Happy Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving for a week, starting last Saturday with a Thanksgiving Potto-Rakku at our apartment with 10 fellow Tokoyites. It was a feast! One table was filled with a variety of fabulous and traditional Thanksgiving dishes, so we all squeezed into the tatami room and sat Japanese-style on the floor to eat. We also celebrated Ryan's birthday with a delicious cheesecake Cortney made. The desserts over-flow-ethed, since in addition to the cheesecake we had two pumpkin pies courtesy of Dan and Miho and coffee spiked with a 1-2 punch combination of liquor, whipped up by Scott. We were all in food comas by the time we queued up "A Christmas Story" - a fun day with all the elements (except family,of course, which we really missed!).

Later in the week, after having our fill of turkey from the smoked bird we ordered online and served on Saturday, we decided to celebrate again on Thursday, the actual day, by going out for a yummy dinner at a gumbo and oyster bar in Ikebukuro. I slurped some raw oysters from different parts of Japan, while Pete sampled the gumbo. In order to complete the self-stuffing, we tried some cafe mocha stuffed crepes from Dipper Dan's. Both food establishments are in the chipperly-named Sunshine City, the tallest building in Ikebukuro, with lights on the top that change colors. Our final celebration involved a walk to our neighborhood park, Shin Edogawa, on a crisp, sunny Saturday where the leaves seemed to be peaking. Click here for a quickie video from the park with a final Thanksgiving greeting from Tokyo.

The Art of Food

the flavor
of the salt-pickled daikon--
the moon and I
-Fujimoto Kanseki*

As anyone with even a casual knowledge of Japanese food knows (one trip to a sushi bar does it), the Japanese take the art of food presentation to a whole different level. The beautiful refinement and attention to detail found while dining here in Japan confirm and expand that impression. The perfect example and a highlight of our food experience here shows up in these first few photos from meals we enjoyed at a Japanese ryokan in Hakone. Many ryokan, in addition to providing access to relaxing hotspring baths, feature elaborate meals served right in your room by a staff member dressed in a kimono. Traditionally these meals consist of many small dishes, made from fresh, seasonal and often local ingredients. Each item is artfully arranged in its own unique ceramic or lacquerware dish.


Other examples below include scrumptious desserts from a cake shop in Ginza (they taste as good as they look!), a bento from the shinkansen train station, and breakfast served at a Kyoto temple where we stayed in October.




These next two photos show seafood artfully displayed at the huge Tsukiji Central Fish Market in Tokyo and the final pictures show the fascinating and ubiquitous phenomenon of Japanese plastic food. Almost every restaurant in Tokyo has a display area with eerily realistic plastic examples of the food they serve - perfect for foreigners who can't read the menu. A visit to the plastic food shops on Kappabashi-dori, the wholesale restaurant supply area in Asakusa, turned up these examples.



*from "The Haiku Handbook," William J. Higginson, Kodansha International Printing, 1985, Tokyo, Japan.

Scary Karaoke

Last Saturday, we got our crew of seven together for Halloween karaoke. You're already pretending to be someone else, so you might as well wear costumes, no? Lori was a spot-on Pippi Longstockings and I wore a giant cardboard Rubik's cube on my head. Shimpei, the samurai dog with the smoking habit, came with Momoko, the cat with the psychedelic afro and the killer dance steps (who also gets credit for directing the video). Cortney came wearing proper French maid attire and Miho was a silver afro-ed diva. Dan was something else entirely -- defying description. Here's a movie of one small dose of the silliness.

Disclaimer: We weren't Backstreet Boys fans until we saw this incredible clip of the Chinese kids who will forever be our karaoke heros. If you haven't seen it already, check it out and we promise it will make your day better.