kobe, and tokyo one last time.

Basically, we had one afternoon in Kobe. So we ran around like idiots for a few hours.

First, stop, of course, was a ridiculously expensive lunch at a hibachi-like grill restaurant, because beef. (For me, Kobe beef is way, way too fatty, but at least our very pleasant chef knew what he was doing. Also, the veggies he grilled for us were incredible.)

After lunch, it was time for a little exploring. See, this is what I would have chosen for lunch. (I just don't necessarily need to see my eels swimming about before I munch them; that's getting way too close to the source, and that's how Sarah becomes a vegetarian.)

 Next, I discovered that Kobe is a manhole-cover-enthusiast's dream.

And I don't even think I got them all. Marvelous.

Traipsed through the Ikuta shrine, likely established in the 3rd century...

...took a quick visit to Japan's oldest mosque (built in 1935, and untouched during both WWII and the catastrophic earthquake of 1995)...

...and wound up in the funny little Kitano district, which became the neighborhood of wealthy western merchants and diplomats in the late 19th century, after the Port of Kobe opened to foreign trade. We started out in the French House, which was full of Art Nouveau magnificence, as one might imagine. (That's a real Tiffany there.)

It also had this whimsical upstairs bedroom decorated in the silliest paintings of animals...

...and this out in the hallway. I'm pretty sure I need this in my house.

Well hello, Mr. Gallé.

And bon jour to the Daum brothers as well.

Picture-framed peephole into a room containing only a jackalope in Ben's House (...of Horrors, is how I think of it. Trophy hunting is just evil.).

William Morris fabrics in the English house...

...the entire second floor of which was devoted to Sherlockiana. Because of course.

We headed back to our hotel at the port, where we visited one of the city's earthquake memorials--this bit of harbor left in disrepair. 

That earthquake occurred in 1995; nearly 6500 people died and over 20% of the buildings in central Kobe were completely destroyed. Something like 300 fires broke out in the damaged areas, and multi-level highways like the one in the background collapsed completely. The city has more-or-less recovered, physically--it's quite beautiful, especially the port area with the mountains behind it--but the earthquake is very clearly still a constant presence here.

I will admit, however, that it was difficult to focus on the earthquake memorial with this going on behind us in the rugby FanZone area. We'd manage to steer clear of those the rest of the time, but the music hooked us on this one. I could have watched these guys play all day. (The drama of that gong alone...!)

Said FanZone was abuzz 'cause of this: the Scotland-Samoa game, which Scotland actually won, so yaaay!

There were at least two pipers in the crowd...

...and I got to see my favorite ref, Nigel Owens, in action. (Well, on the sidelines, but still.)

Post-game, we made our way back into the city center for some late-nite okonomiyaki, our first and only of the trip, in a wee little hole-in-the-wall restaurant filled entirely by 4 of the chef's friends, who were clearly just hanging out and chatting with him after dinner. They were very welcoming and friendly with us, and the chef made us two extraordinary pancakes, one with seafood and one with pork. (I had no idea that this is how they're served: on your very own grill-table, so that each bite is hot and crispy. Yes, please.)

Strolled past the entrance to Kobe's Chinatown on the walk back to our hotel.

The next day, it was back to Tokyo for a couple of nights prior to our flight home, and our first stop was the teamLab Borderless digital art museum(ish). Which looks utterly magical online, and probably would have been, had it not been waaaaaaaaaay too jammed with people. If they'd meter that better, this place could be insanely cool.

A few things were nifty, even so, like this room draped with thousands of color-changing strings of LEDs, and with mirrors on the floor.

And this room, also paneled in mirrors, with hundreds of these little hanging lanterns that change brightness when you move towards them.

And this room, covered in moving projections of flowers everywhere. (Could use a room like this in my house.)

There was also a room where kids could draw something, then scan it in and have it animated as a projection on the floors and walls, and another with these little magnetic shapes that you could move around and have interact with these little elves projected on the walls; those were both pretty magical, but again, just insanely crowded. At least we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything when we bailed out to go to dinner at Birdland, which has a stellar reputation for yakitori, but just didn't turn out to be our thing. (Frankly, my favorite thing on the menu was the simply-dressed mesclun and tomato salad. It was so good I had two.)

And then we went out for an all-too-brief, yet all-too-late, but very swanky, karaoke session, with some non-rugby-playing friends (and a handful of their various family members) who were also in town...to see some rugby. (Srsly, do we run with the rugby crowd nowadays, or what.) Tremendously kind of them to invite us!

The next morning we were up wildly early to do something rather special: see a practice session at a sumo stable! And while it's easy to make jokes about the size of those guys, or how much they eat, or whatever, dang, are they impressive in person. I have a whole newfound respect for how hard they work, and for how they essentially commit their entire lives to the sport; most of the lower-in-the-hierarchy athletes live, eat, and train at the stable year-round. Intense. (Also, because of possible likeness issues, you're not supposed to post photos with faces online, so...you're welcome for these terrible homemade edits.)

Practice started off with about a jillion side leg-lifts (with lots of slapping, to wake up the muscles!), then they shuffled around the ring in a chain a few times.

Next came various stretching exercises; don't kid yourself, these guys are crazy strong.

Then came some sparring, and after each bout the wrestlers would each take this surprisingly graceful diving forward-roll motion.

Did you know there aren't weight classes in sumo?? So obviously, for the smaller guys, it's all about technique. (And there were a couple of guys here who were shockingly small.)

At the end came some more leg lifts, then more stretching. Couldn't believe how flexible they are.

At the late hour of 9:30, we were free to go, and headed back to Tsukiji for a little lunch.

Eeeeeeeeeeel! I now know these aren't terribly sustainable, and feel a little guilty about how many we ate while we were over there, but since I can't get them here, I guess the pressure's off. (We also ate a little [underimpressive] grilled tuna, and scored a couple more daifuku--one red bean and one white chocolate. Would eat those every day.)

Of course, I took a ton more photos, because there are all manner of fascinating dried fishy things for sale here that you'd never see in a Stateside (or central European) market.

I sampled most of them.

Tsukiji's got a handful of their own giant animal signs, but obviously, you just can't compete with Dotonbori.

This woman was selling dried squid-for-snacking from these immense barrels; I assume from the quantity she had that this stuff is popular. (I can handle a little dried squid, but not so much; that's a lotta flavor.)

Next stop of this already-too-long day: the Tokyo National Museum. Look. This place has massive and fabulous collections, but for crying out loud: don't use a piece to advertise your museum, if, in fact, said piece is not amongst those collections. It's just mean. I was super excited to see the Great Wave off Kanagawa--probably the most recognizable piece of Japanese art in the world--but hey! It's not at the Tokyo National Museum, despite the fact that it's all over their website and promo materials. Not cool, guys. So once we figured out that the Wave wasn't there, we went looking for this guy, whose face is so famous they actually used it on the Jumbotron at some of the rugby games to get the "kabuki shout"* going 'round the stadium. We really wanted to see this painting, which is apparently in the museum's collections...but had been rotated off of display just because that's a thing they do. Seriously?? That's like the Louvre rotating out the Mona Lisa. This thing is why people come here. Ughhhhhhhh. (Yes, obviously, I was fairly irritated by all of this.) 

Anyway, I guess we saw some other cool stuff.

Like more of those amazing samurai sword guards. Swoon.

They're just so ridiculously beautiful and elaborate.

I really like the jauntiness of these Four Heavenly Kings figures, meant to guard the four cardinal directions near Buddhist temples. (This one is wooden, and survives from the 14th century!)

This elaborate, flame-motif bowl is from 3000-2000 BC.

Obviously, they had plenty of stunning paper- and fabric-based art, like this 16th-century panel from the tale of a sparrow who became a monk...

...and this gorgeous screen painted with the 4 seasons, from the 15th century.

And, of course, actual samurai swords. Plenty of them. (This thing is from the 13th century).

Also a bounty of other arms and armor, like this laced helmet from the 14th century. (It was incredible to me how many absolutely ancient pieces they had here in such stunning condition.)

Ok, fine. Clearly, it wasn't a total loss. In fact, I regret that we didn't have more time to spend there...I just wish we hadn't been misled. Twice.

Dinner on this evening was at a really nice sushi place with a really friendly and fun chef, and with a former co-worker of Mike's who's an absolute hoot, but maaaaan, it just wasn't Fukuzushi...so we were quite pleased afterwards when our final, final choice of the trip--a cocktail omakase at Gen Yamamoto--turned out to be stellar. We got to pick how many (tiny) cocktails we wanted, and then the ridiculously knowledgeable bartender made our various drinks with interesting boozes and delicious fresh ingredients in season from the market. Which, on our particular evening, included physalis, apple, grapes, wasabi, prune, sour plum, shiso, kabosu, pumpkin, and green tea (and some really different and tasty Japanese alcohols).

Along with the delicious flavors, the presentation was beautiful (and wonderfully minimalist). What a treat.

And with that, it was time for us to say goodbye to Japan, which I was very much not ready to do. I, a perennial homebody who's generally ready for my own bed/shower/cats by the end of day 3, was not ready to leave: I needed at least another week. That was well over two months ago, and the place is still in my mind and my heart...and is not likely to vacate any time soon. I attribute that to the beauty of the country and the culture; the insanely good food; the simultaneous, and mysterious, foreignness-yet-familiarity that made me crave more; and, above all, the graciousness of the Japanese people. What wonderful hosts, and what an extraordinary place.

Yeah, I'm gonna go there: domo arigato gozaimasu, Japan. I hope we meet again someday.

And, on an entirely unrelated note: happy holidays to you, my friends. May you have peace and joy and good friends and great food, wherever this season finds you.

*It's the last three seconds of this video. Now imagine a 70,000-plus stadium crowd making this noise. At first, I'm pretty sure we all thought, "Is this racist...?" But we figured if our Japanese hosts were going to encourage us to do this, then we'd go along. And now we have a magnet of this face on our fridge, because it's such a good reminder of the spirit of the games: distinctly Japanese in setting and culture, and everyone joining in to appreciate that. (That's how it felt, anyway. Both our hosts and the rugby crowds were just so warm and congenial.)

osaka.

Or, my new favorite place ever.

Osaka has a reputation as being more casual than Tokyo: friendlier, funnier, and waaaaay more into food. They even have a word, kuidaore, that roughly means "to eat oneself to bankruptcy"...

...and a mascot for the concept, Kuidaore Taro. 

At long last, I have found my people.

But I get slightly ahead of myself. We dropped our stuff at our excellent hotel and returned immediately to the train station for the haul out to a place I'd read about several years ago, and knew I'd have to visit, were I to get to Japan someday: the Cup Noodles museum in Ikeda. This place is a shrine to instant ramen and to its creator, Momofuku Ando, but the main draw for us was that you get to build your own cup o'noodles.

Well, sorta. These ladies do the actual assembly, but you get to select the base flavor...

 ...and ingredients...

...and to decorate your own cup. Here's Mike's, haaaaaah!*

Wall of international Cup Noodle packaging.

After a brief snack of--what else--instant ramen (and fried mashed potatoes coated in crumbled chicken ramen noodles for me!), we headed back into Osaka proper. Mike had a headache and took a nap, and I set out to explore--and found the most wondrous place on earth: Dotonbori. This is the food and nightlife center of Osaka (...if not the world!), and it is utterly magnificent and insane and without comparison.

Brace yourselves: Osaka took my heart, so I took all the photos.

Behold the glory of Dotonbori!

This place is filled with signs featuring giant food.

And octopi. One of the many, many takoyaki places in Dotonbori.

There were two of these massive animatronic crabs, one at either end of the main stretch.

Giant gyoza.

I'm guessing they sell blowfish here...?

I think that's a huge takoyaki ball, although it looks uncomfortably brain-like...

Immense sushi.

Huge, light-up pile of fake crab legs.

Sumo-themed restaurant, hah!

Their fake food includes these absolute mountains of terrible fried foods. You know, in the quantities that you'd eat, were you a sumo wrestler. Hysterical. (And yet, I kinda wanted to go in there, just so I could have my very own mountain of fries. Not even to eat it, really; just want to be part of the excess. How very American of me.)

Not so far away, the tiny Ukiyo shoji alley with a tiny shrine to a tiny fairy-tale character.

You can see three wee little orange torii gates at the bases of the walls in this alley: we found out later that these gates mark an area as a sacred place, and so restaurant owners put the torii here to keep dudes from peeing in the alleyway. Smart. (And also gross, but also a little bit hilarious.)

Moss-covered Buddha at the Hozenji temple, just off the main drag. (Part of the ritual of praying here is that you have to fling a dipper full of water on the statue, to keep him mossy.)

Angry mascot of the Daruma chain of kushikatsu restaurants, warning you to avoid the cardinal sin of kushikatsu: double-dipping your skewers in the communal bowl of sauce. No.

Melon pan, Waygu beef, and okonomiyaki, all under one roof! (Uhh...no thank you.)

Japan: so full of weird things! From what I can gather, "honey toast" is basically half a loaf of white bread, glazed, baked, and stuffed with dessert-y things.

Ooh, there it is again, but in giant form.

Dragon with ramen bowl.

So I think the Spidermen are stealing this scallop? From the Kobe beef restaurant...?

Some really excellent manhole covers in Dotonbori.

This one in color!

I just could not get enough of this place.

There's a covered arcade here that feels like it's at least a mile long.

Just so much fake food.

Wee stuffed takoyaki octopus mascots; I love the one on top playing the drum.

Exploring some side streets.

Octopus holding takoyaki. (So, kinda like a pig holding bacon.)

I have no idea why, but there's a gigantic ferris wheel-thing on the Dotonbori Donki, which is right on the Tombori river. It's pretty impressive, actually. So ridiculously tall.

I'm not going to lie, this window full of cats (and intriguing things on skewers, only noticed after the cats) was what drew us into this restaurant for dinner. Turns out, this place is Kushinobo Osaka Hozenji, a fancy-pants kushikatsu joint where you get your own dishes of spices and sauces--no sharing for us, suckers! I double-dip when I want!--and we went for set menus (Mike had 14 skewers, I had 10).

For dessert, we stopped at a melon pan vendor on the main street and shared one filled with ice cream. Good Lord, are those little breads tasty!

Crossing the famed Ebisu Bridge.

The next morning began with a visit to Osaka Castle. Well, the grounds anyway. (The castle itself is a very modern reconstruction; the inside is rather lackluster, from everything I read; and the line to get in was inconceivably long, so we just meandered around outside and clambered about on the massive walls.)

Now that's a moat.

These walls were built in the early 17th century, with some unbelievably massive stones. This is the largest one in the castle complex, and it's estimated to weigh 108 tons.

The castle itself is quite pretty. The original tower here was completed in 1585, but it burned down and was reconstructed twice; this one is post-WWII, with its latest restoration occurring in 1997.

Love these walls.

Next, we took a quick spin through the Osaka Museum of History; these are coins minted in the area in the 8th century.

Saw a collection of these in Denmark and have been obsessed ever since: Samurai sword guards. So tiny, and such a high level of artisanship on each one. (Apparently, this museum was having a huge exhibit of these one month after our visit.)

The museum isn't huge or terribly exciting, but it has bonkers views of the castle and city.

Next, we made our way out to the Hanazono rugby stadium, where they (strangely) have a rather lovely garden full of butterflies and big, fat bees... 

...but where the main draw was the Argentina-Tonga match. (Tonga has the most unlikely-looking, non-sumo professional athlete of all time, but hey, good for him for finding his niche!)

Stadium food in Japan is quite different from what's traditional in the US, say, or in Europe.

Hanazono is known as "the spiritual home of Japanese rugby," and you can see it in all of the manhole covers...

...so many...

...and the sidewalk pavement designs between the train station and the stadium. This place is rugby-crazy.

For dinner after the game, in a move very much not like ourselves, it was back to Kushinobo Osaka Hozenji, because it was so dang ridiculously good the first time around. And the chef remembered us, and this time we went for the eat-til-you-drop option; I think we ended up somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 skewers apiece. (Each skewer is 2 bites or less; it's a random assortment of meat, fish, vegetable, mushroom, or cheese, in a random order; and they're all deep-fried, so...awesome.) Among many other things, we had whole shiitake mushrooms; asparagus wrapped in ham; okra/cheese/shrimp; octopus; beef; scallop; some lovely, white, flaky fish; shrimp wrapped in shiso; fish topped with yuzu puree; and eggplant with their house miso-peanut-meat topping. Good grief, was it all so so so tasty.

These dishes were on the elevated bar top in front of us; the one on the right is where the chef put each skewer as it came out of the fryer, and the one on the left is for finished skewer sticks. (They have the best ceramics in Japan! And I'm not just talking about this place. Every single meal we had involved at least a few very small or very specialized dishes that I was tempted to tuck into my purse.**)

Each day in Osaka ended with the walk back to our hotel from Dotonbori, because that's where everything good is, and our hotel was just outside.

Ok, ok, so, also slightly outside of Dotonbori: the marvelous Kuromon market, where we decided to go catch a late breakfast.

This place is rather large and was quite thronged, but the good news was, there was no shortage of fresh seafood.

As all of the giant fake fish hung overhead would attest.

Srsly, I have never seen this kind of ocean bounty in my life.

Man, I miss having an actual functioning metabolism. Would eat all of this.

And all of it waiting to be scooped up and grilled for immediate consumption. (We had an exquisite crab leg from this guy, followed by grilled calamari and fried chicken; a perfectly grilled Waygu beef skewer; and a savory rice-flour dumpling topped with that mitarashi sauce.)

 

OH YEAH, and one of these! Daifuku are also made of rice flour, with that weird kinda squishy/gelatinous mochi texture, but they have fruit and creamy fillings stuffed into them. Holy smokes, so insanely good.

Why, why, why did I not buy a tiny one of these to bring home? I love them so.

Next stop, the Osaka aquarium, one of the largest in the world, or so they'd have you believe. It was pretty big... 

In the dolphin tank, these guys were playing with various toys constantly.

Seal momma and baby!

Arctic seal.

They have a whale shark tank. This thing is like 6 stories tall and is also populated by heaps of sharks and the biggest rays I've ever seen. And mackerel. And some tuna. And grouper, maybe? I don't know. Lots of big fishies.

Ooh, and this was incredible: this guy had some sort of ball bearing, and he was rolling it up the ledge outside the seal tank...and they were rapt.

Clearly, there were many, many more amazing creatures, and lots of really dim lighting, and so, as a result, many shoddy photographs from yours truly, but in the interest of time, we move on to the giant ferris wheel right next to the aquarium.

Which my husband, in a fit of whimsy, decided that we should ride. And so we did.

The views were not terrible.

On this, our last evening in Osaka, we had something excellent planned: a nighttime food tour of Dotonbori. We made our way back into the center and met our adorable guide Ayaka, then headed out into the madness for some good eats.

After Ayaka gave us a quick-and-dirty tour of the western end of Dotonbori, where we had our first sighting of Kuidaore Taro, then headed to our first stop for kushikatsu (and proper this time--none of those non-communal sauces here!)***. We tried out some beef, pork, onion, cheese, and bacon'mushroom skewers, so good. 

Not pictured: the takoyaki with ponzu sauce that came next, at Akaoni, where their mascot is this little ogre guy with a tray of takoyaki.

Then stopped at an izakaya place for a handful of things: nikujaga (a glorious beef and potato) stew; seasonal salmon sashimi; this amazing rice bowl cooked with sea bream and its broth (gahhhhh, so good); and Waygu beef that we seared at the table on a crystal plate. Fancy. (Not pictured here: the taiyaki pastries, one filled with red bean and one with sweet potato, that were our final official stop of the tour.)

But not our last last stop: we're gluttons, and decided to go back to the same place (Akaoni! they were so friendly, and the takoyaki so fantastic!) and try not one but two other types of takoyaki. Mine, topped with cheese, is on the left, and Mike's, waiting for spicy sauce, is on the right. (Mine was indubitably the winner.)

It did not hurt that they had their own theme song, which you can hear playing in the background while you watch the bonito flakes waving in the breeze. (Fair warning, if you listen to this for more than 10 seconds, it will be stuck in your head. Probably for life.)

It would not have been an appropriate finish to Osaka had we not had one last melon pan. (Yup. We had one every night we were there.)

And with that, it was time to say a very sad goodbye to Osaka. The next morning, we caught a train to our next stop: Kobe.

*If you are unfamiliar with the brilliance of Stephan Pastis, just go read his comic strip now. He is hilarious, and Mike--who claims that he's not artistic, that liar--has really captured the Crockydiles. (He decorated a birthday cake with these guys on it for me once, many years ago, and it, too, was awesome.)

**I didn't.

***I kid, I kid! You all know very well that I love the bougie version of anything.