Japan’s Memorable Meals & Neighbourhoods

Today was a relaxing stay-near-home kinda day for the most part.

I sure wish I had written down what I ate every day but unfortunately I didn't. Mrs. Tsugawa always had breakfast at the ready whenever I came down in the morning which was usually between 7:30 and 8:30 AM. Breakfast always consisted of a plate of sliced fruit: apple, banana, kiwi, persimmon; a container of yogurt; and then either soup or salad. Imagine my surprise when one morning a bowl of hot miso soup greeted me. Another morning was steamed kale and carrot, all chopped very fine and served cold; another morning was cooked cabbage served cold with fried sliced egg. Eating soups and salads for breakfast was definitely an oddity for me but as was my mantra on this trip "When in Rome do as the Romans do" so I happily enjoyed the experience of eating soup and salad for breakfast.

Shortly after breakfast was finished Mrs. Tsugawa prepped lunch. She has a very hi-tech "Tiger" brand rice cooker which has it permanent home on the counter. She washed the rice very well and put it into the rice cooker. She added julienned carrots, shitake mushrooms, Japanese mushrooms; a can of scallops with the juice, daishe (sp?) which is a fish stock (made with little fish boiled in water, remove the fish and feed to the cat (if they had one)), and use the fish stock to cook the rice, and cooking sake. She set the timer and said lunch would be ready at 11:30.

Daishe comes in many forms: powdered, liquid, and the little dried fish that you can boil in water to make a stock. [Note: I saw a box of Daishe in the store here in Vancouver. It was $16!] Mrs. Tsugawa gave me a big box of daishe to bring home to Vancouver. Inside the box are 3 foil packages. To make about 3 cups of stock, you use 3 tsp of daishe... it'll last me forever.

I decided to go out for a walk around the community to see if I could find an ATM that would accept my Visa debit card. The day previous Tsu and I had tried two ATMs but neither worked, the latter one finally spat out a slip of paper written in Japanese and English that said my card was either expired or invalid and that I should call my bank. The night previous before bed I dialed the number on the back of the card and it wouldn't work but the error message was in Japanese so I had no idea what the voice was telling me. Tsu was already in bed so I couldn't ask him to translate. I tried dialing a couple more times and each time I got a Japanese voice, I spoke in English "Is this the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce?", an English-speaking voice came on and asked me if I wanted the Police, Fire, or Ambulance and was there anyone with me that spoke Japanese. So much for trying to contact my bank. No clue how much those calls will come to on my cell phone...argh!

At breakfast I explain to Tsu about my trying to phone my bank. He lets me use his cell phone and the call goes through. I talk with the agent for 7 minutes and am all the while cognizant of it being a long distance call on a friend's phone, all the while the CIBC agent is trying to do his sweet but long customer service chit-chat schpeel. I tell him I am calling long distance on a freind's cell phone and would rather skip the niceties! He tells me there is no valid reason why my debit card won't work so to try again.

At about 10:45 I go out for a walk and Tsu tells me to be back at 11:30 for lunch. I am looking for an ATM with the world-recognized PLUS symbol but I don't see one. I do, however, see a Police Box (similar to a community policing station). On the Tokyo tour, the tour guide had mentioned the Police Box which is a small police station with a few officers inside just waiting to answer questions and be of assistance. The tour guide said that if ever we needed any assistance the Police Box was a good place to stop in to. So I thought, "what do I have to lose". I open the door and there are three officers inside. I ask "Does anyone speak English"? An older officer says he speaks a little bit of English. I show him my Visa debit card and explain that I am looking for an ATM with the PLUS symbol. He walks me to an ATM. Despite the fact I had already tried that exact ATM yesterday I try it again. Nope. Nothing's changed overnight and it still won't work. So we walk the 1/4 block back to the police box. He speaks Japanese to the other officers and one gets out his cell phone and Googles the CIBC Debit Card and the PLUS symbol. They aren't making any progress. The older officer tells me to just wait and he'll be right back. Meanwhile I'm looking at my watch as I need to be home at 11:30. It's now 11:15. I wait about 5 minutes and the officer comes back and tells me to just wait a couple of minutes. In minutes an American opens the door to the Police Box and says "can I help you?"  I explain my dilemma. He tells me there's an American ATM in the shopping mall and "do you want me to take you there?" Sure! As we're walking to the mall (which I didn't even know was in the vicinity) I ask him how the officer got in touch with him. He said he works in the Soba Noodle Shop in the Abiko train station and that the police officer called his boss and his boss told him to go to the police station. Man, I'm blown away by the kindness. That would NEVER happen in Vancouver. I find out the guy is from Pennsylvania, has a Japanese wife and a baby. He walks me to the back of the department store in the shopping mall where the "American ATM" is situated. Eureka! I'm finally able to withdraw some Japanese Yen. By now it's 11:40 and I hustle back towards Tsu's house arriving 15 minutes late for lunch.

Here are some photos of the neighbourhood around Tsu's home.

Walking around the neighbourhood in Abiko Prefecture.

Beautiful entrance to an apartment complex

Front entrance to Tsu's home

The Tsugawa's have a long history in this neighbourhood.

The scallop rice dish "Mazegoham" smells delicious and it tastes even better than it smells. It becomes my favourite Japanese meal that I've eaten thus far. I'm thankful that I wrote down the recipe and watched Mrs. Tsugawa prepare it so I can make it in Vancouver.

Mr. and Mrs. Tsugawa have appointments so they go out and Tsu goes out to do a delivery job. Tsu also has a delivery business. I'm not sure how he gets his jobs but he gets a call and then he's gone in his van sometimes hundreds of kilometres from Abiko City. With everyone going out I take advantage of the opportunity to have a nap knowing that I want to be spry for my evening out with Emiko.

I am home alone at 5:00 PM when Emiko rings the doorbell.  I lock up the house and we walk the couple of blocks to the train at the Abiko Station and go one stop. We're in a different city now. It looks like a newer suburb with a few hi-rise apartments and a big shopping centre. We visit a lovely department store and I wish I could spend 1/2 the day in this place just looking at every floor and all the items and seeing the rest of the shopping mall. But we spend about 30 minutes here and I buy what I had on my wish list: a cast iron Japanese teapot and some chopsticks. We've waited so long for the clerk to wrap the items (they don't just throw purchases into a shopping bag like they do in North America -- the items get individually wrapped in paper and then are put into a plastic bag) that we're now late for our dinner reservation. Emiko calls the restaurant and changes our time and it's not an issue. Good thing the restaurant is less than a block from the department store.

Me and Emiko enjoying a wonderful dinner.

Emiko has made a dinner reservation at a restaurant inside the hotel where she had her wedding reception four years earlier. The restaurant is basically empty: we are one of three tables with patrons. It is a pre-fixe menu which is a good thing because I don't have a clue what most of the stuff is on the menu eventhough I have an English copy to read from. There must've been 10 courses to the menu. Oh my word, the food never stopped coming. We'd eat one plate and then another one would come. This went on for over an hour. Of course I can't remember most of what I ate but a few things were memorable. Am glad I took a photo of every course. One of the courses was a plate of a variety of seafood: there was a grouping of about a dozen little fish that were so small they obviously were not gutted and the head and tail were still on them. There were very crunchy. I ate about 3 of them and wasn't really enjoying the experience so Emiko happily took the remainder from my plate and ate them. Squid was also on the plate. Certainly not the Greek style squid I love eating with tzaziki sauce. Nope, these pieces obviously came from some gigantic 8-armed creature as we were each served a large portion of white meat with the skin on. I pulled the skin off -- eating fish skin is something I could not do in Japan despite my trying to be like a Roman. Japanese happily eat fish skin and say it is high in protein. We were both happy when we neared the end of our meal. We were getting stuffed and Emiko is 8 months pregnant and her stomach just can't consume that much food. Dessert was a very memorable beautifully presented variety of chocolate desserts. The food presentation in this restaurant was absolutely lovely.

Presentation is very important.

Dessert - one plate for each of us!

We walk to the train station. Emiko offers to get off at Abiko Station and walk me to Tsu's house - she has to go one station past Abiko. I assure her that I am familiar with the neighbourhood and that it is completely unnecessary for her to walk me home, instead she should just stay on the train and go straight home which she does.

It's 10:30 PM by the time I get home. I'm not sure if anyone is up so I use my key and let myself in. Mrs. Tsugawa greets me and she is "wowing" over all of the shopping bags I am carrying. I am excited to show her my purchases and she admires the teapot.

It's bedime now. All I know about tomorrow is we are going on an overnight road trip but I have no idea where to.