Christmas morning we all slept in a bit, owing to the festivities at the pub the previous night. About nine am we were having coffee and opening presents. Steve and Brenda seemed to like the sake cups we got them, they gave us an alpaca blanket, a Maori box, some soaps and bath salts, and a nice bottle of wine (that we got into later in Bangkok). It was really fun to see their Christmas traditions, too.

After cleaning up a bit we had morning Bloody Marys, complete with the big stalk of celery, and then got to work on a seafood lunch. I helped Tim shuck oysters to eat raw (they were tiny but delicious). I could tell that Tim has shucked an oyster or two in his life, while I just tried to keep from stabbing myself in the hand. One oyster turned out to be bad, and it smelled up an entire side of their home – nasty! Luckily we could air things out and it was OK to proceed. I grilled a few oysters (which was new to them) but only about half the oysters opened up, which was a little strange. We ate bugs, the strange, alien-like seafood that taste like lobster but looks like science fiction.

We ate outside on the patio, surrounded by “the bush” – the outback of Australia. Every now and then the Kookaburra birds would laugh in the distance, reminded me of the sound effects of the Jungle Cruise from Disneyland. They had wild parrots visiting the yard as well – it was so cool to see so much color in the trees around their home. Steve had cleared some trees around their house leaving them with an ocean view off in the distance – it was a spectacular place to sit and contemplate while sipping a cold beer.

After everyone had gotten in a nap it was time to get back down to eating. It was quite a feast – a stuffed turkey, ham, candied yams, potatoes roasted in duck fat, and a delicious stuffing (with sausage). We pulled on poppers with dinner, and wore the silly hats that were included inside. This Christmas tradition was new to me, but that’s what makes it fun.

We also played a game after dinner called True/False, where someone will read either a true or false fact off of a card, and the next person has to decide if it is true or not. It was fun to play, and became a talking point at various times during the rest of our stay. There were also some funny coasters with faces that you hung from your nose – making each person completely different from what you’d expect to see. Hard to explain but fun at parties!

In the evening we went over to Mary and Barry’s house, a neighbor down the street, for more food and drink. While we were in Australia at each person’s house they had put out prawns – boiled and easy to peel, and you scooped them up with your hand peeled them and ate them like popcorn. We had more prawns, sausages, Brenda’s pavlava dessert, and lots of wine. Kuniko got a little carried away with drinking and everyone was impressed how much more talkative she became. It was a fun night.

We went back to Steve and Brenda’s with them, leaving the young ones to party at Mary and Barry’s place. It was a great Christmas day – but we needed to recover some sleep and give our stomachs (and livers) a rest.

For winter holiday we decided to head back to Australia for the first time in a long time. We wanted to spend a little time with the Coursey family there, and also enjoy a warmer climate for a while. To get to Australia we would first fly from Osaka to Bangkok, a six hour flight, and then after two hours in the airport we’d fly on an overnight (ten hour) flight to Sydney.

But we almost shot ourselves in the foot right from the start.

At Kansai International Airport we arrived in plenty of time, and there weren’t any people waiting for check-in so we walked right to the front. Things went smoothly until the check-in staff asked if we already got our “ETA”. What the heck is that? Turns out, it is like an entry visa, and the Australian government charges $60 to all visitors. Ostensibly it is a security fee, but in actuality it is more like a visa. Anyway, we didn’t know about it (although we should have researched it) and so we had no choice but to apply for the ETA right there in the airport from our phones. The check-in staff said that we could get back in line once we had gotten the ETA. We stepped aside, and finished the online application in about five minutes – piece of cake. After applying, I received an email stating that my application is one of the rare cases that will require human approval, and I should check back within 12 hours to confirm the status. Uh oh.

With our flight to Bangkok scheduled to leave in two hours, it wasn’t looking good. Kuniko was in the same boat – so we went to grab some coffee and wondered if we might have to cancel the Australian leg of our trip if we couldn’t get the ETA. We sat waiting for an approval email – nothing to do but wait. Finally, I poked around on their online website and found a form that you could use to check on the status of an ETA. I checked my status, and I was approved. Strangely, I never received an approval email. Kuniko couldn’t check her status for some reason, so we took the information back up to the check-in line. Our backup plan was I would go on to Australia and Kuniko would wait for me in Bangkok sipping cocktails by the pool. Once we arrived back at the check-in there was a huge line, and time was ticking to get to the gate. We flagged down a manager who was nice enough to confirm that the ETA was approved, and then she let us cut all the way to the front of the long line to check in.

That was a big help, but it was still dicey getting through security – it was a big travel day, apparently. We made our flight, but it was a closer call than I would have liked. Once we sat down in our seats on the plane we could finally relax and feel like the holiday was beginning.

It was an easy cruise to Bangkok. We made use of the time in Bangkok to raid the airport restaurants and managed to get some decent food out of it. The flight to Sydney went smoothly, and I managed to sleep through about six of the ten hours in the air. It helped that we were sitting in the back of the plane so we could recline our seats guilt-free.

Steve met us at the airport, and it was good to see him again. As he drove us back towards his home in Mt. Kembla, we showed us some of the sights and it was fun to look around. It had been 13 years since I had been there, and I hardly remembered any of it. On the way back we stopped at the Overlook Hotel – a new hotel built on a hill overlooking the ocean and beaches near Wollongong. The style was a bit modern, and Kuniko and I decided to order some drinks once the clock struck 10 am (apparently they can’t serve alcohol until 10 am there). My philosophy on drinking alcohol while traveling is go ahead and drink whenever you feel like it. The internal clock is all screwy anyway, so don’t worry about what time of day it is. Steve joined us for a beer, and then we headed on back to his place to see the rest of the family.

Back at home we met Brenda, Alyssa and her boyfriend Tim, and Julia. It had been several months since we had seen Brenda but a lot longer since we had met their daughters. It was fun to see how they had grown up. Tim was a great guy, too, and Kuniko and I both struggled to figure out his accent sometimes.

We had a welcome lunch at their place, with lots of seafood, ham, and salad, and then settled in for the visit. For Christmas Eve dinner we all went down to the local pub to share in their neighborhood tradition. Lots of their friends were there, and everyone ate, drank, and talked – taking up a whole section of the large pub. Kuniko and I talked with as many people as possible and had good conversations about life in Japan, Australia, Donald Trump, and more. Luckily there was plenty of wine to drink and food to eat – I had a pork belly that was delicious and Kuniko had a rump steak that was really big. Big servings here, too! The wine we had that night wasn’t so impressive, but Steve brought out some good stuff later on that compared much more favorably.

After a nightcap of limoncello and some fresh fruit we went to bed with visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads (or something like that).

It is officially halfway through my school term, and that means winter break is here. Just in time, too – I could use a little refresh in my schedule.

On Tuesday during one of my classes I was standing up talking with my students and when I stepped to the side I felt a little click in my ankle. It didn’t think it hurt that much at the time, but later after the students left I realized that it did in fact hurt – intensely. It wasn’t a sprain – there was no swelling and no vigorous activity to cause it – but it sure felt like a sprain. I was walking with a pronounced limp the rest of the workday, and I barely could walk to the station and home. At home I iced the ankle but there was no real effect, and both Kuniko and myself were worried that I’d be on crutches for our holiday trip.

Wednesday morning it seemed that sleeping and taking weight off it improved the ankle, but after walking to the station in the morning it was back to hurting pretty badly. I limped from the station towards my office, but after a hundred steps I figured it was better to call a taxi and rest my leg for the trip. I gimped up to my office and sat down, and figured that at least I’d have lots of time in the airplane to rest my injury. In a truly horrific moment of bad timing, I entered the office at the same time as one of the ladies who works on my floor, and she has a permanent leg problem – see walks with a limp every day. We came to the door at the same time, and so I had to limp next to her as I walked to my office. I hope she didn’t think I was mocking her – maybe I’m just being overly sensitive but I really felt bad. Luckily she has more experience walking with a limp and she passed me pretty quickly. She didn’t look back as she left me in the dust.

At lunchtime I consulted a website to see if there were any stretches or movements I could do to speed recovery. One site recommended some light ankle movements and I started with those.

Suddenly, while rotating my ankle, there was another click. And then I felt wonderful.

So everything is OK now. I can move completely without pain, and what I thought was a sprain was probably just a ligament that was a little out of alignment. My daily bike rides probably cause some repetitive motions that could lead to this stuff happening, so I’ll need to take more care doing warm-up and cool down stretches.

Getting old isn’t easy – I’m going to have to take a little more care with this old body. My mind is still like a nerdy teenager and it hasn’t quite accepted that my body isn’t the same.

So now we’re on track for our trip, leaving Friday morning at 11 am from Kansai Airport, we’ll first fly to Thailand, change planes and then fly on to Sydney to arrive on Christmas Eve in Australia. We’ll spend a few days with Steve, Brenda, Alyssa and Julia, and then we’ll shuttle off to Laos for a couple of days and wrap up our trip in Bangkok eating street food and getting massaged.

I’m looking forward to more travel – it seems like years ago that we were trekking through Eastern Europe. See you in 2017!

Here we are with another weekend full of delicious food.

Since we are pretty careful about what we eat during the week, it makes sense that we tend to go a little nuts on the weekends. It started on Friday night – after work I met Kuniko in Kobe to do a little bit of last minute Christmas shopping. After our shopping we had some time to kill before our restaurant reservation, so we stopped in another restaurant a few blocks away to have a drink. The place was named memorably – La Boozy Cafe. Although we just ordered an appetizer and some drinks the menu looked pretty good – lots of nice meats to choose from. We sat at the bar in front of the chef as he cooked, and he asked us lots of questions about what brought us here. We mentioned that we had reservations at the restaurant down the street because they have some special truffle dishes, and he dug into his refrigerator to let us smell the truffles that he had in stock.

Sensing a chance to bring us back some other night for dinner, he made a simple consomme soup with grated truffles and served it to us on the house. It had a nice aroma, but I thought that the truffles were a little wasted on the soup. We also ordered small plate of ratatouille that was better than I expected. We may or may not go back, but the staff were certainly friendly and that counts for something.

Our main event was at an Italian bar/restaurant – a sister restaurant to a place we tried a few years ago but dismissed as stuffy and overpriced. This place had a much more casual atmosphere, and we sat on high stools and looked out over the back streets of the Kitano district, with lots of noise and excitement in the tiny restaurant. We ordered up a carafe of red wine, a fritatta with black truffles shaved over the top, a dish of risotto with white truffles on top, and then a roast breast of duck with black garlic sauce. For me, it was all about eating the truffles, and the restaurant did not disappoint. They weren’t shy about using lots of truffle, and the intense flavor really showed well with the comparatively mild fritatta and risotto. While eating the truffles I had the feeling similar to somebody who has tried a fine wine for the first time – this could end up being an expensive food to love. The duck was quite good, as well – they roasted it perfectly with plenty of pink still inside so that it was as dramatic on the plate as it was on our tastebuds. Great restaurant, great experience!

After dinner we walked back towards town, but in keeping with our tradition of doing things in threes we decided to make one more stop. Recently I found a restaurant review of three restaurants in the Kobe Motomachi area, and we had already tried two of them – so we thought we should complete the trifecta. The last stop was a place called The Rib Lab. I love ribs – I can’t get enough of them – and fortunately ribs have been making headway in Japan in the last few years. The Rib Lab was a pretty upscale, trendy restaurant with a stylish interior that included a giant photo of a topless woman eating ribs that dominated the dining area. This place is definitely for adults.

I know you are probably thinking, “Ribs? Topless women? This has got to be a home run, right?” Unfortunately we were disappointed with The Rib Lab. First, the cardinal sin – the ribs were tough and chewy. Slow cooked and tender pork short ribs – sliding right off the bone – these are what I wanted to eat. Instead we got tough rib meat that had been overcooked (maybe charred with a kitchen blowtorch?) One of the cool things about the restaurant is that you can get ribs with lots of different flavors – maybe 10 flavors to choose from, but it was hard to enjoy the flavor when chewing through charred meat.

The second problem with The Rib Lab was the price. Here you pay by the rib – about five dollars per short rib. For a guy that can sit down and eat twenty ribs without effort that makes The Rib Lab less than a satisfying experience. It is much better to walk down the street to our previous discovery, Bo Tambourine, and have a rack of ribs for a quarter of the price. Nice try, Rib Lab, but you’ll have to do much better to get my business.

So anyway, it was a learning experience, and we were both glad that this rib restaurant wasn’t our main event for the evening. My truffle craving was satisfied and it was “mission accomplished”.

Saturday we went over to the Fukumi’s house to celebrate the Christmas season. Last year we hosted the Christmas party, and this year the Fukumi family volunteered to host the party for the first time. Their place looked great – they had put up a big white Christmas tree, and everyone had brought some small little presents to put under the tree. As usual, dinner was excellent. We started off with champagne, and on the table was plenty of bread and a ragu style meat sauce to spread on it. We also had a big chef’s salad, a porcini mushroom risotto that had a real intensity to it, and two roasted chickens from Costco that made a big impact when they hit the table.

Everyone was enjoying lots of beer, wine, (and Scotch) with the meal, and I think that we ended up drinking into the Fukumi’s personal wine stash – a couple of Benziger wines were opened as well. During the dinner we played with Hiroka who was happy to be the center of attention. I spent a lot of time with him playing with Lego blocks, and we built some different animals together for his “zoo”.

At the end of the evening we all exchanged presents and it was fun to see what we had gotten each other. I got a scarf and some gloves to keep me warm during these cold mornings – good news! We went home around midnight after six hours of talking, eating and drinking. It was a great party, and we were really happy to spend part of our holidays with our neighbors.

But wait, there’s still one more day of eating! Sunday morning we packed up all our Christmas packages to send off – one to San Diego, one to Florida, and one to Hawaii. We drove into Kobe and stopped at the central post office to ship them out. Good luck packages! I hope all your contents make it through customs OK.

While in Kobe we wanted to hit the big 100 yen store so that Kuniko could buy some holiday decorations for her school. Before that we stopped at Luke’s Lobster to eat a lobster roll and a crab roll. This was Kuniko’s first experience to eat a lobster roll – and my first experience to eat at Luke’s. It was really, really delicious. The bread they use is the perfect texture to support the lobster meat, and it was made with a light mayo so that it didn’t overwhelm – not overly tangy like Japanese mayo can be. The size was perfect as a snack, too. We’ll be back!

For the drive back we stopped in at Horai 551. This place is a popular Chinese food shop that is known for their steamed pork buns (they are the size of baseballs) and we also got a set of six shumai to go. The shumai are twice as large as what you get on the street in Hong Kong, and chock full of meat and garlic. I am still burping garlic the next day after eating those. Wow!

Back at home we did a little shopping for dinner, because apparently we were thinking about eating again. Kuniko wanted to test a recipe for our next party with Yoshi and Mamiko, and I wanted to try an African chicken recipe. We did a little shopping, and then came home and started cooking. It was fun to work in the same kitchen on completely different recipes. We sipped white wine (Secreto Sauvignon Blanc) while cooking, and then served up some pretty intense dishes. Kuniko’s dish was spiced potato, sausage, egg and cream layered into a casserole and baked. We liked the balance of the different flavors, and we decided we’ll make some tweaks and serve it again for our guests next week.

My dish was from a book that I finished recently (David Lebovitz’s The Sweet Life in Paris) and it was chicken coated with saffron, turmeric, cinnamon, paprika, salt and pepper and then braised in the oven for about an hour. It was topped with apricots and roasted almonds, too. Definitely something new for us, but I liked the balance of the spices and trying something out of the ordinary.

So we’ve still got lots of leftovers to work on, so healthy dinners will have to wait a few days. It was totally worth it to eat well and enjoy some new foods this weekend, but I am really looking forward to that exercise bike tonight!

It is the dawn of December and it looks like I’m starting to catch a cold. As a certified optimist, I know that it is good to suffer through a cold now and get it out of my system before we travel here and there for the holidays. I’m doing all I can to fight it off – gargling iodine medicine, washing my hands ten times a day, drinking liters and liters of water while I work. We’ll see how effective these regimens turn out to be.

Early December means the mad dash to wrap up our Christmas shopping and try to get things in the mail as soon as possible. We’re in pretty good shape, actually, but there are still a few little things here and there that we’d like to add in to complete the packages we’ll be sending. Luckily we found a post office open 24/7 in Kobe, and that’ll make things a lot easier.

December 1st is also the day for winter bonuses in Japan. I am lucky enough to be in a position to receive one, and it makes the holidays a little easier having an extra cushion in the bank account. Unlike many Japanese people I don’t count on the bonus as part of my budget – a bonus is a bonus to me – but many of my students have already spent that money using credit cards last month.

One of the things I’d like to do with part of the bonus money is buy a truffle. I’ve been big into truffles lately but I’d really like to hold an actual truffle and see what it is all about. Truffle oil and truffle salt are fine products but that is like making an evaluation of wine by tasting wine-flavored chocolates. So I’ll probably buy a small truffle online and hope that it is in fact a European truffle (when likely it is an overpriced Chinese truffle). For about 6000 yen there is not that much risk, so later once the holidays blow over I’ll make the plunge.

This weekend is our first holiday party (we’re hosting two this year, and joining the Fukumi’s for another) and so I had better get my holiday ham skills ready. Our little oven has been making odd squeaking noises lately, and I have the feeling that this might be the last season for the little white hotbox. We’ve had our eyes on a replacement, but of course there are no big American-sized ovens available for some real baking power. One of the small sacrifices about living in Japan, I guess!

We didn’t plan on it, but it ended up being a burger weekend, and it all started with a stop at Costco on Friday after work.

While shopping through Costco looking for meats and other essentials for our December parties that we are hosting, we stumbled on something slightly unique. Costco was selling large size hamburger buns. It’s easy to find regular sized buns in Japan, but the homemade burgers that we make overwhelm the tiny little buns – leaving lots of burger meat and toppings on your plate in a big mess. So we were pretty excited about picking up the buns – a package of six – and I changed my weekend dinner plans from carne asada to burgers.

Saturday was a beautiful day, and I spent most of it at home relaxing. I walked Kuniko to the train station since she was attending a festival held at her university with friends, and I did some shopping for the burgers. I bought all the toppings we’d need – and some German beers to drink with dinner.

Saturday’s beautiful weather had me outside grilling two big patties, with a little indentation in the middle to avoid the “bulge” in the middle of the patty. I put on some Colby cheese at the end to melt on top, and then we topped the burgers inside on our plate with tomato, red onion, and smashed avocado.

And they were delicious! They were nicely browned, with plenty of juices inside and pleasantly smoky flavors from being inside the grill while cooking. This is my usual method for doing burgers at home, but since good buns are hard to find it had been quite a while since we’ve had them.

We each had one big burger, rubbed our full stomachs and were in a kind of cloud of burger bliss. I looked over at our Costco package of buns – still four left – and then at our toppings, with plenty of leftovers for another go. So we decided to go ahead and do burgers on Sunday night, too. The only problem was the weather. Sunday was forecast as rain all day, and it turned out to be true.

Recently I bought a great book by Kenji Lopez-Alt called The Food Lab, and in it he makes a lot of American classic dishes while doing scientific experiments to understand all the different factors and decisions that could influence the final taste of the dish. His section on burgers was really interesting, so this weekend was the perfect chance to experiment. One section described how to make a good “smashed burger” – and since this method was on the stove and not on the grill, that took care of the weather problem right away.

Sunday night I rolled up another two big patties, this time in kind of a ball shape, and heated up the cast iron skillet. The idea behind smashed burgers is to squish the meat ball that you’ve made into a patty in the hot skillet to maximize the contact of the meat with the hot metal. This causes lots of brown crispy surfaces, making for some complex and rich flavors to go with the crispy crust.

It was surprisingly easy to do since I was lucky enough to have the skillet, and a stainless steel spatula to hold the meat down. According to Kenji, smashing should happen just in the first 30 seconds of cooking to retain the juices of the meat – smashing too long means a dry patty. Ours turned out great – we really liked the crispiness of the edges and the juiciness of the meat. The only thing we missed was the smoky flavor of the grill, but it was a trade-off I was willing to make. Overall we prefer the grilled burgers, but we’ll definitely do smashed burgers in the future, too. It’s nice to have burger options!

So it was a very happy burger weekend, and we’re back to healthy dinners this week. The colder weather has converted us from cabbage salads to Japanese nabe – just as healthy and filling but a lot warmer.

Just like in other countries around the world, the election of Donald Trump to the office of the President of the United States was big news in Japan. In the lunch cafeteria of the factory where I work the TV was tuned to election news, and Trump clinched the presidency right around lunch time. My students were pretty surprised. The news media here had Clinton heavily favored to win, and so it really caught everyone off guard.

I was also surprised. I don’t live in the United States anymore – I live here in Japan, a country with plenty of its own political and social issues. I never expected the United States to elect someone like Donald Trump to its highest office, and during the past two years I was asked by my students occasionally if I thought Trump had a chance to win. “No,” I said, “the American people know better than to hire a reality TV star as president.” Clearly I misunderstood the will of the American people. I don’t think anyone was cheated and I don’t think there was a rigged election – the American people got the president that they wanted.

These past two days I have been asked by each of my students, during their one-on-one classes, just exactly what happened that Americans picked Trump. I have twenty five students, so I have to explain what happened twenty five times. It ain’t easy! But if you look at my students’ expressions, you can see the real question behind their words: “What the fuck are Americans thinking?”

For Japanese people watching American politics from afar, they really don’t have an opportunity to dive deep into a candidates policies and understand their political convictions. They have little background knowledge of the candidate besides the short clips played on the evening news. Truly, what they see is what they get. They understand that Trump has inconsistent opinions – what he says today might contradict what he said yesterday. They see that he uses vocabulary at the elementary school level, that he cuts off and shouts over his opponents, and seems incapable of careful, measured thought about complex issues.

Believe me, in Japan careful and measured thought is a very prized thing, indeed.

The President of the United States serves as kind of a representative of all Americans to people living around the world. If you are an American, you are Trump. To people you meet in other countries, the first thing they think when shaking your hand is going to be, “so maybe this person is one of the reasons that angry, unpredictable guy has his finger on the nuclear button right now.”

Maybe the most important thing to come out of this situation for me is to realize that I don’t know what Americans want as much as I thought I did. I guess that comes with living away from your home country for more than a decade.

Although I am not happy with the result, I still have ultimate faith in the system – the checks and balances and power division that makes up the core of American politics. I’m hoping this will be a wake up call for Americans – for better or worse, this guy is our representative on the world stage.

And everyone is watching.

Kuniko and I had another fun weekend visiting some friends and eating at some new restaurants. We kicked it off with a nice long two hour beachside walk from Okubo to Akashi. It has been a while since we’ve done it, and surprisingly we weren’t really tired at all at the end of the march. We stopped in Akashi to do a little shopping for some presents to bring the Tada family on Sunday, and then came back home to relax the rest of the day. Kuniko baked up some focaccia bread, and later we used it with some prosciutto and Gruyere cheese to make panini sandwiches. They turned out nicely, but we were struggling a bit to get the cheese melted enough before the outside of the bread becomes too dark. More research is needed! We spent the evening playing Skyrim and resting up, and ended up going to bed pretty early – I was definitely in old man mode.

Sunday we got up at a leisurely hour and organized a bit before heading out to have lunch with the Tada family. Mr. Tada is one of my former students, and he had invited us over to meet his family and eat together. He lives in Suzurandai, which is a town north of Kobe city. It still falls within the city limits of Kobe, but it has a completely different feeling from what we imagine of Kobe. It is higher up in the mountains, and far away from the ocean, so it was quite a bit colder than the temperatures that we were used to.

Mr. Tada picked us up at Suzurandai station, and drove us a short way to his house. His kids were waiting eagerly for us outside his house (in the cold!) and were jumping up and down with anticipation. They were seriously excited to meet us. Mr. Tada’s son is about eight years old and his daughter is six, and they were pretty shy with us at first. By the end of the stay they were climbing all over us and we had been admitted as honorary family members.

Ms. Tada served us hand rolled sushi – kind of like tacos in that you choose the ingredients you’d like to eat and then roll your own. Everything was delicious, and part of the fun was watching the goofy kids eating and joking around the whole time. Mr. Tada was very proud of his family.

One of the things that Mr. Tada had requested was for us to bring pictures from our trips around the world. We obliged, although I always feel a little bad for the poor folks that have to sit through vacation pictures. Luckily with the iPad they could skip through as quickly as they liked to find things of interest. The kids seemed really into it, which surprised me a little.

After that Mr. Tada (and his kids) showed us their pictures from a recent family vacation to Vietnam. The pictures were great and I think they had a really good time. I laughed when I saw that almost every picture of Ms. Tada had her drinking beer – our kind of lady. The kids broke out into raucous laughter when a few pictures of them in the bathtub came up. Evidently it was some kind of family joke that we didn’t really get. We had coffee, sweets, and I played a game of Uno with the kids. It was a really fun afternoon. We left around 3 pm, and headed back to Kobe. It was so nice of the Tada family to host us, and we’re eager to return the favor some time in the future.

Back in Kobe we decided to go try a Mexican restaurant that had opened up recently. We weren’t exactly starving to death, but a couple of street tacos couldn’t hurt. The place was called YIS, and the décor and style of food was more Californian Mexican than anything. We had four tiny tacos – really just two bites – between us and a couple of beers. Total bill was 3600 yen ($36). Ouch! The tacos were great, but I don’t think anybody in Japan has figured out how to make delicious Mexican food with any sort of cost/performance balance.

In the same news article that I had found the Mexican restaurant was a list of other nearby new restaurants, and one was recommended for an authentic American feel and great burgers. So we went there, too.

The place was called Bo Tambourine Cafe. It was located down a tiny alley, and when we approached there was a kitten sitting outside hoping to get in. The kitten was a big hit with Kuniko and other customers, and I think it was earning a few scraps just by hanging out in front of the restaurant. Inside the d̩cor was indeed very American Рthere was a jukebox, plenty of tables and woodgrain walls that reminded me of mid-century suburbia. We ordered some drinks, a cheese avocado burger, and a plate of pork ribs.

They were great! The burger was the best I’ve had in Japan. Some Japanese burger places go for a big impact by piling vegetables on the burger so high that it looks like a tower, but this place made burgers like we make burgers at home: emphasis on the meat, with the veggies as accents. The ribs were also excellent – and they really did fall off the bone as we ate them. I think I recognized Costco’s ribs, but I can’t complain because they were cooked perfectly. There were some other dishes that we’ll have to wait and try in the future – gumbo, quesadillas, and more. The bill for the giant burger, plate of pork ribs and drinks was just about the same price as the four tiny tacos from the previous restaurant – much more in line with reality. This place was a hit – and it has been a long time since we’ve found an unqualified hit for American food.

We decided to walk the long way back to the station and burn off some calories. On our way we walked past a restaurant that Kuniko has been wanting to try – a panini restaurant. It was a tiny hole in the wall place, serving wine by the glass and with a huge menu of nearly twenty different sandwiches you could order. Since we had experimented the day before on panini, and since we were right there – we decided to stop in and split one. We had some red wine and chatted with the panini maker, who was very friendly and told us all about the breads that they use. The sandwich we got was simple but delicious – Italian salami, Parmesan cheese, and green olives. The bread was the real star – light was crispy on the outside but moist and soft on the inside. We bought a couple of sandwiches to go for my lunch on Monday, and then finally hit the road.

It was another one of those marathon weekends where friends and food are the main events. Believe it or not, we’re going to do something similar next weekend, too. I have a German wine tasting with a friend from work, and then Kuniko and I will meet for some authentic Korean food in Kobe. After that, who knows?

Last weekend we had a chance to host a couple of my ex-students for dinner. Occasionally I take a liking to some students and invite them over, and sometimes it turns into a friendship that lasts (like Yoshi, Mr. Tsukiji, and Mr. Kato) and sometimes it kind of fades out (like Mr. Tojo and Mr. Okochi). This time I invited Ms. Yoshida and Ms. Kamiya over for dinner. Ms. Yoshida was one of the first students I taught as a new employee of the company, and she is starting to be seen in a leadership role within the company. On top of that she is a woman, and women tend to be at a disadvantage in the company because they are in such a minority. Ms. Kamiya is an engineer who I taught recently, and together all four of us ate Mexican food, drank wine and had some good conversations.

Kuniko and I enjoy hosting, and I think we made everyone comfortable enough that they could speak about whatever they liked and be relaxed. It was fun – and I hope that we’ll have another chance in the future for all of us to get together. We had so much fun that we almost missed their last train back to Kobe – luckily they made it back to the station with a minute or two to spare.

The added bonus here is that we have lots of Mexican food leftovers to keep us happy for the rest of the week. Quesadillas, kimchi, and tacos – yum!

Back in November 2015 I blogged about a guy on my morning train that hogged both of the front positions of the line, being selfish and trying to get an advantage to find a seat on the train every morning. You might want to go back and read that post to understand what I’m about to write a little bit better. At the time it kind of bugged me that he was doing that, so soon thereafter I decided to train him to stop.

Actually, I was kind of inspired by the book Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. In that book the main character finds himself in an unimaginable position of having to tame a tiger to save his life on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I certainly was playing for lower stakes, but purely as a sociological experiment I undertook the challenge.

First, I clearly defined my goal. I wanted the old guy to stand correctly on either the left or right side of the boarding area. The center was where he was, and this was the behavior that I wanted to change. He should stand correctly as a habit, and to do it whether I was there or not in the future.

I also wanted to avoid direct confrontation. Living in Japan I have to play by Japanese rules and social norms (to some extent), and that meant doing things indirectly and gently without making any social waves that would cause stress for others. The only stress I wanted to cause would be the stress felt by my unwitting experimental subject standing improperly in the middle.

Today I am declaring my experiment a success! However, it did take a long time. My original post was almost exactly a year ago! This morning the old guy was lined up on the right side of the loading area, for the eighth work day in a row.

How did I affect this change? As I said, it was a long process. At first I stood to my subject’s left side, and ever so slightly invaded his personal space. Sometimes I held my bag on my right side, so that it occasionally brushed his pant leg. When the train arrived (from our right side), he was still in the center position and he could easily rush to find a seat. But I was patient, and very rarely (one morning in ten) the train would come in slightly too fast, and the final stopping position would end up past our position, putting me between our poor subject and the door. Usually people shift to allow the other person to enter at the same time, but I played stupid and just stood in the same position taking the whole space for myself (doing the very thing that bothered me about my subject to begin with). Suddenly my subject went from being in the best position to being in the worst, and he was never happy about that.

At first when this happened he actually physically tried to push me out of the way. I’m big and tall, so I just pretended like I didn’t notice and I certainly didn’t look at him – I didn’t want him to know that actually I was doing this on purpose. I would take my time getting on the train, and take the last seat available. He would stomp his foot and sigh loudly, but he had no recourse but to stand and wait for a seat to become available. He never said anything to me, and didn’t threaten violence or anything. This is Japan, after all.

So I continued this slow, grinding process of standing in his personal space, ignoring his clear unhappiness, and making observations about his behavior. Of course, he could have just changed positions or changed trains at any time – I wasn’t going to track him down and try to keep up the experiment. I’m bored in the mornings but not that bored.

I stood on his left side each day and inched closer to him. I tried to think of the river that slowly erodes the mountain over the course of a million years. I didn’t have a million years, but I was sure I could break the old Japanese guy’s resolve. There is a lot to be said for idle curiosity and plenty of free time while waiting for trains.

Gradually, he started to give me space. I wasn’t exactly sure when the moment of truth happened, but one day he was standing all the way on the right side when I arrived. I took my spot, and we both had a very fair 50% chance of getting an open seat, instead of the near 100% chance he alone previously held. If the train overshot and my subject was in the correct position I would shift to my left to allow him access to his half of the entrance. His reward, for following the rules.

A few weeks later I moved to a different position on the platform so that I could watch him, and he continued to line up correctly, even after I wasn’t around.

What a great feeling it is, to walk down the steps to the station platform, and seeing the guy is standing correctly in the boarding area. For just a moment I could feel the same thrill that lion tamers must feel, having the giant, dangerous cats respond to your commands. Surely big cats could be tamed as easily as old Japanese guys, but I don’t think I’ll go into lion taming anytime soon.

Mission accomplished, everyone! I didn’t celebrate with champagne or anything, but it was nice to see that my experiment was a success and that even old Japanese guys could change their ways with a little help from meddling foreigners like me.

But I’ll still keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t slip back into bad habits.

We just finished up a really nice, relaxing (and sort of expensive) weekend. We started off partying like rock stars on Friday evening after work. I grilled two big pork steaks, rubbed and covered with barbeque sauce, a grilled leek, along with sauteed mushrooms and asparagus in garlic. We went through a couple of bottles of wine, and stayed up late listening to music and dancing.

We were a little slow getting up on Saturday. But get up, we had to do, because we had plans to go see Star Trek Beyond in northern Osaka in the morning. We were able to roll out of bed and get behind the wheel, and we got there with plenty of time remaining.

It was our first time to visit “Expo Park”, the site of the 1970 World Fair. There is some interesting artwork remaining from that time (including a weird sun statue that looms over everything) and also lots of monorail lines intersecting nearby. Since we had arrived a tiny bit early we walked around Expo City, which is a nearby large-scale shopping mall. We found ourselves killing time next to the “English Village” (where people can have the experience of speaking only English with native English speakers) and we sipped some drinks at the CNN Cafe, which is apparently a thing. I was expecting the cashier to speak English to me, but she instead used the standard Japanese greeting. I guess that we weren’t actually in the English Village at the time, so they were off the hook.

We saw the latest Star Trek movie in IMAX 3D, which can be a pretty intense experience. Kuniko felt a little queasy afterward because of all the quick camera movement in space, and it took a little while for her stomach to settle down. I liked the movie, especially the computer generated graphics involved with the space station world “The Yorktown” that was fantastically done.

On our way home we had to get off the highway to avoid some traffic due to an accident, and it worked out that we could pass by Costco. We ran inside and got some choice items (chicken, dates, bread) and then continued on home to rest up. We were pretty tired out from our rock star Friday night, so we had a quiet dinner of roast chicken (from Costco) and a really nice salad that Kuniko put together with a delicious Parmesan cheese dressing.

We were in bed before 9 pm on a Saturday.

The cool weather has been a big influence on our early bedtimes. We both slept great on Saturday and got almost eleven hours of sleep. Once again we got ourselves moving and headed east to visit one of my former students who had invited us to lunch.

On the way we stopped in Kobe and bought some goodies to give them, and then went on to Nishinomiya to meet. We had originally considered living in Nishinomiya ourselves. It is perfectly located between Osaka and Kobe, and the neighborhoods are nice and quiet, and slightly upscale. There aren’t a lot of places to eat and drink, but with Kobe and Osaka so nearby it is easy to get to fine dining.

We met Mr. and Mrs. Kato and their two-year-old daughter Anzu at the station, and together they walked us the short distance to their condominium apartment. It was just five or ten minutes from the station, which is just about the perfect distance balancing noise and comfortable walking. Anzu wasn’t sure what to make of us, and watched us suspiciously as we tried our hardest to get her to relax.

Two years ago we had the Kato’s over for dinner, and Anzu was still “in the oven” so to speak, and it turned out that this time that the Kato’s have another little one on the way – Anzu’s little brother will come in March of next year. It was great to see the family together, and everyone loosened up and relaxed after a while.

We were interested in checking out their place, because we had considered something like this a long time ago. They were on the tenth (and top) floor of their building, and so they had a really nice view from the balcony over the south side of Nishinomiya. It wasn’t far from the Hanshin train line, and I could hear the relaxing sound of a passing train now and then. The place was decorated beautifully with lots of mementos from Mr. Kato’s time working in Kenya, and there were also plenty of toys for Anzu to enjoy.

Lunch was made almost entirely by Mr. Kato, and he put together a really nice Spanish lunch. Paella, tortilla espanola, a carrot, onion and orange salad, and some pork with potatoes that really hit the mark for me. Three of us shared a bottle of Spanish red wine, and Mrs. Kato contributed a homemade cheesecake with apple jam for dessert. Wow!

We spent a few hours with them talking about what was going on with our lives. Many of our friends have children now, and it can sometimes be hard to find a point of overlap between them and us. Our lives are centered around good wine and food, travel, and work. Once kids enter the picture it can be hard for new parents to drink, travel and sometime to go back to work. Still, we had a nice time talking with them and thinking about how their life was going to change come March.

We left in the mid-afternoon and caught a rapid train from Nishinomiya west towards our home. As we were riding back the rock stars inside of us awakened, and we found ourselves craving a glass of sparkling wine. That was how it started, anyway.

Kuniko found a restaurant that had recently opened in Motomachi – a place focused on wine and Italian food, and so we found the place (one floor above an ear-cleaning establishment!) and grabbed some seats at the counter. We were sitting right in front of the kitchen, and it was a beautiful set up. A big pizza oven was placed in the back corner, and the gas oven and stovetop made up the center of the kitchen. The two guys working there were very friendly, and they had plenty of wines to choose from. I had a German Sekt, Kuniko had champagne, and also had a tiny plate of appetizers to go with it. The wine cellar was custom built with glass to peek in and see what they had – very cool.

We each had a glass of red wine after the sparkling. The staff opened up a bottle for me (an Italian red with gobs of red juicy fruit) and Kuniko had a more traditional medium-bodied red. Feeling pretty good, we asked for the check and hit the road. The price was a little higher than we’d expect for what we had, however, so I’m not sure when or if we’ll go back.

We stopped at Daimaru department store to buy some uncooked cookies (if that makes any sense) from Demel – the place that we visited in Vienna has a branch here in Kobe. We also stocked up on some premium cheeses that we figured we’d serve at next weekend’s party (or else we’d be happy to take care of them ourselves).

Finally, after the department store we found ourselves right near Chinatown, and I wanted to buy some frozen suigyoza – they have some really good stuff that comes in plastic bags straight from China. Since we were in Chinatown already it seemed like we should go ahead and get some Janjan and Tantan noodles, and also some shorompo. I had had shorompo from this place before – it wasn’t that great – but the noodles were excellent.

We fled Kobe having satisfied just about every one of our culinary desires, and made it home in time to throw together some stuff for this week’s lunches and breakfasts. It is going to be a strange schedule for Kuniko so we’ll need to be flexible about meals this week.

So, great weekend, great food, great friends – mission accomplished!

This past weekend was a three day holiday for us, and we did our best to make the most of it. We started off on Friday night, meeting in Osaka after work to have dinner with Chiemi at an Italian restaurant in Tenma that she recommended.

We arrived in Tenma a little early, so we decided to go catch a quick drink at a nearby bar while we waited. Tenma is a great area to hit old, traditional Japanese bars. It wasn’t hard to walk ten steps from the station and duck under a curtain into a busy standing bar filled with old Japanese guys drinking after work. The walls were covered with posters of beer girls – bikinis and bottles – and the walls and ceiling were darkened with grease from decades of fried foods. We ordered two beers and some gyoza, and soaked up the culture.

After meeting Chiemi at the station we moved to the restaurant, just about five minutes walk. The place was run by one guy, and he cooked, served the wine, and kept up conversation with us while we sat around eating and drinking. The food was good – especially given the location. The main recommended course was the panini sandwiches, and they were indeed quite tasty. One was made with a really nice Camembert cheese, olives and ham. We liked the food but it wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was a nice place to meet, sip wine, and catch up. We didn’t eat so much at the restaurant, however, and we ended up snacking on some Korean salad and other goodies when we got home.

Saturday we went into Osaka to attend a craft beer festival near Osaka castle with Yoshi and Mamiko. We got there early to have some lunch at a Mexican restaurant that I found, called El Zocalo Burrito. We found it easily enough in Yotsubashi, and I ordered a big carnitas burrito. It was surprisingly good and tasted the same as a burrito from a California Mexican restaurant. I was very impressed. At almost 1000 yen it is not an everyday meal, but it was the best Mexican I’ve ever had in Japan (except for our own Mexican dishes, of course!) Kuniko ordered a chicken and cheese quesadilla that was surprisingly made with a corn tortilla, and it was OK, but I think this place is all about burritos. I’m sure we’ll be back someday.

Next we walked across town to burn some calories before the main beer event. We walked for almost an hour, but we picked a bad day to do it. Although the weather forecast said rain, it was clear, hot and humid. By the time we got to the train station at Osaka castle we were pretty sweaty. Luckily cold beer was at hand.

The event was very similar to other craft beer events that we have attended in Osaka. We received a glass and ten tickets. The tickets could be exchanged for beer or for food, and there were plenty of stands so that the waiting time wasn’t long. We scouted out some space under the nearby trees, and Yoshi even had brought little mini-stools to sit on. We settled in and did some serious eating and drinking.

I really liked most of the beers I tried, with the exception of one pale ale that I had that was apparently sweetened. Everything else was quite good. With ten tickets you had to really think about the best way to use them. Ten beers is a lot of beer for one person, so balancing the beer with the food became important strategy. Yoshi and Mamiko were full of laughs as usual, and we really enjoyed spending time with them.

But wait, that’s not all! Mamiko had heard about a “night market” – with entertainment and world foods, so we started walking that way after we finished at the beer festival. On the way there we stumbled through a Chinese festival where a strange Chinese guy insisted on taking pictures together. The Chinese festival seemed like fun but the target was Chinese people – so we continued on to the night market.

There were lots of things going on at the market – it was lively and the music and entertainment was pretty unusual. We ate shorompo from a very disorganized food stand, and drank more beer. The weather was absolutely perfect, and the promised rain never came, so this turned out to be a good stop.

Finally, we wrapped things up and went our separate ways, but it turned out to be a busy and alcohol-soaked day.

We were pretty tired on Sunday, but Kuniko had to go to work. I spent the day lounging around the house and cooking dinner. I made a pork roast with vegetables, and also some big beans that my folks had bought from Rancho Gordo in Napa. Everything turned out great, and we had a big dinner with wine and cocktails – yum.

Finally on Monday we decided to abort our plans for a long walk to Akashi. so we instead went by train to do some shopping. We got enough supplies to keep us in cheese at least through the middle of the week, and then we went home to relax and lounge. I squeezed in an afternoon nap, and then we watched “Money Monster”, an interesting take on American capitalism.

Even though I had taken an afternoon nap I couldn’t resist going to bed really early in the evening. This weather has cooled down enough that I can sleep soundly again. Apparently I needed the sleep – I went to bed around 7 pm and slept soundly until the next day. All rested and ready for the week!

We did quite a bit of sleeping in on Saturday in an attempt to rest our weary feet. We had logged 30,000 steps the previous day! Our hotel room was decked out with a Nespresso machine, so it was nice to make our own coffee in the morning and watch people walking about from our window above the street. During the night I had woken up a few times due to loud thunder and heavy rain, and in the morning it was still raining a bit outside. Luckily we brought our portable umbrellas and we were ready.

We checked out of the hotel and hit the road, and by the time we left the hotel the rain had pretty much petered out. We took the metro to Prince Edward station near Mong Kok, and found the tiny restaurant “One Dim Sum”. There was already a line of people waiting to get in when we arrived, and we joined the queue. At 10 am they opened, and they seated almost everyone in front of us and then gave us a slip of paper and told us to come back in 30 minutes. No problem!

We did some exploration around the area, and got a feel for the old Hong Kong. One street was closed to vehicles and filled with stands selling fruits and junk, and another street was lined entirely with tropical fish stores. It was interesting to see walls covered plastic bags of water and fish, just hanging and exposed to the elements. Inside the aquariums were well maintained and there were some pretty dramatic colors and unusual fish there. If I was setting up an aquarium, this is where I would go.

We killed the half hour pretty easily, and we went back and got a table at One Dim Sum. The menu was extensive, and half the fun is choosing what to eat. We picked a large selection of different dim sum, and it was just as good as I was hoping. The shumai were plump and juicy, with a perfect balance of pork and shrimp, and we really liked the beef and coriander balls that glistened with oil and soy sauce.

We ordered quite a bit but didn’t overdo it – we had plans to go to another dim sum place soon enough. One Dim Sum was a great place to eat, worth the wait, and certainly worth the price – we paid 120 Hong Kong dollars (about $15 US) for everything.

Next we walked south through the Mong Kok district towards our next dim sum destination. On the way I stopped at “King of Coconut” for a freshly made coconut milk drink that was sweetened with condensed milk. The ice cold drink was just what we needed to keep our energy level high as the day was warming up and still humid from the overnight rainfall.

Our next dim sum place was all the way over in Central. Called “Dim Sum Square” it is a small corner restaurant that looks traditional but feels like an American diner inside. We joined a line outside but the wait was only a few minutes. Here we ordered lots more dim sum. They had my favorite dim sum – the salted egg yolk buns, and they were great – maybe my favorite of the trip. We also had some steamed fried rice with abalone, and crispy fried buns filled with barbequed pork. The place was busy and the staff looked a little harried, but we really enjoyed the atmosphere and the food.

With our dim sum cravings satisfied, we decided to go find a nice place to relax and enjoy the view. We ended up at a European style restaurant terrace, overlooking Hong Kong harbor sipping prosecco. The day was turning out to be very, very nice.

As we walked around Central, we kept noticing huge crowds of Asian women lounging around on patches of cardboard. They weren’t really doing anything – it seemed like they were waiting around for something. At first we thought they were attending some sort of conference, but there was no way to know for sure. There were so many – I’m not good at estimating crowd sizes, but it was definitely in the thousands. Later Kuniko did some research on the internet and it turned out that they were all mainly from the Philippines, and they worked as housekeepers and maids in Hong Kong for wealthy locals. Saturday was their day off, and they liked to meet up and get together and talk. It was really interesting to see just how many were there, and I felt like it might have been a subtle show of force – I wonder if they were unionized.

Believe it or not, we still felt like we had a little room in our stomach, so we decided to try to find some wonton noodles. We ended up in a pretty nice restaurant at the top of a shopping center, eating a very small meal of noodles and wontons. The wontons were juicy and perfectly formed into round balls, and the noodles were the small thin eggy noodles that I can’t seem to eat enough of. We struggled a little to figure out how to eat the dry noodles that Kuniko had ordered – the dish came with a small bowl of thick sauce and a small bowl of soup, but we weren’t sure on the procedure. Some more research is required, because I don’t think we got it quite right. They were tough to eat, but so good!

At this point we were pretty satisfied, and having nothing left to do on our list we figured we might take a train out to the airport early, do a little shopping, and maybe have another meal there. Before that, we walked one last time around the harbor to burn off (some of) the calories from all the food we had eaten. We noticed as we walked the harbor that there were a lot of barriers being placed and more police than usual. Signs indicated the directions to “viewing areas” and it seemed like something was up. I asked a policeman what was happening, and he told me that today was a national holiday (National Day in China) and that there was going to be a fireworks show over the harbor from 9 pm.

Wow, perfect! This timing worked out pretty well, and so we started to make a plan to watch the fireworks and then rush to the station and get to the airport in time for our flight. We still had some time to kill, so we found a nice restaurant with a bar that had a view, and had a couple of glasses of red wine with a big platter of mixed prosciutto. It was a nice way to while away an hour or so, and then we went out and got into position for the show.

The fireworks were nice – big, loud, and dramatic. I guess Chinese people know a thing or two about fireworks. The crowd was big, too, and we were lucky to find a good place to observe. About halfway through the show we left to get out in front of all the people who would probably jam up the sidewalks at the conclusion of the show. Everything worked out fine, and we hopped a train back to the airport and arrived with plenty of time to eat dinner.

Our last meal in Hong Kong was at a Taiwanese restaurant called Crystal Jade. Kuniko had wanted to eat there for a long time, and we were lucky enough to get a seat pretty quickly. We ordered the tantanmen (spicy noodle soup) and also a basket of shorompo. The shorompo was really good – I think we were close to ordering another basket, but in the end we showed a little restraint. The soup was on the sour side more than the spicy side, but still it was pretty good.

The rest of the trip was easy – we boarded our flight right on time, slept for the three hours back to Kansai airport, and then drove home from there (with a short detour to Costco).

Although the first day of the trip didn’t go as expected, we more than made up for it the second day. Kuniko wanted to treat me right for my birthday, and by the end of the trip I was more than satisfied. Hmm… when should we go back?

Now we’re taking a little travel break and instead concentrating on visiting with folks here in Japan. The next trip won’t be until December, so time to tuck away the passports and stay home for a while.

What a weekend! Our trip to Hong Kong was a good one, and I think we were completely satisfied with what we did and what we ate.

But it didn’t start out that way.

We drove to Kansai Airport early in the morning, and arrived with plenty of time to board our 3 ½ hour flight to Hong Kong. I dozed a little during the flight, but mainly I stayed awake anticipating all the yummy food we were going to eat. The weather forecast had said that it would be sunny on the first day of our visit, and partly cloudy with a chance of rain on the second day. We planned to do a little bit of sightseeing near the airport since the weather forecast was good, and then go into the city to start the dim sum marathon. Unfortunately, fate had other plans.

As we touched down at Hong Kong airport there was a thick fog everywhere. It looked like it had been raining recently, and it was pretty humid out. We were expecting the humidity, but everything else was a surprise – the weather on arrival was surprise #1. We took a train from the airport, and soon enough we were walking towards the ropeway to the giant Tian Tan Buddha near Ngong Ping. The first time we came to Hong Kong we had failed in our attempt to see the Buddha – the staff at the gondola said it would take too long to get up there and back and still catch our flight. This time we had all day, so we bought a ticket on the ropeway. There was quite a line to get in a gondola, however, and we had to wait about twenty minutes to finally get on board. The gondola ride itself was a little longer than 20 minutes, which is actually a long trip inside a little room suspended on a wire above the jungles and mountains.

Probably on a clear day the views are dramatic, but the higher we got the thicker the fog became. Soon we couldn’t see very far outside of our own gondola, and other gondolas would suddenly appear out of the mist going the opposite way – spooky! Of course we were worried that once we got to the Buddha we wouldn’t be able to even see it, but that’s life – we’d just have to wait and see what the situation was like on the mountain.

The scene at the top of the mountain was really touristy. I mean it – over the top tourism. Starbucks and Subway restaurants were there, and loads of tourists shopping at cheesy souvenir stores. We walked through tourist town on the way to the statue, but we did stop at a food stand run by an old lady who was frying shumai, corn, and other snacks on sticks. I approached to order some shumai, but when I tried to take a picture of her cooking she said “No photo”. That caught me by surprise – and I was ready to go buy some shumai somewhere else but Kuniko talked me down and then snuck a photo later on. The shumai was pretty good – a deeply fried, simple snack.

We reached the bottom of the steps, and at the top, instead of a giant Buddha the only thing we could see was a blank white space. We walked all the way up the steps, getting in some good exercise, but sure enough when we reached the top we could barely make out the outline of the huge Buddha statue through the mist and fog. Kuniko was a little disappointed – this was one of the big reasons she wanted to come back to Hong Kong – and since this was the second time we tried to see the Buddha it was a little more disappointing to be that close and still miss out. Missing out on the Buddha due to unexpected fog was surprise #2. Maybe we’ll have to try again (for the third time) someday in the future…

We went back down the mountain on the gondola, still enshrouded in fog, and were able to catch a train to Central to have a little lunch. Our first stop was to try wonton noodles at Mak’s noodles, but unfortunately they were closed for construction (surprise #3). Luckily, another restaurant that we wanted to try was just down the street. The restaurant was Yat Lok Restaurant, a Michelin starred restaurant popular for their roasted duck noodles. We ordered up a couple of bowls, and wow, delicious. Crispy roasted duck with plenty of meat and fat underneath, in a savory soup that balanced out the dark duck meat very well. Highly recommended!

From there we went into Tsim Sha Tsui to check into our hotel. We stayed at the Hotel Pravo, and it was a really nice place. We liked the disco dark lobby, and our room layout was really interesting, with a corner bedroom that had nice views of the neighborhood. Outside one window was a giant ESPRIT sign that changed designs by alternating colors of the LED lights – mesmerizing. The minibar was filled with freebies – beer, soda, and juice, and once we got the WiFi going we were all set. Nice place!

For dinner I selected one of the dim sum restaurants recommended online, and since it was a few blocks from our hotel it was a natural choice. We walked to Lei Garden, which is a small chain of popular restaurants in Hong Kong that is known for the consistent quality of dim sum. We found our way to the big building, and then went downstairs where the restaurant was supposedly located. There was construction everywhere, and just when I thought we’d be disappointed again, we spied some staff herding customers into their restaurant down a hallway. We walked in, and it was a really nice place. They had beautiful aquariums in the front of the restaurant and the décor of the place was quite nice. A traditional, upscale Chinese restaurant.

We started to look through the menus, and the staff were nice enough to give us an English menu to help with ordering. Hmm, I’ll just turn to the dim sum page, and… what a second… no dim sum?!?

“No Dim Sum!” the matronly manager practically bellowed. Turns out that they only serve dim sum during the morning hours. This is perfectly reasonable behavior – dim sum is really meant to be eaten in the morning or afternoon – but my internet source insisted this place was serving dim sum anytime. They were wrong.

Surprise #4. These little surprises were beginning to stack up and take their toll on our optimism.

Since we were sitting at their table we thought we should at least try some other food, so I ordered two dishes that sounded good, and they were. We had lotus root, onion and fried pork in a garlic sauce, and also a stir fry of chicken, mushrooms and Chinese sausage in a dark XO sauce. I really liked the fried pork, and the Chinese sausage was also unexpectedly good. We were really happy with the food there, but it wasn’t really what we came for, so we left soon after polishing off those dishes.

We were kind of realizing that if that place wasn’t serving dim sum then probably others on my list weren’t either. We were not far from the harbor light show that is held nightly at 8 pm, so we decided to walk down there and see what it was like. We found a pretty good spot on the waterfront, and waited a while. It was a free show, and I don’t know what we were expecting for free, but a few lasers, some canned background music and a couple of lit up buildings weren’t that thrilling. Ten minutes later the show ended, and we were a little surprised that that was it. (Surprise #5).

Sometimes when the world is working against you, maybe you should just go get a drink. I had read about a bar on the top of the Ritz Carlton called “The Ozone Bar”. It was situated on the 118^th floor of the building, with views of the whole city. It wasn’t so far, so we figured we’d just walk there, have a cocktail, and get a mental restart on the whole experience.

We walked along the harbor and then north towards Austin station. Around Austin there was a huge amount of construction – in fact, we were seeing construction all over Hong Kong during the trip. This construction seemed to be related to a building right next to the Ritz Carlton – it looked like it was going to be a big sports stadium. The sidewalks were all screwed up rendering my GPS navigation out of date and useless. We walked around the construction zone twice before we found the pathway to the Ritz Carlton, and then we walked up to the building but couldn’t find the entrance. We walked all the way around the building, we walked underneath through a parking garage, back out and across the street and then ended up where we started in the first place.

This was almost an hour after the light show, and I was ready to call it quits and head back to the hotel. Kuniko wasn’t going to let us give up that easily, and she rallied my morale and we made one more attempt to find the entrance. She found it at last, and we had to walk through an entirely different building to get to our destination. I think our problem was that we approached on foot, where most Ritz Carlton patrons show up in limousines or sports cars.

Once we got into the hotel, a nice staff member explained how to get up the elevators to the bar, and soon after we finally arrived. It was about 9:15 pm, so the night was still young and a cocktail sounded great.

At the bar reception counter they welcomed us and told us about a new policy they had – no shorts allowed after 9 pm.

Guess who was wearing shorts? Surprise #6!

Luckily, they had a pair of slacks for me to borrow, so they walked us through the restaurant to a men’s room, and I changed into the tiny pair of slacks and carried my shorts out of there in my hand. At this stage I am willing to do just about anything to get a cocktail into my hand. We ordered a couple of drinks, and soon after a space opened up with a view of the city, and then we could relax a little. My borrowed slacks were not able to close at the waist, so it was a little hard to enjoy the cocktail while I wondered whether my pants might slide off.

The view was great from up there, and although the bar atmosphere wasn’t really my style, it was nice to spend some time with Kuniko and just relax. Finally, something went right.

Lastly, we finished up at the bar, and we handed back the borrowed slacks and walked back to our hotel. It was much easier to find our way back since we had already spent an hour exploring the area around the Ritz, and it didn’t take long to get back to our neighborhood. We bought a couple of cold beers at the local 7-11, and then went back to our room to rest up. What a day – it was full of surprises, and although we were a little disappointed that it didn’t go like we planned we promised to have a better day the next day.

And it was no surprise that we did.

The first time I ever had dim sum (and not just a pot sticker – I’m talking about the whole experience), was in San Francisco more than twenty years ago. It’s strange but I have absolutely no memory of the food, which may be hard to believe for people who know me well. What I remember most is the atmosphere.

After graduating from university I moved back up north to continue working at wineries in Sonoma, but one day I was invited to go down into the big city to meet with some other old college friends who had moved away from Fresno. One lady who had lived in the same dormitory was living in San Francisco with her family, somewhere near Chinatown. I drove my dad’s old Corolla (or was it mine by then?) into the city, and the group of us ended up heading to her recommended restaurant to enjoy a dim sum lunch.

The atmosphere was pretty traditional – a big room filled with round tables covered with pink tablecloths, and there were two things that I still vividly remember even today. First, we were the only people who weren’t Chinese in the restaurant, and second, when we sat down the hostess walked over and placed forks next to our chopsticks. We were the only ones who got forks.

We ordered up and I guess it was a delicious meal, but I don’t remember much about it. In fact, since then, I think I probably had dim sum only one or two other times. There was a major gap between then and now. And now I can’t imagine life without dim sum.

I am always on the lookout for dim sum here in Japan. It is easier to get here than it is in California, but for the longest time even in Japan I never really sought it out. Then during a trip to Taiwan with Yoshi and Mamiko I was kind of reintroduced to steamed dumplings, and it all sort of clicked and I was completely hooked. In kind of a blazing epiphany I realized that I could get dim sum (or some version thereof) just about anywhere in Japan. We’re near Kobe’s Chinatown, the second largest Chinatown in Japan, and I just never really thought about it. Now I can’t get through a month without a heap of dumplings, shumai, or shorompo.

Interesting to imagine that I lived for about twenty years before ever trying dim sum, and then lived another twenty after that before I really understood how much I loved it. Food is like that, I think – the situation and the atmosphere plays a big role in whether you like something, or love it. You need to be out there trying new foods, trying variations on old foods, and enjoying them in different circumstances. It took three years of living in Japan before I tried sakuramochi (my favorite Japanese dessert), and I lived for nearly forty years before discovering my love for truffles.

One of the real perks of living in Japan is having easy access to so many other countries. We’re taking advantage of that this weekend, and flying off to Hong Kong where Kuniko is treating me to a dim sum trip for an early birthday present. Rather than spending a lot of time sightseeing we’re going to be focusing on dim sum in the mecca of dim sum eaters around the world. This may be our second time staying in Hong Kong but the trip this time is all about eating our fill of dim sum. To kiss the feet of the dim sum gods, as it were.

We fly out tomorrow morning, and we’ll be back on Sunday with full bellies and tired feet, hopefully ready to get back into the work routine. I’ll blog about the trip once we get back!

Lately Kuniko and I have been undergoing kind of a weird eating regimen. I don’t honestly recall exactly when we started it – maybe from the beginning of summer. During the week we eat a healthy, simple dinner. Usually we have just a raw cabbage salad, with maybe a few bites of kimchi. Kuniko will also have some natto, maybe some yogurt, and that’s it. We do this four days a week – Monday through Thursday. Then, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday we have more exotic (and higher calorie) foods. Grilling, sautes, salads, whatever we like.

This kind of menu really works well for our schedules. I usually get home a little earlier than Kuniko so I can jump on the exercise bike and ride for an hour or so, then come downstairs and chop cabbage for our dinner. It has been so hot and humid lately that a cold cabbage salad hits the spot every time.

Since we eat mainly just salad and greens during the week, when the weekend comes around we can really enjoy the richer foods and they taste more special. Once the season turns cooler we’ll get back into soups, nabe, and curries, and those leftovers will end up being my lunch for work during the week as well. I can’t wait to fire up the slow cooker again soon.

Last weekend was a good example of eating good foods. On Friday night we were invited over to the Yamaji’s suddenly to visit with some friends of Yuki’s. The lady was originally from Morocco and had met Yuki in San Francisco while he was studying there. Her boyfriend was originally from the Domincan Republic and together they were taking a year or so to travel around the world and see the sights. Yuki’s place was one stop on their tour, and the Yamaji’s were nice enough to serve a delicious dinner of okonomiyaki while we talked and shared stories outside in the cooling weather.

After a wild night of okonomiyaki (and tequila) we slept in on Saturday. It was tough getting going, but since the weather was really beautiful we decided to take a run to a burger shop in Nishinomiya. We went to Awaji-shima Burger, right near Nishinomiya station. I had been there on my own before, but this was Kuniko’s first time. The burgers were good, and the dark, kind of dirty environment only contributes to the greasy-spoon feeling. This time I noticed that they put some kind of sauce on their grilled onions, and we felt the sauce was too strong – it dominated the overall flavor of the burger. The rest of the burger was great, but next time, I’m asking them to hold the sauce, please.

For dinner on Saturday we marinated some shrimp in cajun spices, olive oil and tabasco, and then put them on skewers and grilled them outside on the barbeque. I also grilled some onions (to see if I could do it better than the Awaji-shima Burger place), and Kuniko peeled garlic cloves and wrapped them with some butter and salt inside aluminum foil and cooked them on the grill. After taking the garlic off the grill it was perfectly roasted and browned on the outside, and soft and mild on the inside. Kuniko also made an avocado, tomato and mozzarella basil salad to go with the rest of the food. We were still a little full from the burger restaurant, but dinner was excellent. We had plenty of leftovers to work with for the next few days.

Sunday Kuniko had to go in to work to help out a student, so I did a little shopping and relaxed the rest of the day in the cool living room. For dinner I made three sandwiches that we divided and ate with dill pickles. Sandwich number one, salami with garlic and herb ricotta cheese on all-grain bread. Sandwich number two, cajun shrimp (leftovers), cilantro, and smashed avocado on a soft French roll. Sandwich number three, grilled cheese sandwich with Colby cheese and grilled onions (leftovers, too). This last sandwich was a big hit – we can’t get enough grilled cheese sandwiches since watching “Chef”.

So on the weekend it is all about the food, and we are really enjoying it. We’ll have to watch our calories during the week, but so far it is totally worth it!