Travel – Page 5 – Ian Louis Harris

Japan Day Five: Tsumago to Takayama, 24 October 2018

However much I try to be ready ahead of an earlyish travel day, it always seems like a bit of a rush in the end – this morning was no exception.

Of course there was bags of time when I rose, with difficulty, from the futon bed at 4.00 am to enjoy the onsen for one last time and relax myself sufficiently to go back to sleep again before 5.00. Of course there was loads of time to do some writing up first thing when I did rise properly.

There even seemed to be bags of time when we went down to breakfast at 7:45 with little left to do. Yet that Japanese style breakfast takes time even when you don’t want to eat all that much of it…

… so when I couldn’t find the version of the key that had the safe key on it, 20 minutes before our transfer bus, I did start to worry.

But of course I had only temporary mislaid the key and of course I was still downstairs and had settled the bill 15 minutes before the shuttle bus.

When Janie emerged five minutes or so after that, she was carrying not only her own bag but also that of “Mrs Tinker”, with “Mr & Mrs Tinker” following behind.

I must now explain about that couple, who were also staying at Fukinomori. To protect their identity we shall refer to them as Mr & Mrs Tinker. They clearly didn’t seem at all happy. We had heard Mrs Tinker grumble about her food and the fact that Hideo couldn’t speak English. We had heard very little from the Tinker table at meal times; he seemed to speak hardly at all. They didn’t seem at all friendly. I did hear them at the front desk the previous morning making their arrangements to leave, so I knew we would be on that shuttle together and I guessed they might be travelling our way.

It reminded both of us a little of The Taylor Couple Saga in Malawi (deep in those notes but eventually to be Ogblogged), where we noticed a disagreeable couple early in our trip and discovered that they were following us around for most of our Malawi holiday.

But unlike the Taylors of Malawi, the “Tinkers of Japan” turned out to be a pleasant, but unfortunate couple who had been blighted by her mobility health issues between booking the trip and setting off for Japan. Like us, they were using Audley travel. Like us, they were travelling next to Takayama. Naturally we compared notes.

Strangely, the Tinkers were scheduled (and reserved) on the express train from Nagoya to Takayama at 11:43, over an hour before our reserved train at 12:48 but only eight minutes after the local train arrives at Nagoya.

There were other English speakers on the shuttle bus (a nice Aussie couple) and on the local trains (a nice Scottish couple from Nantwich), which helped pass the time.

Meanwhile, I hatched a plan to try to get to Takayama earlier than expected, by dint of us helping the Tinkers to get to their train on time and us grabbing a couple of unreserved seats on said train…which worked.

In the unreserved car, Daisy and I snacked on the ginger snap-style biscuits that Janie bought in Tsumago for just such a snacking urgency. A Japanese family showed us how you can rotate seats to sit foursome style or airplane twosome style. As the unreserved car was not well populated, we took advantage of thus double-seating.

Why we were recommended a later train whereas the Tinkers were recommended the quick change is a bit of a mystery. The Tinkers had not gone through Tim at Audley and perhaps Tim felt that the eight minute turnaround at a big station was too tight to mention. Certainly Mr Tinker was worried about that aspect of the journey and for sure the Tinkers would have struggled to make it on time without our help.

Still, in the end, we helped the Tinkers and the Tinkers helped us. They seemed extremely grateful to us for our help and disappointed to discover that we wouldn’t be leaving Takayama on the same day.

So, here we were in Takayama with a bit of extra time on our hands. We checked in to the Best Western, efficiently picking up our forwarded baggage.

Janie was very keen to see the Yoshijima Heritage House, which was not scheduled on our tour and I thought, if we had time, would be an excellent short visit that first afternoon, followed by a stroll back through the Sanmatchi (Old Town) district. So it proved.

Janie took loads of photos in the exquisit and tranquil Yoshijima Heritage House, which had been the home of a wealthy money lender and sake maker.

We then strolled to the heaving Sanmatchi district – possibly not the best time of day to see it if you want a sense of tranquility there – it was heaving with tourists and schoolchildren fresh out of school- but certainly a good time to pick up on the vibe of the street food snacking that is the hallmark of this unusual Japanese town.

We decided to follow the lead of our Dutch friends in Tsumago and try the green tea (in our case mixed with vanilla) ice cream. Janie thought it tasted a bit like Odono’s green tea flavour, which made her realise why she sees so many Japanese people in Odono’s. So as we thought, not especially unusual for us – unlike the chestnut flavour which doesn’t seem to have made it to Takayama.

Then back to the hotel to plan our evening meal. After much research, we settled on Ajikura Tengoku which is only three minutes from our hotel and was well recommended not only by Tim but by the TripAdvisor community, including recent reviews.

But that place turned out to be full and you cannot book – you simply have to turn up in good time – we planned to try again tomorrow. So, all dressed up with no place to go, I reverted to TripAdvisor and Google, to find what I thought was a highly-recommended pub-restaurant named Hu.

We ate a splendid simple pub meal of pork ramen, gyoza, fried chicken, fried rice and sake. Served well and efficiently – the owner-chef seemed delighted when I let him know we thought the food was delicious. We turned up at just the right time as the counter filled up soon after we arrived as did, briefly, the low-level eating area which would not have suited us.

Anyway, the meal was a success by any measure…

…but there seems to be some confusion about the place. On re-Googling, while finishing our sake, we discover that Hu is a cocktail bar nearby – no mention of food – whereas we had been eating in a tavern named Nanairo. As good fortune would have it, Nanairo is also highly regarded by the TripAdvisor community and quite rightly so.

Thus we had found exactly what we had been looking for through a flawed method. We’re on holiday – who cares? – the bit that matters is that we had a good meal and a good time.

All the pictures from Day Five can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Four: Fukinomori, Tsumago And Magome, 23 October 2018

The centrepiece of our day was a walk from Magome to Tsumago.

First thing in the morning though, before breakfast, what else does one do other than take a quick onsen at a place like Fukinomori? This time I braved the outside onsen as well as the inside one, although only briefly in the morning. I met a nice (Canadian I think) gentleman who was trying to persuade his young son to try the facilities. They braved the outside onsen together once I returned unscathed. Daisy didn’t brave the outside in the morning but had a peaceful time in the ladies onsen.

A very fancy-shmancy breakfast with lots of different nibbles to try and an element of “cook yourself” which seems to be the signature of this place. I’ll let these pictures tell most of the story:

Then we took the 9:50 hotel shuttle into Tsumago, which is designed to link up near-perfectly with the local bus to Magome. That local bus was very crowded and/but helped me to get my bearings a bit for the hike back – not that you need bearings because the hiking trail is incredibly well signposted.

Still, when we got to Magome I wanted to get hold of a better map than the one the hotel issued, which doesn’t actually cover the Magome bit. In any case, Magome looked like a beautiful little old-style village.

Along the way to the tourist office I was foolish enough to be tempted by a sweetmeat vendor’s offering (see pictures) which promised a secret sauce on the rice ball thingies. Daisy and I agreed that the lady is welcome to keep that recipe secret as far as we were concerned.

No, really our culinary mission and reward for hiking all the way to Tsumago was to be the chestnut ice cream, which Tim had promised to be absolutely delicious. Whenever Daisy dawdled a while, I reminded her that all the Tsumago shops tend to run out of chestnut ice cream and or close for several hours in the afternoon.

In the end, Daisy stated that the promised chestnut ice cream was probably not going to be worth the effort, so she dawdled as much as she wanted anyway.

In Magome, we did fancy looking around before hiking, so after successfully getting a map from the tourist office, we both liked the look of the Toson Memorial Museum, just across the way and something a little different. Shimazaki Toson was a famous Japanese writer who was raised in Magome for several of his earlier years. The old family home, which was destroyed by fire over 100 years ago, has been faithfully restored and turned into a museum and library. It was a very good way to learn more about that village, that sort of village life and Shimazaki Toson himself in one easy visit.

We met some nice Japanese gentlemen in the museum who gave us some fruits from a tree, we thought they were kumquats but we latter found out that the bitter, orange-coloured fruit of that region is actually persimmon and that we were probably given those, not kumquats. Both are indigenous to Japan, so who knows?

Then off on our hike. So well signposted, I really didn’t need the map, other than to Identify some of the landmarks along the way. The first part of the walk is predominantly up hill and quite arduous, but the majority of the walk this way around is a rather gentle decline into Tsumago. That I’m sure is the main reason why the recommended leisure hike is in the direction Magome to Tsumago. We encountered a few people walking the other way; not many.

Walking seems to be reasonably popular with Japanese people, though; as we neared Tsumago we encountered several Japanese tour groups walking, although we suspected that they were not doing as long or intensive a walk as ours.

The Magome to Tsumago trail is a small part (7.7 km) of the historic Nakasendo highway, which dates back to the Edo period joining Edo (Tokyo) to Kyoto – one of five such historic Imperial highways in Japan.

But none of that bothered us as we walked. We had three concerns. Firstly, to enjoy the glorious countryside and vistas on this trail.

Secondly, to be on the lookout for Asiatic bears; a rare sight in that forest by all accounts but that hasn’t stopped the authorities from placing bells to frighten off the bears at regular intervals along the trail. People seem to love ringing those bells for some reason and I took pains to try and growl like a bear whenever I heard one of the bells ring.

Thirdly, our mission to find chestnut ice cream in Tsumago, which, by the time we were getting close to the town, had revived in Daisy’s mind and was most certainly back on the agenda.

Without too much difficulty, we found a chestnut ice cream vendor in the centre of town, together with a nice Dutchman to take our photo for us.

He told us that chestnut ice cream was no big deal to a Dutchman because they can get that in the Netherlands; he and his mates were obsessing about green tea ice cream, which, we explained, is a commonplace in the UK – well, our part of London anyway.

If chestnut ice cream in the Netherlands tastes like this, I’m a Dutchman

Revived by our ice cream but realising that Tsumago is really quite a similar town to Magome, we took a few nice photos and decided to taxi back to the hotel, ahead of those who would prefer to wait another 90 minutes or so for the hotel shuttle.

That way, Daisy cleverly surmised, we’d probably have the onsen to ourselves at one of the nicest parts of the day. She was right and we both took full advantage of the outdoor onsen at that hour, only encountering other people as we were leaving.

I did some early evening blogging and then we took our evening meal – another marathon effort this time served by Mede – a very sweet young Moroccan fellow who had also served our breakfast.

I hope this isn’t one of the ducks we photographed earlier…

I won’t list all the dishes again and we weren’t given the running order this time, but we pretty much enjoyed everything we ate this evening apart from a savoury custard inbetweeny dish that seemed a bit weird to us and apparently pretty much always finds disapproval with the western diners. We settled on one of the sakes from last night which had pleased us the most and stuck with that for a couple of rounds.

Another really lovely day.

All the pictures from Day Four can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Three: Journey To Tsumago And Fukinomori, 22 October 2018

An early start today, finishing the packing, forwarding our baggage, breakfasting and checking out of the Park Hotel.

Frankly, we allowed far more time than was strictly necessary because the hotel was so incredibly efficient at doing its bits of the above process.

I was pretty efficient at doing my bit, which was to route us through a pretty complicated-sounding journey without mishaps and in good time.

We are now on our railcards so we cannot use automated barriers. This enabled me to use the (apparently non-male) technique of asking an official each time we went through a barrier which platform we needed for our next destination; just saying the name seemed to be enough but pointing to it on my piece of paper always sealed the deal.

Daisy took loads of photos on this journey, including one picture of Mount Fuji as we zoomed past it which I really cannot believe she managed to get that way – especially as she almost missed it and came rushing over to snap the icon at just the right moment.

We took a cab the last leg of the journey (this time aided by Daisy who spotted a tourist information booth at the railway station which I had missed – the lady in there called us a cab which came straight away – I think we might have waited a good few minutes otherwise). They don’t seem to expect tourists to be willing to fork out for cabs in that sort of remote part. They must have told us five times how much it cost (which was also clearly displayed on the taxi rank in English) to cab to Fukinomori – about £35 – which seemed worthwhile to me rather than wait hours for the local bus.

We got to the Fukinomori ryokan ahead of check in time, although we did blag our way to our room early after a few minutes waiting. There we relaxed, taking advantage of the afternoon sun on our terrace and I spent some time also fiddling about with the photos to make sure they were all backed up in the cloud in the way I want them.

Then, as the sun was setting, we braved the onsen – hot spring bath – located within Fukinomori. A false start as we had not put our yukata on properly, nor had we donned our tabi (socks), so a rather anxious member of staff took us back to our room and showed us what to do.

Ryokans are traditional Japanese inns and all guests are expected to comply with the traditions in these charming, rule-bound places.

Second time lucky in the onsen. I chatted for a while with a lovely older gentleman from Brooklyn, Ron, who was full of interesting stories about his life and eventually suggested that the onsen might make an excellent mikveh.

Ron left before me, but by the time I got out, Mrs Ron was sending out search parties for Ron and Janie was wondering where I had got to. I really enjoyed my long soak and for sure will be back for more.

Then down to dinner soon after that for a fabulous Kaiseki meal:

Superb food, served gracefully by Hideo, who had also been our orienteer when we first arrived. Hideo’s English is not great, but he tries very hard and I was able to understand him. Some of the other residents seemed less patient with him at dinner and kept asking for the waitress, who had better English, to explain the dishes to them.

We saw Ron and Mrs Ron after dinner, who expressed great delight at their meal. They are strictly Kosher and they felt this was the one place that had really taken care not only to adhere to their restrictions but to prepare a well-balanced and delicious meal within their constraints. No horse intestine for those two, then. Tofu instead, perhaps? Even I might have preferred the tofu ahead of the horse and I’m no fan of tofu. We chewed, oh yes, we chewed. Strong meat too, horse intestine. But we absolutely loved all the other dishes.

An early night on our futon mats. I’m not entirely sure I am cut out for those – he says, writing up between 4.00 and 5.00 the next morning!

All the pictures from Day Three can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Two: Tokyo Art Galleries And A Surprisingly Ill-Served Meal, 21 October 2018

That feeling of jet lag and the realisation that we aren’t quite as young as we used to be hit us this morning. We had done a vast amount the day before and most unusually both slept on to surprise ourselves at around 9:00, at which point we got our skates on for breakfast.

Daisy in particular went into slow-down mode, so we didn’t get out until 11:30/11:45. Still, we had planned a more modest itinerary for today, not least because we knew we’d need some evening time to get our luggage sorted out ahead of tomorrow’s sojourn to Tsumago while our main luggage will go to Takayama.

Daisy had been obsessing the last few days about Yayoi Kusama who has had a new museum dedicated to her work open in Tokyo recently, but which seems to be an utter sell out. We tried, the concierge tried, we knew that some of Daisy’s high-falutin’ clients had tried and failed…

My suggestion was that we go to the MOMAT (Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo), not least in search of Yayoi Kusama but in any case to see the modern art more generally. (Spoiler alert – we found one Yayoi Kusama art work there plus an excellent book about her).

Actually the MOMAT was well worth seeing generally – spanning the early modern period to the present day and showing the work of some Western artists who had influenced or been influenced by Japanese artists, as well as mostly Japanese work.

Too many dicks, not enough Yayoi Kusamas (just this one)

After MOMAT, we strolled along the top of the Imperial Palace Gardens for 15 minutes or so to avoid changing metro lines and to see some Tokyo Sunday life.

That neighbourhood was jogger central on a Sunday – some sort of organised thing from what we could gather. The first batch that whizzed past us were running space cadet style. The ones Daisy eventually photographed were less than special joggers who did not look as though they were enjoying themselves.

Then on to the Nezu Museum, in an up-market looking neighbourhood. If Ginza is Piccadilly, then that area, Minato, is perhaps Sloane-Chelsea.

The Nezu Museum has a beautiful garden…

…and we were really in luck regarding the displays, as a fascinating exhibition about tea paraphernalia had opened the previous day; Momoyama Tea Utensils: A New View. Perhaps for that reason, there were a great many women dressed in traditional costume at the Museum that day. Daisy discreetly photographed them, although didn’t quite capture the strange sight of these traditional-look people taking selfies and consulting iPads.

The Nezu Cafe was a delight in terms of its look and the charming service. Lovely tea (ironically green tea not available – also sold out of most cakes!) but a truly stylish cafe with sweet staff.

Then back to Ginza. While we were taking tea, Daisy had an inspired idea to make it a one meal late afternoon/early evening day, so we’d get home in good time to pack and enjoy a quiet evening.

We chose Gonpachi; one of the recommended restaurants in our Audley pack. We fancied trying the grills – we hadn’t really tried those yet. Finding the place allowed us to see a bit more of Ginza – it really is a huge shopping district.

A big eatery although not very full at 17:00 on a Sunday – Gonpachi certainly had a buzz about it but my goodness we had terrible service. OK food – if or when it arrived – but truly poor service. Our first disappointment was to spot Kukuni – slow cooked belly pork – on the menu, only to be told that it was off today. Fair enough – we’ll search high and low for Kukuni for the next couple of weeks doubtless.

We ordered a stack of other things, seemingly well advised by a waiter who told us the recommended sequence for serving our dishes, But when our order came, some of our grills (the chicken skin ones) came they not. Nor did they tempura come, which had been promised before the grills. When we raised this point, we were told that the chicken skins were off today (but they had taken that as part of our order) and that the tempura would be five more minutes. Eventually it came. Then we waited for our soba noodles…and waited and waited. Eventually we asked and were told it would be five minutes.

No apologies or attempts to put matters right for us in any other way. Gonpachi – remember the name. The place must have gone down hill since Tim or James from Audley recommended it.

No real harm done, though, we went home to pack and relax ahead of tomorrow’s journey. We’d had a great day.

All the pictures from Day Two can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day One: Tokyo, 20 October 2018

We did a pretty good job of sleeping at appropriate hours, given the time difference, assisted by a very large, comfortable bed.

We both took a relatively light breakfast – we’d had a pretty substantial meal the evening before – see day Zero report – click here or below:

Japan Day Zero: Journey To Tokyo And Our First Evening There, 18 to 19 October 2018

I had croissants, yoghurt and fruit. Daisy had egg and toast.

Then we met our guide for the morning, Keiko. First up, she wanted to check all the tickets I had already been issued, then sort out with us getting the rail card authorised and seat reservations made for those elements that couldn’t be arranged for us in advance. In amongst all that, she was to explain how the PASMO card worked and how we might get around and eventually away from Tokyo.

What a palaver that turned out to be.

Before we met Keiko, I thought I understood most of it and also thought that the nice lady at the airport had explained the tricky bits of it to me. Then Keiko got going. Daisy took some photographs of this process which probably tell the story far better than words.

Hunched shoulders suggest the onset of tension

“In which case, what the blithering **** is this one?”

“We locals find it complicated too”, pleads Keiko.

Eventually we were ready to set off for Tokyo station, where we could get our rail passes authorised and seat reservations made and start out orientation tour of Tokyo.

Keiko showed us the subterranean world underneath our hotel and much of the surrounding area; not that you need to use the subterranean part quite so much but she was very keen to show us the route we need to follow the day we leave Tokyo, which did sort of make sense.

It was our good fortune that, while we woke to a rather cloudy looking day, by the time we emerged at Tokyo station the sun had come out, Even more so when we emerged again from Tokyo station with our rail passes and reservations – another minor palaver not least because the official seemed very keen for me to fill in the forms while standing, using only a flimsy plastic clip board for support. My handwriting is bad enough at the best of times and I insisted, in a rather inappropriately forceful, Western style I imagine, on having something more substantial to lean upon.

Bureaucracy satisfied, Keiko suggested that we look at the gardens around the Imperial Palace area, which was in easy walking distance from Tokyo station. Given the now glorious weather, that seemed a very sensible next move.

The outer gardens are rather charming sculpted fountains and the like. Then we went to the Eastern Garden, which is more like a London park in size and density of foliage. Very different look of course.

Keiko tried to explain the history of the place, the Edo period etc., together with the symbolism of many of the gates and carvings around the place. Janie found that a bit dense for a stroll in the park and spent much of the time, when not looking at the glorious greenery, plotting the next stage of our Tokyo day – which mostly involved seeing some trendy neighbourhoods recommended by her/our good friend Anthea.

Keiko was happy to sponsor (and indeed took great pains to tell us that she had a budget for) a taxi ride to our chosen location and some refreshments once we got there. So we taxi-rode to Harajuku, where we landed at Tokyo Plaza and went up to the Starbucks roof garden, to enjoy our traditional western-style drinks in a youthful environment.

By this stage of the proceedings, I was flying with my wireless internet connection and Mr Google, so we really felt that Keiko had completed her assignment – which was just as well because four hours had pretty much gone by. She stuck around with us, enjoying the drinks I think, before we said goodbye to her as I was making a bee-line for one of two ramen places that Mr Goggle told me were hot in the alleys nearby.

Oreryu was my top pick and it turned out to be a very good one. You choose your main ingredients on a machine which takes your money and vends only tickets. Janie chose roast pork ramen, I chose ramen with fried chicken.

Then a hostess/waitress takes your tickets and asks you several questions regarding the style of noodle-cooking (we chose medium), type of stock (we chose chicken) and in my case garnish (spinach). We queued on benches outside, then were stewarded to share a table with other noodle-slurpers.

Apart from a tiny mishap with my chicken pieces…

…which came so soon after my request (with much apology) they must have already been prepared for me, just not delivered, the meal was a resounding success in terms of flavour and service. Rather more than we intended to eat for lunch, but a superb meal.

Refreshed, we went in search of Brahms Path, which Anthea had recommended as an antidote to the heaving neighbourhoods that are Harajuku and Shibuya-Ku.

Indeed, once we strayed onto the main strip, Takeshita Street, we realised why Anthea recommended for us the maze of alleyways – with second-hand shops and other Portobello/Camden Lock-like treasures. All was worth seeing of course, including the heaving crowds on the main stretches.

Then we strolled back through the alleyways (ignoring Mr Google for once, who was keen for us to take the main strip) to find Shibuya Crossing, said to be the most crowded, shambolic crossing of all – although the one by Tokyo Plaza seemed, to us, perhaps a tad more manic. Judge for yourselves from the photos. Daisy was in her element here, clicking away.

Then the train to Ginza, to see the contrast with up-market shops. We checked out Matsuya, one of the better-known department stores.

“Pedestrianised” usually means “for walkers”, but in Ginza it also attracts “sitters”.

Then strolled with purpose in the direction of Ginza Six. I had read about the roof garden views and guessed that Ginza Six might also be a suitable place for some much needed (in my case) refreshment.

Like the mighty hunter that I am, I spotted my quarry and started to make a bee-line for Ginza Six. “Oh look, Uniqlo”, said Daisy, thwarting my plans for imminent views and refreshment.

Uniqlo in Ginza is a massive store which apparently sells stuff that Daisy likes. Several agonising floors, heaving with people and stewards trying to get people in, to their chosen floor and our again, later, Daisy had achieved her purpose. Along the way, several trial and errors in search of the desired garments, then I ended up a fair wad (although a much smaller wad than would have been the case in London) lighter. We emerged again, heads spinning, just in time to get to Ginza Six and see the rooftop garden at dusk. Well worth seeing – we got several good shots of Uniqlo across the way, ironically.

Refreshments tasted that much better for the extra wait. Then we headed back to the Park Hotel by foot, just as it started to drizzle with rain.

Mr Weather-app told us that the drizzle might turn to proper wet rain later, so we chose to stay in the hotel that evening (we weren’t that hungry) and snack on small bites in the Art Cafe in our hotel.

The lovely Ieva looked after us again, as did a funky waiter who helped us to enjoy some Japanese wine – a very unusual but subtle Chardonnay – Golch from Koshu and a Cabernet Sauvignon Tatikarao from Miyazaki, which includes some wild indigenous grapes that makes that blackberry-like flavour of Cabernet Sauvignon really shine through.

A truly super day.

All the pictures from Days Zero and One can be seen by clicking the Flickr link here or below:

Japan Day Zero: Journey To Tokyo And Our First Evening There, 18 to 19 October 2018

18 October 2018

We set off from Noddyland late afternoon. Daisy’s packing for this holiday was epic; the case was so heavy we couldn’t even weigh it to conclude that it was overweight until we had removed enormous quantities of extraneous lotions and potions.

At one point Daisy decided that she was never, ever, ever going to travel again, while I decided that I would never, ever, ever travel again with her.

Yet somehow we got the weight down (partly by balancing between her iron-clad case and my feather-light bag), so off we set – perhaps not for the very last time.

An event free journey, really. ANA was a very luxurious way to fly – the evening meal in particular was superb…

Amuse:

Cherry tomato caprese style;
Crab meat salad stuffed baby paprika;
Tandoori chicken with sour cream

We both chose Japanese Cuisine – Washoku

Zensai (A selection of morsels)

Grilled scallop with egg yolk;
Marinated thinly-sliced salmon head cartilage in bonito-vinegar sauce;
Chinese yam rolled with smoked salmon
Grilled welsh onion rolled with duck

Kobachi (Tasty titbits)

Dressed vegetables with tofu paste

Nimono (Simmered plate)

Simmered taro and eggplant in soy-based sauce

Shusai

Simmered sea bream in soy-based sauce

Steamed rice, miso soup, and Japanese pickles

Deserts, Cheese, Fruits

19 October 2018

The breakfast/lunch meal was a bit of a bland let-down after the feast that was dinner – a Kobachi of simmered brown algae in soy-based sauce and a Shusai of Japanese sake-lees grilled salmon with steamed rice, miso soup & Japanese pickles.

We arrived in the afternoon Tokyo time feeling quite travel weary.

Daisy’s running joke for the journey had been a rather greedy, small man sitting next to us who kept asking for two portions of everything When we got off the plane he even had two items of hand luggage. We got our main baggage before his had arrived, but no doubt he had at least two big bags, perhaps more?

We were met at the airport by a rather nice lady who talked me through all the passes, vouchers and rail tickets that had been pre-booked for us and explained that tomorrow’s guide would sort out the rest of them. What seemed like several hours later, we were whisked away to our hotel, the Park, which, being in the South-Eastern hotel district, was a mercifully short ride from the airport.

We showered and I slept for a couple of hours before we built up the courage to brave the Hanasanshou Japanese restaurant located inside our hotel. We tried the chef’s recommended dinner which is an excellent tour d’horizon of Japanese food. The quality was high and the service charming too. When Daisy came and sat beside me for a few minutes while we awaited our food, they decided we wanted to sit next to each other and moved another table across so we could do so. Very sweet, we thought.

The excellent Chef’s Recommended Meal can be seen on this link.

The waiter is obviously a sake-sommelier in training. He recommended a couple of really nice sakes which accompanied the food really well.

The excellent sakes were Kirabi (from Toyama – went well with the fish courses) and Abukuma (from Kukishima – went well with the meats).

At the end of the meal we chatted for a while with Ieva, a charming young woman from Lithuania who is the food and beverage front of house at the Park Hotel.

We’d arrived.

Edinburgh Day Seven: The Approach by Mark O’Rowe, Tremor by Brad Birch, Extinguished Things by Molly Taylor & Dinner Again At Roseleaf, 23 August 2018

This, our final day, started not so well, when I discovered that I had made a cock-up of our booking and that we were due to check out of our flat a day earlier than I thought; totally my own fault and a first time for me at this level of upcock. As luck would have it, the next occupant had been differently irritating by deciding at the last minute to arrive the morning after rather than that afternoon, so it was easy to make a bullet-dodging arrangement to stay on, as long as we could leave early the next day, which was in any case our plan/desire.

Again it rained in the morning, so we couldn’t play tennis and instead sorted ourselves out and had the last of the hunker-down food from the Farmers’ Market for breakfast. I had most of the splendid smoked trout while Janie enjoyed most of the remaining giant free range eggs.

As it turned out, this day then became a truly excellent day of theatre. We even pretty much dodged the showers; some heavy ones peppered the day today.

Our first gig was The Approach at the Assembly Hall. We faffed around so much over breakfast and stuff that I thought at one point we might miss this play. Instead, we arrived in time to join the back of the queue – only about 10 people behind us, so ended up sitting right at the back of quite a large space – a view to which we have both become unaccustomed for many years.

P1020884 — Not that you could tell that we were at the back from this picture

The Approach is a rather cryptic play about the interaction between three women who had formerly been close but who had drifted apart as a trio, so we might have benefited from hearing it all clearly. Three fine Irish actresses, Cathy Belton, Aisling O’Sullivan and Derbhle Crotty did a superb job open the whole but we struggled to catch every word and nuance at the back. Still, after discussing the play with other people later in the day, I think the play probably tells different stories to different listeners however well you heard the actual words. Well worth seeing; Janie even said she fancied seeing it again if it comes to London – from the aspect of better seats!

We had only ourselves to blame for that seating business and would really have only had ourselves to blame if we had failed to get from the Assembly Hall to Summerhall on time, with about 100 minutes between shows to stroll that 20 minute walk. By then Janie was very much into “we need to be at the front of the queue” mode in extremis, so I talked her out of the idea of queuing outside the Roundabout from the very start of the previous show, especially as it seemed to me that there were likely to be showers still during that hour. So we went inside and had some very decent coffee and shared a chocolate brownie in the shabby-chic cafe at Summerhall.

P1020890 — It’s the cafe that was shabby-chic, you understand.

That still gave us time to join a small, orderly queue for Tremor quite early. We chatted to a nice couple and their drama student daughter in the queue. The queue never got all that long; a few dozen of us sparsely populated the Roundabout auditorium for Brad Birch’s latest play, Tremor. We’ve seen two excellent Brad Birch plays before: The Brink and Black Mountain, both at The Orange Tree. We’d spotted this one, Tremor, while at Summerhall a few days ago and had wondered whether it would be all that different from Black Mountain when we read the synopsis. In fact it was very different play; the only similarity being the gripping and suspenseful nature of Brad Birch’s writing.

Tremor is a two-handler about a couple who survived a bus crash in which most of the passengers died. But their relationship had not survived and their physical health had recovered more readily than their mental health. Each had struggled in very different ways. The play opens with the young woman Having tracked down the young man who has made a new life for himself in another town. The drama plays out in a single scene of just under an hour.

We both thought Tremor was a really superb piece of writing and acting. We chatted afterwards with several people who had been in the auditorium, including a nice pair of South African women who I’m sure we’ll see again at the fringy-venues in London.

Part of my purpose in booking Tremor was to find ourselves in the right place at the right time to try and get returns for Extinguished Things, also at Summerhall, which was one of only a couple of productions we were especially disappointed to have found were booked out when we tried to book them. Tremor finished about two hours before Extinguished Things; i.e. about an hour before you could even try and queue for returns for that show.

We made ourselves known to a very sweet-looking young woman on the box office who promised that she would remember us as “first in the queue” for that show and/but advised us to return in 45 minutes or so. It was sunny by then, so we went into the courtyard, had a drink, watched a rather charming short puppet show by Strangeface, named Beached.

Strangeface were doing this mini-show really to promote their main show, The Hit, which sounds rather interesting. We then sat and finished our drinks, getting the opportunity to congratulate the “A Fortunate Man” team, which I recognised sitting at the next table.

Then back to the Box Office for some intricate timing to ensure that we were at the front of the queue precisely one hour before Extinguished Things. We had been promised nothing; our sweet girl had informed me that some days a few tickets come back, on one occasion just one had come back and yesterday none had come back. But her eyes lit up as the returns position was revealed – precisely two tickets had come back for this evening and we were there to snap them up. Sweet success.

In the happy intervening hour (which Janie considered passing by forming a ludicrously early queue) we had a look around some of the free exhibitions at Summerhall, including a closer look at the Jean-Pierre Dutilleux tribal photographs room – one of many unlisted treasures at Summerhall. I also booked us a table at Roseleaf for our last night meal.

Was it worth all that effort to see Extinguished Things? Well, once you have set yourselves a mission like that, the answer is “yes” by definition; it would have seemed like a failure had we not seen it. In any case, we both thought it was a charming miniature piece, written and performed by Molly Taylor, about a couple who went off on holiday never to return and the narrator’s reminiscences/imaginings when she enters their now permanently deserted nest.

In truth it is a miniature piece; not the greatest piece of writing or performance we have seen. But it is beautifully written and charmingly performed by the writer. The piece gave us plenty to think about and talk about afterwards; again we found ourselves chatting with fellow audience members after the show. I’m really pleased we got to see it in the end.

Then off to Roseleaf, where Janie wanted to repeat her dose of satay prawns and skank. I shared the prawns with her and had a monkfish burger (unusual). We washed that down with a very nice Kiwi Sauvignon Blanc. Janie indulged in an Irish coffee afterwards too, which I think she might be regretting slightly as I write on the following morning just before we set off back to London.

Another really super day at the Fringe.

All of our photographs from our week away, mostly at the Edinburgh Fringe, can be seen on our Flickr album by clicking here on the picture below:

Edinburgh Day Six: Vessel by Laura Wyatt O’Keefe, Sitting by Katherine Parkinson, #Pianodrome Live & Dinner Again At The Chop House, 22 August 2018

The weather really has mostly smiled on us for this visit to Edinburgh and in a way this day was no exception. Although it was drizzling hard in the morning, preventing us from playing tennis, the forecast said that the day would brighten up for our festival visit; which it did.

So we stayed home in the morning, making the most of the flat and having a cooked breakfast at home, using up some of the provisions we had bought in for hunkering-down purposes.

After brunch, off to town to collect tickets and then get to our first show of the day; Vessel at Bristo Square. Vessel is an excellent two-hander, performed by the writer, Laura Wyatt O’Keefe together with a fine young actor, Edward Degaetano, whom we bumped into and chatted with briefly after the performance.

We thought this piece, about the abortion debate in Ireland and the effect the strong views on the issue can have on real women’s choices/lives, was a really excellent short play. It deserves a wider airing and it was a real shame that the auditorium was not full.

Our next show was at the Teviot with just over an hour between shows; plenty of time to pop across the way to Checkpoint for some reasonably refined refreshment and for me to start getting interested in the Middlesex score as the chance of a highly unlikely win started to emerge.

On to the Teviot (what a grand looking Students’ Union that place is!) to see Sitting by Katherine Parkinson. This auditorium was full; probably because the play is by a known actress and had some exposure on the BBC. In truth, this was a rather contrived piece of writing about three life model sitters, apparently unconnected (although naturally connections emerge) and their relationship with an unseen and unheard artist.

The performers; James Alexandrou, Grace Hogg-Robinson and Hayley Jayne Standing all did their best to rescue the rather slow, tame and at times predictable script. The audience whopped and applauded wildly at the end; perhaps because the BBC had endorsed the production…or perhaps it was one of the better things that many in the audience had seen.

We emerged from that experience feeling a little irritated that, of the two things we had seen today, the production with bigger names behind it was getting the bigger audience and plaudits, despite being the lesser production in our view.

Irritation that Middlesex still needed a wicket to secure a win turned to joy at that win, before we moved on to have a stroll across town…

…in many ways retracing in reverse the stroll I took first thing in the morning when I visited Rohan Candappa’s show, a year ago to this very day:

A Day At The Edinburgh Fringe Festival With Old Muckers, 22 August 2017

Then we wandered around Charlotte Square for a while looking at the Book Festival and taking an ice cream in the sunshine.

Then on to the Royal Botanical Gardens for some more irritation as we were told that we couldn’t see the garden ahead of our 19:00 concert there; we would have to walk all the way round the outside from the East Gate (where the fringe app had sent us) to the West Gate. This seemed ludicrously jobsworth-like to me during the weeks of festival if the gardens choose to play host to a venue. Being told that we weren’t the first to voice this grievance did not make us feel better.

I snapped some genuinely dire cricket in Inverleith Park across the road while we waited for the Gardens to let the #Pianodrome Live audience in.

The Pianodrome itself is a fascinating piece of construction, made from 50 recycled pianos, five of which can still be played within the venue. It seats about 50 people reasonably comfortably and another 50 uncomfortably. We had made sure to get there early to get relatively comfortable seating.

A young woman in Edwardian drag with an infeasibly waxy false-tash acted as compère quite well.

Janie and I already knew that we were to see a folk musician named Sam Gillespie (one half of The Brothers Gillespie) as a substitute for a prog rock band named The Brackish and were quite happy with the swap. He was joined by Siannie Moodie who turned out to be an especially fine exponent of the Celtic harp (clàrsach). In fact they both turned out to be good instrumentalists but my goodness Sam Gillespie’s songs are dirgy and derivative. Imagine Donovan and Pete Seeger, both in a bad mood, writing songs together.

Meanwhile additional people entered late (we guessed mostly the entourage of the substitute musicians) and some of them sat just under our feet. One young man who was clearly in with the in crowd made an especially redolent impression on us. What is it about people who hang around musicians and negligence with regard to personal hygiene?

There was also another musician involved briefly who played a glockenspiel-type percussion instrument but whose name seemed to be unlisted. Janie had unwittingly snapped him during warm up, so if anyone reading this recognises this man and his instrument, please message in his details.

The act for the second half of the evening was also unlisted and the compère merely mumbled that name as we left for the interval; in our case not to return.

We fancied a nice dinner tonight and felt that we could get one of those if we were back in Leith at a reasonable hour, so I made a last minute booking of a table at The Chop House for another good red meat meal.

Again Ignascio looked after us very nicely as did the very sweet and attentive (if not the most efficient) waiting staff. One young waiter, on his third day, took a particular interest in helping us out with ice cream, so I invented a word for the equivalent of a sommelier for ice cream: Ísbíltúrier. Remember where you encountered the word first.

A very tasty end to another enjoyable day.

All of our photographs from our week away, mostly at the Edinburgh Fringe, can be seen on our Flickr album by clicking here on the picture below:

Edinburgh Day Five: Falkland Palace Gardens And Tennis, 21 August 2018

After Sunday’s long-signalled washout, I had been keeping a close eye on the weather forecast for the rescheduled slot for real tennis at Falkland Palace; late morning Tuesday.

The weather was smiling on us first thing and continued to smile on us for our day in Falkland.

Worrying about the weather for real tennis is an unusual experience, as almost all of the functioning courts are indoors. In fact, the Royal Court at Falkland Palace is currently the only functioning outdoor court in the world. It is also the oldest functioning tennis court in the world.

Falkland Palace is also home to the most northerly court in the world. Indeed, as neither Janie nor I had previously ventured further north than Glasgow/Livingstone/Edinburgh, our visit to Falkland was also the most northerly place we have yet been.

We allowed plenty of time to get to Falkland, but in truth it is only an hour or so’s drive from our digs in Leith.

We planned to look at the gardens as well as play tennis, but didn’t particularly want to wander around the old pile.

On arrival, I told the attendant our plans and offered to pay for garden visit tickets, but she told us that we didn’t need to pay to see the garden if we were there for tennis.

Then we met our hosts; Ewan and Kirsten Lee. An extremely pleasant couple bursting with enthusiasm for the game of real tennis. They had been unable to find a fourth player to join us, so, as planned, Janie gave it a go, despite her inexperience at the game.

I say, “Janie’s inexperience”…that court would make many an experienced dedanist feel like a fresher.

For a start, the design of the court is quite different from any other active court; it is a jeu quarré court, which means that there is no dedans for the receiver to aim at, no penthouse roof at the server’s end and no tambour on the hazard side for the server to aim at.

Instead, the receiver has a small plank of wood, the “ais”, to aim at in the right-hand corner of the server’s court. although hitting the ais only counts as a winning stroke if it hits that feature before the second bounce and without first hitting the gallery penthouse roof.

The other ludicrously tantalising and no-doubt mostly confounding targets for the receiver are four small apertures in the server’s side back wall known, as lunes.

We played a rather one-sided Scotland v England fixture for over two hours and had lots of fun, while only occasionally having long wrests. So passing visitors, of whom there were many during those hours of play, might have been forgiven, when told that there are four lunes on the Falkland Palace tennis court, for mistakenly assuming that the term “four lunes” referred to the players, not to the apertures on the wall.

The surfaces are also very different at Falkland, the walls and the floor being unpolished stone and the balls, consequently, made with a rougher, more robust felt; another currently unique feature for Falkland.

Indeed, Ewan added an additional characteristic in the hazard/gallery corner; some salt to make less slippery that part of the floor that gets no sun and therefore remains damp. Dramatic backspin was available for those talented enough or lucky enough to produce it.

For sure luck plays its part to a greater extent even than we see on indoor real tennis courts, but that adds to the fun and of course luck evens out after a while, allowing the better players to prevail, more often than not.

I am pleased to be able to say that I managed to hit the grille once during our game and that I hit a winning shot to the ais. Both of those aimed and I think I might have had a couple more points from hitting the ais had it not been for Ewan’s determined defending of the ais with his increasingly successful volleys.

But my moment of glory from the hours of play came from a rather frustrated, wild receiving shot, which I think would have hit the penthouse roof above the dedans on most courts. But on this one occasion at Falkland, my forceful shot went sailing through the lower lune on the main wall side of the server’s wall.

We had a brief discussion on the scoring rule for a lune shot. The most recent incarnation of the Falkland Tennis Club scores a mere point for the lune shot, which is clearly inadequate reward for such a risky and unlikely shot. Ewan announced that the 16th century rule was that a successful lune shot determined the game, so we agreed that particular deuce game had been been won by me and Janie, then moved on in the set.

But on returning to my many ancient texts and manuscripts, I learn that the phrase “determines the game”, in the sixteenth century, could not have referred to a mere single game within a set of tennis…no, no, no…“determines the game”, in those days unquestionably meant, “the side with the most lune shots wins the whole match”.

So despite the fact that the Scottish pair (Ewan and Kirsten) won most of the points, almost all of the games and all of the sets ahead of the intrepid English pair (me and Janie), it seems that, by dint of my single, lucky lune shot, Janie and I won the match. Scotland 0-1 England. An historic win for England over Scotland away at Falkland. Hopefully our opponents will demand a rematch to try their luck again.

In truth, of course, the winner was real tennis; the hours of fun and the conviviality that seems almost always to go along with that wonderful sport.

We eventually had to stop playing when a large party of schoolchildren arrived on a school trip to see the court and watch people in 16th century fancy dress demonstrating the court. Janie took some photographs.

We four modern realists retired to The Covenanter across the road for some drinks, snacks and chat. Ewan, who is a schoolteacher, is a great enthusiast for sports, in particular court sports, so he and I schemed about fives (another shared interest) as well as tennis. Kirsten is an artist and designer with a great love of gardens, so she and Janie had plenty to talk about in those departments too.

Much like our recent visit to Petworth, Janie and I lost track of time and ate into far too much of our hosts’ day, for which we are grateful and which didn’t seem to bother our hosts. But on this occasion at Falkland, with no further visits on our itinerary, after saying goodbye to Ewan and Kirsten, we thankfully did find time to look around the beautiful, peaceful garden.

Highlights include a charming orchard, a small physic garden and also the lovely areas around the house and tennis court.

We also revisited the tennis court to try to capture some better pictures of the nesting swallows who populate the galleries side of the court.

On the way home, we stopped off at the David Lloyd Tennis Club on Glasgow Road (what a contrast) to pick up some of those ASICS indoor tennis shoes at that seem so hard to track down at the moment. Stephen at the Bruntsfield Sports concession there was very helpful, although they only had one pair that ticked all of my boxes.

Gosh we felt tired when we got home, but not too tired to go out again after showering to get some protein and carbs inside us by visiting Domenico’s in Leith for a spicy prawn starter and big bowls of the day’s special pasta; venison ragu tagliatelle.

We’d had a really lovely day, not least thanks to Ewan, Kirsten and the wonderful sport of real tennis.

All of our photographs from our week away, mostly at the Edinburgh Fringe, can be seen on our Flickr album by clicking here on the picture below:

Edinburgh Day Four: Lunch With Marie & Joe Logan, The Roots Of The Blues, Let’s Talk About Porn, 20 August 2018

The weather was much improved again today; yesterday was a weather blip. So we played tennis again at Leith Links in the morning.

Then off to have lunch at Marie and Joe’s new apartment in the south of Edinburgh, not too far from Summerhall and The Meadows. It took just over 45 minutes to get there door to door with a change of bus.

P1020715 — Janie insisted on taking some pictures along the way

We had a guided tour of the new place, including the new kitchen and en suite bathroom, which we were thus seeing before Linda Cook gets to see them; which is sure to be a source of much consternation.

Joe cooked a rather wonderful fish pie as the centrepiece of the lunch. We had a cherry roularde and some cheeses to follow, so that was us pretty much sorted for food today. Nice wines too.

It was really good to see Marie and Joe in their new home environment; when I saw them in Edinburgh last year…

A Day At The Edinburgh Fringe Festival With Old Muckers, 22 August 2017

…their moving plans were still up in the air.

We had some very interesting conversation about the festival, Edinburgh generally, politics generally, death, siblings, niblings, isms and anti-isms. You get the idea.

When lunch came to a natural end, I announced that I wanted to seek some indoor tennis shoes from Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside on our way back to Edinburgh. Marie and Joe volunteered to walk off lunch with us and chat some more.

It turned out that Bruntsfield Sports in Morningside doesn’t do those shoes; it is their branch at David Lloyd that sells them.

Still, we were by then near a convenient bus stop for central Edinburgh, so said a fond goodbye to Marie & Joe while stepping onto a bus to Princes Street.

We sought out the Apple Store on Princes Street in a vain attempt to get Daisy’s iPhone re-batteried (takes hours, we’ll need to do that in London). But I did procure the very iPad keyboard upon which I am typing right now, which should make my travelling blogs easier to write (i.e. wordier) in future.

On the way to Apple I spotted a show, Let’s Talk About Porn, at C, which looked interesting; a troupe of youngsters and plenty of time to faff around at Apple. Once I realised that’s we needed very little faffing time at Apple, I spotted another performance, The Roots Of The Blues, near to the C show (theSpaceTriplex) and just about enough time to pick up the tickets and fit both shows in.

So we ended up doing the very thing we promised we wouldn’t do; ran around like mad things fitting in a couple of shows at near-breakneck pace.

Both shows were worth it. The Roots Of The Blues was a mix of lecture and performance by Toby Mottershead. Charming, informative and he’s also a very able guitar player/blues singer. Toby’s slide guitar playing was exceptional and a new live experience for me and Janie.

Then up to C for the play Let’s Talk About Porn. This was a verbatim theatre piece, performed in a physical style by a very young troupe. “Sadly” we didn’t see the dour bar-tenders at the upstairs bar, but we did grab some water and did see the Flamenco duo from the previous evening sitting around before and after the play.

The play was good; we’d seen a fair bit of material on this topic before but it was an innovative, thoughtful, physical and interesting piece.

Then home, where we fancied little food and no booze – so we relaxed with just some toast and juice. Daisy managed to set off the smoke alarm by burning some toast – mercifully those things switch them selves off quite quickly and it was still reasonably early when that happened!

All of our photographs from our week away, mostly at the Edinburgh Fringe, can be seen on our Flickr album by clicking here on the picture below:

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