I can only use this as a reminder of how lucky I am – that this, the Holocaust museum, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01, are probably the closest I have ever really been to the hell that is war, and the evil that we are capable of inflicting on our fellow man.

I know of no better way to close than this – Thank you to all of the Veterans who have suffered and died that I might know peace, and thank you to the people of Hiroshima for inviting me to understand in some small way what they went through, and to honor their innocent dead. I pray that this will be the last time such methods will be used, no matter the cause.

Japan Adventure #6

Tonight, it was pretty much pouring. I waited in the hotel lobby in the hopes of catching a couple of attendees that were not planning to attend the social event that I could maybe join for dinner, but was unsuccessful. I debated just eating at the hotel given the weather, and the lack of dining companions, but I knew I would regret not getting out into town and having some authentic food, especially since lunch the last two days has been grabbing a quick box lunch at the hotel. It is authentic Japanese lunch (I haven’t been getting the Western-style sandwiches they offer as an option), such as Teriyaki chicken, beef or pork sukiyaki, etc but still, getting out is part of the experience.

So I asked the concierge to recommend an okonomi-yaki restaurant. All of the tourist literature says that okonomi-yaki and the local oysters are a specialty here in Hiroshima, so I figured I would go for that. Map in hand, I was off. I figured it wasn’t a big deal to get wet for the few blocks I would have to walk, but apparently the bellhops would have none of it. They literally chased me down the block to hand me an umbrella, which I was glad to have, because I would have been VERY wet by the time I got to the restaurant and back. I passed a gas station (one of the landmarks the concierge gave me) and almost didn’t realize it was a gas station – it didn’t have the standard pumps like we have, mounted in cement islands. Instead, I think in order to conserve space, it was just a parking lot in front of a building, and the pump handles and hoses were hanging down from above on those spring-loaded reels like they use at the Jiffy-lube for the oil fillers.

Anyway, there were 3 places that the concierge recommended, but there was a slight problem in identification, because my map was in English, but the establishments all had signs with only kanji on them. The concierge had written the kanji next to the names, but I was coming up dry in trying to match printed and stylized characters from the signs with her handwriting. I ended up choosing the only place that had an English sign, named after the food that they serve. It was a pretty small, hole-in-the wall kind of place, but I knew I had chosen correctly, because it was full of locals, even at 7:45pm on a rainy Tuesday night, and as far as I could tell, several members of the same family were working there (likely the owners). Fortunately, they had an English menu to go with the sign. The place was something like the teppanyaki restaurant, in that the griddle was right out in the open, and if you wanted, you could actually sit at the griddle. I chose a table, but noted while I was watching them cook that when they served people at the griddle, you actually ate right off of the griddle, probably in order to keep it warm. Okonomiyaki starts with a freshly made pancake the thickness of a crepe. They put noodles, meat and vegetables on top of it (piled high), then top it with a thinly scrambled egg, fresh green onions, and some sort of brown sauce, probably fish sauce or something. They served mine on a heated cast-iron plate. I got one with squid, prawns, scallops, and green onion. It was quite tasty, and huge – I had trouble finishing it.

Japan Adventure #5

Had dinner at a teppanyaki place tonight – this is the place where you sit around the griddle and they cook in front of you. It’s not quite like Matsutake or Benihana in the US, where it’s dinner and a show, but the chef did light some alcohol on fire at one point. I had Hiroshima Beef, which is apparently somewhat similar to Kobe beef, in that it’s unique to this region. It’s not raised the same way as Kobe (massaged cows, etc), but it is quite tender and flavorful.

Japan Adventure #4

Had lunch at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant, which was called Unkai. It was on the hotel’s 5^th floor, and the interesting thing about it is that they had a lovely Japanese garden on the roof, so that the windows of the restaurant overlooked the garden. In another “hi, I’m a tall foreigner” moment, I had to duck to enter the restaurant due to a curtain hanging from the doorway, and then the relationship between the base of the table and the height of the chair (which was still too low for me to be comfortable) caused me to have to sit with my ankles crossed, because if I sat with my feet flat, my legs hit the base of the table. All of the waitresses were dressed in traditional yukata or kimono, and I had some soba noodles in broth, some tempura, and some Japanese pickled vegetables.

Tonight was the IETF’s welcome reception. The hotel put out all sorts of food, some western, some Japanese. It was all good, but nothing overly notable or out of the ordinary. I did get a chance to try several Japanese desserts, which are typically rice balls with different types of flavoring, as well as a cup with a coffee-flavored gelatin, some cream, and a bit more either strong coffee or coffee liqueur on top. Since I’m not a big fan of coffee without lots of sugar, it was a little bitter for my taste. I was able to enjoy some very nice sake. One of the host sponsor’s representatives gave a toast, which in Japanese is “kanpai!”

Was examining my JPY coins last night, and was struck by how light the ¥1 coin was. I had to go look up the coin composition, turns out that the coin weighs 1 gram (vs other coins weighing 3-7g), and is made of 100% aluminum instead of the more standard brass/copper/nickel alloys. It almost feels and sounds fake (like plastic). I have had Yen coins in every denomination (¥1, 5, 10, 50, 100, 500) including both versions of the ¥500 coin. The newest version of the ¥500 coin has ridges in the zeros of 500 on the face of the coin, and if you hold it just so, you can see "500" and the Kanjii character for Yen printed in the ridges. Wondering how they strike that with any level of repeatable success.