The latest and greatest from Kristen

Thursday night we left our final stop in Japan – Nagasaki. While in Nagasaki, we had an opportunity to visit ground zero for the atomic bomb and the Atomic Bomb Museum. It’s a pretty sobering place. Needing a little uplifting we took a pottery tour on day two and learned all about Amari pottery in Arita. Beautifully and very detailed hand painted porcelain bowls and sake cups, tea cups, etc... We will include a picture. The best part was we were able to paint our own pottery and they will fire it and sent it to us. Hope they don’t get it mixed with the real stuff! To complete the trip we went out on an expedition for Yacata (or cotton for those who don’t speak Japanese – like us) Kimono’s; we were told they make great bathrobes. We were also told that there would be an abundant supply in any department store, well after investigating the shopping mall (a covered street with hundreds of small shops of all types) and two of the major department stores, all we came out with were a few small items and treats. No Yacata Kimono’s – apparently they are out of season – even though it is in the high 70’s every day. So completely defeated and exhausted we boarded the ship and left Nagasaki Thursday night.

We arrived in Incheon Korea today where there are celebrating Thanksgiving and most things are closed. That said we managed to find Chinatown which had some activity. In every stop we have made so far (except Tokyo) one of the main attractions has been the Chinatown yet we are not in China…. Tomorrow we will head to Seoul for a little investigation...

What we haven’t talked a lot about is the food. In Japan we got just about everything on Elsa’s list - with the exception of Ramen noodles which seemed no where to be found even though all the guide books say it’s a popular meal and there is a ramen museum in Yokohama – go figure. SO the following is really about what Elsa and I ate because the whole concept of vegetarian cooking is a challenge… For instance they would serve their vegetarian soup and it would come in beef broth… therefore Lauren didn’t eat a lot off of the ship. We started our culinary experience with shabu shabu. This was our first time having to leave our shoes at the door sit on tatami mats; fortunately this time there was a little dug out for our feet so we didn’t need to sit on the floor. In the center of the table was a pot of boiling broth and after enjoying some Japanese salads and appetizers they brought raw beef that we cooked in the broth and then vegetables and ultimately they made soup our of it; wrapping out the dinner with a gelatin thingy mabob… Lets also assume with every meal tea is served at every meal. Another Japanese dinner was teppanyaki (I am spelling that phonetically). Actually we had two of these meals one with Kobe beef and another just regular beef. But in terms of style it is similar to what we know as Bennihana without the theatrics and add in some unsuspecting live seafood. You may remember the poor screaming shrimp, the Kobe beef we had abalone – which was a little less active on the grill and really yummy. We have had super fresh and yummy sushi, light and flavorful tempura and one night one of the dishes we had was basically deep fried mashed potatoes – an Irish girls definition of hea-ven! It is amazing how much deep fried stuff they have. We have had bean paste in every form, udon noodles, miso, tea, tea and more tea. We went to the Japanese McDonalds call Mos Burger and it was delish. And we haven’t even talked about the dining on the ship or the food they are making all along the streets and of course with the amount of time we have spent in Chinatown.

And then there was the traditional Japanese meal we had called the Kaiseki dinner. It was a series of small dishes that are served in a specific order and during the dinner there was also the Geisha. Lauren and I had an opportunity to demonstrate our Geisha dancing skills which are sure were impressive at the least. This dinner was probably the dinner I was most unsure about especially as some of the dishes I was certain I didn’t want any of, but there was no opting out (unless you’re a vegetarian… convenient).. There was one particular dish that looked like an eyeball of some sort covered in strawberry yogurt. I looked at it squeamishly and deferred to Elsa to try it first; which she was more than happy to do and we discovered it was just a potato covered in some pink mayo and caviar concoction. There were probably 20 different plates and Lauren took pictures of all of them but now it’s hard to recollect what we ate…

All that said my stomach was grateful; I brought my oatmeal so it recognized something… All in all that has been our food journey... some great, some good, some scarry... We are now in Korea and off to Seoul we go!